Review of Neon Genesis Evangelion
Neon Genesis Evangelion was unlike anything at it's age with how deep the story was. I watched it all in just 24 hours. First off, the story starts very simple, yet odd. It's a story about teenagers fighting huge demons called "angels", sure blah blah. Teenagers though? Really? Whatever, just keep on watching. As you're watching the show, it doesn't tell you about the things it's hiding, yet they're very easily hinted at and you can basically figure the hints out by yourself to see what they mean. I really loved Evangelion's logic of pushing the story forward with more and more desperation as the episodeswent on with huge demons breaking EVERYTHING, pushing the story forward. Everyone gets fucked, and before you see it, the psychology aspects start playing in. This is where Evangelion shines.
Normally in anime, you see characters as just basic bots with simple emotions and not being capable of having any deeper inner thoughts. In Evangelion, they spend literal episodes debunking the characters inner thoughts, insecurities and problems they have by themselves by giving them light in the last few episodes. It's a great character study and introspection of human thought, identity, and the actions caused by them. Every character has their own flaws, which is and isn't shown at face value first. Some hide their problems, some don't. Evangelion delivers characters who are all truly flawed in a more flawed world. For example, Misasa and her Oedepis complex was pretty fun to see, since she seemed to be a very "face value" kind of character at first.
Not only does Evangelion introduce annoying characters from totally different spectrums, the quiet ones, the loud ones, they all get debunked. The ones you may have seen as loud, annoying and straight up "just go away" material get debunked in an amazing way which helps the viewer see why a certain character acts the way they do. (Totally not hinting at Asuka) This made me appreciate the characters and the depth of all of Evangelion so much more.
The hand-drawn animation for it's time was absolutely phenomenal, and I loved seeing every episode have it's beatifully blooming drawn moments. I could not appreciate it enough, but the animators must have had it rough while doing it. Very smooth, very fun to watch.
Later on, after I had finished the End Of Evangelion, I started looking into it. Remember that thing about the characters being teenagers? Yeah. The director was actually mocking other animes for having teenagers be the main characters in such a horrible world as a mecha anime filled with huge demons for the sake of "relatability" for viewers. Well, while mocking them, she decided to make Evangelion to show how truly horrifying it would be to be a teenager operating a mecha on a dying planet. Whether this was a comment made by the director later on to save the critique by wanting to have teenagers on the show too, I appreciate it either way due to how well it does in any other factor of the anime. Appreciate, appreciate, appreciate.
The soundtrack is awesome too, by the way. Who doesn't love the opening?