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Typography of Neon Genesis Evangelion

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Re: Typography of Neon Genesis Evangelion

#91

Post by matheusmoreira »

oweiler wrote: post #51

For me, NGE was both the best and the worst anime had to offer. On one hand, the music, art style and the fights were amazing. On the other hand, I found most characters downright disgusting (mostly Shinji and Asuka).

A detail I really like is how they made the user interfaces part of the story telling. The computer screens are displayed clearly and it allows the audience to interpret the information just like the characters.

Seeing the mecha switch from external to internal power and start a five minute countdown is pretty chilling. Jet Alone booting up version 2.2.1c and then reverting back to 2.1.1c without Misato's intervention confirms that it was sabotaged. When Shinji and Asuka's combined synchronization rate with EVA-02 peaks, we know they have won. Episode 13 visually depicts the angel taking over NERV's super computers: one triggers the self-destruct, the other two overrule it and the angel starts invading the other computers. End of Evangelion also revisits this: we know Ritsuko's plan has failed because one of the computers refused to comply.

2001: A Space Odyssey is the earliest example I know of this kind of story telling. The space ship's computer kills the sleeping crew: their vital signs slowly flatline one by one and in a specific order.

https://youtu.be/Z4n3dbPqk58

Re: Typography of Neon Genesis Evangelion

#92

Post by matheusmoreira »

lprd wrote: post #73
sleepybrett wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are a fan of title card sequences check out cowboy bebop.

Hah, I just started that show last week and I an loving it so far! Any other recommendations?

Ghost in the Shell, 1995. Amazing film.

Re: Typography of Neon Genesis Evangelion

#93

Post by matheusmoreira »

dmix wrote: post #48

> After starting out as a typical mechanical-robot (“mecha”) anime, Evangelion gradually evolved into an existentialist deconstruction of its own genre, immediately winning critical acclaim. What does that mean?

Happiness ends after episode 13. The next couple episodes are somewhat depressing but everything starts truly falling apart in episode 16 and it only gets worse from there. The characters never recover.

Re: Typography of Neon Genesis Evangelion

#94

Post by hinoki »

swebs wrote: post #87
lprd wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hah, I just started that show last week and I an loving it so far! Any other recommendations?

Gurren Lagann Trigun Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (better remake of the 2003 series) One Punch Man Demon Slayer Akira Redline FLCL

Also, Kill La Kill.

It’s by the same director as Gurren Lagann, and is a strange mix of excessive fan service and reverse Bechdel Test failure.

Re: Typography of Neon Genesis Evangelion

#95

Post by sprafa »

impalallama wrote: post #72
claudeganon wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that’s kind of part of the story? It’s about kids handed a dying world, a world whose death their parents selfishly brought about, and devolving into madness and nihilism as a result. They’re conscripted into work that has no real purpose other than propping up the existing order and justifying its instrumental, destructive logic. I watched it again recently and it struck me as incredibly relevant and a presc…

yeah i hear that a lot about Evangelion its like, just watch some Gundam or something dude. The characters being so overwhelmingly flawed is a big part of what makes Evangelion what it is. You might as well say a museum is great except for all the exhibits.

The whole point of Evangelion is a lot of these people are mentally unwell. Watching Evangelion for the “fights” only works up to the 5th or so episode.. after that most of the violence is psychological (there are a couple of opponents which are ONLY psychological)

That’s why it’s considered good by the people who consider it good (I think it’s brilliant and one of the greatest pieces of motion art of the last century) - because although it can be classified as “mecha” anime it’s really about damaged people. There are plenty of great pieces of motion art that are not about damaged people. Evangelion is not one of them.

Re: Typography of Neon Genesis Evangelion

#96

Post by sadahtay »

swebs wrote: post #87
lprd wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hah, I just started that show last week and I an loving it so far! Any other recommendations?

Gurren Lagann Trigun Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (better remake of the 2003 series) One Punch Man Demon Slayer Akira Redline FLCL

Any recent ones?

Re: Typography of Neon Genesis Evangelion

#97

Post by kps »

aasasd wrote: post #90
watt wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a great article why so many Chinese goods are printed with those ugly latin characters: https://www.artlebedev.com/mandership/183/

One point that the article doesn't make very clear is, Chinese fonts have Western characters that occupy the same space as the hieroglyphs—seemingly so that mixed-language text follows the hanzi grid. (Afaik Unicode even has wide-proportioned versions of some punctuation—dot and comma—specifically for embedding in hanzi text. But dunno if it had widespace Latin or other Western letters.) Not sure, though, if monospac…

> But dunno if it had widespace Latin or other Western letters.

Yes, U+FF01–U+FF5E is a ‘full width’ copy of printable ASCII (U+0021–U+007E).

Ｙｅｓ， Ｕ＋ＦＦ０１－Ｕ＋ＦＦ５Ｅ ｉｓ ａ ｀ｆｕｌｌ ｗｉｄｔｈ＇ ｃｏｐｙ ｏｆ ｐｒｉｎｔａｂｌｅ ＡＳＣＩＩ （Ｕ＋００２１－Ｕ＋００７Ｅ）．

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halfwidth_and_Fullwidth_Forms_...

Re: Typography of Neon Genesis Evangelion

#98

Post by dfox »

aasasd wrote: post #90
watt wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a great article why so many Chinese goods are printed with those ugly latin characters: https://www.artlebedev.com/mandership/183/

One point that the article doesn't make very clear is, Chinese fonts have Western characters that occupy the same space as the hieroglyphs—seemingly so that mixed-language text follows the hanzi grid. (Afaik Unicode even has wide-proportioned versions of some punctuation—dot and comma—specifically for embedding in hanzi text. But dunno if it had widespace Latin or other Western letters.) Not sure, though, if monospac…

Unicode has two additional copies of whole ASCII, fullwidth and halfwidth with the expectation that the widths would match the Han character grid (strictly speaking the halfwidth variant is somewhat redundant, but it is there).

On the other hand I think that the ugly latin fonts on chinese goods (and also the amount of completely redundant and nonsensical labels like “Fan”, “LED”...) has completely different reason: nobody simply cares about that.

Re: Typography of Neon Genesis Evangelion

#99

Post by cthalupa »

rolltiide wrote: post #17
rllyboredonline wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anno isn't an idiot. This comment, while oft repeated, is simply not true. There is plenty of symbolism going on in the show. There is a lot of PoMo "mask on top of a mask" stuff going on with the biblical references, but some stuff is more on the nose. There are plenty of articles on this, including this one: https://reelrundown.com/animation/Symbolism-in-Neon-Genesis-...

ah yes the classic "but which symbolism" rebuttal. predictable, there are great plot points, but ultimately there is no deeper meaning to a lot of it. There are crosses for the sake of crosses, and there are crucifixions for the sake of crucifixions, there are crosses popping out of forehead vagina eye sockets for the sake of crosses popping out of forehead vagina eye sockets

I mean, your comment doesn't really deserve a real rebuttal. You just state something as fact without any supporting evidence.

At least the person replying provided some evidence to their counter-claim.

I have no idea who is right, but you're not making anything close to an argument for your point here.

Re: Typography of Neon Genesis Evangelion

#100

Post by jhanschoo »

basseq wrote: post #35

I love the level of detail in this analysis. Just typographic nerdiness at its finest. And I have never watched NGE or have particular interest in anime. I found the mechanical compression the most interesting part of this. I suspect it started out as limited technical aptitude and/or an "efficiency hack", but has since morphed into an actual stylistic decision that both makes thematic sense[1] and sets NGE apart. To…

I suppose that mechanical compression faithfully evokes what condensed fonts actively try to mitigate: the squeezing and stretching itself, which lends it a sense of emotional stress and tension.

Also, with digital fonts as new as they were when NGE was released, it's likely that compression seems more like a novel way to establish identity, rather than the now ubiquitous ignorant rescaling of fonts.

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