Episode 109 - Neon Genesis Evangelion by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto

**Mat** (0:11)
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Manga Tak, the weekly podcast where we read and reflect on the finest based volumes you money can buy so you can find your next favorite manga. As always, I'm your host, Mat, and this week, I'm joined once again by my podcasting partner in crime to help me with my cruel angel's thesis, Mr. Thomas Parry. How are you doing, my friend, you all right?

**Thomas Parry** (0:29)
I like that nice intro, Matt. Yes, I'm doing well, thanks. Mike's dusted off, though, I haven't done this for a while, so please excuse me if I'm a little bit rusty. But, here to say again, we're talking about something that I like, so it shouldn't be too hard.

**Mat** (0:41)
Well, this is the thing, when I think of Evangelion, I think of two people that could probably do this podcast with me. One is you and one is a frequent guest to the podcast, Mr. AC Yoshimura. But, having lived with you for several years, having seen you watch this anime probably three times, I've probably heard of you watching it more times in the time we've known each other.
But I know that you know the source material very well, and obviously, while I have a slightly different route I think into Evangelion than you did, I was like, well, actually, Tom would be a good person to talk about this with, I think, because you and I have both been curious about seeing what the manga was all about.

**Thomas Parry** (1:23)
Yes, very much so, because I've not long finished watching it again. Actually, it's been a little while, to be fair, because I've watched nearly all of Stand Alone Complex since I finished it. We'd only ever watch two episodes of something a week, so we've watched 26 episodes of Stand Alone Complex since finishing watching Evangelion. But it's still pretty fresh. There's just enough time for me to be able to experience his story again for the umpteenth time, because it never gets old for me, especially at the beginning of it all. You know, we can go into more details. I think there's an apex of the series and then, how do you end it, kind of question arises.
It's a little bit rocky, but yeah, I love it and I think it still stands out among a very crowded world of anime and manga, as something quite unique.

**Mat** (2:10)
Well, I mean, I think it's also just worth noting that obviously, notorious mech hater Tom Parry, the man who is Monsters Over Becks, is like, yes, I really like Evangelion.

**Thomas Parry** (2:21)
I don't know if I like being called a notorious mech hater. I don't hate mechs, I'm just not as into them as some people.

**Mat** (2:30)
That's fair, I retract my earlier statement. But no, we've established this long canon on the podcast, that you are Team Monster while I am Team Mecha.

**Thomas Parry** (2:37)
And this is the Monster and Mecha together in one.

**Mat** (2:40)
It is.

**Thomas Parry** (2:41)
Yeah.

**Mat** (2:41)
Exactly. It's like you got chocolate in my peanut butter. There's two things that shouldn't work together and they clearly do. So I have a bit of a weird route into Evangelion. I completely agree with you in terms of, I think it's a series that starts really strong.
And there is just some stuff that I hate about Evangelion. As much as there is stuff that I love, there are things that have completely defined how I look at the world from a graphical perspective because of this anime. And like some of the stuff I love aesthetically comes from Evangelion. But there is some stuff that I really don't like. We don't really need to get into it because fortunately none of us in this volume. But I will say that I kind of stumbled across Evangelion the same way I imagine you probably did in that you couldn't really move for love nor money on the internet in the early 2000s without seeing like pictures of Rey and Asuka in pluggsuits.
And that made me go, what is this? What is this giant robot? What is this weird unhinged purple beast that they're all riding around in? And so I went to my local comic book shop. I looked on the racks and was like, well, part five, I guess that's better than nothing. Started somewhere in the middle of the series when Asuka and everyone are all there. I think it's specifically the bit where they're in Misato's apartment. Pretty much before everything pops off and everything goes wrong, and it starts spiraling into some of the more problematic stuff, that is kind of where I jumped on.