Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer or The Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer? Either Way It’s a Nice Manga

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hoshinosamidare-biscuithammer Hoshi no Samidare by Mizukami Satoshi, known in English bizarrely as Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer (and sometimes The Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer) is an odd manga. Ostensibly a story about a boy who gets mystic powers in order to fight an evil golem-creating wizard, The Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer sports an eccentric cast of characters, an even stranger goal for its main characters, and a convoluted sense of narrative progression that somehow only adds to its appeal.

Amamiya Yuuhi, who has all the appearance of a typical high school kid, wakes up one day to find a talking lizard. The lizard, Neu, informs Yuuhi hat he is a knight who must protect their princess from an evil wizard and save the world from the dreaded Earth-shattering “Biscuit Hammer,” a huge mallet hanging over the planet visible only to those with profound despair. However, the princess, Asahina Samidare, is fiercely powerful, possessing beyond superhuman strength, and has her own agenda. Calling herself a demon lord (the titular “Lucifer”), Samidare seeks to stop the Biscuit Hammer because she in fact wishes to destroy the planet herself, and Yuuhi becomes her loyal servant in her cause. Overall, the series can be viewed as a kind of sekai-kei (world-style) manga, stories where the fate of the world rests on a “you and me” relationship.

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When I say that this manga’s sense of progression can be confusing, what I mean is that often times it seems as if the stakes of their battle seem both all-important and frivolous at the same time. Most of the characters have unusual personalities that position them somewhere between delusional and disillusioned, trapped by their own immaturity, but many of them grow over the course of the series. Their fight to foil the wizard and his Biscuit Hammer involves taking on progressively stronger and stronger golems as if they were video game bosses, but then sometimes a friend or ally will die in battle. The emotional weight of the deaths are expressed as quite significant and serious, and yet the question of whether they’ve made any real progress (or how progress can be defined) is ambiguous. It might sound frustrating, but it gives Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer an odd charm. If anything, it feels akin to a more optimistic and lighthearted Bokurano. While that series is about as fun and happy as a mass suicide, there’s a similar sense of characters grasping at the darkness.

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The art in Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer has an unrefined quality to it, where characters appear a bit flat and the world feels frayed and uneasy. However, I believe that this also helps to give the manga that shaky sense of progression that makes it such an interesting story. The manga also does a good job of playing with and presenting its characters’ powers, especially given the versatility of their core ability. Each character is capable of using a “holding field,” a mass of dense energy that can be used in a variety of ways, including creating stepping stones in the air, being thrown as a spear, and more. It can be a difficult thing to make look interesting, yet the action scenes have weight and impact.

Overall, I find that Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer is not so much an addictive series that has you hungering for the next chapter, but is rather one that invites you to slowly observe its seemingly by-the-numbers premise of fighting and power ups. From there, it draws you in by portraying each character’s struggle and a unique sense of stasis that seems to permeate its world and its story, making its introspective qualities feel that much more as if they’re coming from a place that ignores time and space.

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[Apartment 507] Myriad Colors Phantom World is Like a 90s Anime

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I’ve written a post about Myriad Colors Phantom World over at Apartment 507, and its similarities to anime of the 90s such as Slayers and Saber Marionette J. What do you think? Is Phantom World a “1990s anime in 2016 clothing?”

Mizuki Ichirou and JAM Project: The Voice of the Past

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Thanks to One Punch Man, I’ve been listening more to JAM Project as of late. I love how JAM Project takes anime music so seriously, and their desire to create actual “anime music” about the shows they sing for is admirable. However, the more I listen through their catalog, the more I miss one of their original founders, Mizuki Ichirou.

For fans of anime music, Mizuki Ichirou possibly needs no introduction. The voice behind almost countless theme songs, his work in titles such as Mazinger Z, Babel II, Golion (aka Voltron), and Kamen Rider X earned him the moniker “Emperor of Anime Songs.” In 2000, he became one of the founding members of JAM Project, taking a less active role a few years later.

Other members have come and gone from JAM Project, namely Sakamoto Eizou, the lead vocalist of the heavy metal band Anthem, and Matsumoto Rica, a singer who’s also famous for being the voice of Satoshi (Ash) from Pokemon. They also lent their own unique voices to JAM Project in interesting ways, but something about Mizuki Ichirou’s singing is different.

Unlike the younger members of JAM Project, Mizuki’s vocal style invokes a different era of music, culture, and of course anime. It’s deep, memorable, and reminiscent of a Frank Sinatra-style crooner, only he’s singing about Mazinger Z’s Rocket Punch. When you placed him alongside his fellow JAM Project members, it would add something unique, something classic, to their sound.

Above are two versions of JAM Project’s “Hagane no Messiah,” one without Mizuki and one with. I think hearing them side by side really shows what the “Aniking” added to the band.

 

 

The Fujoshi Files 151: Sennokimi

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Name: Sennokimi
Alias: N/A
Relationship Status: N/A
Origin: Moehime

Information:
Hailing from the Heian Period, Sennokimi is a part of the inner circle of Chuuguu, the Empress of Japan. Together, she and the others read literature from throughout the land about male-male relationships.

Fujoshi Level:
Nothing is known about the extent of Sennokimi’s fujoshi inclinations, though being a member of Chuuguu’s inner circle means she is at least considered very appreciative of it.

Moe Norton vs Avast: Garakowa -Restore the World-

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This post was sponsored by Johnny Trovato. If you’re interested in submitting topics for the blog, or just like my writing and want to be a patron of Ogiue Maniax, check out my Patreon.

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This might not be a universal feeling, but I think there’s nothing quite like your first emotional and heartrending anime. It could be something as simple as Pokemon, or something more known for its sense of tragedy, such as Kanon. Perhaps it comes from Japan’s literary tradition of valuing the ephemeral, or maybe it’s something more modern, but as you watch more anime, you start to notice trends in how sadness is portrayed, how characters are used to facilitate this sorrow. Though you don’t necessarily get tired of these trends, after a while recognizing the trend can cause the sheen to come off the anime model.

Garakowa -Restore the World- is a recent film from A-1 Pictures that I’m compelled to describe as “a standard interesting anime.” It doesn’t quite do the movie justice, as I think it’s actually a solid piece with a strong story, characters, and lots of interesting ideas to chew on, but there’s an odd sense of familiarity I get from the work.

At the center of the future setting of Garokawa are two antivirus programs, visualized as teenage girls named Dual and Dorothy. Their sole task is to protect their computer world containing vast archives of human history, known as the “box of knowledge,” by deleting any memories that have been infected, at least when they aren’t butting heads with each other (it’s why you don’t install two different antivirus software!). During one virus-purging, they encounter a mysterious other program named Remo, who seems to possess all of the human traits that are simply absent in Dual and Dorothy, and the three form a bond that leads them to the truth of the world.

Garakowa‘s atmosphere is like a cross between Madoka Magica, Corrector Yui, Reboot, and She, the Ultimate Weapon, in that there are elements of magical girl anime mixed with the idea of a world inside a computer, a looming sense of tragedy, and a grand scale whose exact dimensions are intentionally ambiguous. This might be more obvious when looking at the Japanese title, Garasu no Hana to Kowasu Sekai, or “the Glass Flower and the Crumbling World.” The official translation, by the way, is the odd-sounding Vitreous & Destroy the World. However, what makes Garokawa simultaneously not the most daring and original work while also filled with material worth contemplating is the way it creatively utilizes its science fiction setting alongside its emotionally resonant moments.

The first element that really stood out to me about the film was the idea of personifying the conflict that occurs when multiple antivirus programs are installed. The way it’s presented here, with the anime trappings of magical girl accoutrements and cute girls, is to be expected to a certain extent. However, even as it’s reminiscent of the OS-tan craze of personifying computer operating systems in the early to mid-2000s and even as it draws upon the power of moe, yuri, and a kind of sensuality, the story of Garakowa also somewat implicitly justifies their human appearances.

From there, the part of the movie that really stays with me (outside of some spoilers I’m choosing not to divulge) is the idea that Dual and Dorothy cannot taste food or understand human behavior even as they’re modeled after humanity. In particular, in a scene straight of Urasawa Naoki’s Pluto, Dual contemplates Remo’s advice that, if you think that something is delicious, it feels like it will become delicious (Atom in Pluto says something similar). While it might all be in my head, I feel like that interaction sets up this idea that the antivirus programs are part of the greater presentation of humanity that is the box of knowledge. Even if they aren’t able to directly feel human emotions or sensation, they can at least exhibit a record of the ideas. If the box of knowledge is a kind of catalog of human history, then perhaps Dual and Dorothy are just as much a part of that purpose.

Overall, Garakowa is a very “anime” film in terms of its combination of science fiction, attractive female leads, and heart string-tugging narrative that contextualizes an everyday environment as something larger than life. It’s the kind of work where I feel someone who has less exposure to Japanese animation, or at least anime of this variety, could be strongly affected by its ideas, characters, world, and presentation, but it’s also enjoyable for long-time fans. Garakowa -Restore the World- is actually available for free on Crunchyroll, so it might be worth your while.

 

Show By Rock!!: C’mon, Rock and Roll

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showbyrock-plasmagica  What happens when Sanrio, the company behind Hello Kitty, creates a franchise aimed at men? The result is Show By Rock!!, an anime that’s an eclectic mix of seemingly contradictory visual aesthetics that somehow manages to bring it all together through clever humor, a heartfelt story of music and friendship, and a surprising amount of story.

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Hijirikawa Cyan is a high school girl too shy to join her school’s music club. While lamenting her lack of courage and playing on her cell phone (Show By Rock!! was originally a mobile game), she gets transported to the world of Myumons, half-animal people who share a love of music. She meets a talking guitar named Strawberry Heart, has to fight a giant hideous monster attacking a concert, and ends up staying on the other side and joining a small band called Plasmagica. Along with their ambitious leader and lead guitarist/vocalist Chuchu, tsundere bassist Retoree, and enigmatically cheerful drummer Moa, Cyan learns to gain confidence in herself and her love of music and saves Midi City in the process.

Though I might be biased as I am probably in that target audience of guys who like cute things, what I think draws me to this show is just how well it executes that cuteness in various capacities. I think often when it comes to how cuteness is utilized in anime, especially when trying to aim it at adult male fans, it can come across as a little too willing to revel in adorableness for its own sake, or to attach it heavily to tragedy. With Show By Rock!!, I actually hesitate to call a show like it “moe,” because there’s a different quality at work, a combination of silliness and seriousness that makes the anime feel closer to the morning cartoons that air alongside something like Precure than they would Hidamari Sketch, despite Show By Rock!! itself being a late-night anime.

I think I get this sense most from the show’s opening, “Seishun wa Non-Stop,” which is fun and addictive and the kind of introduction that I actually chose not to skip every episode. That, and seeing the glasses magically dissipate from Cyan’s head at the beginning of the opening is somehow hypnotic.

The moment that sealed the deal for me in terms of liking Show By Rock!! comes quite early on, in episode 2. During a scene when all of the girls of Plasmagica are discussing their reasons for joining the band, the camera closes in on each of their faces to reveal their actual reasons and not the innocent ones they’ve given on the surface. I don’t want to spoil the moment, but Moa’s reveal is so out of left field and hilarious that, even though I put the show on hold for months before finishing it, her inner thoughts stuck with me throughout my break from Show By Rock!!  What’s even better is that it pays off in a later episode.

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That moment is one of many indicators that Show By Rock!! is actually quite well-paced, with early hints at characters’ histories being built upon, a good sense of weight and understanding when it comes to the challenges each of the characters have to go through, and an extremely solid cast of supporting characters. While I can’t help but be fond of Tsurezurenaru Ayatsuri Mugenan, an Enka-themed band led by a woman in a giant cat daruma, the real stand-out side characters have to be SHINGANCRIMSONZ, a visual kei band with the most humorously overwrought members possible, chuunibyou types taken to the next level (plus one realist who nevertheless believes strongly in the power of music). If anything, even if you’re not a fan of hyper cute designs, you might just stay around for the SHINGANCRIMSONZ antics.

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Going back to the idea of Show By Rock!! being a strange mix of various visual styles, this can be seen in the fact that the members of SHINGANCRIMSONZ are drawn closer to the bishounen archetype than an attempt to reconcile their designs with the cutesy look of the Plasmagica girls. However, it works because they’re in many ways just as adorable and fun to watch as Cyan and the rest. Another facet of this blending of styles is the use of 3DCG and transformation into Sanrio-esque mascot characters during performances. It can be jarring, especially when watching this series for the first time, though it’s not extremely different from the heavy use of CG dances in girls’ shows such as Pretty Rhythm. In fact, while it isn’t quite up to the level of 2D animation employed by Studio Bones, the 3D animation in Show By Rock!! is actually quite solid.

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At only 12 episodes, Show By Rock!! is a quick and easy watch. I don’t think it’ll rock anyone’s foundations, but the characters are charismatic, the overall narrative leads up well, and the music is catchy. If there’s a way to describe it based on other music anime, I’d say it’s like 50% Sound!! Euphonium, 50% Macross 7. Don’t believe me? I guess you’ll have to check it out.

[Apartment 507] Showa Nostalgia in Anime: What’s the Deal?

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I wrote a post over at Apartment 507 looking at the nostalgia for the Showa period that seems to be cropping up in anime. Leave a comment either here or there and tell me what you think!

Royally Good: Go! Princess Precure

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After Happiness Charge Precure! failed to live up to its potential, I had hoped that the next series in the long-running Precure anime franchise would fare better. Fortunately, Go! Princess Precure wildly exceeded my expectations to become one of my favorite iterations of the popular magical girl anime. From the serious to the silly, Go! Princess Precure hits a homerun.

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Go! Princess Precure follows Haruno Haruka, a teenage girl who dreams of becoming a princess. As a small child, she met a handsome young prince named Kanata who inspired her to hold onto her love of princesses, in spite of discouragement by others. In the present day, as Haruka comes to the prestigious “Noble Academy” with the goal of learning what it means to be a “true princess,” she finds out that monsters have begun to attack the school, preying on everyone’s hopes and aspirations. Haruka becomes a “Precure,” a magical warrior with the power to defend against the forces of Dysdark, and is soon joined by two other girls, Kaido Minami and Amanogawa Kirara, who also use their dreams to fight back.

Princess fever has taken over amidst the enormous popularity of Frozen in Japan, and Go! Princess Precure asks, “What is a princess?” While this question (as well as the thematic flourish of the series) can potentially be criticized on a surface level as sexist and regressive, a closer look shows that Go! Princess Precure aims to claim the concept of the princess as a symbol of hard work and kindness towards others. To this point, a major villain of the series, the powerful Princess Twilight (no relation) even confronts Haruka (Cure Flora) with the idea that one can only be born a princess, and while she’s technically more correct than Haruka in terms of how it works in real life, Go! Princess Precure shows how Haruka, Minami (Cure Mermaid), and Kirara (Cure Twinkle) strive to embrace the idea of a “princess” as being the product of one’s effort. In other words, according to Go! Princess Precure, being a princess doesn’t make you a better person. Rather, being a better person who strives for their dreams and helps others is the key that allows any girl to become a princess all on their own.

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Not only is Go! Princess Precure strong thematically, it’s just an incredibly solid show in general. In terms of animation, it has some of the finest fight sequences in all of Precure as early as episode 1, and while it rises and dips in quality as is typical of a year-long anime, its overall consistency as well as its high points are notable. The outfits and character designs are all on point (In terms of narrative, the series benefits from an entertaining main cast with well thought out character development. Flora’s story at the half-way point connects to that greater theme of “princess” self actualization. Kirara as the donut-loving fashion model eager to speak her mind is one of the most unique Precure characters ever (I voted her as my favorite among the Princess Precures for this reason). The supporting characters, though not quite on the level of Heartcatch Precure!, grow admirably throughout the series as well.

Perhaps most notably, when the anime introduces a fourth Precure late into its run, she does not overshadow the rest of the cast. It’s a common problem for shows like Precure or Super Sentai, where in an effort to push the new character and her toys she ends up practically taking over the show. Honestly, I can’t recall a single bad episode.

Go! Princess Precure might be quite the hard act to follow. Whether it’s in comparison to the rest of Precure or as an anime all on its own, Go! Princess Precure is simply an outstanding work that embodies a lot of what is best in children’s shows and the magical girl anime genre. I highly recommend anyone, even those skeptical of mahou shoujo, to take a look.

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Getting Along: Ogiue Maniax Status Update for February 2016

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With Go Princess! Precure finally over, I feel like this is when the winter anime season truly begins. I hope that you’ll enjoy coming along the ride with me.

I’d like to thank the following Patreon supporters this month.

General:

Johnny Trovato

Ko Ransom

Alex

Diogo Prado

Yoshitake Rika fans:

Elliot Page

Hato Kenjirou fans:

Elizabeth

Yajima Mirei fans:

Machi-Kurada

In particular, I’d like to welcome back Johnny Trovato. He was the source for many past topics through Patreon, including posts on the Tokyo Olympics and Censorship, Touhou vs. Kantai Collection, and the rise and fall of Saimoe. If you’d like me to write about a specific topic on Ogiue Maniax, it’s a perk you can get for the highest reward tier on Patreon.

This past month has brought a lot of interesting changes for me. Outside of Ogiue Maniax, I recently started contributing articles to a site called Apartment 507. They were looking for someone who communicate with the hardcore Japanese pop culture fans that comprise their audience, and I’ve been happy to oblige. The main reason I got this gig was because of my efforts on Ogiue Maniax, so I am grateful to my readers here for reminding me of the value of writing and that, simply put, anime and manga are awesome.

I decided not to include those posts on the Patreon page itself because they’re not technically being supported by my patrons, but I have been linking to them on the blog itself. Just look for the [Apartment 507] tag in the title if you’re wonder which posts are which.

As for the blog proper, I think I’ve written some of my best work this past month. I wrote a response to another blogger where I talk about some of the problems that come with evangelizing sakuga, a review of the powerful new film The Anthem of the Heart, and of course the latest Genshiken chapter review. If you haven’t been keeping up with Genshiken, or even if you have, this chapter is a big deal, so I recommend you check it out! By the way, I’ve noticed that my Genshiken reviews are some of my most popular posts. I guess that shouldn’t come as a surprise but I’m actually really happy that I’ve established myself as a source for interesting insight into Genshiken.

January also marked the return of the Fujoshi Files with a historic Fujoshi #150. I have to confess that these might get more sporadic as I don’t have as much time to research fujoshi-themed anime and manga as much as I used to, but I do strongly believe that we’ll hit #200.

In addition, I decided to do something a little different and interview a Super Smash Bros. for Wii U competitive player. Earth, the world’s best Pit, is actually also a mahjong and The iDOLM@STER fan, so I had to ask him a few questions.

The last thing I want to say is that I’ll be traveling to Japan in May! I’ll be releasing posts the whole way through, and when I get back I’ll have plenty more to talk about. And yes, I will be getting all of the dagashi (have you been watching Dagashi Kashi? I highly recommend it).

How Evangelion References Ideon

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This post is dedicated to Anime World Order‘s Daryl Surat, who over 10 years has pointed out repeatedly that people will bring up the relationship between the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion and Space Runaway Ideon without knowing exactly how they connect.

Love it or hate it, Neon Genesis Evangelion, is one of the most influential and well-known anime ever. The story of youths with crippling psychological problems who must fight to save the Earth resonated with many, and anime came to copy, challenge, and rethink Evangelion in the years since. However, Evangelion itself carries its own influences from shows of yesteryear. For this post, I’m going to be writing about one of the major progenitors of Evangelion, Space Runaway Ideon, because it’s often brought up as evidence against Evangelion‘s originality and innovation, without thorough understanding as to what Ideon did and did not do relative to Evangelion.

“Evangelion is just a rehash of Ideon,” the argument goes, but structurally they don’t have very many things in common. The city structure, otherworldly invaders, time limits, and the sense of scale when the titanic EVAs fight the similarly enormous Angels all come from Ultraman. In fact, if you want to see just how much Ultraman influenced director Anno Hideaki, check out the manga Insufficient Direction, drawn by his mangaka wife, Anno Moyoco (Hataraki Man, Sugar Sugar Rune). The escalation of trauma and the mistrust between humans comes from Devilman. Ideon, while bearing a few minor similarities to these series, brings something else to the table.

To understand Ideon, it’s useful to start at the beginning. Its story takes place in an era of space exploration and colonization. A group of archaeologists discover three ancient vehicles, which they find out can be brought together to form a giant robot called Ideon. During this time, they also encounter an alien race of conquerors called the Buff Clan, who possess legends about Ideon as a mighty god of ancient times. Though they take a number of casualties, the humans escape with Ideon, and spend the rest of the series fending off attacks from the Buff Clan with the help of the Ideon.

This sounds pretty par for the course for the time in which it was airing (early 1980s), but one thing made Ideon, as a mecha, different: it didn’t like to behave. The pilots from the very beginning are even unsure as to how to rouse Ideon from its dormancy. It powers up and powers down seemingly with a mind of its own, as indicated by a mysterious display called the Ide Gauge. If there’s a pattern as to how strong Ideon will be in any given fight, it is utterly unclear to the humans responsible for it. It is ancient alien technology that they are unable to fully grasp.

Then, deep into the series they find themselves cornered and at the brink of death. Suddenly, the Ideon achieves a power greater than anything seen before, and wipes out the enemy in an instant. Though they’re happy to have escaped with their lives, one important detail looms over their thoughts: it was not by the humans’ actions that they were rescued. Rather, they were at the seemingly serendipitous whims of the Ideon itself. As they continue on their journey, and as they continue to fight the Buff Clan, the heroes are made increasingly aware of the fact that the Ideon is powerful enough to destroy entire worlds, rend galaxies into nothingness, and wipe out civilizations… and they have absolutely no control over it. In the Super Robot Wars games, the power of the Ideon’s strongest attacks, Ideon Sword and Ideon Gun, are labeled as having infinite range as a reference to this, though the mechanics are gamified into something manageable).

If you’ve seen Neon Genesis Evangelion, you probably know where this is going. Some of the most iconic scenes in Evangelion are when the EVA-01, the protagonist Shinji’s mecha, goes berserk. During these pivotal moments, Shinji somehow falls unconscious or is unable to fight, and the EVA roars to life with a mind of its own. It fights like a beast, clawing, biting, and tearing. Its chilling cry becomes a wake-up call to the human characters who believed that they could control all of this technology and power. In the cases of both Ideon and Evangelion, the power granted to the heroes ironically creates a sense of helplessness because of the loss of control. Unlike older giant robot anime, such as Mazinger Z or even Reideen the Brave which featured a similarly sentient super robot, the spirit of the hero, or indeed all of humanity, is made to feel small and insignificant in Ideon and Evangelion. Where Evangelion differs is in its deeply introspective focus, of characters and the deep, torturous labyrinths of their psyches, and so it would be incorrect to say that Evangelion simply copied Ideon.

The Ideon TV series ends more abruptly than almost any other anime you will ever see, and a proper finale would be provided in the form of two movies, one recap and one conclusion. In the movies, the secrets of the Ideon are explored, and it’s through those secrets that further connections to Evangelion can be seen. The second movie, Be Invoked, reveals what causes Ideon to awaken and gain power: life energy. The Ideon throughout the series appears to respond better to children than to adults, and even better to babies. Though there is nothing explicitly written as to why this is the case, and I’m inserting my own interpretation into this to an extent, I believe that it has to do with the fact that children are both more full of life, and are not as warped by their experiences as the cold, cynical adults.

As the fight between the humans and the Buff Clan rages on, it turns out that meteors have been raining down on both planets, wiping out their homes. The implication behind these mutual apocalypses is that the Ideon itself and its Id energy have been testing the two sides to see if they can reach some sort of peace. Because the two sides refused to understand each other and just kept on fighting, the Ideon basically decided that both civilizations are not worth saving as they are. Hence, meteors. Ultimately, even as this is all happening, the Ideon fights the Buff Clan’s ultimate weapon, the Ganda Rowa. The two destroy each other, triggering a massive explosion that wipes out life on the surrounding planets. The spirits of those who died, both human and Buff, gather together as if all is behind them.

A few similarities to Evangelion appear here. First, the effectiveness of children as a source of “power” for the Ideon is similar to how the Evangelions appear to only function when piloted by 14-year-olds. Second, the protective element of the Ideon towards those children resembles how the EVAs have souls within them that (for the most part) are the mothers of the pilots themselves, who go berserk to save their children. Third, the Ideon’s desire to bring these two warring civilizations, and the final moments of Ideon itself, resemble the Human Instrumentality Project at the center of Evangelion. The Human Instrumentality Project is the idea that, by having all of humanity merge together, we will be free from the problems caused by people being unable to properly communicate their feelings. When we are all as one, there will be no suffering. Again, however, even if you factor out the newer works (the Rebuild of Evangelion movies, the manga’s alternative ending), Evangelion does not say the same things because of the greater focus on individual characters and their personal emotions. Ideon thinks on more of a macro scale than Evangelion‘s micro approach, despite the fact that both series involve the death of humanity.

Overall, the influence of Ideon on Evangelion can be summarized as the exploration of humans having to deal with powers beyond their control, and the apocalyptic consequences of those who continue to make mistakes even with this knowledge in mind. I hope this has been useful to you, and if there is anyone who would like to add new points, expand upon the existing ones above, or even argue against them, I welcome you to make a response.

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