Evangelion 2.22 review, the fan's too loud edition

 

               Today I watched a DVD of Evangelion 2.22, the second animated film based on the beloed anime series about giant monsters called “Angels” and biological mechs called “Evas” piloted by angry, angsty teenagers to battle them and protect what remains of humanity.  I liked it better than Godzilla; Planet of Monsters and what I saw of Attack on Titan, but less than episodes 10 and 11 of the series itself, about on-par with Godzilla; Singular Point in terms of giant monster anime.

 

               I’m not going to lie, part of my enjoyment was due to the fact that Colleen Clinkenbeard played Ritsuko, a blonde supporting character who supports the mechs and talks with the more well-known Misato.  Colleen Clinkenbeard is well-known for playing Erza Scarlet, the knight warrior woman/den mother of Fairy Tail, Luffy, the protagonist of One Piece (which has hit 1000 episodes), Momo, a heroine in My Hero Academia who can create weapons from the lipids in her body, such as a sword, crowbar, shield and mace, and Elsie Crimson in Edens Zero, a space pirate who bears a resemblance to Erza Scarlet (she is a deliberate nod/may be the same character, as both mangas were made by the same person).  The plot begins with Asuka Langley Shikigami (Soryu in the series) arrives in Japan to pilot Unit 02 alongside Shinji’s 01 and Rei’s 00.  Asuka has a reputation for being a tsundere, someone who screams at the protagonist angrily constantly as a curtain for their romantic feelings.  Sadly, a lot of the dialogue, especially Rei’s, was muted by my fan because it’s summer.  An interesting thing they gave Asuka this time around was that she has a hand puppet, though I don’t know the reason.  Asuka, Shinji and Rei stop an Angel who bears a striking resemblance to Dark Matter and Zero-2 from the Kirby series.  Blood of the creature gets on Asuka and her mech, unbeknownst to them.

 

               They go about their business, Asuka making a bond with Misato and Shinji liking her though she doesn’t visibly reciprocate.  The hardest part is I don’t “get” Shinji.  I understand his selflessness to Asuka and Rei, but he comes across incredibly thick, even for an anime protagonist.  Again, that might be due to the fan, but I swear he asks a character with stubble on their face if they are male, presumably just because they had a ponytail.  Men can have ponytails, Shinji, or did the 90s not happen?  Anyway, Asuka goes to help Misato with Unit 02, and the Angel’s blood causes it to turn into a monster.  Shinji’s father, who runs the organization, tells him to put Unit 02 down, regardless if doing so kills Asuka.  Shinji responds he’d rather die than kill his friend, and the Angel’s blood gets on Unit 01 as they lock him out of control.  Unit 02 is violently massacred (do not let children see this part) and Asuka almost killed, bedridden for the rest of the movie.  Shinji quits in the aftermath and tries to leae, but the 10^th Angel (as it is called in Godzilla Battle Line) shows up and Rei’s Unit 00 with new character Mari willingly turning a reconstructed Unit 02 into a beast are powerless before it.

 

               I’d like to say the 10^th Angel is not actually as powerful as the movie makes it out to be in the game provided you have the right defenses.  Unit 02 is beaten and Unit 00 is almost entirely assimilated, Rei swallowed whole.  Shinji decides to pilot Unit 01 again and gives it insane power trying to rescue Rei, ultimately pulling her from the monster, which somehow causes mass destruction to everything the monster hadn’t touched yet.  Ritsuko declares the end of the world and Asuka appears after the credits with an eyepatch to announce the story will continue in a third film, where Mari will get her own Unit.

 

               The film is not short on memorable action sequences and Colleen Clinkenbeard and Tiffany Grant turn in likeable performances, but this is definitely for adults who are fans of either this series or at least the Godzilla; Battle Line mobile game first and foremost.  (King Ghidorah’s 1960s trill is even Misato’s ringtone) It’s also cool to see Hideaki Anno’s style here and see shades of what he would later use in Shin Godzilla, such as tone, imagery and the mass destruction and transforming enemies.  It’s definitely got more likable characters than Godzilla; Planet of Monsters and Attack on Titan, but it lacks more of the whimsical scenes from the series; Episode 10 had Shinji and Asuka handcuffed to each other to learn to synchronize to fight a monster that could split in two, and Episode 11 had Asuka wear a thermal insulation suit that made her look overweight because the monster was inside the magma of volcano.  I realize those don’t have as much to do with the overall story of the series, but they made me smile and enjoy it the most, honestly, it was the most I’d been entertained with giant monsters in anime yet.  I’m hoping to get a DVD of those episodes next month for less than $30.  Wish me luck.

What I really want to say about ending my Twitter experience

 

               Here’s what I really want to say as a goodbye to Twitter, not yesterday, ranting with steam and fear because of my anger at Elon Musk’s continuous flirtations with fascism and blatant insanity and my mistrust of myself.  The fact is, I have never known in the last three years if I had a healthy fan relationship with Tara Platt and Abby Trott or not.  13 years ago, I broke my Mom’s downstairs wall because I was fed up with the Mariners losing and trading away Cliff Lee, the press roasting Miley Cyrus at every opportunity and the issues Billy Ray Cyrus brought up in his album at the time, “Brother Clyde.”  I get that way around things and it isn’t okay.  I haven’t physically broken anything irreplaceable, just some soda cans and other things I was throwing out, but I honestly wish I had a big punching bag sometimes for the fascism and naiveté on the internet.  I honestly feel Legendary is disrespecting Godzilla by saddling him with Kong this much, and not Rodan, Anguirus, Mothra or Behemoth, I think there should be more art of Annette supporting Edelgard and Byleth, as well as more Edeleth art in general, I think there is too little art and positive opinions expressed online respecting Edelgard/Mitsuru/Tara Platt in general, Erza Scarlet, Roman Reigns, Bayley, Yang and Blake as a couple, the Seattle Mariners, any action movie released in the last 20 years that didn’t have Marvel making it or wasn’t Pirates of the Caribbean and any new musician in the last 31 years who is not Taylor Swift.  I feel a ton of nationalism, white supremacist thinking, fascism masquerading as Christianity by claiming close-minded, aggressive, sometimes genocidal monsters bear the light, antisemitism, racism, misogyny, homophobia and transphobia, and I don’t even have to leave my apartment complex to notice it.

 

               It was undoubtedly worse from 2016 to 2021 around my parts, during which I coped with things like Godzilla; King of the Monsters, Kong; Skull Island, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Pacific Rim 1 and 2, the 2018 Tomb Raider movie, Miley Cyrus, Judas Priest, archival Soundgarden recordings, Whitesnake, Sammy Hagar and the Circle, Black Country Communion, Billy Ray Cyrus, Noah Cyrus, Guns N Roses, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Blazblue Crosstag Battle and especially, Fire Emblem; Three Houses.  Tara Platt’s calming voice as Edelgard was important to me since I had already heard it as Mitsuru in Persona 3 and most of its spinoffs (among them, Blazblue Crosstag Battle) and made me feel special and cared about during the worst heights of the pandemic.  DeviantArt was crazy about Annette, so after beating it once, I wondered about playing it again to see where she fit in the Black Eagles’ picture, after all, Lysithea, Leonie, Manuela and Shamir all had conversations with people in the house, why wouldn’t Annette?  Plus, Abby Trott, who voiced the character, was a delight online, slightly obsessed with Larvitars and later taking hilarious selfies.  Tara and Abby ending up on a project called “New Wave” gave me the excuse I was looking for; I could suggest backing the project while playing the game.  This was popular on Twitter, especially with Abby and Tara themselves, but DeviantArt had taken a turn for being more naive and what I could only describe as “psychotic”/”psychotically misogynistic.”  It’s honestly hard to tell, with the site’s emphasis on kinks, if this inhumane abuse was “punishing bad people” or “punishing bad women harsher than men because they must be willing to make my babies without complaint because I am male.”  The site also became a habitat for laziness and memes, a far cry from the well-made photoshop creations.  It’s no surprise that plagiarism software now provides most of the content.

 

               Though “New Wave” fell through, Annette became my second-favorite character to spend time with who wasn’t Edelgard, days off frequently had lunch with the two of them, a tea party each and choir practice with them both together.  Annette was usually towards the front line as an efficient spellcaster and healer.  On hard days, I often want to go back to the simplicity of those moments with Tara Platt’s calm voice and Abby Trott’s “Yeah, you got this!” attitude, which led to quite a few purchases over the years.  None have been regretted, I like hearing Tara alongside longtime favorite voice and Critical Role star Laura Bailey in Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, Abby brings fierce and adorable together well as Nezuko in Demon Slayer, Sarah McKnight’s “Life Support” audiobook with Tara as Rosie helped me re-examine my High School experiences and be thankful for those who helped it turn out right and Temari (another Tara character) is another great anime fighting game woman that is a joy to play as.  I haven’t even played as Noel Seeker much, but it’s another good side for Abby, a more mature side that rides motorcycles and wields a rocket launcher.  Of course, the returns of Edelgard in Three Hopes and Engage were enjoyed, especially Edelgard’s relationships with Yunaka, Panette and Madeline in Engage.

 

               Then why leave Twitter?  Several reasons, sadly.  I have powerful anxiety, crushing, debilitating, scary.  This doesn’t work well with Elon Musk being a crazy person.  Heck, I will post on things that are important to me and recoil in fear at home, even taking naps because I can’t deal with the fear that someone, somewhere is going to reply like a deranged psychopath.  I first got on Godzilla fan forums around 20 years ago and even then, people were threatening violence upon film staff and users who didn’t agree with their narrow-minded opinions.  I freely acknowledge I have been no better, at least inside my head, if not in action, hard to keep track of all that I’ve done online.  But, that’s the problem right there.  When we are only typing to a small paragraph, we don’t think “can’t say something nice, don’t say anything.”  We think something more like “I’m going to teach this son of a female dog a lesson by beating him upside the head!”  And I was worried back then it was going to bleed out into our real world, our real discourse…and it did.  Now, I don’t know how to interpret conversations from the other political party as anything other than them preparing to “beat some sense into some ‘lib-tards’” as they would say.  This makes the online world worse, because now we are so informed of the psychosis in the real world we are paralyzed into inaction, especially because we lack the money and resources to make a meaningful, noticeable impact on this insanity.  Is $10 to an international soup kitchen going to end the war in Ukraine?  Is buying Persona 3 Portable going to end the problems SAG and the WGA face?  Is only buying Miley Cyrus, Geoff Tate, Brandi Carlile, Vicky Beeching and old Soundgarden and Beatles music going to empower the Democrats to beat fascism?  I’ve been doing such things for years, and it’s still the same old miserable news story.

 

               I’ve also been afraid I’ve been hurting Tara and Abby with this attention I’ve been giving them.  I’m not sure, especially since Tara liked my post of the Pop I bought because I think it looks like her, but they’ve been the only real thing I feel at my back in the insanity of Twitter.  I do believe in God, but there are just too many times fear makes Him feel distant, and Politicians and Homophobes abusing His name adds to that space between my mind and His presence.  Their calm and joy helped me push the nonsense down.  I don’t even know if they’re going away, and there’s others I love there like Erika Harlacher and her Cavalier Spaniel and Among Us insanity, Xanthe Huynh, who never fails to like you complimenting her, Ratana, who always starts each day saying “Make Today Amazing,” Sarah McKnight and her cats and her strength and creativity, Colleen Clinkenbeard, who sometimes replies to me when I mention her, and Laura Post, who I enjoy because she’s played Melony in Pokémon and Yunaka, in really different ranges, but that seems to sum up who she seems to be, like how Tara has Edelgard’s refusal to stand political garbage, Elizabeth’s humor and Kali’s maternal kindness and Abby, like Annette, is a bundle of joy.  But, right now, Twitter carries more uncertainty, anger and sadness than they can lift me out of as things are going now; I’ve actually said “I want to die, please, someone kill me” while on the website in the last month.  I actually tried that once in High School.  I never want to try it again.

Ending an old book

 

               I checked the streamily email’s tracking and it suggests I will get the signed Yunaka print tomorrow.  If that is the case, this is probably the last blog post I will be linking to on Twitter, or as it is apparently to be rebranded, “the X,” because Elon Musk is an insane imbecile, on the day of, Monday, July 24^th.  I have made my final tweets, scheduled for Wednesday (as of this morning), Friday and Saturday, all scheduled for either famous or fictional people’s birthdays.  I am probably going to block the site on the 1^st of August so I can no longer access it and be tempted to be a part of it.

 

               With the end of Twitter comes the end of a book in my life.  The Monsterverse has fallen into the hands of a Kong-obsessed hack named Adam Wingard, so I’m going to be avoiding Godzilla x Kong; the New Empire, and seeing Godzilla; Minus One, instead; a film that doesn’t place Godzilla as second-fiddle to a bland giant monster that doesn’t need to be the star of a series because he is so uninteresting.  If Michael Dougherty is not reinstated as director, I will likely not be returning to the Monsterverse side of the daikaiju world again.

 

               I became dangerously obsessed with voice actresses to the point that I worried I was going to end up hurting or killing someone.  My obsessions with Laura Bailey, Tara Platt, Colleen Clinkenbeard and Abby Trott reached levels on par with Miley Cyrus from 2008 to 2014, all because they play Rise Kujikawa, Edelgard, Erza Scarlet and Annette.  This is another major reason I’m quitting Twitter; I feel I have bothered, annoyed and harassed these women like an aggressive, deranged stalker, and I need to have a digital restraining order placed upon myself.  To that end, I’m only going to buy Stray Gods and a Switch port of Persona 3; Dancing in Moonlight, as well as a comic book based on Tara’s Topsy McGee and the Sky Pirates world, watch some Aggretsuko and Zom100 and finish the games I have, any other encounters will not be planned out ahead and I will actually try to avoid them for both of our sakes.  This isn’t like Godzilla, where you can unleash adulation like mad, you unleash your adulation in these circumstances, eventually, you go crazy and decide you want to kill someone so you can have them all to yourself.

 

               To that end, I am unsure if I want to keep playing Fire Emblem Heroes.  I can say this will likely be my last book in the game, I am getting tired of the exceedingly convoluted stories where various gods seek to ruin Alfonse’s life because he faced Hel and didn’t die.  I am tired of the Gacha element to the game, giving me the special characters from the event I don’t want if I get that far and now relying on characters I hae become unhealthily obsessed with because they were there for me and reinforced my mental structure (as did their voice actresses) while the United States crumbled at the Coronavirus and the Trump administration and its MAGA minions.  I think I should shift over to Godzilla; Battle Line, and place my focus there, forget about Tara and Abby, forget about fighting for free speech and just accept that maybe America WANTS to be fascist, racist, misogynist, homophobic and transphobic and there’s nothing I can do about it but my own personal decisions which amount to nothing!  They might as well not happen!  2 years ago, I saw DeviantArt go down in flames just like Twitter is now.  It’s now a crude husk inhabited solely by psychopaths, nihilists and imbecile pollyannas.  Twitter is trending that way.  Maybe that’s what America wants to be.

 

               That’s why I’m going back to Facebook.  Because nobody in my family, my Church or my Middle School, High School or College Class is a psychopath, nihilist or an imbecile Pollyanna.