• DOI:10.1353/mec.0.0066
• Corpus ID: 52219780

Waiting for the Messiah: The Becoming-Myth of Evangelion and Densha otoko

@article{Thouny2009WaitingFT,
  title={Waiting for the Messiah: The Becoming-Myth of Evangelion and Densha otoko},
  author={Christophe Thouny},
  journal={Mechademia},
  year={2009},
  volume={4},
  pages={111 - 129}
}

• Christophe Thouny
• Published 31 January 2010
• Art
• Mechademia

111 Wednesday, October 4, 1995, 6:30 PM, on Tokyo Channel 12, a new robot animation begins, Neon Genesis Evangelion (otherwise known as EVA).1 The TV series will consist of twenty-six episodes (1995–96), several movies remaking the ending of the TV series (1997, 2008), and an undiminished flow of manga and videogame adaptations. Originally aiming at a public of hardcore local otaku, the series soon becomes a social phenomenon capturing the attention of cultural theorists inside and outside of Japan. Almost ten years later, EVA returns as a parody in the “coming of age” story of a nerdy boy, “Densha otoko” (literally “Train Man”). The story of Densha, born in the online message board 2channel, is another unexpected social boom and commercial success. Published in book form in October 2004, it had sold 1,015,000 copies by June 2005, finding exceptional popularity among young office ladies as a “Pure Love” (jun’ai) story.2 Following the book, Densha moves across media forms to become a movie (June 2005), a TV series (July–October, 2005), several manga (the first in March 2005), and a theatrical play (August–September, 2005). EVA and Densha otoko are unexpected successes, both inside and outside of Japan. They are literally translocal and transmedia events that cannot be