30 Day Anime Challenge #11 – My Favourite Mecha Anime + Update

A Quick Update:

This week has been pretty chaotic for me in terms of not being able to sit down and blog about stuff. Work this week has been draining what little energy I have every day from my body and after work, I’ve had to dedicate most of my free time to some important things that have been taking up most of my nights over the last few days. My girlfriend and I also put up our Christmas tree, which took a whole night and was totally worth it, so something good happened in my absence!

I’m not sure how the remainder of the week will be, so I’m just providing a little announcement that the blog may be fairly inactive for the rest of this week. Things should be back to the regular schedule of a post every 2 days that I’ve been trying to stick to by the time Sunday comes around.

On the plus side, I’ll also be off work from the 15th of December until the 2nd of January, so I’ll be aiming to write as many posts as possible within that time. There’s a lot of things to come, so keep your eyes open!

Thank you all for understanding, you guys are amazing.

30 Day Anime Challenge #11 – My Favourite Mecha Anime:

Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, I managed to scrape together some free time tonight, so here’s a quick post about my favourite Mecha Anime!

I’m a huge Mecha fan. It’s one of my favourite genres and it rarely fails to excite me with its over the top fights and technobabbly science and technology.

But what’s my favourite Mecha Anime? Well, if you’ve seen my favourites image then you’ve no doubt figured it out…

Neon Genesis Evangelion

My love for Neon Genesis Evangelion stems from so many different things. It is one of the most dramatic, well composed and emotionally engaging storylines I’ve ever seen from the Mecha genre and Anime in general. Its incredible aesthetic and fantastic directing has consistently amazed me every time I’ve watched it throughout the years, despite its age and it created some of the most incredibly warped and messed up scenes that both terrified and excited me. But most importantly, I love Neon Genesis because of its characters, more specifically its protagonist, Shinji Ikari, and how much realism he adds to the storyline.

What separates Evangelion from most other Mecha shows is the realistic portrayal of Shinji during the situation he finds himself in. Usually in shows like these, the main character is bursting with confidence and valour, ready to get into the gigantic, super robot and take down whatever evil force is threatening the world, despite the danger presented from battling such a foe. But Shinji has no bravery and he most definitely has no confidence. He doesn’t even want to be where he is, and is only getting in the robot and carrying out his mission just so that his abusive father will acknowledge him. That’s right, acknowledge his existence. He’s not even looking for praise.

He just wanted attention

And really, that’s what makes Evangelion such a special show. Shinji reacts to his ordeal with panic, fear and cowardice. He breaks down, he cries and he loses his mind while trying to save the world from a superhuman threat that can only be taken down by piloting gigantic robots. He reacts to the situation like any real person would if thrown into his situation against their will, and that makes for some incredibly interesting and in depth exploration into Shinji’s inner psyche.

I also have a very personal connection to Evangelion because of how Shinji is portrayed. When I first watched Evangelion, I saw a lot of myself in Shinji. I was 14 years old, I was going through a lot of emotional trauma in my life, I spent a lot of my time alone and isolated, wanting to be recognised and acknowledged by those around me and I suffered a ton of failures that I thought I would never recover from. I felt a lot like Shinji did and his character resonated strongly with me as a result. I saw him as the embodiment of what I would become had I pushed myself over the edge and gone too far into despair.

And due to this, Neon Genesis Evangelion played a large part in helping me realise a lot of things about myself and without it I’m uncertain if I would have ever realised any of those things on my own further down the line. It put my problems into perspective, in a way that no other Anime series has ever been able to do. It spoke to me on so many levels and was instrumental in my growth as a person.

I’ve grown up a ton since then. My life is very different to how it was back then and has changed drastically and for the better, but Neon Genesis is an Anime series that serves as a constant reminder of that change and my past experiences and that’s something that no other series has ever done. At least not in the same way.

It’s also just a really enjoyable watch. If you’re looking for an excellent deconstruction of the Mecha genre, then give it a go. You’ll be blown away.

Thanks for reading everyone!

What’s your favourite Mecha Anime?