Evangelion

Well, zerospace and I finally got a copy of Evangelion to watch this weekend... Of course we watched it all.
What I wanted to mention, though, is that IMHO anyone who is watching this show for the first time should stop after episode 24. DO NOT WATCH episodes 25 and 26.
We both loved the first 24 episodes ? we were hooked after episode 2 ? but after we watched the last two episodes, I wanted to throw the whole set of discs off our second-floor porch.
To say that the last two episodes were disappointing doesn't even come close to how I felt after seeing them... it felt more like betrayal. Still, the first 24 episodes are spectacular. Shame about the ending.
Does anyone here know if "End of Evangelion" works any better as an ending?

Anno (director) was said to have written the ending before he wrote the rest of the show. No one's ever been really sure if Eva was meant to be a cash cow (see the officially licensed Eva hentai phone cards, for example) or an actual work of art.

If you rewatch Eva, you'll realize that while treated as one of the "greatest" shows of all time, it has an awful lot of filler.

End of Evangelion is a film (and I use the term film loosely, as it relies on a lot of background knowledge) that has an unhealthy obsession with death. It's sorta like watching a car crash.

On an artistic level, I respect that because there's not many things that I find unsettling. Certainly not a Saturday afternoon matinee. If ADV ever makes their live-action adaptation, it **should** be like End of Evangeion -- but it won't be.

I measure greatness by what was made directly after it and who it influenced. Eva is a great show because it it added so much to the modern anime vocabulary -- of course, mostly as satiric shorthand. Flashing eyes to indicate anger? Eva. Silhouette of monster with glowing eyes against backdrop of flames or ruined city? Eva. An unhealthy obsession with Judeo-Christian symbols just for the sake of having something religious-y? Eva. Vague, swirly plots with angsty characters? Eva. Sure, these things may or may not have made earlier appearances, but it always goes back to that one giant robot show.

This goes back to my complaint about anime in general: great concepts but horrible execution. For the record, I do like the show, though.... mostly for a fantastic pilot episode. It's in my top ten.

Funny that you should mention the filler...
I was saying to zero that Evangelion seemed to follow a similar formula to the X-Files with its filler episodes that lend nothing to the final resolution... I'm remembering an episode of the X-Files where this sea creature turned people into a liquid...
It had nothing to do with the main theme, but it was fun.
Evangelion seemed to be following a similar pattern, but then it went and turned stupid at the end... especially considering that I had to do some research to get at what was being implied at the end (and neither zero nor I are dense when it comes to de-constructing symbolism).
Or maybe I just didn't understand it because I haven't done any drugs in quite a few years :P

I liked the entire series, even the last two eps, and the movies. The movie is just pretty much what was going on in the physical world during third impact, while the tv ending was more of what was going on in the mind. You probably wouldn't like that ending either though, Evangelion does not try to be the compliant happy ending for everyone kind of show. You find that people either accept it for what it is or cry and moan that it wasn't what they THOUGHT or WANTED it to be.

The X-Files fillers were more like the Twilight Zone though. They had a series without a finite end (shoulda been done around third season imo, this was actually one of the last TV shows I actively watched) so that limits them to two types of shows:

1) shows based on interesting concept (silicon-based life, subliminal messaging, paranormal scammers, ghost stories)

2) shows that moved the relationship of the characters (these got waaaaaay too soap-operaish)

If I coulda picked, I would have picked 90% concept shows and 10% relationship shows.

[quote]The movie is just pretty much what was going on in the physical world during third impact, while the tv ending was more of what was going on in the mind.[/quote]

In my pithy attempt not to spoil the movie, I can say that I found it entertaining on the level that I can find other people's misfortune entertaining when they're caricatures of real people. Like, say, Merchant of Venice. Like many fictional protagonists, Rei, Asuka, Shinji, and company exist quite well in their little world but wouldn't make much sense in ours.

The main mistake made in the last two eps of the TV show is straight out of Screenwriting 101. Essentially, exposition spoken directly at the camera is painfully boring. Don't tell us, show us. The way it's done implicitly insults the viewers intelligence, which is probably why many people that see the last eps are angry but can't put their finger on exactly why.

Like I said, I like Eva. Kaiyodo's Asuka Unit 2 has some prime real estate on my desk. (And it was the one toy a friend visiting from Japan could ID, and she doesn't watch anime at all.) But I can't recommend it without some serious disclaimers as mentioned above.