With the first cow, it sets off the Third Impact as the culmination of the Bovine Instrumentality Project. The milk produced cause the drinkers to have strange hallucinations and spout pseudo-Christian ramblings and bastardised Jungian pop psychology. Eventually drinkers see cows surrounding them, clapping their hooves and saying “Congratulations! Congratulations!”
After a tonne of complaints, it uses the second cow to do the same thing. Every cow in the world turns into milk when touched by a ghostly blue-furred, red-eyed cow. Except at the final stage, the cow rejects Instrumentality and the giant blue-furred, red-eyed cow breaks apart, spilling milk all over the devastated fields. The cow wakes up later, finds the red-furred cow is its only other companion, tries to strangle her before breaking down. The red-furred cow says, “I feel sick.” GAINAX continues to milk them.
And so, after a good 10 years from its release, Neon Genesis Evangelion (website, website) continues to yield plenty of milk revenue and profits for its creators. I gather that the latest DVD re-release called The Renewal of Evangelion contains nothing really new so at least the title is accurate but doubtless, many otaku will lap it all up. While it is nice to see the series that really sucked me into anime fandom still having such great appeal, all this smacks of exploitation of the original work and of suckers consumers.
Speaking of which, I actually bought this cute set of figurines of Asuka and Rei in streetwear versions of their plugsuits. Complete with accessories! It was second-hand and much cheaper at JPY 2,600 (SGD 40) compared to the usual price of JPY 4,280 (SGD 66). And I’m actually rather disturbed that I still can’t bring myself to take them out of the packaging. (-_-;) Zyl