>>113085There aren't a whole lot of pirate odyssey stories being made, are there? In any case, by this metric you're just agreeing with
>>113074, it's the exact same argument.
But, if you want to learn about why you're wrong, go ahead and keep reading. I dare you, you aspie.
>>113134Yes, actually, that's very useful and I appreciate it, thank you. It uses the same sources as the Jap wiki article and then some, is way more thorough in its analysis, and then spends the latter half of the article detailing uncontroversial cases of sekai-kei.
The one that stands out to me the most is the "removal of a larger social context." Concretely, compared to something like Gundam (I believe Ideon to a lesser extent?), where there's war, there's politics, and the enemy is perfectly understandable, Eva has an apolitical organization isolated from any government, facing a handful of bizarre and incomprehensible abstract aliens that no one can communicate with, much weirder than your regular kaijuu. When the country's electric supply is diverted to power up the positron sniper rifle, there are no comments made on how it affects the rest of the country, how it impacts society, it's barely shown at all. It's entirely about the fight and the few people then and there, it's about Rei's smile.
Without society in play, there's a much bigger focus on the subject, and the "sekai" part is how their inner feelings, inner world is extended to be as important as the world itself even as it's about to end or going through some massive crisis. That's what the critics say, not me, I'm not making this up. There's more stuff to it, like a romance between a fighting bishoujo and a powerless MC, a relatively static daily life even admist the crisis, and other things, you should read it yourself. It's a better explanation than I expected, honestly. The genre is stated to have lasted until the late 2000s (with a brief revival in Madoka, I read elsewhere).
One of the examples universally given as "definitive sekai-kei" is Hoshi no Koe, coincidentally
a psychological mecha focused on the relationship between a sentou bishoujo (who's busy fighting mute aliens) and a powerless dude, authored by none other than
Makoto Shinkai, the mega blockbuster dude that makes original anime movies! There it is, there you have it! Fuck, its very first line of dialogue starts with a contemplation on what sekai is, precisely what the label makes fun of, then towards the end she has a conversation with an externalized herself, and it features zero other characters outside of those two. Even the Jap wiki says Shinkai makes sekai-kei. This discussion is officially over, anchor is superfluous, thank you very much mina-sama.
Buuuuut, not so fast. Let's go all the way back to Azuma's database book mentioned in
>>112861. Turns out he's immensely influential, I keep seeing references to him all over. This actually surprised me, because when I picked up the book I found him mentioning Eva dozens of times, directly linking it to a new type of otaku from a third generation. I take this to be the 第3次アニメブーム
>>112945 was talking about.
Azuma makes the point in characterizing the old Gundam fanbase as people who were looking for a traditional narrative, versus Eva fans who "did not really have a concern for the entire world of Evangelion," and which basically only cared about the setting insofar as it allowed them "to empathize with the story’s protagonist, to draw erotic illustrations of the heroine, and to build enormous robot figures." This fits in very well with the social criteria previously given for sekai-kei. Furthermore:
>This shift clearly appears again not only on the side of the consumers or the creators of derivative works but also from the point of view of the original creators.>The first television broadcast of Gundam in 1979 was followed by several well-known sequels. Most of those were developed along the lines of a single fictitious history under the supervision of the general director, Tomino Yoshiyuki. In the case of Evangelion, however, there were no sequels and no plans to make sequels.>Instead, the original creator’s production company, Gainax, developed the derivative works sold in the Comic Market and at the same time created plans for related concepts; for instance, there are mahjong games, erotic telephone card designs using the Evangelion characters, and even simulation games in which players nurture the heroine Ayanami Rei.Obviously this had a huge impact on how merchandise and multimedia works operated. It gets to the point that "One might argue that the original TV series of Evangelion continued to function as an entry into the database, if not into a grand narrative." There is also a note that reads:
>it was with the boom of interest in the anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion in 1995–96, and the franchise is spawned, that otaku culture transcended the confines of cult-like fandom to become a mass social phenomenon.Of course, part of the database and its postmodernism in Azuma's terms is greatly tied to the creation of derivative works, which blur the line between the original and everything after it. This circles all the way back to the TV ending's fan reaction as mentioned by Saitō and quoted in
>>112895.
Later on, about Rei and her clones:
>The emergence of Ayanami Rei did not influence many authors so much as change the rules of the moe-elements sustaining otaku culture. As a result, even those authors who were not deliberately thinking of Evangelion unconsciously began to produce characters closely resembling Rei, using newly registered moe-elements (quiet personality, blue hair, white skin, mysterious power).Interestingly enough, throughout the whole book he seems kind of disgusted with otaku culture in general, or at least that's what it seemed like to me. His arguments make it look like its logical outcome is gacha as we know it today, which I don't disagree with. But that's a topic for another day, I'd rather stop for now.
Had to read another hundred pages for this, but I think it's comprehensive enough. Gotta say, I learned a lot. Hope it proves satisfactory for everyone involved, as a companion to the previously shared opinions of creators, statistics on the series' reach, and how it became
the highest-selling TV anime of all time by an incredibly large margin (nearly twice that of the second spot, the original Gundam, and with quintuple average yearly sales) in
just four years. Satisfactory for everyone except you, V. You should go buy a bucket of chum bait and choke on it, dumbass. Bakayarou. Aho.