Review of Neon Genesis Evangelion
specified score: 9.6 EVA is epic, because it provides intricate personalities, experiences and fates for every character based on its brand new setting, narrative and innovative Enshutsu (演出). However, this is not the main reason that other animes cannot surpass EVA. It is unique because it perfectly combines all "entertainment elements" before EVA, like Conspiracy theory, Robots, panic and self-awareness, Si-Fi, apocalypse, anime girls with certain mystery and eccentric behaviors. The only flaw is that it seems it refuses to give profound answer to its theme. I love its style. I am impressed by composition of still frame with highlight of light and shadow, and sophisticated-designed background conveyingstrong psychological impact of characters to audiences. I remember there is a shot of big ward with only a bed in the middle in a small portion of the shot, while other part is fill with grey light, which expresses an extremely depressed emotion of main character who just wake up out of his nightmare. There is another impressive shot. Instead of making a conversation with general shot and reverse shot, it only displays a still frame with two characters in the same shot, and one is under bright light and the other one is in the dark, this high-contrasted division of a frame implicitly indicates the relationship of two characters and underlying meaning of their dialogues. Shinji is in the dark side--implies his cowardice, disturbance, despair and decadence, as a dichotomy to that Misato is in the bright side--implies encouragement, hope, and determination. Also, there are some appropriate and subtle application of techniques. Character is in the foreground with distorted perspective which enlarges the background, audiences can directly feel the rage of the character generated by visual impact. i can still show more examples, you can talk more about this by message me. By the way, just watch the animes before EVA, few of them can really show emotion of characters via creating a particular environment (or, more cinematic, via mise-en-scence) .
narrative has unique style and also emphasize the emotion of character. I remember there are more than 3 episodes merely talking about the "world" in mind of one character, it is totally new and crazy at that time. In episode 17, the entire episode doesn't mention anything about Touji Suzuhara in the cockpit, rather descride emergency of outside situation and struggle of Shinji to make audiences feeling nervous as characters in that anime world. Since audiences don't know anything about Touji Suzuhara, so they are eager to know what happens to Touji Suzuhara, and this feeling transfers audiences' point of view from audience outside the anime world to "void" character in anime world--audience itself become an character in the anime world. What audience cares and knows is the same as the other characters, right?
about thought, i believe it talks about the unknowable yet close relationship among people and how the world is too absurd to grasp. This theme is similar to what Camus discusses, i suggest you can read his books and then watch EVA again.