Evangelion VS Madoka Discussion. What do you think?
So, a coworker and I just finished a weekly 2 hour chunk by 2 hour chunk viewing of Evangelion, End of Evangelion, and the first two Madoka films over the course of two months.
Obviously, there's some comparisons to be made.
What are your feelings about these stories? In comparison to each other?
My initial thought is that, metaphorically, the two shows are diamonds. Beautiful. Meant to be treasured for a long time. Madoka's 12 episode run is a perfectly cut diamond. Evangelion is a bit rougher, but larger and purer.
I completely understood PMMM's plot and thought it was expertly crafted and executed, not something I can say of any version of Evangelion's story.
That said, Evangelion felt like it was populated by real people. Real people in fantastic situations, sure, but the dialogue writing felt natural and characters' personalities felt more real. Madoka's characters are fantastical, which has its own appeal, but Eva's all have more capacity for depth.
And for all the 3deep5me reactions, the Evangelion writing team put a lot of effort to include interesting meaningful connected references to religion, psychology, philosophy, and classic science fiction.
Madoka's art is incredible, consistently. Every episode (of the bluray at least) is visually stunning.
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God i love both of these shows/movies, are you and your coworker planning on watching the third Madoka movie rebellion or the Rebild of Evangelions?
They are both deconstruction of their respective genres and they pulled this off beautifully.
I prefer Evangelion just because the way the characters were done, as they were prefect examples of what broken characters should be unlikable. Shinji was someone we hated or at least disliked for being pathetic because that that is how we would act in the situation he was in. Asuka had a horrible upbringing making her want to grow up faster and why she pursued a relationship with Kaji. Lets not even get started on Misato.
Madoka though had less realistic characters in my opinion had an amazing art style and animation as a have come to expect of studio Shaft.
I don't think it's quite fair to say the Madoka characters are "less realistic." I think it would be better to say, "less complex." I found many of the characters believable, and little touches went a long way (I loved how Kyoko hated when people wasted food). And even though some reactions seem over the top (Sayaka losing it over a boy), keep in mind they're depicting preteen girls. However, I will admit they can be a bit one-dimensional, without a lot of development. But it was such a quick run, I think too much complexity in each character would have been distracting from the overall narrative.
Personally, I felt that was under-supported and that moment felt very silly when it happened. SF Debris' review suggests that the writers were trying to imply an eating disorder, that a love for food was one of the few things keeping Kyoko from turning witch, since every other part of her suggested she was on the brink of turning.
I felt it was an OK decision to make the characters less complex and conform more to expected patterns, but all that's why my avatar is Asuka instead of Homura.
Hm, I don't really agree with that assessment of the food moment. Granted, I think she came off quite strong, but this is also a girl who never really cultivated normal social patterns. I don't think there's any reason to assume she had an eating disorder, or that somehow food kept her from turning. I just think she had felt what it meant to starve, and got frustrated/angry with people who were ignorant enough to waste food.
Nope! I'm moving from the Kyoto area in only a few weeks, so we don't really have time. That said, I don't feel that strongly about Rebellion or the Rebuilds. I feel EoE and Episode 12 were magnificent endings and almost deserve to not be followed up on.
It was his first time watching both. My... sixth(?) time watching Eva, and my first time going through PMMM.
For me, that character brokenness is why I keep returning to Evangelion. I change my opinion every time I go through the series. This most recent time, I started to really hate Shinji. I've "defended" him in the past, pointing to just how crazy his situation was. While that's true, I started thinking more about how Asuka was in an identical situation, and how she makes the turn toward recovery in those last few scenes, becomes the moral center of the show. Her utter frustration with Shinji while they were in the dreamscape, that he's groping around for support from anyone, even someone he knows is even worse off than him, really connected with me this time.
Asuka might be my #1 character originating from a television program.
Yes another supporter of Asuka.
Asukafags unite!
I just would like to add a little something, when Madoka was airing (the serie not the movies) the art was still very unfinished, lots of background were empty or sketchy. They finished it up for the bluray.
On topic, I feel that Madoka delivered the message in a clear way. It's really well crafted, you watch it once and at the end you "get" it., even rebellion. NGE is for me the total opposite, you finish it on a WTF note, you watch EoE and you are still confused. I watched it 2 times and I'm not sure I got the intended message. I liked NGE and the efforts put into it, but at the end of the day I feel it wasn't as limpid.