What the reason behind the "deconstruction of mecha genre"

>>15170284
>What's the reason behind the "deconstruction of mecha genre" meme being attached to Neon Genesis Evangelian? I can get when someone says that it is an anti-thesis of the genre, but what with this decon meme anyway?

FTFY

>>15170284
>what with is decon meme anyway?

It's just a "cromulent" word Evafags like to say about to the show as the God's gift to anime.

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>>15170284
It's right up there with "western and eastern mecha design".

A bunch of people with minimal knowledge of a topic trying to one-up each other on the 'mount stupid'.

>>15170284
Eva is pure cancer

Evangelion isn't really a deconstruction of mecha, it's more of a comment on loneliness. I hate the Eva fanbase, they always over complicate everything. Eva ins't good because it's 'deep' or 'complex' it's good because it has great characters.

>>15175727
This.

"Deconstruction" in this case means characters are presented in a realistic way, but I don't think it's main intent was to "deconstruct" mecha genre. It's more like a message to the audience, a comment on Japan's youth and Anno's personal psychotherapy, because there are apparently no psychologists in Japan.

>>15170284

A lot of people don't actually know what deconstruction means. Its a literary critique method, not a writing one. A work of fiction cannot be, itself, a deconstruction. In the same way that a meal cannot be, itself, a yelp review.

The word people want to be using to describe Eva is that it is a SUBVERSION, not a deconstruction. Eva sets you up with what is in many ways a typical monster of the week mecha story, and then it regularly subverts your expectations. Piloting the Eva, rather than be a power fantasy, fucking sucks. The people trying to save the world are actually the bad guys in the end. Shinji fails his bildungsroman and the entire planet pays the price. And so on.

>>15176493
>. A work of fiction cannot be, itself, a deconstruction. In the same way that a meal cannot be, itself, a yelp review.


Fuck annon that was good

>>15170284
It's just a buzzword anon, one people use to justify liking something. A lot of the time when it's used, it's often paired with a line like "it's not like other works in this genre." Like, I could go around saying "Gundam IBO is a deconstruction of the standard shonen tropes we the audience just causally accept without thought, taking them to a darker level that shows just how fucked up they can be" and some guys would just eat that up. They'd probably add it to TV Tropes or some shit, when all I really said was "IBO uses shonen cliches played in a way that makes some people feel uncomfortable."

It makes the show seem that much more important, hence allowing those using the meme to justify raising it above other shows in the genre.

Basically people call it a deconstruction because it takes "teenage boy becomes a mecha pilot" and says "hey, what if that was actually awful?" It's a very basic and minor aspect of the show though, and isn't even the key theme. People who call it a "deconstruction" are either too stupid or too inattentive to see what the show is beyond surface glances. I'm not saying it's SO DEEP, but it isn't that shallow either.

>>15170284
Basically, in addition to the other points raised in this thread, it is due to most people having little knowledge of the mecha genre. Yes, it does play with many of the expectations of a typical monster of the week show, but it isn't that unique. I've talked to some people who hold such a belief and they typically say something along the lines of "It was the first mecha show in which the protagonist didn't want to actually become a pilot or where it is actually shown as being dangerous and horrible" or claiming some other thing it did was novel or unique. Yes, it is a good show, but it is good because of the characters. Many of them fail to realize that evagenlion was literally Anno making a show based off all the shit he saw in the 70s and 80s while he was in a depressed phase in his life.
TL;DR, they think he is Go Nagai or Tomino in regards to mecha due to a lack of knowledge of the genre

>>15179030
Basically they have no idea what "deconstruction" actually mean when the word they are looking for is "Anti-Thesis", as pointed out by OP.

>>15178952

> And none of those things ever happened in an /m/ or motw show before Eva, no sir.

You are not as smart as you think you are.

A work being a subversion doesn't require what it is doing to be unique. It just has to be against what the commonly established expectation of the genre is.

Like, there have been a dozen grimdark magical girl shows by now. They are all subversions of the genre. And the next one will be too. The only way they would STOP being subversions of the genre is if vanilla magical girl shows went extinct and the public expectation of what a magical girl show was changed, and now the 'grim dark' prefix becomes irrelevant because that's just what people naturally assume a magical girl show is.

>>15175727
>it's good because it has great characters.
No it fucking doesn't.
Character development constantly resetting just to make everything angsty and depressing isn't great at all.

In fact the characters were the worst part of the show. The mecha designs, animation quality, and Lovecraftian sci-fi universe and history were wasted on characters meant to appeal to 14 year olds.

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>>15170284

What does Japan consider it, obviously not a "deconstruction".

>>15190904
A good cartoon, I would guess

>>15190917
goddamn freaks

>>15190904
Baby's first waifu simulator.

>>15187796
To me, the characters being stuck with their old ways makes it more realistic. They're consistently bad people, They get going in a new direction, the dynamic between two characters changes a bit (if at all), then some sortie or discovery of unsavory characteristic comes up and boom: no one learned anything, pretty much going back into their old ways. Depression can be very cyclic, where any internal progress seems important but is just a flimsy support for the next reversion. I'd agree it 's a lot better for younger viewers, but it came out in a time when making a serious-ish anime meant angst, and it generally did it better than most.

Hmm, so which female mc technically started the "tsundere archetype"?
It obviously wasn't Asuka.

>>15170284
I'll stop you right there anon. If you have to ask, it's 2deep4u.

>>15187796
>Character development constantly resetting just to make everything angsty and depressing isn't great at all.

That's a lot more realistic though. People don't just change on a whim. Some days you'll think you'll have overcome your depression and then the next you're right back at square one.

>>15170404
>plateau of sustainability
>plateau
>isn't flat

>>15176493
>In the same way that a meal cannot be, itself, a yelp review.
fuck you I'll spell out reviews in cheese slices and strips of bacon and you can't stop me

>>15192751
Whatsherface from Urusei Yatsura (Lum?) is the earliest big example I can think of, if I'm not getting my Takahashi female leads crossed -- haha who am I kidding she always makes her female MCs huge bitches.

Deconstruction is a word I use when I want to sound like I am smart and that what I watch is also smart for really smart people like me, despite me actually just being average and just watching an anime. Because it's a word that sounds smart, everyone now pretends to know what it means and uses it too to also sound like they're smart.

Kinda like the emperor's new clothes. Nobody wants to admit to being that dumb guy who doesn't get it, so everyone pretends that they can see it.

>>15192811
It's different flavors of bitches. In Lum's case it was "Ataru's a dead man if he sees anyone else".

Granted, she originally wasn't going to be the winning gal until popularity convinced Takahashi.

>>15192751
Sayaka seems like the one, although that was more of the director Katsumata seeming like he was purposely making teens into rude assholes.

>>15176377
It's better to keep the crazies locked out of sight than let them burden society.

>>15193052

But Japan doesn't even do that. They just try to shame the crazies into not admitting they have a problem, and expect them to go to work and act like normal people. Which then goes terrible in the way you would expect of a person with untreated mental problems.

>>15193052
>>15193128
I am legitimately saddened by the fact that we live in a world so shit that this doesn't work.

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Better question, why do Evafags never watch any robot cartoons other than Eva? Like, what the hell kind of force prevents them from watching Macross, VOTOMs, Ideon, or any other robot cartoon once they've seen Eva? Does the show put a magical curse on anyone who's never seen a robot show before Eva?

>>15193666
The only "required watching" mecha shows that come up are Eva and Gurren Laggen. (And maybe Gundam Wing because some anime site editor puts it in because fuck you: nostalgia)

>>15193666
Who knows, though I would say that Evangelion's appeal for a lot of its audience over the years has been the psychology of its characters and the themes of loneliness and isolation more so than the Eva units or angels. That's certainly true for me.

It's a non-negligible part of what the show does, but I actually appreciate things Mazinger or Getter on that action series front a lot more than Evangelion. Similarly, even though Big O and Zeta are also both anime with big robots, I like them for very different reasons. I might be in the minority here, but the big robots are just a tangential, stylistic thing I appreciate more than the centerpiece. For this reason I also don't care that much about models or figures.

Even if they did watch some of the stuff that inspired Evangelion, they might not get that much out of it. It would curb some of the myopia in its fanbase, though, at least.

>>15193924
The myopia is too strong in the fandom.
Most don't know or even care where Anno got his inspirations/influences from.
Still have the audacity to call it a "deconstruction".

Somewhat off topic?
But Crunchyroll recently made a video "What is deconstruction" which was originally supposed to be about Eva, but they had to scrap that idea and work around it since they don't have the rights to legally stream it .

>>15192805
When you fail, do you promise that you'll eat your words?

>>15195071
Heck I could go for some crow