Author: Brian Shea
Source: Anta Baka!?
Dated: May 28, 2002
"The entire latter half would be so edited no one would understand it. As much as I like the series, I wouldn't want to see it mutilated like that." --Eva fan from gamefaqs.com
With the advent of Adult Swim on Cartoon Network, the American anime fan is closer than every to seeing an anime like Evangelion on television. The discussions have gone on for months. 'What would you like to see on Adult Swim'? Evangelion is often brought up as a holy grail, something that will never air on American TV... I don't think its as far off as you might think...
First off, Adult Swim has already aired plenty of things that would enable Evangelion to air. Cowboy Bebop has shown plenty of 'naughty' stuff if you've been paying attention. Foul language like 'bitch', 'bastard', 'ass' and 'damn'. Tons and tons of gun violence. While lots of blood was edited out, lots was still left in. Provocative shots of Faye were all over the place. Drug usage and characters getting high on mushrooms. And so on...
Is Evangelion really that much worse than Cowboy Bebop when it comes to content? No. Frankly, I'd say Cowboy Bebop is the more 'risque' one. Many episodes of Evangelion feature no violence at all. (Episode 4, 7, 10, 13, 15, etc...) Guns are used rarely, and when they are, they're used to shoot at the Angels, not human beings like in Bebop. The show certainly contains questionable scenes, but these are few and far between and are often quite short. Of course there's the nudity in Evangelion. That wouldn't stick unedited. But then again, there's only 2 scenes in the entire series where there is nudity (episode 20 and 23). Blurring nippleless women's breasts is hardly mutilating, don't you think? And of course there's the most brought up issue of all among those who think the show has no chance, the religous stuff. When you really get down to it, Evangelion's religous stuff is window dressing that neither bashes nor promotes religon. Not only did Bebop got away with saying God doesn't exist on Adult Swim, but Gundam Wing got away with doing the exact same thing on Toonami's Midnight Run. Considering the religous content in Evangelion is nothing compared to Serial Experiments Lain, or episode 23 of Bebop, I don't see it being a problem.
Don't forget, Evangelion has been showed on TV outside of Japan before. They're airing it on Cartoon Network outside of the US right now. They've aired it uncut on PBS in San Francisco. There's only 2 big obstacles when it comes to airing Eva on Cartoon Network. Both Williams Street(the guys who make Adult Swim) and Sean Akins(head of Toonami) have said they like Evangelion. If they can get around the high cost that ADV might charge to license Eva, and Gainax's 'no edit' policy, which states Evangelion can't be aired on TV without a single edit (which I can't see being policy forever) I see no reason why Evangelion can't be aired on Adult Swim sometime in the near future.
As for End of Evangelion, thats a whole different story... Of course considering it won't be released in this country until 2010 anyway, no reason to bring it up now...