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Randdaddy t1_ixrx52w wrote

Is this what the famous Neon Genesis Evangelion scene was based off of?

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Kheead t1_ixs08w6 wrote

Must be, it's too close to not be inspired by this.

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multiarmform t1_ixst52a wrote

when youre so tired you fall asleep in the tomato soup

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notchoosingone t1_ixt826h wrote

*fanta

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Biased_individual t1_ixt4p62 wrote

Damn there is something I know as a pretty hardcore Eva fanboy is that there is always something new to learn about this show.

I’ve never heard about this.

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[deleted] t1_ixtutv5 wrote

[removed]

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Trash_Emperor t1_ixuckmp wrote

"I'm being a pedantic dick, but must be NPC's disagreeing with me."

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[deleted] t1_ixujoc1 wrote

[removed]

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lennstan t1_ixumye5 wrote

hmm..yes shallow and pedantic

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[deleted] t1_ixun264 wrote

[removed]

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lennstan t1_ixunbps wrote

nah bro you can’t even get the reference you’re just a sad being

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Graham_Stoner t1_ixsc04i wrote

Goddammit Gendo, I leave you for one minute!

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d3adheadsyd t1_ixt05kb wrote

shinji & asuka on a beach after escaping instrumentality

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PM_YOUR_BOOBS_PLS_ t1_ixtlb7c wrote

"Escaping" is a generous way to word it. They were both too fundamentally broken to accept what was essentially heaven in the Eva universe.

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LinkBetweenGames t1_ixtob0p wrote

I could have massively misinterpreted it, but wasn't the whole point that Instrumentality is against human nature, so we need to live with an understanding of our fear of the other to be truly human?

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PM_YOUR_BOOBS_PLS_ t1_ixu4ihm wrote

It's only portrayed that way through the view point of an extremely mentally damaged 14 year old boy.

The end of the original series, before any of the movies or anything, shows the process of instrumentality. It's essentially all consciousness becoming one, and that oneness allowing "holes" people feel in their lives and themselves to be filled with the oneness of everyone else around them.

People obviously still have separate consciousness, while also belonging to the collective unconscious. There's a bit of a duality going on. Duality being heavily present in eastern religion, and Eva obviously being bathed in religious ideas.

Shinji just views this oneness as being wrong because, like I said before, he's just broken. Him and Asuka have known nothing but lonesomeness and separateness their entire lives. They have inherently lost the ability to feel connected to anyone else.

It's been forever since I've watched it, but at the end of End of Evengelion I think Lilith states that anyone can leave the LCL soup if they choose to. The fact that only Shinji and Asuka leave shows how they're just broken and that nearly any other person would choose to remain as the one, singular being.

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DuelaDent52 t1_ixu5fq1 wrote

Or maybe they’re the ones who are whole because they have the self-awareness to define themselves after everything and everyone was turned to primordial goop.

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Deathsroke t1_ixuafsv wrote

It all comes down to your personal views. Many times mainstream media shows something that many would consider heaven as "bad" and vice versa.

For many, being a digitalised ego in communion will all of humanity while residing inside what's basically a Matrioska Brain and enjoying eternity. But there is a certain fixation not to escape "reality" (the Rebuild movies are all about anti-escapism) within popular media so such developments are all presented as bad in general.

It is rare to find a differing view outside of scifi and even within sci-fi that's not the norm.

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PM_YOUR_BOOBS_PLS_ t1_ixunqjj wrote

Yeah. That's definitely why Shinji immediately tries to strangle Asuka and Asuka calling Shinji disgusting when he stops. Definitely the actions of "whole", self-aware people.

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jerepila t1_ixuk7e8 wrote

Human Instrumentality begins, sucking everyone up into oneness, but right afterwards Shinji says “no, this isn’t right”, and Lilith instead sets people’s souls to be, I guess, free-floating. The choice that you mentioned is during this part, and it’s whether everyone’s souls can return to human bodies. So it’s kind of like two different half-states because Shinji was indecisive. The way I interpreted the ending was that Shinji and Asuka were the first humans to return to their bodies because they sorted out their feelings and chose life (Asuka having done so in the first half of the movie, when she pilots Unit-02 again).

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PM_YOUR_BOOBS_PLS_ t1_ixunjmf wrote

"Sometime later, the rematerialized Shinji and Asuka lie on a post-apocalyptic shoreline. Shinji catches a glimpse of an ethereal Rei before being startled by Asuka. Shinji begins to strangle her, but when she caresses his face, he stops. As Shinji breaks down in tears, Asuka voices disgust."

Literally the end of the movie is Shinji starting to strangle Asuka, giving up, then Asuka calling him disgusting. You can read that a lot of ways, but Shinji and Asuka 100% making the right decision is definitely not one of those ways. But again, it highlights that Shinji and Asuka are just broken.

It doesn't matter if Shinji says, "No, this isn't right." Shinji is fucked in the head. As is Asuka. Looking at any of their decisions as "correct" is very unwise.

My interpretation of Shinji immediately trying to strangle Asuka is that he realizes he made the wrong choice and just wants humanity to end. Asuka has similar feelings, and that's why she's disgusted with him not being able to strangle her.

Again, Shinji and Asuka are fucked in the head. You can NOT view their reasoning as sound.

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aridan9 t1_ixuq2ay wrote

The trouble with this interpretation is that it's horribly pessimistic and the ending of Evangelion is canonically optimistic. The real ending of Evangelion is the end of the TV series with the "congratulations" given to Shinji for him realizing he can grow and be better. The whole point of the show, as Hideki Anno has said is for people to learn that they can grow to be better, and they don't have to turn to escapism (e.g. watching mecha animes for his otaku audience) to avoid their problems (he has spoken about how he did this himself and escaped depression by learning to stop being an otaku and to actually embrace reality and life). Instrumentality is the ultimate form of running away from your human problems.

The main point you seem to be missing is that Instrumentality isn't a good thing. It's inhuman, and the desire to pursue it is driven by insecurity and loss, e.g. with Gendo Ikari losing his wife. When everyone turns to goo, we see how in their last moments, Rei turns into whatever the people she was killing were pining for, but never pursuing. It's artificial, fake happiness rather than the true happiness that comes from accepting yourself, learning to be better, and pursuing your goals with real others (despite the Hedgehog's Dilemma).

Ultimately, I guess, I defer to the directorial intent of Hideki Anno in interpreting Evangelion, a show/movie that is otherwise pretty difficult to interpret, especially without a decent amount of life experience.

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cmrdjn t1_ixv4jfn wrote

This is why I've never liked EoE and felt like it's contradictory & ruins the ending. The original show itself is already perfect with a perfect ending. Add EoE and then you have to have the Rebuilds to reconcile itself again.

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PM_YOUR_BOOBS_PLS_ t1_ixx49qn wrote

> The real ending of Evangelion is the end of the TV series with the "congratulations" given to Shinji for him realizing he can grow and be better.

Yes. I know. But you seem to be missing the point that this ending is canonically what people all experienced (or something similar) in instrumentality. Shinji experiences that after 3rd impact is achieved and all humans are melted into LCL and experience instrumentality. Without instrumentality, Shinji NEVER could have made those conclusions on those own. He was too broken and couldn't have accepted his own worth or that not everyone will eventually hurt him without the divine help of instrumentality.

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booontybox t1_ixuvfs0 wrote

I'm no authority of Eva either, but the intended takeaway of the series is the exact opposite of what you're saying.

A core lesson in evangelion is that pain, misunderstandings, confusion, insecurity, and anger are all important aspects of being human. Confronting these feelings and making peace with the fact that sorrow is as valid a human emotion as joy is what will make you content in this world.

Instrumentality was alluring specifically because it "fixed" the sources of dissatisfaction. It fixed insecurity. It fixed anger. It fixed loneliness. But in actuality, the zero sum nature of instrumentality means that, in order to remove negative emotions, you also remove the positive ones too. It means sacrificing all individual feelings for absolute contentedness.

This is what Shinji had to confront when instrumentality began. And instead of running from his problems like he and others did throughout the show, both literally and figuratively, he confronted them. He accepted what he had to do to live a fulfilling, albeit tumultuous, life. Which is why he and Asuka appear on the shore. Of all humanity, they were the first to make peace with the nature of their existence and resurface as individuals.

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treyj130 t1_ixusimx wrote

and by leaving, they leave the oneness of their “new garden of eden”, tasting the fruit and embracing separateness and beginning the universe anew

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DuelaDent52 t1_ixu5bxz wrote

“Heaven” is a funny way to describe that sort of existential nightmare. Besides, didn’t the Rebuild movies reveal instrumentality was, like, a time loop or a self-perpetuating cycle or something?

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PM_YOUR_BOOBS_PLS_ t1_ixuotnt wrote

That returning to oneness is a theme in tons of religions. In mystic Hebrew teachings, all human souls originate from a singular being "Adam Kadmon".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Kadmon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guf

Lots of mystical thinking revolves around all souls eventually returning to such a place, too. Sometimes it's something like a "Gaia" theory. (Can't find links. Just get endless books and game references.)

So, millions of people obviously don't see it as a nightmare.

Also, I haven't finished Rebuild. That's not what I'm talking about.

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aridan9 t1_ixuqpla wrote

It's true that this is a common theme in Evangelion, but Hideki Anno explicitly rejects this sort of thinking. The whole message of Evangelion is to accept yourself as an individual, with flaws, and to work to change and better yourself with other people, and to form real relationships with them. As is clear from the show, Instrumentality isn't a natural thing. It's not a religious reward. It's fool's gold. Rather than real happiness pursued with other real people, you simply lose all individuality. What's another way of saying you become one with the universe? You die and return to dust. That's all the people who remained in Instrumentality did. To be happy, you must first be, and you qua you cannot be unless you exist as an individual. Otherwise, there's an amorphous blob of happiness, maybe, but it's no better than suicide as you, the self, are gone.

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xorshama t1_ixvc2zy wrote

Is like death no? Basically if earth was suddenly eviscerated no would ever have to suffer no?

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Da_Di_Dum t1_ixtrk8z wrote

My opinion on Eva >>> Your opinion on Eva

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dragdownking t1_iy9v9ry wrote

That seems like a miss. Shinji and Asuka are the only 2 people "broken" enough to end up there? Big doubt.

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z0nb1 t1_ixusg4z wrote

Shaka, when the walls fell.

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Pasta91 t1_ixru9i3 wrote

This reminds me of album cover art..

Rush/yes/styx

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sdiggz302 t1_ixt9scb wrote

Yep. I was thinking a “Houses of the Holy” vibe too.

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beautifulhell t1_ixt3uzq wrote

It all comes tumbling down, tumbling down, tumbling down

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MajesticMoron95 t1_ixs15sy wrote

Lets take a hike on lake of rot

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jwm5049 t1_ixuc5nt wrote

I thought I was on r/eldenring at first.

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Drewpace80 t1_ixrxl69 wrote

I am floored to find a Howard Fast reference in the wild like this. I thought no one else knew about Time and the Riddle. Great work!

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shemjaza t1_ixsr9tl wrote

Oh wow... Shirt... they really revolutionised the music scene now than they get credit for.

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younoring t1_ixsf46y wrote

This is an album cover by an post-industrial indie stoner rock band you’ll forget the name of because it sounds so generic

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Son_Kakkarott t1_ixrxrvl wrote

I just looked up his other works and they are fantastic as well. I'm surprised I haven't seen any of his work until now.

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hartleyisboring t1_ixu2eiq wrote

Eva fans don’t make reference challenge (impossible)

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Xelacon t1_ixtd19e wrote

Just keeps tumbling down, huh

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stormrockox t1_ixs1oni wrote

Guy on the right, "I'm not cleaning this shit up"

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Tossinoff t1_ixty555 wrote

From a time when all mankind feared Godlike explosions that would wipe all life from the world. Humanity had reached the ability to destroy everything and it sent a chill down our collective spine.

We'd reached the point where we could not only destroy ourselves but every life form in existence. We had achieved the ability to destroy maybe not God but definitely the Angels.

Talk about Existential Terror. This was an artistic way of getting it out during the Cold War.

The quiet part no one speaks anymore is that we still have that ability. The Sword of Damocles still hangs above us all yet we go on, blithely unaware.

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Certain-Ad-3840 t1_ixsl6ky wrote

r/imaginarygiants would eat this up

EDIT: autocorrect

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mcarterphoto t1_ixscgvj wrote

Read this book as a kid, a collection of Howard Fast short stories. I remember really liking it.

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Akirex5000 t1_ixumd9r wrote

“It all comes tumbling down tumbling down tumbling down”

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Otakuislife101 t1_ixtvcvx wrote

Someone took "cry me a river" a little too literally

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TAC0_G0D t1_ixufhwz wrote

this is one of the neons to ever genesis the evangelion

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Okabeee t1_ixupmfi wrote

Oh wow I didn't know the poster of The End of Evangelion was based on an actual painting.

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LMAOIMDYING t1_ixsuwrw wrote

this is now my new background thx

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Hironitsbosch t1_ixuqkwy wrote

This is one of my favorite paintings.

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HawaiianSteak t1_ixt6e2s wrote

Was this a space harpy with mammary cannons?

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LiterallyAkagi t1_ixt8iiq wrote

Thanks, it's my background for a while and I didn't even know the artist Such a beautiful painting

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muppethero80 t1_ixteraf wrote

Mmmm now I want a grilled cheese sandwich

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RedIce25 t1_ixu3jbz wrote

It all comes tunneling down Jimbo

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bignerd64 t1_ixuwgj8 wrote

Looks lie it semi recreates the end of Planet of the Apes from the laste 60s.

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d-sane8 t1_ixv2uw7 wrote

Oh, now, this is FxXX'n magnificent !!!

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volvo1 t1_ixv3xde wrote

I really like this... There's something very retro sci-fi about it

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BedsAreSoft t1_ixvlq8q wrote

“It all comes tumbling down tumbling down tumbling dowwwwwnnnn”

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Starshylea t1_ixvz6cd wrote

I'm really happy to see all the Evangelion fans in the comments!

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Amalyano t1_ixto5ml wrote

Would make a cool album cover

(Yeah, tag that sub under the comment)

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AloneUA t1_ixt36lb wrote

I knew The End of Evangelion was a scam, lmao.

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metaStatic t1_ixtxhhk wrote

Well yeah it only happened because of death threats.

Unpopular opinion, the series was better without the movies.

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