Netflix is now streaming Neon Genesis Evangelion, a frequently rebooted cult anime series that I discovered through previews on a Sailor Moon VHS that my mom brought back from Seoul in the late 90s. “It's very flawed but it is permanently in my brain,” said my one friend who’s seen the show multiple times. I’ve also seen the show multiple times and just rewatched it, but I can’t really tell you what it’s about. On the surface, it’s actually a lot like Sailor Moon. (The latter did directly inspire certain characteristics in the former.) Both have 14-year-olds in stylized outfits fighting monsters in order to save the world. There are very charming scenes of levity and reels of shamelessly reused footage. But instead of moon tiara magic, there’s Judeo-Christian mysticism; the constant hunt for energy, the search for a greater state of being; cats, a penguin.
Evangelion is both lightning fast and so, so slow. I sneezed, and I again missed the explanation for why half of humanity went extinct after the Second Impact. Then I’m ten-second skipping through Shinji and Misato standing motionless on either side of a train platform, a moment that symbolizes a profound shift in Shinji’s narrative arc (I guess) but even teenage me didn’t have the patience for that. The show has way too many secret government orgs, garbled God allusions, butt and boob shots. But it's been a week since I finished the damn thing and I’m still mulling it over, just like I did 20 years ago.
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Sometimes I have a sore throat by the time I get to work. (Don’t worry, it’s not Covid.) For the duration of my hour-long commute, I’ve found myself screaming along to my most listened-to songs of 1999-2003: “Devil in Jersey City,” “Some Red-Handed Sleight of Hand,” “Rocks Tonic Juice Magic”, “Black Tongue.” In 2004, newly licensed, my favorite thing to do was speed around in my dad’s Buick LeSabre while blasting a CD-R of Deloused in the Comatorium. It felt great to go somewhere fast when I felt so stuck most of the time. Back then, I thought I’d have it all figured out by now. Now I look back then for a familiar kind of comfort. I pull into the parking lot before the last song ends, and I’m already ready to go home.