majestic

Guys, spoiling that this is about Asuka, really, I already read @Bartimaeus' posts and the spoilers too. Maybe I should have mentioned that earlier. There comes a point in time when I start not giving any flying f...art about spoilers any more, and Rebuild of Evangelion passed that in the first 15 or 20 minutes of the first movie, and I don't mind spoilers nearly as much as most people. Feel free to discuss anything you want. If you put it in spoiler tags, I'll simply read them anyway. Evangelion 2.22: I WORSHIP HIS SHADOW May you find mercy in my shadow. I shall reign eternal over the Cluster! The breakneck pace at which this movie has been progressing dictated that we skip an assload of Angels and go directly to Zeruel near the end, who (which?) interestingly enough simply ingests Rei (which Armisael does in the original series, sort of). In case you don't remember exactly, Zeruel is the battle where Unit-01 should ingest the S² Engine and where Shinji gets absorbed into the EVA. Rei only semi-fuses with Armisael before she blows him away. Well, and herself. To protect her son. Here's it is the opposite and the same, but all with only Zeruel. Whatever, really. Shinji goes from "I don't want to do this any more" to "please let me back into my EVA" with barely a minute to think about, and taking Asuka out of the picture and removing her entire self-doubt arc makes the scenes so much less impactful. Also, did any of you care for Ms. Anime Schoolgirl? I, uhm, mean Mari McWhatsherface. Hello, my name is Mari, and I air-dropped into Neon Genesis Evangelion from an entirely different anime, I like to sniff Shinji and have my butt in focus of utterly weird shots. How out of place can a character be? I'm guessing she'll have a better or actually a role at all in 3.33, but so far, what the hell. She's really only there to sniff Shinji and pilot Unit-02 because some dumbass thought it would be a good idea to have Asuka be hurt in the failed activation of Unit-03. Obligatory Love Live! part of the post: Do some push-ups now, Honoka! Does that remind you of some other picture I posted in this thread? I'm so unsure... You know, Love Live! turned out to be a treasure trove of YouTube videos of varying quality that all have one in common: They're simply amazing. Whether it is a real life µ's group that apparently can fill entire venues with their "music" to A-RISE cosplayers engaging the audience with their "dancing" and and horrible lip sync. I generally find it unfair to judge Japan based on what we often get shown as "What the hell, Japan!" like the used panty vending machines (that no longer exist and never truly were widespread) or the TV show "Orgasm Wars" (don't look it up if you don't know what it is), which only ran on a pay-per-view porn channel, or the insanity of Takeshi's castle, but anime fandom sometimes makes it really, really hard not to... just judge. Ludicrous, that is. Just ludicrous. And yeah, I mean the audience, not the cosplayers. They're just doing their job. I also watched the first three minutes of 3.33 before calling it quits until I'll go doing my ergometer rounds again, but are we doing the inexplicable Gainax thingy again? How original. Well, Kaworu more or less referred to this being some sort of parallel universe, cyclical timeline or something of the sort in each of the scenes he was in (including his scenes at the end of 1.11). Hey maybe the Time Prophet will show up and tell us that the last Brunnen-G will the the downfall of His Divine Shadow. Time as you know had a beginning and time has an end and then time begins again. As we shall each live our lives again exactly as before, I have been gifted to see into the old cycles of time. Not very clearly mind you, but I have learned that in the future-past the Brunnen-G, the great victor in the war against the insect civilisation, shall be destroyed at the hand of His Shadow. But after His Shadow leaves the Cluster they will be destroyed at the hands of the Brunnen-G. This has happened before and it will happen again. Princess Tutu is much more readily digestible than Neon Genesis Evangelion is on a first viewing. Besides, you've already gone through the first episode. Or did you abort that immediately after the opening story narration? I almost did. Not a spoiler:

Zoraptor already answered, but: With these side effects being so rare - and that includes the blood clotting issue with the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccine - they're statistically unlikely to show up in studies, expedited or not. The regular, non-emergency approved vaccinations with longer study times usually feature study groups of a lot less people, where you would be even less likely to find statistical outliers. The testing of these vaccines was immense and on a scale never seen before. Because there was enough funding, and to prevent another Pandremix. Because that vaccine* had a side effect in the form or narcolepsy with an incidence of like 1 in 32000, which was not found during human testing due to smaller test groups. That's pretty much one of the reasons why the covid-19 vaccine test groups contained upwards of 40.000 people. Even if they had done tests on groups of enough of a size to find the blood clotting and myocarditis issue, the vaccines would have been approved and declared safe for use regardless (they're still used, after all...). It might have prevented a few deaths in the case of the blood clotting because of increased checking after receiving the shot, but that's about it. It really is a no-brainer when comparing the incidence rates of side effects with the mortality rate of contracting covid-19, never mind any of the deaths that are indirectly caused by having your medical care system collapse on you. Even now there is a statistically significant increase in mortality rates during lockdowns not related to covid-19 because of the delayed treatments for other diseases (or people not going to the doctors for treatment). Not to mention that mycarditis is a side effect that you can get from contracting any number of respiratory diseases, even when they're only having mild or no symptoms, and that usually stops absolutely no one from going to work with a cold. Most over the counter pain medication has serious side effects in the same range of likeliness, and they're sold... well, over the counter. Make it a vaccine and suddenly it becomes a problem for the same people who think nothing of buying an aspirin. *Actually, there are studies showing that contracting swine flu leads probably to increased amounts of narcolepsy. There's a direct link the to the vaccine insofar as it was the antibodies that caused narcolepsy in affected individuals - there's a chance they would have gotten it from contracting the disease just as well.

Indeed! I'm a little further into Evangelion 2.22. I have to take back some of the things I've said, I was nowhere near halfway through - that I am now, and it quickly deteriorated. It does feel like it has less direct exposition through dialogue than the first one, but it's gotten worse, actually, and the pacing of the movie made it necessary to invent something silly like the Vatican Treaty. Does Asuka piloting EVA-03 mean that her entirey arc of self-doubt is going to be replaced with Shinji dummy plugging her to... to what, then? Death? Losing an arm? Nothing? The angel just activated where I paused watching for the time being. Anyway, this is really not going to well. The Vatican Treaty is needed to explain why Asuka needs to get into Unit-03 because you can't use any of the other characters because they're so underdeveloped noboy would care if Toji lost an arm. Or died, as was the original plan (which was, from what I've read, one of the few instances of studio interference with the original NGE). For fun I decided to look up the Vatican Treaty on EvaGeeks, and what do you know: Sure, speculate on, guys. It's a narrative band aid to get Asuka into Unit-03 because with a total of three minutes of screen time so far, nobody is going to give one flying f*ck (pardon the language) about Toji if he were to pilot that thing, that's all there is to it. Then there are all the scenes of... fanservice. In part they were also around in the original series, but they had meaning beyond looking at Asuka or Misato (or Rei). Instead we get an extended version of Asuka sleeping next to Shinji where they actually talk for no reason some more exposition. Sure, the scene where Asuka is wearing Misato's shirt where here breasts spill out because it's too big for her could have been drawn differently in the original series, but it was also there to show us that Asuka is trying to get a sort of attention and validation from Shinji that he's currently incapable of giving her, and using means that he neither understands (granted, so didn't most of the audience, I'd guess) nor cares for (using the shirt to imply availibility, I mean - misinterpreting Shinji's reactions and all that). Here we get a scene where she's cooking to show off her rivalry with Rei over the affection of Shinji, and she's wearing a bra and an apron. Why? Who knows. Then Misato comes in and neatly EXPLAINS THE GOD DAMNED SCENE, because unless you're hit over the head with it, you're not going to get it, right? RIGHT? Sigh. "Don't you think this suit is a little too revealing?" Yeah, I think so too, Asuka. More on this when I continue. Which might be tomorrow evening, or maybe a little earlier to get this over with. And because it's become sort of customary, HORY SH1T, OH NO, look at this: Honestly, what the hell? OH MY GOD, look at that audience. I don't even...

I get the impression you really did not like Akio. By the way, I've been meaning to ask this, between NGE and Utena, which one made less sense? I'd like to think it was Utena, but it's hard to gauge.

I'd vote for making an ass of yourself on TikTok like the kids.

Me too. I was kind of hoping someone here knows something about Rachel. Extremist was fine from what he told me, just busy with physical therapy and some residual pain, things like that are to be expected obviously. Then Interplay died and that was that. Hm, unless you forgot he probably didn't tell everyone about the accident. Eh, I guess that's fine, it's been 18 or so years now anyway. Extremist was the first person to reply to my first post back on the BiS boards, and it was not a friendly one. I had a problem with Baldur's Gate 2's map screen crashing on me due to note overload, and he assumed I was cheesing with Yoshimo's infamous dual class infinite trap bug (which I did not even know about, at the time) and thought he should straighten me out, in his wonderfully straightforward manner.

You're right, of course, he had a formulated theory, and actual proof in the form of successful experiments to test predictions came later. It's the prime example of how science doesn't work like the conspiracy nutjobs think it does, which was the point I was going for. I mean, sure, you'll always have scientists who refuse to accept that their favorite theory turned out wrong, but we're all subject to human failings. You still get people looking for the aether in this day and age, it's just become more fun to be an anti-vaxxer than tilting with windmills named relativity, apparently. edit: Changed the original post to reflect that.

I wonder how Rachel is doing these days, I mean... assuming nothing terrible happened, she did quit because she got severely ill. While we were always friendly with each other and helped out posters in the tech support forum with their damaged Baldur's Gate 2 save games, that was about the extent of our interactions, so I really don't know. Extremist disappeared after a near fatal car crash, came back a bit later and we talked a little, but he quit for good afterwards too.

I'm guessing that means you no longer have perfect purity test scores? Unless that wasn't you, then I apologize, but I'm like 99% certain, but even my memory fades after two decades. The Fallout forum moderators quit in droves, and we constantly kept appointing new ones, some of which turned out to be just as bad as the trolls and agitators. That really was a fun time. I mean, for you guys. I just had the popcorn and was glad that wasn't my responsibility. The BG community was nice and quiet, for the most part.

It probably really is a function of having watched NGE only fairly recently then, because that added exposition in the form of unnecessary dialogue was really grating. "I wonder if Shinji can see through my act!" what now Misato, really, you're not at all sure of yourself? Good thing you told me. Well, yourself. I, uhm, yeah. The movie is probably not as bad as I make it out to be, to be honest, but it's such a strange contrast, and the quality of the animation compared to the original which was made with constant budget overruns isn't helping. Miyu:

No, not that again. Please. No more Pegasus. Can we talk about Charlie the Unicorn instead? Onegai? Halfway through Evangelion 2.22 by the way. That's a little better than the first one, at least, even if I don't like how it apparently put Asuka into aggressive insanity overdrive mode and introduces new and totally unnecessary characters, a weird new EVA unit built on the moon and the early reveal that the Fifth Children (sic, for those that did not watch the original) isn't human. And lots more Biblical/Jewish/Christian terminology. Whatever guys, you do you. Is it just me or is Asuka moving in with Shinji and Misato a bit weird without the context of them needing to coordinate their attacks to fight an Angel? I mean, what the hell. gg on replicating the scene with Shinji, by the way, only to have Asuka kick Shinji for seeing her naked. Man really, please spoil me, does Ritsuko later comment on how they're all the same?

There was a relaunched Interplay forum in between the old BiS boards and this one too, when Interplay decided to close the BiS boards and merge them into their own. Interplay's forum closed a handful of days after this one opened, because that's exactly the time between the first registrations here and mine (three days, by the looks of it). It's been a really long while ago indeed. Brings back a couple of memories, like Interplay wanting to axe the entire forum over the Fallout cesspool, Tess and Missy leaving over Interplay not axing the YOP cesspool. Pete stepping down as Baldur's Gate forum moderator over the drama. Although, admittedly, if the criteria for being the old guard is having posted in 2000, then I'm a couple of months too late. I joined in early (?) 2001. Yeah.

No, that you can even begin to compare a virus as problematic as HIV to a relatively simple coronavirus with a way to attach to human cells that has been throroughly researched for decades, the fact that there were two decades of research on SARS to base everything off of for SARS-CoV-2 which has a version number in the name because it shares 70% of its makeup with the original SARS from 2003 (so much, by the way, for the idea that this is a completely new virus - it's a novel strain of coronavirus, yes, but it's still actually 95% the same as coronaviruses found in bats - should also give everyone a hint on how this didn't escape from any lab but is simply another unfortunate case of zoonosis), and of course the different incubation times and infectiousness. If you take an HIV vaccine test and control group and observe them for a month or two you're unlikely to be even able to test for new HIV cases, and HIV's transmissibility is so, so, so much lower than that of SARS-CoV-2 that you need an extended study period before even attempting to draw conclusions about efficacy, never mind testing for the myriad of HIV mutations that there are, the problems with coming up with proper study groups who all need to engage (and continue to do so) in a sufficient amount of high risk activities, and any number of such things - and that is before all of the red tape that's been cut for emergency approval because, hey, global pandemic (or, if you believe certain groups, "plandemic", amirite? kek). I do share your misgivings about your government's response, because it hasn't been much better here either, however, that's on the politicians. Not on the vaccines. Nobody involved in creating and testing them was ever claiming that they would be 100% effective in preventing an infection or hospitalization, and for all the data we have by now, we can draw the conclusion that they do exactly what they're supposed to do - mitigate against a disaster like the nigh complete collapse of medical care in Italy back in 2020 - but are a little less effective against the delta variant. Which isn't unexpected either. Neither is not being as effective after 1d6 + 3 months. Our government, meanwhile, thought it would be a good idea to call vaccinated people "fully immunized" which gives the wrong impression, especially to people from high risk groups who think they're perfectly safe now, but are only mostly safe. Isn't that the beauty of science, actually, to not have to choose to believe someone, but simply look at all available, peer reviewed data and know? You don't need to be a reseracher in the medical field to have someone who is explain to you how these vaccines work based off of decades of medical research. Yes, scientists make mistakes, and that's a good thing. Is science perfect? Well, no, there are problems and accidents happen. Sometimes it is running into a dead end. And every now and then, someone with a radical idea who is telling everyone else that they are wrong is right, like Einstein was with relativity. But guess what, Einstein had the a theory with certain predictions, other contributed proof in form of experiments, and look at that, the other theories were discarded. No more aether, among other things. People telling you the vaccines are unsafe can't even come up with data to corroborate that, it's just a feeling or some misgiving borne out of not understanding how things work, or a general sense of unsease that the words "gene therapy" bring. A good deal of nations were willing to stop the AZ rollout over a nothingburger of a blood clotting issue (which was incredibly tragic for the affected, but overall a statistical nothingburger nonetheless), so if there would be any actual data that would corroborate all the horror scenarios cooked up by the conspiracy theorists, then hey, that would certainly... no, never mind. Really, and that's exactly why I should have stayed out of here and from now on will, again. Because why bother trying to come up with posts when they're waved away by telling me that this is just something I believe. Speaking of believing, only a couple of pages back you believed that nobody knows what is in the vaccines, now you believe that medial "professionals" who had a look into the makeup of the vaccines (where did they get that from when there's no data available?) think they're unsafe.

I've so far typed up four separate replies for this thread and summarily deleted them all after finishing, because why bother. So, silly meme of yore it ended up being.

This is Miyu-talk for @Bartimaeus, because... eh, I can only quote the old man and his post.

I managed to fix the issue by logging out of my account and linking it again. Which means that now I am done with Evangelion: 1.11 – You Are (Not) Alone. I'll probably be last to finish them just as @Bartimaeus speculated, mostly because I'll just watch them while doing cardio, unless the second movie vastly improves my opinion of this. Looks like it's finally time for me to be the meanie zucchini for once, because what the hell is that supposed to have been? If the goal was to make an abridged version of NGE with barely any breathing time for ADHS patients and director annotations for the hard of thinking in the form of exposition dump mono- and dialogue, then CONGRATULATIONS, you've both succeeded and failed at the same time*. The most hilarious part about is that the expositional dialogue which was probably intended to make it more accessible was specifically inserted for people who watched the show, because much of it makes absolutely no sense without the context of the original series. "Shinji is like you, Misato!" no really? Will Ritsuko also comment on how funny it is that Asuka, Shinji and Misato are all different versions of the same problems living under one roof later? Is Gendo going to continue his Bond villain moustache twirling? "You're such a manipulative bastard boss, I love you!" What the hell. Good job of treating me like a moron, movie, while failing to be any more understandable for a new watcher. How much can you fail at once? And lastly... what is with Misato having access to Lilith and showing Shinji. Is Ryoji even going to be in this then? Is this one giant troll attempt by Anno? How can you guys watch that without pulling your hair out? Is that because I've only watched the series like a couple of months back? I think it's time to watch Nozomi fondle some boobs to clear my mind a little: Sigh. *No offense meant to people actually suffering from ADHS or people who are hard of thinking, I'm using these terms in a derogatory way, but I... oh, shiny!

The one in the room with the erogmeter is just a mid range LG. It's functional enough and the image quality is all right, but the Prime app seems to have a couple of issues. It still beats watching Rebuild on my computer, because I chose the screen I'm sitting in front right now purely based on response times for gaming, not for color fidelity. Well can't help it, back to watching. I got to the point where Shinji moved in with Grannyragi, but then I had to terminate the English dub experiment.

This be it. It's working fine in the web interface. German is German, English is English and just in case you can tell the difference between Chinese and Japanese in kanji you're good. For fun I tried a couple of dubs, the Chinese one so far has all the other beat in pure hilarity. Amazon isn't cheap with the licensing, I retract that statement. They're cheap with their app QA.

It’s not like there aren’t options, just not while trying to watch on the 4K TV. Guess I’ll look into alternatives once done with the cardio. Meh

That is what the info box tells me as well, I just checked. However... the audio selection box has only one item in it. Maybe it’s just a bug. Either way gg Amazon

Misato sure sounds like Granny Katsuragi in the English dub. And I want to strangle Shinji already. Impressive how much of a difference voice acting can make. Megumi Ogata was never this annoying...

Amazon Prime Video continues to be outstanding. Not only are the Attack No. 1 episodes simple, unedited copies of the original TV material (at least that makes them have a PAL source), no... Rebuild only comes with the German dub, no original Japanese. However... the German spoken in the dub sounds really strange. Why is everyone talking English? Seriously Amazon, it is cheap enough to only license the local dub an no original but mixing the dubs up is really unprofessional.

Can I do, I make it baby! Woops, wrong anime. Sumimasen! edit: Speaking of voice actors, did you know that when Yūko Miyamura was trying to record Asuka being choked and had problems with getting the sounds out right, Megumi Ogata helpfully just started choking her while recording, and squeezed a little too hard, hurting her in the process? edit 2: That laugh reaction was just for the joke, the info bit was edited in later! Really!

Miyu talk: