/lit/ - Literature

>>16543841
I don't know dude I just like both 2D and 3D teenage girls

>>16543841
Nope, it’s depth is in its complex structure, based on nuances and metanarratives.

It’s a good way to filter out the pseuds

>>16543841
You're just supposed to want to marry Rei and rape Asuka.

Hehe big robot go brrrrrrr

>>16543841

>>16543922
kys tranny

>>16543890
What about mommy Misato :(

I'm currently rewatching it for the first time since I watched it on cartoon network.

So far it's just depressed giant robot. The characters are flat. The fighting is good. Netflix ruined the audio. Congratulations.

What is a subject that can't tell what it is libidinally to other subjects?

>>16543872
>Nope, it’s depth is in its complex structure, based on nuances and metanarratives

There's also Kierkegaard on ep 16 part 2

>>16543841
It doesn't get praised by lit. I just liked it for the big robot fights, the purple-haired lady, the red-headed slut, and the art design.

why is it that the only hermeneutics brainlets can apply are freudian/jungian psychoanalysis?

>>16544573
shiit, should I waste my time on this? Ppl seem to praise it endlessly.

>>16543841
>depth
>Anime

>>16544589
What is depth anon?

>>16544588
the people that praise it don't understand it and the people that are learned enough to do an actual literary analysis of it (rather than injecting psychology/sociology) don't watch it

>>16544608
hmm interesting. So there is depth then. I should give it a shot soon. Where does the creator draw inspiration/ideas from?

>>16544588
Your time isn't worth shit, so watch it if you like big robits and anime sluts.

>>16544584
I don't know, but when nips want to make something 'deep' in the otaku space, thats something they seem to go for a lot

>>16544625
in terms of his thinking, hideaki anno (the creator) names hiroki azuma more than once. hiroki azuma in turn is influenced by the kyoto school and alexander kojeve (azuma being the first to publish a japanese translation of kojeve's work)

Was Shinji right to reject instrumentality? Can't help but be reminded of Caligula wishing the Romans had one neck. Humanity had one neck and Shinji slit it.

>>16544630
kek, I agree with everything you said

>>16543890
I started out a Reifag but overtime I've grown quite a liking to Asuka. Shes clearly the better of the two girls. Rei is more an idealization of what an incel (shinji) would like a woman to be.

>>16544639
sure but it's not as essential to the work as people make it out to be

>>16544653
There's no right and wrong. Morality is subjective.

>>16544672
nihilism is very passé, anon

>>16544671
>>16544659
I think it's essential in the medium of anime. If we are on a website for anime and we are supposed to be the literary critics of literature on a board about anime, we should at least have in our repertoire one of the central pieces of media to the genre as a whole, even if it's shallow, deep, meandering, about sluts and robots, or whatever. This website has spent nearly two decades arguing about rei and asuka, but the themes and merits as an artistic piece are generally laughed off. We have an obligation to be better than that and articulate in detail why it's absolute shit when compared to other mediums, but that it is good compared to other anime. The medium is the message. Capitalism destroys artistic merit. The author is dead. Rei is best girl. Whatever method of analysis you pick, but you must pick one.

>>16544688
how about understanding art on its on terms instead of via psychoanalysis or media ecology for starters

>>16544688
>Rei is best girl.
Disregard everything this faggot just said.

>>16544653
It was pretty much the only real decision he made, without being forced into it by someone at NERV. He had every right to decide for himself what he should do, and deciding to be better than he was is the best decision he could've made. What does the rest of humanity have to do with it?

>>16544688
Is it really absolute shit relative to other mediums? End of Evangelion at least is a hell of a visualization of a real tendency in, or even hope of, mankind. Or as far as visual mediums go, I don't know of more ambitious visualizations of what universal salvation could look like.

You do get it in literature/philosophy, with Teilhard de Chardin's Omega Point, Asimov's Gaeans, or, closer to Evangelion, Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker.

>>16544688
>Rei is best girl
You thought you were gonna sneak this in subliminally and we wouldn't take notice, huh?

it's pretty well directed. design, photography and sound

>>16544784
I honestly don't understand how anyone could like rei over Asuka, it's baffling.

>>16544764
Why interfere with humanity's salvation? Though of course, there is a case to be made that losing your ego and melting into a divine being isn't salvation. It's an interesting choice to reject instrumentality.

>>16544669
I never understood reifags, what’s so appealing about an expressionless human live doll?

>>16544846
Objection, Asked-and-answered

>>16544816

>>16544669
Asuka was clearly written to embody Anno's sex fantasies, this is painfully obvious when you rewatch the show as an adult. She's a domineering teenage girl who likes older men and becomes obsessed with a nerdy loser for no reason. He didn't really know what to do with her character beyond that, so after some obligatory scenes of suffering and maybe one episode's worth of backstory (contrast this to how many Shinji, Rei, and Misato get) she's almost entirely written out of both the TV ending and EoE. Even for an unfinished show it's fucking weird that the supposed female counterpart to the protagonist just disappears during the climax. In EoE she gets a couple lines of dialogue during a fight scene, but that's it.
She's a poorly-written character and the weakest link in the show. In theory a female Shinji would have improved the show a lot, but Anno was too much of a manchild to commit to writing a believable young woman.

>>16544857
Touche. Biased, but the inclination is less baffling now. You're still a fag

>>16543841
>Jung and Freud
>Kierkegaard
>no mention of Schopenhauer's entire episode

Terrible.

>>16545111
You mean the movie?

>>16545111
what episode is that?

>>16545137
>>16545136

Episode 4 is literally named the Hedgehog's Dilemma you pseuds.

Is eva the harry potter of anime?

>>16545162
thanks nerd

>>16545162
from Schopenhauer.

>One cold winter's day, a number of porcupines huddled together quite closely in order through their mutual warmth to prevent themselves from being frozen. But they soon felt the effect of their quills on one another, which made them again move apart. Now when the need for warmth once more brought them together, the drawback of the quills was repeated so that they were tossed between two evils, until they had discovered the proper distance from which they could best tolerate one another. Thus the need for society which springs from the emptiness and monotony of men's lives, drives them together; but their many unpleasant and repulsive qualities and insufferable drawbacks once more drive them apart. The mean distance which they finally discover, and which enables them to endure being together, is politeness and good manners. Whoever does not keep to this, is told in England to 'keep his distance.' By virtue thereof, it is true that the need for mutual warmth will be only imperfectly satisfied, but on the other hand, the prick of the quills will not be felt. Yet whoever has a great deal of internal warmth of his own will prefer to keep away from society in order to avoid giving or receiving trouble or annoyance.

Yo shinji just got out of a giant shadow thing and his mom robot fuckin' ripped it to shit. Doooooope.


Also the theme song is the best part of this show, hands down.

Yo they made fuckin' robot pilots, I bet that's gonna go real good.

>>16543841
>wait, so all of its "depth" is just the random-but-accurate bits of Jung and Freud sprinkled in? That's what gets praised by /lit/?

I've watched it and I definitely felt like there was depth that I wasn't able to understand because I'm not well-read in philosophy and psychology. Especially in the movie.
But I've seen this image posted quite a lot so I wonder in what sense it referenced Hegel? Also I've heard that the movie had references to Lacan

>>16543841
Literally when do we ever bring up Eva?

>>16545766
Also are there any resources that explain these literary references? Because I definitely think I would've appreciated the show much more if I understood everything. No anime yt channels pls

>>16545766
Hegel just has a funny face that can be put into anything and due to the nature of his work it can be easily justified that whatever he is in is "hegelian" with out necessarily being wrong (in part due to his legitamently widely influential works that influenced phil, his, psych, and theo, and in part because its easy to bullshit tat he did)

>>16544688
>Rei is best girl

>>16545766
Episodes 25-26 are heavily Hegelian. It included how recognition is a necessary condition for individuality. It's an interesting spin on the Christian individualism vs Buddhist collectivism or the "orange goop". It's not simply Nietzschean life-affirmation at the end. The whole recognition thing is also Lacanian with the Big Other. I wouldn't call the series overly Lacanian, though. There's no trace of jouissance, an objet petit a (for the fans it's Asuka), or explicit play with symbolic-real-imaginary. You'd have to try hard to fit those in. The namedrop of Freud is cringe and a red herring. What I'm more interested in is the Kabbalic symbolism and the parallels with Genesis and Gnosticism. I know the creators denied the symbols meaning anything but the parallels are clear.
The movie is a lot less philosophical.

>>16544769
Teilhard de Chardin fits in a lot better with Lain.

>>16544557
>Nope, it’s depth is in its complex structure, based on nuances and metanarratives

>>16543841
The depth is in the immaculately animated mecha fights of the first half of the show.

The symbolism is entirely artificial. Really the whole thing is a testament to the fact that there is no inherent quality of depth to any work. Work that is stylistically good simply compels it's viewers to dig.

>>16545643
Unironically this

>>16545923

>>16545815
REPLAY THE GIF I WANNA SEE TEENAGE NIPPLE WAAAAAAAAAA

>>16545965
People post this to suggest that none of the depth was intended, and Anno was just trying to make it seem obscure and complicated.
But he's literally only talking about the name of the show, "Evangelion." That's all he's saying.

anime is pseud shit unless it deals with modern japan stuff. otherwise it's literally just 'im so smart' empty references and awful writing. yo look at these europeans writers, omg so cultured.

>>16545985
ive seen the video and you are wrong. all of the apparent themes are just a depthless aesthetic. that doesn't mean it's depthless overall but much of the stuff people talk about is not there and in the presentday just for clicks.

Imagine being filtered by fucking Evangelion.

>love muh warrior culture
>love muh technology
>love muh reactive problem solving

>hate kids
>hate education
>hate admitting I'm not an adult on the inside

Gee, I wonder what Eva was critiquing.

>>16544941
Based

>>16544546
>watching it on netflix
>tranny playing Shinji in the dub and "I'm so fucked up" replaced with "I'm the lowest of the low"

>>16544546
>not watching the original vhs release at enormous expense
pathetic

Why is nobody mentioning how visually beautiful it is? Some utterly gorgeous shots

>>16546060
>>16546099
I have the torrent from like, two decades ago somewhere around here on an old hard drive, but, like, rewatching this show isn't a good idea and if I were to torrent/download the original dub/sub I knew from by weeb friends in highschool or fucking cartoon network, I'd realize I don't want to watch this show. The only reason I'm watching it is due to the ease of access of this really fucking awful netflix version. It's impressive how they made something nostalgic and awful even more awful.

Maybe I'm just carrying over my book translation 'tism by asking this but if anyone has anything to say about different Eva subs I'd very much like to hear it (other than Netflix being shit)

>>16546112
i have fond memories of the original american dub (shinji's voice is awful but everyone else's is surprisingly good especially for the era) but i can't imagine watching a dubbed version now. is the original audio not an option on netflix?

>>16546127
It's more annoying than actively harmful to the experience

>>16546139
Of course it is.

>>16546110
i appreciate the bold choice to do a giant robot anime that's paced like a bela tarr film

>>16546127
Every single line of the subs and dubs on netflix are different. Every line of dialogue is slightly different or completely different. It's hard to really describe other than like
>Wow, that was crazy!
vs
>I mean, how insane is all this?
Kinda stuff. It might be worth watching a minute of the two going at the same time.

>>16546156
My point was to leave Netflix out of the equation, I don't use it anyway, I'm talking about other subs. Is there one sub that's better than the others, are there a few that each have their pros and cons...?

You that robot mommy just grew an arm and started eating a dude.

>>16544688
Go back to /a/ newfag, any so-called intellectual component has already been discussed to death on /lit/, and pretty much all other boards.

>>16543841
I felt for the meme and watched this whole shitshow just because wankers here praised it.
It's just cartoons that you fap. Nothing deep.
Don't take any recommendations from /lit/

>>16544764
>>16544831
Alternatively one could say that Shinji is an actor with no agency throughout the entire series but right at the end when a fundamental transformation is underway and nobody is around to pressure him into action he actively chooses to return to the status quo.

Anime is Degenerate. We must deal with this problem of our youth.

There can be fine anime entertainment, LoGH is the best possible example for its case, but we must accept that the majority of anime is degenerate, 99% of it. And we must acknowledge the common ridiculousness of it too, as a sort of degeneracy. For to make a man ignore such a thing, just general stupidity or sometimes perverseness(as common with anime), and "try to like it" is degenerating effect.

Such common ridiculousness, and its lonely cult of immature men;-- We all remember our cherished childhood investments, and this is fine when it is a cherished childhood, and not lived into adulthood. For make no mistake, the man that got into anime as a teenager and has grown up with it no less faltering in his often obsession, and love of it, is no different from the boy who grew up with his comic books and cartoons and never outgrew it. Perhaps there is the level of degree in which the weab is above the soiboy, but small matters of degree. Where the more "seriousness, violence" of anime(, has also in itself its common perverseness) , may allow a greater ease to which an adult can enjoy it, but it's still a ridiculousness, or embarrassment(of fatherly virtue), no less when he considers himself a committed watcher of anime, and we are speaking even irrespective of the perversity.

>>16546463
And the actual topic of appreciating it, any supposed depression from anime, or a depressive character about it; that is, an impact from anime, is more the result of a mind zapped of its intellectual rigour, by his over devotion of his energies onto this emptiness -- wherein he must create something or lower himself to it -- , from focusing on unsymbolic forms for too long, an adjusted state to its type of language, mostly meaningless shapes which we must "learn" to understand. Take NGE for example, they the creators have to make up the lack of content in the show with explaining and more complicating monologues(not to say what they're saying is complex itself, but it feeds into the whole of the show), the only reason it's an anime with such value that it does have for an anime is because of such explorations in the medium.

But continuing, we must "get past" the silliness and stupidity to "appreciate it". The drawing style itself, with its big eyes, is stupid and made for little girls, arising out of the sedated and in many ways feminised post-war Japan, these are the shows that children watched. And there is nothing wrong with that, the original cartoons, like an Astro Boy(though of a racially different motivation to us, and as result in many ways emotionally incomprehensible as like many other cases from its country), which is similar to a Mickey Mouse. But we have as of yet, and do not intend to, actually go into detail of that 99% of anime, wherein there is an active force of perversity, consciously directed in such a way, and not by subconscious structures.

>>16546471
And the soiboy problem always comes back to the feminine, there is no blame for a man being physiologically feminine, but there is a blame for him to not try to self improve. And for him to willingly neglect himself to such a lowering thing. I remember the completely foreign character it had on my understanding in its every look and pronunciation when I first watched it, but I went through all the supposed "good" anime and after trying it all, I have only recapitulated my original beliefs of its oddness and pointlessness, though as I have said some may be fine entertainment. Cinema is a lazy modern medium, and limited by this, even after it has been championed by the midwit during the twentieth century as something better or more unique than it is; Anime is the even more so lazy medium.


So what do we do about its disturbing influence on the minds of so many? Do they not read?

>>16546463
>>16546471
>>16546476

>>16545985
All of the Christian imagery and symbolism in the show was just added in because they thought it looked cool. For an anime, it's pretty deep; but people make it out to have way more depth than the creators ever intended

>>16545876
>. It included how recognition is a necessary condition for individuality. It's an interesting spin on the Christian individualism vs Buddhist collectivism or the "orange goop".
Recommend Byong Chul Han's " Shanzai".

>>16545988
>Mangaka's
>Uncultured
Thanks to Japanese Comic Writers we Europeans get a taste of our own Mnemosyne.

They use many many things from our Traditions, Culture, Myths and Folkness to tell a story. Thank God for the Japs.

>>16546501
Kek

>>16544653
shinji gave everyone the chance to reverse it if they so chose. i think he made the right decision

>mfw weeaboos think their Evangelion and Personas created by Japanese bugmen can ever grasp Freud or Jung

>>16546436
>Don't take any recommendations from /lit/
The guy who spammed Kurosawa in the /lit/ manga recommendations was based.

>>16545218
what does it mean to have a great deal of internal warmth

>>16543841
Attack on Titan is deeper than Eva

How does one write a story with a message without being accused of stealing ideas from a philosopher you've never heard of?

>>16546726
retard

>>16546749
If someone asks you "hey did you steal this from [faggot philosopher]?"
You just say no

>>16546751
Seething

>>16546774
cringe cope dilate seethe cuck incel

>>16546463
LOTGH is good but I wouldn't call it the highest pinnacle of the art form.

>lol semen and tears are both fluids

just lmaoing at you fucking idiots for praising this garbage

*blocks your path*

Yo I'm almost at the last two episodes, /lit/.

Congratulations to me?

>>16543841
It's literally just a baby's first "escapism bad" message that doesn't work because they chose the only character in the story that actually has friends and spends a majority of his time at work or hanging out with people instead of practicing escapism. Fuck Evangelion, it did nothing but ruin all the characters to force it's braindead message.

>>16546888
based and technolyzepilled

Yo this psychoanalysis questioning going on in the last two episodes is like when art gets uncomfortable because it actually makes you come to terms with reality.

Where da giant robots go?
Do I need to watch the movies?

>>16546888
Is that Randy from South Park?

>>16543841
Come on if you're above the age of 20 you know it's literally just waifus and awesome robot fights, the "story" is just tossing in random biblical references cause they sound cool and SCP-like (before SCP existed)

>>16547301
But it's about deriving meaning from interactions with other people and grappling with the emotions that get in the way from being able to build real bonds with other people? Or did we not watch the same anime.

>>16547320
Read a fucking book, jesus christ. Eva was deep when I was 14.

>>16544599
A pleasure that only a true whore can know, anon. Depth is the abandonment of ALL that YOU are, and in becoming empty you find now you can take in all of it and it is all you live for yet still you die weeping, alone, and ashamed as the so called innocent.

>>16547326
When I was 14 it was about giant robots. I just rewatched it tonight and it had 24 episodes about giant robots and 2 episodes that actually dealt with the human condition.

>>16544584
psychology >>> philosophy

>>16547348
Okay sure and if you're referring to the final movie it was pretty meh. I love the artstyle, theme, and animation, I admit, but the plot just tries to make it so pointlessly vague and convoluted in the hopes that teens will convince themselves that it is deep and/or meaningful.

>>16545766
Case in point.

>>16547355
I'm referring to the last two episodes ending in CONGRADULATIONS. I was planning on watching the movies tomorrow. Again, haven't seen the series in like 15 years, so it's kinda hazy. But as far as the themes approached in episodes 1-24 they were generally shoe horned quotes/points from flat characters. It was really only the directors cut episodes of 25-26 that had any real substance.

>>16547364
To be frank I don't remember since this was all quite long ago but let's be real, at best it's as deep as a disney movie. And that's fine. Not everything has to be profound, but I'd like /lit/ to stop talking like 15 year olds who have only read harry potter and just watched Eva for the first time.

>>16544857
Isn't the argument who you would rather fuck, and if that were the case I suppose it would be in the first place aimed at NPC's right? Its interesting that most people I know who would choose Rei are also at least bisexual, so they probably see themselves in her character. It would also explain why asuka seems more like the thing you want to engage with rather than BE. In the end however, isn't Rei also a slave to herself (also in that if you are connected to the social chain, you are never free, because there still exists the perception of you even without you being there)? Everything in this universe is an 'animal', and to be flawlessly inhuman is just to be that, inhuman, not above or below. What do you think?

>>16546463
I don't watch or care about anime but wouldn't you say that being a colossal fag
like you is more degenerate?

>>16543841
>That's what gets praised by /lit/?
No, this is

>>16547368
For every Eva thread, it means there’s one less evola thread. And that, to me, is a price I’m willing to pay.

>>16544857
I read this in Synthcool's voice

>>16544680
knuckledragging objective morality, based on some ancient clap-trap, is passé anon. grow up my friend.

>>16544846
what's so appealing about an literal pile of feces that is asuka?

>>16543841
This makes me a bit nostalgic. I really can't watch anime anymore since it just makes you go into a world that is just not real, however beautiful and atmospheric it is. You're just passively sitting in front of a screen for hours.
Since I started having more friends and have deep experiences with women or more interest in life I just can't watch anime or read fiction anymore.

>>16544516
>>16544764
These are the two based opinions in this thread. Misato is the best girl, and Shinji was right to do what he wanted with Instrumentality. For the whole series he was Atlas, with the world on his shoulders, and that ending was the one time when he realised he could shrug.

>>16544941
I am not sure you understood her character at all, man.

>She's a domineering teenage girl who likes older men and becomes obsessed with a nerdy loser for no reason.

If that is your analysis of her relationships with those male characters, then yikes my dude.

>>16547692
The contrast between Rei and Asuka is suppose to be obvious and in your face like the red and blue they have on the outside seperating them. Rei is an idealization and knows and understands this which is in part why he is utterly fatalistic. That is to say she is without real flaw or features because she is not real. This is contrasted by Asuka who is loud and in your face about everything and has a will to live even at other's expenses. She is a jerk and wants you to know her, but this is a fausad because she is insecure and afraid of letting others hurt her by coming close to them. She as opposed to Rei has no real contious understanding of this flaw of hers. Rei is an ideal Asuka is real, and the point of Asuka is to love what is real and let it grow along with yourself even if it may hurt you.

Visual design of Rei and Asuka is completely up to subjective taste, and therefore not that interesting to discuss. As a character in the story though, I prefer Asuka.

>>16547885
Only pleb NPCs fall for the waifu meme. The true embodiment of /lit/ ideals is Kaworu: a handsome twink, a symbol of Jesus Christ and his message of redemption, sacrifice and Love. He rants about intellectual themes in a cryptic and homoerotic way, too.

>>16544945
>You're still a fag
And yet you're the one who needs a girl to dominate him and make fun of him. Just admit it, you want to be fucked in the ass by another man. It's so obvious.

>>16543841
Unless you relate to the main character and suffer from hedgehog dilemma, then you're probably not going to get much out of it. The way that the show unfolds in its latter half is pretty interesting though; the sharp decline into depression from ep16 contrasts with the bright and colorful first few episodes. The last two episodes being completely unhinged from the narrative serves as an affront against any casual otaku viewer to whom the introductory philosophy/psychology could actually benefit them (this came out in the mid 90s during japan's lost decade so a lot of viewers were probably trying to indulge in escapist fantasies). The show is quite unique in terms of tone, also the whole Human Instrumentality Project plot is a perfect conclusion to the themes of loneliness. To top it all off it's very aesthetic and the movie is trippy.

eva's popular here because this place is full of lonely people

>>16547349
psychology is just a form of applied literary criticism, but you probably think it's a "science" or something

>>16547608
let me guess, you're some variety of "vitalist ubermensch"

Anyone who describes something as (not) being "deep" or "having depth" is a fucking pseud whose mind has not arisen out of their "14 year old wannabe e-intellectual" phase.

>>16548190
This was my take when I was 16 years old as well.
Now I understand that some things are really deep and others not.

>>16543841
Ok but it's clearly Misato who is best girl

>>16548197
How does one measure depth?

>>16543841

>>16548204
By how much interesting content it entails beyond the surface appearance.

>>16548228
>entails

>>16544589
this

its all pure fecal matter

>>16543841
It's a unique world, it has mecha but it's not too much of a mecha anime with the robots having free will and all. It makes you want to explore this otherwise regular world with cars and cities and schools

>>16543841
There's a million things that are genius about Evangelion, from the structure to the symbolism and thematic content. But before any of that I would say there's a great depth of feeling conveyed. For some reason this isn't enough for people and instead they look for ridiculous parallels to Schopenhauer instead of appreciating the expressions of a fundamentally audio/visual based work.

In short, OP is a brainlet.

>>16547326
Imagine being so desperate for validation and so without anything real to say you need to bait retards on an anonymous anime forum you likely frequent constantly while pretending anime is worthless.
>pretending even for a moment this wasn't a masterpiece

>>16548247
What's your point?

>>16547364
The movie basically deals in what happened outside of Shinji's mind and also what happened after

>>16548261
This. It's surprising that a board that used to worship Bloom trots out dreary normalfag "style over substance" arguments over what is clearly a great aesthetic achievement (leaving aside the fact that it clearly does have substance to anyone with their eyes open).

>>16544857
Asuka really got some validation from Shini when she was unconscious

>>16548034
>psychology is just a form of applied literary criticism
explain

>>16545923
this, unironcially
Anything else is pseuds talking about some nostalgia driven urge to validation

>>16548305
Freud read ancient myths and extrapolated particular hermeneutics which he used to explain psychological phenomena in his clinical practice. Psychology is closer to Alchemy, because the christian mystics were essentially trying to find the ULTIMATE HERMENEUTIC (the philosopher's stone) with which to interpret all of reality. They are both "applied literary criticism" in this sense.

>>16548275
That you're just another pseud using words he doesn't understand in order to appear intelligent.

>>16548328
based

>>16543841
>finally decide Neon Genesis Evangelion after years of seeing it praised and insulted on 4chan
>finish the first episode
>start the second episode
>suddenly feel struck by the realization I'm dealing with something special
Simply the way the show is formatted is brilliant, in this case what I'm describing is the decision not to show you the 'epic conclusion' of the battle suggested in episode one and instead begin the next episode well after the fact dealing with Shinji recovering and trying to re-piece together what happened from a hospital bed through bursts of trauma and unreality. This structural decision along suggests a realism and immersion in the world while also gripping the viewer's attention in a way that doesn't rely on 'epic battles'. As any would be literati faggot with vague aspirations of authorship, I really felt like I learned something here about framing your narrative in interesting and effective ways.

Pic related, huge amounts of thought and effort clearly went into NGE, that is the depth I see when people say NGE is deep.

>finally decide to watch Neon Genesis Evangelion after years of seeing it praised and insulted on 4chan
>finish the first episode
>start the second episode
>suddenly feel struck by the realization I'm dealing with something special
Simply the way the show is formatted is brilliant, in this case what I'm describing is the decision not to show you the 'epic conclusion' of the battle suggested in episode one and instead begin the next episode well after the fact dealing with Shinji recovering and trying to re-piece together what happened from a hospital bed through bursts of trauma and unreality. This structural decision alone suggests a realism and immerses you in the world while also gripping the viewer's attention in a way that doesn't rely on 'epic battles'. Now that's what I call sophistication. As any would be literati faggot with vague aspirations of authorship, I really felt like I learned something here about framing your narrative in interesting and effective ways.

Pic related, huge amounts of thought and effort clearly went into NGE, that is the depth I see when people say NGE is deep.

>>16548355
jesus fuck, its shit, stop praising it. its fucking horrible, like every other weebshit

>>16544669
Rei is functional alone, devoted to others. That's obviously an idealization, but how is it a bad thing? Asuka is for people that have been demoralized into thinking the annoying fluff of nagging and cluster B personality disorders is what makes a woman "interesting", that those that lack them are boring or lifeless.
On /lit/, people that would prefer Mary Wollstonecraft to Simone Weil.

>>16548367
Elaborate on why it's bad

>>16548367
>make post with actual effort, substantiation, detail, and examples
>this is the reply one gets
as expected of country grown vegetables

>>16548261
>>16548355
underrated

>>16548355
Great post lad. If there were more people like you here this board would actually be a worthwhile place to spend time.

>>16544588
No. Retards praise it for being "deep" but the best thing about it is aesthetics. I like to think of inserting myself in Shinji's position, being surrounded by all these hot chicks and having to fight aliens in a giant robot

>>16548328
You're retarded. My notion of depth is perfectly coherent.
For example, the notion of a derivative is deep because it entails and opens up as a consequence a vast field of analysis and allows to solve many important and interesting problems. There's way more beyond the surface level definition of limit of f(x+h)-f(x)/h.
Another, more fundamental deep insight which is simple in appearance but provided a whole basis for doing mathematics and physics is the observation that there are some regularities in nature which are intelligible and can be explored through a rigorous intellectual process.
In the same way, a piece of poetry can be deep because it entails a whole range of facts and observations beyond the surface appearance when you analyze it and take account the author's background and look carefully at the meaning of the artistic expressions. I'm pretty sure the book Pale Fire is precisely about this.
In the same way, an anime can be deep if it explores themes and ideas which have vast consequences and implications, even though on the surface level it can appear as something simple. I think Evangelion is deep because beyond the surface appearance of a robot fight anime there are some deep philosophical and psychological explorations into topics that have been extensively studied and argued about throughout the 20th century by Freud and many others, most noticeably the death drive as discussed in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, and it does so in a way that masterfully incorporates the elements of the plot (i.e. it's not ad hoc). You might say that it interacts with the ideas only superficially and so there's no reason to call it deep because anyone can namedrop some authors and philosophers in their art and that alone should not be enough to make it deep. But in the case of Eva I disagree. The reason it's deep and works well is that as I said, the elements are not ad hoc and are extremely relevant to the whole structure of the plot, and in fact without them the whole anime would not make any sense.

Sometimes I'm really surprised how many people outright deny the meaningfulness of such simple concepts like death, just because there are some people who misuse the word in inappropriate instances, or who don't really understand what they mean when they use it. Who is dumber, the person who uses the word without knowing what it means, or the person who watching that person becomes convinced that the word in fact means nothing?

>>16548433
>entails
>entails

>>16547380
No, why the insults friend?

>>16547401
No it doesn't, there can just as easily be an Evola thread up as an NGE thread.

>>16548477
entail
/JnˈteJl,ɛnˈteJl/

3rd person present: entails
1.
involve (something) as a necessary or inevitable part or consequence.
"a situation which entails considerable risks"

Why do you hate this word so much. Just substitute it with its definition at all instances if it's bothering you so much, retard.

>>16547816
Don't you find anime an unrealistic and often silly world? And because of this un-idealistic, where you would never want to live in that world, except for perhaps occasionally the idea of that world, don't you think?

>>16547957
Faggot, Jesus Christ was not a homosexual.

>>16547886
Based, you can understand the woman's eros well my friend.

>>16548477
Wasted dubs, moron.

>>16548261
Nothing is "genius" about it anon, it's a good cartoon/anime, which conveys some deeper emotion than most, leave it at that.

>>16548273
>oh wow man muh dualism it's not like those lights and swings weren't sillily overdone
The meaning is obvious, I could appreciate it still but let's not pretend it took much to create it. Anno is intelligent, you couldn't create this and be dumb, but he's no genius in any respect.

>>16548485
Not him but you're using it where you mean "contain."

>>16548505
It has absolutely nothing to do with dualism. Lmao, the meaning is so obvious but you got it 100% wrong.

>>16548517
inb4 anon has to look up some faggot reviewing Evangelion and analyzing it for him so he can come back and say he was only pretending to be retarded

>>16543841
The thread that shredded /lit/. The core episodes of Evangelion are beautiful and inspired by the long link between the Japanese and German philosophers. It uses those ideas to tell a story about a young man's development and psychology - another distinctly German genre - while simultaneously deconstructing the mecha genre and offering a veiled critique of modern Japanese society.

Eva is multi-faceted which is why it filters all the pseuds so badly. This thread should be a wake up call on how badly the board culture has degenerated.

>>16548508
No I'm not, what the fuck are you talking about?

>>16543922
Based Yotsuba

>>16546723
At first I was going to reply that it's obvious and you are a retard, but after some thought I'm not really sure how to articulate it.

>>16548517
>>16548524
Yikes sure retard, then please tell me what you think it means so I can clearly explain why you are wrong, or possibly right; and you can know it is not my opinion.

>>16548527
Yeah the level of discourse itt is very low, you can see some anons making an effort but the tide of sewage always wins in the end. Arguably that's the real story of Evangelion, its legacy.

This has been fun boys.

Is there 1 (one) resource that explains the supposed "depth" this anime has?

>>16544669
You missed the point the point, Rei is Madonna, Asuka is the whore.

>>16548651
*source, dunno why I wrote "resource" lol

>>16548651
4chan

>>16548621
Those are stage lights, it's symbolic of the regression and deconstruction of Shinji's mind as his reality peels away during instrumentality. It's essentially an abstract breaking of the fourth wall, playing with the very concept of the format to express something within it. This is further explored in the final episodes where he quite literally becomes a sketch. It's the meeting ground of Shinji having reverted to his elementary particles and the actual sum or composition of them, a very strong way to express just what the melding consciousness of instrumentality is. This is obvious to anyone who isn't a moronic speedwatcher and who probably just read a summary on Wikipedia, there's real meta-narrative in Evangelion.

That concludes today's spoonfeeding, now let's see you double down on being a retard instead of coming to terms with it.

Lain is better. Only pseuds disagree

>>16548640
>sociological interpretation
jesus christ almighty i have never seen ONE (1) SINGLE PERSON do actual EXEGESIS on this show rather than basedfacing at it's "social commentary" or whatever freudian nonsense you faggots are into. The criticism of otaku culture is merely ONE OF THE THINGS that it does. I fucking hate weeaboos.

>>16548691
>buzzwords, the post

>>16548693
you read the word "exegesis" and was impressed, it's okay to learn new things anon

>>16548698
>>16548691
>complain about lack of substance and external critique
>provide no substance only external critique

>>16548698
were*

Fixed that for you.

>>16548669
You're disingenuous as expected. And you've also showed yourself to have only the most shallow and physical conception of the term duality.

First of all, being stage lights has no effect on man in his viewing of this, and barely if at all functions as an identifiable message put in the work not artistically, but intellectually, think, though how overdone it might be, someone like Kubrick. You call it abstract, but it is not abstract in any meaningful way. As far as the final episodes that is entirely self-explanatory and heeds no close watching.

Now to perhaps spoonfeed your plenteously chubby cheeks, fed on the most indulging junk food--: The image itself is titled with the Kabbalistic Sephirot, and yet I assume you think this stands differently from duality, because your conception of duality is laughably no more complex than the idea of two's. Where of course in their usages they to put it simply, stand for the processes of psychic life or one may say the feeling of such a life in some imminent sense. After all it'd be quite silly to ignore the existentialism in NGE if you wish to praise it so highly.

Now even if we admit the stage designs as meaning what you say, that in no way encapsulates the purpose or least of all experience of the scene.

>>16548527
>while simultaneously deconstructing the mecha genre

Why is Japan fascinated by the mecha genre? What is in their character that mecha is so appealing to them?

Is it related to the atom bomb?

Does their WWII ultra-militancy somehow connect up with their mecha fascination? (How did they, as a culture, manage to shrug off that ultra-militancy, which seemed to define Japan, like an old overcoat?)

What was the first expression of the mecha genre in Japanese culture -- Godzilla stuff, or something else?

>>16548755
I can't imagine there's any special significance behind it. Why is the west so obsessed with superheroes? Some media involving the topic became popular and that grew into its own market.

>>16548755
The visual profile of a Gundam is a pretty obvious connection point. Owning an actual high quality suit of armor was a major status symbol for members of the samurai class - the same class that would frequently be offered the benefits of westernization first. Some are considered national treasures of Japan, held in higher regard than their European counterparts.

Post-WW2 drove their love for honor, duty, and aesthetics into other forms. They still look for outlets to self-sacrifice, still chase perfectionism, still adore the aesthetics of the warrior the same way wehraboos salivate over Boss uniforms.

Start with the Chrysanthemum and the Sword and work from there, I also strongly recommend Zen and Japanese Art. Don't neglect the history and learn about the separate relationships the Japanese had with different western cultures.

>>16548760
Supermen are undoubtedly a child's fantasy but does it mean nothing to you that these stories continue to resonate with adults? They are built and in some cases simply plaigarized from earlier mythological heroes and wish fulfillment characters. The worst of comic books has a lot in common with the worst of Greek and Nordic myth for a reason.

>>16546608
They are. And it doesn't change the fact that Japs, at least in anime/manga do not know how to write. This is the case even in manga that I like.

This is one of the first
>is this not a book actually literature
threads I've seen stay up in a long while. Good discussion for the most part. Are jannies asleep? I swear I've seen most eva threads get deleted.

>>16548795
>mecha qrd

Thanks, brah.