Review of Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo

For those who aren't aware of what the Rebuild of Evangelion series is about, it's pretty much the Neon Genesis Evangelion series with changes there and there and an ending that's promised not to be a complete failure. Also it gives eyegasms and eargasms to any person that watches this movies, which is expected for an anime that has such a big budget. But does You Can (Not) Redo live up to the hype that the outstanding You Can (Not) Advance set for the audience? The answer is well, rather difficult to say. Fourteen years have passed since the last movie, which had a very strangeending that wasn't explained to the viewer and I expected it to be explained properly here. Sadly, that wasn't the case. Evangelion 2.0 ended with the so-called Third Impact as a consequence to Shinji doing...something. So our protagonist wakes up after all that time not having aged and he doesn't understand why. The problem is that throughout the movie, you'll be as confused as Shinji here. Several plot devices that appear here just come and you'll have to swallow it like that food your mother used to make that you didn't like. A few more things happen and the film ends. Like seriously, I'm not even joking. Stuff such as the two spears in the end is never explained why things happen when you interact with them, no one ever explains to us what does waking the EVA up means, nobody explains to us why it took this new organization, WILL-E (who want to throw down NERV for whatever reason), fourteen years to find Shinji's body on the EVA. All those plot holes can be slightly ignored due to the fact that 4.0 has yet to come out and they may be answered, but if not this movie could throw all the amazing work 1.0 and 2.0 did out of the window.

If you recall the extremely popular and controversial anime Sword Art Online, one of the main problems it had is that the time-skips didn't show the characters evolve or gradually turn into different people, they simply changed because the plot demanded it. Here, sadly, it's the same case. The characters are the weak point of 3.0. Shinji had become a much more likeable person in 2.0, much manlier, let's say, not letting his emotions show off like a seven year old kid playing Call of Duty. But now, due to all this mess that's happening to him, he's back to his whiny side. However, I think that (finally) it's acceptable that he's a wuss, because you know, thinks are pretty different from what he remembers. Rei is literally a different character, for reasons you'll find out when you watch the movie. She's as dead as she was in the beginning of 1.0, all that development for nothing. Asuka remains still pretty tsundere-ish, although we're not explained how the hell did she survive from that event on You Can (Not) Advance.

However, the biggest problem here and what makes the character aspect of 3.0 mediocre is Misato. On the other movies, Misato cared a lot for people, never took things too seriously and was extremely close to Shinji. On this movie, we see she's not like that. She doesn't speak much, she's cold and even hesitates wheter if she should KILL Shinji or not. What's even worse is that if she had talked a little bit to the protagonist about what has happened the whole movie wouldn't exist. Why is she like this? The movie doesn't tell us. We have to bear with it.

What about the new introduced members of the crew? They appear only in the first scene. To never talk again. What about Kaworu, that white haired guy? He is the most likeable of all the characters here, but, there are still problems. Why does he care so much for Shinji when they just met? How did he come into being? It is seen in the movie that he can survive in conditions normal humans can't, but why? Fuck knows. Gendo and Fuyutsuki have around 20 lines together and Mari still seems like she's only for fanservice particularly in that scene in the end where her boobs jiggle around like jelly.

Saving the rather average aspects of the movie is the Art and Sound. Evangelion 3.0 looks beautiful, every little piece of detail that's added in the backgrounds still blows my mind. The movements are never rough, everything extremely "soft" let's say. There is always something to look at, the scenes in the movie as alive as they could be, except for that LSD piano song. As for the music, the epic soundtracks still fit the action packed anime that Evangelion is, particularly that tense song in the ending.

Overall, did I enjoy Evangelion 3.0? Well, yes I did. Maybe it's that dear spot that the Rebuild series goes in my heart, that feeling where I can understand most of what's going on that I didn't have in the original series (which, might I add, isn't the case here). The animation, the soundtrack and the outstanding first minutes just kept me thrilled throughout the whole movie. It's just that lasting appeal which dropped more and more that left me with a bittersweet flavour in my mouth. That and the rather short length of the movie for what they were trying to go for. You see, while the "action" begins right when the movie starts, the plot begins 50 minutes into the movie. It seems like that even the developers knew this due to them showing us viewers the title of the movie "Evangelion 3.0" at that moment when they sort of explain to us what originated this much destruction in the world. This wouldn't have been a problem in a movie like The Disappearance of Haruhi, which starts slow but is an hour longer than this.

You should watch Rebuild of Evangelion, including this one. It may have been a huge disappointment, but it's still pretty good and my expectations are really high for 4.0, with hope that they will explain all the loose ends this movie has.