[EVA] Religion and Gainax was RE: [EVA] Moura interviews (Minor 2.0 spoilers)

[Peter Svensson]

> I think Anno's attempt to make fans figure it out for themselves backfired, spectacularly; instead of 'trying to figure it out', people often told themselves what they wanted to hear.

So it only counts as 'trying to figure it out' if the end result is something you approve of? Other people can't arrive at conclusions contradictory to your own through actual effort and analysis, it must just be self-delusion? 

If Anno didn't want people to have to analyze and interpret the show, Evangelion would have been a lot more straight forward. He parodies this in the audio drama, creating the easy to understand and simple version of Evangelion. (BTW Did we ever get confirmation that Anno played the Black Space God?) The show was made complex for a reason. Otherwise we'd have had the Black God from Mars send down Space Angels to blow up Humanity. MWHAHAHAHA!

Heck, there's a quote somewhere out there about part of the reasoning for Rebuild being to make the show without the over obfuscation that the original series did, since that was a very 90s thing to do. Can someone find that for me, my Google-Fu is weak today. There's an understanding that Evangelion was made complicated because that's what the zeitgeist of the era entailed. The era of X-Files' unending mysteries and conspiracies, of a culture that wanted to unravel the mystery.

Evangelion was just in the right place at the right time. It managed to be a solid series about personal relationships and giant robots with all the right ingredients to become a fan favorite. It wasn't the best series ever, but it cast a long shadow on the anime industry and remains so to this day.

Peter Svensson

PS: I now have a legal copy of 1.0. I'll be watching it and posting some sort of response in the near future. And there'll be some service too!