Just a little rant:
Folks, Neon Genesis Evangelion is a great show. Is it the best show ever? No. Is it the best show of its kind? Not even. Is it one of the best? Maybe. Is it perfect? No. Fuck, though, if it isn't extremely well directed most of the time, with all sorts of amazing scene composition, human behavior study, and great mecha action set to beautiful music. It's still my favorite Gainax production, next to Wings of the Honneamise and Ebichu Minds The House.
True, it's been milked more than the Guidas Supercow and most of its first generation of American fans either never got over their initial reactions or are just complete fucking retards. True, companies in Japan put out as many Evangelion-related products as they can. True, it's not some complex theological tapestry, an allegory for the modern man. It's a mecha/shonen program with a "monster of the week" format and somewhat convulted underpinnings.
I have no illusions about what Evangelion is or what it has come to mean, either to the bandwagon worshippers or the bandwagon haters. The former seems to be a group of folks who are used to one-dimensional programming and so when they see anything that has more than that, they assume it's as deep as the ocean. The second group either haven't watched Evangelion but love hating popular things or were expecting too much of it. I'll give the benefit of a doubt and say there are plenty who Evangelion geniunely just doesn't suit, but when you mention Evangelion and somebody suddenly says, "Psh, overrated shit, milked to death, Anno hates his fans" and the like, you've run into that second group of bandwagoners, the fuckwits who hate for hating's sake. Because it's cool to be an iconoclast, to dislike something a lot of people like to stand out as different and hip. You know what? Sometimes things are popular because they're good.
I won't lie. I'm an Evangelion fan, but even now that I'm a fan for the right reasons, I realize it's liked by many for the wrong reasons and disliked for no reason at all most of the time. To say the least, your mileage may vary.
Also, enough with the Tang jokes, already. We all get it.
