Specs…everything sucks in general man…You really don’t need to keep saying it. We’re all aware. Honest.
Ouran is surprisingly hilarious
Man I wish I still had that vid of me singing Shissou with Vic at Sakura Con, I <3 Ouran. Still wish it ended HaruhixHikaru though.
Don’t watch Ergo Proxy. The show was good for the first half, but the second half became a convoluted mess that didn’t really make much sense at all.
Watch 2.22. If it doesn’t change your mind, I don’t know what will.
That’s the plan. And agreed re: Ergo Proxy.
Loud and clear. I will stop saying it for… about as long as I remember replying to this post. Probably a month, at least.
Still watching ergo, not too far into it. And that’s a damn shame, I was crossing my fingers.
You didn’t think Anno should have added the masturbation scene?
For the Black Rock Shooter talk earlier in the thread: The PSP game is heading to the US/EU thanks to NIS.
I found Ouran pretty funny as well, last time I saw it was on the Funimation Channel at a relative’s house when I had nothing else to do, thanks for reminding me that I need to finish it.
That’s correct.
Though I don’t have a PSP nor am I really interested. I like this move; it’ll expand its popularity, only downfall is that it’ll become harder to get my hands on merchandise haha
I thought the scene was very relevant to his character. It made sense to me and provided more actions towards his self hatred and sexual angst when it was being explored more in the latter half.
I can respect that.
Fantasy Kaleidascope was really cool. I’m impressed it was a no budget project by fans of the material.
Baka Test 07
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http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/2882/fffpeepsbakatotesttosho.jpg
OSHI–
Of course since it’s Baka Test, it’ll probably get dealt with next episode and then everything will be back to normal again.[/details]
Evangelion, the original series, was composed almost entirely of three things: a) overdone, badly used ambiguity (OMG crosses), 2) Shinji lamenting the fact that he has to do every single thing he has to do (like Hamlet on crack), and D) Shinji being heroic. Point D there is the important one, somehow missed by many despite Shinji proving it like all the time. And I’m not just talking “because he didn’t get the hell out of a city that’s worse than Batman’s Gotham”; no, the guy flat out risked his life when other people were in danger. All the time; it’s the reason he got into the Eva in the first place, the reason he wanted to murder his dad when his friend got hurt, the reason he burned his hands and his whole body to save Rei from the plug/Asuka from the lava, etc.
Then the Kaworu (Kaoru? Koworoo?) ep happened, and he’s forced to do something he doesn’t want to do and what happens? He totally does it anyway, because if he doesn’t people gonna die. Okay, so far so good. And then MASTURBATING TO COMATOSE FRIEND BECAUSE ANNO REALLY WANTS TO PROVE A “POINT” ABOUT SEX. It was more jarring then when Anakin Skywalker finally turned. No being seduced by Palpatine, no indication other than one tiny little accident that he was about to turn (except in the last two movies, but fuck 'em), just “holy fuck I’m evil now.”
I could have bought the scene if Shinji was slowly getting jaded throughout the whole series, if he wasn’t consistently proving himself a hero, consistently questioning his own actions, consistently asking others how they’re doing, consistently sticking around in a crapsack town with ungodly Eldricht Abominations attacking every god damn week, consistently putting himself through unimaginable psychological and physical torment because, without him around, BAM apocalypse, consistently doing everything a guy who doesn’t drop it and start jacking off to a girl in a coma does.
I’m not an established screenwriter – yet – but, ego aside, I could have written no less than 101 different ways Shinji either f) succumbed to all the pressure and finally quit/snapped, leading to the rest of EoE’s non-stop and wholeheartedly pointless blathering on about the nature of existence, or H7) Shinji found a way to overcome Seele/the Yggdrasil/Lilith/Sephiroth/whatever but in a way that leads to his own demise or something similarly bittersweet/heartwrenching.
… breathing in …
And that’s why 2.22 better not suck, so help me.
I disagree with you on alot of stuff about EVA, but I get the feeling you’re going to really like 2.22, 3.33 though, we’ll see how that goes. Hoping for troll ending for the hell of it though.
Damn I’m bearly even noticing but I’m hardly keeping with this season at all. Like, for no reason either. I still havent watched past ep 1 of Mayo Chiki, YuruYuri and Penguindrum and I never watched past ep 2 of Nichijou and I let myself fall behind in Baka Test and Dandelion no Shouka (even though this show pretty whack)
The only show Ive been keeping up with is of course, Rou-Kyuu-Bu. Cause its ballin as hell.
Also someone fandubbed that Touhou Doujin anime that premiered at C80 weeks ago. It was origally unvoiced with subtitles because the makers couldnt afford voice actors.
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Yeah, I think there are smarter, less contrived ways to show how far a character has fallen to have him talking desperately to a knocked out girl in a hospital bed, then suddenly go OOOH TITTY! fap.
Yeah, ignoring the whole commentary on the scene…what the hell kind of order is a, 2, D?
it’s a fair critique from a western standpoint. But I don’t think you can really ascribe any of Shinji Ikari to traditional heroism. There’s a huge duality of Shinji Ikari being pushed the whole series. Underneath the quiet and polite exterior is a boy with no worth and a little subconscious desire to end it all. Remember, Shinji willingly succumbs to instrumentality near the end before rejecting it.
Though Eva’s plot involves largely around the fate of the world, in its core it’s a very personal anime centered around the psyche and maturity of the cast with shinji at the dead center. A big point that was pushed across the whole series was indeed shinji’s motivation, but the motivation was kept ambiguous and dynamic. A big thing was shinji’s superficial belief that he wants to pilot the eva for humanities’s sake, but underneath that it was more of a convenience to believe so (which at a couple points he admits). You can’t dismiss that Gendo’s approval, Yui’s presence in Unit 1, and the first real feeling of importance, belonging, friendship, company, and Shinji’s worst fear of being hated by others are not selfish (and very human) reasons that attributed largely to Shinji’s real reasons for piloting the eva. The example that you listed of him getting mad at Gendo and being unable to kill his friend is a huge evidence on his selfishness and lack of resolution. If Shinji truly had the interest of the world in mind, wouldn’t he have chosen the world over his personal relationship with his friend? If he had the courage to act, he could have defeated the angel and taken out the plug without crushing it, instead he regresses into his selfish teenage tantrums.
Anno has said several times that he wrote Shinji as an autobiography to his anti-social adolescence and coming of age, so I’d like to say he knows the direction of Shinji better than anyone. Shinji’s popularity in Japan was largely because he reflected so much of the near apathetic, defeated generation of Japanese teens living in a societal structure where relations with parents were cold, independence was too soon, and where school/social pressure crushed the confidence of young men all over Japan.
And then you have the contrast of Asuka’s western aggressive ass, flaunting herself and taunting shinji with sexual aggression day in and out when Shinji wasn’t the type to ever take charge. Torturing Him with his own pathetic cowardice and inability to make what counts in his own life despite being capable of killing angels regularly. When you take all this into account, add that when EoE starts, Shinji was already in a spiral of depression after killing Kaoru (the only person that unconditionally loved shinji the entire series like no one had). So with the uncertainty of the world, his mental instability, his uncertainty with his sexuality (the kiss between him and kaoru) along with a nice bottle of pent up sexual angst, he releases himself at the sight of Asuka’s naked body in the only sad way he is capable of. It might not make sense to some since the scene was written with some shock value in mind, but I think it was appropriate and helped cohere the rest of the movie about facing his demons. The topics in sexology are wide, and there are shocking things people do sexually everyday normally that I would hardly consider masturbation at a unconscious nude figure heavy villainy. It’s not like he enjoyed it, he was disgusted with himself after as usual. Asuka can’t be correctly termed as shinji’s dear friend either. She’s the object of his desires, but also his sexual antagonist, competitor, and he harbors a good amount of hatred along with love for Asuka. Oh, and people tend to forget in ep 9 (during the most stable and happy time of eva) Shinji tries to kiss an unconscious Asuka when she sleepwalked into his room. But when she actually kisses him in 15, he was too big of a panzy to show any sort of affection.
With that said, I don’t think Eva is a perfect anime, there are redundancies in the script, elementary existentialism, and some cheap imagery, but the backbone of the show and the directions with the cast is still extremely well thought out.
I find for some reason American reviewers are always more concerned with heroics rather than the commentary Shinji’s character provides. This is not an anime about heroics, and it’s certainly not an anime with any true heroes or villains. Damn… I can write forever about shinji. He’s wonderfully despicable. The new shinji fits a lot more with strong willed heroics, I like him as well. I think you will like him more.
Just finished Carnival Phantasm 1 and 2
Who was the girl with the chello pilebunker next to Satsuki?
That would be Riese. Roast beef. However you spell her name. She was an added character in Melty Blood: Actress Again. She’s Sion’s friend that was supposed to have died trying to save Sion when they fought Warachia, but in AA, she is alive.