Review of Neon Genesis Evangelion

It’s only once in a blue moon when you write a review about an anime that felt so mediocre with how have been standards charting so high in present times, but I have to at least give credit that the show is almost 17 years old already, and it was ridiculously low budgeted during those times. There is a single aspect about the show that I’ll have to tackle before I start the review, the fact that I have absolutely no idea how to put it in good terms with the type of standards that we have for current generation shows. But just in case,people should know that people shouldn’t compare a show to other shows (unless it’s just begging to be compared due to the utter shocking display of similarity in themes, sequencing and/or character design), the problem at hand is that standards change over time. If you dare say that you use the standards of today to criticize Neon Genies Evangelion (NGE for short from now on), it would end up a mediocre ‘meh’ to the tickle bone, which would be wrong to describe the show over-all, but if you criticize it in standards that go back to the 90’s, it would be like a relaxing hand-rub to the privates where masturbating hasn’t been invented yet, which is also wrong if you want to describe NGE in its over-all aspect.

So generally speaking, reviewing NGE is going to be different in its aspect because you cannot review it in the conventional sense without it feeling lacking. So I have decided to review it using standardization from both the present time and during the 90’s. It will get confusing from this point onwards, but I would like you to bear with it for the sake of properly understanding that it’s glamorous and at the same time, it’s bland.

To start off, NGE’s overall story is basically a generic foretelling of any other anime that has existed as time tells, but what separates NGE from the other mecha shows out there is the how the characters in in the anime was individually portrayed. The show basically revolves around the protagonist who dislikes becoming a pilot of a giant robot, but was forced by everyone for the sake of the survival of the human race, even if he’s against the idea piloting and/or surviving. The theme depicts also of that of a generic mecha anime as well (being that the protagonist fight giant aliens inside a similarly sized robot), but what makes it stand out from the rest is its other theme (which is basically the psychological part of the story).

With that said, the main problem concerning NGE is its extremely slow paced start when the show begins. It starts off so boring and the boredom doesn’t disappear completely until you reach the part where almost all of the characters are properly introduced, which takes more than half of the whole show sadly. The progression during the first half of the entire show is just so slow, that it’s just not even comparable of that of a sloth, turtle, or a snail, it is Internet Explorer slow. But even so, it at least did try to give us a small portion of character development and some, slightly off, battle scenes that are not as satisfying for the usual mecha standardization chart (but then again, it’s not the usual mecha anime that everybody thinks it should be).

With that said, it at least gave a big impression in the lesser half of the overall show span because the good parts are starting to piece out, pop out, and is starting to shine bright like in that similar song where a precious gleaming gem was commonly pronounced in an annoying tone (what was that, diamonds? I have no idea what you’re talking about). It’s the point of the show where almost all the significant characters were given the most interesting background check and character build-up (in a gaming sense, buffs), but I’m still going to point out that the all the exciting tidbits in the story only showed up during after the half of the whole show which, in my opinion, is still sad to begin with. If you’re probably the type of person that drops shows if it doesn’t get interesting very quickly, you’ll probably drop this faster than a certain comical shady trio speeding in the speed of light and go for a quick surrender without even giving a fight, Meowth that’s right!

But if you did manage to get to the good part of the whole anime, it still depends on your opinion on whether it was really all worth it or not because it’s still questionable to your taste if it was or wasn't delicious. Just to share some things, being in the field of psychology myself, I find the psychological parts of the show just utterly shallow. It’s mostly about teenagers having extreme amount of anxiety, parental issues, identity crisis, and just general insecurity over themselves. Basically, what every teenager face in their so called ‘emo stage’ but only a lot worse than the normal. All of those things could have been easily prevented if they went into some sort of self-help program, which is weird because (POTENTAIL SPOILER WARNING!) the last two episodes was like being in a psychological help center for troubled teenagers (END OF POTENTIAL SPOILER), which was a big facepalm for me because I felt that all these retarded issues could have been managed beforehand during the early-mid of the show but they only did it when the show was about to end (but then again, who am I to dictate how the devs want the anime to go).

There was also the issue where the show went too fast paced in the near end of the whole anime. The devs tried to patched up so much holes near the end that they ended up either missing some holes, or the holes that they tried to patch-up was too big for a brief explanation, leaving people needing a rewatch or two just to fully understand the story (given that the fact that the likelihood of wanting to replay the whole thing is equal or lower than 20% unless you’re a fan-boy of the series, the fan-service and/or moe, or the mecha/psychological genre). But with that been said, I’m continuing to the fact that the good parts of the show was too fast paced. It went so fast that I barely had time to absorb anything that’s happening during the near end without having to pause the damn thing every time they talk, and even with the pausing, it’s still a vague explanation of events overall (that or maybe I just don’t understand sci-fi science, or so help me).

I’m just gonna go through the overall art style quickly because there was nothing special in the art style used in NGE. It was your typical 90’s anime style, with shaky outlines, and dusty feeling of oldness that you can only see when you watch other shows made in the 90’s, like that one show where this guy got an X in his face. But I have to admit that they went through some intense work designing the mechas and the, minimalistic yet well polished, antagonists. Character design in NGE was the usual 90’s character design yet very daring as well. I mean, I have no issue with the male and female character design because it was the typical people design that was being used during the 90’s, but having 14 year olds with proportions of 17 year olds and the protagonist’s senpai being bodacious wasn’t a bad touch, but it gets very unsubtle when they started to show off a lot of skin (fan-service as they say). It even gets harder to explain in front of family members when they start showing off naked girls with missing private parts (I’m no longer going to dictate which episode that was, go find it yourselves).

But what really spiked the show above the charts that made it the standards of its time of being a psychological genre anime of it's time was the character development and presentation of every individual, yet significant characters in the story. I like how the devs managed to make a big impression in the lesser half of the show by showing the viewers how deep and twisted the characters mind is in such a short span, although it was as vague as it was short because they crammed it all in the end and made it look too fast paced. But of all the characters the devs had a car crash with the most, it was probably the protagonist because he had little to no character development in the entirety of the story and the way he was presented (being a wimp and always complaining about being a wimp) was just unpleasant and unsatisfying. His moment to shine was presented during the last two episodes of the show, and even that was too brief to be called an actual wholesome development of the protagonist. But with that been said, the character presentation of all the significant characters in the story, with the big exception of the protagonist, was well presented during the course of the whole show (the reason why the other main characters of the story was more favorable and iconic than the protagonist himself [although I have to admit, it was usually because of the moe, the fan-service, and because the protagonist was not likable in any way that they are more likable]).

I’m going to separate this from the rest because this is the one that pressed my buttons the most, the serious lack of BGM was just screaming at my ear to make me almost drop this show during those boring first halves. You might think that ‘meh, what those BGM make significance over show? Hunga bunga?’ Well my friend, BGM is one of the very things that sets the overall emotion of the scene that you’re in on right now (the other one is how well the character can act the scene). If it wasn’t for BGM, major shows that bring you the hardest feels would just give you a reaction of ‘man, what the heck am I watching?’. It made a major impact at NGE that is just utterly soul crushing because the scenes that compose of mostly drama and feels, felt like an illogical argument of how much the protagonist didn’t want to pilot is cuddly robot.

And that concludes the review. Love it or hate it (or you just didn’t understand), just put on a pretty face and carry on (and on, and on, etc.). Nobody will blame you if you didn’t like it. Nobody will be enthusiastic if you like it. After all, you exist to portray your opinion in your own little world, your world where you exist as the center of it all. Oh, and any reference that was given during the course of the review was all coincidental and accidental at the same time. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to stop this review and start looking for some fan art (whether it’s safe for work or not is still debatable).