Review of Neon Genesis Evangelion
First and foremost, I would like to call for an end to the use of the phrase “mind f***” when describing this anime. I guess it is mostly attributed to the ending that was really just a mangled regurgitation of a few ideas from an introductory psychology course. “I am the me that exists in your mind”…give me a break. Story (6/10): Monsters called angels come from space to attack humanity. Their best bet is to use supernatural mecha called Eva that can only be piloted by teenagers to stop these attacks. The majority of the episodes fluctuate between fighting whatever random angel that comes thatday and trying to live normal lives. Sound like an awful episodic structure that would fail in any poorly choreographed action series? You're right it is terrible. And worse, the stark contrast between these two states is painful.
As you have read or seen, there are hidden agendas and motives behind the characters and organizations in the series that get revealed little by little after each episode. This is one the few bright spots that this series has to offer and allowed me to retain interest in the series. Unfortunately, the end of the road is unrewarding to say the least.
You also may have read about religious references used in the show. None of these are relevant to the characters or story so they are really just trying to make the series seem more complicated than it really is. Don’t get bogged down trying to pay attention for them.
Characters(6/10):
Contrary to the beliefs of many, the main problem in this category is not that the characters are static. It comes down to interactions between the characters. I’d say that there is way too much explicit analysis of each character’s faults. Nearly all of the dialogue in this series outside of battle scenes involves either a character’s faults being criticized by themselves or another character. These criticisms make for some of the most melodramatic moments ever and I typically am a fan of melodrama (NANA and Geass ftw).
The characters were not static. Shinji, the main character, made changes to himself quite frequently and improved in some areas, but sheltered his main fault to the end. That is a route that isn’t seen often in this industry. Some characters got worse and worse matching the dark themes of the series . Others meant to be mysterious left us with more questions than answers…kudos.
I think it is worth mentioning that the removal of Asuka from this series may improve the score of this series by 2 pts…just think about it.
Artwork/Animation (7/10):
The dark and powerful vibe from the eva paired with slimed down armor schemes with vibrant colors makes for the best mecha designs I have seen. The battle scenes however are extremely repetitive and lack general movement and choreography. For the most part, one eva pilot will try to attack the angel and will get immediately defeated. Then there will be a stupid sequence of scenes that ultimately exposes a lame weakness in the angel resulting in one of the pilots saving the day. All in the blink of an episode. Eva are apparently best suited for hand to hand combat, too bad they can’t animate this, so it rarely happens. Fortunately for us, the diverse camera shots that they use during these sequences are really cinematic, and a nice battle music selection amps the scenes up a bit as well. When the scene is set in the school or at home the artwork and animation was inconsistent and lazy.
Overall Reaction:
If there were budget problems with this series why not halve the number of angels fought and not waste my time with lame fight sequences. Most of the time spent in the slice of life settings were used for poor comedic purposes and did not develop the characters. Why not halve that time as well.
This series is noteworthy for having some new psychological and mystery elements in a mecha series, but it is paired with a boring repetitive vehicle of a plot that just manages to crawl to the end of the series. The ending is not a mind f*** moment...more of a f*** up moment that could have been handled much better had they spent maybe a little time on the script. The dialogue is bad, the music and art solid. The action sequences lackluster. Watch with caution.
Overall Score: 6/10