Pastiche of Life

With the American Première of Evangelion 2.0 i would Like to take a quick Look at its continued raging popularity…

Back during the original release of the series i made the deliberate decision to wait for ADV’s Release DVD by DVD. Now you can imagine being a frustrated Internet enabled teen i could have gone the dark route of downloading but i managed to keep myself free from such actions because i had a friend who was as into the show as i was. You know the kind, The guy who would commit murder if you even hinted you had seen further ahead than he had, so my path was set.

This slow drip is what made me take notice of Evangelion. The torrent( HAHA did you see what i did there) of Anime available today has crystallised the series for me making it the one series that no matter how much brain power and time i drop into its understanding i come up gasping for air and again watch an episode for just one more visual cue to tie it all up neatly, From our introduction to Shinji and his introduction to the EVA, which pretty much everyone rewound at least once to hear again, to the series baffling conclusion Hideaki Anno created a deep universe that in its mash up of religious and psychological/social entanglement renewed the Giant robot genre and created a subset of shows that intentionally played with the viewers desires and intentions for their loved characters.

Shows Like FLCL and Lain along with Evangelion granted the license to couch theoreticist’s and critics to create an explanation for the intentionally unexplainable and in this practice created a self-sustaining fandom that is existent today with the Rebuild Series of Evangelion movies. If one could harness the mental energy expended so far we would all live on the moon with Unit-01’s petrified corpse.

The series has tortured ,in a not so unpleasant way, its fans. This torture is in this form the 2nd of 4  movies retelling the series that will never die, Not just are we anticipating and watching another remake of the story that has been added to and rereleased with a Synopsis movie (Death and Rebirth), An alternate/expanded end (End of Eva), Added scenes (The platinum collection) and visually/Aurally remastered  (Also platinum) but we now have a version that is making fundamental changes to the story that we have already thought about and attempted to understand. The effect is reflective of many other series in the past for example Clamps ‘X’ movie and series or comparison of the series Revolutionary Girl Utena to the move Adolescence of Utena. This Change can be a shock to the fan base but are all continued afflictions of the Intentional unintelligible that will keep these series alive.

2 years ago on a trip around Japan it was still obvious how prolific the characters of Evangelion are and at that particular time there was still Evangelion Pachinko and a whole series of shop wall advertisements for the upcoming rebuild series. As much as the possibility may be than evangelion is reaching its swan song, its curtain call and any other analogies for its end its effect on those who know of it will continue into their ripe old age and still have them wondering what was the meaning of that giant forehead vagina <Honestly i tried to find a Picture but you will just have to imagine it>

(Postscript if a single person emails me to include the Other Manga/Novels spawned from this series in this post i will make your heads explode from the pure concentrated hate)