The General Zapped an Angel

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Detonator Orgun is a three-episode OAV from 1991. While it's impossible to tell for certain whether or not it actually influenced the creators of Evangelion, there are a number of similarities that are worth noticing, even if they are entirely coincidental: In Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance, Misato's ringtone is in fact the distinctive "laughter" of King Ghidorah, a three-headed space dragon that has been a prolific opponent of Godzilla since its appearance in 1964's Ghidorah: The Three Headed Monster. p.1The sarcasm here is positively Shakespearean—I was reminded specifically of Marc Antony's speech at Julius Caesar's funeral, the one in which Antony repeatedly calls Caesar's assassins "honorable men."

This body, as you call it,” said Father O’Malley, “obviously should be sent to the Vatican—immediately, if you ask me.” Well, Kelly answered, I don’t quite know how to answer that, sir. An angel is an angel. One of God’s angels, sir.

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There is something tragic and inexplicable about the passage of time, and its relentless forward momentum. Both my grandparents are firmly planted in the earth never to exist again on this mortal plane. There are some things we don’t know how to love until they’re far in the rear view. In the first episode, the protagonist Hikaru Ichijo inadvertently ends up piloting and crash-landing a variable fighter, destroying in the process the offices of Artland and Studio Nue, the companies that created Macross. In Episode 09 of Evangelion, Asuka's Eva-02 leaps on and demolishes the half-submerged building of Studio Fantasia, one of the animation studios involved in the production of NGE. In Episode 04, after exiting the bus, Shinji rests by a statue of Jizo-san, the patron deity of travelers and children. This shot is apparently a tribute to a similar shot from Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro. Considering that Anno has worked as an animator on Miyazaki's Nausicaä and that he's made references to Ghibli films before Evangelion, this comparison doesn't seem too far-fetched. His first works were for advertisement and publishing companies, but he also painted glasses and walls. In 1958 Thole moved to Milan, Italy, with his wife and four sons. At first he worked for Rizzoli publisher, before passing to Mondadori in 1960. After several covers for various magazines and books, he became renowned for his long work for science fiction magazine Urania, where his deep art culture, taste for surrealism and weird sense of humour could show at their best. For Mondadori he worked to a host of other series, including mysteries and romantic series for women.

The devil with this theological nonsense! The plain fact of the matter is that we are standing in front of one of God’s holy angels, which we in our animal-like sinfulness have slain. What penance we must do is more to the point.” The cover of a 1970 edition of Howard Fast's SF anthology The General Zapped an Angel distinctly resembles the appearance of Lilith's head in the final scene of End of Evangelion. According to Wikipedia, 'Fast described the stories as "about the general childishness of man, the only form of life that refuses to grow up."' When Electric Lit asked me to write an introduction to my grandfather’s story “The General Zapped an Angel” I was thrilled. I had long fantasized about a day when I would be able to sit down at the computer and write an introduction to a work by either my feminist mother [Erica Jong] or my communist grandfather but it turns out writing these introductions is a lot harder than it looks when one gets into a weird and horrible meditation on the past. I loved my grandfather and hated him, loved his work and felt it took him away from us. I was in awe of his talent and enraged towards it, too.

Fast was not a fantasy or science fiction writer, he was a writer of epic historical fiction, so this little collection of fantasy and science fiction stories is a unique thing and a mildly surprising treat. It was published in 1970 and the opening title story is about a gung-ho 2 star general in Vietnam who likes nothing more than leading his cavalry in the choppers and blazing the machine gun from the side at anything that moves. He's what Tarantino would call a natural born killer. And after returning to base he gets a call from the line that he shot down an angel. A real 20 foot tall angel.

Well,” Kelly answered, “I don’t quite know how to answer that, sir. An angel is an angel. One of God’s angels, sir.”

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In short (heh), "The Vision of Milty Boil" is so crazy it just might work!—although I did have a hard time believing that a single New York City landlord, even one as motivated as Boil, could have this sort of outsized (heh) influence on human evolution. The Wound” - 4 - Another favorite from the collection, but with a weak build up: A businessman is given the opportunity to invest in a new exciting way to extract oil from the planet by using nuclear bombs. He weighs the pros and cons and finally decides that the bombs being used against Mother Earth rather than against other humans is a good thing. What could go wrong? The story of SDF Macross starts when an interstellar war erupts between humanity and the Zentradi, a space-faring race of warrior giants. While at first there seems to be very little in common with the two races, it is eventually revealed that both are genetically amazingly similar. In a final bombshell revelation it is found out that both the humans and the Zentradi were created in the distant past by an older race of humanoid aliens known as Protoculture: the Zentradi were created for war, humans for preserving culture. Now just what the hell do you mean, you can’t find the wounds? I don’t miss. If I shot it, I shot it. Penance is your field, gentlemen,” said General Drummond. “I have the problem of a war, the press, and this body.”