An Evangelion Fan Reacts To RetroBlasting's Evangelion Review
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- Опубліковано 25 чер 2024
- This review on Evangelion started as just a take I disagreed with. But it soon became an exploration of human psychology that I found profoundly disturbing.
This video was originally a stream I did. I've now decided to go through the whole video in order to post the highlights that stood out to me.
Chapter Highlights:
0:00 Preamble
10:48 The Review Actually Starts
14:42 An Attempt to Explain the Plot of Evangelion
31:55 In the Case of Shinji Ikari
44:23 In Defense of Misato Katsuragi
47:53 I Get to Talk About My Favorite Character Ever
51:19 Why is He Just Insulting Anno?
1:08:09 Wait -- Hold on a Second.
1:13:05 Lots of Fan Service
1:29:00 No, Anno Did Not Invent Fan Service
1:33:50 He Does Not Understand How Evangelion Ends
1:44:48 Where RetroBlasting Tries to Diagnose Evangelion Fans and Anno
1:50:08 Disturbing Personal Anecdote
1:57:44 After the Disturbing Personal Anecdote
2:01:44 I Found Receipts
2:04:38 The Bizarre Conclusion - Фільми й анімація
So this guy's main (cruel angel's) thesis is that narcissists are awful people who can't be cured and we all should just let them end themselves?
Did he not think about the message he is subconsciously sending to the world or does he actually believe this and thinks more people need to agree?
If characters and Anno are not excused for their actions due to their trauma then neither is Retro.
He said narcissism can't be cured, he said ending your existence is a narcissistic behavior, and he said to cut the narcissists out of your life because they are harmful, while also saying they will harm others and themselves to get attention, to me implying he wants them to disappear themselves.
I am a bit of a narcissist, which isn't something I'm proud of but we don't get to choose how to feel about the world and changing yourself is really hard to the point most people can't do it, so it's nice to hear someone wants me to Komm Süßer Tod myself.
I was even ready to do it a few times in my life I felt especially miserable. I was THIS close, and just like he said it was because I thought my mother didn't understand me and forced me to do things I didn't want, which he would say were my obligations. I did want to do it for attention, and I'm terrified to even think about now, but blah blah mental state.
I wasn't myself at that time, I was having an emotional breakdown and couldn't control my thoughts and actions, and as it turns out my mother was the same; overworked and on the verge of an emotional breakdown. She hurt me because she was hurt and I interpreted that as no longer being loved, but as soon as her roughest patch of work ended she started listening to my wishes again and stopped forcing me to receive medical treatment for my weight, something which caused me misery both because it was unpleasant and because I feel very comfortable in my body.
She told me she was forcing me because she felt guilty for my condition and being on the verge of collapse from work herself lost control of her actions, just like I did. She apologized to me and promised she would never do something like that again.
She hurt me trying to help me (albeit very aggressively with asserting herself as the head of the household and saying that if I don't listen to her I buy myself a new house) and I almost hurt myself trying to get out of the situation, despite the fact I could have just refused to go to the treatment instead of arguing with her, having hysterical episodes, and trying to put myself to rest, but at the time it never occurred to me.
The worse my condition became the harder I was to live with and the worse her condition became, and while I was ignoring my college she was actively working herself to the bone to provide for me.
Thank god that's all over and we live happily and peacefully.
I didn't mean to trauma dump but I guess that just shows my narcissism in action.
This is why I said you get to choose your obligations. I never choose to get treatment, but I did choose to attend college, so the fact I'm still ignoring it to this day five years later is a huge shame on my mind, but I just can't bring myself to study. Couldn't during school, my parents had to explain all the things teachers did all over again and do my homework, and can't now.
Shinji is a lot like me in those regards, except I'm asexual.
Nice to know I'm a scourge on society, I guess. I don't WANT to hurt or use anyone.
Did Retro seriously just say that realistically portraying depression is encouraging people to shirk their responsibilities? Does he think art exists only to teach us how to behave?
Besides, we choose our responsibilities. We need to do something only if we agree to do it. Shinji agreed to pilot the Eva first so Ray wouldn't have to, and then to save the innocent people of Tokyo 3 and the rest of the world.
People are not entitled to him solving their problems, he's a hero for doing it, no matter how much screaming and crying he indulges in all the wile.
If he didn't have a kind heart humanity would die in episode 1, especially since he was thrust into the situation without any preparation or even a heads up he had all the rights to refuse.
What an entitled attitude.
The quote in this video “You just want content” is very true here. Anno DIDN’T make a story to garner love for his ego’s sake- he made a brutally honest observation and exploration of a dark time in his life to make sense of it. THAT’S art. Art is messy and emotional and sometimes insane.
Art shouldn’t exclusively be moral lessons to abide by. Describing Shinji as a bad protagonist solely because he is not a good role model is grossly willfully ignorant to what art can be and evoke.
Feel bad for the dude always think it's a shame that the art I love can really put people off enjoying it especially if it triggers some awful trauma like that, but constructing a shallow and actively malicious strawman out of not just the show but it's director and fans is really shit of him.
Thought you made some good counterpoints but I really didn't enjoy you matching his armchair diagnosis of Anno with a personality disorder being indicative of him being narcissistic, just thought it wasn't constructive at all.
I'm glad you made this video because when I originally watched the original video, I didn't really have the answers to respond to it. Other than that, this guy has issues of his own that he's obviously projecting onto Anno. So I'm glad that you made it. Thank you.
It lowkey sounds like this guy was sold on a cool Gundam style mecha anime and was a salty that is not exactly what he got.
On the topic of Shinji, I'm someone who relates to him a lot regarding similar struggles of depression, anxiety, and fear of connections while also afraid of being alone not to get into too much detail. So in turn i feel sorry for him and want to see him be genuinely happy and it pisses me off whenever i see someone like Retro just not only try and reduce him as just "Selfish" but to also claim that he's an abuser while not even giving context that he'd just had a mental breakdown and snapped. To me it just feels disgusting Especially with how he talks about those who relate to him
I had saved RetroBlasting’s video to watch later, but I wound up giving up on it halfway through.
I was totally down with some firm criticism of the series, but that’s not what the video was. It was a mean-spirited, shallow tirade.
Asuka isn't more courageous than Shinji. She sees piloting the Eva as the most important part of her self worth, which is why she's the only one who cares about being the best at it. For her the life without the Eva is worthless, as seen once she stops being able to synchronize, and she often doesn't take the danger seriously, caring about her arguments with other characters way more, so it's hard to call her happily going into battle courageous, more like naive. She needs to feel important because that's her coping mechanism against the trauma of her (driven insane by the very people Asuka works for) mother trying to kill her. She doesn't care about the people she's protecting unlike Shinji, she just wants to be the hero because otherwise she sees no reason to live.
Same for Ray really, she sees her worth in following orders, not in protecting someone, which is the reason her death is so tragic, as she finally acts on the desire to protect a person she loves rather than please her handlers and she pays her life for it.
That leaves Asuka as the most selfish pilot by the end of the series, the one out only for herself, yet retro pretends that's who Shinji is rather than her.
Sorry for stating things everyone here already knows, I just got angry at someone not remembering a story they are trying to critique. You can dislike Evangelion as much as you want, just like any piece of art, (if you couldn't tell I dislike Asuka so it's not like I always enjoy characters other people love) but if you want to criticize the community and the author be diligent to use the actual story rather than a version you wrote in your head.
I wrote this before you said the same in the video. Just shows how true it is.
He should've watched Bennet The Sage's review. Bennet likes to focus on the creators and stories behind the anime a lot more these days, and it makes for some really fascinating work.
Bennet is cringe and back in the day got stuff wrong about a lot of anime.
@fakegeek5462 true, and he's owned that.
@@UlrichTheOmegaretroblasting said it was one of the best videos on evangelion from his point of view in his video lol
24:44 I thought I heard Final Fantasy being Squaresoft's final chance was just a myth born from misunderstanding interviews? It was the final chance for the team working on it, yes, but Squaresoft itself was not in danger of bankruptcy.
I don't really remember the details.
I love retroblasting and his toy content and I am endlessly fascinated by his eva video. While I think eva is fantastic his video is so hilariously spiteful it is pure comedy gold. I think he doesn´t acknowledge the movies and bends a lot of proof, but it is still a delight to watch, I laughed several times; he is so into it
I used to watch Retroblasting a lot around 2020-2022. I eventually just stopped because a lot of the videos coming out just had this holier than thou attitude present. Definitely not ever gonna return to it after seeing blatant ableism present here. And I definitely agree that it seems like he was missing the point a lot of the time and projecting. In my personal experience, I will see people jump through multiple hoops just to project their own experiences or thoughts onto something just so they have an excuse to talk about some aspect of themselves. Again that’s definitely not universal, just something that I’ve seen in people before, and it seems similar to what was happening here.
Yeah i used to really respect Retroblasting and i still kinda do when it comes to consumer advocacy for toys. But when it comes to media critism he has this holier than thou mindset and he insults people who are criticle of his takes. I lost all respect for him with the dub vs sub vid where he critisized people who like/ can see themselfs in Shinji. Just because you hate a character doesn't mean he is badly written Shinji is well written and important to the series themes of growing up.
I feel like that Retro guy truly missed the point of Eva. Eva never depicts its characters as role models. They are 1. A parody/deconstruction of Mecha characters from series like Gundam and Macross. And 2. They are meant to represent the broken parts of the human experience.
been really liking your videos and really wanted to watch this because evangelion confused the hell out of me, lmao
but the infernal discord sounds mean i'm gonna have to hope you talk evangelion again some day
Thankfully, this is something i learned from in later atreams
Eva is one of those pieces of art that reflects back to you what you bring to it at the moment you are at in life when you engage with it.
I think that's what makes people upset with it as a piece. They're seeing something they don't like and they don't have the media literacy tools to make sense of how it is bothering them.
So it must be Anno's fault. And the fault of the fans who do like it.
Which is a take on Eva that is very revealing. It's not really possible to have a take on Eva that doesn't reveal something about the take haver.
That may be why so many people on Twitter were upset when i said Misato and Asuka are the characters I empathized with the most. That or they refuse to engage with it out of fear of being hurt
It’s fascinating that Retro decided to believe that the protagonist is an exact replica and stand in for the creator here because both suffer from mental illness. He definitely seems to hold some ableist beliefs.
That's like the most ridiculous thing to me, i mean Anno also put himself in other characters like Asuka and Rei respectully.
I love Eva and I'm aware that the religious imagery is about aesthetics and not much else. But as someone who grew up in the evangelical church... it hits me with all these deeper meanings from my own religious past.
I think there's some really interesting threads to pull around how we rarely see imagery of the evangelical Protestant apocalypse in our media that don't come from evangelicals themselves. I am dyinggg to have that conversation lol
The closest I can think of to that is the movie The Rapture, which is....i mean, a very unique depiction.
So... [Warning: Long]
I actually once thought Michael's Evangelion video was a solid reasoning on why someone might like it. But as time went on... I realise I was royally wrong. Michael WAS just projecting his own hatred for narcissists onto Neon Genesis Evangelion and The End of Evangelion. And by doing so, he missed the true intent of the work, which was to pay homage to the shows writer/creator Hideaki Anno loves whilst exploring psychological issues like the Hedgehog's Dilemma.
I'm not joking by the way.
The alien race being called "Angels" and the Christian symbolism they use? Homage to the tokusatsu series Ultraseven.
The character of Shinji Ikari himself? Owes heavily to the protagonists of the work of Yoshiyuki Tomino, namely Cosmo from Space Runaway Ideon.
The ENTIRE events of End of Evangelion? HEAVILY inspired by Ideon's finale movie, Be Invoked.
Hell, even "Evangelion" rhymes with "Ideon". Do you see why Michael is projecting yet? The only good point he had in this video was the fanservice and how creepy it was, but guess what? This is also rendered moot by how 1. He's once again misrepresenting the show and film (specifically the "Shinji in the Hospital" scene at the beginning of End) and 2. the video he followed it up with was an April Fool's Day special where he fellates the "Greatest Video Game Movie of all time". Would you like to know what the prank is?
"Are you ready? The greatest video game movie is... A Show simply titled: *KAMDAGAWA JET GIRLS!"*
*_HOW. FUCKING. DENSE CAN HE BE?!_* Oh yeah! Go on! Trash Eva's fanservice and sexual fanservice in anime in general only to turn around and do a video that is literally six - eight minutes of you simping for a SHITTY ECCHI ANIME SERIES. I'm sorry. Are you huffing death sticks? Because the double standards in your approach reeks of the kind of coke-fuelled idiocy that _real_ narcissists are built on! I'm sorry, who's the narcissist here, again?
Pretty sure thats why its an april fools day video
All my lines got cut, boooo /j
I'm glad this video was made, even though I disagree with the perspective of at least 50% of it, especially the discourse on depression. None the less, decent video.
The only shinji i like is the one that's in super robot wars where he isn't a crying dog and has actual friends that also ride mechs like getter robo gaogaigar gundams Mazinger Z patlabor or heck even ideon. Not to say i dislike shinji but it's a really frustrating character in general
I think that’s the point
I always enjoyed NGE a lot more by approaching the antagonists not as some kind of hypothetical alien invaders who just happen to coincide with biblical symbolism and imagery, but instead as the literal god and angels of the bible made real within the story. Seeing the geopolitical and cultural influence of the abrahamic religions (christianity, judaism, and islam) visit greater and greater horrors upon the real world every year, there’s something wonderfully transgressive and subversive about fiction in which the godhead is depicted as a villain.
Also, when I try to conjure the mental image of michael french being strangled, I can only picture Kermit the Frog being choked and it makes me laugh uncontrollably 🐸.
Bro, no offense because i'm an atheist myself but this feels very petty. There is no "god" In Evangelion, the closest thing we have to one is the first ancestral race and they don't do anything. The show does a lot to humanize the angel and clearly show that they do feel emotions and aren't just generic kaiju mpnsters. I mean Kaworu is an obvious example of a sympathetic character. Also even i believe that portraying god as a villain is very overused concept that simply got boring years ago.
Hi just someone here who dislike NGE watching your response I feel a similar way to this guy can you example why you like it. I do agree he does act like all his do is NGE which is wrong.
Not the OP, but here’s why I like it:
1. Empathetic and timeless psychological themes that really speak to a lot of people.
2. Interesting characters with multiple facets to them, good and bad, rather than being one-dimensional.
3. Fantastic use of tone.
@JurzGarz thx for answers my question
Thanks for the articulated response. He is not doing a review but attacking the author. He may be a narcissist or not. We cant just know exactly because it needs a long professional analysis.
He has the right to not like Evangelion. Personally I don’t like Stanley Kubrick movies. It’s just personal tastes. The guy is still a genius. I wouldn’t do an essay about him.
-He's not making fun of Anno's wife, he just finds it weird and creepy that Shinji's Rebuild love interest supposedly looks like Anno's wife (I say supposedly because I don't know anything about Anno's wife)
-The "uncomfortable fanservice" is diluted by the fact that Asuka is the iconic Tsundere for a lot of Otaku and Rei has become a character archtype (and there's lots of merch that sexualizes them)
The only link I've ever found between that character from Rebuild and Anno's wife, is that for a short while Anno considered naming her after one of the characters from one of his wife's manga, as a little tip of the hat. Anno never really cared for the Mari character all that much, since she was imposed on him by Rebuild's producers as a marketing tool. It was actually his co-director Kazuya Tsurumaki (of FLCL fame) who is the massive Mari stan.
I.... don't see any resemblance between Moyocco Anno and Mari. As for the merchandise, yes, that stuff can be extremely weird, but that exists externally to the show. Are we going to judge Princess Leia based on how many people slober over her in a metal bikini?
True (my only excuse is their is very little merch of Slave Leia when compared to the EVA Girls)@@agramuglia