Neon Genesis Evangelion, Part 1

I've already talked about Neon Genesis Evangelion a fair amount, perhaps too much. Some part of me hopes that in writing these I can get that impulse out of my system. It's not likely, though. Yes, Evangelion is my all-time favorite series, but it's also the series which sets a standard for all others in my mind. With some series, the comparison can be fairly direct: in the case of Attack on Titan, another disaster scenario which explores psychological trauma, I felt like Evangelion served as a useful foil. The same goes for the noir/mecha anime The Big O, particularly in its heavily Eva-influenced second season. In other cases, the comparison is far less direct. For instance, the heavily acclaimed series Breaking Bad's fifth (or fifth and sixth) season has lost its luster for me because I no longer get why I should be watching Walter. Did the show only set out to create a smart, capable character who gets under your skin with a particularly infuriating kind of evil? Well, Evangelion already did that using far less fanfare and screentime with Gendo Ikari, who's also smarter, more capable, and more evil than Walter White could ever be. Further, unlike Breaking Bad, Evangelion takes place in a neutral world; it doesn't favor Shinji one bit. Sure, he's more or less the best Eva pilot, but there's a reason given for it. The show never breaks plausibility and logic to favor the protagonist's needs or wants.

Because I want to spend a little more time with Evangelion (I plan to make this a two-part post, followed by a review of the film), I'd also like to make some boiler-plate remarks on the blog so far. First of all, thank you everyone who read, gave feedback, and passed the blog along. It means a great deal. In summary, the feedback I received was largely critiquing an issue with regard to my perspective on anime as a whole, and another issue about my toothless review of Attack on Titan. I'd like to go ahead and address this briefly, because these are excellent points.

Skip ahead to the next still for the part that's actually about Evangelion.

The first issue presented was that in this blog, I am essentially setting up a "Japanese anime>other animation>live action" model. I will admit, my favorite series are anime (Evangelion, Fullmetal Alchemist, Serial Experiments Lain), but right behind them are Twin Peaks, The X-Files, and Mad Men. I think the short run-time of most anime series works to their advantage, and they can tell detailed, complete stories in a satisfying manner. They have the narrative conciseness of films and the expansiveness of television, and combined with the unique storytelling benefits of animation, they tend to make for better series, in my opinion. Indeed, I find long-running anime series such as Dragon Ball, Bleach and Inuyasha insufferable. Most of my favorite films, however, are live action, by film greats such as Francis Ford Coppola and Stanley Kubrick. In other words, animation is not a prerequisite for greatness by any means.

The other issue was my use of a very contentious word: perfect. Attack on Titan, I am told, is not perfect. I also neglected to point out the thin characterization and erratic pacing plaguing the entire first season. To be honest, though, the pacing didn't particularly bother me at any point. I think it sped up and slowed down for dramatic effect, exactly as it needed to. As for the characters, there are quite a lot of them in Attack on Titan; some of them are conventional characters who are given backstory and detail (Eren, Mikasa), but most of them are representative of a theme. Authority, fear, self-interest, and misanthropy are all themes which Attack on Titan conveys, and some characters are an embodiment of those and other themes (shouldn't be hard to figure out who's who among the four I listed).

But in a larger sense, I view seasons of a show as a totality, a sort of meta-film in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Thus, a great season can still have bad episodes. Indeed, in two of my favorite seasons of television I've watched recently, (Mad Men Season 3 and Breaking Bad Season 4) there were several weak episodes in which I began to lose patience with the respective shows, but as each drew to a close, they revealed a tightly written and logical work expanding over 13 episodes. It didn't matter that Mad Men Season 2 had a more solid and consistent 13 individual episodes; at the end I wasn't transported by their totality in the way I was by the show's far more uneven successive season. Thus, I believe that the totality of Attack on Titan Season 1 did everything it set out to do; it is perfect for what it is. I don't think it will ever surpass Evangelion because the project of Attack on Titan is (amazing as it is to think) less grandiose and less ambitious, and thus I don't think it'll ever reach Eva's olympian heights. But it's still everything I could have wanted from it, and that's good enough for me.

Neon Genesis Evangelion is not a flawless show, either. It is quite unlike Attack on Titan in that its flaws are not buried in the woodwork, only noticeable after the fact. Rather, the flaws of Evangelion scream in your face. From the very first moments of the show, we see that it is tacky and dated, as the synthesized horns blare out a lazily written and tonally inappropriate theme song (don't even get me started on the cover of "Fly Me To the Moon" or its bizarre remixes which function as the end credits song). The show itself has tonal shifts which are utterly jarring and unexplained, often signified by the even more grating flute tune which scores the "lighthearted" scenes, which mostly portray Misato's alcoholism and often feature Shinji being abused in some capacity. If these scenes are intended to be comic relief, the relief (and indeed, the comedy) is lost on me. The show also fails to make Ritsuko a believable character; rather than psychologically exploring her personal life, we are simply told facts about it which make little sense given how little context we have. And although some of them are excellent, episodes 8-15 can feel irrelevant, formulaic, and out of touch with the rest of the show. The most egregious example of this is Episode 9, "Moment and Heart Together". Although Anno and Satsukawa's writing is far below par here (the trick to beat this Monster of the Week is through the power of synchronized dance!), Seiji Mizushima's direction is also jarring and out-of-place, an amazing fact considering his stellar work on another of my favorite series, 2003's Fullmetal Alchemist. 

Whew. Okay, I think that's my complete gripe list. I could go into further detail about how I find other episodes like "Magma Diver" lame by comparison, like well-executed episodes of a far less interesting show, but given how much navel-gazing the show ultimately amounts to, sometimes it's good to step into the real world. Although these episodes themselves lack the features which make Evangelion truly unique and great, I appreciate the fact that we are given a complete view of these characters' lives. For most of the show, Shinji is depressed, Asuka is lonely and frustrated with everything, and Misato feels personally vacuous and clings to her status as a sex object to feel a sense of worth. But those are the characters' unique conditions, they are not their entire personalities. They have real moments of triumph, friendship and (perhaps) love. Evangelion is a show where the human characters truly feel human, and the alien characters truly feel alien (with one key exception). The Angels are completely mysterious in their intent. Are their names on the nose? Is their purpose simply to wipe out humanity because humanity's nature is evil? I doubt it. The Angels are inscrutable because it's likely that alien life would have no commonality of language, culture, or behavior to humans. We can't even tell if they truly have consciousness. This is a testament to the way Hideaki Anno's writing works: even though he presents a fantastical situation, the details make it feel true to life.

The first episode of Evangelion is a triumph in its own right, perfectly setting up Shinji's character, and his relationships with Misato, his father, and Eva 01. Shinji's mantra ("I musn't run away!") is somewhat childish, it grates on the mind in a kind of indescribable way. It's also taken directly from Anno's life:

They say, "To live is to change." I started this production with the wish that once the production complete, the world, and the heroes would change. That was my "true" desire. I tried to include everything of myself in Neon Genesis Evangelion—myself, a broken man who could do nothing for four years. A man who ran away for four years, one who was simply not dead. Then one thought. "You can't run away," came to me, and I restarted this production. It is a production where my only thought was to burn my feelings into film. -Hideaki Anno, July 1995.

Shinji is not an audience stand-in, although he may appear to be, as he is introduced to Tokyo-3 and NERV along with us. The audience may see some of ourselves in him (I myself see too much for my comfort), but he is not the sympathetic protagonist featured in most television shows. He's a character whom we pity. He's not "the one" because he chose to be. Indeed, he repeatedly tries to resist his role as humanity's protector. Partially because that's a lot of responsibility to shove on a 14-year old, partially because he feels like he's being manipulated by his father (which he is, and has every right to be sick and tired of), and mostly just because he's scared. In the first episode, as Rei is brought out on a stretcher to be loaded into Eva 01, we see Shinji's main redeeming quality: empathy. It's a characteristic which turns out to be rare in this world, one which his father probably doesn't know exists, much less possesses. Indeed, one wonders where Shinji got it from. Even Misato (who seems to care for the boy in some capacity) simply encourages him for the sole purpose of not dying. 

The details about Rei's injury are not explained until a later episode, and while it is fairly obvious that she is simply incapacitated so that Shinji must step into the role of Eva pilot (i.e. the plot requires it), I've always found it extremely apropos of the series. The narrative might rise and fall on Shinji, but the world surrounding him doesn't. In time, we'll get to know the stories of the First and Second Impact before he was even born, and the mysterious passing of his mother. More importantly, most of the central characters of the story have been at NERV for some time. Rei's injury shows that they have been living lives outside of him; they don't just go into carbon stasis when he's not around. On the one hand this is just a nice detail because it makes the world feel lived-in. On the other, it is representative of Shinji's central feeling about himself and others: he doesn't matter to them, life will go on anyway. Isn't that true, though? If you were to die, not only would 99.99% of humanity not know about it, even the people closest to you would ultimately get on with their lives. Shinji knows that he's an unnecessary person, and yet within the first 20 minutes of the show, we see that he's completely central to humanity; or at least to Eva 01, as it mysteriously swoops in to save him.

Misato is not an Eva pilot, but she's nearly as important to the story as Shinji. The two of them, as Anno put it, "are unsuitable—lacking the positive attitude—for what people call heroes of an adventure. But in any case, they are the heroes of this story." She does, however, bear a passing resemblance to an active hero. She displays a poise and confidence in battle situations which Shinji does not. She seems to take real pride in winning battles, whereas Shinji just seems traumatized for most of them. Yet the first time we see her, it's a photo she's sent to Shinji along with Gendo's request for him to come to NERV Headquarters. Of course, Misato sends a flirty picture displaying her cleavage, but also draws arrows pointing to her breasts with the comment "pay attention". It's a little on the nose, but it works. She's not confident that a picture of herself, an attractive woman in her late 20s, will appeal to Shinji; but more importantly, she insists that he view her as a sex object. In the second episode, Misato decides that Shinji will live with her, rather than in some godforsaken bunker at NERV Headquarters. In the moment, we're just relieved that maybe an adult will show him some kind of kindness and affection. As the series proceeds and we're exposed to Misato's alcoholism and thinly veiled depression whilst their relationship becomes more fraught with tension and sexual ambiguity, maybe the best we can hope for this boy is that he is left alone and not taken advantage of.

Rei is in many ways far worse off than Shinji. She seems calm, collected and efficient. More simply, though, she has simply accepted a worldview in which she is an object to be manipulated by others. In her school uniform, she looks awkward and uncomfortable in her own skin. She's in her element, and almost graceful and beautiful, in fact, when she's in a plug suit-- a part of the machine. She rarely speaks because she has no expectation of being a person; it is only when Shinji does bring this expectation into their dynamic that she begins to think that maybe her life could be different. In one of the pair's first scenes together, Shinji somewhat creepily enters her apartment and finds what appear to be his father's cracked glasses on her dresser; this gave me a sense of foreboding I couldn't quite put my finger on. Rei is hardly bothered by the debacle that ensues except for the fact that Shinji has the glasses; she seems to have no sense of personal space and no sense of violation from Shinji (albeit accidentally) touching her inappropriately. 

The scene shows Anno's and episode director Keiichi Sugiyama's attention to detail, and the show's capacity for the power of suggestion. The apartment is sparse; bare, in fact, except for a bed, a dresser, Gendo's glasses, and a bunch of tissues and bloody bandages on the floor. Why are the tissues there? Does Rei have a cold? I think not. The bandages are remnants of her injury, but they get the subconscious going about blood and the female body. Then you have to wonder about the tissues. Then about Gendo's glasses. Then about her weird attachment to him. And then you see just how unconcerned she is with being groped. In all of a minute, a major aspect of Rei's character is delivered without any dialogue pertaining to it. It's also the last indication of it until much later in the series, but it defines every time she talks about Gendo, leaping to his defense and showing uncharacteristic aggression. 

Despite its monster-of-the-week quality, the show resists falling into a formula due to the episodes being structured around the characters' personal experiences, rather than the battles. Several episodes (most of the more important ones, in fact) are devoid of battles, as the conflict between the characters is more than enough, especially upon Asuka's introduction. The Angels, while they are alien and inscrutable, often represent the Eva pilots' issues in sophisticated ways. Although the cables the Evas are attached to are actually called umbilical cables-- a fairly blunt reference to the Evas' origin--angels like Ramiel represent intrinsic fears or issues in the characters, not simply the theme of the week. Ramiel bores down into Tokyo-3 and towards NERV Headquarters, towards Rei's secrets which reside down there (even though we don't know it yet). Internally, Rei fears where she comes from. She lives in the present because her past is too complex, too frightening, too ugly to think about. Yet here is Ramiel, boring down through the walls of NERV Headquarters which, like Rei's psychological walls, ultimately cannot keep everything out. In the first of many gripping episodes in the latter half of the series (Episode 16), Shinji is trapped inside Leliel, the mysterious dark orb. When he comes to his terrifying realization ("Blood! I smell blood!"), it's clear that he's experiencing a primal adolescent fear: fear of being infantalized, of losing all agency. Subconsciously, he's realizing that although he's inside Leliel, the alien womb, is his state in Eva 01 all that different? Or is his personal life? Now, even during his transition to manhood, he still lives, moves and breathes at the behest of others.

Depression is not an intense, prolonged state of sadness. It's something else entirely: a lack of feeling and of meaning. It's this incredible dichotomy that keeps me coming back to Evangelion. Without a doubt in my mind, I think it is a show about depression. Despite this, the show makes you feel so much and means so much. The show is visceral in its take on psychology; the intense violence which the show builds up to in the latter half of the series matches the fever pitch of emotions within the cast of characters, but the physical violence can't shake me to my core the way that the directors of Evangelion (most notably Masayuki and FLCL director Kazuya Tsurumaki) portray both adult and childhood trauma. The show can be awkward, tiring, and painful to watch. When it comes down to it, though, no other series has really come close to saying anything to me as much or as well as Evangelion. I haven't quite explained exactly what it says, and realistically speaking I probably can't explain it all. But there's always next time.

P.S. I tried to make this post less spoilery for people who are just curious about the show but maybe haven't seen it all yet. The next post will be spoiler-tastic.

Shingeki no Kyojin (Attack on Titan): Spoiler-Free Edition

When I first watched Attack on Titan (literally translated as "Advancing Giants," a less catchy but far less misleading title), I recommended it to friends as a spiritual successor to Neon Genesis Evangelion. In retrospect, I don't really know what I was thinking. Other than some fairly superficial similarities-- a last-bastion-of-humanity situation (not really the case in Evangelion), and an attack by a relentless enemy with no known origin (not really the case from Attack on Titan, if what little I've heard from the manga is true)-- the two shows are radically different in their storytelling approaches, universes, and characters. What I think I meant to say is that Attack on Titan represents a monumental achievement in anime, the scope of which can only be compared to Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Evangelion to me represents when anime broke out of the boring merchandise-pushing mecha anime genre, most iconically represented by Transformers, as well as the hollow and formulaic nonsense of fantasy series like Dragonball Z and Sailor Moon. Our protagonist was not a huge tough guy, a powerful giant robot, or a magical girl with eyes and breasts the size of oranges and melons, respectively. He was a sad, lonely, severely depressed adolescent boy, who struggled with self-loathing and an abusive father. It was a show in which there were no heroes, only flawed, vulnerable, complex human beings. It was a personal show, one which delved fearlessly into the subjects of suicide, child abuse, adultery and rape, and was the result of its auteur's own history with depression. In Evangelion and Shinji Ikari, pitiful little creep that he is, Hidekai Anno redefined the way that an animated story could be told.

Attack on Titan is an achievement of a different, perhaps less profound kind. First, and most obviously, it became really popular with international audiences very quickly. Second, it represents a revolution in distribution: Attack on Titan came out in 2013, and in the same year it appeared on Netflix in the original Japanese with subtitles. This is the first time in my lifetime that audiences on either side of the Pacific are both eagerly awaiting the next season of an anime series. And finally, it has the finest animation of any anime series I've seen to date, outstripping even the glamorous Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood with its flawless integration of CGI to create the dazzling three-dimensional fight scenes. Just as the Vertical Maneuvering Gear lets the courageous Survey Corps move in new ways, Attack on Titan boldly and dazzlingly brings anime into a deep, three-dimensional world.

But these achievements should not overshadow what is also just an excellent season of television. The first 25 episodes of Attack on Titan are a nearly flawless portrayal of a richly imagined universe, memorable characters, and a deeply intriguing plotline; one which does not drive the story but provides an exhilarating undercurrent. As anyone who has seen the last frame of Episode 25 knows, there's a mystery behind the Titans, the Walls, and Eren which is yet to be uncovered by the characters, but we're eager to be right there with them when they do.

It's the animation which first draws us into Attack on Titan. These scout troops, their mission, and their dialogue are not intrinsically intriguing, but it's what they are chasing (obscured for now, but the grotesque and terrifying design of the Titans will be revealed by the end of the episode), and the way they are chasing it ("Don't break formation! Ready your Three Dimensional Maneuvering Gear!" the captain barks) which is important to us and them. These characters are (mercifully) not our heroes but representative of a central theme of Attack on Titan: as we are bound to learn, these men are all going to die, and we as the audience aren't going to feel anything. Life is fragile, so fragile that sometimes we can't bring ourselves to care about people dying. It's part of the brilliance of Tetsuro Araki's direction (in shining form, far outstripping his at-times clunky work on Death Note) which shows us both the difficulty to understand casualty numbers as human beings, and the surrealism of knowing someone for a day, a week, or a lifetime, and that person no longer existing a second later.

Attack on Titan's first episode also shows its hero from the side of the grown-ups, the common-sense folk, and then shows how much of conventional wisdom is based in cowardice. Eren is irritating, brash, and loud. He thinks he's tough when he's really not. And guess what? The little brat is absolutely right. Living in a cage is not only humiliating, but unsustainable. He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither, and as it turns out, he gets neither. But Eren's no better for it. Everything he knows and loves is destroyed in mere minutes, and as he screams and cries, hating his child's body and his inability to save his mother, you can tell than inside he wishes that all this time he was wrong and poor Kalura was right.

Eren is essentially (Evangelion protagonist) Shinji Ikari's inverse. Eren is all externalized emotion, all animus and machismo. His confidence is a self-fulfilling prophecy, as with an average build and intelligence he graduates 5th in his class. He might have some hangups with his father, but he's got more serious things to worry about. He's a born leader, dragging nearly all of the other top 10 graduates (as well as his best friend/conscience Armin) into the dangerous and unpopular Survey Corps. But we also see in this boy not only the confidence, the leadership, and the dogged determination of a hero. We see his psychotic, violent nature; we see a boy who is not quite yet a man struggling with issues we'd never want to place on our worst enemy, let alone a 16-year-old.

This leads to perhaps the one and only immediately recognizable flaw in Attack on Titan: Eren and Mikasa's backstory. Although at first extremely realistic in a way you hadn't thought of before, exploring the results of the concentration of different ethnicities into one nation-state as well as the rise of mobs (specifically sex slavery) in a post-apocalyptic world, the sequence goes from terrifyingly realistic to downright silly in a matter of seconds. It just barely functions as an explanation for the weirdness of Mikasa, the show's favorite freak show.

Mikasa and Eren's relationship is fraught with childhood trauma. But Eren seems to have a more or less healthy regard for her. Although sometimes when he's pissed off he'll say she isn't, he considers her his sister. She's one of the people in his life who reminds him of what it's all for. After all, once all the Titans are dead, what's his life going to be without her? In Mikasa, however, we have an ostensibly strong, determined and independent woman who in fact has an identity which is totally conditional upon Eren. Her motivations are based solely on his interests, her actions always mirror his actions. When she's not fighting Titans, she has no agency. Eren mentions her hair's getting long and she cuts it.  Why? Because he said so. She's lucky that at least in this sense Eren's not abusive, but at this point, would she even know the difference? It's my sincere hope that the second season actually seeks to answer this question, and more. After all, the show is hardly squeamish. A look at the possibility of Mikasa's quasi-incestuous feelings for Eren with a sympathetic eye could add another layer to its already excellent character development.

In this fashion, I think Attack on Titan actually takes the opposite approach from Evangelion. In Evangelion, the drama was internal: these characters' inner trauma and psychological issues were played out on a massive scale. The fate of the world hangs in the balance, and it's up to Shinji to get over his abandonment issues. In Attack on Titan, we see the effects of physical devastation, the loss of family members, and feelings of hopelessness and loss on the characters' personalities. Armin, who is the most grounded and psychologically normal of the central characters, is the series' Shinji. He's the coward in all of us; he's not always what he like about humanity, but he's what most of us are. Most of us probably would stand there in terror until the last possible second, while the suicidal bastard tried to save our lives. Conversely, Armin is admirable in confronting the grey areas and unpleasant ethics of war. In the best sequence for the character (I won't say much because the title of the episode itself is something of a spoiler), he states what could very well be the show's mantra: "Good person. That's a term I don't care much for. I feel like those words are simply what people use to call those who are convenient to them."

Attack on Titan has come under some hot water in South Korea and among Japanese progressives for militarist themes. American audiences may be quick to draw comparisons between the Titans and Godzilla, and the hopeless situation of the city's military and resources may be seen as a parallel to Japan's near the end of the Second World War. I really can't say what the political ideals of (manga writer) Hajime Isayama or Tetsuro Araki are. All I know is that the satire of religion and portrayal of the king (or perhaps Emperor stand-in) as a bumbling idiot out of touch with his people are not common facets of conservatism. If it is indeed militaristic or conservative in its politics, it's nothing if not idiosyncratic in this regard.

For instance, I was at first skeptical about Levi. He's something of a trope in anime: the reserved, talented cool guy. It's unfair to this character that I immediately thought of him as the series' Sasuke Uchiha (major character and fan favorite in the Naruto series who works well as Naruto's foil but not much else), and I was not swayed by the tiny detail that he's a germophobe. The whole character seemed like a lazy trope fusion, as his skill often serves as a deus-ex-machina to the plot as well. But as the show placed him and Eren in an unusually close relationship (in proximity if not in relation), he became one of the show's most important characters, representing the complicated relationship between authority and the individual. "I don't know which option you should choose," Levi explains. "No matter what kind of wisdom dictates you the option you pick, no one will be able to tell if it's right or wrong until you arrive to some sort of outcome of your own choice." If you choose to defy authority, you are asserting your agency. But in following authority, one cannot shake off the burden of agency: the choice to follow is still a choice. Eren soon learns just how true his words are: Levi might be a powerful soldier, but he's only human.

Attack on Titan does an excellent job of setting up likeable characters who seem like they may develop into relevant side characters, only to snatch them away a few episodes later. Their deaths make the brutality of Attack on Titan real and harrowing. After the initial shock wore off from the first seven or eight episodes, it seemed that perhaps the show would relent in its slaughter of beloved characters, eventually settling into a formula. But once again, the writing (led by Yasuko Kobayashi) proves itself above tropes and formulas: the battle constantly changes and evolves. Despite the amazing model for fight scenes with the Vertical Maneuvering Gear, the conflicts change in setting and scope. As in a real war, conflict is but just one part of the enterprise, as strategy, politics and personal drama are all handled deftly. It's the kind of show where I wouldn't be surprised to see Levi die in the next season (in fact, it may be a wise move) because that's what makes the show satisfying: rather than merely fulfilling our expectations with excellent execution, it defies our expectations and the execution is even better than we had hoped for. 

Although she's not a major character (though she may indeed become a central character in the coming seasons), I can't end this post without talking about my favorite character: Zoe Hange. Once again, Attack on Titan rises above playing to tropes and stereotypes. Hange is quirky and unsettling to others, but she's not the nutjob or village idiot. On the contrary, she's the most intelligent character in the show. She's utterly fearless; so fearless that she actually feels empathy for the freakish Titans, a trait which Eren would have hated her for beforehand, but in time he gains an appreciation for. When they talk through the night and into the morning,  Eren finally begins to understand who she is and what she wants: victory does not come from mere might and violence, it comes from understanding your enemy. There might be hope for the little psycho after all. But back to Hange, she is everything Mikasa is not. She simply does not take crap from the chauvinistic men at the higher ranks of the military. Why would she? She's smarter than them, she has ideas, and she's not afraid of 30-meter titans, she finds them cute. I love Hange because she's a feminist character in what is in no way a specifically feminist show, and when she hatches a plot or runs a test, or whispers "I'll tear those secrets right out of you" to a Titan, I can see that she's going to be the real hope for humanity.

As I said, I think Attack on Titan is, so far, essentially a perfect season of television, with few obvious flaws. It is notoriously difficult to improve on perfection, but I feel confident that with such a richly imagined universe, future seasons will be able to change the show's dynamic. We've already had violent, harrowing disaster scenes, exhilarating action scenes, and political drama. Further insight into the supporting characters' lives as well as unveiling the mystery of the walls, the Titans and Eren should be next on the menu. With the way Season 1 wrapped up, it seems like that's exactly what Araki and co. plan to do, if not until 2015. Oh well. As Mikasa says: "The world is merciless, and also very beautiful."

An Introduction

 I hate the "Best Animated Film" category at the Academy Awards. I understand its purpose, and without it, Spirited Away would never have earned its much-deserved Oscar in 2002, but it still provokes a great deal of ire for me. Although I wouldn't say I hate the category itself so much as the cultural understanding we have of film, and the relationship between animated and non-animated films which the category and award represent. In Japan, which has been the world's powerhouse in terms of great animated films and series since the mid-1990s, animated films and series are presented side-by-side with their live-action counterparts as art created for an adult audience. Sure, there are children's anime series, but they're a subcategory of a genre which is understood and respected as a complex medium.
   
The same cannot be said in the United States. Anime, until perhaps very recently, has been viewed as an extension of children's cartoons for maladjusted or immature teenagers. God help you if you're an outspoken anime fan as an adult, or the worst stereotypes about gamers in the late 90s and early 00s will be placed upon you fourfold. This is largely because our childhoods as Americans are defined by animated films, from the Disney Classics dating back to the 1940s to the 3D animated films from Pixar and Dreamworks which my generation grew up with. Many from my generation were also introduced to anime from the late 90s and 2000s in our late childhood and early adolescence, due to the arduous and slow nature of distribution at the time. These were series which were wholly inappropriate for children (more due to their complexity and adult outlook on life than their content), but which our parents allowed us to see because they looked like cartoons.

And thus, we reap what we sow. Because we were allowed to watch Fullmetal Alchemist as children, the culture does not respect Samurai X as an adult film. Because our culture associates animation with childishness, our whole understanding of film is skewed. In what sane culture is Grave of the Fireflies not seen as a defining World War II film while Saving Private Ryan and The Thin Red Line are? An ethnocentric culture, for certain, but also one in which we are all told repeatedly that animation has no effect on us as adults, that it can do nothing as well as real actors, real directors, and real life movies. Sure, there is a point to be made about the charismatic effects of real actors, who are allowed to use body language and improvise in a way which carefully animated characters cannot. But to me, there's nothing more real than watching the detailed exploration of Hidekai Anno's 4-year period of depression in Neon Genesis Evangelion. I can't think of any film which has transported me so completely into such a richly imagined and weirdly believable universe than Spirited Away. And never, ever, in the hundreds of movies I've doubtless seen, has there been a romance I feel so much for, and so completely for, than Kenshin and Tomoe's in Samurai X.

But there is hope for the future. For the first time I can remember (meaning possibly ever), there is a contemporary anime series (Attack on Titan) aimed at adults which is popular in the United States. Is it an outgrowth of nerd culture becoming cool, a mere byproduct of the phenomenon of comic book heroes starring in blockbuster movies? Perhaps. There's a reason it'll be the first series I write about in this blog. But I sure am glad that I can talk about an anime (that is, pretty much just the one anime so far) as an adult without drawing looks of terror or pity. But great as Shingeki no Kyojin is, there are many superior series which it borrows heavily from, without which it could not exist.

In this blog, I want to write about anime; primarily my favorites, but sometimes my least favorites. Primarily about series, but occasionally delving into film. Really, it's a very personal project. I want to write about anime in the way I wish it was written about; with the same attention to detail, love and respect that great live-action series do. Despite the pretentious title, I am by no means an expert on film or anime. I just want to explain why Evangelion and Serial Experiments Lain and even FLCL mean more to me than even great series like Breaking Bad. My name is Thom Hood, and this is The Anime Criterion.

Shingeki no Kyojin (Attack on Titan)

When I first watched Attack on Titan (literally translated as "Advancing Giants," a less catchy but far less misleading title), I recommended it to friends as a spiritual successor to Neon Genesis Evangelion. In retrospect, I don't really know what I was thinking. Other than some fairly superficial similarities-- a last-bastion-of-humanity situation (not really the case in Evangelion), and an attack by a relentless enemy with no known origin (not really the case from Attack on Titan, if what little I've heard from the manga is true)-- the two shows are radically different in their storytelling approaches, universes, and characters. What I think I meant to say is that Attack on Titan represents a monumental achievement in anime, the scope of which can only be compared to Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Evangelion to me represents when anime broke out of the boring merchandise-pushing mecha anime genre, most iconically represented by Transformers, as well as the hollow and formulaic nonsense of fantasy series like Dragonball Z and Sailor Moon. Our protagonist was not a huge tough guy, a powerful giant robot, or a magical girl with eyes and breasts the size of oranges and melons, respectively. He was a sad, lonely, severely depressed adolescent boy, who struggled with self-loathing and an abusive father. It was a show in which there were no heroes, only flawed, vulnerable, complex human beings. It was a personal show, one which delved fearlessly into the subjects of suicide, child abuse, adultery and rape, and was the result of its auteur's own history with depression. In Evangelion and Shinji Ikari, pitiful little creep that he is, Hidekai Anno redefined the way that an animated story could be told.

Attack on Titan is an achievement of a different, perhaps less profound kind. First, and most obviously, it became really popular with international audiences very quickly. Second, it represents a revolution in distribution: Attack on Titan came out in 2013, and in the same year it appeared on Netflix in the original Japanese with subtitles. This is the first time in my lifetime that audiences on either side of the Pacific are both eagerly awaiting the next season of an anime series. And finally, it has the finest animation of any anime series I've seen to date, outstripping even the glamorous Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood with its flawless integration of CGI to create the dazzling three-dimensional fight scenes. Just as the Vertical Maneuvering Gear lets the courageous Survey Corps move in new ways, Attack on Titan boldly and dazzlingly brings anime into a deep, three-dimensional world.

But these achievements should not overshadow what is also just an excellent season of television. The first 25 episodes of Attack on Titan are a nearly flawless portrayal of a richly imagined universe, memorable characters, and a deeply intriguing plotline; one which does not drive the story but provides an exhilarating undercurrent. As anyone who has seen the last frame of Episode 25 knows, there's a mystery behind the Titans, the Walls, and Eren which is yet to be uncovered by the characters, but we're eager to be right there with them when they do.

It's the animation which first draws us into Attack on Titan. These scout troops, their mission, and their dialogue are not intrinsically intriguing, but it's what they are chasing (obscured for now, but the grotesque and terrifying design of the Titans will be revealed by the end of the episode), and the way they are chasing it ("Don't break formation! Ready your Three Dimensional Maneuvering Gear!" the captain barks) which is important to us and them. These characters are (mercifully) not our heroes but representative of a central theme of Attack on Titan: as we are bound to learn, these men are all going to die, and we as the audience aren't going to care. Life is fragile, so fragile that sometimes we can't bring ourselves to care about people dying. It's part of the brilliance of Tetsuro Araki's direction (in shining form, far outstripping his at-times clunky work on Death Note) which shows us both the difficulty to understand casualty numbers as human beings, and the surrealism of knowing someone for a day, a week, or a lifetime, and that person no longer existing a second later.

Attack on Titan's first episode also shows its hero from the side of the grown-ups, the common-sense folk, and then shows how much of conventional wisdom is based in cowardice. Eren is irritating, brash, and loud. He thinks he's tough when he's really not. And guess what? The little bastard is absolutely right. Living in a cage is not only humiliating, but unsustainable. He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither, and as it turns out, he gets neither. But Eren's no better for it. Everything he knows and loves is destroyed in mere minutes, and as he screams and cries, hating his child's body and his inability to save his mother, you can tell than inside he wishes that all this time he was wrong and poor Kalura was right.

Warning: Spoilers up to Episode 25

Eren is essentially (Evangelion protagonist) Shinji Ikari's inverse. Eren is all externalized emotion, all animus and machismo. His confidence is a self-fulfilling prophecy, as with an average build and intelligence he graduates 5th in his class. He might have some hangups with his father, but he's got more serious shit to worry about. He's a born leader, dragging nearly all of the other top 10 graduates (as well as his best friend/conscience Armin) into the dangerous and unpopular Survey Corps. But we also see in this boy not only the confidence, the leadership, and the dogged determination of a hero. We see his psychotic, violent nature; we see a boy who is not quite yet a man struggling with issues we'd never want to place on our worst enemy, let alone a 16-year-old. It's because of this that it's so appropriate that Eren is what he hates the most: a Titan. His resolution to kill all Titans is as basic and instinctive as the Titans' desire to eat humans. It's telling that when he finally breaks through and beats Annie, his internal monologue takes a bizarre and terrifying turn, like a drunk spilling out a long-kept secret: "I am free! I will eat everything! I will destroy the world!"

This leads to perhaps the one and only immediately recognizable flaw in Attack on Titan: Eren and Mikasa's backstory. Although at first extremely realistic in a way you hadn't thought of before, exploring the results of the concentration of different ethnicities into one nation-state as well as the rise of mobs (specifically sex slavery) in a post-apocalyptic world, the sequence goes from terrifyingly realistic to downright silly in a matter of seconds. It just barely functions as an explanation for the weirdness of Mikasa, the show's favorite freak show.

Mikasa and Eren's relationship is fraught with childhood trauma. But Eren seems to have a more or less healthy regard for her. Although sometimes when he's pissed off he'll say she isn't, he considers her his sister. She's one of the people in his life who reminds him of what it's all for. After all, once all the Titans are dead, what's his life going to be without her? In Mikasa, however, we have an ostensibly strong, determined and independent woman who in fact has an identity which is totally conditional upon Eren. Her motivations are based solely on his interests, her actions always mirror his actions. When she's not fighting Titans, she has no agency. Eren mentions her hair's getting long and she cuts it.  Why? Because he said so. She's lucky that at least in this sense Eren's not abusive, but at this point, would she even know the difference? It's my sincere hope that the second season actually seeks to answer this question, and more. After all, the show is hardly squeamish. A look at the possibility of Mikasa's quasi-incestuous feelings for Eren with a sympathetic eye could add another layer to its already excellent character development.

In this fashion, I think Attack on Titan actually takes the opposite approach from Evangelion. In Evangelion, the drama was internal: these characters' inner trauma and psychological issues were played out on a massive scale. The fate of the world hangs in the balance, and it's up to Shinji to get over his abandonment issues. In Attack on Titan, we see the effects of physical devastation, the loss of family members, and feelings of hopelessness and loss on the characters' personalities. Armin, who is the most grounded and psychologically normal of the central characters, is the series' Shinji. He's the coward in all of us; he's not always what he like about humanity, but he's what most of us are. Most of us probably would stand there in terror until the last possible second, while the suicidal bastard tried to save our lives. Conversely, Armin is admirable in confronting the grey areas and unpleasant ethics of war. In the best sequence for the character, he hatches a fake plot with Annie, attempting to rope her into the Survey Corps' grasp. The only reason why the Corps went along with it in the first place is because of a cynical power play to gain respect as the true creme de la creme of the military; the only reason Annie goes along with it is she maybe pities the weakling. "If I do this, will you think I'm a good person?" she asks. Armin's response could very well be the show's mantra: "Good person. That's a term I don't care much for. I feel like those words are simply what people use to call those who are convenient to them."

Attack on Titan has come under some hot water in South Korea and among Japanese progressives for militarist themes. American audiences may be quick to draw comparisons between the Titans and Godzilla, and the hopeless situation of the city's military and resources may be seen as a parallel to Japan's near the end of the Second World War. I really can't say what the political ideals of (manga writer) Hajime Isayama or Tetsuro Araki are. All I know is that the satire of religion and portrayal of the king (or perhaps Emperor stand-in) as a bumbling idiot out of touch with his people are not common facets of conservatism. If it is indeed militaristic or conservative in its politics, it's nothing if not idiosyncratic in this regard.

For instance, I was at first skeptical about Levi. He's something of a trope in anime: the reserved, talented cool guy. It's unfair to this character that I immediately thought of him as the series' Sasuke Uchiha (major character and fan favorite in the Naruto series who works well as Naruto's foil but not much else), and I was not swayed by the tiny detail that he's a germophobe. The whole character seemed like a lazy trope fusion, as his skill often serves as a deus-ex-machina to the plot as well. But as the show placed him and Eren in an unusually close relationship (in proximity if not in relation), he became one of the show's most important characters, representing the complicated relationship between authority and the individual. "I don't know which option you should choose," Levi explains. "No matter what kind of wisdom dictates you the option you pick, no one will be able to tell if it's right or wrong until you arrive to some sort of outcome of your own choice." If you choose to defy authority, you are asserting your agency. But in following authority, one cannot shake off the burden of agency: the choice to follow is still a choice. As Eren and Levi's entire squad dies around them, Eren learns just how true his words are: Levi might be a powerful soldier, but he's only human. When Levi first breaks his cool veneer, unable to tell Petra's parents that she's dead while learning, quite possibly for the first time, that she was in love with him, it solidified in my mind that stereotypes and brusque characterization are beneath Attack on Titan's station.

It's the death of characters like Petra and Marco who make the brutality of Attack on Titan real and harrowing. Their detail and their inherent likability make them seem like important characters who cannot be killed. After Eren's eventual resurrection (somewhat predictable once you really started to think about it, but still handled in the most badass, imaginative way possible), it seemed that perhaps the show would relent in its slaughter of beloved characters, eventually settling into a formula. But once again, the writing (led by Yasuko Kobayashi) proves itself above tropes and formulas: the battle constantly changes and evolves. Despite the amazing model for fight scenes with the Vertical Maneuvering Gear, the conflicts change in setting and scope. As in a real war, conflict is but just one part of the enterprise, as strategy, politics and personal drama are all handled deftly. It's the kind of show where I wouldn't be surprised to see Levi die in the next season (in fact, it may be a wise move) because that's what makes the show satisfying: rather than merely fulfilling our expectations with excellent execution, it defies our expectations and the execution is even better than we had hoped for. 

Although she's not a major character (though she may indeed become a central character in the coming seasons), I can't end this post without talking about my favorite character: Zoe Hange. Once again, Attack on Titan rises above playing to tropes and stereotypes. Hange is quirky and unsettling to others, but she's not the nutjob or village idiot. On the contrary, she's the most intelligent character in the show. She's utterly fearless; so fearless that she actually feels empathy for the freakish Titans, a trait which Eren would have hated her for beforehand, and now has (potentially) saved his life. When they talk through the night and into the morning,  Eren finally begins to understand who she is and what she wants: victory does not come from mere might and violence, it comes from understanding your enemy. There might be hope for the little psycho after all. But back to Hange, she is everything Mikasa is not. She simply does not take shit from the chauvinistic men at the higher ranks of the military. Why would she? She's smarter than them, she has ideas, and she's not afraid of 30-meter titans, let alone some 16-year-old with an attitude. I love Hange because she's a feminist character in what is in no way a specifically feminist show, and when she hatches a plot or runs a test, or whispers "I'll tear those secrets right out of you" into the terrifying Female Titan's face, I can see that she's going to be the real hope for humanity.

As I said, I think Attack on Titan is, so far, essentially a perfect season of television, with few obvious flaws. It is notoriously difficult to improve on perfection, but I feel confident that with such a richly imagined universe, future seasons will be able to change the show's dynamic. We've already had violent, harrowing disaster scenes, exhilarating action scenes, and political drama. Further insight into the supporting characters' lives as well as unveiling the mystery of the walls, the Titans and Eren should be next on the menu. With the way Season 1 wrapped up, it seems like that's exactly what Araki and co. plan to do, if not until 2015. Oh well. As Mikasa says: "The world is merciless, and also very beautiful."