Darling in the Franxx: The Anti-Evangelion and Worst Show This Season
Darling in the Franxx is a goldmine this season with its luring narrative, great directing and art, and appropriately timed internal soliloquies, with an apt amount of screen time for each character. These masterfully integrated aspects and many more that make Franxx such a well executed show combine to make a recipe that spells out rare, maybe even unique. 3 episodes in, Franxx’ unfaltering intrigue leaves me satisfied and craving more. But then I remembered:
Franxx is just trendy garbage imitating Evangelion; and, if that’s not enough, it drags Evangelion down with it into its uninspired shithole for those who see or have seen Hideaki Anno’s magnum opus second.
While I wish I could say no, this isn’t a situation of who-dun-it first dun it better, it is. Darling in the Franxx could have been one of those successor genre anime that did it better, but it didn’t. The pressing issue and my vexation pertains to well produced fan-service trash being passed off by ignorant and idiotic anime watchers, especially teens with a millisecond attention span, as great.
For the sake of my sanity, I’ll list Dos and Don’ts so we can all understand exactly how the two shows compare on a basic level, rather, contrast. You do not need to know anything about either show for this read. I’ll present a short 3 things: characters, subtlety, and creative license. Focus on don’ts if you’re curious why I think FranXX is the worst show of the season.
Characters
DO
Make sure the characters’ personalities are introduced in a way you have a base for understanding their interactions with other characters. There should be a compelling reason for one character interacting with another character the way he or she does. These interactions should increase in complexity by building upon their personalities.
DON’T
Create a tsundere character with unfounded jealousy over the male protagonist’s interest in another girl. To be more accurate, it’s envy. In Franxx, Ichigo is self-serving and wants Hiro’s dick. Maybe it’s because she’s leader and is controlling; maybe it’s because she had feelings for him. None of this, however, is established. Interaction don’t build upon each other in the narrative to establish the weight of her feelings for Hiro. The audience is left without a reason to care about why she feels the way she does, nor her character development as it progresses through new interactions. This effectively keeps her flat instead of becoming a rounded character. (Maybe that’s why she has no breasts ;p). For a show that establishes no roundedness in character development, this is pretty bad to see.We only know she doesn’t like that Hiro doesn’t get hard for her, resulting in his inability to pilot a Franxx unless it’s with Zero Two.
Interpretation & Subtlety
DO
Make any and all symbolism inseparable from setting or atmosphere, and implications nuanced. If you’re working with concepts that suggest something, don’t hand it to your audience on a silver platter. Allow them to work with it and build their own meanings and understandings of what you’re presenting. Work things in visually, not through dialogue. Anime is cinema and cinema is a visual story telling medium, so use it as such.
With both frames you get the sense of an overwhelming presence. One that induces anxiety and excitement.
DON’T
Do fucking not insert cringe-worthy, awkwardly forced metaphors that come as the product of lazy writing. If your’e obvious about the sense of mystery you’re trying to provoke in your show, you haven’t thought through the power of suggestion. You’re treating yourself and your audience like no one should care about extrapolating meaning from what you present if the concepts your metaphors suggest are nothing but sloppy attempts to indicate, say, the sexual presence behind teenagers’ actions and thoughts growing up, or when they have their first sexual experiences.
Do you see what I mean? This is hardly challenging content. Its boring. The way it presents information for you to uncover, this oh so intriguing spiraling mystery of klaxosaurs and humanity and the parasites that pilot the franxx is equivalent to a play excavation site. There is no deep extrapolating you have to do. Understanding the symbolism and metaphors in this show is no more complex than sticking your hand down into a sandbox and pulling out a small 10¢ plastic bone placed there in one shallow, easily siftable layer.
Taking creative license with inspirations
News flash: pretty much all of your precious show is little more than a poor rehash of nearly all of Evangelion, right down to the coming of age story and the appearance of…aliens -_- altough admittedly it is not quite so simple in Evangelion.
DON’T
The point is: Don’t blatantly copy everything from Evangelion. Making inspired stylistic choices is okay, but don’t be straight up stealing! It’s despicable. And you FranXX fans made studio A-1 laugh all the way to the bank with the blatant plagiarism, no, larceny, present in the show.
Now, of course I normally wouldn’t be ripping apart this anime if it wasn’t trying to imitate Evangelion. That’s what makes it make me cringe and feel the need to tear it to shreds. FranXX could have done whatever it wanted to, but and once again, because it is representative of the genre and its predecessor, it just makes Evangelion look bad to those who haven’t seen it. No doubt people have said, if this is Evangelion, why should I need to watch it if I have FranXX? Because FranXX is not Evangelion. It doesn’t even come close. It’s like you’re trying to compare knock off Beats headphones to the real Beats. Do you remember those a few year ago when Beats first came out? Do you remember how shitty those knock-offs were? And you, dear fans of this newer travesty anime, are buying the Beats knock-offs without doing your research because you think the $30 price tag justifies your purchase. It’s no different here between both shows.
Perhaps why FranXX is such a bad show, the worst this season, can be summed up nicely here:
inspired by old familiar mecha, Darling in the FranXX tries to incorporate over-the-top elements of Gurren Laggan and symbolic yet dramatic elements of Evangelion.
Where it doesn’t fail to deliver in generic combat, it not only fails to deliver in consistent plot, which it tries to build upon, but adds unnecessary elements of melodrama from characters, which just makes them look unrealistic and unlikable, it adds on extra awkward elements that makes sympathizing with the cast a pain and following the plot a chore.
Perhaps the cartoony mecha style emphasizes on that, but in the end it’s a shallow show that foreshadows heavily on plot twists, but doesn’t follow through to them in the end.
If you enjoy “nu”-mecha anime with unnecessary fanservice, no respect to its own world building and plot, and no respect to the viewer — go ahead and give this a go. What might seem to be a popcorn flick at first, simply something fun to watch, ends up being something that simply spits on the viewer in multiple ways and calls it a day.
Unlike Evangelion, it is not a show endowed with nuance and subtlety. It’s not characterized by deep character interaction nor rich symbolism that ultimately coalesces its non-systematic narrative into overarching existential terror.
I’d continue writing but it doesnt matter anymore; FranXX is over. Just don’t embarass yourself by trying to have a deep conversation about the characters and plot of this show. Go watch Evangelion.
You’ve reached the end of this article. If you would like to read my thoughts that didnt make it into this article, keep reading.
Don’t misunderstand. There’s nothing wrong with loving Franxx, but there is something wrong with thinking it’s even in the same league of quality and value as its predecessor, god forbid, better; worse, forbid someone says “Evangelion was all right but you gotta understand it was the first to do what it did.” Talking to someone who thinks Franxx is the cumulative apex of Evangelion is like talking to a flat Earther. I’m confident in my belief that if you think Darling in the FranXX is the apex of what Neon Genesis Evangelion was meant to become, then you either don’t understand Evangelion or you haven’t watched it, and especially have no taste in how well directed an anime can be that’s not Ghibli, but that’s another argument unto itself.
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Franxx has proven itself worth no more than hollow, fast-paced entertainment-only fodder, empty, holding no more than the value and substance of YouTube celebrity videos. Tana or Rice Gum, anyone? Nothing in Franxx packs the punch found in the emotional thought experiment Evangelion harmonizes in both synergy and syzygy.
