The Shōnen Jump meme worthy implications of Tarzan

Now, if anyone can remember watching Disney’s Tarzan this frequently? If so, remember that the Johnny Weissmuller movies were much further from the sources (except the canon elements) than even the Disney films and tv show. That’s why the Disney version has become the most accessible and successful depiction of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan brand in recent years, admittedly still loose but great enough not to offend most of the staunchest relative purists, who have forgiven the Disney version for that reason. 

The same might not be said for the Universe canonists, since they frankly do not publicly tolerate anything that’s not canon, which is perhaps why they still basically revise the frick out of canon Tarzan in order to keep the (Fundamentalist Christian soul frying) fanservice as the only intact point of the story, partly thanks to the Shōnen Jump meme worthy implications of the ERB Universe Tarzan being an orc-like destroyer of both humans and nonhumans alike, which perhaps is good thing, because I don’t think we can give a big mind screw about Evangelion. 

On the other hand, Evangelion does have a few things in common with Simon Bisley’s Tarzan artwork, since the international popularity of Russ Manning, Joe Kubert and Neal Adams has embarrassed Yoshiyuki Sadamoto and the late J.R.R Tolkien out of the blue. Loads of young and old people across the world have read the less downright racist postwar editions of Tarzan in a sympathetic light. Even both Anno and Mitsuo Iso were unhappily inspired by the Lord of the Rings, when it comes to an angel famously crawling around like a mishmash of Gollum and Kubert’s Tarzan.

In the European Union, people embrace both uncertainty and hypocrisy at the same time, leading to a cultural mishmash. Japan has slowly learnt a still somewhat dire lesson; even regretful war criminals read the first few volumes, but more usually Tarzan of the Apes, and so were horrified by the sheer amount of America-centric racism and values dissonance in the earliest editions of the first book. Burroughs was an educated twit with a sense of dark humour and old fashioned mind screw. Tarzan is better off without him for a reason!  

The fact that Tarzan fortunately is still much more than just Burroughs’ studies of his own strange beliefs (especially as his classist, outdated eugenics are thankfully just shrinking away in comparison to his horrific impact on fantasy genres) is still lucky enough to be considered relevant, which might indicate that his creator’s beliefs were strange even by today’s otherwise homophobic standards. Shane Foley from Australia is proven to be perfect for a tanned AF giant Tarzan after all. Not even the late, great Ron Ely could fully look like the (usually Public Domain) ERBiverse canon Tarzan after all, because he’s only nearly two metres tall and looked just somewhat like Joe Kubert’s Tarzan.