Review of Neon Genesis Evangelion
Say what you will about Neon Genesis Evangelion (NGE), love it or hate it. I doubt anyone can deny its impact and importance to the both the industry of anime and manga as well the Otaku culture. Almost all the recognizable tropes of today's anime, manga and light novels have it inspired by it. Which saddens me because it's probably the furthest thing away from those trope ridden anime and manga titles. I've always seen NGE as form of art rather than a piece of entertainment. In truth, NGE is pretty bad when it comes to what some (and I) class as entertaining anime series',as most are generally marked by 4 different points:
1) Story: A narrative constructed by a beginning, middle and end. Helping to develop the characters and the world through these sectioned elements.
2) World Building: The world helps to thicken the story, making it more interesting to explore alongside the characters or the narrative.
3) Characters: Who assist wrapping the story and world together. Impacting the plot and changing the world to make what's presented more believable.
4) Themes: These are generally used to highlight specific plot points, significant world building points and characters development in connection with one another.
With NGE, these four components aren't all present here. Really only two of are; "Characters" and "Themes". Each connect in the creation of a "World" and a "Story" for the themes to exist along with the characters.
The psychoanalytic perspectives of the characters become the new backbone of the anime. What else becomes evident at this point is the source material, the self-assessments of NGE's director and creator, Hideaki Anno, who used his own depression as a base; failure, depression, destruction, hatred, suicide and death. Anno uses these very themes to create a visual merging of characters, world and plot.
Focusing more on the characters; Shinji, Asuka, Masato, Gendo and Rei. with their emotions, thoughts and back-stories all being presented with the themes (the ones previously mentioned above) in mind. Alongside two persistent themes, loss. How they deal or have dealt with this loss, and the other, to what entity they lost those people to; the Angels i.e. God. Circling back to the components of story to world building, characters to themes.
Neon Genesis Evangelion is NOT an entertaining anime, it IS however an experience. One which makes you think about your own worth and being. Creating different experiences through what you see and find in the themes of the anime through each sit. It might not be for everyone but I do highly recommend it to everyone. Just like; Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell, Trigun and Akira are recommended to new people to anime, I want NGE added to that list.