Something Silly

A thought that hasn't come out of my brain. When I want to get some music I go to one of three places: Goodwill and other stores that people give their old musical tastes to the larger creature that is music lovers. I go to Itunes and other online stores and their simply fun times of online shopping and their circuitous routes of buy this and buy that. But there is the final place. The stores that sell music among other things. (Walmart, Barnes and Noble, Target, etc.) And this has bugged me for years. If I am searching for music- I know what I want. I don't need some person coming up to me and breaking my concentration with "What are you looking for?" I hate that. I don't like people. I am so introverted that talking to people and I almost start hyperventilating because of fear. I don't need to know what's hot in the charts. I like music from any decade except for now. There are some songs that I like but I don't like hearing the same songs over and over on the radio. Following the crowd tires me out. I don't shop during the holidays. Christmas music is too happy for me and I just look at the people's faces and think "what are they hiding?" People can't be happy all the time. If they were they would go insane. Halloween is my favorite time of year. Short explanation: People are taught since childhood ti keep away from strangers and don't take candy from strangers. Halloween flips it on its head. Halloween lets kids take candy from strangers and lets people scare people to death and lets them act as homicidal maniacs. Black Friday I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. I hate being around people. It tires me out. Complete and total introvert. Black Friday I only like because I wonder how many people will be trampled nationwide because of- enter stupid mass produced product here- and it boggles the mind. I just want to figure out a shirt that I want for Christmas. I have no shirts I want here. Middle America shirt selection is nil.

Is Pacific Rim Hollywood's version of Evangelion?

Short answer: No. It takes lot of tropes and concepts from the mecha genre as a whole and tries to be as original as possible. (For a genre that was created in the 50's and 60's- true originality is difficult if not impossible to come by.)So I finally was able to watch Pacific Rim. It took me three weeks of begging my family to watch it. It was a movie I wanted to watch for months on end. Why? Two reasons: First of all- The Guillermo Del Toro films I have watched (the Hellboy films, parts of Pans' Labyrinth, Kung Fu Panda 2, Rise of the Guardians, plus a smattering of films that he just touched.) I have enjoyed readily. And then was this whole thing through the anime forums that I glance at every few weeks about how Pacific Rim was Hollywood's attempt at Neon Genesis Evangelion. And I was hooked from that. And also the movie was highly successful in the overseas markets. (Asian markets ate this up like CGI candy. Disclaimer: Any and all Evangelion links Pacific Rim shares seem to be highly coincidental and superfluous. The Evangelion connections are mostly from the first few episodes before most of the iconic deconstruction of said mecha anime takes place. Any mecha genre lover could, hypothetically, find things that are very similar to their personal favorite in Pacific Rim. By referencing nothing, they are referencing everything. Thank you and read on.

Now back story: When I was twelve the Toonami block was on its last hurrah (or just ended. . .my memory is off- and we didn't know that Toonami would be resurrected a few years later) so I had begun my love of anime with the usual: Dragonball Z, Sailor Moon, Naruto, Yu Yu Hakusho etc.) and I was 12. So I was confused. Some of the animes I watched became normal. They began to dull with repeated watching. Formulaic Shonen beat the bad guy plots (boring- in all seriousness I like the romantic 'feminine' shows and magical girl animes- better stories in my opinion. Also other stories for another day.)

Now why have I not said anything about the mecha genre? Well because my overall view of it at 12 was giant robots with political intrigue. Example- the now 30ish years of Gundam. The gung ho- fight the bad guys show. (Which in all fairness is not a good stereotype. See Tegen Toppan Gurren Lagaan as why this as parody is ridiculous. And I really want to watch the entire Gundam canon sooner or later.) The main influences of Pacific Rim seem to be earlier robot animes like Gundam, Mazinger Z, etc. But there are too many similarities with Evangelion for people to not unconsciously have a lot of Eva. Weirdly, no one in the movie had seen NGE, so they claim, until almost finishing Pacific Rim. (Idea of common tropes goes here.)

 Now on to Neon Genesis Evangelion. It is a mecha anime but it isn't. First of all it is a pre apocalyptic Earth in 2015. The world is being attacked by Angels, giant Lovecraftian entities which are about as angelic as demons. It is also a story of teen angst and terrible depression. (It hit home for me. Being a teenager and, well. . .) Is it all 'gung ho, fight the bad guy?' Nope. When you first see the Angels in Episode One, it's acting on almost pure instinct. By the time the Final Angel in the television series, the 17th, hits there have been at least five times an Angel has tried to interface and have either almost absorbed the mech pilots, psychologically analyzed them and overall learned how to better fight against the humans.

 And every human has some kind of psychological issue. From the main character's issues with his father, constantly running away, and thinking every mess up was directly caused by him. One of the girls has little to personality- becoming a sort of living doll, and the third main character having an inferiority complex that shows itself as a superiority complex. (And every main character has issues like this, even the happy ones.) 

Now there's the religious symbolism From the Angels names (Sandalphon the Angel of the Unborn being discovered as a fetus like creature before it awakes, cross explosions, the sephiroth in End of Evangelion, Adam, Lilith, the Magi computer system, etc.) Now Hideaki Anno says that he just made NGE have these thoughts to make it 'cool' and it is still debated hotly almost two decades after the original series.

 Altogether it is a very convoluted series that is very hard to explain without spoiling literally everything and even after yearly watchings (currently 7 full run throughs) I still don't know everything about it. It is highly recommended by me. (Just a warning- it is a mature series- gore, nudity, language- so it is not for those people who are either too young to watch it comfortably or for the weak of heart. It is dark, deep, and horribly convoluted.

 Now finally I have to say that I would have said that Pacific Rim is not completely a homage to NGE. I would say that there have been times that that is more true. The Matrix being influenced by Ghost in the Shell (which is still a great graphical movie), I've seen comparisons between Kimba the White Lion and Lion King, The Speed Racer movie which was the West's attempt at a Speed Racer movie. And- my personal- sarcastic- favorite was The Hunger Games and the much better and darker, in my opinion, Battle Royale.

 But Guillermo Del Toro said: I haven't seen Evangelion. I accept you Patlabor, [as an influence] from anime industry, or, Tetsujin-28, I don't have any problem saying 'I love them', 'they're an influence for me'. Regarding Evangelion, I have the DVDs, I haven't opened them, I haven't seen it. Yeah, there is anime influence [in Pacific Rim], but not from that anime in particular.

This means we have to get Inception up in here.

 Actually the stylings of the 'Kaiju' (Japanese: Strange Creature) made me think of the Giant Monster craze that the world first really took off with in the 1950's. (See any Weirdly titled American film- completely made up example: Giant Mechanical Ants From Mars) or the classic Godzilla series (Side Note: After researching that studio, I have found out that they've done quite a few Miyazaki films and, if not all, most of the Pokemon movies. Weird.)Another more recent and more known example is the tokusatsu genre. (example: Power Rangers/ Super Sentai series) The monsters in Pacific Rim are amalgamations. The creatures are (after a scene that I will get into later)that they are clones of each other. Imperfect clones that have different powers and power levels. But this is very Evangelion. In Evangelion, the Evangelions (short explanation- the human creations- cyborgs- that 14 year old pilot to fight the Angels) are themselves created from the DNA of Angels. The imagery of giant monsters that look like Earth creatures is very Toho (Godzilla series) with the creation of those monsters being from atomic energy, robots, or mythical monsters. The Rift in Pacific Rim reminds me of Lovecraftian mythos (the Elder Gods are found out to be aliens in The Mountains of Madness and other later works by Lovecraft. And the Level system is very reminiscent of Hurricane numbering systems (Levels 3-5 seen in the actual movie; Level 1-2 Kaiju probably happened earlier in the timeline but are unseen.)

 The Jaegers (German: Hunters) are the robots that are created to fight the Kaiju. Their styling reminds more of the stocky Gundam models rather than the more sleek Evas or even the Code Geass models. The Jaegers we see in the movie are the American Mark 3 Gipsy model, the Russian Mark 1 Cherno Alpha, the Chinese Mark 4 Crimson Typhoon, and a few others. Altogether this isn not rare for mecha genres: there has been national mechs in anime for a long while. Gundam had its boatload of Gundams, Evangelion had different branches of Nerv working on different Evas, and Code Geass had Britannian, Chinese Fenderation, and Area 11/Japanese mechs. Just to name a few series off the top of my head that I can easily list off. The pilots act like rock stars (much like the gung ho fight the bad guys mecha shows if turned up to eleven.) The suits of the pilots reminded me a lot of the plug suits of NGE. (At one point, the masks of the characters are filled with some viscous yellow goop maybe like Evangelion's LCL. Or just another showing of the increasing robotics idealized in movies- possible because out side it never is shown again- though the cahracters are never really shown suiting up again in that level of detail.) The two pilot system is unlike the original Evangelion series. But if we add the Rebuild of Evangelion movies especially Rebuild 3.0, we do see an Evangelion with two pilot. (Evangelion Unit 13) Now the Japanese version of the movie came out a year ago and hasn't been dubbed to English yet- so it is only a tentative link and coincidence. And finally the Neural Handshake that is the way to link with a Jaeger and the other pilot is very similar to the synchronization ratios in Evangelion.

 Now for character similarities. Now there isn't many and the ones that are there are just similar- not perfect. The two that come to mind are the Major in Pacific Rim and Gendo Ikari in Evangelion. Both are older and are seen as pillars in their respective organizations. (Both are controlled by outside organizations that give them money. The U.N. in the case of Pacific Rim and Seele in Evangelion. Both are seen as tough in their stories but have a soft spot in a younger female 'daughter' that they take care of and control in some way. In Pacific Rim, he saved the female lead from being killed by a Kaiju. And the connection the scientist makes in Pacific Rim reminded me of the psychological Angel connections.

 Now Pacific Rim is its own beast altogether. First and largest of all- it is at opposition of Hideaki Anno's view of Evangelion. Eva was highly highly pessimistic, psychological, depressing and individualistic. Pacific Rim is optimistic and more similar to the original mecha genre in in view of good guys vs. giant monsters. At one point, the Major states that they 'will cancel the Apocalypse.' Its human quality of neural handshakes is much more of a relationship and more we are all in this together kind of vibe. Altogether I give it a 8.9/10 with a Recommendation of Watch it and relive your Saturday morning anime binges.