Review of Neon Genesis Evangelion

This year, I finally re-watched all of Evangelion for the first time since 2006. After experiencing the series again and seeing it in a new light, I've decided to write an entirely new review. I'm going to touch on some of the ways my views have changed over the years and what opinions have remained constant. As a result, this review isn't going to follow a conventional format like I would use for a seasonal anime. I probably don't need to give a general plot overview of one of the most watched anime of all time, right? You guys already know this is a mechaseries!

So how am I going to open a review talking about one of the greatest anime of all time? I'm going to cover the religious symbolism controversy and get it out of the way right now. It's traditionally been the elephant in the room when discussing Eva and I might as well get it over with. The religious symbolism in Eva is pretty shitty in my opinion. The art director added all of this Christian symbolism and references to Jewish Kabbalah and Gnostic Christianity solely because it looks cool. This wasn't even Anno's idea. The Freudian and Jungian references are actually backed up by Eva's psychological themes. They aren't just randomly inserted. The references to Schopenhauer and his "Hedgehog's Dilemma" are also fully justified because it's one of the main points of the entire series. The religious symbolism serves absolutely zero purpose besides window dressing, which is why early Western critics of Eva kept calling it "pretentious". Meanwhile, Japanese viewers also made the mistake of hugely overestimating the importance of the religious symbolism. Book sales on Gnostic Christianity and Kaballah exploded in Japan after Evangelion came out because Japanese otaku were convinced you needed to understand them in order to "get" Evangelion. This misguided obsession directly led to the creation of both Xenogears/Xenosaga and the Persona games!

Hilariously, these games inspired by Eva actually used religious symbolism far more effectively because they at least gained a Wikipedia surface understanding of Gnosticism and what they were referencing. It's easy to just dismiss the bad symbolism in Eva and say it's not important. So why am I talking about it? I would argue it's still an unfortunate blemish on an otherwise brilliant series. It's not just a single cross shaped explosion that we can close our eyes and ignore. It was so prevalent that it misled many Evangelion viewers on both sides of the Pacific into thinking it was important. I have a friend whose father worked for a Christian publishing house and watched Eva because he heard it was a Christian anime! Of course, he hated it SO much that he refused to try another anime for many years. I'm not going to harp on this much longer, but it's actually funny how shitty and pointless the Christian symbolism is. Even anime that are widely considered to be bad can use Christian symbolism WAY better than Eva. Compare the Virgin Eva with the Chad Elfen Lied. Correctly uses El Greco's famous hand gesture to show penance. Correctly uses the lily as a symbol of rebirth through its connection with Christ. Uses extreme, unrealistic forgiveness in keeping with East Orthodox values of Universal reconciliation. Uses a holy fool character who gets crucified (3 times) in keeping with East Orthodox portrayals of the naivete and foolishness of Christ!

The other thing I'll address before getting to the good parts has to deal with the animation budget in the second half. The story that was told for years and years was that it was simply a case of "Lol, ran of budget!". However, it was actually more complicated than that. While there were budget issues according to Anno that left Gainax with inadequate material and staff during the second half, another problem was that Anno couldn't decide on an ending and the series ran into a time crunch. It's an absolute miracle that Evangelion was finished at all considering the crunch they ended up facing and their lack of staff and resources in the last few episodes. One notable example that I still disliked my second viewing was the death of Kaworu. I think it would have been a lot more effective if we could see Shinji's face as his soul struggles over the decision and contrast that with Kaworu's calm, serene face as he fully accepts death. Instead, we just get that still frame of Unit 1 holding Kaworu for 3 fucking minutes straight! It's pretty frustrating but thank God Eva could fall back on classical music from the public domain they didn't have to pay for! Having said that, I actually adored the last 2 episodes this time around. Yes, the psychological power point presentation won me over this time and emotionally resonated with me in a powerful way. Almost teared up during that ending. Bravo Anno!

Evangelion may start out kind of silly with Pen-Pen and Misato's wild driving and some slapstick, but few shows have come close to Evangelion's insightful portrayal of depression, loneliness, self-loathing, and inferiority complexes. Forming relationships with other human beings is HARD and Eva is fully aware of this in a way most anime aren't. That's why few anime have been able to speak to otaku in the way that Evangelion has. Shinji's level of self-loathing and horrible relationship with his father remind me of something straight out of Kafka, which is about the highest compliment I can give to a show! Evangelion is powerful and moving for pretty much everyone who watches it. I've known some VERY cynical bastards who were stilled moved to tears by this show! Evangelion's overall message of self-acceptance that's independent of external approval is powerful and relatable for all that struggle with their own concept of self-worth. Shinji isn't worthy of love because he pilots a giant robot and fights aliens. He's worthy of love because he's a human being. Just because you don't make all the money in the world or aren't the coolest or the smartest or the most athletic doesn't mean that you aren't deserving and don't have value! Evangelion at its core is a deeply Humanistic and beautiful anime, which allows it to resonate so widely across the world.

Evangelion's characters are the absolute core of the show and what makes it work. Shinji, Asuka, Misato, Kaji, and even Gendo are layered, complex characters that wear different masks depending on who they're interacting with. The side of Misato that she shows to Shinji is very different than the side she shows as Major Katsuragi at work. They each have parts that they keep only to themselves and have parts of themselves that not even they are able to understand or accept. Rei is easily the least developed of the main cast, but even Rei has a clear character arc towards self-acceptance when she refuses to be a puppet and stands up to Gendo. I HATED Rei the first time I saw Eva, but even she has grown on me upon re-watch. I know I'm not covering new ground by saying that Evangelion has good character writing. I'm sure if you've spent any time on Youtube you've already seen hours of Eva character essays on what makes Ritsuko or Fuyutsuki tick. I'm just covering this to say how much more I appreciated the subtle character-building moments my second time around. Personally, I think the Japanese subs really help since the old ADV dub is kind of uneven in my opinion. For example, I really don't think Spike Spencer was a good Shinji at all. Megumi Ogata's Shinji is a fragile, traumatized youth who is forced to face otherworldly motricities against his will. Spike plays Shinji as this whiney brat who just really doesn't want to take out the garbage. It's less existential dread and more like he just doesn't feel like it. It really does an incredible disservice to the character, which is why Shinji was so much more hated in America than elsewhere.

This time around, I paid attention to Eva's plot as closely as I possibly could. I watched video essays. I looked stuff up on the Eva wikia....and sadly I still think the series' plot is overall kind of a mess. This time around, I appreciate that the themes and character psychology are far more important than the plot, so I don't have to be upset when things aren't adequately explained. However, it can still be a little frustrating at times just how unfocused the show can seem. For example, let's look at Evangelion episode 13. In this episode, an Angel somehow transforms itself into a computer virus and infects the heroes' base of operations. The entire point of this episode is to flesh out the background of the tertiary character Ritsuko and learn that her mother placed her brain into the base's super-computer. That's it, that's the whole episode. Since that episode exists, we never learn exactly who Kaji was working for and if he was a double or triple agent. We don't learn how Gendo's version of Human Instrumentality differs enough from Seele's that they are forced to attack NERV. We don't learn what an S2 Engine actually is. We don't learn what the Dead Sea Scrolls actually are in the world of Eva and how they're important to the plot. ALL of those things would actually be far more important to the plot than learning that the computer has the brain of Ritsuko's mom. Ritsuko didn't even get a chair in the last 2 episodes! She's not a main character! Who gives a shit about her mom? The issue with Eva's plot isn't just that it's needlessly confusing, it's that it feels incredibly unfocused. It's almost as if Anno kept changing it and had no idea where he was going.

Back on the positive side of things, Eva's visuals and direction are some of the best in anime history, hands down. Very few anime can claim to have half as many iconic shots as Evangelion. It's not just that Evangelion is popular and that's why we recognize these shots. Even if you've only seen it once, a lot of these images stick with you. Evangelion is visually an absolutely brilliant series! Even when the budget ran out and it ran against the deadline wall, we still get stuff like the iconic "Congratulations" scene. Anno is a spectacular director and deserves full credit for Eva having aged visually as gracefully as it has.

It's now been 27 years since Evangelion came out. Does it still hold up after all these years? Hell yes it does! If you've still not seen Eva or have only seen it once a long time ago, you definitely should check it out again. It's been re-released on Bluray for dirt cheap and it includes End of Evangelion, which was previously SUPER expensive! End of Evangelion is also very good BTW, but that's a different review. Not only is Evangelion still a great anime, but it's very fun to view as a historical series. This completely changed the landscape of anime and led to a new era of greater directorial freedom and creative expression. The decade that Eva birthed from 1995-2005 is in my own humble opinion the best 10 years in the history of anime. It's not even close in my mind. If you too love that period of anime history, you have Evangelion to thank for it! My old review was kind of amusing in its pettiness and nitpickiness, but I was happy to re-review this series and give it more of the praise it deserves.