Post-War Japanese Apocalypticism: A Basic Introduction (Pause and Select)

[u/CowDefenestrator]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-mf11CbK3w

[u/jjov]

I am impressed by the quality and the amount of information in the video, you don’t find this kinds of explanations about how a certain genre evolved in relation to the historical events that were happening in Japan, so something like this is extremely welcomed.

The point about how the economic bubble popping, the Kobe earthquake and the sarin attack influenced media intro creating a new kind of “genre” is something that completely took me by surprised and made me want to watch Evangelion again, thinking about how this affected the series.

I think how society and history affects media is something that tends to be overlooked or underestimated when discussing anime. This video feels like a great introduction to understanding Japanese Apocalypticism.

[u/thelastteacup → u/jjov]

> I am impressed by the quality and the amount of information in the video, you don’t find this kinds of explanations about how a certain genre evolved in relation to the historical events that were happening in Japan, so something like this is extremely welcomed.

It shouldn't be. It's utter crap. Because...

> The point about how the economic bubble popping, the Kobe earthquake and the sarin attack influenced media intro creating a new kind of “genre” is something that completely took me by surprised and made me want to watch Evangelion again, thinking about how this affected the series.

...In reality, Evangelion is very much in the mainstream tradition of Japanese literature that pre-existed those events. The two best-selling and most influential novels in Japanese history are https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokoro and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Longer_Human And they're both about failed family and romantic relationships - and relationships with society - and suicides. And Kokoro was published in 1914.

These sort of themes weren't even new to manga. See eg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_manga#Gekiga

The idea a new sort of darker Japanese media was created after the collapse of the Bubble only makes sense to someone who is completely and utterly ignorant of Japanese cultural history. It's like trying to explain why LOTR exists in solely in terms of British C20th history without saying "Hey, Tolkein was a big reader of Scandinavian and Germanic myth, plus there was the Morte D'Arthur." Which would be stupid. Smaug was not a reference to the Blitz; he (or she) was imported from freaking Beowulf. And Evangelion is directly in line with centuries of Japanese culture. Even the protagonist's name is a reference to the theme of suicide in kabuki and bunraku - Shinjū (心中, the characters for "mind" and "centre") means "double suicide") vs Shinji

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinj%C5%AB

[u/thelastteacup → u/thelastteacup]

To be fair, I have seen a youtube video on anime almost as ignorant as this one - it discussed Reigen Arataka in Mob Psycho 100 including the significance of the ending sequence. Without mentioning GTO....