Re-Watched Evangelion for Raid "Preparation"

most media literate ffxiv player

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Originally Posted by DiaDeem

One thing though: Evangelion as a whole has a very weird obsession with constantly showing teenagers in different stages of nudity and sexually charged poses. This weird degeneracy better be left out entirely from XIV's raid series.

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Yeah, despite some good themes, the original Eva one of those shows that you would not want someone to enter the room while you watch it because it would be hard to explain, and nobody will actually believe its not some kind of weird show. IIRC Gainax wasn't in its best state at the time, and they did everything they could to keep their viewers. Even obnoxious fanservice. I'd advice to read the manga adaptation (written and drawn by the original charac designer), because it remove most of those awkward moments, and those that are kept are dealt with less voyeurism. The rebuild also limited it, but on the other hand they went for the

"they phisically stopped aging, so 14 y.o. looking asuka is actually 24"

, which is whole other flavor of weird I'm not gonna talk about.

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Originally Posted by TeresaFortell

In my humble opinion, it is the engagement with the works of Hegel and, to a lesser extent, Kierkegaard that sets this anime apart from the others, as it rejects Hegel's end-of-history. Looking at the surface, it is just mechas fighting. However, it touches on many of the elements Hegel wrote about in his Phenomenology of Spirit. Particularly, the concepts of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis in the process of Determinate Negation represent the conflict between individualism and collectivism.

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It's interesting because, despite the various fan theories on the subject, I've never really taken the time to understand these philosophical or literary inspirations.
You're never better served than by yourself, even when it comes to impressions. But I always like to delve deeper and put what I see into context.

Thanks.

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Originally Posted by DiaDeem

Yeah, that time where Shinji slips and "accidentally" lands on top of a naked Rei with his hand conveniently landing on her boob had never been done before or since in Japanese animation.

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Oh, I'm not saying Evangelion doesn't have these "clichés." Let's just say, Gainax created or amplified some of these clichés, they were less common in 1995, especially broadcast on prime-time Japanese TV that subsequently became the subject of much controversy.
Rei Ayanami, for example, you might think she's a cliché (girl with blue/white hair, expressionless, mysterious). But rather, other media outlets drew heavily on her.

Shinji in episode 19 is a middle-good example. Indeed, he's determined to destroy the angel, but his haste causes his EVA-01's autonomy to deactivate and destroys its "physical" shell.
Quite the opposite of Evangelion 2.0, which takes the cliché to its extreme (red eyes included, lol), in order to retrieve Rei Ayanami, even if it means triggering Third Impact. This time, it's more about fan service, about him saving the one he loves. In both cases, it remains an extreme reaction from a teenager without caring about what is happening around him or others, so rather consistent for his age.

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Originally Posted by DiaDeem

The whole movie is a self indulgent mess... Unless you think Shinji jacking off to a comatose teenage woman was "deep psychological analysis" and an integral part of the story.

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Oh, I'm aware that the scene you're referring to is meant to provoke its very-core audience by holding up a mirror to themselves, given their idolization of those girls. Evangelion is a critique of the Japanese Otaku fandom. (Which is very different from what we in the West call Otaku)

I wouldn't call it a profound psychological analysis.
We've rarely seen, in a series, a long, awkward, and hostile silence in an elevator lasting over a minute, only for it to end with a slap.
The goal of the series isn't for you to feel good with every scene. If it evokes discomfort or disgust, then you react normally.

Otherwise, as mentioned above, I also recommend Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. It has nothing to do with Evangelion, offers much more optimistic hope, and doesn't delve into human psychology.
I think this anime is also among my favorites and one of the best Imaishi has produced.
Of course, it also has some clichéd scenes with its female characters. But you'll rarely see a series so well depicted in terms of escalating power and exaggeration.

In a completely different vein, much less well-known, but also one of my favorites in the "psychological" shojo genre, there's Kare Kano (Her & Him circumstances), it focuses heavily on the romance of two high school students, but with Hideaki Anno's signature touch (lots of meta-narrative, fear of judgment, social constructs and the false self, family trauma, and self-esteem).

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Originally Posted by DiaDeem

At this point I just hope the raid is fun, the story is entertaining, and that we get some cool glam.

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I expect so, Square involved in such a project is more than an honor for all the developers who will be working on it (and also in a way that a lot of money has been put into FF14 EverCold).

Obviously, the fact that it's not original content displeases many.
But I wasn't a fan of the last original raid content with the Twelve. I didn't feel it had any coherence with the 1.0/ARR universe, and I wasn't a fan of the Greek mythology aspect either. No threats intended, except to shower you with compliments.

As an old school mecha anime fan, Shinji is a deconstruction of the "fell into the cockpit" trope commonly seen in shows like Gundam. He's not an instant ace, he's panicky and afraid, he just really doesn't want to be there. He steps up because there's no choice, but it's clearly not doing great things to his mind. Most of the show follows his arc of coming into his own as a hero, despite the horrors he has to face.

And then the last few episodes and EoE just go full diabolus ex machina, breaking and slaughtering the cast as brutally as they could, and it killed any desire I had to keep up with the series. I finished it, but I have no interest in watching it again.

I don't know if I see the hospital scene as the only way for the writer to explore what's happening between Asuka as Shinji, but I do see it is as relevant. Its possible the scene is related to personal experience in some form (not saying something Anno did exactly this). The film is the summation of a show's worth of ego driven competition, personality conflict, and unresolved feelings (both platonic and sexual). After the hospital scene, I think the next time we see them together, they are having a choke out fight in a room, so it's not exactly "better", its just general physical violence instead of sexual violence. We can view the timeline as hospital scene --> fight scene --> final sequence when she says "disgusting". I see them as all connected which is why they're placed at the beginning, middle ish, end. What Shinji does in the hospital isn't a strictly sexual act in terms of motivation, I see it more like a shameful attempt at asserting dominance when someone he views as a competitor is at their lowest and most vulnerable. It's visceral not just because its inherently a violation but because it's not something I saw Shinji as capable of. I see them interacting in this way as what would be expected in a film concerned with ego boundaries rapidly dissolving both literally and figuratively. So I do see it as psychological.

Worth noting, you can see very similar acts of aggression online in any given multiplayer FPS game insofar as players can actively mock their defeated competitors with available animations.

I also do not expect any of this to make it into the alliance raid since there's not really sufficient time in those raids to build a believable relationship between these characters. There's no precedent in their previous crossovers for this. Typically it stays very "general lore" relevant so we can expect perhaps a story surrounding an institution like NERV, aliens/Angels, Gendo as an antagonist, Shinji as a protagonist. I don't think it will go any deeper than Shinji stopping his father or something. If Asuka is in it at all it'll be a cameo or a highly cleaned up Rebuild-i-fied version of her. I suspect Yoshi P is a big Rebuild fan given the way Zodiark was stylized on the moon.