Do american evangelion fans feel insecure because most discovered it late? Yes, I'm sure some of you watched it on fansubs or adv or whatever in the 90s, but that was a tiny minority, it aired on tv in italy, france etc in the 90s. It only aired on american tv in 2006...
Does OP feel insecure about being a bitch? Yes. Yes he does.
>>23956518I feel more secure because I'm not Italian or French. Merci, beaufuckyourself.
Am I not understanding this thread or what? Why would you feel insecure about enjoying a show because you watched it after its airdate? I'd say 99% of the things I watched, listened to, read, etc and enjoyed, I enjoyed after significant time when it came out
>all these insecure replies OP was spot on
>>23956620I don't understand what the hell he's even talking aboutDoes he mean are people insecure about liking Evangelion? In which case how many times must we have this discussion about being insecure about liking anime, especially these days when it's so popular with riajuu
>>23956616I mean if you only discovered NGE via adult swim...you are a late ass bitch compared to real fans
>>23956645What?
>>23956518>Do american evangelion fans feel insecureyes because Eva fans are fucking losers
>>23956518Genuinely why would I care about that? You're tying your self worth to when you first watched something? That is really unhealthy.
I still do not comprehend what the fuck this thread is
>>23956665Europoor needed an excuse to whine about Americans once again, but he's running out of material
>>23956665Yank needed an excuse to be angry at the world
>>23956518Do evatards really feel the need to keep making the same shit threads every month?
>Evangelion premiered January 2, 1999, on Australia's national SBSwhat of it?
>>23956645Literally who cares? What is this zoomer obsession with being "on time" for watching a fucking TV show?
>>23956684I'm actually in my 30s and watched bits of it in the 90s, but I dunno, i wish i really watched it before AS
Is this some weird joke I'm not understanding? What the hell does he mean, "wish i really watched it before AS"
>>23956686But why? Some misplaced sense of FOMO? It's not like the show itself changed in any way, this isn't a case of missing out on an original experience because it changed later (like visiting an amusement park after its best rides have changed or something).
>>23956690I dont think this applies to Eva, but for franchises that have had decades worth of entries adding new lore and new stories and fundamentally changing what it means to be a fan I can understand.imagine being a trek fan in the 60s vs now. imagine being a starwars fan in the late 70s vs now. alien, madmax, terminator, we think of those franchises so differently after their second entries.the way you understand and conceive of what those stories and worlds even are is so different now I can understand a fanbase believing people who came in after a massive change missed something.
>>23956693youre wrong the rebuilds absolutely havenot a big fan of nge but rebuild fags are insufferable
>>23956690Sorta. Kinda. Yeah.
literally nobody in the western world had any clue about what Eva meant and just wildly speculated on shit online until the PS2 game came out and the lore dump was translated.
>>23956735>muh loreIs this what zoomers believe?
>>23956735>literally nobody in the western world had any clue about what Eva meantno one anywhere did because the show was a clusterfuck
>>23956679>That Australia in Fafner.Did Festum black hole all those missing spots in Australia, did did Humans RAO Alpha all those spots from nukes?I don't remember.
>>23956754Holy shit an actual filtered retard in the wild!
>>23956795>filtered from what a bunch of asspull anno slop? ill consider myself lucky
>>23956735>just posts a cliff notes summary of inconsequential """""lore""""" from side material>no actual "meaning" anywhere to be found
>>23956776>Did Festum black hole all those missing spots in Australia, did did Humans RAO Alpha all those spots from nukes?pretty sure it was the latter.
a classic.
>>23956735Nobody with any sense gives a fuck about the PS2 game loreOnly what's in the anime actually matters. Shit like "where did Adam and Lilith come from" has no actual value to the story, there is no obligation to explain absolutely everything about your setting in fiction, and trying to do so after the fact rarely improves it.
>>23956735multiple people even wrote massive essays trying to tie eva to christian theology shit before anno came out and explained "because it looks cool lol"
I've never watched Neon Genesis Evangelion because I find its fans to be insufferable pretentious twats. Is the show itself actually good and worth watching?
>>23956840It has moments
>>23956840its worth watching as a weird little novelty
>>23956696ThisThere's a whole contingent of Eva fans now who basically take it as a personal attack when you point out that the Rebuilds are artistically and thematically empty compared with the original, because the Rebuilds were their way in. 3.0 especially, I mean what the fuck was even the point of that movie in hindsight, we could have skipped straight from 2.0 to 3.0+1.0 and it wouldn't really make any less sense than it already does. Just say Kaworu died offscreen and it made Shinji real sad, whatever man.These fans are primed to refuse the thematic richness of the original because they've been trained to think these are fairly simple characters.
>>23956840It's still my favourite anime 13 years on from first watching it. You either vibe with what it's trying and think it's awesome or you don't and wonder why it's so hyped up.
>>23956838>multiple people even wrote massive essays trying to tie eva to christian theologyWhy do you lie so blatantly?
>>23956838This has always been the most misunderstood quote about EvaHe said there is no Christian meaning to Eva, and that they chose that aesthetic because it looked coolMeaning, Eva is not a commentary about Christianity or Judaism or whatever. The point of the show is not "religious people are evil and conspiratorial". They could have chosen secular symbols to convey the same themes.But THE THEMES THEMSELVES represented by those images are real, they are not just window dressing.
>>23956867> They could have chosen secular symbols to convey the same themes.RahXephon did that, thats why its the superior anime.
>>23956867>But THE THEMES THEMSELVES represented by those images are realWrong. The 'theme' of the religious symbolism is inseperable from the religion. The cross means nothing without Christ.
>>23956867>they are not just window dressing.okay so what are they? what does naming them after obscure angels do for the show? what does Lilith being the mother of humanity mean? tell me what the theme is there.
>>23956931>explain the show to meIs this why you retards claim "it's actually not that deep"? Because you literally don't understand anything at all?
>>23956939Schrodingers Depth
>>23956939right so you cant. you cant justify that stuff because it is just meaningless window dressing.
>>23956939>you want me to talk about something I enjoy? you want me to expand on what I was saying? thats totally unreasonable!then why the fuck are you here you fucking retardkill yourself lmao
>>23956929>>23956931Judeo-Christian symbols are used to give the show a unifying aesthetic. Exactly what theme the symbols are developing will vary by scene, but by all using religion, it creates the sense of a commonality, an identity, not just some separated messages.For example, the theme of uncertainty about NERV's mission in fighting the Angels is advanced by the very fact that they are fighting something called "Angels", and that they explode into crosses. What do you call someone who fights angels? Not anything positive. This is one of the earliest indicators we get that NERV as an organisation is not trustworthy, a general unease caused by the simple observation that they fight angels.Another theme is failed communication - Asuka warns Shinji of the "Wall of Jericho" separating their rooms, a tough-sounding statement that in fact is meant to hint to Shinji that maybe he should give it a try. To make it secular, she could have talked about the Berlin Wall instead or something, but no, it's biblical again.What do NERV's untrustworthiness and failed communication, as themes, have to do with each other? Only a small amount. But the show unifies them (among other themes) by using religious symbolism for both. This makes the work feel more coherent, more together.
>>23956998>What do you call someone who fights angels?an evangelist apparently
>>23956998I simply dont agree that theres enough meaningful references to say that its anything more than just a cool aesthetic, which is fine>What do you call someone who fights angels?they arent called angels in japanese but sure, most viewers are going to be wondering why the bad guys are named after good guys but its not the first hint we get that NERV is a suspect or cruel organization >they explode into crossesright so whats the connection there? what is christlike or good about the angels? they kill people and want to exterminate humanity.>Asuka warns Shinji of the "Wall of Jericho" separating their roomsright so the wall fell down but so what? does neon genesis have any other parallels to the story of joshua surrounding the sexual tension between asuka and shinji or is it literally just "this thing famously fell down"this is to say nothing about how almost if not every other reference I can think of actually detracts.
>>23957031>no that doesn't count
>>23957145yeah two bad examples one of which is based on the English translation and the other a joke about asuka being a slut dont count youre absolutely right about that, that is just shallow set dressing.hey why dont you tell me why lilith is the progenitor of humanity? or what the sefirot represent? or maybe you could tell me why the lance of longinus is named that?
>>23956518I was reading the manga roughly around the time 9/11 happened (which probably softened the blow somewhat).
>>23957153Literally nothing. Might as well go watch some 80's ninja movies to learn about japanese culture.
>>23957153See >>23956939
>>23957187you can just admit the references arent as deep as you believed when you first watched the show its fine anon
I think there's some of it, but there's other factors too and also I dunno if it's specifically americans hating on Evangelion. It's more about a specific type of fan of anime or mecha that has to prove they are "real fans" because Eva is "too normie" or other kind of excuses.Maybe some people genuinely don't like Evangelion, for sure, but I doubt those would waste time arguing about it in the first place. If I don't like something I don't discuss it at all, and I dislike a lot of popular stuff.Seeing how Evangelion turned into this mega popular thing that self-claimed "real mecha fans" hate was a wild ride, I was there buying the 1996 ADV VHSs (and later, fansubbed D&R and EoE years before those got localized) and Eva was this cult thing back then, at least during the last years of the 90s, by the year 2000 I think it started being way more widespread.
as an eva fan and a jew...it is literally all just rule of cool silliness trust me none of the references or illusions to kabbalah make any sense
>>23956518Nah, most American anime fans live under this idea of mecha anime is kids stuff for babbies and they only watch mature anime for mature people like themselves. Thus they say stupid shit like "EVA/Geass/TTGL isn't like most mecha shows because it is about the characters." Anytime Anno says shit about how EVA isn't super deep or how it was how he worked through his psychosis or whatever they get really defensive.
>>23957201one of life's small joys is introducing people to the mecha genre
>>23957031I just told you that Evangelion is not a commentary on Christianity, and this is freely admitted by the creators of the show. So no, there is nothing Christlike about the angels (except Kaworu of course who is basically just gay Jesus).And no, it's not a deep commentary on the story of Joshua when Asuka makes that comment.The themes matter to the show itself, they do not matter to the Bible. This is a one way thing because there would be no point making an anime filled with rich commentary on Christian theology and then showing it to 90s Japanese teenagers - they wouldn't get any of it.So the Christian symbolism has meaning, but the meaning is not Christian. Christian symbols are used to tie the show together aesthetically, while the themes represented by these symbols make up the show's content. Does this make sense yet?
>>23957195I think when people say "Americans" they are referring to people posting in American spaces (like 4chan, twitter, Tumblr) although it's hard to tell the nationality most of the time just from text alone.
>>23957227yeah alright thats reasonable enough honestly I wish it was deeper, or more core to the mythology of the world, but youre right I dont think japanese teenagers in 1995 would get esoteric jewish stuff
>>23957227NTA but I disagree with this reductionist POV, I don't know why but a lot of people, when they get informed that Evangelion has a psychological aspect, instantly seem to go "oh, so NOTHING else matters! It's all a metaphor!"As if fantasy works in general weren't metaphors.Yes, Evangelion has a psychological aspect, but that doesn't mean the creators didn't craft a detailed setting and a sci-fi fantasy plot.>but nothing matters! All the religious symbolism is just whatever!! They made it all up as they went!!I know there's 1 or 2 instances when Anno or some of the other guys said "we used christian symbolism because it was cool", but people took those words and gave them their own meaning, often as "lol we randomly used christian names but nothing makes sense!" Wrong, Anno kind of did a neat research there, he even used some obscure (for the average person) references, such as Lilith, an entity that's mostly associated with demons, but that in some occult hebrew scripts is also referred to as Adam's first wife. Evangelion didn't just use christian imagery/references.Also, he didn't use religion just as "meaningless imagery" as many people like to parrot, he just mixed real life religion (dead sea scrolls, book of revelations, etc) and amalgamated them with his own sci-fi story. People like Arthur C. Clarke also did similar things.People like to use the video where Anno was visiting his childhood school as proof that the religious imagery is just "to look cool", as Anno explained the kids on the school. But well, what did you expect, Anno to lecture kids on occult 18th century kabbalah?
>>23957227anon you are describing visual motifs that are inconsequential to the story and serve only to make the world feel coherentthat is exactly what set dressing is despite you vehemently claiming it isnt
Over on /lit/, the apparent smartest board on 4chan, they literally say Evangelion isn't a mecha showThis whole site is ignorant and retarded
>>23957286why because the fucking robots are actually giant humans?
>>23957289Confirmed for not having seen Eva.
>>23957301you are factually wrong
>Eva fags dont even know their own franchiseYou cant make this shit up nigga
Have we finally got past that horribly cringe era where people were calling it a "deconstruction" yet?
>>23957310nope, I heard that just yesterday no word of a lie
>>23957314Do you ever stop lying?
>>23957325you dont need to be nasty just because you dont know shit about your own favourite show kek
>evangelion is the best in the genre and i know it is because it's the only one I've seenMany, MANY such cases, see also JRPGs
>>23957330>I heard an evafag on the street say evangelion is the best show just yesterday! they are delusional!!Who the fuck is gonna believe that nonsense retard.
>>23957333never said that you spas calm down, oh while youre at it admit evas are giant humans are youre wrong
How can Evangelion be a deconstruction of mecha if it isn't mecha? Checkmate
>>23957349I dont know you should ask the fan who called it a deconstruction, why dont you tell me how they arent giant humans when they literally areoh thats right you never watched the show...
>>23957351I was just making a joke, jesus fucking christ
>>23957352>it was just a jokeWho the fuck is gonna believe that nonsense retard.
>>23957354I wasn't any of the people you've been replying to, I just thought it'd be funny to combined the common opinion of "it's a deconstruction", with the other opinion of "it's not mecha"It was a joke
>>23957356do we need a repeat of the "is cyberpunk /m/" thread if a human with implants is /m/ then a giant human thing has cybernetic parts is for sure right?
Why this nigga keep talking of a "we" when he started posting here last year (at best).
anon thinks he's the King of all Cosmos
>>23957361why this nigga claim to be an eva fan when he doesnt know the first thing about it
Mari is the best girl. Yeah. I said it.
>>23957450Is that even a controversial statement?
>>23957478Indeed it is.???
>>23957356Being retarded on purpose is still being retarded
>>23957489I'm sorry, I made a joke on 2026 4chanIt won't happen againI forgot 4chan is serious business
>>23957491
>>23957489I'm usually all for ragging on people for being morons, but that post was really obviously a joke.
>>23957351Retard alert.
America's first exposure to Eva was ADV's home video releases starting in like '96, not broadcast TV. The original fanbase for Eva in the US was a home video market that was likely as large as any two European countries which aired it in the 90s combined. A market which bought the absolute shit out of it. The adult swim viewers were a subsequent wave.
>>23957804doubt that. it was on tv in italy. you know how expensive those videos were?
>>23957809Not that anon but anime fans in America bought those kind of videos a lot in the '90s. Ranma 1/2 did well on VHS around the same time and was considered like a "standard" anime then that every English speaker who was into anime watched, and it never aired on American TV; its success was all due to the tapes.I never watched Evangelion as a kid in the late '90s/early 2000s but I knew what it was long before 2006 just through seeing it advertised in various places; in fact I didn't even know until this very thread that it apparently aired on TV in 2006 because I was aware of its existence years before then without even having watched it. Maybe you could say it wasn't super known to the general public before 2006 on the level of like Dragon Ball Z or whatever anime was the biggest success on American TV, but it was absolutely known among anime fans and was readily available in the '90s.
>>23957819Every single 3 episode vhs was worth $29.99 in 90s money. Inflation means it was worth 600-700 usd today. You simply aren't going to find that many people who were willing to shelf out that much money compared to it being free in France and Italy
>>23957825>free
>>23957825Public libraries used to stock a lot of anime VHS tapes. It was one of the more reliable methods of finishing Ranma, Inuyasha and EVA back in the early 2000s.
>>23957840Sure but France aired it by 1999. Thats the point.
I still don't understand the thread, like I get that it can be annoying to have sequels that are shit like FLCL, but it doesn't change the original show
Man evangelion fans are a sensitive bunch aren't they.
>>23957874Eva fags will tell you you're missing the point and the deep meaning of their favourite slop and then not even remember the most basic details of the shows plot.
>>23957894insufferable fans dont take away from the fact its a fun show with a cool aesthetic that deserves its place in mecha history
>>23957944Even though I have been watching mecha since 1996 in small doses, i actually do feel insecure I only discovered it via adult swim.
>>23957949I still don't understand what the hell you mean by thisWhat the fuck do you mean "insecure"? You're embarrassed you like a show or something?
>>23957951late to watching it
>>23957841It was released on video in the US in 96. >>23957825And if you weren't a zoomzoom, you would remember that Blockbuster/Pic-A-Flik/Hollywood Video existed. We rented anime tapes for 5 bucks a week.Do Europoors REALLY have so little going for them that they have to dig this deep for anything they can feel like they have over Americans? Talk about fucking insecurity kek>Um well we might be completely irrelevant on the world stage and being overrun by bongos and pakis and driving ourselves to extinction but, uh... at least we saw this anime first!!!!! Take that, America!!
>>23957949really? why anon? do you feel stupid because you overlooked it when you had chances to watch it or something? how would it be your fault to not know about something you dont know about? or not watch something inaccessible to you?
>>23957957I feel stupid because before an exchange trip to Japan I had a chance to watch it and then overlooked all the Eva shit I saw in Japan and only watched it right after coming back and fell in love with it for the next couple years
>>23957953What the fuck does that mean?
>ADVMan, I miss my VHSes. Collected them back in 04 at a local hobby/ pawn shop and only missed the first and last two episodes. So weird how I found out about it through The Electric Tale of Pikachu, and then learned of even more anime through the ADV ads.
>>23958011I dunno. I don't think I could call myself an anime fan or mecha fan until 2006 even though I knew about mecha anime since 1996 with brave stuff
>>23957982ditto but with gundambuddy who was into it encouraged me to get something while in japan so I didsnapshitted it together but got into the hobby a few weeks after I got home
>>23957874Anti-Eva fags are worse. Go to the Anno thread, there's a guy there screeching "stop posting! stop posting!" as if that's going to work for him.The reality is that both Eva and Anti-Eva people can be annoying, but at this point tye eva deranged syndrome people are even worse than the eva fanboys.
>>23956518I don't understand why anybody would feel this way.The old stuff is there and it's preserved in order to be enjoyed by future generations too, not just the demographics of that time and only at that time. I'm over 40 years "late" to the Gundam game and I've loved every second of it since I started. I will continue my archaeological dig and treasure these gems as I find them while the others get to stew in the rot of modern entertainment.
>>23958080in this thread there are people who refuse to even talk about Eva even to other fans just a note but I dont see anti Eva people consuming themselves like that
>>23958135>anti Eva people consuming themselves like thatJust go to the Anno thread and see for yourself, do ctrl+f for "stop posting"
>>23958135>as an eva fan I don't think the anti eva crowd is all that badKek this is pathetic.
>>23958151but thats someone highly critical of anno arguing with a guy who was originally arguing with me when I asked about a possible language barrier, not two Eva fans going at it like ive seen here >>23958162no that would be you mister "I come to image boards but will never ever tell people what I think about evangelion because im too deep and smart and above it all"youre living proof everything they say about Eva fans in the other thread is correct
>>23958181>Trust me its really deep and meaningful because just like Shinji I'm afraid to open up cause im a little faggot but just trust that my opinion is correct!!!!Yup they're insufferable.
>>23958181>but thats someone highly critical of annoIt's just a mentally ill individual who has been screeching in hopes other anons suddenly "stop posting", he's not "critical" of anything
>>23956518Im canadian and I legitimately thought America got it? I dont feel insecure but sometimed I feel like I missed out on toonami things I would have loved them ad a kid and loved to share nostalgia. But things like Big O and Eva just get more relatable with age anyways (at least for me)
>>23958258Also here in Canada I got to see Galaxy Express 999 somehow which I love dearly. And I was always growing up with reruns of cartoons anyways so its no different than only watching old things now. Half the fun of being into retro things is finding them! The only thing that sucks is there is nowhere to talk about them really. The internet sucks now. If you missed out on the 90s internet you actually did miss out on something special we will never get back. But even esrlh 2010s 4chan wasnt too bad...
>>23957195A big thing to note is that for years, english speaking anime discourse was legitimately "Eva is about the characters unlike other mecha". Now this mostly came from weebs trying to sound more mature than they are, but it had the effect of giving a lot of mecha fans a chip on their shoulder about Eva for better or worse.
>>23958264No, it came from journos, the same retards that coined the "eva is a deconstruction of mecha" bullshit.
>>23958268>deconstructionThat word still makes me irrationally angry whenever I see it.
>>23958264Every time I read "eva is not about the mecha, it's about the characters" I think: why not both?I got into Evangelion after watching a VHS preview of the Eva 01 vs Sachiel battle from episode 2, and when I watched the series, it fucking delivered, the mecha action was on point, and the character drama only made it better.Sure, the last 2 TV episodes were weird (but enjoyable for me), probably helps that I already knew a movie existed, and when I got to watch EoE it also delivered, Eva 02 vs Eva series lives rent free in my head ever since
>>23958273You have to come to terms with the fact that only stupid people use it, don't let stupid people control your emotions.
>>23957804This. adult Swim airing Eva was more a token gesture since it was already well known. Even with VHS/DVD options, P2P and torrenting also got big around this time so there were plenty of ways to watch it if you were tech savvy and middle class, which most of the community was around the time. 4chan already was full of Eva memes in the first few years.
>>23956998>jeez penpen asukas panties drop faster than the walls of Jericho nyehehewow it has the depth of a family guy cut away gag great job evatards now im convinced
>>23957956USA is 60 percent white at best lol. And again, France got it for free. Someone had to buy those overpriced VHS tapes.
>>23958692>60 percent whiteAnon..
>>23958692You are so desperate for any kind of W over America, just proving>>23957956correct
>>23958713I'm not european. I'm telling you. You got replaced.
>>23957195I feel like it's somewhat forgotten how much of anime discourse was centered around trying to attain legitimacy and people were constantly talking things up as "finally, anime is art, anime is even on the level of disney!" or alternatively, shit-talking lowbrow stuff for what they saw as de-legitimizing anime. A lot of people really wanted evangelion to be this huge own against the industry, especially stuff like mecha which they saw as lowbrow and toyetic. They really wanted an epic snide, caustic creator who thought anime sucked but he could make good and somehow decided that was anno lolLook at how many people still insist oshii improved patlabor and gits by "getting rid of all the dumb anime shit and making it like a serious hollywood film". Though no one really gives a fuck anymore, or at least not in the same way, because anime is just normal now and people don't feel the need to prove it. It's already proven itself by being very very popular.
>>23958739My experience is completely different. I never really interacted with people who was in constant need of anime being mainstream approved, quite the contrary
>>23958742That's a zoomer pretending he's been around.
>>23958739That wasn't "people", it was journalist trying to make a name for themselves.
>>23956518I'm fairly lukewarm on Eva, really.It's an enjoyable watch, but I have to be specifically in the mood for it.
>insecureCouldn't be me :)
>>23958742>>23958744>>23958750You never met people insisting that only "serious" anime like planetes or NHK were worthwhile? The toonami babby that told you bebop is the only good anime because "actually it's more like a hollywood film and not like an anime at all!"? The "I hate moeshit" poster with a berserk avatar? The guy who claps because spirited away won awards and then posted fake miyazaki screencaps about how anime is worthless trash?Literally anyone from Something Awful? It's all just embarrassed anime fans that want to tell their dad actually, anime is cool now, it won an oscar so it's not embarrassing anymore. It's the entire function behind why so many people still hate mecha and evangelion is a linchpin of the mentality.
>>23958844I've met all sort of stupid anime fans, but not even then were like "i wish anime was more like hollywood".From what bizarre universe are you from?
>>23958823The image and sound quality of these VHSs is kino.Looks better than the DVDs (at least the first original ADV ones), more vibrant.Watching those on a CRT is a real treat.
>>23958966From gamefaqs. He's not new to anime either probably a fan since the japanimation days
>>23959030oops this dude
>>23959048Moshi moshi bait-desu
