Neon Genesis Evangelion

crystalicdream

Padawan Learner
Okay, I am not sure if this is allowed, as I haven't found any topic yet that talks about TV series, but I wanted to bring a few anime series here that really made me think and question what reality is after watching them.

One series that is still very confusing to its fans to this day and which has yielded much speculation is "Neon Genesis Evangelion". The storyline of this is as follows: a young boy named Shinji Ikari who lives in a post-apocalyptic world after the so called "Second Impact", which wiped out a large portion of humanity and seemed to be a large meteor impact in the Antarctica. In reality, this "Second Impact" was caused by something else entirely - in this series, humanity was "seeded" from one of two possible "primal seeds" of extraterrestial origin, which a master race of aliens (The First Ancestral Race) used on several planets to plant life once they realized that their physical life if over.
But they have a limitation that says that no two "Seeds of Life" can be on one planet at the same time, because the Ancestral Race didn't want their planted life to become like Gods themselves.
Humanity in this fictional universe came to be from the Seed of Life named Lilith - however, the second Seed named Adam was already on Earth and has been dormant since Lilith arrived, due to a failsafe switch that was installed by the Ancestral Race. Adam as the Seed would produce another kind of lifeform, so called Angels, which are beings that can appear in whatever shape they desire.
Humanity found the dormant Adam and awakened him, and so the Angels appeared to fight against the children of Lilith.
Out of the body of Adam, some humans were able to create cloned giant robots named "Eva" who fight these angels to protect the remainder of humanity from total annihilation.

All of this is just the general gist of it and I have just scratched the surface with that! But I can see some very interesting parallels here. An ancestral race seeding humans on Earth? Other Beings with supernatural abilites, going against humans?

Another really big aspect of the show is Reality and the so called Human Instrumentality Project.
Basically, the goal of the villains in this story, an Illuminati-like organization named "Seele" plans to reach "Godhood" by inducing an artificial evolution through a "Third Impact" event by using both Lilith and Adam. This event would cause all of humanity to die instantly, only for all human souls to merge into one being and the end of all individuality, basically becoming like a huge soul group. Only that this organization planned something else: They wanted their souls to be merged with the EVA robots to attain Godhood and live for all eternity, while they wanted the rest of humanity to die.

Rewatching this series, I couldn't help but feel reminded of the soul-group Ra, and of course all the psychopaths in leading positions who of course also wish to live forever as Gods.

Now, as for the topic of Reality - the main character is Shinji, a boy who has to learn to face Reality in the course of the series. He is one of the children who was selected to pilot an EVA in the fight against the Angels, but he is at first to afraid to do so. He cannot face the objective reality of who he really is and holds on to subjective reality, with disastrous effects for everybody involved.
Basically, he has many problems - his mother is dead, his father is distant, and he cannot love himself and has suicidal thoughts, but it forced to fight. This series gives a deep look into human psychology with very many subtle hints, if one only has the perception to notice them.

Evangelion ultimately puts forth the idea that human beings will one day understand one another by embracing reality (not perceived/filtered reality, but true reality), by rejecting death and escapism, and by loving and accepting oneself. From that point, one can improve oneself, come to have meaningful relationships with other human beings, and become happy.

The series is 26 Episodes long and best watched in the Japanese Original with english subtitles; it can be found around the internet. I know that maybe this isn't for everybody because of the style, but I have very fond memories of this series and the many things in it that caused me to think about my own reality filters and psychological insecurities.
 
:scared:
This was the product of a mind undergoing a mental breakdown if I remember... that mind being the creator of the series, it's director/writer... and has fairly recently been updated with better graphics, since the old series was from... what? the 80s?... Lucas did the same with the older Star Wars films.

There are bits and pieces all over the place in Japanese anime that seem to come from the esoteric worlds imagination... this one was on a list I came across about 2 or 3 years ago about tv/films/anime that dealt with such subject matter, as its so much easier for a Western mind to grasp the subject matter with visuals, as we have grown up on tv/film much more so than any other medium.

The problem with all of these is that the targeted audience is juvenile and thus all the heroes need be as well, which helps sell the intended merchandise if the series is succcessful, as this one really was at the time of its original release, if I remember correctly.

All that said, many animes cover this type of apocalyptic world scenarios... one of them did the 'Hunger Games' a few years before someone in Hollywood thought to do it as a film. So many of these animes would be better if targeted to a somewhat older audience, say 17? instead of what seems to be 10 to 12 mostly... from a marketing standpoint, it's no wonder some of them flop as the material just isn't able to work on a kids mind.... but with this one, there are all kinds of threads occurring besides the usual mecha and whatnot... the mental breakdown of the creator/director was written in for the stressed kids... and the cloning process was more interesting in the storyline than most of the rest IMO. Only watched it once... haven't seen the new film updates..... are they better? Definitely shorter.
 
Very brutal anime. I actually didn't understand the ending and all the cruelty towards the kid.
 
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