Gainax - Views

Here I feel we should discuss that famous anime studio, Gainax. We ALL know how Mitsugi feels about it. () I'd like to express my own feelings and ask for everyone else's.


I am a teenage girl.

I generally hate fanservice.

I think that animation is one of the most important components to anime.

Gainax is my favorite Japanese animation studio.

This is because, well . . .

Okay, honestly? Gainax has basically made me a better person. I understand other people disliking some of their works, even though I tend to bristle up in their defense(a bad habit I am trying to get rid of,) but for me, several of Gainax's works are some of the most important works of fiction in my life.

Well. . .it's really just three. I've seen and love FLCL and parts of Nadia and Shikabane Hime, but they didn't change me as a person in any way. So.

Let me explain.

Evangelion gave me hope for myself, made me love myself, and made me feel alive. I'm not going to go into details. . .but I saw Evangelion a little less than a year ago, not long after my eighteenth birthday, and. . .around that time, I was in a deep apathetic depression where I genuinely did not give a damn about myself or anyone else or anything I or anyone else did.

I went into it with no knowledge of the plot, and no expectations(this is how I usually go into fiction.)

It was November.

I remember so clearly the day I finished it.

I felt alive.

I know how stupid this sounds, but . . .it's the case for me. The last two episodes of that show? They are deeply, deeply important to me, and I would not ever have them any other way.


Gunbuster allowed me to believe in heroes.

It allowed me to believe that which my cynicism had never allowed me to believe - that if you work hard enough, fight hard enough, you can save the world. Because of it, I believe those people exist, and that anyone can be that sort of person.

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann taught me maybe the hardest lesson of all - to accept sadness and sorrow and that bad things happen to good people no matter what you do. I'm still trying to learn this. Just as Evangelion was quite possibly the happiest work of fiction I have ever consumed, Gurren Lagann was the saddest. I love the characters so very much, and their fates were heartbreaking. They achieved their goals, but personally, were able to achieve none of their desires. So yes, as Gunbuster has taught me, there are heroes, but now I know that those people have the dearest costs to pay of any in our world.

So, maybe I'm crazy. Maybe I'm a nerd who uses anime as self-therapy, and maybe I'm just over-dramatic.

Either way, that's how I feel about Gainax.

Gurren Lagann is the magical glue that brings us all together. I'm going to coach my old High School's rowing team during school this fall and I plan on using some of Kamina's phrases to motivate people. It is truly a fantastically inspiring masterpiece of fiction.

You're not crazy at all. Evangelion picked me up out of an existential funk too. It, as well, is truly one of the greatest, if not the greatest, animes of all time.

(and yes, while Shikabane Hime didn't give any profound spiritual awakening or something of the sort, it was still a fantastically done work and i'm proud to have finished it in two days. haha. thank you FUNimation's youtube channel)

To be honest, I watched some of Evangelion and hated it. It just didn't do it for me. There's just too much emo in it for me. And the violence is kind of fail. The only episode I liked was the one with the dancing, and that was because it was so ridiculous. Maybe I'll go back and try it again with a fresh face and open mind.

Gurren Lagan, on the other hand, filled me with joy and awesome. Kamina's poses and phrases have worked their way into my daily life (During a Magic game last weekend, someone asked me if I wanted to scoop and I struck his signature pose and said "Who the hell do you think I am!" and went on to pull victory out of my ass.) and I actually did cry when he died. I'm working my way through the anime. I still think there's waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too my Yoko fanservice, in both the anime and the manga. Seriously. To the point of being obnoxious.

So in essence, I don't know what to think of Gainax. They may be awesome. They may suck ass. I'm reserving judgement until I do some more research.

Okay, Evangelion . . .

Did you watch it dubbed?

Because, honestly, anyone who does is going to hate it. The dub really toys around with the dialog in a horrible way and removes a great deal of the emotional impact. I'm not really sure what you mean about the violence, though . . .there's nothing really all that graphic, though there are a couple of disturbing things late in the series.

Gurren Lagann is amazing and inspiring and wonderful, but like I said. . .it's depressing. Yes, it has the message that you can accomplish anything you want( with hard work and guts. ), but everyone who does this essentially ends up miserable


Oh, and Lamprouge? Rock on.

Yeah, I did watch a dub and I didn't really go that far in the series. And when I see action, I want it high speed and epic. Maybe I'm remembering incorrectly, but I remember combat in Evangellion being slow and kind of boring. Disturbing is good though.

I dunno. I think that it teaches you to follow your vision, no matter where it leads and carry the vision of those who fall in the quest.

haha. I thought you would appreciate that, Ryani.

Yeah . . .if action is a must for you, Evangelion really isn't a place to go, that's true. ^^; I'm kind of not big on action, for a couple of reasons. I mean, there are action scenes that make my jaw drop, but mostly. . .well. . .I'm not a visual person, and I have trouble following action with my eyes a lot of the time, to be honest. Also, it's just a taste thing, I prefer heavy dialog and emotional content, so it makes sense that our tastes would differ vastly. Like I said, I totally understand why people would dislike Evangelion.

Yes, but. . .it also teaches you to understand that that vision may lead you to having saved everyone but ending up alone and depressed and heartbroken for the rest of your life, having nothing to do with what you have created. You can create your vision, but be ready to have every other part of you destroyed.

It's very meta. It makes you think about things. I could draw some parallels with my own life at the time, and Shinji eventually getting his shit together made me realize that i could do the same.