On Rei Ayanami Being the Most Relatable Character in Evangelion
When becoming a new anime fan with Sailor Moon and The Adventures of Girl Genius Bulma Briefs (who tragically became overshadowed by her sidekick Goku) there were big anime people raved about. One was Evangelion. So I knew I needed to get around to it, and some video rental stores even carried it, so it would be easy to get. I misinterpreted Shinji as being a really butch girl, and ADV's always salacious box copy made it sound like the adventures of an alien slaying sci-fi girl team, like Sailor Moon with mechs. This would definitely be cool. I watched the first two episodes and was largely bored. Now I love the first two episodes now, I think they're the best crafted first episodes probably ever, but to 14 year old me they were boring. There was some cool imagery with the monster Angels but there were a lot of talking heads. And worse yet Shinji was a boy. I didn't hate it, Misato was cool, and in the days when only 30 anime were available at all, you sometimes watched mor...