Review of Neon Genesis Evangelion

I'm going to sound like a wanker for the first part of this review. Bear with me, I need to get it out of my system. Ahem. Just as the Bible is **the** book (that's why it's in the name), Evangelion is **the** anime. It will be reread and reinterpreted for generations. Where I grew up, this series made anime synonymous with giant robot fights, waifus, emo boys, and weird sexuality. If you haven't seen Evangelion (Neon Genesis + End of), why? What are you doing? Seriously though. Because of how personal and raw this anime gets, how much lived experience it draws on, it's ripe for interpretation.From psychoanalysis to queer theory, there's enough nuance in its cast and their relationships to inspire all kinds of readings. It's been a few years since I first watched it, and these characters have long since transcended the story they'd been in and made themselves at home in the pantheon of my memory. Shinji especially - I can't think of another character quite like him. His pathetic queer failure-masculinity is utterly singular. (Incidentally, the Rebuilds lose sight of this, which is why I don't like them that much.) I find Asuka very relatable as well, but I don't want to have to mark this review for spoilers to explain why. All in all, the main characters aren't just well-written and logically fleshed out, each of them carries at their heart a real generative paradox that animates them, brings them to life as a timeless archetype.

I keep coming back to Eva, I think it's become my comfort zone. This community of fellow losers, this space for interpretation, analysis, and shipping, this plane of immanence, is just a place where I like to stop by maybe twice a year.