Review of Neon Genesis Evangelion
"Mankind’s greatest fear is Mankind itself." I've written 3 essays on why this show isn't what people make it out to be. The first 2 have since been deleted due to how much fans didn't like me poking very noticeable holes in their most beloved series sending me death threats and abuse over it. The other one was submitted as part of my Film Studies course for A-Level. I have seen this series 4 times now and each time I'm left thinking how utterly abhorrent it is. From start to finish Evangelion is a horrible mish-mash of half-cocked ideas and tonal inconsistencies. It is not the deepand groundbreaking deconstruction of the mecha genre that people claim it to be. It spends half its runtime focusing on stories that contribute nothing to the grand scheme of things, with all but one character being extremely unlikable. Misato Katsuragi is easily the most likeable and sometimes even relatable character from the series with a strong familiar bond and some great moments of comedy. The rest, however, are truly awful people.
Hideaki Anno's overall direction of the series reflects how little he planned ahead in terms of where he wanted the series to go and the on the nose symbolism is just a massive turn off. The biggest saving grace for this series is definitely the opening theme 'A Cruel Angel Thesis' and the one piece of music which is used constantly, 'Decisive Battle' by composer Shirō Sagisu, it's later used to a better effect in Anno's take on Godzilla with Shin Godzilla.
While I could ramble on and on for ages as to the further in depths to this series not working, I'll keep this one short and sweet by saying... It's another generic mecha show without nearly the same level of enjoyment and deeper themes. My recommendation to you is to seek out the Rebuild films, which are a retelling of this series but with a much clearer understanding of what they want to be and are a far more pleasant watch than this abomination.
"Man fears the darkness, and so he scrapes away at the edges of it with fire."