História em quadrinhos Neon Genesis Evangelion: tautologia e guia de resiliência pop da modernidade líquida

Abstract

This research, which has as its corpus the popular Japanese comic book Neon Genesis Evangelion (at first sight, a common science fiction), created by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto in the first half of the 1990s, has as main objective to investigate possible references to the process of liquefaction of modernity, extensively studied by Zygmunt Bauman and other contemporary theorists. In order to do so, it was necessary to revise themes such as modernity, Pop art, comic books and, finally, to analyze of the work itself. The main theorists brought to support the study were Zygmunt Bauman, David McCarthy and Will Eisner. Following this logic, we observe the fact that modernity has as its intrinsic characteristic the tendency of fragmentation, having tried, without effective results, to build solid resistance to dissolution. In addition, the study of modernity and its dilution points to some essential topics for human life, affected by the change in the condition of modernity: politics, economics, culture, affections, etc. In turn, Pop art (the result of the Pop movement during the post-war period) seems to have brought such dissolution to the realm of language by aestheticizing disposability and valuing the apparently childish fragments of mass culture, in enhanced experiments, sophisticatedly inherited of the extinct vanguards. The study of comic books, on the other hand, demonstrated the powerful capacity of this “literary” genre (essentially modern, fragmentary and hybrid) to massively reach large audiences, due to the speed of their production and the modernized, schematic language. However, this comic book language is also affected by the contingencies of the freedom of handling the text by the reader, and it can be deliberately atomized, cut out, as did many artists from the Pop movement. In parallel, the analysis of the work can be divided into two main parts. The first, focused on the formal sphere (in which an open plot was found narrated on a fragmentary support, virtuous spherical, fragile and unstable characters, with emphasis on technologies and hybridism) and the second focused on interpretation, in which many elements or topics similar to those discussed by modernization liquefaction theorist is present. Then, in Eva, the collapse of our rational world is transformed into a work of art. This study concluded that Neon Genesis Evangelion repeats tautologically (emulating in form, in content, as well as in its “interaction” with the public) the liquid modernity that inspires and embraces it, building, for the reader, a Pop guide of resilience in the face of this new fluid, fragmented era of life and the world.