Article: Evangelion - A Decade On

Paul

Paul

Ghost of Animes
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On the brink of the UK debut of Neon Gensis Evangelion: Platinum, Martin Butler has produced an article examining the phenomenal success enjoyed worldwide by the controversial anime Neon Genesis Evangelion. He analyzes the debated mecha franchise from a critical stand point, attempting to understand the popularity of the series as well as it's troubled past. It is simply titled "Neon Genesis Evangelion - A Decade On".<ul><span class=menu>"While many anime series come and go without a great deal of notice, there are some which stay in the minds of fans and are still hot topic for discussion for a long time afterwards. The classic saga Neon Genesis Evangelion, produced by the animation studio Gainax, is one of those."</span></ul><a href="http://www.animeuknews.net/viewarticle.php?showarticle=23">Read full article</a>.
 
I always find the story behind Evangelion fancinating. People tend to produce their most original and daring work when at their wits end and judging by the state of Anno at the time, I assume he was pushing himself and his crew to their mental (and physical!) limits.

I thought the article hit the nail on the head with this paragraph:

And that could be the missing piece that makes Eva what it is. Prior to the making of the show, the director Hideaki Anno suffered a four year battle with clinical depression, and was anxious to share what he learned from his experiences: to adapt, to change, to face the problems head-on (leading to Shinji’s famous “I mustn’t run away!â€
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The reason people hate Evangelion is the same reason others love it. The strained personalities of the heroes are so ordinary, to the point of often being cringe-worthy, that many automatically see parts of themselves they love (or hate!) in the likes of Shinji and Asuka
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Thats what I loved about it, the characters were so human.
 
Good article. Eva fans would do well to check out Gunbuster - it contains many similar themes to Evangelion minus the theoretical and psychoanalytical fluff.
 
gunbuster is great. a bit old-school in some ways but very underrated. unfortunately, the only version available in this country is in region 0 with VHS quality picture. i'm hoping ADV, MVM or one of the other major distributors acquire the rights and release a remastered version, but i'm not sure when kiseki films' licence runs out.
 
Yeah, Gianax released an Eva director's cut style special edition in Japan with new footage but I doubt any UK distributors will pick up a title as old and relatively obscure as Gunbuster :(
 
Really enjoyed that article, good summary. Only thing that annoys me is about NGE is that the studio or whatever didn't have enough faith in it to fund it properly- if only they knew how popular it was gonna be..
 
Along with the characters, I suppose the other stand-out point to why I personaly like the series is simply because its hi-concept stuff.

I'm a thinker see (not being egotisical there, what I meant was I like lots of meat and very large potatoes :) ), so it was right up my street. :)
 
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