Review of Neon Genesis Evangelion
This is about the evangelion TV series. The original TV run of 26 episodes without any special editions, recuts, director's cuts, alternate reality endings, more funding endings, better endings, re-envisioned script TV movies. This is about Hideaki Anno's mindfuck acid trip that people seem to call an excellent anime, despite it being a mishmash of bad ideas, terrible plot, and has been redone more than Lucas's Star Wars franchise. At the heart of this is Shinji. A loathsome coward of a man who is perhaps the biggest pussy in anime--he has zero redeeming character traits and when he starts to build up some, he pisses it awayand make us wish we could strangle him. He is not an identifiable character, we're supposed to hate him, I guess. Shinji gets conscripted by Shotacon Misato (if she were to fuck Rei, Shinji, and Asuka while they were in her apartment, at least the anime would be more plausible) to pilot his daddy's giant robot/mutant thing. This is because post-apocalyptic (taking a creative view of Revelations) Japan has been attacked by angels.
That's right. The end of the world isn't some place in Israel, but Japan. And Shinji needs to pilot the bioweapon Evangelion (called Neon because they come in cool 1990s neon paint schemes and hammer pants) against the "angels" who are waging all sorts of physical, psychological, and biological warfare against humanity because Gendo (Shinji's dad) has stocked something away from them in his NERV complex under Tokyo and is using kids with their neon robots to protect.
The plot doesn't make sense. Although the show retcons meaning into the last episodes, there's NO FUCKING WAY they knew what was going on when they started to make it, and it seems like when they finally settled on a plot, they ran with it, neglecting the plot holes they made.
The characters are loathsome as well. Gendo is just a dick. He hates his son, sacrificed his wife, has no sympathy for anything or anyone (as is told by a sidestory how he screws around with the women he works with). Asuka is just a screwed up girl. Self loathing, tortured, unstable, and has a daddy's complex for her handler Kaji (so he's a lolicon). She has all the charm of a molested girl turned stripper.
Rei, the bloody and beaten "heroine" is as much of an albino in her personality as her appearance. Bland, creepy, emotionless. Dying all the time, but what do we care about someone with no personality.
Misato, as described before, is a whore--shamelessly parading her sexuality before Shinji, using it as leverage at NERV and essentially selling herself out. Eerily it's not done in the typical amusing anime fashion, but a creepy pathological criminal fashion as to someone who has no other way to express her feelings of fear and love which also destroys any sympathy she may have had. And then there's Ritsuko. Mommy's girl. She's essentially a blonde Misato who hates the kids more than Gendo does.
The music is a cacophony of orchestrations that sound like lion seals being raped to the banging of drums. The Evangelions are actually clever mecha designs, and their appearance is intentionally primeaval and terrifying. The animation quality is decent for the time.
What kills Evangelion is the premise that we're supposed to know what's going on (whether through retconning of the plot or just loose associations with Kaballah--pure shit--and Revelations). Except that the writers never did their homework. Add to that the two finale episodes which seem like the production staff ran out of money, Anno had a nervous breakdown, and everyone got shitfaced drunk with a box of crayons and decided to put a shovel in the head of this trainwreck of an anime. The decision to do so spawning more reimaginings, movies, and alternate reality endings...
Save yourself the headache of a show that has no idea where it's going for the first 13 or so episodes, has head trip characters you want to take out back and shoot, and an ending that will leave you exasperated.
I can't understand the appeal of this franchise.
OR WHY IT REFUSES TO DIE.
But odds are you've seen Evangelion already, anyway. Because everyone has seen it. And we're all worse off for it.
If you haven't, see RahXephon. It's Evangelion lite. And the characters are more endearing.
...
PS: I also have an alternate theory. That Evangelion is REALLY about what kind of asshole people stay behind in the world after the Rapture takes all the good people to Heaven.