So, I’m going to separate my commentary about Dragon Ball and my commentary on Dragon Ball Z because I feel like they’re so different that it’s almost necessary to do so. I also don’t like making posts that are too long, as I don’t think people should have to read a wall of text in order to get the same commentary that they could get separately. I hope that’s okay.
Without further ado, here’s part two.
In no particular order:
Dragon Ball incorporates a very human protagonist (Goku) with very human, very recognizable goals (grow stronger/grow up/find the Dragon Balls for Bulma).
The Dragon Balls aren’t these magical implements that allow the main characters to escape death. While a few characters do die in the course of Dragon Ball, most of them aren’t resurrected, and the ones who are resurrected are only allowed to do so once. They don’t introduce the “multiple-deaths” rule until Dragon Ball Z, with the introduction of the Namekian Dragon Balls.
One could argue with some degree of validity that Bulma is as much of a protagonist as Goku. She’s the only reason the hunt for the Dragon Balls is even possible.
Krillin is an interesting character who starts off as an antagonist. The fact that he later becomes Goku’s best friend is solely because of all the garbage they go through together.
Oolong is sooooo funny.
Master Roshi is one of the strongest masters in Dragon Ball, and in fact is the master who trains Goku. The fact that he’s later relegated as a Human Side Character is… troubling, to say the least.
The romance between Yamcha and Bulma is loving, adorable, and honestly #couplesgoals. The fact that they break up during DBZ in favor of a Bulma/Vegeta storyline makes no thematic sense, but I guess we have to have character tension, so whatever, let’s break up the established fan-favorite character romance I guess.
Chichi’s arc is balls-to-the-walls hilarious. She’s also comparable in strength to Goku at the beginning of the series, her father’s basically a mythological demon king, and she’s kind of a badass who’s capable of destroying everyone. The fact that she’s later relegated to the Human Wife Mother Character in DBZ is just absolute bullshit.
Launch’s storyline is funny, heartwarming, and makes a lot of sense for her character.
Dragon Ball as a series pulled a lot of plot points from Chinese literature (the journey for the Dragon Balls takes a lot from Journey to the West), Japanese mythology (the myths of Kami and Demon King Piccolo being intertwined pull themselves from multiple myths wherein gods purify themselves and then make other gods), Slavic mythology (Baba Yaga), and weird puns about food.
But aside from that: the primary appeal of Dragon Ball is the way the characters interact with one another. It’s funny. It’s heartwarming. It’s enjoyable for everyone in a lot of ways. Plus, the ending of Dragon Ball (wherein Goku defeats Demon King Piccolo) makes thematic sense in a way that’s hard to find in the later series.
Thus… why Dragon Ball Z felt like a slap in the face.
Y’all probably already know that I love Sailor Moon. What you likely don’t already know is that I also love Dragon Ball. In fact, while I technically like Sailor Moon more, I have to admit that Dragon Ball is objectively better. I’d probably say that Dragon Ball is the best anime directed at children to come out during the 90s, and given the fact that I largely avoided Dragon Ball in favor of Sailor Moon when I was younger, I don’t think that’s nostalgia speaking.
A lot of anime fans ignore Dragon Ball because it has a bad reputation. Unfortunately, I understand why: its successor, Dragon Ball Z, is the epitome of why I dislike the shounen genre. I’m going to explain why in my next post, but we have to understand where Dragon Ball went right in order to understand why Dragon Ball Z tore all of that work apart.
(Please note: It’s not that Dragon Ball Z has no appeal. It can be entertaining sometimes. It’s just, entertainment for entertainment’s sake is shallow, and while DBZ does have its deep moments, for the most part, the word “shallow” applies quite well.)
Let’s begin, shall we?
First of all: Dragon Ball was not Akira Toriyama’s first work, but it was the work that catapulted Toriyama into international fame. It was also the work that brought awareness of anime to the United States, and though there are certainly older works (like Golgo-13 and Lupin III), Dragon Ball remains the second-highest grossing manga to date.
(The first being One Piece, which was likely only allowed to be as successful as it was because Dragon Ball paved the way. I despise it, and will never write about it on this blog.)
Toriyama paved the way for later anime to find commercial success in the United States. It’s plausible to say that without him, we wouldn’t have anime in the US at all. Golgo-13 and Lupin III found success in the US after Dragon Ball proved to be successful in an international market, and many of the other top-grossing manga came after Dragon Ball and were inspired by Toriyama’s work.
Which I guess brings us to the question: what about Dragon Ball was so great?
Differentiation
But first, we have to talk about what, exactly, Dragon Ball is.
The Japanese manga doesn’t really differentiate between Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z. That came later, when American audiences had to differentiate between the two because of their drastically different tones and goals. The first half of the manga is comedic, childish, and has some intellectual and emotional depth, though we’ll get into why that is later; the second half of the manga is a martial-arts inspired alien-scifi-action show, and is separated from the first half by a timeskip of five or ten years. The American manga does differentiate, but we all know Viz Media doesn’t know how to fuckin’ do anything, so we can safely ignore that.
The first thing you need to know is that Toriyama did not initially want to continue Dragon Ball. Dragon Ball’s financial success compelled Toriyama to continue the series long after it was supposed to be finished, and although none of us can speculate about what Toriyama intended, we can safely assume that the natural ending point of Dragon Ball would have been before the timeskip. It makes a lot of sense that Dragon Ball would end right about before the timeskip. It would have had a satisfying ending had it ended around the Piccolo arc.
Unfortunately, Dragon Ball Z didn’t have the same compelling factors that enraptured the initial consumers of Dragon Ball. The first season had a sense of urgency; the next couple of seasons (Frieza, Frieza again somehow, the Androids) had a sense of urgency, but started to feel a little repetitive after a bit. Then, when Cell and Majiin Buu entered the picture, it lost all its believability. The plot was repetitive and didn’t make a whole lot of sense.
I won’t write about Dragon Ball GT because Toriyama didn’t have anything to do with it. I also won’t write about Dragon Ball Super because I haven’t seen it.
What I will say is that Toriyama likely did not plan to continue Dragon Ball past the Piccolo arc, but was prevented from ending the series because the fanbase demanded it. He chose money over artistic integrity – and while I can’t say I blame him, I do have to wonder how different anime as a genre would have been if Toriyama had finished Dragon Ball with the Piccolo arc.
So, the first thing you need to know about Yu Yu Hakusho is that it has two English versions and a Japanese versions
The first version – the early-2000s Toonami dub – is the one you’re probably the most familiar with because it was the one that reached the widest audience. It came on at about 5 or 6pm Eastern Standard Time every weekday, which was right as most kids got out of school and ate dinner. The second version, which is the Adult Swim dub that came on after most kids were already in bed, aired some time before that, and was cut short in part because the Toonami dub already existed and it didn’t make much sense to air the same show twice.
I’ll only discuss the English dubs (in particular, the Toonami dub) in this post. The rest of this series will be about the Sub version for a few reasons which I won’t mention here. I do feel it necessary to mention that I first watched the Toonami dub, but the differences between the Toonami dub and the source content are too intense to ignore, so I thought it would make more sense to talk about them here and now and then move on.
Exposure
The only dubbed version of Yu Yu Hakusho I was ever exposed to was the Toonami dub… and it sucked.
The Adult Swim dub came out in 2002 and aired in a night timeslot until 2003, which is when a heavily edited version of the series moved to Toonami. They aired this version until 2005, which is approximately when the series ended (though many of the episodes were cut because of their content). The original FUNimation dub was alright, but could have been better at points (in particular, Kuwabara needed a better voice actor).
The Adult Swim dub – which is probably the dub that modern audiences can more easily access nowadays – was likely cut short because it wasn’t profitable enough. The target audience of the Adult Swim dub primarily consisted of American teenagers, and for the most part, they didn’t understand the nuances of Japanese culture. This wasn’t such a big deal at first, but it starts to matter more as the series progresses; for instance, Season 1 Episode 3, which is called “Kuwabara: A Promise Between Men,” spends a significant amount of time explaining why a kid who’s in Junior High would have been allowed to get a part-time job, which has been illegal in the United States since 1938 (look at the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 for more information about this).* This problem gets exponentially worse as the series progresses because most of Yu Yu Hakusho’s worldbuilding relies on Japanese mythology, which the average American wouldn’t understand.That, plus the fact that American audiences still didn’t entirely understand anime as a medium at that point, likely led to the decision to transfer a heavily edited version of Yu Yu Hakusho to Toonami, where it would have gotten better ratings.
As it turns out, this was a good decision on the part of the Cartoon Network executives, because Yu Yu Hakusho made an assload of money for Toonami and allowed the series to continue. Unfortunately, it was not a good decision for adult fans, and it was definitely not a good decision for the content as a whole.
Toonami Strikes Again
Which brings me to my next point: The Toonami dub was absolutely fucking awful.
It wasn’t quite as bad as the 4Kids Yu Gi Oh! dub, but it was still pretty fucking bad. Many of the dirty jokes got cut out or changed, the violence was censored to the point that important moments (like Genkai’s death in the Dark Tournament Arc) lost their gravity, and they cut a lot of things that ultimately added depth and emotion to certain characters.
I’ll add more examples of this later. For now, you should remember that Toonami did this before with Sailor Moon in the S season. The fact that they did it again with Yu Yu Hakusho surprises absolutely fucking no one.
Major Differences
Which brings me to my next point: the differences in the dubs really impact one’s ability to enjoy and understand the content.
In the first episode, Keiko slaps Yusuke. Depending on which version you see, she did it for one of two reasons.
Yusuke was skipping school. (Toonami)
Yusuke flipped up her skirt and commented on Keiko’s underwear. (Adult Swim, Sub)
In the first, Keiko looks like an absolute lunatic who goes around assaulting her childhood friend for being the troubled son of an alcoholic. In the second, Yusuke is rightfully established as a perverted delinquent who takes advantage of the people who love him, and Keiko is significantly more justified in defending herself from him. Keiko’s behavior later on in the series makes a lot more sense in the subs, which goes a long way towards showing what Yusuke sees in her.
This sets Yusuke up for a lot of character development that doesn’t make a lot of sense in the Toonami dub. Why is Yusuke considered a delinquent when his biggest crime is truancy? Why does Botan beat him with an oar when he tests out his xray spectacle on a tree? Why do his teachers hate him? Why does he constantly get attacked by Kuwabara? We never see Yusuke starting fights in the initial dubs, but we do see him finishing them, which doesn’t make sense when Kuwabara calls himself Yusuke’s rival.
The Adult Swim dub clarifies things a lot. Yusuke gets into fights because he started fights in the past. Botan attacks Yusuke because he tested his xray spectacle out on Botan, not on a tree. His teachers hate him because he skips school, drives down test scores, and is constantly getting into fights with seemingly law-abiding students for no reason. He’s also likely involved in his mother’s Yakuza work, which goes a long way towards explaining why he can’t just be a law abiding citizen like everyone else.
Instead of being a one-dimensional Gary Stu, Yusuke becomes a flawed, immature hero that we can relate to. His character needs the dimension in order for his progression to make sense. Yusuke becomes much more respectful of women, he develops alliances with powerful people like Genkai, and it’s discovered that he belongs to a lineage that includes a demon and his lover, who ate corpses to produce powerful vaccines in her blood.
The manga makes it very clear that Raizen isn’t fucking his lover because she’s sexy. She strips in front of Raizen to demonstrate that she is literally rotting from the inside out, not because she wants to bang him. The fact that they do in fact bang is a testament to Raizen’s feelings for this strange, taboo, altruistic woman, not to his ability to get it up, and it’s actually a deeply romantic part of the anime that Toonami did not do justice.
Furthermore, the entire Rescue Yukina arc was watered down to such an extent that no one could really figure out why Yusuke was risking his life to rescue Yukina in the first place. Why risk that kind of interference? I don’t recall everything that happened in the Rescue Yukina arc, but I’m pretty sure they didn’t show all the torture scenes; they show the fact that she’s trapped by a bunch of talismans, but Toonami did not show that scene where the Toguro brothers murder Yukina’s pet birds in front of her (jump to 14:45). It’s a miracle they didn’t cut the entire Rescue Yukina arc, to be honest.
In the Romantic Relationship Category:
Shizuru Kuwabara falls in love with Sakyo. They probably don’t bang, but they do want to bang, and this is important for… some reason. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in the Toonami dub at all.
Atsuko Urameshi is probably either a sex worker or a Yakuza boss. It’s highly implied to be the former in the anime; in the manga, they basically state that it’s the latter.
Genkai and Younger Toguro were banging before he became a demon. This is a fact. They were probably actually married, since they owned a dojo together, but it’s abundantly clear that the two of them were lovers.
In the Chapter Black saga, Itsuki (who’s a villain) is shown to be extremely devoted to Sensui. It’s stated that the two of them are in a romantic/sexual relationship in the Adult Swim dub and in the manga.
In the manga, Kurama falls in love with a human girl named Maya. He doesn’t act on this, however, because he’s a demon and she would probably die if he did so. Unfortunately, this wasn’t good enough, because she got kidnapped and was nearly murdered by one of Kurama’s old enemies.
(To Be Continued)
Notes
Though it is feasible that a kid under the age of 14 would have been allowed to get a job in the United States, the hours would be restricted to such an extent that the job wouldn’t provide much more than pocket money. It’s also entirely likely that a 14-year-old would have been denied a worker’s permit, as most American high schools don’t allow people to get worker’s permits until the age of 16.
It’s explicitly stated that Okubo is working to provide enough money for his family to buy food, which means that Okubo is working longer hours than would be allowed in the United States. There are exceptions to this rule (for instance, 14-year-olds are allowed to work on farms or for a family business), but those exceptions clearly do not apply here, as Okubo is working in a supermarket.
I don’t know if Okubo had to lie about his age or if he’s actually 15 at the start of the series, but it doesn’t matter, because school officials know about Okubo’s job (thus the entire plot of the episode). Most Junior High schools in Japan wouldn’t allow Okubo to work unless there was evidence of significant hardship and evidence that Okubo isn’t allowing his job to interfere with his studies; from what I understand, it’s actually pretty difficult to get a Junior High school to agree to this kind of arrangement, and permission can be revoked at any time. It’s also important to note that Junior High lasts for four years in Japan rather than three, so it’s somewhat likely that Okubo would have been fifteen before leaving Junior High. This can be done whether or not Okubo decides to stop attending classes, as either way Okubo is still considered a student at Sarayashiki Junior High and will be until he officially “graduates”.
Thus, why Okubo was allowed to work in the first place.
I want to point out that I wrote this in 2012, and that a lot of the ideas went up in smoke for… various reasons.
2012 was not a great year for me (as you might know if you ended up here from my other blog). I ended up homeless after my apartment was condemned for termites, broke up with someone I really loved, fell into an abusive relationship, and nearly died due to medical negligence.
The good news is that I still have my old content. The bad news is that it’s been seven years since I transcribed it, and even laminated paper can’t hold up to the kind of strain I’ve put it through. It’s literally about to fall out of my binder.
So, okay. I’ll put it here. I hope that’s okay, and I hope that it doesn’t result in people throwing up their hands with me. I promise I’ll get back on track once this is all over, but I would prefer to avoid losing this.
So… a personal update: I strongly underestimated the sheer number of GIFs I’d need to make to be able to make a rewatch blog that makes sense.
I’m going to continue it all, but because of the difficulty inherent in screengrabbing everything, I may start doing episode reviews instead of shot-by-shot analysis. I don’t really have the technology to do shot-by-shot analysis of most of the series, and I don’t foresee ever getting it because I’m kind of broke.
I also found a lot of stuff about other anime that I wrote back in 2012 that I’d like to add to Sailor Calliope. I want to make it clear that I’m not going to start anything new until I reach a decent point with NGE; however, a lot of the stuff I wrote back then was interesting and funny (in my humble opinion of course), and I think it deserves to be placed in this blog before it straight-up falls out of my binder.
I mentioned in my last post that most manga publishers employ their own subjective rating system. Here’s more information about that.
The placement of the rating will vary between brands and sometimes even between titles. I only own a single Kodansha title (just because I purchased the entire Sailor Moon collection a few years back), but as far as I can tell, Kodansha always places the rating on the back cover of the book, at the top left corner.
If I recall correctly, Shonen Jump placed their ratings on the front cover of the English-language magazine, in part because the publishers didn’t want to be held liable for it, and in part because it was a magazine and thus aesthetics weren’t as important. Viz Media now adds their manga ratings on the back cover below the manga summary. It’s typically centered. You can find pictures of the manga on their website, and it will include a picture of the back cover with the rating fully visible.
(I wish I had pictures of a Viz Media manga, but I don’t. Manga is fucking expensive and I ain’t got the time.)
Nowadays, the ratings are not hidden from view, and are pretty easy to find if you’re looking for them.
Tl;dr: stop complaining about how “inappropriate” manga is for kids. The ratings are right there for you to see if you’re looking for them. Don’t be negligent.
Final Notes
I say the rating is published in “the back” because most manga is published right-to-left instead of left-to-right. The reason for this is because Japanese is read from right to left, and because of this, publishing manga from left to right causes the images to become mirrors of what they should be.
A lot of people who get into anime like to say that anime is weird and difficult to understand. I don’t think this is true, and I feel a need to explain myself a little bit.
Anime in Japan isn’t just used for children’s shows; in fact, it’s used for everything from cutting-edge science fiction movies to the freakiest porn I’ve ever seen in my entire life. That isn’t to say that anime is widely accepted in Japan (in fact, in many cases it’s quite the opposite), but it’s more along the lines of Star Trek than My Little Pony. It’s easy to misunderstand anime when you approach it from a Western perspective, and easier still to believe that the Japanese are weird for producing this kind of stuff for children; but all it takes is doing your research. This stuff is for a specific subset of the adult population.
A lot of people don’t understand that most manga companies have a rating system that’s easy to understand if you know what to look for.* It tends to be independent from the G-NC17+ ratings we see in Western media today, but most manga companies translate what each of the ratings mean below the actual rating – so if the rating is T+, it usually means “Teens 15 and up.”
The big problem is that a lot of parents don’t take the time to read the back cover of a manga volume and are instead shocked when they see that manga can be intense. They also don’t understand that most shows and movies also have ratings, although this can be more difficult to navigate if, say, you’re seeking anime out online like many people do nowadays. Instead of doing their research, they assume all anime is the weird demon-possession hentai that is Bible Black, when in fact anime is a diverse artform with many different iterations and presentations.
I’ve specifically had this problem with my own family and with other authority figures in my life (as many of these people were Evangelical Christians), but I’ve seen this criticism of anime and manga out in the secular world as well. A lot of Americans believe that anime is exclusively used for porn because this is their only experience with pornographic animation at all. It’s baffling to people who don’t understand anime as a medium, especially to Westerners.
This is important because Neon Genesis Evangelion is largely considered a progenitor of modern anime, and Hideaki Anno was… let’s just say he was going through some shit when he made it. I’ve never seen it all the way through, but I already know there’s gonna be some dark shit in this anime, and I would be remiss if I did not discuss the various reasons why.
Trigger Warnings: … basically, if you have PTSD or an anxiety disorder that’s triggered by discussions of extreme violence, you should probably not watch this show or read this article.
Remember when I told you I was going to go into detail about the sheer insanity that was Shonen Jump one day? Well, I’m going into detail about it now by examining the manga for Yu Gi Oh!, and you’ll probably wish I didn’t by the time I’m done. Trigger Warnings: Moderate Gore, Sexual Assault, Demonic Possession, Kidnapping, Dismemberment, Impalement, Combustion, Abuse, Mind-Rape… really, if you have PTSD triggers, you’re gonna have a bad time. I’d suggest that anyone who has PTSD needs to find something else to enjoy.
This is the first post in my liveblog of the Neon Genesis Evangelion series.
Since this is the pilot, a lot of the introductory action will be packed into the episode, which means there will be more to talk about. As such, I’ll be writing more about this, which necessitates the use of a multi-post system. I’ll organize this all once it needs organizing. These are stray thoughts that I’ve had as I watched the series, which will be organized into a coherent summary at the conclusion of the episode.
I got spoiled for a lot of this in a Discord server I impulsively joined while I was drunk. Fortunately, the spoilers don’t really make that much sense out of context, but it won’t take as long for me to gather the pieces together, if that makes sense. I’m sorry about that. I hope it doesn’t ruin the experience for you.
Be warned: past this point, I’ll be spoiling a lot and speculating a lot more. I hope that’s okay.
This is one of the first things we see when NGE starts.
The sea is calm. There isn’t so much as a breeze to disturb the greenery. But underneath the water, there’s a different story to be told: the audience can see the submerged remains of multiple skyscrapers and apartment buildings, concrete monuments to some disaster that the audience isn’t aware of yet. A sinuous, graceful giant swims through the water, and though I know this being probably had something to do with the destruction of the sunken city, I cannot help but be compelled by it all the same.
What is it doing here? Why is it here now? And why was the military aware that it was going to arrive?
An announcement has been prepared for this, which implies that someone knew this was going to happen somewhere. The city and its surrounding area is completely empty, save for Misato and Shinji; one of them clearly knows about the state of emergency, and the other clearly just got dropped into the middle of it.
Shinji waits for Misato and has clearly been waiting for a while. Does he know that he’s in a danger zone? It’s pretty clear that Misato already knew Shinji was going to be around; did they have to plan to meet up so soon before an Angel attack? Was this a coincidence, or was it planned?
(Also, could someone please explain why it’s okay for a twenty-something year old woman to send a fifteen-year-old boy a sexy picture like this? I’m at a loss for words. Shinji, you are going to get shoved into a windowless van if you keep meeting creepy women who send you cleavage shots in the mail.)
Shinji sees a flash image of Rei in the next shot.
The thing is, Rei is literally immobile on a hospital gurney right now (as you’ll see in Episode 1.50), and if she wasn’t, she’d be on the field fighting the Angel with the rest of the military. The only reason Shinji is here in the first place is because Rei can’t fight. They were likely planning to bring him in later, but things obviously did not go to plan.
And true to form, Rei is gone as fast as she was there. She literally disappears without a trace. Was she a hallucination? Was she a ghost? Because it wasn’t really her, not unless there’s some weird spiritual stuff I don’t understand going on in the background.
The Angel appears, and it’s as large and brave and menacing as it seemed it would be in the first shots. It clearly does not give a fuck about the military carriers that surround it.
One thing that bothers me: This is the first Angel sighting in fifteen years. Why hasn’t the Japanese military installed more failsafes than this? Why is their failsafe a teenager who they didn’t even bring back to Tokyo-3 until the Angel was already there? I already knew Gendo was a terrible parent, but I didn’t realize he was also a terrible military leader.
My reactions:
1.) “No, really? Gee, I thought it was Godzilla stomping up Tokyo again. What the fuck else would it be, Gendo?”
2.) I wonder where the name came from. This thing doesn’t look like any religious depictions of Angels I’ve ever seen.
Does anyone fucking care that Shinji almost got crushed twice in a fifteen-second period? No? No, just me? Alright, then, that’s cool.
Then Misato swoops in to save the day like a badass, complete with her 90s-era Action Hero outfit. This would be an effective introduction for her character if not for the fact that it’s likely at least somewhat her fault Shinji’s in this fucking mess in the first place.
The Japanese military starts shooting at the Angel and Misato finally starts trying to get the fuck out of the line of fire. The military carriers seem to be fighting to survive here, and it’s almost like all their previous plans went up in smoke the minute this fucker showed up.
I’m not wrong that the Angels are the reason half of Tokyo is underwater. I can see that now. It’s a miracle the rest of Tokyo is still standing.
This thing doesn’t even seem to care that the entire Japanese military is shooting at it. It’s barely even scratched, and it tore through at least two military freighters like they were butter.
The old fuckin’ military guys decide to use some kind of superweapon. Gendo seems to believe that it won’t be any use on an AT Field (Absolute Terror Field?); given the fact that he’s the only one who seems to know what he’s doing in this giant clusterfuck, I’m inclined to believe him.
The question I have now is, why do these military officials want to avoid using the solution that Gendo obviously has? What does it matter? I’m guessing they have something to lose here.
Misato finally does something to protect the child in her custody: she tackles him to the passenger’s seat the minute she realizes they’re going to be caught in the shockwave of what I can only imagine is some kind of non-radioactive nuke.
It’s a good thing she did so, too, since her car was literally blown away into a field. Again, why is Misato bringing a child into this clusterfuck? Why does the Japanese military literally not give a single fuck about Shinji’s safety?
(I did switch up the order of this sequence. It made more sense that way.)
It’s pretty clear from this that the old fuckin’ military guys don’t want Gendo’s services. They want to be able to defeat the Angel on their own. My guess is that they didn’t want to associate with men who literally force children to fight in giant robots; but I suppose it doesn’t really matter. They failed. Gendo offers them something that they can’t build themselves, and they’re willing to make a deal with the devil in order to get it.
So, I don’t know if any of you recall something I said back in my post about the opening theme (and if you don’t, go read it, it provides a great deal of context), but: I mentioned that this scene was somewhat similar to a shot in the Opening that pictures EVA 01. Here’s the shot I referenced in my previous post:
They are strikingly similar, aren’t they? Was that a coincidence, or is there something to this? Did Anno just like the ~aesthetic~?
Also, we have confirmation of the fact that Angel blood is not red. It’s… lilac? Blue? Whatever it is, it’s not human blood. Someone needs to explain why EVA 01 was covered in human blood in the Opening.
For context.
(To be continued in Episode 1.50: Someone Please Call Child Protective Services)
So, this is going to be the last of the six or so prequel posts. This will be about the ending theme, which is sort of simple, but also sort of complex. It’s a single, fascinating shot that I plan to explore in great detail.
Are we cool? Cool. Let’s do this motherfucker.
Please note, I am aware that the initial series played “Fly Me To The Moon,” but that doesn’t really change my feelings on the opening. “Fly Me To The Moon” is super generic.
Sailor Calliope 