>I was casually writing my thoughts on shows I finish watching and I poured up something way longer than I expected, so I told to myself, why not try to publish it as my first review ever. Here goes nothing.
Finally, after quite a long time, the long awaited last installment Evangelion 3.0+1.0 comes. I was glad to see producers being aware of how long they have made us waiting as they have put recaps of the previous 3 movies at the beginning. Okay, jokes aside. This movie was a fantastic visually stunning bomb with amazing characters. Even though the animation is being its strongest point, it doesn't carry the greatness of the show on its own. Characters and story make another great aspects of Evangelion as well.
First things first, we got to see the world after the near Third Impact. Starting with organization WILLE led by Misato, that should be known from the previous movie. Right away the action scene where Mari really shined. Next we are moved to the environment called Village 3, where people that survived near Third Impact are living their lives. Here we are reunited with our 3 main characters. Shinji, haunted by his trauma from what he caused. Asuka, living in the outskirts of the village and being alone as usual. And at last, the clone of Rei. Of course they are accompanied with supporting cast which helped the story flow too (their classmates, etc.).
I want to talk about Ms. Look-alike... yeah, that's how they called her. I really enjoyed her character in the first 40 minutes of the movie. It was fun and astonishing watching her trying to grow as human. But alas, she was not one so she couldn't. It's cute how she was the spark for Shinji's character development and growing up, making him realize there are still people caring about him, despite her death. Regardless of that, she died happily and he probably knew that, hence his strong determination that could be seen afterwards.
Oh boy, this was all of the characters peak. I still can't believe how well they made them. Shinji growing both physically and mentally, finally being bold enough to face his father and even question him why and what is he doing. Asuka's sacrificial attitude was showed here too. Sadly she didn't get that much of a shining time here (at least from my POV), but her angel blood scene was so epic, I had goosebumps from it.
But Mari, oh god, just how much fun character she is. I already liked her since the 3rd movie but here she shined the most. The mystery about her was also unveiled. She was also the one that pushed that spark in Shinji further and we can see both of them together at the very end, most likely being in a lovers relationship. They were so sweet.
The voice acting was handled very well. All of them managed to do their job in every scene, but I expected no less because they are experienced voice actors. The fact that a lot of them were my favorite ones eased all of my doubts and made me enjoy it even more. Thanks to all of them.
So yeah, those 3 were the strongest aspect of the movie in my opinion. Now I will move on what I think were the flawed things. Starting with OST, action scenes OST to be more precise. Sure there were some banger songs, but most of them weren't that significant like, for example: The Wrath of God in All its Fury. Also another thing I found problematic was that most of the sounds were way louder than the OST itself so sometimes it was unhearable. Although it might have been a problem with file or sound on my side.
Next the CGI. I've heard some harsh comments about that, but I was questioning it because I've seen no problem with it thus far at that point of time. But then it came, maybe one of the most impactful among fight scenes in the whole movie, and it got such a bad CGI treatment it hurt to watch. But what can be done, it didn't affect me much as it got better later on. The animation, was splendid, but on the other hand, there were scenes that just got such a bad treatment despite it being 2D. I'm looking at you, poor Ritsuko. But most of the time it was, as I said, beautiful.
At last, the literal Neon Genesis was created, a world without Evas, which ironically, is something relatable to our Neon Genesis Evangelion experience as of now, or so you could say. I also think that we should take something from the ending of this series. To be honest, it was such a satisfying ending to the NGE series, seeing most of the characters living happily ever after. I'd never imagine that I'd be seeing a happy ending here, but it makes me so glad. They always deserved to lead peaceful cheerful lives after all of that happened. I would even welcome some Slice of Life spin off series, but I highly doubt that would ever come as you could consider it being unnecessary milking. As I've mentioned already, the interaction between Shinji and Mari at the end was so sweet and touching. And that's when One Last Kiss starts playing. Damn, it hits different after you've watched the movie. To finally sum it up, I loved almost everything about this movie and I consider it to be the peak of Evangelion series. At the right end, at the verge of tears, the satisfaction comes.
