 The Evangelical ROSSMAN
Yes, it is true, there is one anime out there
that MADE the U.S. anime industry. And that anime is Neon
Genesis Evangelion. Before EVA most
U.S. companies shied away from buying and distributing
long anime television shows. They mostly stuck to the shorter
OVAs and the one-shot movies. But then the phenom known as
EVA broke all the traditional storytelling
no-nos and was celebrated as the second coming because
of it... And everybody in the U.S. wanted it. Seriously, I
hadn't see such built up, pants-gizzing over a piece of media
since Lucas said he was working on Prequels... But at least
EVA lived up to its hype. It had a cast of
characters of whom NOT ONE was sane. It was a "giant
robot" show in which the giant robots weren't even giant
robots, and their enemies were possibly biblical disciples (for you
lame fucks out there who think that "Shito" means "angel"...
well, you're lame fucks who believe anything you're told without
question... just leave this page, become a vegan and start
protesting for gay shit. Leave me alone). And it had one of
the most anticlimactic finalés ever originally produced
for any entertainment medium ever. Ever. And it broke all sales
records because of (in spite of?) it.
Now, to be honest I am pretty biased towards
EVA. I fell in love with the show before most
Japanese fans did. It debuted on October 4th, 1995 but didn't
really start
catching on in the fatherland until the 8th episode. I personally saw the first launching
of the EVA-01 on October 21st of that same year, and for the first
and only time in my life I actually wanted to be Japanese in
order
to
see the rest of it as soon as was humanly possible... Yup,
that's right, I was ready to sacrifice my rugged Scottish good
looks, height and length for the sake of a cartoon (Thank God
that God doesn't really listen to our prayers or that wish
I momentarily had would have fucked me for life!). Now, don't
forget that 1995 was before the whole "internet
thing" really
caught
on, and there was no way in HELL that anybody could handle
the bandwidth for digisubs of any decent size (anything over
12kb of information took 4+ hours to download). Nope, I had
to rely on 100% authentic fansubs back then. The con that I
first saw NGE at had only just gotten the
subbed tape in their pudgy little hands about an hour and a
half before its scheduled
showtime too. Those were the days, people...
Those were the days.
I don't know what my point was, so I'll
just jump face first back into the review now before more conufsion
sets in.
Evangelion was the kick to the
crotch wake-up call that the anime industry needed back in
'95. Things were
pretty stale. Most shows were just rehashing stuff from the
70s and 80s, with hack directors just crapping new/old retreads
out like shit through a goose (I'm making this part up as I
go,
I really don't remember the state
of
the Japanese
anime
industry
a decade
ago). But then, Hideaki Anno had a brain aneurism, a stroke,
and a really bad acid trip all at the same time and came up
with the idea for EVA, just like Doc Brown
suddenly had the glorious epiphany of the flux capacitor after
bashing
in his head while trying
to hang that clock in his bathroom. Only Anno had
to have his stomach pumped after he chowed down on two dozen
pot brownies
in one sitting right after it happened.
So, Anno had the idea for turning the world's
wussiest pusswad into the world's best last hope for salvation
(well, I won't ruin the ending for those EVA virgins
out there who still haven't gotten your anime-cherry popped),
but then he
had to convince the rest of his uber-studio, Gainax (makers
of the ever impressive Nadia, Gunbuster, Daicon
III and IV opening animations, and Wings
of Honneymayonaise), that turning his bizarre thoughts
and imagined-as-he-went-along storyline into a 26 episode animated
program would be the best thing ever for them. In hindsight,
it's easy
to
see how he would be able to convince his crew (just by showing
them the Gainax bank account after EVA toys,
T-shirts and blow-up dolls put them
well into the black)... But think about it -- Just how in the
fuck did he persuade them
that
a pessimistic
show about the apocalypse and all the mental fucks who run
the secret
world-wide organization that uses angelic creatures with the
souls of trapped women in them and the fucked-up, cloned-up,
15 year-old pilots that drive them, while giant monsters that
look like Rubix Cubes and giant eyes from space dropped the
bomb on everything would be the greatest thing since animated
tentacle rape? And the
fact
that
he actually made the plot up as he went just boggles my tiny
little mind. Completely boggles. And flummoxes it too.
Just what makes EVA so great?...
I honestly don't know. It was the style and the storytelling
that initially
got me into it though. The thought that went into everything.
The way that the secrets were only gradually revealed to the
audience
over
the course of the 26 episode run and the movies. Plus those
giant Reeboks that the EVAs wear are just so chic. Yeah, Misato
is a hottie, Kaji is da man, and Gendo is the biggest asshat
on the planet whom I admire... but they were all so screwed
up. Not one of the characters was right in the head. Shinji
was the most annoying whiner since Nadia, Rei was all quiet
and cloney, Misato was catatonic for 1/2 her life and then
a raging alcoholic, and PenPen even had an Oedipal complex
with his foster mom (along
with Shinji and his real mom now that I think about
it). Gendo was a pedo perv, Ritsuko tried her best to follow
in her mom's
fucktarded
footsteps,
and Asuka... Well, I could write several whole books on her
mental state alone.
But that screwed-up, almost psycho cast is also
what makes EVA stand apart from all the rest
of the riff-raff (of the past, and even most of the crap that
gets released today).
It tried to show that the world isn't all roses and puppy farts.
There's angst, pain, fear, tears and albino cloning going on
all around us. It just put all that realistic bad stuff into
a sci-fi setting. And in the end, it was good. True, it did
bring about the age of the brooding hero and the bizarre plot
twist in anime and video games as we know it, but honestly
I'd prefer a story with several big twists in it with an "angry
at the world" protagonist
than a boring, straight forward yarn with a peppy and personable
lead. And boooy did we get them ("angry at the world" heroes).
Not that these shows were necessarily clones of EVA per
se, but they did borrow heavily from the most successful traits
of
Anno's
head-injury-induced
animated opus. I won't name names... You're already aware of
what's stolen what (or you would be if you just thought about
it for a minute, plus I'm tired and don't feal like naming
names myself. Nap time.)... But now I'm even further from an
actual review than I was 3
paragraphs
ago.
Damn it!
Okay, let me just quickly (really) review Evangelion for
you before I get distracted again. EVA is
about a pussy named Shinji who's father is in charge of the
secret world-wide organization
known as NERV which was set up to save the planet from giant
shito (aka "disciples", or the Englishfied "Angels")
that march around blowing shit up in their search for.... something.
Shinji
gets inducted into NERV in order to pilot the purple and bright
green EVA Unit 01. He meets Rei, Misato, Asuka, Kaji and some
kids from his new school, learns that life can be fun, gets
stabbed in the back by his father on several occasions, gets
a new
best friend, squashes his new best friend like a bug (a bug
I tell you!) and then freaks out, wanks his meat over an unconscious
co-pilot,
and then gets a front row seat to the playing out of the Book
of Revelations complete with a huge, glowing Tree of Life in
the skies above Tokyo-3. All good times.
The character histories and how they relate to
each character's interactions throughout the story are played
out with the perfect amount of panache. Anno really knows how
to
lay
things out like that. I'm guessing it's all the crack smoking
that does it for him. Yes, upon the first through twenty-third
viewings
EVA may seem like it doesn't make sense... But it does, and you
don't even really truly 100% need to be stoned to get it. Just
watch it and wonder what narcotics actually drove a man to
create such a vision.... Hash? Heroine?... Seriously, Robot
Pedro wants some.
What did I think of Neon
Genesis Evangelion? Well,
when all is said and done I find that it still holds up well,
even after repeated viewings and almost ten whole years
since its inception... So I give it a solid "A". It
used to be my all time fave show ever... But I honestly
hadn't see all that much anime back then. The surge of
officially released anime to the States didn't start until
after ADVision used its MASSIVE profits from EVA to
purchase 2,843 brand new
shows. EVA will always hold a special
place in my heart, along with Urusei Yatsura, Macross,
Go Lion and the first Tenchi Muyo OVA...
But I can no longer claim that EVA is
the greatest anime ever.
|
The Genesized WOLFMAN
All hail the BEAST! The beast is alive inside
the Evan-jelly-ons! Worship the beast. The beast is your friend.
See, I like to believe that this Eva show
is not about a wussy little turd who flies a giant robot with
an extension cord... No, it's about the death of every living
goddamn thing on the planet at the hands of some waif-like
devil bitch out in space. That is the defining moment of everything
Film has been working up to since the dawn of time. And only
that whack-job, Anno, had the balls to make it.
Here's a hearty sign of the Dark
One for Eva-jelly. Also, my frightful little devilings,
just for your information, did you know that it was ADVision's
porn tapes that allowed them the financing to purchase
this show in the first place? Hell yeah! Eva is brought
to you by the letters S and M, and the sound "Ooooooooh!!!
OOOOOOOOohhhhhh!!!!!!"
|
The NERVY DR. DAVE
After the Rossman showed me this TV series about
a little bitch-boy and his monster robot I began to dream,
and boy did I dream big. This Neon Streetlight Evanescence show
made me realize why I was put here on this little mudball called
Terra. I was
born to make a giant, alien, carnivore man-thing of my very
own. One that would tower over skyscrapers, step on automobiles
as if they were very small automobiles, and rip apart and devour
invaders (i.e. the FBI in my case) like they were tasty morsels
made by Mr. Fried Chicken.
Alas, my own brain capacity was my own downfall.
I was indeed able to breathe life into such a creature...
but the thing was only three foot four since the only "Angel"
I was able to clone in order to make the little
bugger was that little midget at the circus who had those wings
growing out of his back like a divine demon from the bowels
of hell. I dressed my little "E.V.A." (short for "Economized
Vision of Antipope-ocity") up in a tiny suit of armor
and they hung
him above the door to my lair in order to get the drop upon
any G-men who were stupid enough to come a knocking with one
of
their
fancy "warrants" or "arrest papers". All
the little E.V.A. ended up doing though was eating his own
arms (that was my
fault, I left him up there for a week and tried to make him
meaner
and more violent by starving him sober) before dying by choking
on a piece of his suit of armor, and then harmlessly falling
on
the Rossman
when he came by to have his ear sewn back on from yet another
incident
with some agitated coworker.
After my E.V.A. experiment failed horribly, I
began working on my attempts to clone hot albino chicks in
which to put in tight, white clothes and... well, that's pretty
much it. Unfortunately I couldn't find any albinos (not even
a male, let alone an attractive, busty female with a nice butt),
so
I just put an ad in the paper and got some college girl to
apply to by my albino donor. She was originally a brunette,
but after scalding her in a cauldron of boiling water and then
bleaching her lovely dark locks and green irises a nice white
color, I began the cloning procedure. Well, it worked in a
sense... By the end of the day there were hundreds of blind
albino women running around, but unfortunately none of them
agreed to get into the white T-shirt that I offered as a uniform
in which I would have sprayed them with a hose filled with
my own version of LCL... KY Jelly. It's oh-so slippery.
I shall give this Japanese show a thumb
up. Anything that allows me to imagine a world full
of hot chicks covered in slimy messes is okay by me.
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