[EVA] porn fanart and fanfiction = bad.

[V V]

This fandom's afraid of me. I've seen its true face. The messageboards are
extended gutters and the gutters are full of hentai fanart. And when
the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. The
accumulated filth of all their sex and self-serving fanfic will foam up
about their waists and all the otakus and weaboos will look up and
shout 'We want Eva hentai!'... and I'll look down and whisper...'No.'

--- On Sat, 12/12/09, Carl Horn <once at ix.netcom.com> wrote:

From: Carl Horn <once at ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: [EVA] Gender analysis in the series, vis a vis Asuka and Misato
To: "The english-language evangelion mailing list." <evangelion at eva.onegeek.org>
Date: Saturday, December 12, 2009, 10:36 PM


On Dec 12, 2009, at 2:00 PM, V V wrote:

> Logical counterpoint:  Anno grew so disgusted with the endless merchandising of Eva, the thousands of naked Asuka and Rei statuettes, that he put in the opening scene of End of Eva (not the whole thing just the first scene) as sort of a "this is what you fanboys are really like, you ignored our character study and just made a ton of porn" thing.
> 
> I really think the naughty fanart detracts from our overall understanding of the series.
> 
> 
> The self-serving, misinterpretted fanfiction has been allowed to run rampant for too long.  It's time to rein in the brutes.
> 

But you seek to see what is actually there, don't you? Look at "E-Mono," (ISBN4-04-852868-8), edited by Gainax and published by Newtype during Christmas 1997; i.e., the year THE END OF EVANGELION came out. It was the then-definitive catalog of licensed Evangelion goods. There are certainly many Asuka and Rei statuettes, but not naked; many are in fact based on fan-service shots from Anno's show--bandages Rei, one-piece bathing suit Rei, two-piece bathing suit Asuka, skirt-blowing Asuka, etc.

Gainax is certainly capable of making an anime without fan service--look at ROYAL SPACE FORCE, an anime that had the exact same character designer as Eva. But they didn't take this approach on Evangelion. If they were worried about the risk of naughty fanart detracting from people's overall understanding of the series, perhaps they shouldn't have included scenes where you can see Asuka's boobs hanging inside her nightshirt. Again, they could have written the female characters in Eva with the same roles, the same psychological complexity, but made them look plain and unglamorous, like Leiqunni in RSF. Or at least, made them no more "cute" than most of the male characters in Eva are.

But Gainax didn't--Anno didn't; Rei and Asuka were designed as sex symbols, and that's what they became. I agree with you that the masturbation scene in the film is a statement about the sexualization of the characters, but I took it to be an confession by Anno of what he had done, as much as a condemnation of others (Watch the video store scene in Anno's LOVE & POP for more on this).

--C.
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