Since Ghosts of Desire was announced, I've seen quite a few people in the FFXIV community saying that they're not familiar with Evangelion (beyond knowing the name and that it's about giant robots), or that they don't know where to start with it.
This really surprised me at first (after all, it's literally one of the most popular anime of all time!), but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. There's a sizeable number of FF players who wouldn't even have been alive when EVA aired, and for most of the 2010s, the original series was out of print and not on streaming services.
So, for the benefit of those who missed out, and are wanting to get caught up on EVA in preparation for Evercold, here's a quick guide:
Neon Genesis Evangelion is a post-apocalyptic mecha anime series, which originally aired in 1995, and has been receiving continuations and spin-offs (not to mention absolute mountains of plastic merch) ever since. The most notable of these are End of Evangelion, a movie that continues directly from the end of the original series, and Rebuild of Evangelion, a whole series of movies that sort-of-but-not-really remakes the show (more on that later).
Evangelion was originally created by the studio Gainax (who would later go on to make other massive shows like FLCL and Gurren Lagann), under the direction of the now-legendary filmmaker Hideaki Anno. The rights to the franchise later got transferred to Anno's studio, Khara, who made the Rebuilds - they're the ones collaborating with Square Enix on the GoD raid.
Fifteen years after an apocalyptic event known as the Second Impact, the world is under attack by gigantic monsters called Angels. To prevent them from triggering a Third Impact and destroying the world for good, a shadowy organisation called NERV fights back, using bio-mechanical mechs called Evangelions. The series follows Shinji, the estranged teenage son of NERV's leader, as he's summoned (then immediately emotionally blackmailed, lmao) to pilot one of the EVAs.
Much like FFXIV, Evangelion is absolutely all over the place tonally (in a good way, IMO). The early episodes are pretty standard monster-of-the-week fare, and there's a lot of goofy humour - but as the series goes on, things get increasingly dark and introspective, with a big focus on the cast's various neuroses and interpersonal conflicts (people have speculated that this is a reflection of Anno's mental state during the production - his struggles with depression during that time are pretty well documented).
I see a lot of people asking this, or asking whether they can just skip straight to the Rebuild movies. The answer (and the main thing I hope people will take away from this post) is: watch it all, in release order.
The early stuff still holds up exceptionally well, in my opinion, and while Rebuild initially gives the impression of being a straightforward remake, it diverges massively after the first film. The later Rebuilds are very much in conversation with the OG series/movie thematically, and IMO, you will get a ton more out of them if you've watched it all.
(To bring it back to Final Fantasy for a second, you can think of Rebuild as being the FF7 Remake to Evangelion's FF7 - while you could feasibly start with the former and have a good time, it's pretty clear the writers are riffing on your assumed knowledge of the latter.)
So, with all that in mind, here's a list of the main stuff to watch:
You can safely skip Evangelion Death (True)2 - that film is just a recap of the original series, designed to shown before screenings of EoE. There are a few new scenes in it, but they don't really add anything important.
We don't know yet (though I think it's likely we'll find out more at the JP Fanfest). That said, if I had to guess, I'd say it's fairly likely they're going to draw on both the OG series and the Rebuilds - they have Mahiro Maeda from Khara working as a guest artist on the raids, and while he's got animation credits on basically every EVA thing in the last 30 years, they specifically called out his work on 3.0+1.0 at EU Fanfest.
The original series, End of Evangelion and Death (True)2 are all available to stream on Netflix.
The Rebuild films were all on Amazon Prime, but I found out while writing this guide that they let the rights lapse a few weeks ago (you can still rent 1, 2 and 4 on Amazon - but not 3, for some stupid reason). It remains to be seen whether they'll come back to Prime at some point, whether Netflix will pick them up, or whether physical media will remain the only (legal) way to watch them.
Without getting into spoilers, the original series has a notoriously abstract and confusing ending, as a result of the studio running out of time/money and Anno basically having a nervous breakdown towards the end of production. Depending on who you ask, End of Evangelion is either a remake of those two episodes that actually shows what was happening, or a completely alternate ending.
I mention this because I think watching EoE is basically essential to have a 'complete' experience of the original series - while I personally love how weird they get with it in the last couple of episodes, a ridiculous amount of plot threads are left hanging as a result, and I think if I'd not known that there was a more definitive ending coming (as was the case for people watching in 1996), I'd have found them a much more frustrating watch.
With those merch sales? Hell no. The biggest recent announcement was that there's a new anime series being worked on, with Yoko Taro writing the script. There's very little info about it yet, though - we don't whether this will be a spin-off, tie into the original series, or be something completely new and unrelated that just shares the name.
---
That's all I've got - I hope this helps at least a few people to get into this (super cool, imo) series before the raids come out next year!
submitted by /u/seventeencups
[link] [comments]
Continue reading...
This really surprised me at first (after all, it's literally one of the most popular anime of all time!), but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. There's a sizeable number of FF players who wouldn't even have been alive when EVA aired, and for most of the 2010s, the original series was out of print and not on streaming services.
So, for the benefit of those who missed out, and are wanting to get caught up on EVA in preparation for Evercold, here's a quick guide:
What the heck is Evangelion?
Neon Genesis Evangelion is a post-apocalyptic mecha anime series, which originally aired in 1995, and has been receiving continuations and spin-offs (not to mention absolute mountains of plastic merch) ever since. The most notable of these are End of Evangelion, a movie that continues directly from the end of the original series, and Rebuild of Evangelion, a whole series of movies that sort-of-but-not-really remakes the show (more on that later).
Evangelion was originally created by the studio Gainax (who would later go on to make other massive shows like FLCL and Gurren Lagann), under the direction of the now-legendary filmmaker Hideaki Anno. The rights to the franchise later got transferred to Anno's studio, Khara, who made the Rebuilds - they're the ones collaborating with Square Enix on the GoD raid.
What is it about?
Fifteen years after an apocalyptic event known as the Second Impact, the world is under attack by gigantic monsters called Angels. To prevent them from triggering a Third Impact and destroying the world for good, a shadowy organisation called NERV fights back, using bio-mechanical mechs called Evangelions. The series follows Shinji, the estranged teenage son of NERV's leader, as he's summoned (then immediately emotionally blackmailed, lmao) to pilot one of the EVAs.
What's it like?
Much like FFXIV, Evangelion is absolutely all over the place tonally (in a good way, IMO). The early episodes are pretty standard monster-of-the-week fare, and there's a lot of goofy humour - but as the series goes on, things get increasingly dark and introspective, with a big focus on the cast's various neuroses and interpersonal conflicts (people have speculated that this is a reflection of Anno's mental state during the production - his struggles with depression during that time are pretty well documented).
What order should I watch things in?
I see a lot of people asking this, or asking whether they can just skip straight to the Rebuild movies. The answer (and the main thing I hope people will take away from this post) is: watch it all, in release order.
The early stuff still holds up exceptionally well, in my opinion, and while Rebuild initially gives the impression of being a straightforward remake, it diverges massively after the first film. The later Rebuilds are very much in conversation with the OG series/movie thematically, and IMO, you will get a ton more out of them if you've watched it all.
(To bring it back to Final Fantasy for a second, you can think of Rebuild as being the FF7 Remake to Evangelion's FF7 - while you could feasibly start with the former and have a good time, it's pretty clear the writers are riffing on your assumed knowledge of the latter.)
So, with all that in mind, here's a list of the main stuff to watch:
- Neon Genesis Evangelion (TV series, 1995-1996)
- The End of Evangelion (Movie, 1997)
- Rebuild of Evangelion (Movie series, 2007-2021)
- Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone
- Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance
- Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo
- Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time
You can safely skip Evangelion Death (True)2 - that film is just a recap of the original series, designed to shown before screenings of EoE. There are a few new scenes in it, but they don't really add anything important.
Which stuff is going to be relevant to the raids?
We don't know yet (though I think it's likely we'll find out more at the JP Fanfest). That said, if I had to guess, I'd say it's fairly likely they're going to draw on both the OG series and the Rebuilds - they have Mahiro Maeda from Khara working as a guest artist on the raids, and while he's got animation credits on basically every EVA thing in the last 30 years, they specifically called out his work on 3.0+1.0 at EU Fanfest.
Where can I watch it?
The original series, End of Evangelion and Death (True)2 are all available to stream on Netflix.
The Rebuild films were all on Amazon Prime, but I found out while writing this guide that they let the rights lapse a few weeks ago (you can still rent 1, 2 and 4 on Amazon - but not 3, for some stupid reason). It remains to be seen whether they'll come back to Prime at some point, whether Netflix will pick them up, or whether physical media will remain the only (legal) way to watch them.
What's the deal with the last two episodes?
Without getting into spoilers, the original series has a notoriously abstract and confusing ending, as a result of the studio running out of time/money and Anno basically having a nervous breakdown towards the end of production. Depending on who you ask, End of Evangelion is either a remake of those two episodes that actually shows what was happening, or a completely alternate ending.
I mention this because I think watching EoE is basically essential to have a 'complete' experience of the original series - while I personally love how weird they get with it in the last couple of episodes, a ridiculous amount of plot threads are left hanging as a result, and I think if I'd not known that there was a more definitive ending coming (as was the case for people watching in 1996), I'd have found them a much more frustrating watch.
Is Evangelion 'over' now?
With those merch sales? Hell no. The biggest recent announcement was that there's a new anime series being worked on, with Yoko Taro writing the script. There's very little info about it yet, though - we don't whether this will be a spin-off, tie into the original series, or be something completely new and unrelated that just shares the name.
---
That's all I've got - I hope this helps at least a few people to get into this (super cool, imo) series before the raids come out next year!
submitted by /u/seventeencups
[link] [comments]
Continue reading...