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Destroy All Podcasts DX Episode 320 Side B - Evangelion: Death & Rebirth

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3 comments posted
Simple stuff.

Cool that you're going back to Evangelion. I said "yes" to the review on Twitter, but I've only just gotten around to listening to sides A and B. Looking forward to the discussion of End of Evangelion.

Evangelion: Death (and Rebirth, too, I guess) didn't/doesn't offer much if you've already seen the series, or if you haven't, it doesn't serve as a recap. I've only watched it two or three times since it came out in English.

Compared to that, Evangelion 1.11 is definitely better at establishing the universe for new viewers, and better about handling Shinji's character in particular.

Anyway, the issue of whether or not DAP "should" discuss sexism or any other political subtexts in reviews...it's your podcast, that you do for free, so you can talk about whatever the hell you want. If listeners don't like it, that's no big deal.

If it changes the minds of listeners, that's even better, but even if you never do, just being able to have that discussion is worthwhile.

As for fanservice, I don't think the double standards are rooted in biology. To really really simplify it, why would women *not* enjoy looking at naked men, when physical health is just as important for the male side of genetics? But culture is a powerful force, and it's easy to understand why men in power would subconsciously (or not) want to reduce the pressure on themselves to look good, by pushing the meme what women "care less" about appearance. But this is also highly dependent on context and culture.

The way that female fan culture around actors and fictional characters has flourished suggests there is a need that mainstream culture just isn't filling. Even if a lot of this appreciation shows up as written fanfic, there's still a lot of visual appreciation going on.

Not to mention the other side, like how angry certain male anime fans get over the very existence of bishounen. There's a very hostile push against female-oriented fanservice

The scenes between Shinji and Kaworu in 3.0 demonstrate the double standard anyway, because the titillation is emotional and the physical stuff is more hinting with fully-clothed bodies. Although, at least the TV series had them sitting in the baths together.

Pterobat's picture
Posted by Pterobat on 18 March, 2014 - 01:22
Evangelion: Death (and

Evangelion: Death (and Rebirth, too, I guess) didn't/doesn't offer much if you've already seen the series, or if you haven't, it doesn't serve as a recap. I've only watched it two or three times since it came out in English.

I only watched it once, and only due to a friend who had to get me into this show in the late 90's. I think the way I approached it, I watched the TV series first, then "Death", "End of EVA" next and "Rebirth" since apparently he felt I should watch that at the end but I just didn't want to go through more of it after the main film as I just had enough of that s--t.

Chris@StudioToledo's picture
Posted by Chris@StudioToledo on 18 March, 2014 - 13:02
You Can (Not) Be Serious?

Somehow I was expecting to hear more about how sucky Death & Rebirth are but I guess not, still it was fun the same with what topics you covered as usual. I suppose it'll be a while until you get to "End of Evangelion" at this point.

I hate to say my memories of EVA have not be very good to say the least, having to marathon that sucker just to get it out of the way and after I did, really put me off watching stuff for a while (though rather short). I recall in SIDE A you mention how the show connected with rather depressed teens which I guess I wasn't (too optimistic for my own good I suppose). I never looked back, I feel I'm a better person for it.

Now hearing of the newer film (the 1.11 that came out almost 7 years ago), nice to hear of what they did about that, though hearing of the later films don't interest me plenty. As Lea Hernandez once joked about the whole thing, it's "The end of the world with robots" as she puts it. I suppose I'm not missing much at all.

Chris@StudioToledo's picture
Posted by Chris@StudioToledo on 18 March, 2014 - 18:47