My own personnal review on Neon Genesis Evangelion

[Rui]

If I call someone "emo" in real life - which I rarely do as it's an annoying word - to me it implies some kind of attention seeking style of depression rather than just generalised misery. People who post on their Livejournals about how awful life is and no girl will ever like them, that kind of thing. The raw emotions in Evangelion felt a lot more real to me and I wouldn't personally call what some of the characters went through "emo". It seems to oversimplify things.

I appreciate the word has a musical connotation too but I'm not in that scene at all!

R

 

[Ark]

The whole "emo" idea for anime never seems to work for me. I don't get how people actually find someone in a particular series emo. To be honest when describing a character i'd always rather have more detail, as thats rather vague, and explains next to nothing in my opinion. "Becoming evasive of others" or "depressed due to events around him/her" always appealled to me more as it gives a far better picture as to the actual state of mind of the character and why.

I agree. I really don't get this "Eva is emo" thing when lot's of anime have depressed characters. The difference in Eva is that their depression is justified and explored well.

 

[Arbalest]

The whole "emo" idea for anime never seems to work for me. I don't get how people actually find someone in a particular series emo. To be honest when describing a character i'd always rather have more detail, as thats rather vague, and explains next to nothing in my opinion. "Becoming evasive of others" or "depressed due to events around him/her" always appealled to me more as it gives a far better picture as to the actual state of mind of the character and why.

I agree. I really don't get this "Eva is emo" thing when lot's of anime have depressed characters. The difference in Eva is that their depression is justified and explored well.

In which case, "emo" isn't even appropriate in my opinion. I'm with Rui in the fact that when people deem themselves "emo" or we refer to them as such, they are primarily attention seekers, so for any character to be rightly named as such, they would really have to be one which is acting in such a way. I don't think there is any that even come to mind that do such, so again i ask, how can any character in anime really be deemed "emo"? Its rather silly =/

 

[Otaku-san]

i see it more of a way to describe how a person looks, like L in Death Note. you know the kind with the floppy fringe and pipes,but i never go as far as to see that their a bunch of teens drugged up on anti-depressants that slash themselves for kicks. If anything we as a bunch of mates usually just joke about it, even the 'emos' i know find it humorous at how people assume their like

 

[Ambrogino]

People using Emo as a perjorative against someone/something tend to do it to what they would have called Goth five or ten years ago. Which is another reason why calling Eva (or most anime made before 2002) emo is a poor label -you certainly wouldn't call Eva in any way goth (outside of certain fetish toys of Rei).

 

[Aion]

In my mind, "emo" refers to a person who constantly whines about his life and how difficult/impossible everything is. Shinji, the main character, fits my definition of "emo" perfectly, so (assuming others think the same way) it's understandable why people view NGE as emo because of the story Sfocusing on Shinji crying himself to sleep over his life.

I don't care for the word myself as it seems dumb to insult someone for the crime of being emotional. The whole "emo" thing goes with the thinking that humans (males in particular) should be robotic, not showing their emotions to anyone. Since we're human and humans have feelings, it's daft to be told that it's wrong to express how you truly feel because it isn't 'normal'.

 

[Ark]

In my mind, "emo" refers to a person who constantly whines about his life and how difficult/impossible everything is. Shinji, the main character, fits my definition of "emo" perfectly, so (assuming others think the same way) it's understandable why people view NGE as emo because of the story Sfocusing on Shinji crying himself to sleep over his life.

When does he whine about his life?

 

[Sy]

I don't care for the word myself as it seems dumb to insult someone for the crime of being emotional.

Emo isn't about emotions. It's a haircut and a pair of trousers that don't quite fit.

 

[Aion]

If "emo" isn't about emotions, then why is the word a shortened version of emotion? That doesn't make sense to me. When I see someone call someone else an "emo" it's always because that person is a depressing, attention seeking type of character - nothing to do with looks.

With regards to Shinji, my memories of him mainly consist of him looking depressed, saying his father doesn't care about him and refusing to pilot his Eva unit because it's too difficult/dangerous. He's a weak character with no determination, and one who needs to be told what to do. Although I didn't mind him too much, a lot of people hated watching such a wimp for so long.

 

[Sy]

I wrote a big ass post about emo but I can't be bothered following it up and it's kinda off topic anyway. -_-

 

[Aion]

Note: Posting off topic just to say you don't want to take the thread off topic is not the best way of getting a thread back on track.

Since you just made a post complaining about posting being too difficult and your username starts with 'S', I rename you Shinji. Be proud.

Anyway. Who cares about this going off topic? The opening post featured one of the worst reviews ever. I'd rather be forced to read The Geeks views on Evangelion.

 

[Sy]

Hey I don't mind. I consider Shinji to be one of the best rounded characters in anime. In the dub he's a whiner and a pisser and a moaner but in the original I don't get why people say that all he does is whine all the time because in reality his emotions are presented as being pretty restrained for the most part.

 

[Ark]

With regards to Shinji, my memories of him mainly consist of him looking depressed, saying his father doesn't care about him

These are mostly his internal thoughts though. He generally doesn't burden others with them.

and refusing to pilot his Eva unit because it's too difficult/dangerous.

He only refuses twice early on based on the danger/difficulty factor. In both cases it's right after he's been badly injured during combat. After that he actually puts himself in danger a number of times in order to save his collegues.

Although I didn't mind him too much, a lot of people hated watching such a wimp for so long.

Kinda of strange coming from Otaku though isn't it?

 

[BlackWolf]

and refusing to pilot his Eva unit because it's too difficult/dangerous.

He only refuses twice early on based on the danger/difficulty factor. In both cases it's right after he's been badly injured during combat. After that he actually puts himself in danger a number of times in order to save his collegues.

What about the first time he's introduced to an eva? Why admittedly he does end up piloting it, he flat refuses at the beginning and its only when he sees the state Rei is in does he agree to do it. Though when you think about it, it was a break from the norm to see the main character not just hop in without thinking about things.

 

[Aion]

I get why people dislike him but I don't have anything against him. If I had a father who only wanted to use me and was expected to fight for mankind in a gigantic 'robot' I wouldn't exactly go a long with it without having a good moan.

I like Asuka's character because she's the opposite of Shinji in many ways. While not mentally strong, she puts on a brave face and gets on with life, not crying herself to sleep and acting weak over her mother and other problems. Where as Shinji is the sort who runs away from problems, she fights them head-on and doesn't show weakness. The differences between them are what make the majority hate Shinji and like Asuka...well, her being a barely legal (in Japan) redhead does having something to do with it, too.

 

[Sy]

It seems to me like they wanted to present Shinji as the only 'sane' and normal character amongst a bunch of characters that accept these weird alien/monster creatures attacking Tokyo III with little to no explanation.

Hell if one of those Angels nearly stomped on me out of nowhere I'd probably crap my pants and if they told me I had to climb in a giant robot thing out of the blue and fight it then I'd probably tell them to go to hell too. That made Shinji more human and that's why I liked him almost instantly. It really broke the mould to have a main character who when presented with crazy out of this world **** to just say 'No F-ing way!'. I thought it was awesome.

 

[Rui]

I like Shinji. He made a change from all of the energetic kids who leap at the chance to pilot a scary war machine in a life or death battle for no real reason. Sometimes I wanted to shout at him a bit, but he's an insecure kid so that's pretty normal.

Rei was actually my favourite (well, Kaworu was but he didn't get enough screentime and I'll be accused of liking him for weird reasons if we go down that route). I thought Asuka was a brilliant character though, even though she was annoying a lot of the time and I'd run a mile from her in real life.

R

 

[Sy]

I'll accept that Kawrou was a great way of expressing different elements of Shinji that we needed to see before the finale in a more forceful way. As a character though... I don't know he seemed more like a plot device than a character.

 

[chaos]

I prefer Rei to Asuka, but the Rei in the Iron maiden series is the best IMO. The Rei in the original series is a pretty face, but she's too passive.
My favourite has got to be Misato though. She feels pretty real for an anime character. At first she seems pretty shallow and by the end (or in the movies) she becomes such a wonderful character that it really impressed me.

...well, her being a barely legal (in Japan) redhead does having something to do with it, too.

I had to check that. 13 yo for age of consent sounds awfully strange... Back home is 18, so when I've heard in here was 16, I found it somewhat odd, but this is pretty shocking to me.

...Hell if one of those Angels nearly stomped on me out of nowhere I'd probably crap my pants and if they told me I had to climb in a giant robot thing out of the blue and fight it then I'd probably tell them to go to hell too. That made Shinji more human and that's why I liked him almost instantly. It really broke the mould to have a main character who when presented with crazy out of this world **** to just say 'No F-ing way!'. I thought it was awesome.

I like Shinji. He made a change from all of the energetic kids who leap at the chance to pilot a scary war machine in a life or death battle for no real reason. Sometimes I wanted to shout at him a bit, but he's an insecure kid so that's pretty normal.

Shinji is a great character exactly for these reasons you pointed. At first he is weak and pretty pathetic. But his character grows as the series go along and his development reaches its apex at the end.

Rei was actually my favourite (well, Kaworu was but he didn't get enough screentime and I'll be accused of liking him for weird reasons if we go down that route). I thought Asuka was a brilliant character though, even though she was annoying a lot of the time and I'd run a mile from her in real life.

In general you just like them all, isn't it? How many doujinshi's with shinji and Kaworu do you have?

 

[devilrules666]

eva the topic that just keeps on going!