Why is evangelion so controversial

No one ever listens to the lyrics, they're attracted to the beats and the music. They may have rap songs memorized word for word, but that doesn't mean they know what they're saying. To quote Andre , "Ya'll don't want to listen to me, ya just wanna dance. Last edited by Karma Burn on Wed Jul 21, pm, edited 2 times in total. I'm the eye of the goddam storm. Post by Dave » Tue Jul 20, pm I always thought it was considered controversial because there was a large group of people who absolutely love Eva and a large group who absolutely hate it.

Post by EVAX » Tue Jul 20, pm I just chalk it up to the fact that it has all the religious symbolisam and the cross shaped explosions and stuff The demon returns after a long slumber Post by Asuka Langley » Tue Jul 20, pm Dave wrote: I always thought it was considered controversial because there was a large group of people who absolutely love Eva and a large group who absolutely hate it. We'll see whachu' got. Post by Esion » Tue Jul 20, pm I think a lot of it has to do with the series' ending.

The origional ending left a lot of question marks. Whenever I hear about Eva it's usually about how controversial and strange it's ending was. Then a little bit later EoE came out and it still left the audience with a lot of question marks. There were no answers to be had and it left the viewers with a sense of incompletion.

So it's very different than other animes in that respect. It had no happy ending. Yea and God said to Abraham, "You will kill your son Issac. Check, check, check Jerry, pull the high end out, I'm still getting some hiss back here. Post by Phaze » Tue Jul 20, pm Esion wrote: So it's very different than other animes in that respect. The purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity.

With a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog! What I should of said is that It's different than you're traditional story format in a lot of ways. A very open ended ending. Post by Quiddity » Tue Jul 20, pm Karma Burn wrote: It was expected to be a cookie-cutter giant-robot anime, but by the later episodes, you could tell that it wasn't. And in it are islands, called the Ephemeris. Three dips in the dream-sea.

Any less, and we'd be insane. Any more and we wouldn't be human". If they made a typical, cliche ending, like most of the series was, then its controversy would be a fraction of what it is today.

The violence from episode 18 and the sex scene, as tame as it was, from episode 20 are the other main attracters of controversy, things that contributed to not only Eva, but many other shows like Cowboy Bebop getting screwed over with censorship.

One would think the overwhelming factor was the religious symbolism window dressing, but as anyone who has watched the show knows, Eva doesn't actually have any religious content, its meaningless fluff put there to make it more popular. That has added a lot of discussion to it, but isn't anywhere as close to the previous two in terms of attracting controversy.

In Japan, Evangelion spawned countless anime tropes, and moreover provided a template for integrating stylish genre tropes with serious themes, high artistic aspirations, and deep characterization. It also opened the floodgates for original anime series, as well as anime series that deconstructed their own genres, anime aimed exclusively at adults, and anime that was just plain weird.

Other influential anime series like Revolutionary Girl Utena and Serial Experiments Lain feel directly influenced by Eva , while many others, like Cowboy Bebop , feel like evolutionary steps forward in the sandbox that Eva built for creators to play in. Essentially, Eva instigated a scramble to create original Japanese series that did what Eva did. This proliferation of smart and serious anime is commonplace today.

But just how American animation evolved with the advent of The Simpsons , these anime arguably needed a landmark forerunner to push producers into putting them on the air. That landmark was Evangelion. Its premiere followed an especially tumultuous year for a Japanese population already struggling to pull itself out of an economic downturn.

In , a debilitating earthquake in Kobe and a shocking terrorist attack in Tokyo happened within two months of each other. The country was devastated, culturally speaking, its citizens left with a strong sense of malaise. But in anime and manga, many people found hope again, as comparative literature scholar Gabriel F.

It also got them spending money. And with Evangelion already tapping into a renewed nationwide interest in anime, it was also able to capitalize on myriad other marketing opportunities. Modern anime reference Eva liberally , often to comedic effect.

More on that in a second. Rei and Asuka cosplay are anime convention mainstays. And many Western cartoons and movies have paid homage to the show. But because Evangelion was so popular in Japan, it was one of the few anime series to get an official English-language release fairly quickly, starting in Fan sites, including some that are still around today, began to pop up. As anime fandom grew online, Eva became one of the watershed must-see series for newcomers.

And as anime fandom grew, so did the memes, the AMVs anime fan vids , and the fan works. The oldest of the 9, Eva fanfics available on Fanfiction.

Shinji's character arc was never meant to conclude with him rising above his flaws or his weaknesses in some dramatic way. It's not typical in that regard. Instead, Shinji finding "peace" in an alternate reality with everyone congratulating him is a haunting kind of optimistic; it is the exact opposite of what he has imagined his life being the whole time — an existence in which everyone is let down by him all the time, an existence in which he is constantly being shoved into the claustrophobic pit of giant robot for reasons he'll never quite grasp.

NGE has never been about finding happiness. Instead, it's about finding purpose. Happiness and love are wavering constructs that no one quite understands. This means that Shinji beginning to "love himself" and then suddenly being on a peaceful reef, under bright skies, being applauded by everyone, is an angrily sad and twisted ending.

It's purposeless happiness. It's the opposite of what Shinji's always wanted. But Shinji doesn't know that. Search Advanced search…. Everywhere Threads This forum This thread.

Search Advanced…. Log in. Trending Search forums. What's new. New posts Latest activity. Why was Neon Genesis Evangelion controversial? Sidebar Sidebar. JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding. Previous Next. JEDI Lifer. Sep 25, 27, 1, I was reading about Cowboy Bebop when i read this: "notoriously controversial broadcast of Neon Genesis Evangelion" in Tokyo in What was so controversial about it? Zugzwang Lifer.