My thoughts on Neon Genesis and Cowboy Bebop
By Afroman269 48 Comments
Alright here goes my first attempt at a long stupid blog about something that's for jerks like me. Forgive my grammar and forgive me if my opinions conflicts with yours and if I sound ignorant.
So recently I watched two anime series that are held in high regard, Neon Genesis Evangelion and Cowboy Bebop. I guess I'll start out the first section with Cowboy Bebop.
Well damn I didn't know what to make of this show when going into it. I always keep hearing about it, no story specifics, so I finally managed to find some time and watch me some Cowboy Bebop. The first episode definitely got me intrigued. They start out with a flashback of a shoot out that I was expecting to see more of throughout the series and become more fleshed out. Then shortly after, it plops you into the current time where the dude, Spike, is with another man, Jet, who are cowboys, which just means bounty hunters, and they are out simply catching fools to get money. The first thing that hit me about this series is well damn, this show has style, which I downright love it for. The other thing I appreciated was that it didn't fall that much into other annoying anime stereotypes, well there is Faye who wears that outfit and well I'll let it slide since of course there will always be the one hot chick dressed like that. Anyways I was a little down on the series, I was expecting there to be an over arching storyline involving Spike's past but well most of the show was the just the continuing adventures of the crew on the Bebop, which is the spaceship. Of course there were a couple episodes throughout the show that addressed Spike's past, but I wanted more.
Around this point something changed, this show started to grow on me, I started to get attached to the characters, except Edward because she annoys me a lot, I can see some other anime fans liking her but I don't go for that so I was annoyed. So ya I just liked seeing these people react to the situations they were in and I reached the point where I had to keep watching till the end. It was fun now to see what would happen to the Bebop crew which then I came to the final two episodes of this anime and well holy crap, all the focus is now on Spike's past and him having to face his issues head on. The ending of this which, I absolutely loved is probably what made me turn around completely from saying meh to shit ya!!! I realize now that the show didn't have to focus all the time on what Spike did, it was about the journey that this crew had and the fights they had when chasing bounties (Pierrot le Fou is my favorite episode) and so on. So ya there, I love me some Cowboy Bebop, onto my next thing.
Ahh Neon Genesis. Well unfortunately my view of this show was the opposite to that of Cowboy Bebop. I remember quite a long time ago, I was quite young at the time, when this aired on adult swim and I caught a couple episodes and was mesmerized by it. Well I was psyched for finally remembering what the eff I watched back then and decided to go through this series that is Neon Genesis. Well the first episode I was quite entertained. The only thing that sorta bothered me at first was the voice acting, which I will say right now the english dubbing of this is down right bad in my opinion which is one of the things that made me turn sour on this series. Anywho, hey there is this massive monster referred to as the "angel" and the dude is wreaking hella havoc on future Tokyo, which the city can go underground for protection against these things. So ya there is this teenage boy who is chosen to pilot one of these combat robots called Evangelions and must dive head first into combat against this angel since nothing else can scratch the damn thing. As expected the kid is overwhelmed and blacks out, which somehow he ended up killing the thing since the Evangelion unlocked some hidden power and kicked ass. So ya I was pumped, it was pretty cool what happened but things started to go downhill fast for me on this show. I started to see the road ahead consisting mainly of, angel spotted, city evacuated to underground lair, send out robot, robot struggles but only barely manages to kill angel. Which unfortunately turned to just that, but I will admit the show is not all that, there is other stuff like character development and relationships that form with this kid so I guess I'll dive into that somewhat.
One of my major problems with this show is just how many stereotypical anime crap there is in this. Since there is a teen male in this, there obviously has to be some chicks in this that form relationships with him. There is the woman who has the boy, oh right his name is Shinji, forgive me if I don't say names much since a lot was a blur, living with him but she isn't too annoying. There are other girls that are Shinji's age, uhh Ray and Asuka. Well there is one encounter between Ray and Shinji that was just plain dumb in my opinion, he goes to her apartment to drop off a card which leads into a scene with him stumbling and falling onto a naked Ray who recently showered and his hand, of course like other animes out there, manages to land on her boob. There is the other girl, Asuka, who is introduced later, who is a german girl and pilots another robot. She becomes my most hated character in this show, nearly every time you see her with Shinji, she has to say something like, DON'T LOOK AT ME WHEN I CHANGE CLOTHES, or PERVERT, etc. Shinji minds his own business but this girl always has to yell at him for no reason since she obviously wants his attention and his penis.
OK, I'm going to try to end this soon since this is starting to turn into a rant. The story continues with Shinji and the two other girls constantly fighting angels in nearly every episode. This leads into the final episodes that well.........I don't know. I'm not going to bash this series for what happens towards the end of its run since well.......I just don't really get what the fuck is going on. After the last angel fight the last episodes turn into some twilight zone shit inside Shinji's head and well it's been a couple weeks since I watched it so that shit is a blur. I'm not going to attempt to explain something that I have trouble remembering and understanding. I am aware that there were was a movie made that takes place right after the last angel fight and changes the ending, but well.....I'm so burned out on this show that I don't think I really care anymore what happens. Some may say hey why the hell didn't you just stop watching if it made you this annoyed?! Well I just wanted to see where all this shit was leading to and I kept telling myself this until, BOOM show is over and I was left telling myself what the fuck did I just watch?
Well if you managed to make it this far then I clap for you. Excuse my grammar since I rush stuff. Also the reason why I have these two animes grouped together is because I watched them around the same time and I heard equally high praise on both series. Plus I don't downright hate Neon Genesis, it just annoys the hell out of me and makes me question it's popularity besides the whole robots are mad awesome in Japan.
So ya I know there are a lot of Neon Genesis lovers out there which I must ask, am I missing something? Was I too dumb to not understand the show? Was there something I missed like some underlying plot line within this whole thing? I will only comment on the anime, I know this was based on a manga but I didn't read it. Also I obviously watched the U.S version which may be worse than the japanese version, I don't know. Please let me know if I'm not getting anything about this anime. I didn't mean to sound trollish about Neon Genesis in case if I did. This is just my opinion. Oh one more thing. Anime is still for jerks, you jerks.
Log in to comment