Is Rei Ayanami a doll or a real girl?

I’ve been spending almost a week trying to find a way to explore the triangle that is Gendo, Shinji and Rei in episodes 5 and 6. This 46 minutes are really Shinji’s and the audience’s introduction to his fellow pilot and where we get some more insight into her hero worship of Gendo. The reason […]

Reflections of an old anime fan: On gatekeeping

For the last couple weeks I’ve been thinking about gatekeeping, inspired mostly be Irina’s post about why she doesn’t participate in it. Here’s the thing. There was a time when the people that liked video games, roleplaying games, Magic cards and anime were the outsiders. These were the people nobody else wanted to know. They […]

The many glasses of Gendo Ikari

Gendo Ikari is one of the hardest characters to parse in Evangelion. Some of that is due to the fact that we simply get so little dialogue from him. I’m sure that this is not the last time I’m going write about him, but I really want to get into how Shinji mirrors Gendo at […]

The Otakusphere: Code Monkeys, Cool Japan and other people’s stuff

Here we are at the end of another week, and I’m thinking about AMVs. Do people still make AMVs anymore? Not to sound like grandpa on his porch talking about that newfangled doohickey and the Tick Tocks, but I really miss discovering anime that I never heard of because of a good AMV. I mean […]

Through a PRISM darkly. How Edward Snowden and Evangelion collide

It must have been a long time since I’ve watched Neon Genesis Evangelion because I came across an episode I completely don’t remember. I mean I vaguely remember the climax, but outside of that, I didn’t remember the set up. I didn’t remember any of the pieces of it and I certainly didn’t remember the […]

[The Animanga Festival] I admire everyone. Even you.

Well here we are in the last week of the Animanga Festival, and I’ve kind of failed in keeping up. But I think this week’s prompt is really neat. I also wanted to thank Auri and Nairne at Manga Toritsukareru Koto for letting me jump in on a few of these. I love the idea […]

In My View: Where I talk about Robotech, Macross and get called a corporate shill

So a few weeks ago I talked about how I got into anime, and I won’t belabor the point, but Robotech was part of that process. There is another part to that story. Years later, when I encountered my first anime fans, and mentioned Robotech, I got what I will call “the talk.” At that […]

The Otakusphere: The mindworms are here

You ever have one of those songs that you love, but if people caught you singing it out loud they’d give you some weird looks. I’ve got a few of those, but the one I really want to start with today is “Cheer Up” by Reel Big Fish. The main refrain goes: “I’ve got a […]

Sad Shinji in the rain and other pretty pictures in Neon Genesis Evangelion

One of the benefits of doing these retrospective pieces is that I get to revisit shows with a fresh eye and a bit more experience. One of the biggest ways this has helped is that I know a lot more about photo composition and film composition. That doesn’t mean I’m brilliant by any means, but […]

Is Misato Katsuragi a pedophile or a parent?

So in my research I found two common ways of looking at the relationship between Misato and Shinji. I’m not convinced one is more textual than the other, but they both involve Misato’s sexuality. One side says Misato is trying to find a way past Shinji’s defensiveness, and her sexuality is just another way to […]