Just a couple of minor updates to stuff:
The Top 50 List has finally been updated to include JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. It’s at #20.
My 2012 list got shuffled around. Blast of Tempest jumped to #7. Psycho-Pass and JoJo stayed where they were.
I was hanging out with a buddy of mine today, and we were talking about your typical nerdy pop culture stuff– anime, comics, movies, and whatnot. My buddy noticed a definite pattern in the things that I was praising– a decidedly sadistic trend which he labeled “evil.” I talked about how I get a lot of enjoyment out of Shinji’s torment in Evangelion. I mentioned how the Milky Holmes girls live lives of perpetual failure. I even mentioned that infamous last episode of Blood-C and how it nearly made me go back and watch all of the episodes I skipped just to see how we got to that gloriously bloody moment.
“Dude, you are evil!”
Yeah, by most people’s standards, taking enjoyment in the suffering of others is pretty fucking evil. If, y’know, we’re talking about real human beings here. That’s what I wanna talk about here. Characters.
No man, characters ain’t people.
So here’s how I see the progression of the Evangelion Rebuid movies thus far:
1.unowhatever: Get the audience back into the grove by giving them something familiar yet all shiny and new-looking.
2.doublewhatever: Give the audience a taste that new direction they’ve clamored for ever since Shinji sat down on a folder chair in the void.
3.trifectawhatever: Hit the audience over the head with said folding chair, chain them to it, and laugh at them as you give them exactly what you already gave them two times before.
Gargantia. Space Dude sees the Hippie Water Peeps getting killed by Punk Pirates. Space Dude zappidyzaps them into nothingness. Water Hippies get all touchy feely and cry because some bad guys who wanted to kill them got killed. Space Dude doesn’t get the whole “you don’t vaporize peeps” concept. Peeps in the real world watching this shit take sides, as if a silly cartoon has to reflect their real life attitudes on vaporization. Let’s talk about this.
Spoiler and stuff: