I was drawn in, when I was younger, by the easily identifiable teenage hero with abandonment issues and sexual confusion teaming up with attractive girls who pilot giant robots to save humanity from giant monsters. Over time, the story revealed what the robots and monsters really were: way to appeal to troubled teenagers through a popular medium (comics and cartoons) to lecture them on dealing with life and humanity.
I’ve had my fair share of depression and anger, and we all deal with the hormonal stuff at this age. In America, today, we send our youth off to get spoken down to by doctors who inject and prescribe all sorts of chemicals to alter the mind. In Japan, artists and writers have a strong sympathy for the teen-aged generation, and utilize all of their will and ability to help out in every way possible. This is illustrated, to me, with Neon Genesis Evangelion. I’ve just seen The End, the movie ending the television series, and nothing, absolutely nothing, has reached me and convinced me of my own worth and purpose as this show, as an agent of one of the most beloved art forms today. I don’t care if Americans don’t want to try as hard, I don’t care if people commit suicide all over the place, I don’t care about your bullshit, and I don’t care about my bullshit, because none of it matters. There is absolutely nothing in the perceived world of humanity that is as important as doing and thinking what feels right and good. I don’t care if I die in the next few minutes, as long as this understanding never goes away.
Is the show a piece of propaganda? Yes. And it knows it. It doesn’t hide behind anything. It is such an obvious thing, that this is intended to alter and control minds. I don’t care. I don’t care what you think, and I’m glad. I don’t have to be speculative of everything. I can like Victoria Martin: Math Team Queen and I can hate Casablanca, because it comes naturally.
I feel good, and I don’t have to answer to anybody for it. That’s how much I love this show and why.
