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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026

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I said something similar last thread, but here goes again: Eva is in part a parody / deconstruction / reconstruction / modification / discussion of such cliches. The protagonist is an ordinary 14 year old who is suddenly asked to pilot a giant robot, and it's entirely unpleasant and terrifying. He's constantly around this extremely submissive girl who dresses in skintight latex, and then she walks out of the shower and he grabs her boob by accident like he's in a harem show, except it's awkward and disgusting and nothing comes of it, and then the girl dies and is replaced by her clone, which is part of a system of flesh puppets that a madman is using to melt the entire planet into a hive mind. Then a sexy assertive foreign girl shows up and constantly comes on to the main character, except he's too scared to respond and she's actually quite unpleasant to him and just acting out due to her psychological problems. There's also a hot irresponsible older lady who is a chronic alcoholic who hates herself and doesn't know how to interact with other people except through sex. And a hot scientist who is sleeping with the same man her dead mother used to in order to feel any kind of connection to another human being.

If you wanted an example of fanservice for its own sake, it would be hard to find a worse one than Evangelion. I could probably advance the argument that every single piece of fanservice in the show is both diagetic and serves some greater narrative purpose. Even if that's just "hey, remember what it was like to be a teenager?"