I’m not sure why people are obsessed with Evangelion, what happened to make it some sort of “meme anime”? I never found it to be remotely popular while growing up, or even in the early 2010s when I did a lot of anime watching
Madoka is the Evangelion of magical girl anime. It’s the one that people approach like “ actually, this one subverts the tropes of GENRE,” but the genre has been doing the “damn, it’s kinda abusive to expect a kid to be a hero” since the 70s (if not earlier).
It’s really annoying when people are like “why are these kids saving the world in children’s media?” The whole point is to give the kids a power fantasy they can project into while showing good moral actions. The shows that deconstruct it like eva or madoka are useful because society does place a lot of pressure on kids to solve their parent’s problems(or the world’s problems more generally) and these shows can be used as an example of that, but it makes sense kids wanna see other kids like them with the power to protect themselves and others.
Same goes for people who think it’s stupid when Goku makes friends with most of his former antagonists, like Piccolo or Vegeta. It’s YA fiction, they’re trying to teach these kids that you can find things in common and make friends with people that you used to dislike!
People will never forgive steven universe, a children’s show about tolerance, forgiveness, and talking through your problems, for ending without the child killing his family.
it definitely can, that’s why the deconstructions are worth something, but that’s a problem tied into the society as whole, not a problem of having kids media about kids having adventures.
I was thinking about hoe Japan considers childhood ending way before we do and then the soul crushing exploitation meaning freetime is seen as uniquely adolescent experience
even in the early 2010s when I did a lot of anime watching
I think it was because it was accessible in the early-mid 00s, had great animation, and was edgy enough for the time. It’s a great series, but it’s definitely derivative of a lot of Tomino stuff.
Big expensive sequel movies being completed after a long hiatus, plus the original TV show being available on one of the most popular streaming services.
Edit: Bolded for emphasis since being accessible is a big thing. For teenage me watching it on mailed DVD rentals, and for the teenagers today stumbling upon it on a major streaming service that isn’t specifically catering to Japanese animation. Like you have to be a big weirdo to hunt down the original UC Gundam shows - you can just use your normie streaming service to watch Evangelion.
I think what made it the “meme anime” was that Evangelion was the first anime to really go all-out on merchandising. You could get evangelion curry. With sonic that’s kinda funny, but when the anime is some weird spiritual allegorical thing, you get kind of a whiplash. Going from watching Shinji “god I’m so fucked up” to seeing them all smiling on a pack of oreos is jarring and kinda funny. It made people on the early net post the merch and share pictures of it, which led to making memes about the merch, which led to memes about the show itself.
Promised Neverland and Made in Abyss
I’m not sure why people are obsessed with Evangelion, what happened to make it some sort of “meme anime”? I never found it to be remotely popular while growing up, or even in the early 2010s when I did a lot of anime watching
honestly, I’ve found revolutionary girl utena did everything evangelion was trying to do better. but it was aimed at girls so no one talks about it.
It has a better movie than Evangelion, too.
Madoka is the Evangelion of magical girl anime. It’s the one that people approach like “
actually, this one subverts the tropes of GENRE,” but the genre has been doing the “damn, it’s kinda abusive to expect a kid to be a hero” since the 70s (if not earlier).
It’s really annoying when people are like “why are these kids saving the world in children’s media?” The whole point is to give the kids a power fantasy they can project into while showing good moral actions. The shows that deconstruct it like eva or madoka are useful because society does place a lot of pressure on kids to solve their parent’s problems(or the world’s problems more generally) and these shows can be used as an example of that, but it makes sense kids wanna see other kids like them with the power to protect themselves and others.
Same goes for people who think it’s stupid when Goku makes friends with most of his former antagonists, like Piccolo or Vegeta. It’s YA fiction, they’re trying to teach these kids that you can find things in common and make friends with people that you used to dislike!
Besides, everyone they murdered got wished back to life eventually. No harm, no foul.
People will never forgive steven universe, a children’s show about tolerance, forgiveness, and talking through your problems, for ending without the child killing his family.
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The kids thing does intersect with several sets of problematic ideas Japan has though.
it definitely can, that’s why the deconstructions are worth something, but that’s a problem tied into the society as whole, not a problem of having kids media about kids having adventures.
I was thinking about hoe Japan considers childhood ending way before we do and then the soul crushing exploitation meaning freetime is seen as uniquely adolescent experience
I think it was because it was accessible in the early-mid 00s, had great animation, and was edgy enough for the time. It’s a great series, but it’s definitely derivative of a lot of Tomino stuff.
I’ve never seen it so i don’t know
What I’m talking about is why did it suddenly become an internet cult classic in the last 5 years?
Big expensive sequel movies being completed after a long hiatus, plus the original TV show being available on one of the most popular streaming services.
Edit: Bolded for emphasis since being accessible is a big thing. For teenage me watching it on mailed DVD rentals, and for the teenagers today stumbling upon it on a major streaming service that isn’t specifically catering to Japanese animation. Like you have to be a big weirdo to hunt down the original UC Gundam shows - you can just use your normie streaming service to watch Evangelion.
Interesting. Do you know when netflix (I’m assuming this is the service you meant) started hosting evangelion?
There’s a new English dub that they did - so it looks like 2019ish
ok that makes perfect sense and lines up with when I noticed this trend, thanks
I think what made it the “meme anime” was that Evangelion was the first anime to really go all-out on merchandising. You could get evangelion curry. With sonic that’s kinda funny, but when the anime is some weird spiritual allegorical thing, you get kind of a whiplash. Going from watching Shinji “god I’m so fucked up” to seeing them all smiling on a pack of oreos is jarring and kinda funny. It made people on the early net post the merch and share pictures of it, which led to making memes about the merch, which led to memes about the show itself.
But that’s just a theory
Relevant video
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
A show called made in abyss about exploring a maiden’s abyss is not as god a pun as it seemed years ago