Survivor Series: Troll Assassination-Eva FanTrolls
Today I’m starting a new feature which will deal with the worst of the worst of troll groups in anime fandom. The terms fanboy and troll are often used to describe devotees of a certain series, so I have decided for the sake of clarity to merge the two terms into new single one; fantroll. The definition of fantroll is a extremely devoted fanatic of a certain series or franchise to the point of delusion and who directs hatred towards fans of other series or franchises because they do not share the mindless devotion of the fantroll to the given series or franchise. For the inaugural entry I thought it would be most appropriate to start with the single greatest example of the fantroll; the Eva fantroll.
I had been aware of Neon Genesis Evangelion for some time, hearing all kinds of things about it, and when one of my friends lent me her copy of the show in 2005 and I sat down and watched it. My thoughts on the show at the time was that it was a average mech show. This was before I slowly become aware of the phenomena that is the holy status that some percentage of the Eva fandom hold the show in. As I heard more of ravings of the Eva fantrolls about how it was “the greatest anime of all time” (You can thank ADV for starting that nonsense), my enjoyment and opinion of the show went down considerably. Before I go into the things the hardcore fans of this show rant and rave about, I just want to be clear I do like this show.
Now I’m going to pick apart the show, and discuss some of the outlandish and outrageous claims that the fantrolls make about Eva. One of the most often cited aspects of this show is the use of Christian imagery and icons. While its a interesting element of the series, fans often read more into it then there is actually there. They forget that its a show made for a Japanese audience, and the presence of Christian symbols its just a weird novelty to the creators and not some deep, intertwined, and complex plot element. Moving on to the most annoying part of Eva; Shinji Ikari. Boy do the fantrolls even like to hype up Shinji , I once had someone claim to me that he was the greatest character in all of anime, wow that’s arrogance lol. Someone also wrote into Gundamn’s mailbag with badly butchered grammar and made a similar claim, but went a step further by saying that Shinji was the reason people watch mecha anime. Honestly, are you that caught up in your worship of this mediocre series that your so delusional and pretentious to try to say this guy is the single most influential character in the history of anime? I could probably think of a 100 characters that have had more of an influence on anime.Char Aznable and Lynn Minmay are just two off the top of my head, who have had much more of an impact on Japanse culture and anime than him. Shinji did nothing at all during the series to warrant being called iconic, in fact he’s just like almost every other mech lead character in recent memory. Another annoying aspect present in Eva is the disposable enemies that appear almost every episode for the first half of the show, this is also known as the monster of the week cliche. This gets old fast and really saps my enjoyment of the show during the first half. The constant remakes of Eva are also extremely annoying which serve just to devalue the series and are just a cheap way for Gainax to make money off the mindless cult that worships the series as the second coming.
What all this adds up to is a symptom of a larger ailment in the Western fandom that has to do with what shows are considered the greatest by Western fans. A lot of fans in the West only see a very limited amount of anime series from Japan and there is a tendency to automatically declare these series the best there is. When they find out about other shows they tend discount these shows and go on believing that what they hold dear is the greatest without evaluating the merits of the other shows, its cognitive dissidence at its finest.
Well that’s all for this post, I’m considering what group to profile next. It was suggested to me to talk about the Sonic the Hedgehog fandom so I might do them next.
Until next time,
Devil_Survivor
October 21, 2011 @ 1:37 am
I like this review.
I do like Eva, I even like the Eva remake movies that are coming out. I will admit I am a bit of a fanboy of the show, but DO I blindly admit that its the best freaking thing ever? Nope. Evangelion has a hold on me along with countless other fans where in that point in life with all the anime we saw growing up, this was about the best and deepest we got to something with drama and something of a “deep plot”. This wasn’t my first anime either, and when a friend of mine told me about it when i was getting into anime back in high school (about a decade ago) he mentioned “if you look at this show as a mech show, your going to be disappointed” which he was about half right id say. Destroy all Podcast also mentioned this show as a “cannibalistic Ultraman” which is what that is really.
But when I watch even after a period of time, to quote something on a Mega 64 podcast episode “…its like watching a whole new other show”, which I do happen to find true. Ive probably seen Eva about 4 times by now, but I do get a fresh feeling when I got to watch it after some years pass. Its something about it that maybe some fans today can understand when watching something they like, its like a fresh start just to enjoy it all over again. So despite its flaws (the major one seems to be the fans), Eva isnt that bad. I just happen to like it, and its not a crime to either.
And thats my say.
October 22, 2011 @ 7:28 am
I’d like to say as well that I’m not an Eva fan boy. But I do think the series was better than mediocre as you called it. Sure, the ending was a god awful mess but besides that I think it was a good memorable show.
As for the remake movies, yes gainax is milking the franchise for what it’s worth; though you can’t argue that it’s not a good business move. And these are good anime films( the 2nd one was very good) and they aren’t being rushed out in any sense. I wouldn’t call it ‘cheap’ at all, there’s in fact alot time and money being put in. And it shows.
October 27, 2011 @ 5:49 pm
What makes it average or mediocre is the fact there are many other shows out there just in the mecha genre that are better with decent to great endings. What makes it memorable is that its been consistently shoved down the throats of the anime fans on both sides of Pacific Ocean for 15 years with nothing really nothing new coming out of the franchise.
About the movies, when your working from already questionable source material and you just retread that material you don’t really get a better story out of that, and in the end a good story is what makes a story good or bad. I agree its good business sense, however its kinda a sad commentary on the Gainax that all they do is live off the corpse of Evangelion, make other trashy shows, and make no attempt to product any new content. I agree the animation is great in those movies, but honestly if those movies are a just visual wank, you really cannot call them good with a straight face in the overall sense anyway.
October 28, 2011 @ 11:24 pm
I recently watched EVA (been an anime fan for about 5 years now)and I enjoyed it rather a lot, probably because I am not a mecha fan and did not watch it for the mecha. However as a mecha anime I think there are a few things that make the mecha stand out. First of all the battles scenes are actually rather gruesome when it comes to a lot of shows, and mecha specifically. that definitely increased my interest in the show. That and also one thing we must remember is that Eva really gave birth or at least brought about the recognition and popularity of many anime stereotypes (you can love or hate it for that one) bought by making these popular it carries a kind of originality for many die hard fans for the series. Finally, I love some of the lines of the series, and with lines such as “An unfamiliar ceiling” it is hard not to enjoy what the characters are saying and just to look into their mental state. Feel free to disagree but this is my personal take on the series.
Sincerely and trolly,
Folium
October 29, 2011 @ 2:12 am
Folium, I’m sorry but Eva didn’t give birth to anything at all in terms of mecha or anime stereotypes. In fact a lot of people point to the director of Eva’s borrowing from many other previous stories. The weak willed main character not wanting to fight is in every mecha show since MSG, maybe even before, the son who pilots the robot his father or mother build is even older, the parent who abandoned their child to go build robots is at least from the 1980’s, and the drunk sempai was started in the original Macross. So which stereotypes did Eva give birth to exactly? The only stereotype Eva gave birth to was the stereotype that anime fans will buy the same remade story over and over again.