Review of Neon Genesis Evangelion

When watching anime, controversies can never be avoided. Simply liking certain shows can be considered controversial. If a person says that X anime is the best anime ever, there will always be a group of individual that will surely bat an eyebrow. No one is safe. Everything a person say can lead to a controversy. I was watching a show at Discovery Channel about simple controversies when I think about doing this; reviewing the most controversial anime of all time: Neon Genesis Evangelion. Some consider it a masterpiece; some consider it crap, while other considers it the most blasphemous creation in history. So today, onits 20th year anniversary, a little review of Neon Genesis Evangelion. Not End of Eva (yet), not the Rebuilds (yet), just the series.

Story:

Evangelion starts up really slooooooow. For about 20 episodes, they followed a formulaic monster of the week kind of thing. Sure it helps the characters develop throughout the series but they can definitely cut some of it out to save some money which they can use for the animation side of things (Not now. I’ll talk about it in the animation section). It isn’t that slow that you will feel bored the entire series because almost every episode, a new monster (or in this case Angels. IT’S AN ANGERU! IT’S A GUNDAM!) appears and wreck havoc while the pilots tries to kill it. Though the story is sidelined for the most part because of the action, there’s still this interesting thing brought up almost every episode: The Human Instrumentality Project (The Human Instrumentality Whatnow?). I watched Evangelion without having seen too much anime (I think I watched it after only watching 20 shows) so I didn’t actually get the HIP that much. Though I understand its purpose, I didn’t actually get why. And that is one of the things that EVA is excellent as: Not answering questions. Throughout the series (and the Rebuilds), questions tends to pile up without Hideaki Anno (The director of the series who if you didn’t know made an anime cameo in Shirobako as Mitsuaki Kanno. Yeah. You’re welcome) answering anything out of it. Viewers tend to have the same reaction every time they watch the series: “What the fuck is going on?”. Though most people don’t understand what’s going on, that is where the magic lies. You will want to watch it over and over again (I never did until now) just to understand it. Sometimes, having things not handed to you directly is a good thing; Death Billiards (Not Death Parade) is a very good example.

Characters:

Almost every character in the series, though they appear to be one-dimensional, has a hidden dark inner personality. Let’s give a little example; Misato Katsuragi appears to be a happy-go-lucky guardian to the pilots but she, herself, is a survival of the 2nd impact and hides behind a façade in an attempt to forget her past. Most character suffers from this similar trait and is one of the good reasons as to why I like this series. They appear to be one-dimensional in the beginning but throughout the series, you get to see their back stories on how they became the people that they are now. In my opinion, a good character building strategy not just for the main ones but for the supporting cast as well. Now, speaking of the main characters, let’s talk briefly about the 3 main pilots.

Starting out, we have Shinji Ikari, the story’s main protagonist. Many viewers who have seen the series considered Shinji as a (pussy) girl because of his lack of testosterone throughout the series. I, for one, beg to disagree. Shinji is a 14 year old kid who was thrown in to pilot the EVA not because he wanted to but because THEY (NERV. Dafuq does that stands for anyway? Nervous Erection Reaches Vagina?) wanted to. Even if he doesn’t want to, NERV wanted him to continue piloting the EVA. Though they succeeded in doing so, deep down, Shinji still doesn’t want to do it because of the pain and some other things. He clearly doesn’t care about the world because the world clearly doesn’t care about him so he lacks the resolve to save it in the first place. Being technically orphaned at a young age, he felt that the world was being unfair to a kid like him. So why not just let everyone suffer just like him? Well, that’s my conspiracy theory that Shinji is actually a God. Haha fuck me, right? Anyway, as far as I remember, never once has he willingly piloted the EVA because he wanted to (Then 3.0 happened) and he also never once said that he wants to stop the Angels in order to save the world (Which was evident in 2.0 where his actions clearly states that: “Fuck the world, all I want Rei”). Shinji is by far, the most human anime character that I have come across to. If you, or me were in his situation, we’d probably do the same things he did.

In character number 2, we have the pilot of EVA 2.0, the narcissistic bitch from Germany, Asuka Langley Soryuu: The grandmother of tsunderes worldwide. In all the anime I have seen, I have never met a tsundere that is older than her (Eva came out of 1995, right? If you know someone older than her at being a tsundere, please introduce her to me. I really want to meet her). In regards to his character, Asuka is praised by many (including me) because of her badassery. Considered to be the best pilot throughout the whole franchise (I think Mari’s greater but that’s just my personal taste. *cough* Bias because of Megane? *cough*) by the fans, she definitely shows this in every battle she has participated in. Her character is very fleshed out thanks to her back story which is probably one of the many reasons that she is many viewers’ favorite character in the series. She is a bitch but we get to see why. Which is in my honest opinion, makes a bitch a good tsundere.

Lastly, we have Zero. Not Lelouch, not that one from Megaman, but Rei Ayanami, which is like Asuka, the flagship and oldest (in my book) kuudere in anime. Thanks to her character, we get to see characters like Yuki Nagato, Kanade Tachibana, and Kaizuka Inaho (*grins* I know Inaho is much more of dan rather than than a kuu but fuck it. They are the same in my eyes) to name a few. In all of EVA, her character is probably the character that I hate the most (probably more than Gendo. It could be a tie). I don’t know, I think I just hate emotionless characters in general (Weird because I really like Yuki Nagato. She’s my PC, PS3 and CPs wallpaper. It must be my fetish coz she used to wear glasses. lol). Apart from being a key item in the Human Instrumentality Project, she never really did anything throughout the entire series. We see her injured at episode 1 in order to convince Shinji to pilot the EVA, but after that she almost did nothing throughout the entire series. She, like her character is supposed to be, is just like a doll in a doll-o’-rama. You’ll see her, but you wouldn’t care for her in general. A simple decoration. She can be considered a catalyst for Shinji’s character development but that’s about it. I don’t even know why Shinji has a thing for her. Mother complex perhaps? lol.

Animation:

The animation for Neon Genesis Evangelion was done by Gainax back in 1995. The animation in itself is really good if you consider that this came out in 1995. I think it looks better than Gundam Wing when it comes to animation but that’s just my personal taste. Yeah, when you look at the battle scenes in every episode, you might not have guessed that this came out in 1995. The details are amazing and the Angels and EVAs just look fantastic. If there’s one thing this section is bad at, that’s probably the obvious lack in budget. Throughout the series, we get to see obvious (and lame) budgeting strategies. A good example is (I forgot what episode it was) when Shinji was about to leave NERV for the first time and Misato tried to stop him in the station, there was about 5 minutes of frame silence. No movement was produced and the only thing that lets you know that you didn’t hit the pause button by mistake is the sounds in the train station. I want to talk about the animation in the last two episodes but I’m scared that this might turn into a rant about the ending rather than a review of the animation itself so I’ll just leave it at that. Now, if you look at the animation during action scenes, you can clearly say that they at least save the budget for that and that alone. This might be a bit controversial, but if they cut at least 5 episodes in the series, they might have pulled a good ending and the sequel films plus the rebuilds would have never seen the light of day. Well, from a business standpoint, that’s a bad thing, but if you’re doing it for the viewers, then it would have been an amazing ending a la End of Evangelion with a closed ending. If I can send a D-Mail to the past, I would have told Gainax to hire a good budget specialist.

Sound:

The soundtrack for Eva isn’t really bad, but I feel like because of the lack of budget, they recycled some famous music from some famous movies. There’s this one sound track that sounds like it was from a James Bond movie, I’m not kidding, it really is there. Having finished the show subbed for the first time, I really prefer the sub over the dub. The dub was a little weak in comparison to the Rebuild dubs (I know it’s almost the same voice actors/actresses but the dub for the series sounds a bit dated) but I think it’s still good if you consider it was dubbed yeaaaaarrrrssss ago (I don’t even know when).

Verdict:

Neon Genesis Evangelion is a different kind of anime. It is one of the few anime that you can’t just watch once for you to understand everything it presents. A friend watched it trice and he still don’t get it. Watching it the 2nd time, some information that I didn’t absorbed the first time suddenly wants to enter my mind. I still don’t know what Hideaki Anno wants to say in this ever popular franchise but I know I enjoyed the hell out of it. A bit of advice if this review somehow convinced you to watch the series; don’t just go into EVA on a whim. Have the right mindset unless you won’t get shit. Expect good action, mindfuck, lack of explanation, End of Eva, and Rebuilds, then maybe, another set of Rebuilds (Restarts?).

Now, after pulling a couple of numbers out of my ass, sending it to Japan to fuck Shinji while Holden says “IT’S AN ANGERU!”, I present Neon Genesis Evangelion with an overall score of 8.16. Evangelion is a bit of a formulaic mecha anime but once it starts to pick up, you will be scratching your head due to confusion. It also has fleshed out characters that some might not like but no one can deny that they are well written characters that surely carried the show through its bad times. It’s one of the all-time classics and is a good anime to add on your credentials. If you have not seen it yet, go forth, you have my full pledged recommendation.

Alternate Anime Recommendation:

For alternate anime recommendation, why don’t you try Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica? Both series starts out rather slow and formulaic but once they pick up, you will never realize when the sun came down. They are also classified as “deconstruction” of their respective genre with main characters with almost the same personality. Pussies.

There’s always Bokurano if you want to stick to mecha rather than shoujo. Both Evangelion and Bokurano revolves around battles with other mechas but there is a dark secret that both series posses; which I won’t talk about because of spoiler.

Well, that’s it for me! Bye!!!