LEEEAVINGGGG ON A JETPLAAAAAANE~!
I'm off to Hawaii at the ungodly hour of 4:00 am. I'm trying to see if I can stay up all night in hopes that I'll actually be able to sleep on the plane. In reality, the conclusion to this experiment will probably only be an agitated, tired, grumpy Maile who still couldn't sleep on the plane. Oh well.
I hate flying. Really. It's not so much that I'm nervous about being on a plane (you know, sitting in a metal tube suspended 30,000 feet above the earth hurtling forward at 300+ miles an hour. No biggie). My issues are more centered on having to deal with airports and layovers and a six hour flight.
GAWD. It starts at 4 with and itty bitty plane up to San Francisco, and from there I have a layover, and then 45+ minutes of boarding, and then sitting on a plane for six freaking hours, and then running around the Honolulu Airport, dragging my carry-ons, trying to catch a Wiki Wiki shuttle, figuring out which roundabout my luggage is at, waiting for it, and then trying to figure out where my dad is in the disaster otherwise known as the Pick Up Area at 12 HST. Which is about 3:00 pm California time. Which is 11 hours of transit. Fuuuuuuck my life.
Anyways.
I made the mistake of starting Neon Genesis Evangelion a couple of days ago. Because obviously I didn't get enough mindrape from Splice. But the guys over at tvtropes hyped it up something crazy (explosions and mechas and religious undertones and post apocalyptic pseudo-cyberpunk, oh my!) so I thought, what the hell, it's only 13 hours of my life. WHAT COULD POSSIBLY HAPPEN?
Well, what happened was the I marathoned the first 20 episodes and I still don't have any idea what's going on.
Here's the deal:
In the year 2000, the Angel ADAM (which is an alien-monster... thing?) crashed into the South Pole in what is known as the Second Impact. Because of this, the polar ice cap melted and flooded the whole goddamn world, and now everything kind of sucks. Fast forward to 2015, and more Angels start showing up. As a direct result, the secret UN organization NERV decided to mobilize the Evangelion robot mechs (which really aren't robots, but actually cloneish things of ADAM outfitted with bindings that allow them to be controlled via the pilots?). For some reason, the Evas can only be controlled by 14 year-old kids with physiological issues. So, enter Shinji Ikari, the poster child for parental abandonment angst. Shinji is the son of Gendo Ikari, the man in charge of NERV. Along with the inexplicably blue-haired, red-eyed, silent Rei Ayanami and she-who-sufferes-from-many-issues Asuka Langley, these kids pilot the first three Evas (00, 01 and 02).
That's... Kind of the concept?
Except it's much weirder in that, each episode is required to have at least three Disney Acid Sequences, it's extraordinarily graphic (for what was originally marketed as a children's anime), and based heavily on Freudian theory and Biblical mythology. Yeah. In addition to being a bang bang shoot 'em up mecha anime from the mid-90s.
On a more technical note, the animation is marginal at best. I realize that part of it is my dislike for 20th century anime stylization (compare Dragon Ball Z to oh, say Final Fantasy XII: Advent Children), but in addition to that, the production company suffered serious budget cuts during production.
Aside from that, so far NGS is a solid anime. I have a feeling that what little sanity present is about to take a nose dive off the crazy cliff, anyways. Shinji just got done with being vaporized in the LGL fluid, Unit 01 looks like some sorta were-mech, Asuka is off angsting somewhere, Rei is contemplating what emotion is, and Misato and Kaji are having really loud sex, and don't even ask me where Toji went. I haven't seen him since Unit 03 got smushed. And I still haven't gotten to the crazy promised to me by tvtropes.
So, if you think you can stomach a graphically violent, biblically laced, freudian, post-apocalyptic angsty pseudo-mecha anime, do it. It's pretty awesome.
(Can there just be a new Gundam series now please? I miss my classic mecha anime D: And don't even start on Gundam: Unicorn. I's a fucking miniseries called Unicorn. Just shoot me.)
In other news, I bought Spirit Bound and am eagerly awaiting a chance to read it.
YOU GUYS, I THINK MAYBE DIMITRI COMES BACK? :D :D :D
I hate flying. Really. It's not so much that I'm nervous about being on a plane (you know, sitting in a metal tube suspended 30,000 feet above the earth hurtling forward at 300+ miles an hour. No biggie). My issues are more centered on having to deal with airports and layovers and a six hour flight.
GAWD. It starts at 4 with and itty bitty plane up to San Francisco, and from there I have a layover, and then 45+ minutes of boarding, and then sitting on a plane for six freaking hours, and then running around the Honolulu Airport, dragging my carry-ons, trying to catch a Wiki Wiki shuttle, figuring out which roundabout my luggage is at, waiting for it, and then trying to figure out where my dad is in the disaster otherwise known as the Pick Up Area at 12 HST. Which is about 3:00 pm California time. Which is 11 hours of transit. Fuuuuuuck my life.
Anyways.
I made the mistake of starting Neon Genesis Evangelion a couple of days ago. Because obviously I didn't get enough mindrape from Splice. But the guys over at tvtropes hyped it up something crazy (explosions and mechas and religious undertones and post apocalyptic pseudo-cyberpunk, oh my!) so I thought, what the hell, it's only 13 hours of my life. WHAT COULD POSSIBLY HAPPEN?
Well, what happened was the I marathoned the first 20 episodes and I still don't have any idea what's going on.
Here's the deal:
In the year 2000, the Angel ADAM (which is an alien-monster... thing?) crashed into the South Pole in what is known as the Second Impact. Because of this, the polar ice cap melted and flooded the whole goddamn world, and now everything kind of sucks. Fast forward to 2015, and more Angels start showing up. As a direct result, the secret UN organization NERV decided to mobilize the Evangelion robot mechs (which really aren't robots, but actually cloneish things of ADAM outfitted with bindings that allow them to be controlled via the pilots?). For some reason, the Evas can only be controlled by 14 year-old kids with physiological issues. So, enter Shinji Ikari, the poster child for parental abandonment angst. Shinji is the son of Gendo Ikari, the man in charge of NERV. Along with the inexplicably blue-haired, red-eyed, silent Rei Ayanami and she-who-sufferes-from-many-issues Asuka Langley, these kids pilot the first three Evas (00, 01 and 02).
That's... Kind of the concept?
Except it's much weirder in that, each episode is required to have at least three Disney Acid Sequences, it's extraordinarily graphic (for what was originally marketed as a children's anime), and based heavily on Freudian theory and Biblical mythology. Yeah. In addition to being a bang bang shoot 'em up mecha anime from the mid-90s.
On a more technical note, the animation is marginal at best. I realize that part of it is my dislike for 20th century anime stylization (compare Dragon Ball Z to oh, say Final Fantasy XII: Advent Children), but in addition to that, the production company suffered serious budget cuts during production.
Aside from that, so far NGS is a solid anime. I have a feeling that what little sanity present is about to take a nose dive off the crazy cliff, anyways. Shinji just got done with being vaporized in the LGL fluid, Unit 01 looks like some sorta were-mech, Asuka is off angsting somewhere, Rei is contemplating what emotion is, and Misato and Kaji are having really loud sex, and don't even ask me where Toji went. I haven't seen him since Unit 03 got smushed. And I still haven't gotten to the crazy promised to me by tvtropes.
So, if you think you can stomach a graphically violent, biblically laced, freudian, post-apocalyptic angsty pseudo-mecha anime, do it. It's pretty awesome.
(Can there just be a new Gundam series now please? I miss my classic mecha anime D: And don't even start on Gundam: Unicorn. I's a fucking miniseries called Unicorn. Just shoot me.)
In other news, I bought Spirit Bound and am eagerly awaiting a chance to read it.
YOU GUYS, I THINK MAYBE DIMITRI COMES BACK? :D :D :D