As if things weren’t looking bad enough, everyone’s favorite post-apocalyptic anime about burnt-out millennials and depressed zoomers, Neon Genesis Evangelion, is on the timeline today.
Yesterday, photographer Jintak Han shared a video on Twitter of what it looks and sounds like to reload the new printer. The printer in question, a Canon imagePROGRAF Pro-2100, “loads ink like it’s a freaking Evangelion” according to Han.
Video of the printer looks an awful lot like an entry plug, which a GIF later down in the thread shows is inserted into the mech’s spine (yes, they have spines). Entry plugs act as cockpits for the child pilots of Hideaki Anno’s legendary ‘90s mecha anime. They’re filled with LCL fluid that pilots can breathe in and that helps support their abilities behind the monstrous war machines.
The tactile mechanisms, clicky sounds, and chunky, utilitarian plastic construction of the printer wooed fans, sending the tweet into virality this morning. “I want every interaction with technology I have to look like this,” read one popular reaction.
Another Twitter user added, “I’m not going to lie: enterprise tech designed for rapid maintenance is sexy.”
Evangelion jokes also ensued. “So that’s how the cruel angel prints their thesis,” one user wrote.
One onlooker even added the series’ iconic battle theme, “Decisive Battle,” over the footage with some extra saturation, and all the clicks just fit.
Anno created Evangelion at the studio Gainax in 1995 and 1996 and would later go on to found Studio Khara to animate the Rebuild of Evangelion, the final film of which ⏤ Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time ⏤ premiered last year.
Neon Genesis Evangelion is available to stream on Netflix and is distributed physically by GKIDS, while Rebuild of Evangelion is available digitally on Amazon Prime Video.