The Kids have found old anime. If you are under 25, do whatever you want. Make it your own. This is for my good millennial friends. I see you fuckers joining in to relive some nostalgia. It makes you seem so god damn Old in my eyes.
Feliz Jueves. Wasn't it epic when he jerked off? I hate how Neon Genesis Evangelion is a meme now. I don't want to see these characters anymore. I'm so god damn bored of them.
I got into anime in the late aughts. 2009 January, I made my now inactive MAL profile. As far I'm concerned that is sufficient for Getting Into It For Real. At the time of writing I can say: I literally almost spent half of my life doing this shit.
Back then, the western fandom felt smaller. There sure was less money in it than today. People considered Neon Genesis Evangelion a classic, but it was far from popular. We only had one of the Rebuild movies out. If you were looking for anime recommendations, it would be there. Go to an anime centric forum or imageboard you might even see an active thread about it. A budding anime fan (a "weaboo" as we called each other with playful contempt) you eventually would run into it, but you would never meet a person whose first exposure to the fandom was NGE.
You could call it second entry level I guess. Most people would dip their toes with something like Cowboy Bebop, or one of The Big Three. Discussing these shows was considered quite gauche. NGE you could get away with. You had to have some mileage under your feet if you knew about Eva. It's a great place to for a series.
This atmosphere would let someone like me to have quite an intimate relationship with Eva. I wasn't particularly excited to watch it. I just wanted to see what the fuss was about. Some of the "classic" recommendations I got were straight misses at this point. I was skeptical.
The first episode blew me away.
It hit me like a shotgun blast greeting a cop knocking on a front door. Until then, even the challenging things I'd watch was a form of escapism. Eva mirrored my teenage ennui with laser precision. Let's emphasize that Teenage a bit. Dear Intended Audience, you are thirty god damn years old. Move on!
You wanna hear something wild? I didn't Love Eva. There was not a single point in my life where I considered it to be one of my favorites. I've only seen End of Evangelion once. Yet, I can recall almost every scene perfectly. It's less than 90 minute runtime is burned into my brain as if it was a year of my life.
It's no exaggeration that my relationship with media, my love of the Arts, starts at me finishing Eva. Sure I read and wrote many blogposts about other stuff before. But it was different. The first thing I had big arguments about. Wildly different interpretations from other people. I had to face it that everyone looked at it with different eyes. Each seeing a different Truth. Each equally valid. My brain got whacked permanently.
As I mentioned, great place for a show to be. It served a special function in the community: it served as the connective tissue between serious newer members of the fandom, and the old guard who had already discussed Eva to hell a decade ago. It was a rite of passage. The point of no return. I had a friend in high school who turned away from anime at the exact moment they tried to watch Eva. They hated it, it was too weird. My soul on the other hand, was touched. There was no turning back.
There was also no staying.
It was the second entry level. It leads somewhere. I went deeper. It was one of the best decisions of my life. I urge you too, to not dwindle. You already left some things behind. Have your Eva phase. Have your predigital anime phase. Keep moving. Refine your taste. Don't let the things you love into contentslop. Throw it all away. Build on your experiences until you no longer recognize your past self. Live.