alt Hacker NewsLain is 10/10. Akira/Ghost in the Shell are great too. Evangelion is a weak 7/10 in comparison to them in every aspect imaginable. I also realized that Evangelion is Japan's version of assigning weird mysticism to religions they don't understand (much how westerners depict shinto/daoism/buddhism with tons of mysticism).
Evangelion is a disgusting anime to consider part of your national personification. Drop it and pick up Ghibli films more please Japan.
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> Lain is 10/10.
Caught the BeOS fan ;)
(I kid, mostly but remember Lain fans rabidly trying and espousing it)
> shinto/daoism/buddhism
The style of your comment is not making a good case for knowledge of this subject.
i'll concede lain is better, but evangelion beats akira and maybe ghost in the shell. what problems do you have with it in specific?
Evangelion is not “Japan’s version” of anything in terms of western religions. It’s one guy who was making a TV show. It’s not Japan’s “national personification.”
If you want to go down the rabbit hole you’ll find a lot of quotes from Anno and others on it.
A lot of it boils down to “we did this because it’s cool and we have no idea what Christianity is” down to Anno going “Yeah I could do this because no one in Japan is really going to care and I don’t really care about the Western world anyway.”
https://gwern.net/otaku
https://wiki.evageeks.org/Statements_by_Evangelion_Staff
It’s fine to not like it but it’s quite a step to go “this is how Japan thinks.” It’s akin to saying America is personified by the Simpsons every time they go to Japan.