NEON GENESIS: EVANGELION (1995) + THE END OF EVANGELION (1997) - Full Series and Film Takes

 

Ok, I'll have a cookie... 

Yep, I finally got this one in my system, and I think I'm partially glad I waited as long as I did.  Not because I like feeling left out of intensive Anime discussions with friends (I didn't always realize I was left out until a title like this came up and I would have to declare ignorance), but because of the radical approach to storytelling mixed with harrowing haunting and affecting emotional landscape conjured by Hideko Anno and his team of animators and writers.  This is all about self doubt and crippling low self esteem, directly in spite of Shinji's incredible and seemingly one-of-a-kind abilities with fusing with his Eva (there's... a lot to how this work, it might become cumbersome to explain how it all works here in the framework of high-concept science fiction/fantasy/action based Anime). 

So, as I watched the show and then the movie (I saw the final episode right before the "The End of Evangelion," as you do), I wrote as I watched piece by piece.  So... here goes:

Oh boy, Shinji, here it comes again... inside the not-at-all fractured and disturbed parts of your mind and heart...... 

(FIRST FEW EPISODES)

"This is Tokyo-3. This is our city. And... it's the city that you protected."

Well, guess I gotta do this right (before I get to the "End" of Evangelion, which is some hours of viewing away), and it's been mildly on my radar for quite a long time - not least of which thanks to my students in my Animation Cinema class who have hyped this up a bit.

I'm more overjoyed than anything that I can log this on here; somehow feels a little more legit in my scattered OCD consciousness. Oh, and it is pretty dope right off the bat we get to see this Young Man Shinji get the Hero's Call to Action be... operating a giant Eva, because who else can (what is an Eva? To a layman it's kind if like a more organically designed Jaeger from the Pacific Rim movies... wait, you don't even know what a Jaeger means, do you - or some of you are shaking your head like "Jack, no, just....no, stop," and okay I will). Point is, my introduction to the "Nerv" organization is off to a promising start!

I will just say that right off the bat I'm immediately taken with the art style that emphasizes the vast scale of these super beings that withstand the efforts of the horrible militaristic governing forces at wiping it out though nuclear means. 

I'm sure more will be revealed as to the true intentions on both sides, but my instinct is to distrust those government characters who have turned the cities we are shown into dilapidated rubble - and their "Ace in the Hole" is a big bust - and to see the creature as someone protecting itself. Not to mention, the character designs and color palettes are wonderful. When Shinji is facing off against one of "the Angels" in episode 2, his suit is colored mostly purple with a little green, and it's an excellent contrast with the dark black night sky and harsh gray buildings. And my goodness, that edit from the battle to Shinji alone in that white hospital room is ::chefs kiss::

Also impressive, though in a way that makes me kind of cock an eyebrow: when Shinji goes over to her ("Ma'am" as Shinji calls her and she doesn't like) apartment and everything gets big and broad with the comedic interactions - there's a big nude joke involving the discovery of a, uh, sort of pet penguin but with lots of stuff all over its head and face, and I had to smile but didn't laugh - that I was not expecting. On the other hand, it is good that not everything is dark and dire right away. The show had a good sense of how to make things tonally varied. At the same time, what's so striking are images of pain and trauma, like the injured girl that Shinji keeps seeing.

And for episode 3... Shinji gets his ass kicked by that one-eyed tentacle-whipping Angel fierce. Good. The writers on this show know well that he's got to start from somewhere, and that's from a position of not being able to handle a giant weird-ass Angel alien beast - and when he finally flips out and gets *mad* it is... wildly satisfying in a kind of primal level.

I think I have a good little project ahead for myself this summer....

"I'm sorry, I don't know how I should act like this."

"Smiling would be a good start."

Episodes 4, 5 6 and 7 - actually I watched 4 and part of 5 on Sunday, but I was so baked on a gummy I had to rewatch 5 from the start, TMI but whatever, I share what I can for you good Letterboxd people. I will note that what I saw of 4, even high as a kite, was an even greater stylistic, surrealistic leap from even the first three episodes. The precise direction and patience in telling parts of the story that other shows or creators might have sped through was a small revelation.

Then 5 and 6 brings us even more into Shinji's confrontation and eventual bonding with a young female pilot, Ayanami, and I like how the show portrays that he can barely communicate with her at first - shy and awkward and all that - until he gets hurt badly and is brought back from the Brink of death. She is a terse, tough young person (and she has to be, or has been trained to be such). It's a splendid couple of episodes because of the mission at hand that the characters have to do just right, and that the emphasis is on how the characters may or may not get through it, not every particular of the plot itself (though that is well executed with tension and taut visuals).

And episode 7: maybe trying to program an Eva with just remote controlling is... going to not work.

Episodes 8 to 15

Well, Asuka time! She is quite a handful, or is it just me (at first)? She does become more entertaining the more time you spend with her, like you strangely cant stand her and then perk up when she is on screen - just like getting used to a person in real life, all their anger and complaining makes for a not always enjoyable experience to be around... until it becomes clear Asuka can back up her "You're too stupid" talk with her action.

It doesn't make her my favorite character or anything, but I can give it time and see where she will go with Shinji and Rei and the rest of them all. There's some "wait, I'm a junior high schooler, don't see me naked" um "jokes" (I assume if you are in junior high school, as many were watching it and have been that age at the time, it makes some more sense), and a lot of braggadocio and complaining about Shinji's straight ahead mind set.

(EDIT: Thinking back on their relationship, this is... really endearing and extra touching, given where the characters end up.  Their bickering is the brash romantic-comic heart of the show).

But putting the main story aside, what I actually appreciated oddly enough was the recap in episode 14, which, it may seem like why recap things we have just seen, but if one steps away from the show for a month or two (as I did), it serves as a useful reminder of all the various Angels and what damage they have wrought so far.

And then the second half of that episode is this more dreamlike encapsulation of Rei recounting right before the Interoperability Test, and it is a riveting and brilliant example of how the makers of the show can break from what we have seen already and transform their subject into something about the damage that happens to the mind and soul.

These kids are very brave and lucky and reckless and Doncha just love those kids?

That bit with the penguin in episode 15 is as perfect a bit of comedy you could ever want.

Episode 16 to... maybe the end?? (Okay I'll stop at episode 25 tonight, final episode tomorrow, and then, at long last, "The End" film!)

"Do you want to become one, body and soul?"

Episode 18-19-20, especially 19 and 20 when Shinji finally has his break with dad and Eva-01, and then the swift return, the revelation of what an Eva actually is, and then the inner-vision montage of Episode 20 and the exploration of the unbearable weight of responsibility put on Shinji's entire body and mind... Holy shit. It's daring, unbridled, confounding and audacious surrealism as Shinji experiences full-blown consciousness expansion and the key question of what he is to "become" is at center. And sometimes the boldness in this is what we are *not* seeing, like when we see that bedroom scene and the shot stays on the beer glass and the cigarette as that goes on.

Just when I think the series has hit a peak in pushing the boundaries of what this kind of storytelling can do, it goes further. At the same time, it's still television, and I don't know if Episode 20 would be so affecting and challenging and profound in its implications of what's come before, the perils of growing up, and what's to come, if not for the episodes leading up to this. 

The core conflict between a son and his father, Gendo Ikari and that gosh darn moral and caring about the lives of others Shinji, which is this painful beating wretched thing that keeps going throughout even if we aren't shown what's going on between them, keeps this show into a high level.  

Shinji doesn't have that kind of umbilical cord connection a child has for a parent because the parent severed it before it could take shape.  One can feel the pain coursing through the spirit of the show, it's open and vibrant and about becoming so disillusioned and fucked-up that you don't know what to do with your capabilities anymore... Unless you are Gendo and an unflappable monster that is all about "the plan" (it's not called that, but you get the drift).

And then there is Asuka in episode 22 (and 24)... 🥺 It's almost like, a crazy thought but, perhaps the people in charge at Nerv could or should get these kids some therapy sessions... long, intensive, possibly pharmaceutical in addition, therapy (or a person to tell them Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting style it's not their fault). The boldness of the intricate and introspective montage of the previous episode is inverted in that 53 second long (!) Elevator shot - what faith in what we know about these characters, off the charts - where Asuka and Rei have this unfathomably awkward silence, and when Rei punctures it its like a release valve (but not quite enough, as it turns out later for this episode) for Asoka's rage and pain to come out.

Asoka, case in point, when feeling like she has a "Daddy" (or just any grown up to make her feel like she is worthy of affection):

And then when she has... had some issues:

As powerful and destructive as an Angel can be, they're no match for crippling trauma and disillusionment.... and episode 23 is also heart shattering. This show knows how to twist the knife and splinter you away (poor Rei!) This is a series that gets much stronger the more you're seeing these characters pushed past their psycho-spiritual breaking points, about their place in the world, in what life on earth even means if God is attempted to be "resurrected" by man. You know - stuff children watch. Do the filmmakers top that Elevator moment with the very long shot, scored to Beethoven, that becomes this nexus of existential quandary in fiction? Maybe!

Episode 25, meanwhile, feels... oddly like we finally do get to this bleak and sparse therapy session for many characters, and.... yes, I can absolutely see why fans were not happy. I find it slightly confounding, like the very convention-breaking inner-space ideas and approaches to narrative and experimentation, throughout, backfired.... 

If I was following this week to week, as it aired, and the penultimate episode moves away from resolving what is going to happen story-wise with the daddy Ikari and everything with that organization-council of talking black monoliths in that room, and it instead sent into this esoteric and even metaphorical exploration of what this world, all the pain and loss and heartbreak (and what idea taking another life does to Shinji especially) and has done to these characters... I'd be miffed!

Episode 26 (final)

So, episode 26... the Manic-Depressive immersion tank into existential and emotional anime a spin on... Duck Amuck I didn't know I was looking forward to in Neon Genesis: Evangelion. 

It is, quite easily, even more than Twin Peaks, the most uncompromising, deconstructive surrealist art in modern television. I love it as a creator Anno took more than half of the runtime of the finale to use dissociative
even poetic storytelling technique (another thought with all of the still images over the helpless tone of the narration is La Jetee, only for angst addled teens), and then he does finally get us back to the nearly combustible likability of the characters we've grown to know among the pilots, and... tonally, it is and it isn't consistent. Like, it does work in and of itself, but connecting it all together... not so much.

I can see why the fans were frustrated. And I can see why Anno got depressed enough when it was panned that he almost did himself in. When an artist puts themselves on the line, it can be a vulnerable position. On a more technical complaint front, it worked to have the still images of the characters in the first half, but in the second half it feels more like they ran out of money for animation and had to go to longer shots on stock images. This is all to say if it were a mid-season episode where Shinji learns, mentally kicking and screaming, to love himself or at least very kinder to himself in a consciousness-ripping event, I think me and everyone else would be much more understanding. As a finale, It's.... a lot.

But my rating still stands as this series overall is a landmark of science fiction storytelling and, in my not very deep but still appreciative knowledge, strikes me as an important moment for the development of animation in Japan. You have a story involving kids being trained to fight aliens in robots and, yeah, pretty straightforward. Then, at so many places and in these grandiose spots, Anno and his company upend the expectations by throwing in the unruly spectacle of charting what the characters' (forgive the phrase) inner landscape wrought for them.

"You won't always be who you are now. You'll learn that you make mistakes and regret them. That's me in a nutshell. A cycle of false elation and self Loathing. But each time, I made a little more sense. ... figure out who you are now. And when you've worked it out, make sure you come back." 

🎶 Well, I guess this is growing up 🎶 

Love sure is destructive, yeah. Meanwhile, when Asoka got her smash-all-in-sight MOJO back, I did a little applause break for myself. How I grew to love that character over the run of a show and into this movie that I initially found annoying- that's the power of engrossing character development, that's for sure. Tear that alien bastard into pieces, girl! And just as if not more impactful is when she hits (inevitably, I think) the point where her Eva can no longer go on the arrack and her mind and spirit get broken down...oh my God, what a crushing moment (with the sight of the Angels pulling away at the Eva like birds on a carcass).

Wow. This whole movie... what a gigantic meal of apocalyptic depth and earned ostentatious moves - by earned, I mean this could only fly after the filmmakers put in the work of the majority of the development (or annihilations) of the characters in the series. I would think if someone comes to this without the context of the show, it is bound to be while I would not doubt somewhat riveting on a visceral visual scale it could confound someone into a kind of delirium. 

The End of Evangelion is like having someone's entire mixed up, sex-baffled and abused, traumatized consciousness flowing out like a gaping wound of pain and frustration at a life lived in pain and the intractable and contradictory notion that one can feel like there is no point in being happy with oneself while the world ends around you. This is a film overflowing with unique, troubling, sorrowful, monstrous and sensually alluring images, the End of the World where we know the end is not something that can be avoided, so the question for Anno is personal: who are we going to ve when this ending comes? 

'Does it feel good?'

It is a furiously rousing, profound and deliriously action-packed acid trip of broiling and unstoppable feelings, and you really don't get the scale and scope and total don't give a flying fuck about what an audience is going to accept as any kind of conventional appeal - while at the same time truly improving on and expanding on the story conclusion that is cosmic. And by the time it gets to showing us the live action audience uh "watching" this creation from their theater, the dream has taken on this metatextual dimension that I have to think inspired... Ari Aster (?) Think Beau is Afraid only less Jewish and more about giant robots fusing and destroying the world...gulp.

I don't think I can properly *explain* what goes on in the last half hour of this except that if you have any kind of affinity for dreamscapes, giant women overpowering a giant organic-robot with psychic interrogations, and lots of blood. It approaches subjective perspective like it's a prospector digging even deeper to find that psychedelic-by-way-of-fantastical core of the universe. So, why do we live on? I dunno. But reality is found in places unknown, as the show says. 

All I can figure from this is it is close to impossible that this film (and the series in general) didn't help save someone's life at some point, probably more than a few  If you're a teenager with a particularly fragile and broken spirit, this series isn't one to make you despair, on the contrary it's like a very fucked-up series of embraces, like "It's okay, we know, I know.  It can be... tough being your age."

 This an epic work about keeping yourself alive... yes, even in the face of The End thanks to that darn effective Rei. I don't know if I made much sense in this write up, but there is so much to what Anno and his brilliant collaborators present here that I can't try to unpack it in a single review. I can only hope to go back to it some day, like with Twin Peaks and the Sopranos, as there are so many secrets to discover that Anno throws within shots or beats.

And... that's it, for now!