End of Evangelion Anime Review – 86/100 – Throwback Thursday

During my previous review of Neon Genesis Evangelion, I criticised it for a lot of things. The tanked production value as the series ran on and Studio Gainax ran out of funding/time. Anno’s often insane direction or story, which sometimes made sense and sometimes didn’t. Most of all though, I criticised it for it’s ending, which effectively left Evangelion as a slightly disappointing unfinished product. But what would happen if Gainax… didn’t run out of time? If Anno had another chance after the original divisive ending? What if they just made two, completely new 40 minute episodes to replace it? Well ladies and gentleman, that’s how you get End of Evangelion. Is this finale to the fabled series a roar, to replace its previous whimper? Does it make any more sense than the TV finale? Will Shinji get in the damn robot? Let’s dive in and find out.

And one last thing! There will be spoilers so we can talk about the work in its entirety, both the TV series and End of Evangelion, no vagueness here. You have been warned.

(Disclaimer: I am working to make 50 the new “average”. 70 is not an average score people. 70 is above average. Carry on.) Continue reading “End of Evangelion Anime Review – 86/100 – Throwback Thursday”

Neon Genesis Evangelion Anime Review – 77/100 – Throwback Thursday

It’s not often that I get to review seminal works in a medium. I read and watch them often. Vagabond, Monster and Berserk are some of my favorite manga. Meanwhile Fullmetal Alchemist is perhaps the epitome of Shounen. But not once have I thought I could, and should, transcribe my thoughts about them into a single review. To boil down my feelings on them to a scant 4,000 or so words and a final, numerical score. Yet here I am having to do the same for a work arguably more important than any of the ones I mentioned previously. A work so universally known in the community that its like Japan’s Star Wars. I am of course talking about Neon Genesis Evangelion (Director’s Cut), directed by Hideaki Anno and made by the now fallen from grace Studio Gainax. With that, there is no point to dawdling anymore. Let’s dive in.

And one last thing! An End of Evangelion review will soon follow this. I am aware it completes the story, but this review is for the TV anime and that alone. I have not watched it yet. The movie will cover everything and how it completes the series as a whole. Also there will be spoilers so we can talk about the work in its entirety, minimal vagueness here. You have been warned.

(Disclaimer: I am working to make 50 the new “average”. 70 is not an average score people. 70 is above average. Carry on.) Continue reading “Neon Genesis Evangelion Anime Review – 77/100 – Throwback Thursday”

Neon Genesis Evangelion – 25/26 – Throwback Thursday

I had a lot of expectations going in to Neon Genesis Evangelion’s ending. After episode 24, I was sure that no matter what happened, it would at least be decent. We would learn about the Angels, Seele, the Scrolls. Maybe get a big fight with the Seele Eva Units mentioned before and complete some great character arcs. Sadly, only one of those things came true, at the expense of everything else. So how about we just jump in to what is going to be the most rant-style post I will ever make on this site, eh?

Right off the bat, I have to say, what the fuck did I just watch. Normally I go over each episode independently, but 25 and 26 together are just a joint “what the fuck”. It’s hard for me to even write coherent paragraphs here, because all I want to do is scream bullshit, but I will try my best. So first up, the good. This ending at least manages to tie up Shinji, Asuka and Rei’s characters. Not in a terribly satisfactory way mind you, as we basically sit through an hour of internal monologue from Shinji, but it does it. We see Shinji finally come to accept that he was pushing people away, self-attributing a lot of his worst traits. He believed that no one could accept him and in doing so turned it into a self-fulfilling prophecy as he looked for one-side relationships like Kaworu. Everything else though…

Continue reading “Neon Genesis Evangelion – 25/26 – Throwback Thursday”

Neon Genesis Evangelion – 23/24 – Throwback Thursday

Ladies and Gentlemen, things are starting to get weird, well weirder, as Neon Genesis Evangelion enters its endgame. I don’t even know what to write as an introduction to the post anymore, because anything I could say is a spoiler. So instead, how about we jump right into it?

Now I have talked about Evangelion’s production enough, so let’s dive right into episode 23, Tears. I want to say that this episode was pretty straight forward, but that seems like a mistake this far into the series. So instead I will say I liked it and think I understand what all went down. At the very least the first half is straight forward, focusing in on the fallout of the past few episodes. Whether that be Misato still grieving for Kaji or Asuka falling deeper and deeper into her depression. I thought Evangelion did good by its characters here, really giving their relationships weight by how they treat these revelations. Meanwhile Asuka’s failures continue to have consequences as she can’t even properly sync with her Eva Unit anymore. Losing the one thing that she had based her worth on. Nothing particularly complex here, but done well nonetheless.

Continue reading “Neon Genesis Evangelion – 23/24 – Throwback Thursday”

Neon Genesis Evangelion – 21/22 – Throwback Thursday

Welcome to this weeks episode of Neon Genesis Evangelion, as presented by the History channel. This week we get into the history of one major character and multiple tertiary characters. Touching on everything from the origin of Angels to Asuka’s family! So without further ado, lets dive in.

Starting off, we have an infamous scene I want to look at this week. You know it, I know it, everyone knows it, it’s the elevator. And my opinion is… it’s not as bad as people joke. I understand what Anno was going for here, portraying the awkward silence between these two characters. Showing rather than telling, until eventually Asuka cracks, since Rei never would. That makes sense. However, it’s not near as brilliant as the supporters say, it serves its purpose. The issue though is that this was an incredibly dull 50 seconds of a mostly static image. Nothing really happened to break it up, excluding Asuna coughing once. There was no elevator music to keep someone even slightly invested. It just say there, until the viewer checked their stream/video to make sure it hadn’t froze. So from a narrative standpoint it works, but entertainmentwise it fails miserably.

Continue reading “Neon Genesis Evangelion – 21/22 – Throwback Thursday”

Neon Genesis Evangelion – 19/20 – Throwback Thursday

Well ladies and gentleman, there isn’t any easy way to say this, but strap in. This week of Neon Genesis Evangelion is going to be a long one, because shit went down. There is no other way to put that, so let’s just get right into it.

Starting off we need to talk about the production because Evangelion was very divisive on that this week. On one hand, 19’s animation and direction was fantastic. I loved how it paralleled shots from earlier in the series when Shinji left. Except this time he is more sure of himself, he has a real reason for it and is assertive on the matter. Meanwhile the movements of the EVA unit were bestial and organic, terrifyingly so. It was one of, if not the, best episode of the series so far. On the other hand though, 20 was very weird and often difficult to follow. I understand the point, Shinji was having a bit of an episode. However a lot of it was difficult to follow and often just outright weird. There were some interesting repeating motifs, such as the train that Toji saw, but overall it wasn’t great.

Continue reading “Neon Genesis Evangelion – 19/20 – Throwback Thursday”

Neon Genesis Evangelion – 17/18 – Throwback Thursday

There were a lot of directions Neon Genesis Evangelion could have gone this week. But I have to say, this one was one of the more unexpected ones. As this week we meet the Fourth Child, get another EVA unit and have Gendo destroy any chance of reconciling with Shinji. Sounds like a good time right? Let’s dive in!

Starting off, I want to give credit where credit is due. Evangelion had some fantastic English dub across these episodes. So much so I actually had to stop at the start of 18 to check that I wasn’t watching an English dub. They got legitimately full english speakers to deliver those lines, and I love that. I love the willingness to go the extra mile for just a few lines, when most anime would give us Engrish. And that isn’t to knock against Engrish much, it’s not their native language and they do what they can. Limitations of a localized production, I get that. It’s just when I do see the extra mile attempted, it’s something I think is worth pointing out. Evangelion could easily have just had Japanese there, and I wouldn’t have notice. Instead I got this, and it makes me happy. Now, onto the meat!

Continue reading “Neon Genesis Evangelion – 17/18 – Throwback Thursday”

Neon Genesis Evangelion – 15/16 – Throwback Thursday

It only took 16 episodes, a couple of close calls and an odd recap, but Neon Genesis Evangelion has finally entered weird territory. There really is no other way to put it without getting into the nitty gritty. So let’s just jump straight into this weeks double feature.

Starting off we have Episode 15, Lies and Silence. This was largely a more Slice of Life style episode, really focusing in on Evangelion’s characters. The problem with this though is that without any major conflict, it really showed just how weak some of its characters are. Rei for instance was always and continues to be just lifeless. Devoid of almost any purpose or emotion behind what she does. I have suspicions for why this is that we will get into later. But regardless of if they are true or not, she simply isn’t particularly interesting nor can she hold a scene on her own. Similarly this week also shows us the worst parts of Asuka’s character and just how annoying she can be. Episode 16 continued this, with a tad more context yes, but she wasn’t particularly enjoyable to put up with.

Continue reading “Neon Genesis Evangelion – 15/16 – Throwback Thursday”

Neon Genesis Evangelion – 13/14 – Throwback Thursday

Another week, another double feature of Neon Genesis Evangelion. This was an odd pair, as our lead 3 actually take backseat for the most part. Being largely irrelevant to the goings on and events up until the end of episode 14. Meanwhile the Angels figure out a new way to attack, Ritsuko gets some backstory and Rei goes on an acid trip. So lets dive in!

Starting off, lets just hop right in to episode 13, An Angel’s Invasion. This was pretty interesting actually, as Evangelion introduces us to a new kind of Angel. One that works like a computer, or a series of small nanobots. It really calls into question exactly what the Angels are. As up until now, we have only seen them as giant monsters, something an Eva unit is required to fight. Yet here we see something that the Eva units couldn’t hope to defeat, something that attacks computers and code. Of course it’s not perfect, there are a lot of questions about whether or not such a thing would even work. After all, its apparently some sort of airborne replicating virus, evolving to deal with whatever is attacking it. If it were made just to kill humans, it would have won easily. But instead it somehow knew about the Magi. How?

Continue reading “Neon Genesis Evangelion – 13/14 – Throwback Thursday”

Neon Genesis Evangelion – 11/12 – Throwback Thursday

You know, I’m normally pretty critical of Neon Genesis Evangelion, it has a long and storied history to live up to. But this week’s double feature lived up to that. Focusing in on Misato and Shinji, giving Gendo some much needed characterization with some good fights on the side. So without further ado, let’s jump in.

Starting off, Evangelion continues to look pretty good. We got some more of Anno’s weird longing stills in certain places. But either they worked better or I am getting used to them. Like a weird sort of Stockholm Syndrome. That said, the fights we got this week looked pretty freakin great. I will always love the fluid movements of the Eva units, making them more like living beings than machines. And the Angels lead to some pretty novel “fights”. Meanwhile, I am starting to get in to the VA work. Kotono Mitsuishi is doing some great work as Misato, and Shinji is starting to let Megumi Ogata show some more emotion. Meanwhile Asuka is also toning down the “Tsun” part of her “Dere”. The only real issue I have is Rei, who is just flat and lifeless. Sort of the point, but not pleasant when she talks.

Continue reading “Neon Genesis Evangelion – 11/12 – Throwback Thursday”