There are many ways the realisation of adultness sneaks up on. By this I mean of course that you think of examine certain trains of thoughts that you wouldn’t be making, unless you were an adult.

            For example, if your back’s hurting and you considering what detrimental blow your health has taken, yes, adultness has sneaked up on you. If your ‘most called’ list of contacts includes people like your manager, your accountant, your work associates, adultness has sneaked up on you.

The world of Evangelion makes no sense. The story, however is exemplary.

            And if you’re watching Neon Genesis Evangelion and every other scene you’re utterly discombobulated by the logistics, better sound the alarm. Adultness has infiltrated past any defences!

            I’ll start by saying it -until the sixteenth episode- Neon Genesis Evangelion is one 90s-emotional-gut-punching ride. There are round characters that etch on a tightrope of darkness and mystery, there are teenagers on whose still-developing shoulders is placed the weight of the world -oh, the humanity- and there are actually some moments that you forget that this anime is about anything else other than the humans.

            And there are also huge mecha fighting robots, that protect humanity whose cost matches the amount medium-size countries spend on grain. Until the sixteenth episode, an entire fleet of warships and airplane carrier has been decimated (the airplanes included), the city of Tokyo 03 is constantly rebuilt – which makes one wonder what has happened to the Tokyo 01 and Angels forbid, Tokyo 02- and every household in Japan went without power for twenty-four hours, because all the power was needed to handle a positron rifle to take down an enemy.  Of course, given that these mechas are the first and possibly last line of defence of a culled humanity, money doesn’t seem to be such an issue. Yet, the moment I read in the subtitles someone calling ‘REDRAW THE MAP’, after nuking one of the villains, I knew that even these redistributed resources couldn’t be that unlimited.

            But what’s the cost of logistics in the face of teenagers realising and coming in terms with who they are? Let the bills run and the scenery change. We, the viewers were not there to think about them anyhow.

            Gainax’s Neon Genesis Evangelion is a treat (for the part I’ve watched so far), even if some times it has you wondering stuff like ‘Why is this entire residency building hollow to fit a plug so the giant robot can plug in?’

Sure, there are people who have pointed out the dysfucntionality of the mechas and logistics in the world of Evangelion, like this one, but Neon Genesis Evangelion’s sense is in how great a story it tells.

This series shows that writers and storytellers, who focus not on how the logistics of a world that make sense, but on a world that does everything to help the story build, spin tales that can survive the test of anything: giant mecha attacks, time going by and even the dreariness of adult thoughts.