Absurdism

"Beyond 1984, Beyond 2001, Beyond Love, Beyond Death."

"For the finale of my 1974 film Zardoz, I wanted to shoot a scene of Sean Connery and Charlotte Rampling in which they age and die. This involved shooting with a fixed camera, so that we could take them out, age their clothes and faces, put them back in, shoot them a bit more, then take them out and age them further, until eventually they were skeletons that, in turn, crumbled away. This process took an entire day. Then, the camera assistant unloaded the camera and accidentally exposed the film to the light. This meant we had to spend another whole day shooting it. I also had to restrain Connery from killing the assistant – who soon afterwards changed his name and moved to Los Angeles. I spied him in a cafe in LA one day. “Is Sean in town?” he asked, with a quivering voice."

"Anno's project is a postmodernist retelling of the Genesis myth, as his series title implies—Neon Genesis Evangelion. It is a new myth of origin, complete with its own deluge, Armageddon, apocalypse and transcendence."

"Rei is someone who is aware of the fact that even if she dies, there’ll be another to replace her, so she doesn’t value her life very highly. Her presence, her existence—ostensible existence—is ephemeral. She’s a very sad girl. She only has the barest minimum of what she needs to have. She’s damaged in some way; she hurts herself. She doesn’t need friends.."

"Evangelion is like a puzzle, you know. Any person can see it and give his/her own answer. In other words, we're offering viewers to think by themselves, so that each person can imagine his/her own world. We will never offer the answers, even in the theatrical version. As for many Evangelion viewers, they may expect us to provide the 'all-about Eva' manuals, but there is no such thing. Don't expect to get answers by someone. Don't expect to be catered to all the time. We all have to find our own answers."

"I wrote about myself. My friend lent me a book on psychological illness and this gave me a shock, as if I finally found what I needed to say."

"Evangelion is my life and I have put everything I know into this work. This is my entire life. My life itself."

"I didn't mind it. The schedule was an utter disaster and the number of cels plummeted, so there were some places where unfortunately the quality suffered. However, the tension of the staff as we all became more desperate and frenzied certainly showed up in the film ... About the time that the production system was completely falling apart, there were some opinions to the effect that, "If we can't do satisfactory work, then what's the point of continuing?" However, I didn't feel that way. My opinion was, "Why don't we show them the entire process including our breakdown."

"There are a lot of giant robot shows in Japan, and we did want our story to have a religious theme to help distinguish us. Because Christianity is an uncommon religion in Japan we thought it would be mysterious. None of the staff who worked on Eva are Christians. There is no actual Christian meaning to the show, we just thought the visual symbols of Christianity look cool. If we had known the show would get distributed in the US and Europe we might have rethought that choice."

"Often anime are perceived as shallow children's films punctuated by the occasional adult-themed anime, centered around violence or sex. One of the many elements of Neon Genesis Evangelion that sets it apart is that it is aimed at children and teens while dealing with sophisticated themes in a manner that is subtle and inoffensive. These complex themes are much more present in the films than in the television series, perhaps due to the nature of television censors. On the surface, EVA appears to be like many other anime. Yet EVA is intrinsically different not just due to its handling of potentially controversial subject matter but because the films are self-reflexive of the genre itself."

"Lauded by some as the “single greatest anime series ever made,” Neon Genesis Evangelion has been interpreted in a variety of ways by Western scholars. Susan J. Napier has said that the subject matter of EVA consists mainly of sexual, psychological and Judeo-Christian religious content. Although there is some merit to such interpretations, there is a great deal of evidence in the series and films that has been ignored by Napier and other Western scholars that points toward a Japanese, rather than Western, heritage. In particular, I suggest a deep understanding of Buddhist cosmology and philosophy is present in EVA. In other words, as one delves deeper into EVA, one finds that the Judeo-Christian imagery – while clearly present – cannot account for many of the narrative twists, turns, and developments. Similarly, the Western identification of sexual and psychological traits are also supportable to some extent. These features may also reflect indigenous Japanese and specifically Buddhist concepts. In addition, I suggest that there is a larger contextual basis at work in this series and the two films that can account for the specific elements that many scholars have deemed "confusing.""

"Even fans of the sci-fi genre who avoid anime altogether have likely heard of Cowboy Bebop and Ghost in the Shell, which were each landmarks of both style and substance. But arguably the greatest and certainly most thematically dense of the three 90's sci-fi anime masterpieces is Neon Genesis Evangelion. It has one of the most enduring worldwide cult franchises and passionate fanbases in all of geekdom ... the most celebrated cast in anime ... [and] poster boy/protagonist Shinji is one of the most nuanced, popular, and relatable characters in anime history."

"Oh this is... this is nice, this is the end, okay. Where exactly am I? Oh grea… here's the song, oh good. Um, there's some things that are still unresolved here, guys! How do I get home? What do I eat? Was Rei my-my mom? Or a clone? Or, hell, was this all in my mind? Wha-what's an EVA? Is that sort of a Freudian thing? Er… um Am I real? Oh, hell, does a bus run through here? I mean, I'd like to go home now but um… Oh God… Where's home? Okay, okay, okay. I mustn't run away, I mustn't run... Okay I got that, good, okay. Now, if I were to run away, let's analyze that: Where the fuck would I go? I'm on a big blue ball! Uhh, is this how you end the series? I mean, is this where we go from here? Okay, the movie better sure as Hell make up for this, I'm telling you right now, 'cause I'm stuck in Nowhereland! You ran outta ink too, didn't you, ya bastards?"

"The basic concept is simple: Huge bio-machines called Evangelions, or Evas, piloted by specially recruited teenagers, battle monstrous giants known as Angels that are wreaking havoc on the human survivors of a global calamity. However, Anno and his team at the Gainax animation studio created a world highly developed not only visually — the mechanics of the Evas in particular were so realistic that they seemed less drawn than designed — but also narratively, emotionally and spiritually. The Eva pilots — especially the troubled, sensitive Shinji, whose coldly calculating dad had developed the Evas — were strongly individualistic types whose turbulent lives were as much a part of the series’ appeal as its titanic Eva-versus-Angel battles. The show also incorporated a melange of religious symbolism, and a wealth of psychological and philosophical themes reflecting Anno’s own investigations and beliefs, as well as his long struggle with depression."

"...the series questions the construction of human identity [. . .] in relation to the nature of reality itself. Providing more riddles than solutions, the series takes the viewer on a journey into both inner and outer reality before ultimately leaving both its characters and its audience floating in a sea of existential uncertainty."

"Neon Genesis Evangelion imaginatively reinterprets elements of Christian eschatology and Jewish mysticism and combines them with Oedipal and Mother Goddess imagery to construct a painful but ultimately liberative narrative of personal and social self-revelation."

"The meat of Evangelion, for which these elements are mostly trappings, is in the psychological complexity of its characters and its philosophical examination of the nature of relationships and the self. Structured around eschatological Judeo-Christian imagery and a Freudian mother-worship of religious proportions, Evangelion takes us on a nightmarish ride of existential angst and brutal physical violence, climaxing in an elaborate fantasy of return to an idyllic, primal state of oneness. Through this lurid mix of confession and spectacle is woven a complex examination of apocalypse and self-definition, a death-rebirth narrative that consciously exists in the shadow of Hiroshima."

"In Japan, Evangelion is an enormous content and merchandise industry with hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. Images of its biomechanical Eva robots are on everything from coffee mugs to smartphones and even airplane wraps."

"The child soldiers of Evangelion are a fairly direct embodiment of the "kids are our future" axiom: By accident of biology or design, they're the only ones capable of piloting the only devices capable of staving off Armageddon."

"When monstrous angels invade the world, the children of Evangelion are recruited to pilot the giant cyborg Evangelion units against them. Most are reluctant soldiers, recruited just as reluctantly by their adult supervisors."

"Somewhere on a fetid, fog-bound mud bank on [Vogsphere] there stands, surrounded by the dirty, broken and empty carapaces of the last few jeweled scuttling crabs, a small stone monument which marks the place where, it is thought, the species Vogon Vogonblurtus first arose. On the monument there is carved an arrow which points away, into the fog, under which is inscribed in plain, simple letters the words "The buck stops there.""

"It wasn't [the Captain's] job to worry about that, though. It was his job to do his job, which was to do his job. If that led to a certain narrowness of vision and circularity of thought, then it wasn't his job to worry about such things. Any such things that came his way were referred to others, who had, in turn, other people to refer such things to."

"What was the self-sacrifice?" "I jettisoned half of a much-loved and I think irreplaceable pair of shoes." "Why was that self-sacrifice?" "Because they were mine!" said Ford, crossly. "I think we have different value systems." "Well, mine's better."

"I leaped out of a high-rise office window." This cheered Arthur up. "Oh!" he said. "Why don't you do it again?" "I did." "Hmmm," said Arthur, disappointed. "Obviously no good came of it."

"Temporal reverse engineering." Arthur put his head in his hands and shook it gently from side to side. "Is there any humane way," he moaned, "in which I can prevent you from telling me what temporary reverse bloody-whatsiting is?"

"This is very, very serious indeed. The Guide has been taken over. It's been bought out." Arthur leapt up. "Oh, very serious," he shouted. "Please fill me in straight away on some corporate publishing politics! I can't tell you how much it's been on my mind of late!" "You don't understand! There's a whole new Guide!" "Oh!" shouted Arthur again. "Oh! Oh! Oh! I'm incoherent with excitement! I can hardly wait for it to come out to find out which are the most exciting spaceports to get bored hanging about in in some globular cluster I've never heard of. Please, can we rush to a store that's got it right this very instant?" Ford narrowed his eyes. "This is what you call sarcasm, isn't it?" "Do you know," bellowed Arthur, "I think it is? I really think it might just be a crazy little thing called sarcasm seeping in at the edges of my manner of speech! Ford, I have had a fucking bad night! Will you please try and take that into account while you consider what fascinating bits of badger-sputumly inconsequential trivia to assail me with next?"

"What did she say?" "She hit me on the head with the rock again." "I think I can confirm that that was my daughter." "Sweet kid." "You have to get to know her," said Arthur. "She eases up, does she?" "No," said Arthur, "but you get a better sense of when to duck."

"I think it may be something unimaginably dangerous." "And you sent it to me?" protested Arthur. "Safest place I could think of. I thought I could rely on you to be absolutely boring and not open it."

"Why are we surrounded by squirrels, and what do they want?" "I've been pestered by squirrels all night," said Arthur. "They keep on trying to give me magazines and stuff."

"It would be hard to say which he was more frightened of: that he might have hurt the person he had inadvertently sat on or that the person he had inadvertently sat on would hurt him back."

"Reverse engineering enables us to shortcut all the business of waiting for one of those horribly few spaceships that passes through your galactic sector every year or so to make up its mind about whether or not it feels like giving you a lift. You want a lift, a ship arrives and gives you one. The pilot may think he has any one of a million reasons why he has decided to stop and pick you up. The real reason is that I have determined that he will." "This is you being extremely vain, isn't it, little bird?"

"Your universe is vast to you. Vast in time, vast in space. That's because of the filters through which you perceive it. But I was built with no filters at all, which means I perceive the Mish Mash which contains all possible universes but which has, itself, no size at all. For me, anything is possible. I am omniscient and omnipotent, extremely vain and, what is more, I come in a handy self-carrying package. You have to work out how much of the above is true."

"So what's the point of showing me something I can't see?" "So that you understand that just because you see something, it doesn't mean to say it's there. And if you don't see something, it doesn't mean to say it's not there. It's only what your senses bring to your attention."

"There's nothing there that wasn't there before. I'm just using light to draw your attention to certain drops at certain moments. Now what do you see?"

"If you'd like to know, I can tell you that in your universe you move freely in three dimensions that you call space. You move in a straight line in a fourth, which you call time, and stay rooted to one place in a fifth, which is the first fundamental of probability. After that it gets a bit complicated, and there's all sort of stuff going on in dimensions thirteen to twenty-two that you really wouldn't want to know about. All you really need to know for the moment is that the universe is a lot more complicated than you might think, even if you start from a position of thinking it's pretty damn complicated in the first place. I can easily not say words like "damn" if it offends you."

"What do you think I am, completely without any moral whatsits, what are they called, those moral things?"

"Humans are not proud of their ancestors, and rarely invite them round to dinner."

"Marvin: This is the car park, you ordered a babe wash for your ship. Due to staff shortages, I am your babe."

"Was I amongst friends when the Haggunenon admiral evolved into a life pod and everybody aboard his flagship escaped leaving me aboard as it steered itself into the nearest star? Was I amongst friends when I was left to walk in circles on a swamp planet? Left to park cars outside a restaurant for millenia? Left for the Krikkit robots to use for batting practice? Friend? I don't think I ever came across one of those, sorry, can't help you there."

"Man in Shack: The lord knows I am not a cruel man."

"Man in Shack: I say what it occurs to me to say when I think I hear people say things. More I cannot say."

"I ache, therefore I am."

"Will everything tie up neatly or will it be just like life: quite interesting in parts, but no substitute for the real thing? What is the real thing?"

"The Book: Incredible though it may seem, it is in fact possible that the strange and terrible history of the planet Brontitall, where Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect and Zaphod Beeblebrox are even now falling out of the sky on to curious and aggravating birds, admiring surprisingly large statues of unexpected people, i.e. Arthur Dent, exchanging hostile words with alien soldiers with inexplicable limps and generally having a fairly peculiar time of it, may yet admit of some form of explanation. Furthermore, it is possible that this explanation will have more than a little to do with the mysterious somethings or watchamacallits of which the bird people refuse to speak. On top of which it is also possible that Lintilla the archaeologist (who may possibly turn out to have an almost impossibly strange life story) may play a major part in the uncovering of this explanation. It is even possible that pigs will fly, or that everyone will live happily ever after. In an infinite Universe everything, even The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, is possible."

"The Book: Having been through the Total Perspective Vortex, Zaphod Beeblebrox now knows himself to be the most important being in the entire Universe...something he had hitherto only suspected. It is said that his birth was marked by earthquakes, tidal waves, tornadoes, firestorms, the explosion of three neighbouring stars, and, shortly afterwards, by the issuing of over six and three quarter million writs for damages from all of the major landowners in his galactic sector. However, the only person by whom this is said is Beeblebrox himself, and there are several possible theories to explain this..."

"Life, as many people have spotted, is, of course, terribly unfair. For instance, the first time the Heart of Gold ever crossed the galaxy the massive improbability field it generated caused two hundred and thirty-nine thousand lightly-fried eggs to materialise in a large, wobbly heap on the famine-struck land of Poghril in the Pansel system. The whole Poghril tribe had just died out from famine...except for one man who died of cholesterol poisoning some weeks later."

"Frogstar Robot: Out of my way little robot"

"Ford Prefect: You know, in these sorts of situations it's really good to have a guide to help you."

"Zaphod: The building's being bombed! Who in their right minds would want to bomb a publishing company?"

"The other Shaltanac's joopleberry shrub is always a more mauvy shade of pinky-russet."