[EVA] Sick Sadamoto (SPOILER !!!!, under your own responsability)

[Brendan Jamieson]

On Tue, 8 Jun 2004 23:15:30 +0100, R.J.N <rjn at beeb.net> wrote:
> The kitten was *illustrated* being killed graphically, down to its cry
> of pain "speech" bubble. Sadamoto could have drawn it much more
> succinctly, instead of in full detail had he really wanted to use it
> as a device to show Kaworu's inhumanity. It was an ill-concieved
> scene.

But this argument can be made about any graphic scene, in any medium -
film, animation, literature - or manga. I just re-watched Gaspar Noe's
'Irreversible' a few nights ago and was surprised by how much the 7
minute, single shot, rape scene still affected me after having seen
this film 2-3 times now. It's brutal, unflinching and uncompromising.
But as long as there's a reason for this, I don't see any reason why
it should cut away. The same applies to Sadamoto's scene. I think
there's a time and place to cut away, but in essence the scene - I
think - is meant to differentiate between Sadamoto's Kaworu and Anno's
Kaworu. In the anime, Kaworu is almost a hero. He's sympathetic and
has all the answers and in the end becomes a martyr for humans.

Conversely, Sadamoto's manga Kaworu is a touch more sinister and "basic".

I wonder if this scene would have struck you as much had you not had
the anime as a previous reference point... Don't get me wrong, I'm not
saying it's an unaffecting scene (I love cats too), but when I read it
I was more "surprised" than "disgusted" by it. In an odd way, it
reminded me of Shinji's scene at the beginning of EoE. In both cases
we have pre-conceived notions of the character, and in both cases they
do something unexpected that *seems* to be against what we had
otherwise anticipated.

-brendan