Both good, the new sequence is much longer than original and diverges pretty far after this scene.

it sucks, listen to the mothership god damn it.

Think I'll listen to myself. I liked it.

i imagine you have a massive piss-jug collection.

They're jars dammit.

You have any better ideas for dealing with spies or putting out people on fire?

I want to smack you but I'm having a hard time deciding for which stupid thing you just said.

Well, I for one thought it looked like a giant space potato

You know what? I have no idea what you just described, but that sort of thing pulls me into this series while the series itself repulsed me away from it. I am simultaneously intrigued and fed up with the whole thing. Is this normal re: evangelion?

In a word. Yes. I'll write up some EvilHomer-esque essay when I get some time later.

Yeah :(

In the sub, when they're watching the screen as the Zeruel breezes through the unending wall of gunfire, Fuyutsuki just says, "The 10th angel's destructive power far exceeds expectations." Which I loved, because it was the single most brutal understatement imaginable.

I'd forgotten how off-putting Misato's english VA was, too.

That's one of my main gripes with anime. It's just so stilted to listen to. For the record, I also hate movies where it sounds like someone's reading off of cue cards or the scriptwriter doesn't actually grasp how humans communicate.

Even when Neil Gaiman wrote the translation for Princess Mononoke, half the lines still sounded goofy, probably because he had to fit the amount of dialog to the time that the character mouths were moving.

Given that anime often has only 2-3 cels for mouths anyway, how hard is it to write a decent translation and then just use a computer to edit how long someone's gums flap? If some kid can do it in his basement for his AMVs, you'd think they could at least do it for the bigger studio releases and not make every character sound worse than an autistic with a concussion.

Why watch it in English? Switch it over to Japanese and see if it's easier to enjoy.

Yeah, just stick with subs unless it's particularly good.

Eh, editing the animation, even just the mouths, would create a bunch of timing problems elsewhere, not to mention crossing the line of what a good translation is supposed to do.

It's more a matter of rewriting dialogue to the point where it's succinct and natural without losing the meaning entirely, and that's actually pretty hard. Gaiman's Mononoke script suffered because it tried to stay ornate when the animation just wouldn't allow it.

Just switch it to Japanese? That doesn't help a whole lot, either, as some things just don't translate without several extra lines of text that have to explain why something is funny (which always helps with humor) or what a given cultural idiom means which makes literally no sense in English (either spoken or written).

I'm a words guy and a plot guy, and most anime falls flat on both counts (ironically, the plot often makes far more sense in fantasy anime than sci-fi, as I want to kill someone when the thing that defeats the big bad alien/mecha baddie is "love" or some other emotional/spiritual bullshit out of nowhere). I can't think of a single anime where the subs were anything but a few hairs above a Google translation of what's being said. There's no cleverness or nuance, it's about as natural as plastic fruit, and even with the original dialog as some emotional cue, stupid word choices are still stupid word choices.

As an addendum: The problem I have with anime is nobody is making much of an effort to make it accessible to those who aren't more focused on machine, creature, and weapon design and whatever it is about various animation techniques that gives them a stiffy. I'd be just as put off by an amazing American sci-fi movie if the dialog were completely inane and the concepts were wacky-go-feely.

Basically, anime often comes off as being written by George Lucas: The word choices are mystifying, the delivery is off, and the reveal is midichlorians. The effects (animation) is often pretty, but if I wanted that, I'd just ask for the studio's demo reel.

I agree, but it is what it is. I'll take it if the designs are really cool, the setting is unique, and the visuals are appealing. I wish the narrative was tighter and the characters were better written, but I mean, it can be enjoyed on its own merits.

The worst part of the dialogue here is that right after showing all the buildings falling into another dimension or something (?), Blue Hair then spits out some load-bearing dialogue to nobody at all about how big whatever just fell over must have been if she felt it wherever the fuck she is. That's usually the kind of dialogue that writers put into something when they can't find a better way of conveying information without breaking the point of view (this didn't seem to have any limitations on point of view, which is why we saw whatever that skyscraper shit was); we can't show what happened (or don't want to), so I guess we have to have the character just blurt it out. But we already know what happened, so we now get told what we just saw by a character just fucking randomly yelling her thoughts while alone.

The rest of it was the usual anime yammering, but this clip had already assumed debt with me for that just bizarre, pointless dialogue decision. I can't imagine how it being in Japanese would help (maybe something about Japanese culture that I don't understand?).

She doesn't really have a reason to say it aloud, yeah. It's mostly that they're deep underground, so to get tremors this early into the fight means that the city has already lost the battle, a minute in, which is why she's surprised. It's establishing that it is not normal for a battle to be felt in their bunker.

The city is built over this big, open, underground egg-shaped plant-filled cave, which is where all those buildings fell. They dropped from the ceiling once the floor was shot out.

Part of the problem is the way her line is mangled by the lip-flap: "If I can feel the shockwave down here (momentary but unnatural pause) then we're in trouble." They should've just broken it into two sentences.

Of course, that doesn't change the fact that she's explaining something to herself. If she were chattering into a radio it'd be different, but...

what the fuck is this shit?

i watched the whole original series, what the fuck is this re-imagined shit?

I'm just going to go ahead and admit that I haven't really seen the original series? I really have enjoyed the Rebuild series and am intrigued at all this rage... should I commit the time into the original? I'm fairly reluctant to do so, is it really that different?

just watch this one, it's all the Evangelion you really need

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlKXTY9NmGg

If nothing else, End of Eva is worth a watch. It's a mess, but it's a one of a kind mess. There's nothing quite like it.

The first movie is more or less the first five episodes with a different ending tacked on. It's like if the TV series was Suzanne Vega's Tom's Diner, the first movie adds a light acoustic guitar accompaniment to the original a capella.

The second movie takes various elements from the TV series that are immediately recognizable to any long-time fan but adds several new elements and twists that it brought back a lot of the initial intensity of that first watch. It's pretty much the DNA remix of Tom's Diner. A completely recognizable yet distinct work.

The third movie was a complete clusterfuck of...something that only vaguely pertains to anything having to do with Evangelion as we knew it. There are little bits and pieces that take cues or expand on ideas from the series (Kaworu and Shinji's bromance being the big one) but otherwise it is so completely distinct as to be barely classifiable as Evangelion. Tom's Diner has had Vegas' voice stripped from it and the DNA remix has been turned into some unholy clash of dubstep, hip-hop and jazz yet the dude keeps the "doot doot doot doot doot" chorus shoved in the refrain somewhere in there to justify still calling it Tom's Diner even though it's not really.

To actually answer the question, if you enjoyed the Rebuild movies, you'll probably like the TV series so long as were into the characters psychological foibles and the big robot action was more like icing on the cake, because it's not nearly as impressive in the original. It's quite different and, after watching the third movie, I would argue a more cohesive and internally consistent work.

So what are your thoughts on the movies exactly? I'm especially curious to hear what you thought of the third one as that one has been especially nerdraging to long-timers.

Right, time to be all pompous and make bombastic statements rife with hyperbole to speculate on a non-issue, because Eva. I will also blame this on being up for a 24 hour period.

We all know the history of OG Eva, with it's production problems leading to Anno's breakdown, the small fanbase exploding after the series was over, and the cobbled together End of Evangelion that was created almost on the sole impetus of fan outrage over the ending. Besides all of this, what's overlooked about Eva, is that it was created with strict purpose. Anno wanted to create an anime which would strike at the heart of otaku culture, which at the time was very much like Shinji: earnest, confused, unable to connect with others, and content to languish in the culture they created for themselves. He adopted the elements of popular anime at the time, to tell a story on how to fix these deepening social problems otaku were creating for themselves, and even though it was incomplete, for a time he succeeded in that, and lots of really good anime and manga started being produced.

Since that time though, ota culture became more niche, the work increasing in specificity of a nonsensical value, and overarchingly less intellegent. People started creating more and more Moe, harem, and other trite troped out work, and with ota culture having been assimilated, these trends were becoming impenetrable. Years worth of throw away anime without creative thought were being pumped out, and so after a decade or so of dormancy, Anno decided that he was going to do another Eva. Not only was he going to tell a full story without worry about production values, time constraints, or censorship, but he set out to make something to shake up the creative public again. The rebuild isn't about repeating the past, or restoring Evangelion, it's about showing people that creativity lies in the exploration of ideas, and not the reliance upon those already known. I like everything but End of Eva, and I think the new films are great additions to the series. I can see why American fans dislike it, especially with all of the vagueness of the latest entry, but I'm into that sort of thing because it's pretty Eva. People analyzed the shit out of that show because of all the unanswered questions, from the relevance of the Christian symbology, to who Kaji really has feelings for over Misato and Ritsuko. Speculate and be entertained, don't get mad because Sue Storm was played by a latina :P

Besides, when Pacific Rim succeeds, and they announce a Hollywood production of Eva with Daniel Radcliff as Shinji, do you really want to be mad at something that the original creator made? :D

that was a massive beard

*****