◎Lime
On March 8 this year, the last "Final" of the new theatrical version of Evangelion (hereinafter referred to as EVA) was released in Japan, and it eventually earned 10.2 billion yen at the box office and 6.69 million viewers. At this point, this 26-year-long mecha science fiction feast finally dissipated, and the otaku audience after the 80s and 90s followed evangelion to complete their youth ceremony.
"EVA", which has a transcendent position in the history of Japanese animation, is a 26-episode TELEVISION anime broadcast in 1995, which at first appeared to be a "human + mecha doomsday" science fiction animation of the "Mobile Suit Gundam" genre, but because it has a keen "era synchronization" with the pace of Japanese society, it has become a mirror image of contemporary Japan.
It tells the story of a human experiment in 2000, which caused the Antarctic disaster and killed more than half of the people on the earth, this apocalyptic catastrophe is called the "second shock", and its impact spreads 15 years later, in 2015, when a monster caused by the "second impact" appeared on the earth - a huge mechanical invader, known as the "apostle". In order to fight against the "Apostles", humans developed a mech directly controlled by the nerves of the pilot pilot, which is the pan-human type of decisive weapon "EVANGELION", referred to as EVA.
At the summons of his father, Tsubasa Dondo, who was the commander-in-chief of the secret agency NERV, the 14-year-old teenager, was taken to the fortress city of "Third New Tokyo City" to become the pilot of the EVA first plane, and together with the two 14-year-old female pilots of the EVA, the "three noes" girl who was speechless (silent), heartless (unpredictable), and expressionless, the EVA Zero pilot Ayabori, and the second pilot From Germany, who hid her inferiority with her arrogant appearance, asuka , undertook the mission of resisting the "apostles".
A cowardly, passive, introverted, timid boy, thus forced to take on the mission of saving the world and mankind, his mentality wanders between collapse and rampage, slowly becoming confused, world-weary, closed, and his mental state also affects the state of the mecha, which leads to the animation critic Higashi Hiroki's concepts of "otaku" and "world system".
1
Otaku and world system
When the TV anime "EVA" was broadcast in 1995, Japanese society was facing a series of social crises: the bursting of the economic bubble, the Aum Shinrikyo subway sarin gas incident, the Hanshin earthquake... The Miyazaki murder incident that occurred in the meantime made the image of the otaku in the media typical because of this incident.
Otaku are seen as people who have problems with interpersonal relationships and communication with others, they can't get close to women, and they are typical losers. As a result, Japanese society has set off a series of demonstrations and denunciations against otaku and anime, and the restrictions and self-censorship of anime and manga and the fandom have reached an unprecedented level.
"EVA" presents the image of "Otaku" in a figurative way: the otaku audience sees the loneliness and escape of Makoto, and the fear of the real world and the wandering of the self-consciousness of the three noes (silent, expressionless, and psychological fluctuations) of the young girl Ayapolis, as well as Asuka's superficial arrogance and inner vulnerability, which are the conscious projections of the otaku who has weak interpersonal relationships, is not good at expressing feelings and emotions, and longs for recognition in the bottom of her heart. As a result, "EVA" has become the object of recognition of the otaku teenagers.
The use of Masayoshi Tsurugi as the spokesperson and incarnation of the "Otaku Clan" is clearly the idea of Hideaki Anno, the third generation of the "Otaku Generation Theory". As a result, The confusion and wandering of Zhenji in the animation, constantly seeking different images of himself in the soul, has become a portrayal of the corresponding relationship between the "otaku" and the virtual world, and everyone is lost in the stumbling and constantly seeking themselves (Hong Kong commentator Tang Zhenzhao).
Anime critic Hikari Haifa pointed out that the real body of the "apostle" in "EVA" that the EVA pilot confronts is actually the "other" that otaku is most feared in the interpersonal relationship of the otaku. The reason why the "apostles" appear in front of the pilots such as Shinji Tsurugi with different appearances is only because the whole mind of the new Tokyo City (which is actually the embodiment of Tsurugi's psychology) is closed, and there is a situation where "others" cannot be understood. Thus the EVA pilots confront the "Apostles", which can be understood as the otaku's attempt to reach out to others and understand their interpretation.
In episode 24 of the anime, the friendship between Masaru Tsurugi and the apostle Nagisa further shows that the "apostle", as the embodiment of others, strives to open the opponent's absolute realm (AT force field), and another version of the absolute realm is the "wall of the heart", which is the heart wall separating others from the self in the eyes of the otaku.
Higashi summarized another concept under the influence of EVA as the "world system". His definition of the world system is the imagination of "the small and emotional interpersonal relationship between the protagonist and the object of love (you and I)" in a state of social and intermediate terms, directly related to the "crisis of the world" and "the end of the world" as stories of a huge existential nature.
In Makoto Shinkai's "Your Name" and "Weather Child", the love between young men and women is more important than the "end of the world", and in "Weather Children", the pursuit of love by young boys and girls makes the whole of Tokyo into the ocean. In "EVA", the psychological consciousness of young boys and girls has been heavily portrayed and depicted, and their psychological fluctuations are closely related to the destruction of the world.
In the view of another animation critic, Uno Tokihiro, the emergence of "world system" works means such a world view, the protagonist will be detached from society and the state, and grasp the self-conscious emotions and scope of the world itself. The world here has two meanings: the whole world, and the range of emotions that the male protagonist can grasp is the whole world. Like the end of the TV animation version of "EVA", it is actually abandoned to ignore the plot and the major events of saving the world, and indulge in the confusion, confusion and monologue and whispering of the teenager Zhenji's search for himself, and the destruction of the world is not as important as the pursuit of the teenager's self.
Uno analyzes the causes behind this phenomenon and believes that it reflects a special cultural phenomenon in Japanese society in the 1990s: it was an era when people's trust in self-realization in the social sense was at the lowest, and people no longer believed in the dialectic of self-realization, no longer believed in normal growth stories, and no longer believed in adults. The final result is that the identity of behavior and identity is no longer combined, the dominant way of thinking is to take the state as the unity of identity, people only want to firmly maintain the existing things, no longer want to grow out of the given state into other things, no longer want to transform themselves through action, where people pursue not the result of self-identity, but the recognition of their own image. The solution to the problem is no longer to change the situation through action, but to come up with reasons that can convince yourself.
The treatment of the end of the animated TV version of "EVA" was earth-shattering at the time, which caused great social repercussions, and also caused dissatisfaction among some viewers and critics, becoming a popular social phenomenon at that time. In fact, this stream of consciousness ending is a stopgap measure for the animation to be understaffed, and it is also a "rush chapter" in the case of director Hideaki Anno's lack of thinking.
After the TV anime version of "EVA" became popular, Hideaki Anno was grumpy about the ending and decided to restart the entire series. As a result, in 1997, there were two old theatrical versions of "EVA" "Death and Rebirth" and "Air/True For You", but also due to financial and artistic expression reasons, the end of these two old theater versions still could not get out of the world that focused on the depiction of psychological consciousness. For example, at the end of Air/True Heart for You, Shinji is faced with the cruel dilemma of executing NERV's "Human Completion Plan": he can either fly EVA, which can save the world, or he will not drive EVA, so that humanity will be destroyed. He wants to be in a world where he can not drive EVA, and on the other hand, he does not want human destruction, and this theatrical version ends in the confusion of What Shinji does or does not do.
Tokihiro Uno regards the mental state of "do/don't" or "yes/no" under the concept of this world system as the "squat/psychological" otaku consciousness symbolized by EVA. He argues that the world department "abandoned the socially charged self-actualization narrative of 'actions/achievements' in favor of 'yes/no' narratives that revolved around self-identity." The implication is that at a time when the "grand narrative" has dissolved, society does not teach us what is right and what is wrong, and since making any choice will hurt others, it is ethically correct to simply "do nothing".
Because of this, the audience is still grumpy about the old theatrical version of "EVA", and Hideaki Anno is still not satisfied with such a solution. In the new century, Hideaki Anno founded the "Khara" Society and decided to restart the new theater version.
The first "Prologue" of this new theatrical version of the series was launched in 2006, the second "Broken" was launched in 2008, the third "Q (Urgent)" was launched in 2012, and the fourth and final "End" was launched this year.
Every reboot of "EVA" is a rewrite and reconstruction of the animated TV version, and to some extent, it is a new work that runs through Hideaki Anno's continuous development and deepening "otaku consciousness". The launch of the new theatrical series can be seen as Hideaki Anno's response to the "determinationalism" proposed by Uno Tokihiro and the "endless everyday life" proposed by the sociologist Shinji Miyadai: Otaku should no longer "squat at home" and should grow up.
2
"Finally" to return to the daily life and become an adult
Uno tokihiro pointed out that the negative consciousness of "squatting at home" that prevailed in the "world system" in the 1990s could not be maintained in the new century with the changes in the world, and people's ideological trends were bound to change, and they pursued a "sense of survival" that "if you don't fight, you can't survive." This "sense of survival" is what Uno calls "determinationism," an attitude in which "weak people (including themselves) cannot tolerate a state of value dangling, and therefore believe in a central value knowing that there is no foundation." This reflects the dissolution of the "grand narrative", the belief that people have no credibility to rely on, and have to take a posture to "survive" in a meaningless world. For example, if "as long as you work hard, you will succeed" is a grand narrative of success, and the "world system" believes that "hard work may not be successful" and therefore let it go, then "determinationism" is "effort may not be successful, and if you don't work hard, you will definitely fail."
Corresponding to this new trend of thought, Shinji Miyadai is also keenly aware of this passive escape from the world system to no longer pursue the meaning of survival and the return to the "endless everyday" life, which is called the "daily system".
A typical representative of "decisive" animation is "Death Note", the protagonist Night God Moon chooses to fight in the case of uncertainty about right or wrong, whether right or wrong, and the anime works of the "Daily System" include "The Melancholy of Haruhi Ryogu" and "Light Sound Girl". The biggest difference between the new theatrical version of "EVA" and the TV version and the old theater version in 2007 is that it abandons the "negativism/squatism" of the world system and moves towards "decisionism". The characters in the new theatrical version have slowly faded away from the closed consciousness of the otaku, but as the new protagonist, they are full of determination and a sense of struggle.
In "The End", Hideaki Anno gave up the struggle of consciousness between the TV anime version and the old theater version of the protagonist's consciousness between "saving the world" and "self-pursuit", and he let the protagonists come to a devastated world after the "third impact" and began to rebuild their homeland.
In this low-tech vernacular world, people have gained the motivation to live. In the first half of the seemingly trivial and complicated depiction of daily life, everyone seems to have found their own meaning: Ayapoli No. 6, who used to obey only orders, finds a sense of warmth and happiness in the ordinary farming life with the village women; Suzuhara and Komitsu, Seiji's colleagues Suzuhara and Komitsu, get married and live a busy and fulfilling daily life; the proud girl Asuka gives up her fiery temper and becomes much more mature, able to calmly say something like "I used to like you" to Masato Tsurugi. The biggest change was the real heir, who overcame his cowardice, no longer closed and evasive, took the initiative to talk to his father for the first time, and launched a final decisive battle with his father. And the most mysterious and ruthless in the whole series, Ding Yuantang, also took off the mask he had been wearing for the first time, exposing his inner world for the first time, and it turned out that he, like Zhensi, had always been a "secondary two" teenager who did not want to reconcile with reality.
The theme of "Evangelion New Theater Edition: The End" is "becoming an adult", each protagonist in the play actively or passively becomes an adult, after the final showdown, Hideaki Anno let the audience follow Masashi Tsuru into the studio, in a way that breaks the fourth wall to remind the audience: Regardless of whether the future life is meaningful or not, whether you like it or not, it is time for the otaku teenagers to step out of the EVA world and become an adult facing reality!
The theme song of the animated TV version of "EVA" sings: "Teenager, please become a god." "The End" turns the blood into a bland, eagerly expecting: Teenager, please become an adult!
26 years a reincarnation, "The End" became the otaku teenager's coming-of-age ceremony: goodbye, all evangelists, goodbye! Otaku Boy!