I'm definitely seeing Evangelion influence... but honestly no offense this has nothing on the sheer horror and terror of the last half of Episode 19. Berserk mode Unit 01 is apocalypse-grade "oh fuck".
To be honest, I never really got into or liked Evangelion. I couldn't fucking stand Shinji. I rank him right up there with Shirou Emiya on my "Character's I'd bitchslap to death" list.
To be honest, I never really got into or liked Evangelion. I couldn't fucking stand Shinji. I rank him right up there with Shirou Emiya on my "Character's I'd bitchslap to death" list.
You're not really supposed to like Shinji. Empathize with him yes, but also be frustrated with and annoyed by him. Because he's a 14 year old boy and most teens that age are some form of insufferable.
Eva is in many ways a deconstruction of the "heroic teen self-insert power fantasy" genre of mecha shows, and it starts with the protagonist. He's a shy and awkward kid with a lot of emotional and psychological baggage from a broken family (note a lot of protagonists are orphans but show no negative effect) and he reacts to being thrown into battle the way a kid like that actually would --he's fucking terrified. Being forced into the role of a child soldier is traumatic as hell, on top of his existing problems, and he develops PTSD and struggles to hold it together against mental breakdown. His experience isn't heroic, it's horrifying.
You're not really supposed to like Shinji. Empathize with him yes, but also be frustrated with and annoyed by him. Because he's a 14 year old boy and most teens that age are some form of insufferable.
Eva is in many ways a deconstruction of the "heroic teen self-insert power fantasy" genre of mecha shows, and it starts with the protagonist. He's a shy and awkward kid with a lot of emotional and psychological baggage from a broken family (note a lot of protagonists are orphans but show no negative effect) and he reacts to being thrown into battle the way a kid like that actually would --he's fucking terrified. Being forced into the role of a child soldier is traumatic as hell, on top of his existing problems, and he develops PTSD and struggles to hold it together against mental breakdown. His experience isn't heroic, it's horrifying.
This. Evengelion is very much the artist shining a light on the entire child hero power fantasy genre and going "You people do realize how fucked up this kind of thing actually is?"
It's kind of like if someone were to make an anime about Pokemon that shows the actual reality of taking underage children with all their mercilessness and letting them loose on the world to capture and train animals for pit fights. And you like get images of them goring each other to death and stuff and just horrible suffering while the trainers jeer and cheer and throw money at the ring in a demented cacophony of human depravity.
If you're a patron of mine (or considering), this is for you. Actually, if you're NOT a patron and never will be, but you follow my games, still read it because it explains my release schedule.
Had to work at the office today, which means I can't work on game. And it's dead here, which makes this a wasted day
I hate days like this because I'm on a roll with rendering and have to just stop. And I can't wait to finish ep.2 because I really can't wait to work on ep.3 (which will continue from ep.2 because the first major event is not resolved really quickly like so many have commented in the past about Serenity LOL).
But then, I also can't wait to work on the next episode for Serenity because its going to be a fun one that I know current fans of the game will like.