December 17, 2024
...but I love it anyway.
In the past I've written mostly about technical hobby things. This is where I start branching out. This is also kind of a shitpost.
If you haven't watched the show, watched End of Evangelion like six times, watched the Rebuilds, learned that the Director's Cut exists and watched episodes 21'-24', shotgunned the entire manga in two sleepless nights, attempted to share the show with your family only to be ridiculed not for the overt sexualization of children, bitchy little characters, or implausibility of the entire premise, but instead for Misato's pose in the opening, Tiffany Grant's Asuka voice, and the drama of Episode 15, then this post is probably not for you.
However, if you hear "Asuka" when your Australian physics professor
says "Oscar", if you hear the equation x = (1/2)at2 read out
loud and fill in the word "Field" in your mind, and if you search for
Evangelion references in any vaguely sci-fi media you consume produced
after 1995, then you should ask your doctor if the following are right for you:
I really don't! I love it, because it makes me think, it makes me excited, it makes me want to share it with other people, plus it gives me painful flashbacks to being 14 and a dumbass myself. I have spent far too many spare brain cycles digesting the plot of one stupid little 26-episode anime, with nothing to show for it except a page of notes.
I don't know when I first learned about Evangelion. It's so integral to internet culture that I likely imbibed it for many years before I knew of its existence. However, I didn't actually watch it until September 2024.
Imagine my surprise upon discovering that years of saving memes had left me with at least 20 ridiculous Evangelion-related humorous images I had unwittingly saved to my computer. A gallery of notable examples follows (see if you can identify the relevant cultural and societal subjects! hint: all 2020 or later).
I am a child of the 21st century. My first contact with the internet was in the 2010s. I am far too young to have watched Eva when it first released, let alone to have been interacting with others about it on the Internet before the rise of social media. I don't consider this a loss, because any philosophical media that does its job well will be relevant at any point in time. Evangelion, from all perspectives I've read, is as relevant in 2024 as it was in 1995.
My only real problem with Evangelion is that it's an intentionally confusing piece of media made by a guy who likes being coy and mysterious, released right as the Internet came to be and linked together people obsessed with said media (occasionally known as "autists"). Eva toes a line between philosophical and inexplicable just right, such that you can interact with it at many levels: giant robots, kaiju, annoying kids, relationships between those kids, adults with poor judgement, relationships between those adults, the meaning of life, and the moral correctness of grooming minors. It's truly wonderful that we can enjoy media with such diverse significance.
As long as there are people who contemplate their existence, Evangelion will have a place in this world. I try to share it with everyone who I think will enjoy it, and if you like Eva, you should do the same. If you don't like it, give it another shot! If you haven't seen it at all, then definitely give it a shot...just don't start with the Rebuilds.