Any anti-FMA fans here?

Jesus, you can't bring up Evangelion. You just can't. It's like bringing up art, religion, or politics. Look, it's my favorite show. I've gotten used to it getting hate (as all popular things seem to attract a vocal minority of), but I still get mad when I see people diss it. Because.. I love it, as mentioned before. But I'm going to bite my tongue about it because I'm sick of arguing it and it's not like I'm going to change anyone's mind about it.

On topic, (and by topic I mean "overrated anime", as this thread has become), I love anime in general. I'm going to guess a lot of people here don't. I love a deep, convoluted anime like Eva, I love a goofy romance CLAMP anime like Chobits, and I love a Shonen Jump (get badass, fight a badass, get badass, fight a badass) anime like Bleach or Naruto. It's silly to say one type is worse than another or to claim love of one to the exclusion over the other.

YES you can like Death Note AND Dragonball Z. Just like how I love American Beauty and Starship Troopers.

As for FMA, I watched it all, it kept my interest. I thought the insta-alchemy thing was fun and I enjoyed everyone's various versions of it. The story was okay but not great or terrible. Overall, as many have been saying, there's no need to get "anti" about it just because it's popular.

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Originally Posted by Mudkips

Writings in italics below.

I didn't really want to have to defend the show and people will probably get mad at me for taking the bait, but like I said in my previous post, it's hard for me to sit idly by against shit like this. Lots of spoiler talk below if you haven't seen the show.

The anime started off with cliche promise: it had a somewhat interesting premise but was marred by, yet again, preteens piloting giant robots against an evil force.

And fantasy stories almost always have dragons and sci-fi is almost always in space and love stories are always about love. I fail to see the problem here, especially since the "cliche" was executed upon so nicely. IE, ONLY 14-year-olds could pilot the Eva's because they were born on the day of Second Impact and because the Eva's would only sync up to them due to their mothers' being inside. This revelation later is an interesting central focal point of the series (amongst others) and a worthy reason of using the "cliche". Besides the fact that the show is about preteen's and how they affect and are affected by the world as they being to enter adulthood, so it NEEDED to be 14-year-olds.

UNFORTUNATELY, the show just couldn't decide what it wanted to be.

I don't see how it had to DECIDE to be ANYthing specific. Usually, if a show can cover multiple genres deftly it is considered remarkable. Though, I mock your ridicule of the three things you joke it was trying to be. Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns came along in the 80's and redefined what super hero comics can be. Do we complain that it was "more caped heroes" or "more Batman"? No, and equally here with Evangelion, I personally believe mech anime and harem anime was redefined into something smarter. They took classic anime premises and twisted them. As if to say "What we went deeper into these ideas and really explored them?"

Neon Genesis Evangelion was a mish-mash of shitty direction and even crappier pacing/storytelling with nice character designs.

I'm not really sure how to argue this without asking for specifics on "shitty direction" or "crappier pacing/storytelling". If you can give some examples, that would be appreciated. I think the show had fantastic flow. It always had a right hook to throw you for a loop, but it was never contrived and was always relevant. Action scenes were paced frantically and were filled with intensity. We were constantly learning new motives/past stories/reasonings behind character actions. New angels were usually views into the characters' psyches. The dialogue was clever and telling.

When it felt as though it was going into typical giant robotsville, it strayed off course and multi-track drifted into what the fuck.

I find no basing for this comment. If you didn't pick up on the meaning from the "what the fuck" times, I can't help that. It's all there. It's not just there to be weird. I really recommend a second viewing as this is one of those shows where you pick up on a LOT more on repeated viewings, as you have in your head what's coming later on.

We get a crapload of episodes dedicated to 'squiggly-lines' and boring monologues questioning existence

First of all, three episodes doesn't quite make up a "crapload". The final two and the one where Shinji gets sucked into the Sea of Dirac are the only ones I could imagine being "dedicated" to the internal though-processes, which is hardly just 'squiggly-lines'.

More to the point though, it's generally considered interesting to see how a character thinks in a story. I thought it was brilliant to see their flows of consciousness on screen. I find it slightly hypocritical of you to complain one minute about cliches and mech anime, then the next minute claim boredom when dealing with character development.

we get Shinji hardly evolving from the puss to responsible puss, and to top it off, the ending is perhaps one of the most contrived and anti-climatic pieces of shit ever.

I would argue that the last two episodes wrap the series up quite nicely and we have complete psychological healing of Shinji through the merging of the Human Instrumentality Project. I'm one of the people that wish End of Eva had never been made, as I DO agree that it is a bit of a "fuck you" to complaining Japanese fans. The entities of everyone merge together and everyone gets to look into everyone else's mind in ep. 25 and then friends help Shinji through his mental issues in ep. 26. I personally find the show itself to have a wonderfully happy ending. I'm disappointed in the movie and have to agree with the majority of people that THAT ending is a letdown, but at the same time I take away my own personal understanding of what happened there. Seems to me he was issued a clean bill of mental health and was chosen to remake the world as he saw fit, but I he couldn't let go of his female trauma and proceeded to eke out an aborted Asuka/Misato/Rei creation that he loathed. *shrug* I'm not fond of the movie, but at least we get to see what exactly goes down on the physical plane during the time of mental healing.

Nice music, though.

I concur. Just thought it'd be nice to break the tension with some happy agreeableness. Though I wonder if this ruins the pacing of my post for you...

There is little to no redeeming quality in completing the series. There's nothing thought-provoking about it unless you make up shit theories (see fan-fiction) of what a scene might have been about. It is a waste of paper, paint, and VHS/DVDs. It is fail.

I can direct you to a few sites to explain specific scenes for you, but I imagine you wouldn't want to be bothered. I'll admit openly I didn't understand considerable amounts of it my first run through the series and I felt a lot like you did for a while. But upon further viewings, I came to slowly adore it as a whole as I comprehended what was going on. The theories aren't half-assed. The vast majority of it fits together neatly. It's really QUITE thought-provoking, in fact, especially if you are into character studies, which I guess you are not. More of the bang-bang, shooty-shooty stuff preferred, no?

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by S_K

*looks at previous post* So much for that... do we need an anti evangelion thread now before this derails any more?

Well, it's like I said, it's hard for me to stand by when someone rips on something I love with awful reasoning. I apologize, I got out of hand.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.