About
Evangelion Opening Parodies refer to a series of parody videos for the opening credit movie of the Japanese TV anime Neon Genesis Evangelion produced by Studio Gainax.
Origin
The TV anime series aired 26 episodes between October 1995 and March 1996, and gave a huge impact to the Japanese subculture. The opening movie for the anime is known for the characteristic rendition in the latter part which inserts foreshadowing characters and keywords consecutively without staff credits. Its theme song “A Cruel Angel’s Thesis” (Japanese: 残酷な天使のテーゼ, Zankoku na Tanshi no Thesis)[1] made a large success on the music market, too. The number of CD/digital copies for the song had reached over 1 million in January 2014.
Spread
A huge amount of fan works for the historical hit anime have been created since late-1990s, and both of this opening credit movie with the challenging rendition and its theme song have been one of the popular subjects for MAD, hand-drawn animation, live-action and filksong. And it’s still popular on 2channel, YouTube[2] and Nico Nico Douga.[3] In particular, YouTube’s popularization in 2006 shed light to many old Evangelion MAD videos which had been circulating on the underground web from late-1990s to early-2000s. Those parodies/fan works are usually named by the phrasal templates“X-gelion” (○○ゲリオン) or “A Cruel X’s Thesis” (残酷な○○のテーゼ).
Meanwhile, those parody videos have been often removed from the video hub sites due to the copyright claims by Studio Khara[4] and King Records.[5] That’s because both of copyright holders for the movie and the song have particularly unfriendly attitude toward fan creations utilizing their own contents.
Various Examples
Left: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya | Right: Persona 3
Left: Lupin the Third | Right: Touhou Project
Live-Action Parodies
Since mid-2000s, live-action versions for the opening credit movie have been made by indie film or otaku groups and posted to the web. Additionally, a Japanese TV show’s 2010 live-action parody was starring a Japanese actress Natsuki Kato[6], a dedicated fan of the anime.
Left: Ryutaro Katayama & Akira Owada (2006) | Right: Japanese TV Show feat. Natsuki Kato (2010)
A Cruel Angel’s Thesis Tributes/Parodies
Numerous parodies/tributes to the song are posted to YouTube[7] and Nico Nico Douga[8] as well.
Left: One-man Band | Right: Parakeet Edition
Search Interest
External References
Editor’s Note: Registration is needed to browse the original videos listed in this section.
[1]Wikipedia – A Cruel Angel's Thesis
[2]niconico Douga – Search results for the tag エヴァンゲリオンＯＰパロリンク
[3]YouTube – Search results for the keywords エヴァOP パロ
[4]Wikipedia – Khara (studio)
[5]Wikipedia – King Records (Japan)
[6]Wikipedia – Natsuki Katō
[7]YouTube – Search results for the keywords 残酷な天使のテーゼ or cruel angel's thesis