Neon Genesis: Evangelion - Hideaki Anno
This groundbreaking TV show is so hard to describe. On one hand it is what the title says – battle mechs – but on another it’s about what it means to be human. In some ways Hideaki Anno (Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo & Love & Pop), nails this weird juxtaposition but in others he completely misses the mark.
We follow Shinji Ikari, voiced by Spike Spencer (Redline & Supa Pirate Booty Hunt), as he grapples with the normal adolescent stuff overlaid with piloting one of the robots to save humanity. The story also follows his attempt to deal with the deeply fractured relationship with his father and the question of what it means to be human himself.
Start Late & Leave Early
This is a mantra of writers when looking to get better pacing out of their scripts. The idea is that you want to start as far into the story or scene that you can and leave as early as you can. The rest is just filler. The creative team do not disappoint here. Episode one opens well into the war with the angels. There is zero back story. This is the ordinary world. We are left guessing and trying to piece together what is going on with the titbits we are tossed.
There is reference to Three Children and the Third Children (I think that the grammar is off intentionally) and then we meet Shinji our would be pilot who decides to fight the angels even though he has never been in a mech and has just been chosen – hesitant hero – you betcha.
It is not until episode 14 that we get all caught up when they re-cap all of the previous angel attacks. Or are we all caught up? Read more in the sections at the end about the Overarching Story and the Meta Plot.
Powerful Enemies
At the start of episode 2 Shinji has just jumped in his mech for the first time and our blood is pumping with him – ready for a big fight. This is why we started watching this show right? And bam the fight is over – Shinji lost. End of story.
We should have expected instantaneous defeat when all the technicians were surprised when Shinji could make the machine walk. But talk about anti-climatic.
Then the rest of the episode happens along a completely different story line and – BAM – we’re back in the fight. And just kidding Shinji didn’t get smoked – HE WON!!! This is some beautiful editing and storytelling at its best – meeting expectations in unexpected ways.
The power of the angels is re-enforced throughout the story from the direct attacks to the worldwide destruction we learn about later on in the show.
The Eva Pilots
The Rei Enigma
We meet Rei Ayanami, voiced by Amanda Winn Lee (Blue Seed & Persona Q), early on in the series and she is enigmatic from the start. She is the First Child and pilots an Eva alongside Shinji.
She is portrayed as a submissive schoolgirl and is completely dead-pan. This leads to some extremely hilarious and shocking moments with some of the things she says.
In episode 23 we learn that Rei is a clone and that NERV has almost infinite copies of her ready to go. It may be worthwhile re-examining the fights and Rei’s survival because of this fact – it is possible that she did actually die more than once. This also makes Rei valueless to NERV.
In this same episode we start to see more of the real Rei. She says: “I’m probably the third one.” Which is heartbreaking if you think about it. She knows she is a clone and therefore valueless so she must question the sincerity of Gendo’s affection.
She also comes out with an odd comment in this episode about the EVAs and Adam: “We found God [Adam] and were punished and made god in our image [the EVAs].”
Asuka's Problems
Asuka Langely Soryu, voice by Tiffany Grant (Gekijouban Fairy Tail: Houou no miko & Tokyo Magunichudo 8.0), is a headstrong Eva pilot. She is the Second Child. She is from the US and has all the stereotypical traits to match.
She is unchangeable throughout the series with her single goal to be better than the other pilots. Her single goal and two-dimensionality lead to some great moments.
Episode 22 reveals the real Asuka to us. We see the reason she wants to be the best and why she wants everyone to like her. And when she can no longer interface with her EVA she has nothing left to live for and has a complete mental breakdown. Asuka’s transformation is handled with skill and the creative team take the time to let us wallow in her despair.
Shinji's Problems
Rei and Asuka’s issues are nothing on Shinji. He is an emotional wreck. We see him break down time and time again. This stems from the extremely poor relationship that he has with his father, Gendo.
The relationship between father and son is strained from the word go and I felt it very odd that Shinji didn’t live with Gendo. Instead he moves in with Misato Katsuragi, voiced by Allison Keith (Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance & Full Metal Panic!).
Misato becomes his guardian and their home life is odd as Misato is his superior on base but is completely unreliable at home – gets drunk all the time. Misato is one of my favourite characters in this show. She is dogged and great at her job. She is powerful and emotional. She is supportive of Shinji and also lets him down. She is human in all her contradictions.
In episode 4 Shinji runs away from the program – the stress is too much. But he is brought back – he must defend humanity. After this Misato starts forcing him to share his feelings with her – realising that he is just going to explode if he doesn’t. This leads to some fantastic moments and their relationship is brilliant.
Strange Relationship With His Father
As touched on previously Shinji and Gendo have a bizarre relationship. It is cold and tense, to begin with this feels that it may be because of the power differential of their roles at NERV. All of their interaction is under the guise of these roles – so perhaps there isn’t much of an opportunity.
This doesn’t last long. From episode 5 Shinji starts calling Gendo out directly. Oddly enough Rei is the only person who takes real offence to these outbursts. She idolises Gendo and cannot comprehend how Shinji cannot she the man she can. Her reaction is doubly weird – in taking offense – when she let Shinji grope her earlier in the episode without hardly batting an eyelid.
There is an elephant in the room – literally – and perhaps it is this that is driving Gendo’s plans and his relationship with his son. In episode 24 we learn that he has a growth on his hand – with an eye and he regularly talks to it. We thought he was talking to himself up until this point.
Machines Or Creatures
From the word go we know that the EVAs are not your normal Mechs. There is an integration process between the pilots and the EVA, hinting that that are sentient themselves as they can reject integration. We see this with Asuka later in the series. The pilots have to be immersed in an embryonic soup called LCL to be able to integrate.
In episode 2 we get a glimpse of this physically at the end of the episode where they appear to be living creatures – which leaves you thinking at this point: What is going on? There is a fantastic scene in episode 8 where Shinji loses control of EVA 1. The EVA goes completely berserk. The way it moves changes from robotic to bestial. It is fantastic animation.
In episode 15 we meet Adam (more below) nailed to a cross deep beneath Central Dogma at NERV HQ. It appears to be producing LCL. He resembles an angel. Interestingly Misato refers to it as an EVA when she first sees it raising the question: Are all the EVAs angels?
Even more interesting here is what the EVAs represents story wise. At any one time it is two entities – the EVA itself and the pilot dominating it. In the case of EVA 1 it is three entities. The third entity is EVA 1 is Shinji’s mother who merged with the EVA years ago.
EVAs VS Angels
In episode 16 the EVAs are confirmed to be copies of Adam by the head of the science division at NERV. Interestingly Misato immediately questions the validity, not believing that they could all be copies of Angel 1. More importantly now she asks the question that has been hinted at since episode 1: What is NERV going to do once all the angels are defeated?
In episode 19 we see, for the first time, the angel ‘heart’ pieces present in all the EVAs. In the same episode EVA 1 goes completely bestial – down on all fours. It feasts on the fallen angel like a predator. It is attempting to incorporate the angel’s S drive into itself. The vision of its head perking up at a noise in the distance and its eyes turning from white to red is haunting.
Great Filmic Moments
There are some fantastic moments throughout this show. Some of these have already been talked about above. The first fight with Shinji is great at building our suspense.
In episode 4 after Shinji is kicked out by Misato he goes to board the train while we know that she is rushing to stop him. The way this is animated makes us wait until after the train has left for us to see him standing on one side of the platform and her on the other, re-united. Masterful.
In episode 20 EVA 1 attempts to merge with Shinji. This is an entirely internal process. I mean all that there is to see physically is the LCL sludge and Shinji in his primordial state sloshing about – not very entertaining. But internally this struggle between Shinji and the EVA and his mother – wow. Now that puts a spin on the enticements that the EVA offers him. The animation captures this spectacularly in a way that live action probably would have been unable to achieve.
Symbols Of Faith
I ummed and ahhhed about writing this section at all but the show is littered so heavily with religious symbols that I couldn’t just ignore them. The first thing are the names that are used. Angels for the creatures that are attacking the humans. They are wholly other-worldly and could actually be angels after we learn what is really going on at NERV and with the secret council.
Adam as the monstrous first angel that brought all our suffering with the first impact – huge reference to the fall. I would say that the angels and Adam have much deeper meaning than the names the humans chose to give them.
Misato’s jewellery throughout the show is always of Christian iconography. There are references to the Angel of Death in episode 8 after EVA 1 goes berserk. The seventh angel is literally the ying-yang symbol.
In episode 14 Gendo reveals that the events are all as prophesised in the Dead Sea Scrolls – which is obviously not correct but cool reference none-the-less.
Slow Reveal Of The Overarching Story
The way that we are brought in on the story is well done. As discussed in the intro they throw us in the deep end. We have the Council of Seels drip feeding us information through their discussions with Gendo, in the early part of the story, and amongst themselves later on.
Episode 3 is a history lesson at the pilots’ school about the second impact where a meteor hit the Antarctic and almost wiped out humanity. In episode 6 we learn that this was actually Adam – the first Angel – and the whole story was a cover up.
Episode 21 gives us the full story. We get an explanation of how the EVAs came to be. How Adam fits in. The council’s position is explained and we get the back story of how Gendo rose to power at NERV. So much information in this episode and it impressively told in only 20 minutes.
The Secret Council & The Meta Plot
As discussed above the story is brought to us slowly and when you get it all you will be glad they did – it would have been such a huge amount of exposition even I probably would have tuned out. We get early on that NERV is working to some overall plan put in place by the Council of Seels.
We first meet them in episode 2 and it is revealed that they are the power behind NERV and about something called the Human Instrumentality Project. They order Gendo not to push back the timetable due to the angels arrival. This leads to the question about what the EVAs were for if not to fight the Angels?
Every meeting raises more questions – What is the end goal? There is also a power struggle going on between the Council and Gendo.
In episode 22 there is an angel attack that the EVAs cannot engage because it is attacking from orbit. This forces, or allows, Gendo to use the spear of Longinus. They defeat the angel with this weapon but there is no way for them to retrieve it. While this is very exciting on the surface what is much more interesting is what is happening behind the scenes in regards to these decisions. First, the spear of Longinus was the only thing holding Adam at bay, speared to the cross under NERV HQ.
By having to use the spear they have to release Adam, which changes the time frame and perhaps the whole end game of the Human Instrumentality Project. Perhaps, with the back story of Gendo now revealed, this was his plan all along.
In episode 24 the fifth child arrives, many suspect that he is a spy for the council. He meets Adam and calls it Lilith and says ‘Ah, so that’s your plan’ – I wish he would let us know what the plan is.
The End
Episode 25 opens with interesting self-interrogation of the pilots. Then everyone is just dead. There is talk of merging all hearts. From what I gathered from the mess that these last two episodes are: The message appears to be that the world influences you and you influence it so you need to have certainty and faith in yourself.
And then it kinda just ends. There is no explanation about what actually happened or what the spear was for (perhaps just to trap Adam/Lilith). I can see why this ending was re-made. This was such a let down.
Things That Don't Work
There is very little in this show that is an issue for me. It hits all the right notes. It balances well between been just another mecha and existential drivel. I say drivel because that is really what the last two episode are. Up until this point we’ve been wondering what the go is with the EVAs and the angels. What is Gendo’s plot? What is the Council’s plot?
None of this gets answered. Instead we are left with some airy messages. This could have been super tight and sweet but I guess sometimes people miss the mark. Also, there is a sex scene with Misato at the end of episode 20. It just goes on too long. You know the feeling that you have when you watch sex scenes in a movie with your parents? Well this had those sort of vibes – just because it went on so long it became awkward.
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