Eva airdate on Adult Swim set
By The Eva Monkey on Saturday, July 30th, 2005
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When it was announced earlier this month that Cartoon Network had picked up Evangelion for its Adult Swim format, most Evangelion fans could care less. And why should they care? After all, they’re seen it already. And there were also quite a few Eva fans whose reaction to the news fell between agitation and outrage. This is understandable, as many people like to cling to uniqueness, prided for liking something that is not popular in the mainstream. A considerable number of fans would prefer not to see Evangelion go the way of such shows as Trigun, Inuyasha, FLCL, and Wolf’s Rain. Not to say that these are bad shows, but these sorts of shows are at times edited and often spawn a new branch of fans that some would find less than welcome to the fanbase.
I am hesitant to label this as a “bad” thing. After all, I am one who got into anime from what I saw on television, and for my first few years preferred the English dub to the original Japanese. I’m not from the Cartoon Network generation, but lets just say I remember Sci-Fi’s weekly anime feature. I also remember when the thought of anime in the mainstream was a purely unthinkable thing, and us anime fans horded VHS tapes away in closets and watched absolutely anything we could get our hands on, and practically died in ecstasy when we discovered that such a thing as anime conventions existed in our own respective backyards.
I wasn’t expecting Evangelion to be aired on Cartoon Network when I heard the news, and I was at first dreading a wave of new people having absolutely no idea what they were talking about, and screaming at the top of their lungs about Evangelion’s ending, and taking to the internet, crying out “Evangelion’s ending sucks!” as loud as they possibly can. There will be people using capitalized bolded red font, there will be people who can’t use the search button, and yes, there will be more people who simply want to fuck Rei. It can’t be helped. I started this site for the expressed purpose of promoting Evangelion, as well as preserving as much information about it as possible. And when it comes to spreading the word about Evangelion, you really can’t be choosy about who you’re dealing with.
A lot has changed in the anime industry since I was first introduced to it, and my interest and understanding of the phenomenon has matured considerably in that time. And likewise, a lot has changed in the Evangelion fan community. And I think that we should all be reminded that we’re all newbies at one point. So when the time comes, just sit back and be satisfied in the knowledge that you’ve developed a keen understanding and appreciation of Evangelion, and that in time, so will the next crop of fans, with whom demand for more installments in the universe and fandom will ultimately be possible.