Evangelion after Fukushima (Part 5)

This is final installment of the series. Part 1, 2, 3 and 4. They told me I was going to be in one of the Ultimate Secret Weapon. I didn’t know what it was. I was excited. Then I found out it was the Human Torpedo. – A Japanese Imperial Navy ex-trainee, who stationed in the secret Navy base near Hiroshima during the last days of the Pacific War. The image of Shinji (and Asuka or Rei) in Eva may bear little resemblance to it, but it is the image of a suicide weapon nonetheless – Kamikaze fighters, Human torpedoes and other atrocious machinery …

Evangelion after Fukushima (Part 4)

This is Part 4 of the series. Part 1, 2 and 3. There is a vital difference between the empty streets of ULTRAMAN or EVANGELION and the empty streets in Fukushima. In fiction, these empty streets demand you to kill your imagination. Don’t think about them. They act as bits of the propaganda, which coerce you not to contemplate. But, the empty streets in Fukushima demand us to imagine the absence of the society – lives destroyed, families torn apart, businesses crumbled, promises crashed, smiles forgotten, and hopes demolished. Parhaps we should remember, – as Hiroaki Koide pointed out – …

Evangelion after Fukushima (Part 3)

This is Part 3 of the series. Part 1 and 2. “MAZINGER Z“, the first and the most influential Robot/Mecha Anime was aired in 1972. It was the time of consumerism, aftermath of turbulent sixties, the entrance to the highway of economic boom, Japanese technology revolution. In MAZINGER Z, the question of “perfect” only applied to the perfectness of the machines. The viewers of the program were kids born in sixties, the generation too far removed from the days of the Imperial military. The archenemies in MAZINGER Z are the worst kind of worst ex-Nazis, who are grotesque, sadistic and …