/jp/ - Japan/Anime

It's not life changing if you're over the age of 13 but it's a cult classic and I think being "in the known" can't be a net negative. What I would do is watch the original run, then End of Evangelion and finally move on because the Rebuild sucks and isn't worth your time.

There's a certain time in your life to watch anything, and it's probably been overhyped to you.

>>44281
I don't understand why it's become popular with normalfags over the last 10+ years.

it's an anime, so it's automatically garbage if you're older than 13 (or mentally older than 13).

i remember watching it and it was basically a very cheaply animated mecha anime with the main character Shinji being a shy loser that gets bullied by everyone including his father, so you can self-insert as him like most anime dweebs. there was nothing noteworthy about it until the final episode which comes out of nowhere and gets a bit philosophical. there's "symbolism" throughout the series but even the director admits it was hack bullshit, like he added crosses and angels cuz "they seemed cool" with no real deeper message or point, but of course for the midwits it's all still very deep. the two anime babes aren't even particularly cute or interesting, despite wearing tight leather suits through the series. again, anime dweebs will assure you that these are the hottest succubi in anime but one is an angry bitch and the other is an empty vessel, so you get to pick your fetish, femdom or a puppet doll that has no desires or thoughts of her own.

>>44281
Genuinely one of the few shows I forced myself to finish because I kept thinking "surely it'll get better". I do not understand why people are so obsessed with it, I don't care about your show's supposed symbolism if the MC is so annoying he makes me want to quit watching your show. It just seemed like it's trying too hard to be deep and profound, which I guess is why it's been so popular with normies as of late.

>>44283
Yeah, kinda was. I remember my older sibling watched it, so I saw some glimpses of it. Not sure if it aged poorly, though. Probably has.

>>44286
>It just seemed like it's trying too hard to be deep and profound, which I guess is why it's been so popular with normies as of late.
That's kind of precisely why it was popular in anime circles. But this shit has existed for over 20 years, why is it suddenly "cool" now? I KNOW if I tried to show this to any of my…"friends" is the wrong word, acquaintances is better, if I tried to show this to them back then, they would ask me why I was still watching cartoons at my age.

>>44285
I mean, it was cool for it's organic mecha for the time. And I can see why it had it's hooks for 90s nerds/otaku, like it's specifically designed *for* them.

All I can understand is that anime has become "cool" enough that it will absorb (or has absorbed) shit like NGE, the same way it's absorbed things like Taxi Driver. I see so many "literally me" vids polluting the internet of Travis Bickle but you ask any of them if they've ACTUALLY sat down and watch Taxi Driver, most of them will say no.

>>44289
>why is it suddenly "cool" now?
Because the overton window has shifted and anime is now generally accepted by the normie population. Most probably just watch whatever shonen show is popular at the moment but I guess some normies think they can differentiate themselves by watching "more profound" shows. Normies always try to prove their individuality by doing minor deviations on what is popular and safe. Being into NGE is just an expression of that I think.

>>44281
Corpse Party is so niche I wish there was more stuff like it. There's a lack of good horror anime and content

>>44281
just watch it to the end and tell us if it was worth it

I remember NGE being a sort of gateway drug for proto-weebs in the early 00's. If you wanted to go a step beyond Dragonball Z and Sailor Moon, you'd watch shit like NGE and Elfen Lied. I suppose there was a pseudo-profundity or perceived maturity surrounding those shows that appealed to 13 year old nerds. Nudity, violence, philosophical and psychological themes being touched upon (no matter how shallow) give a veneer of seriousness to any show when you're 13 because the only other thing you know is Pokemon.

Where can you find Evangelion subbed?

>>44311
I don't really stream anime since I already have what I want downloaded on my PC but I just searched a few anime websites to see which have survived the animewebsiteholocaust and also work on my browser just fine, first I found is called reanime dot to

Damn this also has made me realize that a shit ton of anime websites have gotten wiped out of the map, I was smelling worldwide censorship shenanigans in 2025 and started archiving all sorts of media on my pc, everyone should do this too.

>>44311
>Hasn't been watching old anime long enough to even know the basics of finding torrents
>Immediately wants Evengelion
Proof that this trash anime is an entry point for tourists

>>44312
>>44313
I can only find the subbed version on internet archive. It's a grainy vhs rip though.

>>44314
Well then I'm glad to see that gatekeeping isn't even necessary if this is the level of entrants we're dealing with. You can't even find the gate. Not that the gate protecting bad-on-purpose garbage like Evengelion is worth keeping, but in time actual good anime may fall victim to the "suddenly popular with gay emo normalfags" treatment and when that happens I'll be thankful that most of them don't actually know how to use a computer well enough to acquire anime.

>I think being "in the known" can't be a net negative
See that's the notion that I both agree with personally yet still believe is kinda jarring. On one hand, if you try going around without watching the most well-known shows that are so popular and blown out of proportion that people might give you weird looks if you tell them you know nothing about them, it might be tough, but on the other… There are far too many shows that fall into that category and everyone knows about them but that don't deserve that cult classic status and are boring and a waste of time. and I don't know if I should be bothered to actually put effort into watching them. What's the solution here?

I was reading through https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Space_Force:_The_Wings_of_Honneamise and found this quote touching,

"In modern society, which is so information-oriented, it becomes more and more difficult even for sensational works to really connect with people, and even so, those works get forgotten quickly. Moreover, this flood of superficial information has dissolved those values and dreams people could stand upon, especially among the young, who are left frustrated and anxious. It could be said that this is the root cause of the Peter Pan syndrome, that says, 'I don't want to be an adult' … If you look at the psychology of anime fans today, they do interact with society, and they're trying to get along well in that society, but unfortunately, they don't have the ability. So as compensatory behavior, they relinquish themselves to mecha and cute young succubi. However, because these are things that don't really exist—meaning, there's no interaction in reality happening between those things and the anime fans—they soon get frustrated, and then seek out the next [anime] that will stimulate them … If you look into this situation, what these people really want, deep down, is to get along well with reality. And what we propose is to deliver the kind of project that will make people look again at the society around them and reassess it for themselves; where they will think, 'I shouldn't give up yet on reality.'"

>>44335
I hope to God it's not a quote from Hideaki Anno.

I genuinely can't believe that eva is now in the fucking criterion collection.

I can't tell if it's a genuine induction or it's just the inertia of current trends. I mean, how are normalfags supposed to be able to relate to Shinji?

>>44455
>>44460
AFAIK, norma-lags who make eva reviews claim they relate to Shinji in terms of feeling lost, in terms of being stuck in the path parents have laid out for their kid.

In this sense, Shinji is ostensibly alright-looking on the outside since he's #1 mecha pilot and the NGE's drama is a trip into the disturbance of a guy who - to his dismay - have to take the path his parents have laid down for him. No matter how cool the path is, Shinji isn't enjoying it.



Oh and speaking of this interpretation as one that ruined eva for me.


"Thanks" to this interpretation, Shinji is the last person I relate to now. My life's drama has been anything but the "laid out path" drama; quite the contrary, I had to go through the pain of pleading my parents to give me such a path only to be greeted with your typical rock-and-roll era boomer "freedom > alle" mad shouting that stuck with me. Fuck it. I literally wanted to be a cog in the machine and now I cannot even become one due to the distortion my parents have successfully programmed into me despite their mutual after-divorce despise

>>44474
*had to take

>>44455
>>44474
>Normalfags have colonised EVA
I haven't watched it in years, (possibly decades now), but IIRC isn't Shinji a stand-in for the type of people who were watching it at the time?

Also IIRC there's a lot of fanservice in it, how do normies get past that? Hell, I remember watching that "recent" anime film about the boy who swaps bodies with a succubus and there's the same boob grabbing in it three times, yet the movie was a big hit with the normies.

Just keep watching it for as far as you can stand it. You don't have to finish it if you don't enjoy it anymore.
I say this as one who finished the entire series, the 1997 End of Eva film, and all the Rebuild films.