Fanfiction on "Evangelion": review, description

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Classical literary and artistic works are traditionally generated by the life experience of their authors, a figurative rethinking of reality. However, this trend was reversed in the 21st century. The literary genre fan fiction appeared, in everyday speech - fan fiction, suggesting a higher level of abstraction. Its primary basis is not the primary reality, but the subjective-secondary one - anime, computer games, reality through the prism of the director's point of view, the creator of the game, etc. Hundreds of thousands of anime fans around the world have become authors of works of the fan fiction genre (fan fiction or amateur narratives).

Art, capable of giving such a powerful impetus to human inspiration, certainly deserves attention.

Prologue to fanfics

It is not possible to consider this phenomenon within the framework of one article due to the variety of reasons that give rise to fanfiction. Our task will be narrower - to study the phenomenon of amateur storytelling based on one of the best examples of anime - the series.

Briefly, in one paragraph, touch on the history of this art. The directors of the Land of the Rising Sun were the first to bring comics to life (in Japanese, manga). This creativity essentially reduces literature and fine arts to single images.

What made hitherto purely endemic (peculiar to one country) anime in 1995 thunder all over the world? Realized precedent: created in the genre of mecha (with robotic characters) series "Evangelion". The manga of the "necessary" content served as an impetus to creativity for the future creator of the anime saga. As a result of his inspiration, the whole world has discovered a new dynamic and contemporary art.

There is a strong opinion among connoisseurs of this genre that a real, self-respecting expert in this field simply has to carefully review Evangelion and be versed in its storylines and characters, since this series is unofficially considered a classic of the genre.

If your status as an anime fan is in jeopardy, tell the spiteful critics that you just watched the whole "Eve" for the hundredth time in one session. If it didn’t help, add meaningfully that you understood a lot and rethought everything.

The resounding success of the first anime - creations with robots and Christian cabalistic stuffing inspired its creator to continue the series: “Evangelion. Death and Rebirth" and "The End of Evangelion".

Evangelion and its author

Isn't it about time we finally meet the great and terrible guru of a whole army of fanfiction authors?The one whom they then ex alted to heaven, then cursed (and this happened). He is the author of the Evangelion saga, originally Neon Genesis Evangelion. However, with the light hand of film critics, this creation is most often called abbreviated - "Eve".

This bearded man is directed by Hizaki Anno. Inspired by the manga artist Yoshiyuki Sadomoto, he developed, supplemented the storyline of the original work to the level of a good novel. He was in love with the art of anime, and in the mid-90s it was almost physically painful for him to see how, due to mediocre authors, the fur genre (where machines are heroes along with people) stagnates and dies. Hizaki believed and still believes that the future of mankind lies with eccentrics, "money bags", like people "gray", living "for food", they will not create it.

The director didn't have to go far for an example. His violent fantasy is a brake in the world of routine and everyday life, in art it has become just a gold mine. From a young age and throughout his subsequent life, those around him perceive him as “a person not of this world”, in the language of literature, “a hitman.”

The director, who had personal experience of treatment in a psychiatric clinic, while working on the types of the series, simply shifted his views to our very often pseudo-real and today mostly virtual world.

He created a creative cliché from his anime personality.

"Eve" - in a psychological-authorial context - is a reflection of Hizaki's personal cabalistic-evangelical views. He once let slip about this in an interview, answering a completely harmless question, when and how did he feel inspired to writescenario.

“The main thing is the starting point. Imagine that you, your life and your world are anime. The art of the director is when you throw your inner world into the script, everything else is a fake … Then there are moments of insight: you, immersed in yourself, write the script, just as a fan would do it, calling his fanfic - "Evangelion".

Hizaki Anno, to the great joy of anime lovers, really talentedly depicts the world of his fantasies. He (we should give him his due) is so consistent in his work that, having imagined his heroes living in the world of machines, he wondered about the harmonious social cohabitation of bio- and cybernetic organisms.

His views on how machines, interacting with people, themselves become human, have been noticed. Not a fact, but still a parallel can be traced chronologically: it is since 1995 that legal documents have appeared in the world that regulate taboos in gene modeling and the creation of cybernetic organisms. Perhaps it was Evangelion that made the world look at the future problem of the socialization of machines in a new way?

Anime Intention

The humanistic idea of this creation can be expressed by a single phrase given by its creator in the title:

Simple human truths are obvious and easy to see, but for some reason it is difficult for many to fulfill them and it is difficult to comprehend and ponder.

The logical connection between the animated saga and the writings based on it is similar to the connection between an abandoned cry and an echo. "Evangelion", fan fiction on which originated asnatural response of the audience, was originally created based on the teenage audience. As a matter of fact, the genre of amateur narratives became popular in the world after the release of Eve.

Several tens of thousands of fanfiction works have been written based on the first episode of the anime "Angel Attack" alone.

We will briefly retell only the beginning of the plot, which has become a classic. We hope this sounds like nostalgia for the biblically controlled mecha world created by Hizaki Anno to fans of EVE.

15 years have passed since the millennium, when for the first time the Angels committed unpunished aggression (according to the saga - "the second blow") against humanity. Earthlings, fearing such excesses in the future, created the NERV Institute at the same time to create technologies that could withstand attacking supernatural forces. It was headed by the charismatic scientist Gendo Ikari, possessing bottomless intellect and equanimity. The Institute constructed Evangelion combat robots, each controlled mentally by a human linked to it…

In 1995, after the resounding commercial success of the series, reviews appeared in the press like "a complete and colossal work" or "the best anime of all time." The logical structure of the saga unfolds over 26 episodes.

Story structure

Hizaki Anno subtly and multifacetedly structures the plot to get maximum contact with the viewer. He achieves this by combining narrative, evaluative characteristics, illustrationsecret thoughts and desires of the characters, saturation of the script with linguistic biblical symbols. Because of the latter circumstance, in fact, the anime series got its name - "Evangelion". The impression of structuredness is complemented by the multi-layered design:

• The first layer - the protection of the foundations of civilization by a special unit of earthlings Nerv against the aggressors-angels (darkness). Biorobots (evangelions) serve to counter the supernatural enemy. They are run by evolved teenagers, i.e. children connected with them psychically.
• The second layer is the personalities of the Children. They, potentially superheroes, have the characteristic weaknesses of teenagers of our time. Their social life is often illogical. So, the melancholic protagonist Shinji is periodically seized with depression, and the main character Asuka, trying to assert herself, impulsively slander and slander with others, herself suffering from this. The director's calculation is obvious: seeing their weaknesses in superheroes, the audience identifies with them and becomes their fans.
• Third layer - under the events of the world created by Hizaki Anno, a philosophical foundation is brought. Fantastic heroes, getting into crisis situations, find support in the eternal moral values of religions known to people and great teachings. This technique gives "Eve" integrity, a sense of the depth of the work, the illusion of similarity to the real world.

Fanfiction based on "Eve"

Immediately, upon release, won the hearts of first Japanese viewers, and then anime lovers around the world "Evangelion". Fanfiction is amateur fiction that speculatesThe plot is proof of that. Over 800 sites of residents of various countries have become real ficbooks, that is, a place for posting author's stories and communication between fans of the series and their authors. What is remarkable about them is that they are real youth informal creativity, because the stories are not written for payment, but simply from the heart by people who were touched by the work of Hizaki Anno.

"Evangelion", "fanfiction", "ficbook" - these words in the late 90s sounded at the forefront of national youth culture. It just so happened that the more conservative people of the older generation noticed in them only a ridiculous cartoon form, not interested in the content. And it would be worth it! After all, anime, without bringing the usual drug of cartoon relaxation to the audience, solved other creative problems.

Older people did not realize that "new cartoons" can strain the brain and feelings of a person no weaker than a good novel. Initially oriented towards relaxation in front of the TV, they preferred to change the channel when they saw "bad cartoons".

Young people perceived the Japanese saga in a completely different way. Domestic fans have made their unique contribution to the fanfiction created based on the Evangelion saga. Three main sites about "Eve" became their Ficbooks, which we will talk about later.

Someone of the ancient philosophers said that time is merciless to everything except the classics. Although there is a decline in interest in the 1995 series on these forums today, not all anime fans believe that the topic has fizzled out in twenty years.

Domesticficbooks and fanfics

Forums Evangelion Not End, Eva-fiction, ficbook.net are still quoted among Russian-speaking fans. These in-demand sites also feature translations of the best articles from the world trendsetter in anime and games - the English-language forum fanfiction.net.

Forum admins, showing obvious tolerance, allow the publication of Evangelion fanfiction of different quality. Jump (an anime term that means not only a flight - a fantasy jump) is also different for different authors. But interesting articles - the majority. This can be traced at least by the number of messages regarding the publication of amateur stories on the ficbook Evangelion Not End, and there are about 27,000 of the latter. And this is on the condition of the admins: one message - one fanfic!

Following the objective trend of fading interest over time, starting in 2015, many sites began to roll up the Eve fanfiction section, moving it to the archive.

However, the Internet still has an outlet for domestic fans of "Eva". Ultimately, everything depends on the talented organization of the process. The level of creativity should initially be set by the site policy to the proper level. This is exactly what distinguished the authors writing Evangelion fanfiction on the ficbook.net forum.

Pen-Pen (author's login), for example, demonstrates a really interesting author's style, which should be recognized as professional. If someone was engaged in copyright, then he will understand the following phrase, worthy of sounding like a challenge to any author: “745positive reviews (not views, but reviews!) for one story - not bad?

Grateful colleagues on the forum, in addition to the banal “thanks for the good work” and “read without stopping!!!”, often write reviews to Pin-Pen that can inspire any writer: “Thank you for a week of good emotions!”

Even today, this demonstrates the demand for Eve-based authors.

Based on the above, the Evangelion fanfiction book, with proper editing and agreements reached with the best authors of the three sites mentioned, if published, may turn out to be a rating literary project.

About criticism of the series

With all the artistic merit, this anime series is a commercial project that has earned more than 9 billion yen. The saga was created in Japan and the director - an avid bachelor - was forced by the producers to develop the theme of love and relationships. Although the overall narrative remained unchanged, elements of erotica were added there.

With director Hizaki Anno, this played a cruel joke. Some of his opponents to this day claim that Evangelion is hentai (meaning the erotic scenes of the series). However, such a comparison with a frank strawberry does not correspond to reality, and serious film critics refute it. In Japanese culture, eroticism is more pronounced than in Western culture, so the corresponding scenes of "Eve" are predetermined by a purely Japanese understanding of the friendship between a guy and a girl.

However, in the army of fans there were those who openly createderotic, deforming the very idea of the Evangelion series, fanfiction. "Harem!" - other lovers of the saga, devoted to the primary idea, were indignant in response to these creations. After all, psychologism remained primary for them.

We have already mentioned, and readers must have wondered why the fans of the series cursed their author. The answer is simple: for the "blurred" 25 and 26 episodes. Hizaki Anno, unfortunately, while creating them, succumbed to the persuasions of commercial partners - to reduce the price of the project, and allowed a frank decrease in the level of creativity.

However, he fully rehabilitated himself before the fans in the two subsequent sequels of the series.

About the main characters

The storyline of the main characters, as they participate in the plot, runs like a red thread through every fanfic ("Evangelion"). Shinji, Asuka (male and female) are both robot Eva pilots, two of the twelve Children. Why did the institute entrust the most formidable weapon of mankind to such young people?

Scientists discovered that adults could not drive machines. NERV entrusted its designs to 14-year-olds (referred to on the show as "The Kids"). The realism of the characters of the guy and the girl is given by the use by the author of the phenomenon, and the technique generated by fiction, called hitting. However, Hizaki Anno uses this principle not directly, transferring the modern hero to the world of fantasy, but indirectly: endowing the pilots - Children with the characteristic features and shortcomings of modern teenagers. Moreover, he conjectured, modeled how these flaws that hinder socialization today turn into the pseudo-reality of the seriesinto dignity.

Shiji

This hero of "Eve" is, without a doubt, the largest number of works of fanfiction. Some of them even have the format of a novel. For example, "Business trip of the prince of darkness", "Demon and angels".

The main character of the series is Shinji Ikari - the third of the Children. He lives in building 17 of the business class hotel quarter. With the guy lives his teacher and guardian. Ikari is melancholic, not prone to active communication, but has a powerful introverted intellect.

He feels miserable in life. His father abandoned him, he also has practically no friends at school, communicating with only two fellow classmates. His duties - to pilot the "Evangelion-1" - he performs without zeal. He does not like to follow orders, not understanding abstract humanism, but the feeling of compassion for people he knows is close to him. Thus, initially refusing to defend the human stronghold "Tokyo-3", he then does so after learning that the wounded Rei Anayami, First of the Children, will be sent on this mission.

He is distinguished by perfect communication and control of the combat robot "Evangelion-1". He, despite his teenage melancholy, is potentially the strongest fighter among the Children.

The fact that the relationship between the main characters is very difficult, convinces the viewer every fanfic ("Evangelion"). Shinji, Asuka, of course, are not indifferent to each other, but the range and depth of their feelings are so wide that they contain diametrically different manifestations of the living soul: either contempt and rejection, orcomplete self-dissolution in a loved one.

As proof of this, the characters of Shinji and Asuka, from 1995 to the present time, have consistently been at a decent level of the most popular anime characters.

Reviews of authors of amateur stories about Shiji are mixed. This hero is an introvert, always doubting himself, constantly engaged in self-digging. It is created as a whole, but in order to understand its essence, the viewer should apply subtle psychoanalysis.

Asuka

This character is the subject of many amateur stories. To name just a few: Evangelion Elder God Ragnarok, Evan-ga-ga-helion, The Sound of Silence, Evangelion: Remaining Between the Lines, although the list could contain hundreds of titles.

Asuka Langley Soryu is a girl born from an interracial Japanese-German marriage. She appears in episode 8 of the saga. Her mother went crazy and did not recognize her daughter, and then hanged herself. Her father married a woman - a psychologist who treated her late wife. She looks very impressive. Asuka has a zero blood type, red hair and blue eyes. The girl is emotional, egoism is inherent in her, she is contradictory: she strives for leadership among pilots. But in episode 16, Shinji, who has become more proficient in piloting, synchronizes with his Evangelion much more efficiently than she does.

She is defeated by the 14th angel Zeruel, forcing her to relive traumatic childhood memories. As a result, the girl loses faith in herself, her pilot skills weaken, she goes crazy, she is treated in the hospital. Then, duringstorming the institute by the military (series "The End of Evahehelion"), Asuka with her robot Eva-2 is damaged. Then the girl first appears in Shinji's visions, and in the final scene appears next to him, admitting that she is having a hard time.

Conclusion

On the pages of some forums, unfortunately, you can find opinions that fanfiction is an "empty" genre created by fans to please fans. However, hardly anyone will dispute its modernity. It remains only to find out what is behind this modernity?

At first glance, all this symbiosis of the author's and the audience's fantasy (meaning the fanfiction created on the Evangelion series that develops its storyline) is still quite little associated with our everyday life. But will it always be like this?

Let's get back to the real world. To date, it already has several self-learning biorobots with powerful artificial intelligence. Their external parameters are as close as possible to human ones. For example, the autonomous highly intelligent machine "Sofia" is already practically living a public life. Her behavior is logical, and the judgments that everyone notes are deep and characteristic.

And what about the mysteriously dropped phrase of Silicon Valley guru Elon Musk that pretty soon people will be only a part of intelligent beings inhabiting the Earth. Isn't this what the Japanese anime master's saga is about?

Readers will ask: “And what does this logic have to do with the fans developing the plot of the Evangelion series and fanfiction created bythem?" However, everything is clear here. A single work "Eve" inspired amateur writers to consider hundreds of thousands of aspects of the relationship between humans and robots. All these variations can be considered not only as a literary phenomenon, but also as a logical test, which someday will be followed by the development of legal norms for the socialization of robots.