Review of Neon Genesis Evangelion
I honestly don’t know where to begin with this, as Evangelion is quite frankly, a very unorthodox series to say the least. Mechs have always been a staple in anime, especially in the past. Back in the pre 2000’s, the genre soared with the numerous Super Robot and Real Robot series with names like Gundam, Mazinger Z, Macross, and other cool robot goodness. These series made large names for themselves when the mech genre was in its prime, especially the Super Robots. This show does contain its fair share of action, impressive 90’s animation, fun moments, and relaxing bits, mainly at the beginning. However Evangelionis not trying to be entirely like that, and it is made obvious as you watch it. It focuses on the themes of the ideas between human relationships, as well as theories of the mind and psyche of a person. Evangelion questions and analyses these things, especially in later parts of the show. So while mecha is the genre, it’s not necessarily the main focus here.
Evangelion is more known for being a mature show about the inner problems in people and what makes them work, and it’s not scared to be a bit questionable about it. Characters in the latter half are really broken down to expose their traumas, reasonings for their personalities, and how fucked up they actually are, yet it’s not something that’ll be understood on a surface level. Some of these characters will only speak to those that can understand them, and that’s a big hit/miss part of the show. Not everyone will truly understand the many problems, flaws, and reasonings behind how these characters are, and that’s fine. But for those that can, these might be some of the most painfully relatable characters you’ll ever meet.
Story: 9
The story begins in the year of 2015, where large creatures known as Angels start appearing a city named Tokyo-3. Despite their efforts, the military is completely powerless to fight against these monsters, and can’t do enough damage to the angels in their attacks. Due to this, command is relinquished to NERV, an organisation dedicated to defend Tokyo-3 against these Angel attacks. During this time, a 14 year old boy named Shinji Ikari is called to Tokyo-3 by his father Gendo, and is picked up by a woman named Misato to get there. Once at the NERV headquarters called the Geofront, he is told by is father to pilot a giant Robot called Evangelion Unit 01. Sounds simple so far right?
Well, the story at first is simple at first in premise, but we soon learn that our protagonist is not the most willing of pilots. Shinji makes it obvious he doesn’t want to pilot the Eva, and it’s made obvious that he has a very rough relationship with his father. After his reluctant battle that he barely had any real hand in, Misato sees his strange nature and in an attempt to get him to become more human soon becomes his guardian, and brings Shinji to live with her.
In the first half of the show, we see Shinji have initial struggle settling into his new home at Tokyo-3. We see his discontent in being an Eva pilot, with him not having an easy time making friends into his school due to his status as the Eva pilot and introverted personality, as well as his difficulty interacting with other people, including his own guardian Misato. However, he eventually makes close friends at school, as well as both meeting and getting to to know his fellow Evangelion pilots Rei and Asuka. Eventually the show goes into more of the standard monster of the week format, with Shinji teaming up with the other two pilots to battle against the angels.
However, during the second half, the show becomes a lot darker, going back into the past of these characters, and exploring what has happened to these characters in the past. I’ll get more to this in the characters section, but its the second half of the show where Evangelion gets its fame for psychological analysis, and where it starts to constantly tackle complex philosophical things like human psyche, the past, and what makes the characters tick.
In a nutshell, without any context, one may think Evangelion is just another typical mecha anime when looking on the surface. However, if one is aware about the types of things that Evangelion is known in the anime community, they’ll know Evangelion is far from being so. Evangelion is a type of show breaks down the typical tropes, cliches, and to a point, the rules of a certain genre, adding in unique elements into the mix, before putting it back together as something different. While Evangelion does include action packed battles between the Evangelions and the angels, that isn’t the main focus. Instead, Evangelion tackles more unorthodox themes, and bring to light things like philosophical theories, studies, as well as aspects of the human mind and psyche. Obviously due to this, this show will not be for everyone, as the deeper themes take away from the enjoyment of being fictional for possibly being hard to grasp or "too real". However despite this, I found that if you're able to accept this massive shift in tone, you'll really come to appreciate the way the story was done.
I do have to mention though that the final two episodes do not at all give this show a proper conclusive ending, and that it’s a very mental/thought provoking ending as opposed to a real tangible one. However, that’s why End of Evangelion exists, and I believe it’s a must watch to truly complete this series.
Art: 8
The art of this show…well it’s very mixed to say the least. The art itself is fine for the most part, its 90’s style animation looks clean and surprisingly detailed in areas for its time. It had very nice shading, and honestly for the time, it has some very nice looking backgrounds and animation. They even use certain colors in certain scenes to convey a message or emotion, like yellow during dream sequences for a sunset/ominous feel, or blue in hospital scenes for a clean and sterile environment.
The problem however is that animation itself is very hit or miss. Evangelion aired all the way back during 95, and its age in animation shows blatantly in areas, and there are scenes where the artists obviously cut back on animation for the budget, like covering the mouths and turning the characters into talking silhouettes, but the latter could also be taken as an artistic liberty. However this does not excuse it of its issues. They’re still there. However, when animation does go high though, specifically in a few of the fight scenes and scenes that need an impact, it does get really good. Movement is not necessarily fluid but full of action and dramatic movements.
Sound: 9
The strange thing about the sound is that it’s something that I wouldn’t really bring special mention to, but at the same time I think it’s excellently well done. Most of the tracks basically create the atmosphere of certain scenes, and they wouldn’t be the same without it. The show uses this to direct and invoke certain emotions in a viewer when a certain scene is playing. A drum filled buildup song with tension before a battle, a loud orchestra when an Eva goes berserk, a relaxing, chirpy song for fun daily life interactions, a slow sombre piano track for scenes for scenes that contemplate the sadness of the negatives of human interaction, and a strange, primal tune for scenes where we delve into the character’s own minds.
Eva’s OST does an amazing job with its score IMO, with tracks that truly add to certain scenes, and making them memorable. When I hear a certain track of Eva, my mind instantly recalls memories of the scenes that they were used in Eva, the type of stuff I saw, and these tracks are just so memorable and iconic. The sound effects and voice acting were also really good, I especially liked the acting in the scenes of anguish for some of the characters, their VA’s really did an excellent job conveying their emotions.
Characters: 10
Humans are one of the most complex species out there, and our extremely multilayered and complicated mind is what makes ourselves unique. The human mind is powerful, but at the same time, can be very fragile. People need to have certain interactions with others to keep the mind at ease: love, care, family, friends, these bonds that people create are what drive people to stay sane, without it, minds will break and people will get mentally weaker.
The characters reflect this very obviously, more specifically in the latter half of the show. Most of the characters at first glance might seem to simply have a set personality, Misato’s laid back nature yet ability to switch into a serious commander mode, Rei’s lack of emotion, Gendo’s steely and blunt personality, Asuka’s tsundere, and of course, Shinji’s incompetent nature and submissiveness. However, a majority of Eva’s characters have more to them than just that. We’re given the first half to get aquatinted and used to these characters and establish their “lifestyle”, however, the second half of the show starts breaking this “peaceful” status quo, and starts really breaking down the characters, showing why their personalities are the way they are.
As mentioned before, the second half begins to really show the actual reasons for why our characters are the way they are, and what’s wrong with them. This is where the characters show their true colors and their backstories are revealed, which I will not go into much detail for. However, these backstories are the traumatic upbringings that have created the characters that we had grown accustomed to, and here we really learn why they have become the way they have. Most of them are the way they are to gain acceptance from others, to cope with their life, they have inner demons and ugly thoughts, some that are obvious from their personality, others that are hidden deep within their mind. We really get to learn the problems some of these characters have, and their hidden demons are some of the most understandable “flaws” that I could relate to.
A lot of people give the main character, Shinji Ikari a lot of flack, and there’s reason to. Yes he is weak willed and simple minded, he doesn’t want to face his fears and reality, preferring to escape and run away, which while annoying from an outsider’s perspective, can also be something understandable from a first person or metaphorical perspective. Shinji as a character has flaws that he is aware of, he always tries to escape from the brutal reality and he is sometimes aware of it. He slowly breaks down into a depressed state when the positive relationships with those he holds close break down, and that’s what made him very relatable to me. I as a person had gone through similar situations, unable to face harsh reality at times, preferring to escape, fearing rejection, wanting attention, and feeling worthless.
In the past when I first watched this series, I was in a rough time of my life where I didn’t understand myself or my reason for living. However, as I watched this show, I found that Shinji was almost identical to how I was, and that I emphasised with him more than any other. Through understanding Shinji and further looking upon his actions, I was able to relate to him, and learn more about myself as well in a negative light, which in turn allowed me to grow. In a way, Shinji is a character that has affected who I am today because of his sheer relatability, and I could say the same for other aspects of certain characters like Asuka or Misato, but Shinji had the most reliability for me. By learning about his problems and how he worked, I understood myself more due to him, and now as someone who has grown from that time, I’m grateful. It’s because I could understand Shinji, and even the other characters too lesser, but still considerable extents, that I was able to learn more about my problems and truly understand them, making ways to change them. For this, I hold the characters of this show in high regard, as they do an excellent job at showing some of the things that people’s inner demons might be like.
Enjoyment: 10
I loved this show, so so much. Watching it for the first time I was initially entertained by the mecha and the world that it set me in. I felt enamoured by the sheer scale and environment the show used, the battles were interesting, the designs of the mecha and angels were cool, and it was just all a fun time. Watching the characters interact together in both positive and negative ways gave me a feeling that never felt similar to any other show. It was here where I grew interested and attached to the characters, and had a lot of enjoyment.
But in the second half of the show, it had changed into something far, far more than just mere entertainment, mecha, cool fights and fun characters. The way it showed the inner working’s of its characters so directly and how much they spoke to me had made them not only appreciate them far more as characters, but as tangible “people”. It became a show that legitimately made me both question and learn things, about people, about interactions, and most of all, about myself. I was able to understand these characters to a level that I didn’t think that I had in me, and in turn watching this show had made me understand myself in a time where I didn’t. I watched these characters that I was familiar with and enjoyed following both rise and fall, their pasts and their faults, and I think, all of it made this one of the most unforgettable rides of my life.
Overall: 10
Overall, Eva is a very unique show. It’s not only just an anime, but also strives to be something very different to other types of television. It uses the concepts and tropes of mecha to give us characters that are painfully realistic, relatable, and so very flawed. Its story starts off decently standard before it delves into a more abstract feeling environment, dealing with human problems rather than the actual threat that is the angels.
Some audiences might find it as a complete mess of a show with no answer or logic to what’s going on, while others might view it as an entertaining experience albeit a bit confusing. Heck, even some anime watchers might have never even heard of it, and other people, including me, will see this show as one of the most wonderful works of anime to date.
Evangelion is not a show about entertainment alone, it’s a show that needs you to think a bit. This show questions a lot of things, this show will be confusing to completely casual viewers, and is not an anime for the viewer who wants to see the typical storytelling as it’s unique in the way it breaks down its own characters and reveals how they work. If you’re an anime viewer here for fun and relaxation, you might not like this show, and that’s fine. I would still recommend giving it a try, but instead, I think Evangelion is a show for the ones who have the potential to understand some of the angels and demons inside people, how they might interact and how they build what is a human.
Evangelion is a show that will question and tackle extremely strange, philosophical, or abstract concepts and ideas, that’s simply how it is. We as humans cannot comprehend everything, not even our own mind and psyche. It’s not an easy thing to be able to understand or view all these concepts, and understand them entirely. But as a person who is able to see Evangelion for the concepts and ideas it brings, I can say that to get a better experience, you should consider having an open mind to theories and abstract messages. Theory and philosophical judgement, yet, you must also be able to understand the negatives in some people, and also the things they offer.
Evangelion is a show that has brought me on an adventure, one that I will never forget and always hold close to my heart. Ranging from the times it was lighthearted and relaxing from some of the cuter character interactions, the times it was sad and melancholic from times of self reflection and sad scenes, the times that I was enamoured with the action and awesome fights, the times that truly learned about the characters that inhabited that world, and the times that made me reflect on myself as an individual person, and learn more about myself because of it.
The factors of what made Eva not only an entertaining show, but a show that has changed my perspective on myself and the world in the past when I needed it to was why I hold it so dear to my heart. It’s not perfect, not by a long shot, but if it isn’t obvious by now, I absolutely love this show. In fact, it’s my favorite anime as of this review, and I honestly don’t see that position changing anytime soon.
To Hideaki Anno, whether the way this show was made the way it was intended or not, I must thank you regardless for making this wonderful story.