Oh thank you. And absolutely, I will share my thoughts after seeing it.
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Neon Genesis Evangelion on Netflix |OT| She Said, 'Don't Make Others Suffer by Posting Spoilers.'
- Thread starter munchie64
- Start date
Oh thank you. And absolutely, I will share my thoughts after seeing it.
Ignore everything to do with Christianity in the show. It's window dressing at best
It's hard to do that when it also creeps into the names of the monsters and mechs, and the characters so often talking about God. But if I do try to think about it all, I have too many questions that come to mind. It's almost frustrating how the show constantly references Christianity while also being vague with the details of the metaphors.
Don't get too intimidated. I did, and it psyched myself out into thinking what would come was much more frustrating than the original ending of the show. If you understood the ending for the show, you'll likely get how EoE is also uplifting and optimistic in a similar manner. And most of the body horror in EoE is about on the level of that one episode of NGE. You know the one.
The names of all the various entities are basically code names, they have no actual connection with what they are named after.
Like I said it's window dressing just as aesthetic. Think of it a style for the naming conventions and imagery but nothing more than that. It's not intended to be more than as you could transpose almost any other religion or something else else entirely and story would make the same amount of sense as it currently does.
People say this a lot and I don't think it's true. It uses allegory different than other works typically would, but it is still important. It's a large part of the underlying structure of the show. The Christian mythos is an important part of the bones of Evangelion.
From Kazuya Tsurumaki, one of the assistant directors:
It's a mix of both. Most of the Angels names do correspond with their biblical meaning like Israfel, who is named after twin angels.
Yeah, plus there is also Tabris, the angel of free will, whose name fits pretty well with their role in the story.
This is imminently obvious to anyone watching the show. It's common in anime to use stuff like Christianity purely because it's comparatively exotic.
I mean yeah I'm sure they read up a blurb about the angels themselves with the name and used it as some minor inspiration but it's all surface level. They could have used anything else as inspiration and story wouldn't change much.
For anyone who was bothered by picture quality of Ep 16, there are some fans working on a clean-up:
To recap, what's on Netflix and the Japanese BD is a HD upscale of a SD transfer of a very badly exposed 35mm IP blown up from the 16mm OCN - the latter being missing.
The source these folks are using and cleaning up is from the "Archive of Evangelion" DVD set, which itself used a 480i tape master telecined from the 16mm OCN prior to broadcast; it's interlaced and has some severe haloing and colour bleed, but has better colour information than the currently available transfer where the dark details are crushed.
To recap, what's on Netflix and the Japanese BD is a HD upscale of a SD transfer of a very badly exposed 35mm IP blown up from the 16mm OCN - the latter being missing.
The source these folks are using and cleaning up is from the "Archive of Evangelion" DVD set, which itself used a 480i tape master telecined from the 16mm OCN prior to broadcast; it's interlaced and has some severe haloing and colour bleed, but has better colour information than the currently available transfer where the dark details are crushed.
The use of Christian lore and imagery in Evangelion is both deeper than many credit but also just window dressing in a lot of cases. For example as mentioned above several of the angels names actually correspond to the angel they're named after and much the same the Lance of Longinus is used to kill a god in a far more epic manner. Then of course you have stuff like explosions shaped like crosses.
Can someone explain on episode 25
the shots of Misato and Ritsuko dead after being apparently shot? What were those about?
EOE transpires simultaneously with episodes 25-26. It's not an "alternate" conclusion. It's the same conclusion but showing a more full 3rd person perspective on the events.
It's really mandatory to further understand 25-26 and, conversely 25-26 are also necessary to understand EOE. 25, 26, and EOE collectively comprises the ending of the series.
EOE basically fully depicts what is merely described with words in 25-26.
I only have watched the Platinum Collection and simply couldn't stand the DUB. Subtitles are the only way I've ever been able to enjoy the show.
Pretty much all official communication on EoE, Episode 25, and Episode 26 disagrees with your conclusion. Going by official sources, the two are in-fact alternate endings.
Thus, the story of Evangelion branches into two after the last scene of episode 24. There is one ending as shown in TV episodes 25 and 26, while episodes 25' and 26' as shown in "THE END OF EVANGELION" are another ending.
So is this version ok to watch if I don't feel like digging through my closet for my old DVD collection?
And would you recommend letting a friend unfamiliar with the series start with this version?
And would you recommend letting a friend unfamiliar with the series start with this version?
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Fair enough. I have enough questions about the background of the world and monsters to really delve into religious aspects anyway. That said, there are some obvious references that do have some significance, if only to better understand the Angels.
Like for example Adam being the first man which all of humanity comes from, which in this show belongs to an Angel who fulfills the same role for the rest of the Angels (and possibly humans as well?)
I should really just watch this movie already. It seems there are conflicting opinions on where/how it fits into the show.
I guess it depends on how attached you are to one specific translation/dub (if you were a dubs person). Some people love the changes, some don't. Most appear to agree that losing "Fly me to the moon" as the end credits song is a bummer though.
Speaking as someone who'd never touched this shit before, I'd be thankful if a friend had introduced it to me sooner.
There's aspects, particularly in the first half of EoE, that appear to fill in the blanks on what's happening to everyone else while Shinji is dealing with his business in the show. It's the second half that, depending on interpretation, depicts a different ending.
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EOE is really the crowning achievement and worst part of the series all in one. It's definitely the most unique piece of film I've ever seen. I don't really know why you'd invest so much time in the show only to not watch the most important part of the series. The entire 26 episodes builds towards EOE. It's literally the ending.
I try not to get too caught up on authorial intention. I don't find it particularly useful for interrogating a text. Even then, that quote supports my point, I would argue.
The show is constructed out of a remix of Christian mythos; people taking concepts they were aware of, but not raised with and building around them. The symbols still matter, just not in a 1 to 1 literal sense. I don't think you can talk about the structure of the show without interrogating how those symbols form the bones that the show builds upon.
You have the Christ figure of the show defeating Adam, not in the traditional sense of overcoming original sin through self-sacrifice. Instead, we get an inversion where Christ defends original sin and the fallacy of man from perfection through self-actualization. We have the traditional roles of The Father, The Son and the Holy Spirit played by each member of the Ikari family, but the whole thing plays out completely differently. The show's themes of self are buttressed by this inversion. Shinji's humanity is accentuated by the metaphor and his choice gains contextual meaning by placing it in doest contrast to Christ's choice. At the end of EoE Shinji becomes the new Adam and the whole structure finds completion.
I want to be clear that I am not saying that the show is about these things. Eva isn't a show about Christian mythology, but what the show is about happens inside and amongst these symbols and images. That is why I push back against the idea that they are simply incedental window dressing to be ignored. They just need to be examined in their own context.
Growing up Roman Catholic, the imagery helped me to understand the overall themes of the show because it contextualized the more abstract psychological examinations in a familiar metaphysical context. If anything, I found the show's lack of understanding of Judeo-Christianity helpful too because the images it frequently used and the associations it made were mostly easy reference points.
TL;DR - I agree
They say this but it's not actually true.
Some of the symbolism is bunk. But the adam, eve and angel stuff is not by accident. Someone thought it through.
It's not the main theme of the show, but it's not some randomly thrown toghether iconography either.
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This is disappointing. I wanted there to be a deep meaning behind it. Sometimes there's the shape of a cross when an explosion happens and I guess you could say that's meant to be a sort of crucifixion, but that's not very deep.
I mean, the symbolism can infer some meaning, but there are people that get lost in it and miss a lot of the deeper meaning in the show. I'm thinking specifically of the awful VO director's commentary on the old dub EoE DVD, where one of them spent most of the commentary reading bible verses they thought were relevant.
The symbolism doesn't unlock some secret knowledge hidden from the casual observer. But the show with "genesis" in the title, Adam, Eve, Rebirth etc etc that stuff isn't just there to "look cool". It's well considered and supports the overall themes and narrative. It would be strange if in a show where everything else is meticoulously detailed and carfully shot, it's most prominent symbols and metaphors where not.
Knowing the Genesis and some of it's history as a story is just as good additional context as having knowledge of the mecha shows Eva subverts
Knowing the Genesis and some of it's history as a story is just as good additional context as having knowledge of the mecha shows Eva subverts
Of course it is, the Adam and Eve stuff is so surface stuff level that you don't have to have read the Bible or understand much of any about Christianity to make use of it. Similarly the angels are stuff you could have read from a book on the subject. Evangelion's narrative theme's do not actually engage with the philosophy of Christianity. The Christianity aspects in the narrative are overall superficial.
It engages with Christianity far less than Devilman which is almost certainly the inspiration to use Christian imagery.
It's what makes the Christian imagery stick out because it's so blatant how surface level most of it.
You don't need to understand any of that stuff because none of it is important to plot or themes. They're lore building tidbits. Eva is full of lore building tidbits that are unecessary to fully understand when analysing the overall intended themes and message.
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Which is what i said.
Eva is not a indepth take on christianity. But the symbols it takes from it aren't just randomly there either. They work in the context of the story. They support it's themes. They are not a "red herring".
Yes and yes. Especially for new viewers. It's a more faithful translation than the old versions for sub watchers, the dub is better than the old one for dub watchers, and from a technical standpoint it's far and away the best looking English-friendly release Eva's ever had.
Some of them are. That's why this discussion keeps happening. Eva uses Christians events, symbols and beings as a setting for it's own narrative means. It didn't need to use them since for one of a lot of these things aren't unique to Christianity. Secondly you could completely change the names and designs and very little would be lost. That's why saying they support it's themes is nebulous at best since they also distract which is what Kazuya Tsurumaki was talking about in regards to rethinking it's usage if they knew it would be popular in the west they would have rethought it.
I guess if one is looking for "true meaning" that might be true.
Taking them at face value works just fine though, which is true for most of EVA's themes. For all the talk about how wierd it is, it's a pretty earnest show that doesn't beat around the bush too much.
This is true it's not a complicated show but it does get plenty of deep analysis which is where the usage of Christian symbols almost always leads to weird interpretations
Subjective preferences of old viewers aside, anyone who tells a new viewer with no attachment to the old dub to forgo the huge jump in video quality and ease of access just because of the new dub can be safely ignored as crazy.
Episode 19 is as good today as it was 15 years ago when I discovered Eva
It's literally the beginning of the end from here. Shit is about to hit the fan
It's literally the beginning of the end from here. Shit is about to hit the fan
I'm assuming that the translations on Evageeks's Wiki pages for individual episodes are accurate, since they're Eva obsessives.
Just finished EoE, and gotta say I wasn't really feeling the series, but I liked the movie a lot.
Overall, Gun Buster is still my favourite Anno Mecha show, it's short and to the point, and it ends on a more uplifting note, which I feel like I need sometimes.
I think I knew too many things surrounding Eva before going in, stuff like the budget issues and such. I ended up paying too much attention to whenever they reused animations throughout the show and kinda stopped paying attentions during the last few episodes when they just started repeating the same sentences again and again, but the movie was great and I really liked the crazy section in the middle, it was right up my alley.
Overall, Gun Buster is still my favourite Anno Mecha show, it's short and to the point, and it ends on a more uplifting note, which I feel like I need sometimes.
It's the best and most accessible legal way anglophones can watch the series right now - hard to argue with that! 👍
The biggest caveats are the largely the untranslated onscreen text, and Fly Me To The Moon being missing.
The importance of translation issues will vary from person to person (understandably, there's a lot of discourse over choices made for Episode 24 in particular).
Personally, I find myself preferring the ADVs subs (though the Manga Ent. subs for the films weren't so good). The new sub script is a bit stilted and rather dry - it's very literal and sometimes to its detriment.
I found the new dub is almost wholly better than the ADVs and Manga's dubs though, barring some clever localisation choices they made (ie. the infamous "I'm so fucked up" or the Robert Browning quote - Asuka's bouts of German are also missed ☹).
The new dub captures nuance and subtleties better; the old dubs would have either missed it, or go massively OTT and overexaggerate it.
Hindsight being 20-20, I'd reckon the old dub could make for a potentially fun second viewing; if you're into a slightly over-the-top hammy and '90s experience (something something Baloney Pony™).
I'm curious to hear how the other new dubs and subs went down - apparently the new Italian one was really bad.
Being an introspective series, the TV ending was primarily Anno telling himself that it's going to be OK. That feeling didn't last, which is why he doesn't consider it to be a happy ending. He didn't need outside stimuli for Shinji's arc to take a darker turn, it's simply an acknowledgment of the cyclical nature of his condition.
It's still too deeply introspective to be used as an attack on anyone (unless the target includes the author himself, but then it's still more of a cautionary tale than an attack). It feels too personal and real for it to be interpreted as a knee-jerk reaction to a small part of his audience acting like trash. Even the part that directly addresses the audience portrays their reaction as mostly positive. Which is why I can't imagine Anno making The End of Evangelion as some kind of real life revenge flick, it makes him sound short-sighted and petty, lashing out at everyone for the sins of people who didn't deserve anyone's attention in the first place.
It's still too deeply introspective to be used as an attack on anyone (unless the target includes the author himself, but then it's still more of a cautionary tale than an attack). It feels too personal and real for it to be interpreted as a knee-jerk reaction to a small part of his audience acting like trash. Even the part that directly addresses the audience portrays their reaction as mostly positive. Which is why I can't imagine Anno making The End of Evangelion as some kind of real life revenge flick, it makes him sound short-sighted and petty, lashing out at everyone for the sins of people who didn't deserve anyone's attention in the first place.
It fucking killed me watching it. More than anything in EoE or the rest of the series.
