Review of Neon Genesis Evangelion

So I've written some pretty negative reviews about a lot of I guess kind of dark and bitter anime.. but here is an opportunity to make a more positive one! (Edit: I also edited to kind of change a few things.. sorry!) NGE I remember people seeing it back when and it being renowned for being metaphysical, philosophical, perverted, goofy, running out of money, all kinds of stories and possibilities along with a controversial ending, and now the passage of time, seem to have obsfuscated this anime somewhat, which is a shame because it's still more interesting than a lot of those others which seem tohave disappeared...

I think the thing about NGE is it is APOCALYPTIC. Sorry to use all caps there, ^_^. I mean, it's themes are very intense I think in many ways, the people of Tokyo-7 which is like this newer city built basically into the earth so that it can be defended against the attacks of angels, which are these crazy looking giant monster sort of things.

They are basically bent on reaching the internal level of NERV, which is like an Avengers styled secret defense agency which is like focused on defending against the Angel attack and so on and so forth.

The attacks sabotage and demoralize Tokyo-7 and it's citizens, all of them kind of suffering in the middle of this chaos. It's a very bitter and dark anime, lots of things go wrong and it gets really messy! However, I wouldn't say it was actually so un-fun as a consequence, in contrast to the idea that it was overly phiosophical or distant I thought it was interesting precisely because it was not metaphysical, philosophical, (particularly) perverted, or aimless.

No in fact what NGE demonstrates to me is some measure of restraint, and unwillingness to rely on particularly safe endings and instead opting for full destruction... and focuses more simply on people's day to day interactions and small differences of emotion or desire that make people better understand one another.

One part of Evangelion that people seem to take issue is this sense that the characters/ending are a bit chaotic and there's sort of this wild element, and that's sort of a running theme through the ending and what not, and which struck many as psuedo-philosphical and so on, and yet while true the series (and character) have a habit of spinning slightly out of orbit, it's never an excess that defeats the internal thematic power of Evangelion.

Moreover, the general tendencies for characters to spin out of orbit part and the chaos is part of the charm, the series isn't going to hold your hand, it's going to fly off the handle so if you want a more predictable experience better to stay away.

The funny thing is though even if you take all the aspects I don't like about NGE, add them together, and then take all the things I like it about it, there is still a fun thing there, despite it being fairly intense.

The best way to summarize Evangelion is that it's kind of like the ultimate "anime" anime, like, you are getting this experience of an anime at it's rawest, lots of the goofy elements, kind of there in raw form, the jokes, comedy (yes there are jokes and comedy), the kind of resentment towards traditional heroic themes.

It's easily the most intense encapsulation, the only other thing I've come across at similar intensity (for that kind of dynamic) is Bakemonogatari which is, for all it's theatrics, somewhat toned down.

So yeah. NGE was pretty interesting, but it's also not necessarily #1.. but if you are newer to anime and want to see one of the kind of core elements of it then you should definitely check out Evangelion because you probably won't find anything that expresses that ethos at a similar level.