Forum - View topicThe Mike Toole Show - Evangel-a-like
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varmintx
 Posts: 1225 Location: Covington, KY |
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http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Xamd-Lost-Memories-Collection-1-Blu-ray/13045/#Review http://forum.blu-ray.com/4665054-post6278.html |
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The Xenos
 Posts: 1519 Location: Boston |
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Holy crap I love this article. It's such a nostalgia bomb. Evangelion was the first anime I really watched aside from some random shows on TV like Ronin Warriors. A friend was big into the series and he actually showed it at my high school sci-fi club. Hell, it was a Catholic High school. How we showed the entire series and VHS bootlegs of the movies movies without the teacher walking in and banning the tapes I have no idea. He even hilariously walked in during some fan service or violent moments, shook his head and left. Of course he was never around for all the Freud talk or religious symbolism. Good times.
Then came college. Then came watching a number of these Eva clones. to be honest I was kinda disappointed to find so many anime modeling itself after Eva, as none of them beat my original viewing of that show. Be it the comedy of Dual or the drama of RahXephon, it just didn't beat the original in my mind. I much preferred finding anime I liked very much unlike Evangelion. And holy crap. I likes me some Rei, as the obscene collection of figures behind me attest to. Yet all these Rei clones are ridiculous. Huh. And I guess the term Rei clone is kinda ironic. With Dual our anime club enjoyed it as an Evangelion parody. Yup, Evangelion via Tenchi Muyo. Both quite popular in the prior decade. I have fond memories of RahXephon splitting the MIT Anime Club into factions. Back then students from other colleges could attend and we went all the time for their crazy late night marathon sessions. I love how a faction formed in one corner of the huge classroom that was bigger than some theaters. They would laugh at all the Eva similarities and thought it was trash. Others were huge fans of the show. My friends and I? Eh. I guess it was okay. I think we saw a few eps of Garsaraki there, but never bothered finished it. I had heard nothing but bad things with Brainpowered. It's disappointing because the creators behind it are usually amazing. Evangelion is practically a second religion to me. You know, even if the almost random religion in it is secondary and window dressing to the social and psychological commentary about humanity. I have taken away so much from Anno's personal story about depression and loneliness. None of these other series really hit me like that one did. I think this can be argued that none of these series overall did match Evangelion. Various companies tried to capture lighting in the bottle again, but none of them did. One of these days I need to write a paper comparing how both Evangelion and Watchmen totally changed their industry yet none of the series to follow in their foot steps actually understood how the originals deconstructed the stories in their industry so well. Similar to Eva, the mid 80s series Watchmen saw a spawn of grim and gritty comics in the following 90s. Yet they were merely superficial copies of Watchmen. None of them understood what Moore was trying to do with his comic book and just copied surface aspects. Similarly I don't think many of these series got anywhere near close to what Anno and Gainax captured with Evangelion. Anyway, huge thanks to Mike for giving me quite a trip back down memory lane. |
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Ask John
Company Representative
Posts: 32 |
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No mention of Studio Deen's 1998 OVA series Cho Kido Densetsu Dinagiga?
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mdo7
 Posts: 6361 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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I like to add 2 video game (one had an anime) that were influenced by Evangelion if I may.
Zone of the Ender- Hideo Kojima's (creator of Metal Gear Solid) "Mobile Suit Gundam meets Evangelion". If any people play Zone of the Enders it did have some resemblance to Evangelion. There were characters in the game similar to Shinji, Asuka, and Kaworu. Zone of the Enders has also took influence from Gundam (mostly Turn A, Gundam X, and UC Gundam) Senritsu no Stratos -this upcoming PSP game from Konami (yes the same company that brought you Zone of the Ender) has traces of Evangelion like mechs being similar to EVAs, and monster looking like Angels. I don't have any info other then what I read from Kotaku. oh I think some of you forgotten that Rahxephon took influence from another anime beside Evangelion, Brave Raideen was the main driver for Rahxephon. |
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doctordoom85
 Posts: 2093 |
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Of the anime listed:
-EVA, of course I love. Only Cowboy Bebop surpasses it for me as best anime ever -I actually really liked Betterman, though I can see why most wouldn't. I had to have my knowledge of science to be college-level before I could make heads or tails of a good deal of the dialogue. Some of the moments in the show were downright chilling, I think only Higurashi and Lain surpass it in creeping me out overall. For those who do watch it, make sure you watch the scene after the credits of the final episode! -Rahxephon, ugh. I'm going to give it a full watch sometime, but the first 9 episodes were not a good start at all. I'd normally chalk that up to "it gets better" syndrome, but so many people praise its overall structure so that's not a good sign as I see the series' structure beginning to get weaker as it went on (Eva knew how and which characters to begin developing, Rahxephon seems to be drawing names from a hat). I went it with the highest expectations since this was BONES, my favorite studio, so it's not like I was letting my Eva-love blind me. -I've seen the older Giant Robo, though it was great, but I didn't even know there was a "newer" one. But apparently I'm not missing much...... -Gurren Lagann is awesome, definitely in my top 10. I hate the terms "anti-Eva" though, something about the wording just seems to imply you have to like one or the other. To me, I find the idea of liking only idealistic or cynical works of fiction to be limiting, it should be how well the work conveys itself that should ultimately matter I don't think Code Geass is similar enough to Eva to warrant a mention. And come on, C.C. and Kallen are extremely different from Rei and Asuka. I'm going to get to Nadesico eventually. Eureka Seven is awesome, I love the characters and especially the amazing world that BONES created for the show. Some beautiful visuals in that show. The music is incredible as well. |
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belvadeer
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You say that, but for me RahXephon was such a mind**** that I was tempted to watch it again to make sense of it. The second watch-through never happened because I managed to put the whole thing together in one sitting, despite how amazingly strange and metaphysical it got towards the end. I don't really see the moe/harem elements you refer to, other than Ayato knowing a lot of girls in the show, but it's not like he's trying to get any of them in bed with him (not that I'm saying that's a defining harem element or anything). And their personalities are pretty defined instead of being limited to those typical one dimensional characters you commonly find in moe. |
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Lynx Amali
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I wouldn't say Eva influenced RahXephon in any way really. The only real similarity is that the main character falls into a legendary overpowered mecha. Hasn't that been going on since Mazinger Z?
It draws more from Ideon and Raideen The Brave. Maybe character interaction might be influenced by Eva slightly. That said, Episode 19 was genius. GENIUS I SAY! I remember Brain Power'd. I loved the mecha design however I loved the soundtrack even more. Jonathan was solely there to piss me off though. Seriously. Guy was such a dick. Betterman was really unique in the sense that it was in the GGG continuty. The fact that Project Z, if it ever or will ever get made, would have solidifed both GaoGaiGar and Betterman in the same continuity would have been awesome. Though when I watched it, I was too young to understand the the techno-mumble-jumble. I think I may actually give it a rewatch sometime. Awesome article nonetheless. |
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Schroecat
Posts: 5 |
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He's right, and it's already happening. Just look at the success of Madoka Magika. A genre deconstruction with dark themes and real substance and it was received very well. People are tired of the constant stream of moe rubbish. Of course, that doesn't automatically mean that another mecha show is going to take off, but it does help a lot given that mecha is much more likely to take on dionysian subjects than yet another moe show. |
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BeanBandit
Posts: 303 Location: Canada |
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Excellent reading as always. Personally I never got into any of the Evangelion copycat's, I know lots of people who love RahXephon but its a show I never really got into. IMO it came nowhere close to having the same emotional impact Eva did and ended up being kinda bland. Have never seen Brainpowered but knowing Tomino it's probably just as crazy and incomprehensible as most of his other shows.
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trilaan
 Posts: 1064 Location: Texas |
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I love Dual, not because it's better than Eva or anything, it just has more plot elements that I am a fan of. However, I do enjoy the spoiler[main character having the ability to re-create existence] ending more than Eva's.
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R.G.
Posts: 686 |
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Are they? You have to wonder. |
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Gewürtztraminer
 Posts: 1028 Location: Texas - Its like whole other country. |
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I just recently finished up Fafner via Netflix.
It was a mess. Tragedy from the start, with no explanation and no reason to care about some characters that were portrayed as total tools. Somewhere along the line (episode 16, 17?) The Island's controller leaves the complex, and from there on it was pretty decent. What a tough sell, wade through 3/4 of a series to get to something that is decent. I thought Zegapain was bad by having (on first watch) 7 been there done that episodes (subsequent watches improve things a lot, since you know what is going on). Fafner seemed more of a response to RahXephon to me. |
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doctordoom85
Posts: 2093 |
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Rei is a silent, obedient girl who looks up to her "father" figure but slowly becomes close to the protagonist and learns to open up. C.C. is an immortal who's been alive for hundreds of years and is witty, strategic, and is secretly manipulating the protagonist for her own means but ends up siding with him ultimately. Asuka is a somewhat mean, incredibly intelligent girl who has to be superior to all her competitors, wants to be more "grown-up" than she really is, and has a horrifying backstory involving the suicide of her mother. Kallen is a tough girl fighting against all means to save the people she loves. She has a feeling of loathing towards her mother but eventually realizes she loves her and they are close again by the end of the series. Aside from both Asuka and Kallen having "mommy issues" (that are completely different and get resolved completely differently), how are these girls similar at all? |
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R.G.
Posts: 686 |
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Both C.C. and Rei seem rather enigmatic while Kallen and Asuka can be hot tempered, not to mention the fact (at the risk of grasping at straws) that they tend to pilot red mecha. In any case, it's all subjective. By the way, I still stand by the Ragnarok/Instrumentality similarity. |
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enurtsol
 Posts: 14876 |
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They're all hawt! And that's all that matters. 
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