Toon Zone Talkback - "Evangelion 1.01: You Are (Not) Alone" In Thinking There Should Be More Here

[Speedy Boris]

This is the talkback thread for "Evangelion 1.01: You Are (Not) Alone" In Thinking There Should Be More Here.

I'm more interested in 2.0 myself.

[garfield15]

Damn. Thought there would be something in terms of special features. At least commentary since it's the ADV VA's at FUNimation this time.

Though, I too am more interested in 2.0

[Taekmkm]

Oh good, there's a Rebuild thread so I can comment.

For the most part, I have no problem with the dub. Here are my thoughts:
-The adults (especially Misato and Ritsuko) sound too stern and serious compared to the original audio. Even without listening to the original for so long, there was something missing in a tone variety.

-The changes of dialog is okay, though I am seeing a bit too forceful attempt to stay away from ADV's script. Such as the ceiling quote and definitely switching "Father" to "dad" and "Ayanami" to "Rei." This unfortunately bites the dub hard in the final moments of the movie, where the lip flaps are clearly meant for Ayanami but Shinji saying "Rei" instead made it look like a cheap job.

Now the title and name switch is something that I feel confused about. Dad is too casual for Shinji that was abandoned and ignored by Gendo for so long.

Changing Ayanami to Rei, though is what gets my attention. A significant part of Japanese culture is the PC of names. Saying the first name of a person is a big deal, a subtle transition that Shinji really cares about Rei is lost if they start with the first name already.

Second on that point, the Ayanami lip flaps are going to bite back hard in future movies. I have no idea what was the decision on this for, but it certainly wasn't one of the better ones.

-Most of the voices are fine. There's a definite improvement when years of experience and a different director is at the helm. Oddly enough, there's a "that voice" experience with Justin Cook of all people, as you really can't get Yusuke out of your head as he plays Touji. Aida...eh, he's supposed to be annoying. Hikari doesn't sound like a southern hick from a barn convention anymore, about time.

-The extras like SEELE and the bridge bunnies are good. The generals are hilarious, they're just so angry. Overall, a nice dub with a couple decisions that kinda bother an otherwise epic battle at the end, and possibly make trouble for future movies.

[GWOtaku]

Hmm, I wonder if extras are being left to the Blu-Ray release.

This first movie may be a straightforward update of Evangelion, but they did a marvelous job doing it in my book. It's very attractive work, and beyond that it told a good story and left the key events and characterization left in. It's good stuff. In fact, by the time all this is done I can see it being on par with the Mobile Suit Gundam trilogy or maybe even something like Macross: Do You Remember Love. 2.0 is apparently going to be as different as this was familiar, so good times ought to be ahead.

[Leaping Larry Jojo]

I could barely stifle several yawns while watching 1.0 in theatres. Animation wise, I think people have overstated the updates. Yes, the Eva battles have been spruced up, but 80%-90% of the character animation is pretty much the same as the TV show. What's worse is that the "new" character animation really stuck out to me so that I spent more time going, "Oh, this is new...ugh, now this scene is the same old 1995...huh, this is new...colours look a little different from the rest of the scenes though...damn, this is the same damn Ayanami naked scene..."

But I'm hearing 2.0 is where the changes really begin so I'm looking forward to it.

[FUNiOP]

I'm waiting for 1.11. Tae can tell you why it's the right thing to do. So can this guy.

[ThePRPD]

Even though 1.11 does have the darkness problem fixed and the few extra minutes I'm going to wind up being one of those people that buys the DVD followed by the Blue-Ray.

Originally Posted by FUNiOP

So can this guy.

That's the guy that was banned from the EvaGeeksForums. Twice actually.

[FUNiOP]

Originally Posted by ThePRPD

That's the guy that was banned from the EvaGeeksForums. Twice actually.

He has his own site now.

[ThePRPD]

I found that out about a few weeks ago actually.

[Ed Liu]

Here's a question I had for those more in the know. Evangelion is one of those anime shows that I keep hearing about and have never actually watched, partly because it hit its heyday before stuff like free streaming on the Internet and partly because I kept missing when the full box was on sale for a ridiculous price at Best Buy.

I get that Eva 1.01 is mostly an abridged dance remix of the original series, which is the central criticism nearly everybody has of it. However, for a guy like me with a lot of interest but not a whole lot of time, is Eva 1.01 a good place to start with the franchise before diving in with the time and money investment on the full series? Or is it just going to give me all the spoilers and none of the Cool Stuff?

[Taekmkm]

Rebuild 1.0 has a couple big spoilers that are late reveals in the series, and the continuity and retcons are different from the series.

But I guess if you don't care about that in this spoiler-heavy-reveal world, then 1.0 is a good enough summary of the first 6 episodes. It lacks a lot of Touji/Aida development which are far more important to the series than the Rebuild saga.

[Demonic Raven]

I've actually seen that guy in real life. He goes (or at least went, haven't seen him in a while) to my school (Stony Brook). He's known as an infamous Evangelion fan at the anime club, but I honestly didn't know he was THAT infamous. Pretty funny.

[Leaping Larry Jojo]

Originally Posted by Ed Liu

Here's a question I had for those more in the know. Evangelion is one of those anime shows that I keep hearing about and have never actually watched, partly because it hit its heyday before stuff like free streaming on the Internet and partly because I kept missing when the full box was on sale for a ridiculous price at Best Buy.

I get that Eva 1.01 is mostly an abridged dance remix of the original series, which is the central criticism nearly everybody has of it. However, for a guy like me with a lot of interest but not a whole lot of time, is Eva 1.01 a good place to start with the franchise before diving in with the time and money investment on the full series? Or is it just going to give me all the spoilers and none of the Cool Stuff?

A lot of fans have actually preferred the movie(s) so far. Even though I'm not one of them (so far), I think if your tastes are more in line with most fans, then it's probably fair to say you can trust their opinions. I should also mention that the movies will apparently diverge from the TV series quite drastically by adding new characters and plot points not found in the TV series.

What most fans say is, in many ways, the movies are a distillation of the series to its core elements, while cutting out many of the eccentricities and (in some people's minds) annoyances.

I want to say something about the Eva phenomenon first of all. While the franchise is popular in both Japan and the U.S., they're for somewhat different reasons IMO.

Evangelion came out in Japan during a recession and when anime was in a very, very slow period and were made very, very cheaply. During the early to mid 90s, there was a large, large amount of kids' anime on the airwaves. Most of the older skewing anime were ending up very late in the night or on OAVs. So when Eva came out during this period, it was slow to catch on initially but did gangbusters on reruns.

There are a couple of things about the show that attracted people. You've probably heard of the hikikomori phenomenon right? Basically it's the term for Japanese youth who become shut ins and close themselves off from society. It's basically similar to social anxiety in the west, but a broader, more encompassing term.

On the surface, Eva is pretty much another giant robot anime with a whiny protagonist like Mobile Suit Gundam. But Evangelion was one of the first mainstream anime to delve into the hikikomori/social anxiety/depression psychology in greater detail. So it struck a chord with many audiences at the time who probably may have been experiencing the same feelings (remember, Japan's economic bubble MAJORLY bursted in the 90s for probably the first time since...the war? So a lot of youth were affected by this economic environment that their parents never experienced). If you watch it now of course you probably won't see anything you haven't seen recently. There have been dozens and dozens of shows that have touched on the same themes in the past 15 years or so.

I may sound like I'm overstating the historic importance of Eva, but it really was a big thing. Just check out how the movies are doing in Japan--it really affected a large chunk of the populace.

In the U.S., Evangelion was one of the first anime TV series that was released "uncut" in pretty close conjunction with the Japanese VHS releases/air date. IIRC, the whole series was out in the U.S. by about 1998-99, a mere 3 years after the original airings in Japan. So there was a lot of excitement of us getting something actually "new". It also helped that the show was far meatier than what anime fans had to chew on at the time. No offence to Slayers or those great OAVs like Lodoss Wars, but a TV series simply gives much more fodder for conversation than an OAV does. Couple that with the fact that the internet was starting to kick into high gear and you have tons of online threads discussing Eva, which helped word of mouth. Since it was one of the few "Japanese hit" TV series out in the U.S. at the time, it's no surprise that Eva dominated anime forums.

I don't think many U.S. fans, in general, respond to Eva on the same emotional level that Japanese fans did. You go on forums and most fans will go on about the science behind the Evas and the religious subtext of the plot, but the Japanese fans were focusing more on the character psychology and interplay.

Of course, in later years the fetish fans came out (on both sides of the world) and Eva later became a symbolic tentpole for how to milk a franchise to death, moe, emotionless little girls as sex symbols, whiny protagonists, fan service and all sorts of infamous anime standards that we know (and hate?) today.

It's still, in my mind, a pretty innovative show with some interesting things to say about neuroses. I'm impressed by how much material they managed to put into it despite being made with an obviously very thin budget. Eva takes A LOT of shortcuts animation wise.

But I think the Eva series has a bit of a "you had to be there" thing. A lot of fans who were introduced the show past 2004 tend not to "geek out" on it as much as the earlier fans did.