Crossovers Which Must (Not) Happen
Chapter 4 - Saturday Morning EVA Serial
Disclaimer: The Flintstones and Superfriends belong to Warner Bros. (which acquired Hanna-Barbera in 2001). Roger Ramjet is the property of DreamWorks Classics. Neon Genesis Evangelion? If you guessed Studio Khara, you're right. Stay in school, kids, and you too may someday own the exclusive production, broadcasting and distribution rights to your favourite cartoons!
Now over to Touji Suzuhara who insisted, against industry standards and common sense, on writing his proposal in his own conversational voice. You have been warned.
Sup, NERV. Ex-Fourth Child Touji "I Survived a Dummy-Plug Pounding" Suzuhara here. First, I want to thank my bros Kensuke and Shin-man for their help with grammar and spelling. And Class Rep Hikari for not ratting me out when she caught me working on this during class.
So at first I figured there were all sorts of cool mecha anime series we could do crossovers with. Gundam, Macross, you name it. But then I got to thinking: there's more than one country that does animation. The U.S.A. has put out its fair share, most of it not mech-related. When I was holed up in NERV's fine physical rehab facility, I took after my sister and fellow patient Sakura and watched a lot of shows from what Americans call the "Saturday morning cartoon" era. This lasted from the sixties to just before Second Impact.
While most of these series were pretty cheesy (like, to be fair, most anime - only they didn't even have any panty-shot or onsen fanservice, damn it), I found some that were clever and funny enough to get me hooked. And three of these, I think, would cross over well with the adventures of the NERV gang. We could do them as three short segments in one half-hour show.
The first of these, I call The Shinstones. May as well start with one of the best-known Western cartoons of all, am I right? I mean The Flintstones are everywhere - American comics, kids' frigging vitamins, everywhere. Man, I remember when I was Sakura's age I couldn't get enough of Pebbles breakfast cereal, especially the chocolate cheesecake flavour only available here. Anyway, I could see a Shinstones short going something like this.
When the Tokyorock-3 car train broke down, because the driver stubbed his toe and "had an owie," Touji Shinstone had no choice but to run the rest of the way to the Geodefront, where he worked.
"Shinstonnnne!" said his boss, Gendo Slate. "You're thirty seconds late."
"Sorry, Mr. Slate. I'll make up for it later."
"You'll make up for it now, by getting on your EVAsaur and killing that angel headed this way. Move it!"
"Huh boy," said Touji. Even so, he grabbed his progressive club and climbed aboard EVAsaur Unit 01. "Let's go, girl! We got an angel to fight."
Unit 01, an armoured allosaurus, sighed. "It's a living."
It was a close call, but within fifteen minutes Touji managed to shatter his opponent's core, completing his mission. Or rather, his EVAsaur did, by going feral on the angel after it beat Touji unconscious with his own club.
Two days later, Touji woke up to an all-too-familiar ceiling in the Geodefront hospital wing. He rang for the nurse to bring him a frozen brontosaurus steak.
"I hate this stupid EVA-riding job," he muttered as he applied the steak to his black eye, then to his other black eye, and back again. "When I'm not risking my life fighting angels, I'm getting chewed out by Slate. And what do I have to show for it? A big fat nothing!" He put the steak back on the tray and, with a heavy sigh, lay down on his right side. "I wish I could move up the Tokyorock-3 ladder. Wish I could get me a job with some real authority."
"Did someone say 'wish?'" said a mischievous, patronizing male voice.
"What the-?" (The camera should probably shake up and down at this point, for effect. Boingy-boingy sounds optional.)
"In front of you, dum-dum."
Touji sat up. Hovering in front of him was a tiny bird-masked humanoid, making himself at home in the air by crossing his legs and leaning back.
"Who are you?" said Touji. "You look familiar."
"I should think so. I'm the angel you - all right, your EVAsaur - defeated two days ago. I am Gazooiel."
"But if I - we - she defeated you, shouldn't you be dead?"
Gazooiel chuckled. "Silly Lilin. Angels can't truly die. When defeated in battle, we slink back to our siblings' realm outside what you laughably call your universe, and rest until we regain our strength. One or two eons generally does the trick. Alternatively, we get exiled forever from our siblings' realm for so-called 'insubordination and general bad attitude,' and must find other ways to pass eternity. Guess which applies to me."
"So you're back here because, what, you want a rematch? No offence, but you're a lot smaller and squishier-looking now."
"No, dum-dum. I have nothing against you. I do, however, bear a grudge against said siblings. And what better way to get back at them than to help their enemies become less pathetic? And failing that, at least it should amuse me."
"...Thank you. I think," said Touji. "So can you grant my wish? Get me a position with more authority and less getting clubbed in the head?"
Gazooiel grinned like an imp. "For you? Anything. To begin with, you must look the part. I believe a change of clothes is in order."
The angel waved his hand, and Touji was now clothed like a man of distinction. Specifically, a man of distinction in Elizabeth I's court.
"What the pickled dodo eggs am I wearing?" he said as he ran his hands over his white ruff, then his purple doublet with gold trim, and down to his black knee-length Venetian breeches. "And - and what are these horrible... things on my feet? Get 'em off me!"
"Oops! Careless me, wrong historical era," said Gazooiel, watching Touji pull on his feet to no avail. "And I believe those are called shoes."
"Whatever! The point is, I can't go around dressed like this. They'll stick me in an asylum."
"All right, all right. Don't get your breeches in a bunch. Let me see... ah. This should do the trick." He waved his hand again, clothing Touji in a tasteful charcoal grey-on-white business bear skin. And no shoes, of course.
Touji smiled and relaxed. "Thanks, that's much better. What next, Gazooiel?"
"Next, you must sound like a Lilin of distinction. To that end: some lessons in elocution. Repeat after me: 'The LCL, it smells and tastes like hell...'"
Okay, so that's not necessarily (or at all) a complete segment, but it should give you an idea, right? Now on to a crossover with the superhero parody cartoon Roger Ramjet. Or, as I call it: Ryouji Ramjetalone!
"Oh, here we go," said Kaji, interrupting his own reading. "Let's hope I can at least manage to stay clothed in this one."
Misato giggled. "I don't think you have to worry about that, this time. Touji is as straight as they come."
"Also," said Ritsuko, "given how much Touji poked fun at himself in that first bit, I think you should be able to handle any ribbing he throws your way here."
Kaji grinned. "You ladies are very convincing; I'll give you that. On with the show, then."
The words "AS TODAY'S EPISODE BEGINS..." in big, colourful cartoony lettering, appear on screen. Next, we hear the hammy narrator (who speaks in underline like this, got it?):
In today's episode, Ryouji Ramjetalone, Dauntless and Doubtful Defender of Democracy, is scheduled to make a special concert appearance in Tokyo-3, introducing the Gameras - I mean glamorous - idol singer Asuka Red Devil. Seated front-row centre in the audience are his loyal child sidekicks Eve, Angie and Leon: the EVA Squad.
"Golly," says Eve, "it sure was swell of Ryouji to get us these tickets."
"Yeah," says Angie. "And he only charged us 5,000 yen each."
"Shhh!" says Leon. "Here comes Ryouji on stage now."
Our hero takes the stage, glad-handing the roadies, sound and lighting crew, and finally gets around to grabbing the microphone.
"Welcome, ladies, gentlemen and brats - I mean kids - of all ages!" says Ryouji. "I am thrilled you've all come out on this fine summer evening to see ME! And oh yeah, tonight's headliner as well. So let me just remind you all to stay in teeth and brush your school, and maybe you'll grow up to be a hero like me. (You should live so long.) And now, without further ado, I do duly hand you over to Japan's latest idol singer, Asuka Red Devil! Hooray!"
"HELLO TOKYO-3!" says Asuka. "And thank you for that intro, Ryouji. (Next time don't drag it out so long, idiot.) Well, get ready, everyone, 'cause we're gonna have a blast - ehhhh?"
At that very moment, Ramjetalone's arch-nemesis, ne'er do-well Lorenz "Noodles" Ramen-off, does indeed give Asuka a blast, from a ray gun he'd concealed under his visor... somehow. Instantly, she transforms into a fifty-foot, red-headed kaiju and begins trashing the concert hall!
"ACHTUUUUUUNG!" says the idol. "WORSHIP ME, PUNY HUMANS!"
"Oh no," says Leon. "She's been transformed beyond recognition."
"Actually," says Eve, "this isn't too far from how she acts whenever her band misses a cue or her lip-sync tape jams. Minus the fire-breathing, I''ll grant."
"I AM THE GREAT ASUKERA! LOOK UPON MY WORKS, YE MIGHTY, AND BUY THEM!"
Soon our hero's boss, Commander G.I. (Gendo Ikari) Brassbottom, arrives at the scene.
"Ramjetalone!" says Brassbottom. "Do something about this. I own too many shares in the media corporation propping her up."
"Yeah?" says Ramen-off nearby. "Well, I own a whackload o' shares in their rival corporation, which is why I've done this."
"And you'll pay for that, Lorenz," says Ryouji, "once I've put an end to Asukera's havoc-wreaking. Wait, does anyone ever 'wreak' anything besides havoc?"
"Just do your job!" says Brassbottom.
Ramjetalone bravely hurls himself at the kaiju, but she tosses him straight into the expensive quadraphonic sound system!
"Anyone get the license number of that mech?" says our dazed hero.
"I AM THE GOD OF HELL-FIRE!" says Asukera, spewing some. "AND I BRING YOU: FIRE! (da da da) / I'LL TAKE YOU TO BURN!"
"C'mon, squad!" says Leon. "Let's clear a path with our EVAs and help Ryouji."
The three courageous kiddos start their EVAs and recite their battle cry:
"One for all and all for one! The EVAs run 'til their batteries are done!"
"Here, Ryouji," says Angie, disembarking and dropping down to his side. "Take your positron pill which gives you the strength of twenty N2 mines for twenty seconds."
"Mmgulp. Thanks, Angie. And now, face my fists, you overrated J-pop diva - I mean, you kaiju she's unwillingly transformed into."
The words "FOOM! POW! BDING!" in big cartoony letters fill the screen. (This would also be another good time to shake the camera.)
Within seconds (about nineteen, specifically), Ryouji's non-nuclear punches subdue Asukera, whereupon she reverts to regular old Asuka. She looks upon the now-empty seats, everyone with half a brain having long since fled the hall.
"Waaaah!" says Asuka. "My concert is ruined."
"Perhaps," says Ryouji. "But at least you're safe now. And so is Tokyo-3." (He poses with hands on hips.) "Safe - for JUSTICE!"
Thus ends another episode of Ryouji Ramjetalone, proving the old adage: "Idol hands are the Red Devil's playthings."
"Heh," said Kaji. "Groan-worthy puns aside, that wasn't bad. I came across better than I'd expected to in a spoof."
"Yeah, you got off pretty easy there," said Misato. "Can't say the same about Asuka, though. If she were to see this, I'm afraid it could undo months of her anger-management therapy. And Touji might just end up back in the hospital."
"Seems to me that's easily fixed," said Makoto after the nervous chuckles from the group had died down. "Just make the singer some generic everygirl instead of Asuka."
"Playing it safe never hurts," said Kouzo. "So. What's that third segment Suzuhara threatened, er, promised us?"
Kaji checked the proposal. "That would be a crossover with the DC Comics-based cartoon, Superfriends."
Ritsuko raised an eyebrow. "So, the Children as superheroes?" She gave a thumbs-up. "Finally, a truly original idea."
"What an odd thing to say," said Kaji. "Well, why don't I read on."
"Great Toyotomi's ghost, Kensuke!" said Hikerry White, poking her head out of the student newspaper office in Tokyo-3 First Municipal Junior High School. "Where are those 'exclusive photos' of Sugoiman you promised me for this week's edition?"
"Right here, chief," said mild-mannered Clark Kensuke, handing her a manila envelope.
Hikerry opened it and looked over the photos. "Nice. Very nice indeed... Say, the location in this one looks familiar. Is that your living room?"
"Hahaha, no," said Clark, a giant sweat-drop forming on the side of his head. "That's just from a standard photo filter I applied to sort of fill in the background, make Sugoiman 'pop' against it, y'know?"
"O...kay," said the editor. "Good work, in any case. For a follow-up, see if you can get an interv- Whoops. Phone's ringing. Excuse me. - White here."
Suddenly Clark, who was in reality Sugoiman, Girlfriend of - I mean Man of Steel, heard a distress signal thousands of kilometres away. It's coming from the Hall of Geostice, he thought. I'd better see what's up. He bolted for the nearest boys' room at super speed, changed into his hero costume, and flew through the window. Darn, I keep forgetting to open it first. Sure, glass shards can't hurt me, but it's not fair to whomever is on cleanup duty.
Meanwhile, in the thirtieth century ("meanwhile?"), the super-intelligent Pen-Peniac 5 was trying to send an urgent message to his twentieth-century ancestor, but couldn't seem to reach him. "Probably gorging himself silly on pork ramen again," he muttered in Warkese. "Well, hopefully I can get this message to someone in 2015. It may be the last chance to prevent... all this." He looked, with as mournful an expression as penguins can manage, out at the blazing Antarctic desert and the red-orange sea far, far off in the horizon.
Back in 2015, Sugoiman entered the Hall of Geostice. A sexy black-purple haired woman, in her trademark (if inefficient) uniform consisting of a loose yellow top and cutoff jean shorts, met him in the lobby. "Hi Clark. So you heard the Geostice League distress call. Good."
"What seems to be the matter, Diana?" The woman's full civilian name was Diana Princeato, otherwise known as Water Woman, wielder of the unique ability to talk to penguins.
Kaji paused his reading when he heard a ballpoint pen snap. He looked to his right and grabbed a tissue for the spilled ink. "Katsuragi? Problem?"
"Talking to penguins?" said Misato through gritted teeth. "That's my super-power? Talking. To. PENGUINS?! I can do that in real life." She exhaled and pouted, folding her arms. "Stupid Touji. And here I thought he respected me, what with the 'sexy' observation."
"You call that respect?" said Ritsuko, tilting her head. "Sheesh, Misato, it's people like you who threaten to set feminism back to First Impact."
"That'd be something," said Makoto with a smirk, "considering the closest thing to a woman on Earth at that moment was Lilith."
"That's the joke, y-"
"Children," said Kouzo, spinning back in his chair to face them after surreptitiously injecting himself with an ultra-strength ibuprofen formula only legal in Paraguay. "Can we focus? Please? Kaji, if you'd do the honours..."
"I just received a message from Pen-Peniac 5 in the thirtieth century," said Water Woman. "He says we must act immediately to stop Lorenz Luthor's plan to dissolve every human being on Earth and merge their souls into a single consciousness."
"Merciful Ramen!" said Sugoiman. "I take it such a catastrophe already happened in his timeline?"
"Exactly. Pen-Peniac 5 says he doesn't care so much about the absence of humans as he does that the catastrophe messed up the world's climate and ecosystems something awful. He says it's been a thousand years and there's still a shortage of decent fish."
"Mm. In any case, we'd better track Luthor down and either sabotage whatever device he intends to bring this about with, or simply talk him out of it."
Water Woman tossed her hair. "What about beating him up real good?"
Sugoiman sighed. "As usual, that's not an option. There's still that impenetrable, extra-dimensional, magical force, known as Knet-wurq Stan-durdz, which prevents us from using violence to solve cases."
"All right, then. We'd better get all on-duty League members searching for Luthor."
They found him, predictably, at the headquarters of their archenemies, the Legion of Dirac, in Antarctica. He had just started the countdown timer on his Destrudo Device.
"Fools!" said Lorenz. "You can't stop me. In just fifteen minutes, my device will dissolve the A.T. fields of everyone on Earth, then vacuum them up and compress them together."
"Not if we have anything to say about it," said alien siblings Shin and Reina. They touched index fingers. "AAA Wunder Twin powers, activate! Form of: two unsettlingly humanoid, armoured giant mechs!"
Transforming into said things, they pummelled the Destrudo Device until its circuits fizzled and burned out. Luthor tried to escape, but Water Woman telepathically summoned all penguins in the immediate area to mob the villain and pin him in place.
"You do-gooders can't keep this up forever," said Lorenz. "Eventually the penguins will go in search of food and rest, and as for my device, I can easily repair it."
"True," said Sugoiman, "but before either of those things happen, could you explain just why you want to end humankind as we know it and smoosh everyone's minds together?"
Lorenz hung his head. "It's... it's just that there's so much hatred int this world. So much distrust. So much loneliness. But if we're all one consciousness, there'll be no more of that."
"Perhaps," said Water Woman. "But without our bodies and individual minds, we won't be able to do anything except just kind of... be there, forever, bored out of our collective gourd. Is that really what you want, Lorenz?"
"Well, when you put it like that... no. But then what's to be done about all the hatred and other bad stuff in the world?
"Well, jeepers," said Shin. "If we all tried just talking with and listening to each other more, it'd at least be a start in the right direction."
"Also, we must open our hearts," said Reina, "or our EVAs won't run."
Everyone looked at her. "Huh?"
Reina shook her head. "Sorry. We must open our hearts to each other, and let our compassion flow like LCL."
"I... I think that just might have a chance at working," said Luthor, smiling.
Then everyone, including the penguins gathered together in a circle and sang (or "wark"ed) the Youngbloods' version of "Get Together," Reina taking the form of an acoustic guitar for Shin to play.
"That was very... hippie," said Misato. "Wouldn't have expected it from Touji. But also kinda fun. I'm even willing to overlook the 'talking to penguins' bit, and not just because it did, in a contrived way, prove useful after all."
"I liked it, too," said Kaji. "Kid's got a good sense of humour, apart from the Kaiju Asuka bit Makoto said we can easily, er, demilitarize."
Makoto nodded. "Also, I think Water Woman needs a better costume and maybe another super-power or two."
"Aw, you're the best, buddy," said Misato, hugging him and causing him to blush.
Ritsuko, resisting the urge to tease either of them and thereby get Kaji started, put in her two cents. "Maybe it's the bluntness and cynicism in these treatments - yes, even in the last bit which I'm pretty sure's meant to be ironic - but this is my favourite yet of all the submissions. Which is something, considering I went in thinking the whole idea was a big mistake forced upon us."
Kouzo, as always, wrapped things up. "Touji's... less than professional presentation aside, I agree this is a strong submission indeed. All in favour of short-listing?" Everyone, yet again, raised their hands. "Great. Thank you, everyone. Next meeting, we'll review Kensuke Aida's proposal, a crossover with the SF visual novel Steins;gate."
A/N: Wow, did this chapter ever resist being written. I considered including a Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? (i.e. the original 1969-70 series) crossover early on. Thinking some more about it, however, I realized that the show's hoax-supernatural threat shtick (which the unmasked villain would've gotten away with if it hadn't been for etc. etc.) has been parodied to death and then some. And in fact I was vindicated the other day when, trawling through the archives, I found someone had, over ten years ago, come up with the exact same idea I had: "Let's see who the angel really is.. It's Lorenz Kiel!" (Sorry, but I've lost track of which fic that was.)
I also contemplated doing a parody of The Archie Show (aka The Archies) so there'd be representation from the "bubblegum band" sub-genre of Saturday morning cartoons. But after watching a few episodes online, I found that, nifty songs like "Sugar Sugar" aside, there just wasn't much to the show. It wasn't particularly funny, even in a "intentionally cheesy and loving it" way. Worst of all, I just couldn't find anything to "plug" Eva correspondences into. Not even for the songs.
On the other hand, The Flintstones and Superfriends were both fairly easy, in their own ways, to mix Eva elements into. It helps that the "defeated angel returns in tiny form to help the pilots" premise is itself a small sub-genre of Eva fanfic (see for example the long-dormant "Little Angel Thesis" by luckychaos, and the more recent and [hopefully] still-updating "Lucky Number Thirteen" by iSnaprack).
As for the Roger Ramjet crossover, that was me wanting to do something a little off the beaten track. Although the show was quite successful in its original mid-sixties run, and has been syndicated here and there a few times since then, today it's all but forgotten (though you can catch many of the five-minute-each episodes on YouTube). A shame, because its faced-paced, sharp, cynical wit (including many jokes that went over little kids' heads) proved that a series can have extremely limited, cheap animation and still be entertaining.
The next chapter, Kensuke's Steins;gate crossover will take at least another week to write because, having never finished the visual novel, I have to watch the anime (including the "alternate ending" episodes) in order to do it justice. I do plan on putting up another, separate short fic to tide you over in the meantime.