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So, I've been thinking about Eva for a while now. Which is not a pleasant thing in my book, as I find the "Discourse" around the show to be extremely tedious, not helped by the fact that its nowhere near as original or influential as it's often made out to be (I mean, Victory Gundam released just a year or so before Eva, so sad, vaguely pedophillic mecha nightmares were clearly in vogue). However, I can't front and say it didn't affect me at all-it was the second anime I ever watched (long ago now, so forgive me if I'm sometimes vague on details) so ... I feel I owe it some measure of appraisal. Which brings me to the point; I don't like Eva. I never have. But a succinct reason why has eluded me for a long time. And I think I've finally pinned it down.


Evangelion is bad because, despite all the crazy symbolism and great music, it's BORING. And it's boring primary because it is so incessantly, obnoxiously moralizing.


The show's focus is always on one of two things; either the convoluted myth arc that drags on for way too long such that by the time the "mystery" is finally done with all you get is a ten car pile up of vague Biblical imagery and dumb technobabble that functions only as an overwrought metaphor (or a low-rent Shin Megami Tensei cutscene). Or it's the thematic journey of a bunch of traumatized individuals, mostly the kid protagonists, into opening up their hearts and allowing connections to be formed, even if it hurts. Honestly, its not a bad theme, if one that's extremely common when you look close at Japanese media.


The fatal flaw is in it's execution. The protagonist, Shinji Ikari, and his supporting cast of various importance just aren't engaging characters. How could they be? They're defined almost entirely by their trauma, either to begin with, as is the case with Shinji, or at the very least by the show's last third where all joy or hope is left by the wayside. Gendo Ikari, the ultimate antagonist, is the worst example of this- his disdain for his son is never explored in any depth until the very end, when it's long since stopped mattering. The show spends nearly its whole runtime, and the added runtime of End of Evangelion, wallowing in the misery these characters are subjected to, razor focused on their flaws, their Freudian psycho-sexual disfunction, and their navel gazing self-recrimination. Not only does it make the act of watching the show dull and miserable, it ultimately destroys the very message its trying to convey. Be an individual? Make connections with people? Why would the characters do that when not a one of them ends the series with any sort of engaging personality or hopeful future? Having the capacity to connect with others doesn't automatically make you actually WORTH connecting with, and none of the characters have any real chemistry, romantic or otherwise. Only Rei really ends up feeling more like a full person than she starts, and considering she starts at basically zero that's not hard to do.


All this story focus also means that the action part of the show is pretty lacking. The biological Evangelions are genuinely a cool concept that is mostly just used as a plot device, especially if Shinji needs rescuing in which case his mecha mama takes control and solves the problem instantly. The Angels, the monsters of the week, are so vaguely defined in ability and origin that they essentially function via authorial fiat, meaning there's no real tension because the Angels only really lose via technobabble or the aforementioned Mechamum. The art can genuinely be great, and its often colorful, which I appreciate. But even the most hardcore defenders will admit that as the series goes on more and more cracks begin to show until animation itself becomes scarce and dialogue overtakes everything. The music is consistently good, at least.


So, where does that leave us? Honestly, as much as I dislike the show, like I said at the start, its not uniquely bad. It's a product of its time and several trends that have mostly either diminished or have long since transformed into something more consistently engaging. Eva's reputation I think stems much more from just being the "first" example of such trends to many people, especially outside of Japan, who, like me, were often just starting out with anime. And I think that's why its become such an albatross around the neck of the community. Like a lot of "classics", it dominates discussion and pushes out both older shows just as worthy of examination and newer shows that have improved much since 1995. I just....don't think its worth all this damn trouble.

Honestly, this wasn't really...bad. The art is mostly good, if a bit blobby at times for the kid, and it's rare to get a full color manga, so that's definitely a plus. And there's certainly nothing wrong with a good, wholesome slice of life. That shit is my jam, as they say. It's just....there's not really anything to the comic beyond the premise of a dad who's professional at work and cutesy at home. Which, isn't even that much of a contrast-usually this sort of thing is reserved for big brawny characters ala Ore Monogatari or genuinely cold and aloof characters to make the ... contrast interesting. The titular papa here is just...a normal guy, so there's not really much "gap" there to be amused at. I appreciate any well meaning attempt to make a dent in mainstream Japan's crushing emotional stoicism as much as the next guy, and I imagine it holds a great deal of appeal for frustrated, overworked parents there, especially women but....there's just not really that much here. If you've been having a tough time of it lately and just need a bit of sugar as a pick me up, you could certainly do worse. But the book can't really offer anything else

This one's a bit complicated, and ultimately not what I was looking for, but I could see it working for other people. The art's good for the most part, though I don't really like how the eyes are drawn, especially for the female lead (I wish I could be more concrete with my description, but I just find the slightly watery? teary? look they have sometimes to be off-putting). I think the problem is that the title and description are a bit misleading. The way the book looks at first glance makes it seem like a refreshing romance focused around both being sexually open ... and ignoring traditional gender roles by having the woman take the lead. And it is both of those things, but...it's much more...fetishy, for lack of a better word. It goes straight past subverting gender roles and into femdom territory. Less "subverting" than "inverting". Which...is perfectly okay, if that's your jam. But it's not really mine.
In short-while there's still enough relationship stuff there to have some substance beyond just the sex, it's ultimately for specific tastes.

What an infuriating waste of potential.
Aesthetically, Maboroshi is, like most anime films, competent:better than average acting (at least with the Japanese audio), good music (when they bother to have it) and mostly good art, though there's nothing special compared to the many, many other anime films with similar production values (and at times the art doesn't seem to match well with the script-the main character is referred to multiple times as being particularly feminine for a boy, and the only indicator of this is his unremarkable mid-length hair.) So, there's nothing special there. Which leaves the story to carry the bulk of the film, ... and boy, is it frustrating.
The basic concept for the story is great; a mysterious explosion traps a small Japanese town in a timeless state, with a cracked sky annually repaired by a strange being of smoke emanating from the broken steelworks. There's a few ways the story could have played out: a Stand By Me style adventure story with a group of young boys trying to escape this dreadful purgatory straight out of Bruce Springsteen's nightmares while the conservative adults are willing to while away eternity doing nothing, or maybe a horror approach could work, with the towns strange denizens, like the bizarre and off-putting Sagami family that runs the local shrine, eventually turning the town into a Fatal Frame/SIREN-esque Shinto horror show. Both ideas seemed to be toyed with by the film before being discarded, alongside countless other potential plot threads or characters. What is the film actually like?
Well, for a start, it is abysmally paced, even for the very low standards of anime films. Usually, said films feel way too fast, cramming a series worth of information into feature length, which ends up leaving everything feeling underdeveloped and shallow. Maboroshi has the exact same problem due to the exact opposite approach-IT IS LONG. AND SLOW. At nearly two hours, the film drags, and drags, and drags and only picks up a modicum of steam at the halfway point, and by then the vague characterization and details light plot have likely worn away your patience. And its all in service to themes and characters that are, at best, yet another nostalgic, bittersweet reflection on youth and coming of age, which is essentially the description of every anime film made in the past 20 years or more and has long since outworn its welcome, while at worst, the film is a pretentious collection of melancholic scenes of longing and confusion and all that melodramatic crap barely connected by shallow, incoherent characters who act more in service to overwrought metaphors and imagery than anything approaching actual human motivations.
Even if you think you'd manage to connect with the navel-gazing and underwritten plot, I feel the need to reiterate just how slow the film is. It is absolutely not worth your time. You can get the same kind of atmosphere, ephemeral feeling and existential themes from a 20 minute episode of Kino's Journey, and that also has guns and a talking motorcycle, so there is absolutely no reason to waste your precious time with a film that, fittingly, feels like it's frozen in time and never going anywhere.