Neon Genesis Evangelion comes to Netflix

[CmdrKing]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13nSISw ... el=Netflix


Now NGE is a very old show at this point, old enough to have a (incomplete) remake, but as the Netflix trailer says, it really is that big a deal and has been effectively out of print outside Japan since roughly 2004.

There's some less good news for old fans though: Netflix will be redoing the dub. https://twitter.com/amandawinnlee/statu ... 9079658496

Now, if I remember right I watched the show in Japanese originally, so I can't speak to the quality of that original dub, but I do know it's the best regarded dub of that era and most of the principle cast members are still working and highly respected today, so not using the original dub or bringing any of them back is less than ideal. But still, that's a minor blemish on the overall good news.

I'm curious if folks here have largely seen the original show or not? The SF Debris crowd seems to trend a bit older, but there's definitely a generation of anime fan that has never had a chance to see this show that determined what anime as a medium would be for decades, so it'll be fun times regardless.

[Yukaphile]

Never saw it.

[LittleRaven]

Oh yeah. I remember this bad boy. It has a trope named after it for a reason.

I haven't seen it in 20 years, so my memory is going to be heavily tainted by time. I remember the dub being...pretty bad...but then I remember the dubs for most of the old school anime being pretty bad, with a couple of notable exceptions. (Trigun, Cowboy Bebop) Dubs have gotten SO MUCH BETTER in the last couple of decades that I'm not surprised Netflix is choosing to redo it. Heck, I'm willing to bet they could make a better dub using a lot of the same original talent...everyone just has a lot more practice with that sort of thing these days.

I'll probably end up giving it a watch, if only to revisit memory lane. Heck, maybe I can even sell the kids on it. Make 'em appreciate what *I* had to make do with back in the day.

[Yukaphile]

DBZ was the flagship for how good bad dubs could be. I love it, but damn, it was cheesy. Yu Yu Hakusho, well... that was actually good.

[Admiral X]

I've seen it. Didn't care for it or its whiny, useless protagonist. Nothing wrong with the dub, though.

[Robovski]

I've seen it. Didn't care for it or its whiny, useless protagonist. Nothing wrong with the dub, though.

Shinji is, how can I put this, an infamous sadsack of a character in anime. And that was on purpose.

[Admiral X]

And was very difficult to watch, as was Asuka for that matter.

[CmdrKing]

At a purely narrative level NGE is essentially a meditation on depression, loneliness, the consequences of inflicting the duties of society on children, and the mental process of trying to force yourself to shift from nihilism to existentialism in the face of the above.

That's uh... not a story for everyone, or for every point in your life.

Honestly my larger issue, as someone who very much did need Eva when I watched it, is the middle of the show takes too strongly from the works that inspired it. NGE is not at its best as a monster of the week super robot show, and while the visual techniques and creativity of the monsters were a big influence on that animation level, that's not really what I was there for and I got very bored. Once things pick back up they REALLY pick back up, and basically everything from Kowaru forward is pretty amazing.

Not really partial to End of Evangelion though. Get the praise, it's big and impressive important, but gotta admit... I was okay at "Congratulations!"