Review of Neon Genesis Evangelion

*This review takes into account the film, The End of Evangelion. Minor spoilers. Also, not so much a review as it is just a catalog of observations...* Bleh. Where to begin? It all starts as your average angsty-teenagers-who-must-save-the-world-by-doing-battle-in-giant-robots anime series, then transforms into a touching character study, *then* begins re-purposing concepts from Freudian psychoanalysis, Jewish mysticism, and quantum physics, in the process transforming them into something unrecognizable--all before regurgitating these concepts to examine manic depression, alienation, and the power of subjectivity. (Deep breath.) *On top of which* mecha anime as a genre is *thoroughly* deconstructed, the budget begins to obviously run out toward the end ofit all, the last two episodes take place *entirely within the minds of the characters,* and things get decidedly *meta.*

And if that weren't enough, you'll still have to watch The End of Evangelion (comprising two episodes which complement the 'final' two episodes of the series) to get a complete picture of how everything ends, and that opens up a whole new can of worms, not the least of which is the incorporation of live-action filming. If it sounds like a mess, well, yeah, it is. But the series contains scenes of such raw emotional honesty and develops such fascinating and flawed characters that I think the journey is all worth it, and for my money it contains two of the best film sequences I've ever seen: the infamous and brutal 'mind-rape' of Asuka and the 'Come, Sweet Death' climax of The End of Evangelion. Finding other films or series to compare NGE to is difficult--perhaps the works of David Lynch (particularly Eraserhead and Mulholland Dr.), FLCL, and Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey come the closest. Like those films, NGE is not for everyone, but like those films, it's pop avant-garde at its richest. A true landmark in the medium.