Review of Neon Genesis Evangelion
I do not consider myself fully qualified to review this series. I do not consider ANYONE to be fully qualified to objectively review this series. Why? Because even though Neon Genesis Evangelion may or may not be the most popular anime of all time, it may or may not be the most important anime of all time, and it most certainly isn't the best anime of all time, one thing's for sure; it is the most controversial anime to have ever been created up to this day. No other anime has created as much controversy and sparked more debate than this one. No other anime has split theopinions of critics and fans alike like NGE has. Even at the time this reviews was written, 17 years since the original airing of the show, anime fans across the world argue, fight and throw shit at each other ( figuratively speaking, of course ) over whether Evangelion is a masterfully done work of art or a mediocre, pretentious piece of piss. There's also a small minority of people standing in the middle, not subscribing to either of the two extremes in opinion about the series, who mostly end up getting covered in shit that the others throw; either from the haters who complain that the moderates give the show too much credit, or from the rabid fans who explode on the mere mentioning of a possibility that Evangelion might, just might not be “the best anime EVARRRRRR!“. I happen to belong to this moderate minority, but I do confess to be leaning more towards the “hating“ side than the other way.
Why do I think that I'm not qualified to review Neon Genesis Evangelion? Well, whenever I review or at least think about a series or a film or a book, I manage to almost completely separate and differentiate between what is objectively good or bad in it, and what is my subjective preference or taste. I can tell the difference whether something is genuinely bad or if it's just me not liking it, because every person has a different and particular taste. Just because I don't personally like something about the story doesn't mean that it is objectively bad; just because a character is unlikable doesn't mean that they are badly written. A good critic manages to put his subjective opinions and preferences aside and judge a work on its own merits. And this is where a problem with reviewing NGE arises.
There is no consensus in the anime community about any of the elements of Evangelion. Some things are certainly more controversial than the others, and there is at least some agreement among the vast majority about some things being genuinely good, but there's nothing, nothing that is universally acclaimed or consistently good about this series. There are such huge discrepancies between different parts of the series as a whole as well as its individual elements, and such conflicting views and opinions on it that seeking a second opinion will only additionally confuse those who are already confused and confounded after watching it for the first time. Therefore, it is practically impossible for a reviewer to use the opinions of others as a reference or a guideline in forming and presenting their own thoughts. Where some see brilliant writing and ingenious story-telling, others will see the exact opposite. Where one person sees great philosophical underpinnings, another person will see pretentiousness and shallow symbolism.
And the biggest problem is that there's very little solid evidence to base your claims on and argue them, because the story itself is one giant ( and I dare say, contradictory ) mess no matter how you look at it ( some fans will claim that being a mess is the point of the story and that that's precisely where the genius lies, but a mess is still a mess ).
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Neon Genesis Evangelion is described by virtually everyone as a ( brilliant ) deconstruction of the mecha genre. I personally dislike this genre and have almost no interest in it, seeing as it largely revolves around giant robots smashing and blasting each other to bits; not that there's anything inherently wrong with this, and many mecha series are very entertaining to watch, but I'm not really the target audience for the vast majority of these shows. Naturally, hearing that Evangelion is a deconstruction and a subversion of the principle tropes and themes of the genre piqued my interest, and the first few episodes and the final third of the show are certainly different from what you might expect from a mecha show. I do, though, confess to be relatively ignorant about the genre, having only seen the Patlabor films and a few episodes of Gundam and Code Geass. Most of my knowledge is “second hand“, i.e. from the internet ( wikipedia and TV tropes were my principle sources of information ), so I won't talk too much about which particular tropes were deconstructed and how ( not to mention it would probably be impossible to avoid spoilers in doing so ).
The principle point of its deconstruction of the genre in the latter third of the series was in switching the focus towards character development and thorough examination of human psyche and the implications of what effect would violent fights against monsters have on the minds of teenagers. And herein lies one of the main problems.
Evangelion is largely lauded for its superb exploration of human psyche, and in particular the dissection and analysis of clinical depression and complete character breakdown. And I have to agree with this opinion, but only to an extent. Yes, Eva does a good job of exploring the psychology of its characters, but the way it does that and ( to a degree ) the content it handles are of questionable quality, to say the least. Why? Because it doesn’t do so through dialogue and by incorporating these examinations into a cohesive and meaningful story ( like Paranoia Agent does ). Instead, it opts for the “stream-of-thought” approach.
Stream of thought is not an easy method of narration to handle and is not well suited for a visual medium like anime, for it takes a great writer to execute it properly and incorporate it in the story that's being told. It should be pretty obvious to everyone why it is so: SHOW DON’T TELL! Anime is a visual medium, and the point of a visual medium is to show, not outright spell out for the audience what's going on inside someone's head. The "stream-of-thought" approach is not bad in itself, and while it works best in a written medium ( i.e. books ), there are numerous films and even anime that managed to pull it off brilliantly, but it completely destroys the flow of Eva’s story whenever it's inserted. There's basically two different ways to incorporate a monologuing "stream of thought" into a visual medium: a bad one and a worse one ( when it comes to weaving them in a story ), and Evangelion deploys both, much to its demise.
First way is having a character go around, narrating their thoughts. Needless to say, these thoughts are mostly chaotic, random and the character spends a lot of time pondering things that are either some mundane everyday occurrences, or plot-related stuff that has already been made clear to the audience by their previous actions, which in turn makes these introspections completely redundant and annoying for the audience to sit through. If you want a stream-of-thought anime, make it 100% stream of thought, with a minimalistic plot and as few characters as possible, and focus exclusively on exploring the psyche of a single character. Granted, the narration and the story being told will suffer a lot, and the end product will not exactly be a thrill-ride, but it will have integrity and actual quality. "The Tatami Galaxy" uses this approach and the end result is much better than Evangelion.
The second way of employing a stream of thought is the navel-gazing in a void. This method is much more difficult to pull off than the first one because it requires the writer to justify halting the plot completely and abruptly moving the story inside a character's head. Evangelion fails to adequately justify its sudden shifts to a world of nothingness inside which the characters talk with their own subconscious. There are several examples earlier in the series, but the last two episodes are the epitome of why this approach fails in Eva. These moments don't come across as natural, on the contrary; it's painfully obvious that the writer isn't interested in the story at all, and that he only wants to screw around his character's heads. Now, there's nothing wrong with picking the characters apart and exploring the depths of their mind, but endless navel-gazing is not the right approach - a good writer does this through dialogue; dynamic and exhaustive character interaction. Even if it’s awkward ( like in Ghost in the Shell ), it’s still infinitely better than having a character’s subconscious chat with him for half an episode.
But the greatest downside in Eva's approach to analysing its character's psyche isn't even what or how, bur the content itself, what it persents: these introspections and analyses are written TEXTBOOK-STYLE. Again: "Show don't tell!". The show doesn't know whether to treat the audience as mature and intelligent adults or as less mature and averagely intelligent kids/teens who have to be taught the basic workings of a human mind. We are repeatedly told things that are painfully clear to everyone older than 14 ( “I am formed through my interactions with others...” – well, fuck-a-doodle-do, thanks for telling me that show, I never would have known! ), we are told things about the characters that *we already know* because of what they said/did earlier, in the real world. We learn nothing new about the characters in this void, as the show keeps going in circles.
But maybe that's the point - maybe it's not about the audience learning anything new, maybe it's about the characters learning something about themselves? But once again, we hit a brick wall, because the characters keep going in circles for episodes and episodes and episodes.
They aren't 100% consistent, the changes in their personalities are sometimes too abrupt and sudden to be natural and they often react unnaturally to some situations. Case in point: when Shinji's navel-gazing during the last two episodes, he is apparently shown a scene of Misato having sex with Kaji. To this her spirit/Shinji’s mental projection/whatever reacts not by blushing and averting her eyes, not by trying to cover Shinji's eyes to prevent him from seeing it, not by trying to justify herself. She breaks down into tears and sobs violently. She feels deeply and completely ashamed of herself. Why?! Unless she was engaging in extremely perverted s&m activities or something similar, why would she be so deeply embarrassed? I get that she would feel very uncomfortable if someone were to see her in such intimate and delicate moments, but sex is a natural thing and doesn't cause people to feel like lowliest scum for doing it. If she were a promiscuous nymphomaniac trying to fill a void in her heart by sleeping with an army of men, then I would understand. But she herself says that she only ever slept with Kaji, so what the hell?!
No matter how good or exhaustive psychological analysis of characters in Evangelion is, they ultimately lead nowhere, because the characters ( and in particular, Shinji ) fail to learn a valid lesson out of it all, and never make a stand for anything. The conclusion/solution/whatever that Shinji finally comes to at the end of ep 26 is bollocks ( if you would pardon my French ). The "answer" he finds is that objective reality or external perspective is meaningless, and that all that matters is "how he feels about himself". This brings me back about my statement about characters running in circles, and it perfectly shows how ultimately pointless all that psychology is; without proper philosophy ( instead of post-modernist existentialist bullshit we get ) to justify it and give it a purpose, Eva's endless digging in the pit of psychology is meaningless.
The main problem with general characterisation in NGE is that is shifts so much and so often, and that it is executed so confusingly at times, that I honestly can't tell whether the characters were lazily written or perfectly formed. The shifts in personalities and sudden revelations of their mysterious pasts and present motivations are not completely natural, with almost zero foreshadowing that would make the transitions more natural and believable. Still, I am willing to give NGE the benefit of doubt, and credit where it’s due; the focus on Shinji and the decision to keep digging deeper and deeper into his and others’ mind is probably just how Anno honestly thought, and what he genuinely felt was worth exploring, and I can see that and appreciate it. Obviously many people must have found something true and worthwhile about it, or Eva would have never been such a milestone in both Japan and the rest of the world. However, while Anno is a smart man and knows quite a bit about psychology, he's just completely incapable of incorporating his characters and their deconstructions into a consistent and cohesive story. His depression and the chaos that was destroying Gainax from within only served to exacerbate the problems in the series, resulting in a mess that was the last third of the series ( and subsequently, the End of Evangelion movie ).
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The problems of executing character development and exploring the psychological troubles of the cast also translate to the plot. There's the aforementioned halting of the plot for the sake of navel-gazing, but the circumstances leading to these monologues and the events causing the break-down of certain, if not all, characters, are incredibly contrived, and the “plot“ in the last third of the series is terribly rushed, convoluted and doesn't add up in any way.
The series starts as dark, edgy, and a lot of time was dedicated to flashing out different characters and showing just how stressful and dangerous piloting a mecha actually is, and the events do take strain on the main character. Shinji's angst and the occasional quasi-scientific babbling aside, they were good.
Starting with episode 5/6, NGE temporarily discards its dark tone and focus on the implications of having children pilot giant robots and fight huge monsters with a killer instinct, and instead transitions into a much more “generic“ and familiar mecha show of a monster-of-the-week-format, while introducing some new characters along the way. And to tell you the truth, this is actually the best executed part of the entire series.
As I said, with episode 5/6 Evangelion takes a turn for the monster-of-the-week style, and it definitely works to its advantage. Almost every new episode features a new Angel attacking the city and the Eva pilots and their NERV commanders having to find a way to repel the attack and destroy the Angel. Each of these alien monsters is very unique, both in their designs and their special abilities and attacks, and the human forces always have to come up with a new ingenious plan to defeat them. Angels can range from humanoid monsters similar to Evas themselves to a giant floating diamond to extremely abstract and unconventional forms like shadows or nanobots. The fights between Evas and Angels are very entertaining to watch, and are played out in many different and interesting ways; battles can range from synchronised dancing to fighting the Angels in cyber-space.
Character development is not forsaken during this period, though, on the contrary – many characters who were introduced over the course of the first few episodes, as well as some of the newcomers, get their chance to shine. Almost all of the battles are used to further develop the main cast of characters, several of them being “token episodes“ during which the focus on the story clearly shifts to a particular character rather than following Shinji, the protagonist. Development is executed either through long and revealing dialogue or the more tedious “let me tell you my life story“ moments ( okay, I'm exaggerating it a bit here, but the point still stays ), and occasionally we get a flash-back or two revealing their pasts and providing some more information ( and questions ) about the cataclysmic Second Impact and the character's involvement in the story.
The technical aspects of the show were also at their high point during this period. Aside from the recognisable and original designs of Evangelions ( even if they were very impractical and unrealistic ), the art was average, but the animation was of the highest quality at the time, and it still looks decent today. Intense and clever battles between the Evas and the Angels were a joy to watch, always dynamic and consistently good.
The soundtrack is not particularly special, but it sets the mood and tone for each scene perfectly, using a combination of eclectic and/or minimalistic pieces for more personal and mundane scenes, and employing epic ( and even a bit pretentious ) orchestral pieces and choirs for the awesome fight scenes.
And there's the.. greatest opening theme song of all time.
However, while it is technically the strongest part of the show, with some decent character development and beautifully choreographed fight scenes, this is also when Eva's ( potential ) problems start to become more apparent.
For starters, the repetitive and episodic monster-of-the-week format visibly slows down the plot. There is next to no sense of urgency or impending doom and the tone is never really dark. With each Angel that Evas defeat the feeling of threat or danger is further eroded and the fights, while entertaining, are not that suspenseful, as you know that they're going to defeat it in the end and that everything will be fine. It is possible that this was intentional seeing as the show takes a turn in the opposite direction in the latter episodes, but that's also debatable.
The second problem that arises is also plot-related. While the plot itself almost stops, the build-up does not. Every now and then a new mystery is introduced or hinted at, more cryptic clues and plot points are brought up, the secret background of the Eva Project and the existence of both NERV and their enemies, Angels, are slowly revealed, a micrometer at the time. This keeps the audience interested in the story as we expect the show to eventually deliver on its promises and expose the hidden truth behind everything. And this is where Evangelion's ultimate sin lies.
It doesn't deliver. In any way.
Reasons for the complete disintegration of the story and its characters in the last third of the series largely lie in the real world: by episode 16, which signaled a shift from a conventional action-oriented mecha series towards a psychological deconstruction of the genre, Studio Gainax was in disarray. They were way behind schedule, quickly running out of money and the tensions between the staff started to effect the series itself. In a way, the break-down of the characters and the story mirrors the break-down of the production crew, most importantly the writer, Anno.
Even after it starts its gradual downward spiral in episode 16, and even when it gets positively disturbing in episodes 18 and 19, the show never manages to build upon the shock factor and deliver in an even remotely satisfying and logical way. Questions keep piling up and virtually none of the old ones are answered, at least not fully or satisfyingly.
Plot twist and sudden revelations are so rushed and contrived they aren't believable or convincing at all; just cheap and convoluted cop-outs by the writer who at this point clearly has no idea how to conclude the story.
Episode 24 in particular was a spectacular mess, and even though ep 25 & 26 were horrible, I personally consider ep 24 to be the worst one in the entire series. It introduced a completely new character out of the blue, 2 episodes before the ending, tried to build up a deep and strong relationship between this new character and the protagonist in under 10 minuted, only to ditch him in the end of the same episode. "Mess" is the only word that can describe these last 10 episodes.
The visuals weren't spared either. Somewhere between ep 16 and 18, the previously high ( I dare say, impressive ) production values nosedived, resulting in (in)famous elevator and Eva scenes, although there were dozens of other long still shots as well.
It is pretty clear that the studio was in complete disarray, and when the production crew are fighting each other, being way behind schedule and broke, you can hardly expect even a half-decent story.
And if all of this weren't enough already, Anno decided to give the audience a middle finger in episodes 25 and 26, which at this point are so infamous they have probably created a rupture in space-time continuum, allowing Anno to recreate his pathetic mess of a story over and over.
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It is time for me to sum up the review and pass my final judgement on Evangelion.
All in all, Eva is not a bad anime. But it's not a very good one either. There's some good parts and elements in it, but there's also plenty of crap in it as well, and due to the nature of the downsides, the series as a whole is less then a sum of its parts.
The first two thirds were quite enjoyable, and I'd take the action packed monster-of-the-week episodes over the philosophy and introspection of the last third of the series any day. After a strong start and a decent progression, Evangelion slowly spiraled into a incomprehensible mess after episode 16, culminating in the historical mind-fuck that was the series' “finale“ in episodes 25 and 26.
All that was good and had potential in Evangelion was pulverised and thrown in the gutter by that last third of the series. The plot was left almost completely unresolved, the characters disintegrated, animation followed the pattern, the soundtrack tried to compensate by becoming even more pretentious than before, half the time was spent navel-gazing and philosophising in the void... everything became a giant mess that largely undid the previous good parts. I won't even discuss the pointless and shallow religious symbolism that was prevalent throughout the series.
Again, I'm not saying that Eva is bad or that its psychological aspects are bad, for there is a lot of good stuff there that was just handled bad.. Which is why I'm so bitter with Eva - it had such a load of promise and potential for greatness, but it ended up shooting itself in the foot and screwing everything that was good about it. It could have been brilliant, and in the end turned out to be mediocre, and that's what bugs most people about it.
I’m not even giving it a final average score, for as I said, I don’t consider myself fully qualified to give it an objective mark.
What I will do is give you a recommendation, as the themes and gimmicks of Eva have been done before and after, and they've been done better.
- If you want an entertaining mecha show, watch "Rahxephon", which is basically a carbon copy of Eva, only with a protagonist that actually has a spine, angst replaced with a good romance and with an ending that doesn't have its head stuck up its own arse. You can also try "Code Geass".
- If you want a show about existential questions and unconventional answers to them, involving a move to a "higher plane of existence", try the 1995 movie "Ghost in the Shell" or the "Serial Experiments Lain", both of them being immensely smarter and more consistent than Eva
- If you want a thorough psychological examination of the human mind, watch “Paranoia Agent” by Satoshi Kon
- If you want a dark, psychological deconstruction of an existing genre, "Puella Magi Madoka Magica" is infinitely better than Eva could ever hope to be. To put it simple: everything that Eva does wrong, Madoka Magica does right, and then some. “Madoka” is everything that Evangelion should have been, but sadly, isn’t.