Jedi in the UK? Meet Evangelion in India.

[General Blaze]

I liked Evangelion, but I didn't think it was THAT good.

But a cult in India thought it was so good, they made a religion out of it.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41VNaWEa_ZY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-mQg...eature=related

Before you ask, yes this is real. Nerv Ministries. Jesus Christ Second Impact.

[whats_true]

*sighs

Though I don't know about this, I've seen this type of stuff before and its sad. Not able to look at Youtube (stupid security blockers), but what happens when nothing happens in 2013? And what is Evangelion?

[Shuma]

I haven't seen Evangelion and i don't think that i can watch all the episodes right now, so.... summary?

[Mac_Bug]

they ran out of money so the ending didn't make sense. The End.

[scoiatollo]

Awesome! Don't really know how you could make a religion out of it but who cares^^ Where's my beloved Rei? There was a time where I had the sound of on Episode on my MD-player (OV what else!^^), guess that makes me a believer...

Anyway, for all that don't know it: Neoen Genesis Evangelion
It's really good so watch it, if not the original than the remake they are releasing right now.

edit: There are a lot of anime endings that make little to no sense so I wouldn't blame the money MacBug...

[TheLoneKnight]

It's a convoluted anime with religious overtones and the protagonist most responsible for angst-ridden teens in mecha anime since 1995.

NERV was a military-ish organisation that used large mecha to take out huge creatures called angels that were trying to instigate an explosion that would essentially wipe out humanity, or at least the majority of it.

I wonder if the reason they took the logo was because the traditional logo arbitrarily had "God's in his heaven, all's right with the world" under it.


Personally I view this more as blatant exploitation of the symbol rather than an actual dedication to whatever views NERV canonically had, although the Second Impact reference is kind of hilariously ominous, given that the First Impact was thought to have killed the dinosaurs and the second impact, in the arctic, caused the planet to literally shift on its axis and resulted directly in at least two billion deaths.

So, yeah. Not much of a cult unless they've got angst-ridden teenagers and dogma few people can figure out without a diagram.

[Lor]

Mac Bug wins with one of the best Evangellion explanations ever.

[Mokino]

You guys do realize that the NERV logo is a religious reference right? It's a fig leaf and I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that NERV itself is a shortened form of what Jesus was labelled with on the cross.

[Kratos]

Jesus was labelled on the cross with INRI (IESVS·NAZARENVS·REX·IVDÆORVM (Jesus Nazarenus, Rex Judaeorum)).

NERV is German, there were other organizations in the anime called Gehrin and Seele, which means brain and soul.

The whole anime is a mingle-mangle out of jewish and christian believe.

[Dess_Aramea]

Eva Unit 01

or GTFO.

But then again, I honestly can't believe ppl would rip off stuff from an anime and make it into a dooms day cult. This will only worsen the case for anime enthusiasts such as myself.

.:sigh:.

[Plasma]

This thread caused Absolute Terror.

Now excuse whilst I go clone my dead lover into a giant killing machine and grow a vat of hot but emotionally stunted japanese school girls.........

Evangelion is mind rape.

[SquidDNA]

I suspect that it's more of a doomsday cult with existing Christian beliefs co-opting the popularity of an anime which espoused similar ideas.

Evangelion boils down to this:

Some people had the mad plan to boil down and distill the spiritual essence of the whole of humanity and collect and preserve it forever in a giant robot-- a bizarre and perverse notion of transcendence. They were unsurprisingly twisted and corrupt, so when it's revealed that the whole plan ultimately hinges on one lonely boy's decision to either continue to be rejected by humanity (more, rejected by himself) or else destroy it, it becomes perfect in its utterly depressing theme.

It is, of course, very well executed, and it's deservedly a milestone in anime. I think its cheap appeal to the strong but ill formed passions of the target demographic make it undeserving of a lot of the praise it gets, however.

[Riess]

This is it, I'm founding the Church of Batman.

Can't watch videos at the moment, excuse this preliminary uninformed and maybe unrelated post:

Spoiler

So, I think this is interesting. On the one hand, a lot of this "let's found a religion" business could conceivably be attributed to financial and legal loopholes that might net a profit for the founders, or a certain kind of laughable eccentricity.

On the other hand, I've long thought that the great popular stories of today may well become the myths of tomorrow, based on which groups with similar moral values and philosophical views can form and teach to new generations.

If people start seeing the old texts as outdated and unfit to lead and help today's society, new spiritual movements may arise based on newer stories that convey newer, more accessible reiterations of the classic morals much of our society is based on, that are less tainted by centuries of reinterpretation and mistranslation.
For better or worse.

[drChengele]

This is it, I'm founding the Church of Batman.

So... where do I sign up?

[scoiatollo]

Do you have different prophets Riess? If so I'd like to follow the prophet Christian Bale since he is the latest incarnation of our beloved saviour...

[Starblade]

Filthy heathen, the great prophet Adam West is the one true Batman!

[Plasma]

Church of the Goddamn Batman... I like it.

It only has one rule.

[Retroboy]

uh... don't talk about Batman?

---------------

Evangelion was sincerely deranged. It had some substantial promise and some amazing concepts, but the result - which I'm still trying to understand but so far can only figure it as rewarding for crybaby nihilism - was a complete silly mental fustercluck. I agree with Squid's last sentence.

Maybe it's becoming a religion because like so many other religions so much of its weird symbolism is open to manipulative interpretation?

[Supernaut]

Personally I think Evangelion is a fantastic anime and I will regularly watch it, but this whole idea is extremely silly, hopefully its entirely tongue in cheek.

But I doubt it.

[Plasma]

Dont kill is the one rule...

He may not have stuck to that in the first few years but we'll call those Old Testemant or something :P

[Moe]

Gehrin

Best typo ever.

Also, could people please start reading the entire thread before responding.

[Ulric Bekker]

Evangelion was good up until it's final episodes and the movie, upon which the bipolar little nutjob that was in control of the thing decided to completely ruin the franchise he'd made by writing the most nonsensical, off the wall pseudo plot seen this side of the asylum because some of the equally maladjusted japanese fans sent him threats and other such niceties after the ultra-budget-released "final tv episodes".

Highlights of the aforementioned "movies" include the protagonist fapping over the comatose body of his teen comrade, including a close-up shot of the hand with the aftermath, and said protagonist whispering "I'm so fucked up.."

Personally, I'm not suprised some of the gullible humans on this earth have made a bastardized religion out of it. I mean, c'mon. Look at scientology. It's entire basis is the horrid, rejected scripts of L. Ron Hubbard screen plays.

[DougyM]

So i just read the description of that anime series and honestly.... what is it with Anime?

Is there some unwritten rule that says "Any and all Anime must be as fucked up as possible, else it shall be crushed before it gets off the ground".

Hell the only Anime ive ever been able to actually get into was Hellsing and thats only because it was set almost exclusively in Britain... and even then it was deranged most of the time.

[Ulric Bekker]

It's generally what amounts to a different culture's take on predominantly western themes.

And giant robots.

For starters I would sit you down with Berserk (violent and thought-provoking with pop psychology stuff, but still good), Trigun (generally happy anime that ends serious), and Cowboy Bebop.

Actually, just Cowboy Bebop. It's freaking awesome, even if you don't like Anime. And it has a very decent dub (unlike most).

[Supernaut]

Ulric just to note that Shinji and Askua are both 14 when introduced into the series and 15 by End of Eva, not exactly preteen, though still a graphic image it highlights Shinji's disgust with himself and thus his feelings of unworthiness to the point of not even wanting to live anymore.

But I don't want to drag this off-topic into an Eva-love-fest from myself.


*edit*

I also back the suggestions just made, fantastic series all of them, I add onto that the Ghost in the Shell movies + Stand Alone Complex series. Though if you don't like being disturbed I wouldn't watch Gantz.

*double edit*

You may be interested in watching the Hellsing OVAs Knight, a lot closer to the manga and better imo than the series and I loved the series to death.

[Ulric Bekker]

my bad for the labeling.

(still f'd up though)

Gantz...

I still don't know how to feel, precisely, about Gantz. :\

[DougyM]

You may be interested in watching the Hellsing OVAs Knight, a lot closer to the manga and better imo than the series and I loved the series to death

I have been, its at #5 right now i think... or at least it was the last time i checked.

Its a bit more... thorough than the original series that just seemed to jump around a lot.

[holyknight]

Oh wow this is insane...
I never watched it, but my brother did... and I pretty much know the story... and it's fucked up.
Seriously, what's with people going so crazy about shows and crap?

[HunterX]

I think this thread is done. There's not really much to discuss here, and we've had plenty of spam threads lately.