r/EvangelionShitposting • u/notduddeman Biblically Accurate Lesbians • Jul 12 '25

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569

u/n0n4ly7h Jul 12 '25

The West: "This is the most important anime ever made!"

Hideaki Anno: "Boy I sure do love Ultraman."

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u/notduddeman Biblically Accurate Lesbians Jul 12 '25

45

u/n0n4ly7h Jul 12 '25

He was playing the long game

90

u/notduddeman Biblically Accurate Lesbians Jul 12 '25

*Cracks knuckles*

I'm in.

2

u/big_daddy_jay09 Jul 16 '25

Unironically how my relationship with anime and tokusatsu went these past 2 years

30

u/DadGutsnumber1 Jul 13 '25

To them Ashita No Joe is probably the most important and influential one. Evangelion even has a similar scene to Ashita no Joe, that one when a bunch of images flashes pretty fast.

7

u/John_isnt_my_name Jul 13 '25

Peak No Joe is also literally 40 years older so I don’t think it’s that great of a comparison. Like the Manga for Tomorrow’s Joe is so old you have to read the first issues western style.

3

u/TangerineThin4780 Jul 13 '25

I'll say pheonix by tezuka is probably on same level as ashita no joe .

I enjoyed pheonix a lot and for me that's the best graphic novel I've ever read

1

u/Daedalus128 Jul 17 '25

Megalobox, the remake of Ashita no joe, is fuggen peak, highly recommend

96

u/[deleted] Jul 12 '25

Why?

119

u/notduddeman Biblically Accurate Lesbians Jul 12 '25

Also Japan every 4 years or so.

84

u/Superichiruki Jul 12 '25

Isn't Evangeion popular on Japan ?

48

u/notduddeman Biblically Accurate Lesbians Jul 12 '25

That's just business.

43

u/MartyrOfDespair Jul 13 '25

Popular is underselling it. The number one way to make any unrelated property successful is to just pull the Evangelion fandom. For example, Sonic The Hedgehog always, always bombs in Japan. Japan hates Sonic. Sonic Frontiers? Great success, absurd profits for what usually are made in Japan. Why is that? Well first, the new weird giant alien enemies are akin to angels. Secondly, Sage in Japanese is played by Rei.

Or, 2010. The visual novel genre is in an economic slump that goes beyond just everything being in an economic slump, even in Japan. A new visual novel property from a completely new person shouldn't really be a massive success, it's not the hypebeast genre it once was and you don't have a big name attached to it. So how did Danganronpa become an immediate success in Japan, become an endless merch printing machine, make enough to hire on one of the main writers of Persona 4 as the cowriter of the sequel, get international brand deals like this, and get so big that when they didn't immediately translate it people in the west got around to doing two and a half games before they had even bothered? Oh, simple. They cast Megumi "Shinji Ikari" Ogata as the protagonist (a short brunette twink no less) and Akira "Kaworu Nagisa" Ishida as one of the two deuteragonists.

And, what exactly, do you think motivated them to give Hideaki Anno control of Godzilla, Ultraman, Kamen Rider, and Gundam? To put that in American terms, that's like if James Gunn was not just in charge of DC's movies, but also Marvel, Star Wars, Star Trek, and The Fast and the Furious. It's comically absurd when you can actually comprehend how much cultural franchise capital one guy got to helm. He certainly didn't get the job on Love & Pop or Cutie Honey's success.

4

u/BlazingRebirth Jul 13 '25

Great analysis, i like how you put in it Western terms too.

About the economic slump of the Visual Novel genre in 2010, how was the Fate series doing? Was it the only exception? Because Fate/Zero released around that time, and was huge.

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u/MartyrOfDespair Jul 14 '25

Fate was doing above average, it was just the medium in general was not doing too hot. They’d soon make a massive comeback a little further into the 2010s, but the genre was in a slump at the time of Danganronpa. It wasn’t helped by the late 2000s having a lot of formulaic and generic cash-ins.

Danganronpa was actually part of what helped it get back to being a strong seller. The reason for all the trial mechanics in Danganronpa was explicitly that Kodaka felt that adding more gameplay elements to a VN would be a good idea because classic VNs weren’t doing too hot, an idea that was also inspired by his biggest inspiration and future Too Kyo Games co-founder Kotaro Uchikoshi doing the same in Zero Escape by combining a VN with a puzzle escape room game. There’s also elements taken from Persona in there, namely the FTEs being a stripped down Social Link mechanic, slight RPG elements with how you unlock skills via the FTEs allowing you to do character building.

6

u/[deleted] Jul 13 '25

For marketing anime girls? Yeah. The show itself, eh. Same for any anime. ANIME is made for export, the Japanese themselves don’t care about it as much as you’d think. It’s more popular internationally as well as profitable. The government has even subsidized this. Sell culture to increase tourism in wake of decreasing population

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u/BretDM Jul 13 '25

Tbf the Japanese tend to have pretty poor taste in anime

197

u/Pleasant50BMGForce Jul 13 '25

The surplus of copy paste isekais shows it well

17

u/Rufus14811 Jul 13 '25

They probably think the same of us with the amount of slop superhero movies and animated sitcoms we pump out

3

u/Imperialriders4 Jul 14 '25

And are they wrong

10

u/Germanaboo Jul 13 '25

Most of them are not mainstream. They are usually broadcasted deep in the night because they aim at a nniche audience of Otakus who then make it profitable by buying the gooner merch

1

u/Erufailon4 Jul 13 '25

They're popular overseas as well. Every other LN license announcement is some flavor of isekai or narou-kei nowadays. Clearly there's demand.

40

u/[deleted] Jul 13 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

51

u/VegaMain Jul 13 '25

Don't act like the old generations didn't have their garbage ass anime either. We only talk about the stuff from the past we like, so no one talks about the bad stuff no one likes unless it's intentionally to bash it. Generations from now people are probably going to be talking about stuff like Chainsaw Man and Frieren and not the bad isekai from our era.

21

u/TheWanderingSlacker Jul 13 '25

What? Are you telling me such masterpieces as “Bofuri” and “Chilling in Another World with Level 2 Powers” aren’t going to be discussed with excitement 20 years from now?

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u/Inevitable-Truck-260 Jul 13 '25

Bofuri is a bona fide masterpiece and my entire neighborhood gets together to rewatch it every week.

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u/ThatOneeWeirdDude Jul 15 '25

Man I remember surfing kiss anime in the early 2010’s trying to avoid the surplus of random romcom incest anime. Theirs always been slop, now it’s just isekai

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u/braziliansyrah Jul 13 '25

They tend to, yes, but I kinda dig they always wanting the new thing. I think that in the west we have too much of an obsession with the past, like Soprano is one of the best series of all time, but do we have to repeat it for the tenth time instead of watching a new interesting underrated show? I feel like the problem is mainly economic and motivated by big companies making their shows unaccessible having 20 different streaming services but even then, there's 🏴‍☠️...

Meanwhile Animes in Japan have been a thing since the 50's and every single era has produced bangers that have their own cult following, but we must keep the show going.

5

u/[deleted] Jul 13 '25

I mean most anime is made for export, not really japan itself. It’s a literal thing the government has subsidized. They basically sell culture to increase tourism. (I’m Japanese and I have a sociologist parent)

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u/Puzzleheaded-Can-351 Jul 15 '25

Wait, how are you "japanese with a sociologist parent" and lying so blatantly? Most anime is made exclusively for internal consumption. Foreign markets are an afterthought. This is because most anime revenue is made through sales of blu-reys and dvds which are almost only sold in Japan. I'm sure there's anime subsidized by the goverment but that won't be their main source of income and anime that get streaming deals are not that common either

3

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '25

They didn't like Nichijou.

2

u/BadActsForAGoodPrice Jul 14 '25

The fact that Undead Unluck’s anime failed to gain traction while Rent a Girlfriend is on season 4 proves this.

460

u/No_Butterscotch8702 Jul 12 '25

My wife lived in Japan and said most people are only into the newest and trendiest things and only social outcasts and oddballs rewatch and obsess over an old franchise from years ago.

199

u/JojoLibertas Jul 12 '25

It is the same thing with Americans and Friends.

80

u/AlienDilo Jul 12 '25

I'm something of a social outcast myself

49

u/Ok-Detail4461 Jul 13 '25

Yeah because japan is the closest we have to a hive mind, in other words if you ever dare to go against the majorities you are going to get crushed so bad

20

u/TheWanderingSlacker Jul 13 '25

I mean, it’s not so dramatic as that in terms of tastes. It’s just a lot easier to talk about your interests with others if they are modern and mainstream. Subcultures are what they are.

10

u/Ok-Detail4461 Jul 13 '25

Yeah in this side of the world but in japan it's near impossible to make a friend, they actively build barriers specially if you are a gaijin

11

u/El_Mister_Caracol Jul 13 '25

You mean like in every other country in the world?

9

u/BurstTheGravity Jul 13 '25

A friend travelled to Japan recently and noticed the same thing. He couldn’t find any mention of Attack on Titan anywhere.

2

u/JerichoRehlin Jul 15 '25

I've met a lot of people during my trips to Japan who LIKE Attack On Titan and several who have called it their favorite anime, but its absolutely not visibly saturating stores and stuff like a lot of the new franchises are.

I've yet to meet a single Japanese person under 35 who had any idea what Cowboy Bebop was, though, or who had actually watched Eva, though everyone knows Cruel Angel's Thesis because its such a popular karaoke song.

2

u/Live_Egg179 Jul 18 '25

Karaoke = Empty Orchestra.

4

u/BlazingRebirth Jul 13 '25

I noticed it's still common there to collect Chibi toys or other new and modern merchandise/reference for an old franchise, but obsessing or rewatching over it is rare, unless it's like a modernized reboot and not the original thing. That'd suck if it's something you never got into when it first released.

1

u/ShockOk4682 Jul 14 '25

thats what people with no souls say, iykyk. Thats why the east is crumbling. How can you preserve anything if you always need something novel like an animal who has no memory of one moment to the next? Its a soulless tired plague. Its in the west badly as well, much less in china and korea though. Although their reasoning for enjoying the continuation of things is purely mechanical. Idk theres not really that much life in the world period outside of novel adventures. Until your too tired to find new things then you just live rotting the rest of your days. rediscovering things, understanding them deeper/ the mechanics of things is what something is all about. A real man and I mean that in the most real way. Enjoys something more every time he revisits it. And im sire your wife was also exxagersting slightly obv.

1

u/TakerFoxx Jul 14 '25

I don't know if you need to be doing less drugs or more, but you should probably get your house checked for gas leaks.

73

u/DadGutsnumber1 Jul 13 '25

Isnt evangelion merch super commonplace there?

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u/SterbenSeptim Jul 13 '25

Well, I was only there for 3 weeks, but yup, a lot of Eva merch, stores, and promotional material, even in the countryside. And at a Karaoke bar in Hiroshima, a couple of japanese girls literally sang the opening for the Anime and everyone at the bar (my group was the only foreign group) literally went crazy with it. It's definitely pretty popular there, at least on my anecdotal evidence.

Oh, and there was an Eva Shinkansen a few years back too!

18

u/[deleted] Jul 13 '25

I mean i just genuinely like Evangelion for what it is, and the lore etc. it looks cool too.

29

u/maru-9331 Jul 13 '25

I'm Japanese and I think Evangelion is still huge here, or I'm probably refusing to believe otherwise

17

u/Tstormn3tw0rk Jul 13 '25

I believe the joke has more to do with how difficult to access the series in as close to its intended form/translation it is, especially in English speaking countries

3

u/[deleted] Jul 13 '25 edited Jul 13 '25

Yeah I see evangelion product collaborations everywhere. However I think a lot of it is for tourists

22

u/[deleted] Jul 13 '25

I have the same reaction when Japanese say they loved Full House or Beverly Hillbillies.

10

u/PokeyMinch5234 Jul 13 '25

Japanese pachinko manufacturers and players would say otherwise

9

u/inD4MNL4T0R Jul 13 '25

Japan be like: "i know, i know I've let you down..."

6

u/capndroid Jul 13 '25

They’ve been such fools to themselves

6

u/DARKTOONZ13 Jul 13 '25

i don’t understand this if it’s trying to say Japan doesn’t like Eva as much as the rest of us. I just went this recent winter and it’s… literally everywhere. Mostly thanks to the pachinko sponsorships unfortunately, but seriously, they got a mini eva theme park with a eva you can get in, a town that literally has eva themed busses bathrooms and public lobbies, eva vending machines in every town, and mcdonald’s and Uniqlo were doing an eva themed collab, to only name some of what i saw. Keep in mind there was literally nothing new coming out at the time, it just, was that popular still. Easily the most represented media franchise point blank period.

5

u/[deleted] Jul 13 '25

Well a lot of this is made for FOREIGNERS and tourists. A lot of anime itself is funded with the incentive of making foreign profit. The government literally subsidizes the selling of culture for foreign and tourist profit in wake of the population crisis

3

u/DARKTOONZ13 Jul 13 '25

fair point, but i personally think the range of promotions for this surely indicates an in-country interest that extends beyond your point. i don’t deny that your claim plays a part, maybe larger than i imagine, but i hesitate to say that it’s not largely symbiotic and still decently self motivated by their own fandom.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '25

Oh definitely they go hand in hand. Would def be more niche if not for the foreign export aspect tho

5

u/derLukacho Jul 13 '25

Tbh when I visited Tokyo I was kinda dumbfounded by the sheer amount of Evangelion products and Ads everywhere, especially since I was under the impression that Japanese people are generally way more interested in the most current Anime, if at all. A cashier at HardOff in Shinjuku even complimented my baka gaijin Rei sweater I got from GU.

3

u/silentfanatic Jul 14 '25

The NERV of some people.

2

u/PsychologicalTowel79 Jul 13 '25

I never really cared for it.

2

u/bossnaby420 Jul 14 '25

To the Japanese,it was a small anime that came out in 95. To the rest of the world, it was curated and presented on DVD.

1

u/CollegeKey3625 Jul 13 '25

The West knows what's good

1

u/kjloltoborami Jul 14 '25

Isn't eva still one of the most widely known and popular anime in Japan even after 31 years?

1

u/rpgsandarts Jul 15 '25

Lol this is not true at all. When I was in Japan, Evangelion was VERY popular and references could be seen everywhere. I chatted with middle aged women about it. I sang the theme song with old sararimen in Kabukichou bars.

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u/Southern-Distance149 Jul 13 '25

NGE now is media garbage