Evangelion Jo and Ha

Last week, I watched Evangelion 1.0 (wiki) on DVD and Evangelion 2.0 (wiki) at a cinema. I can't say that I am actually a fan, and I even didn't like the previous Evangelion anime series. But the hype among lab members and work seniors around me, which feels very different from the hype of Transformers 2 (prev post), made me interested to watch the remakes.

After watching Evangelion 1.0, I was very excited ! I am not sure exactly why, because it still has the same story as before, but it could simply be because that the frames/pictures are all totally remade using the latest computer graphics technology. Another simple reason is that, perhaps my ability to speak Japanese was zero and the quality of the subtitle was very bad when I watched the anime series around 9 years back.

This time though, I particularly tried to look at the story plot from the perspective of the main character: Ikari Shinji. One of my Japanese friends, who is a die-hard fan of this franchise, gave me this hint to understand the story better a while back when we were having dinner, and I guess it worked well :). But I have a hunch that, you need to understand Japanese culture in order to understand the story since I felt I would not have been able to understand some of the scenes, had I seen the same scenes a few years back before going to Japan.

So, last Friday, five people of my lab members and I went to a local cinema to watch the second episode in the movie series. And to my surprise, this time the story changed a lot ! I have heard that the story is different from the anime series, but I didn't expect it to be this much different. There seems to be two opposite reactions about the differences in the story. I myself, like this version because it is easier to be understood, and the story doesn't feel too dark. I still remember when I watched the anime series, the story was so dark that I was dragged into a stress state. I didn't even know what I was watching :). But for some people, particularly Japanese, who liked these dark stories, the story change may be not so enjoyable.

In any case, I like Evangelion 2.0 although I have to admit I don't like it as much as I like Evangelion 1.0. From another perspective, one of the things that I like about the story is that there are many countries that are trying to save the world, unlike the stories in recent Hollywood movies. I am definitely looking forward to watching the next episode in the movie series: Evangelion 3.0(Q), which I think won't be out until at least two years later.

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