Episode 7: obviously more sleight than the freight trains that came before, but just as critical I'm assuming for set-up. And in the end, an important lesson: "that's what families do"... not like I would know.
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Episode 14: AW YEAH, HERE'S THAT CRYPTIC DOUR SHIT. It's weird that I was desperately craving it, but I was. It's pretty much all tease at this point, but it's good tease. MORE TOMORROW!
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Episode 15: Ohhhhhhhhhh, this is why you all like Kaji (he kinda sucked up until this point). Also THE PLOT THICKENS. YUP. THICKENS RIGHT THE FUCK UP. Imma go make fish tacos and come back to this.
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Episode 16: I love the way that power levels / cables play into EVA battles. Cuz this is no "power fantasy." It understands limitations are DRAMA. Also, the evolution of the Angels is fucking awesome. The shadow monster as a pit of despair? Love when a metaphor meets a monster.
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But it all gives more than that, Shinji's "giving up" moment and the survival instinct kicking in? The overlapping of the major and mother? All giving rise to the bloody rebirth of a character who finds the duality of courage / terrifying autonomy? Wow. Favorite episode so far.
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And the beat with Asuka waiting outside the bed! Like, i can't get over how good this episode was. It's like they were very quietly building up little thematic beats and relationship threads for the last 6 episodes, then in one fell swoop, pulled on all of them at once.
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Annnnnnnnnd Zankoku na tenshi no you ni / Shounen yo shinwa ni nare / Aoi kaze ga ima / Mune no DOA wo tataite mo / Watashi dake wo tada mitsumete Hohoende'ru anata / Sotto fureru mono / Motomeru koto ni muchuu de / please don't be mad at me I just googled theeeeeese!
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Episode 17: I looooooove that they take an entire episode to deal with the new fourth child, but it's in that perfect way where they never say it, and yet they are always saying, and so much subtle character work done within all of it. But Toji just carries it all in silence.
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Episode 18: It starts with the little ways the ways the choices stack up, the not telling, the shift in dynamics, the way sadness creeps in, even for Asuka.. and then the second half... That is probably the single most brutal, haunting thing I've ever seen. I gotta go for a walk
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Walk achieved. Ready to plunge into the next one. What I want to take a second and say is that this episode highlights why it's so damn important to have sensitive, emotional characters. Because all I'm still thinking about is how they are going to be hurt by this experience.
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Episode 19: ... The cost of action. Is often nothing compared to the cost of inaction. But when you are the one who acts... You have to live the nightmare.
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Episode 20: Solipsism made literal. The endless meditation of a boy caught in an impossible crux. To battle. To harm. To obliterate himself, which just leaves him with the simplest of wants. To be nurtured. To be taken care of. And so he must die and be reborn. Again. And again.
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Episode 21: A "backstory" episode, but not in a way. There's so much revealed, but so much more inviting us into entire pools of history and unspeakable things the cruelest of behaviors. Shinji's final words might as well have been true for all them... "I was just a child."
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Episode 22: The problem with most humans is that our demons are largely what drive us, but when we're young, we rarely understand that. Watching Asuka lash out, compare, challenge, hate, stamp, and all of it was inevitably going to run out of steam...
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And that's because nothing good ever comes from running from our demons. Not only does it fissure our soul, but because there's no way to even outrun them because they're irrevocably locked inside us. And thus, the only real solution is to heal.
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But that means letting light into the dark places. Letting others see and know that which is so impossibly painful and cause of the damage we do in turn. We feel this is the act of defilement. But the truth is the defilement came long, long ago.
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Episode 23: From unravelling, the real culling begins. All the sins of the father, the original sins of man, all sweeping up into retribution... because there was nowhere else to go.
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Episode 24: So much of the early show was Shinji's internal depression and his juxtaposition with the world. And now, the loss and grief hangs over the world itself. Everything is broken... so of course it becomes a giant fucking cosmic opera... of course.
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Episode 25: "Where am i supposed to go now?" And so we get the final meditative drop (oddly conveyed in what is abstract brechtian modern theater?). But really it's textbook psychology. Shinji's suicidal depression. Asuka's Attachment. Rei's (quite literal) imposter syndrome.
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Episode 26: So I'm going to be forthright. There's a lot of reason storytelling DOESN'T take this path (a dreamscape of characters telling the character things he should know as voices in their head) and it's simple: dramatically speaking, it spreads thin / feels repetitive.
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But if you can accept that and move on, then it simply becomes about the quality of ideas. And here, it is a resounding answer to the questions it's been asking from minute one of the show. For you, it is okay to be here. For all of us. To be alive.
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So if you think I'm ultimately going to knock a creator for to essentially taking the finale of his show and turning into psychological pep-talk on why he shouldn't commit suicide and is deserving of a right to exist. Well, then, you don't know me at all. Now, onto The End...
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(please stop trying to tell me the context. I'm trying to watch the story as a document).
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END OF EVANGELION: ... ....... ................ *slow clap* That might be one of the most layered, fascinating, brutally honest, utterly devastating, weirdly hopeful, but totally uncompromising works I've seen. ... Gonna need a few.
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There's no way to sum this up with a few tweets, so I'm going to go do my usual and write a big ass essay and link when I'm done. But for now, I'll try to sum it up in one damn tweet...
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From Cosmic Opera, to Cosmic Horror, to Cosmic Pop, EofEvangelion went full Koyaanisqatsi in order to recognize not just the right to exist, but the hardest part of actually doing that: living with the disgusting beast within. By accepting that crying is braver than strangling.
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*writes feverishly... stops* Oh damnit, this show is going to make me actually read the bible again, isn't it? *blows dust off it*
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*still writing feverishly* Without thinking, I just tried to eat a pink D20 on my desk because I thought it was Starburst. ... I'm in a weird headspace.
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