Neon Genesis Evangelion – 1 [Angel Attack] – Throwback Thursday

Welcome all to the next series of Throwback Thursday, Neon Genesis Evangelion! Apologies for the late start, I sorta lost track of time this week. Won’t happen again though, because after this I am excited to keep going. Because if nothing else, I know it’s going to look good. Let’s dive in!

Starting off, we need to talk about production, because Evangelion looks gorgeous. I had seen a few clips or screenshots prior to this, but always assumed those were one-offs. Or came from the movie, End of Evangelion. However this entire episode looked really good. From the explosions to the almost organic movement of metal during the Angel’s introduction. Of course its the first episode, so this could easily go downhill from here. But visually its a very strong start. This of course goes for the background art as well. The opening shot of tanks along the bridge is beautiful, as are many of the backdrops. Really, Evangelion is showing off the best of what Cell animation can do. With bright popping colors, all of it with the imperfections that make hand-drawn anime beautiful. Something that is often lacking in modern digital series, sometimes to perfect for their own good.

Getting into the meat of the show, let’s talk about the premise. Evangelion seems to be right after, or at least on the brink of, a post-apocalyptic scenario. With entire cities destroyed and under water, humanity forced into effectively underground bunker cities. Seemingly the only major city left from the looks of it. It also raises a lot of questions, such as what are the Angels and where did they come from. Some kind of alien seems most likely, what with this being a giant robot mecha series. Still, for a first episode, its a pretty good setup that gets us right into the meat of the conflict. Not wasting time with mass exposition at the start. Sadly we have to suspend our disbelief a bit, what with this being almost 2020 and Evangelion taking place in 2015. But that is a relatively small ask in my eyes.

Moving on from that we get to our first and lead character, Shinji! I have no idea if I will like Shinji or not this early to be honest. He seems a bit like a whiny brat to me. On the other hand though, Evangelion managed to tell us a lot about him and his father’s relationship in a really short span of time. And boy, is that not a great relationship. Because from what I got from it, Shinji’s father Gendo is not only a complete ass, but also doesn’t care about Shinji at all. Effectively viewing him only as a tool, something that is either useful, or forgotten about. Basically abandoning him for 3 years until he needs Shinji to be the “Third Child” for his Mecha project. And the sad part about all of this is that Shinji apparently knows it to.

As we can see through his reactions to the whole thing that he knows why his father left. Not the specifics of NERV of course, but how his father views him. And to me he seems torn about how to react to this. On one hand, he doesn’t appreciate being summoned after 3 years just to pilot a giant robot. Just to be a tool his father can use. On the other hand though, he seems to still yearn for that parental approval. He seems to still want his father to think well of him, to think him useful. That he dislikes that his father thinks he is useless, and reacts negatively when his father dismisses him after being unwilling to get in the Evangelion unit. Im looking forward to where this relationship goes as the series progresses, and hope it doesn’t disappoint.

Next up we have some of our side characters, Misato and Rei. Misato appears at first to be a very superficial and surface level sort of person. Worrying about car payments and her clothes in the face of world ending giant monsters. Even forgetting or losing Shinji when she was supposed to pick him up, and getting him caught in an explosion. Or forgetting how to navigate her own supposed workplace. It’s also almost contradictory to me how she seemed to do a 180 on Shinji piloting the robot. At first thinking it ridiculous that he should have to do it. But showing no qualms about forcing him into it after he shows he can manipulate it. So far, I am interpreting this as some serious selfishness, like “get in the robot to save me” because it was seemingly never about Shinji. Just his ability.

Meanwhile we have Rei, who appeared on screen only twice and for a very short time each. The first time we see her is during what looks like a hallucination by Shinji? In the streets of the city. Maybe some kind of weird psychic connection, since he controls the robot with his mind? The second time we see her though is near the end, when she is brought in to replace Shinji. We only see her for a short time, but Evangelion does a decent job with her. Showing how beat up she is, yet still willing to get into the robot. Really dedicated to her job. That or some kind of twisted “master/servant” relationship with Gendo. Regardless, it’s a decent enough reason to get Shinji in the robot.

So, all in all, how was the first episode of Evangelion? Well almost paradoxically, both more and less ground was covered than I thought. What I mean is, I thought we would be fighting monsters in the first episode, and technically we are. What with nukes and planes and such. But that wasn’t the focus of the episode, that being Shinji and the characters. In a short amount of time, a lot was established about these characters and their relationships with each other. I have no idea how good these will end up being of course. But its an impressively dense opening regardless. Yet it never felt dense, and I was having fun the whole way through. Pacing the Angel’s ramage well to keep me visually engaged through all the talky bits. So yeah, long story short, good first episode and looking forward to more.

Make sure to leave me some comments and follow along, I will see you next week!