Originally Posted by perkyskirt
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I know I am way late to this party, but I feel like talking about this anyway.
When I first started watching eva on adult swim it didn't catch on with me for a couple of reasons. Quite frankly I didn't know what the fuck was going on, nor did I care, but when I read the eva article on wikipedia it showed me that this show had a lot more going for it, so I gave it another chance.
There are a lot of things about this show that I like, specifically the awesome mech designs, the cool universe they created as well as the christian imagery and symbolism. I personally HATE the concept of children piloting giant robots. Why the hell would you put a billion dollar death machine in the hands of a 14 year old boy? But I find it to acceptable in this show, because of the whole "the evas are actually their mothers" thing (the kids even go into their womb, so to speak).
But there are a lot of things I didn't like, first of all, the voice acting for the english dub was shit, I hated misato and shinji the most. And then there was Shinji, this kid has got to be the most depressing angst filled loser I have ever seen in my entire life. He pissed me off, especially during episodes 25 and 26.
And speaking of the last episodes of the show, at first I was like WTF? that sucked shit. But when you stop and analyze it, it makes sense. I don't think you should discard these episodes, but use them as a companion to EoE. All that postmodern shit with the text, random images and characters popping in and out during deep introspection is the kind of thing that I could imagine happening during instumentality. With every one's conscienceness merged into one, things would tend to blur together. At first I was angry at the ambiguity of the "congratulations!" ending, but now I think I like it.
As for the human instrumentality project, from a creative point of view I think it is a really fucking cool idea, but from a personal stand point I think it is a fucking TERRIBLE idea. How is regressing back to an emotionless blob a better existence? Running away from life's problems is never the answer. Ultimately, this leads me to believe that despite the extremely bleak ending (I found what happened to the earth in the movie to be really depressing), eva has an extremely upbeat and positive message.
One of the things I got from the show is that there is nothing sadder than a person who does not love himself. The whole concept of the AT-Fields was to stress the fact that because our souls are trapped within our bodies, and are incapable of truely interacting with others, human beings are ultimately alone in the universe. All we have is ourselves, and going through life loathing yourself is no way to live your life. You can't sit around all day crying, shutting yourself off from the rest of the world trying to escape your problems. The only way things are going to change is through your own actions.
That really resonated with me, because I've recently come to terms with that very notion and my life has never been better.
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