When I first re-watched the original Neon Genesis Evangelion years ago, I broke its structure down into four parts. Part 1, spanning episodes 1 through 6, is an introduction to a broken, vicious world, showing Shinji at his lowest as he’s thrust into violence beyond his capabilities and somehow manages to seize onto personal connections despite the hell around him. Part 2, spanning episodes 7 to 13 or thereabouts, is episodic downtime that lets the characters develop positively, investing you in their struggles by showing their daily lives amidst the angel assault. Part 3, episodes 14 through 19, is a slow descent right back into hell, as the post installed by the previous episodes is ripped away one piece at a time until Shinji and his Eva literally reject humanity and return to monke. And Part 4, lasting from episode 20 until the end, is the dissolution, where production hell breaks both the characters and the show itself down to their component parts for an increasingly surreal, philosophically-driven finale. It’s a really beautiful structure, and ever since I picked up on it, it’s informed so much of my understanding of Evangelion. And I suspect Anno himself is at least somewhat aware of it, because he’s brought it back for first two Rebuild movies... for better and worse.
See, while Rebuild 2.0 definitely starts pushing the newness of this new take on Evangelion to the forefront, it’s still very much within that framework I just talking about. Rebuild 1.0 was, of course, a near shot-for-shot recreation of Part 1, recreating the first six episodes with a slavish attention to detail and only a few key changes. 2.0, meanwhile, is a remix of Parts 2 and 3, covering everything from Asuka’s introduction to episode 19′s legendary climax. It’s almost perfectly bisected, honestly. The movie’s first half is mostly about Asuka, Rei and Shinji hanging out and fighting random angels, as well as giving the story’s school side the focus it sorely lacked in the first movie (which I very much appreciated; Toji and Kensuke finally get to be actual characters again! Huzzah!). Then we hit the “episode break” at the midpoint, and the second half turns its attention to the emotionally devastating backslide into despair with Unit 03 going berserk and the tape angel’s descent into the geofront. Obviously, with thirteen episodes worth of material to go through, there are far more cuts and changes to make it all fit, even before we get to the outright new stuff that the Rebuilds are playing with. But structurally speaking, 2.0 accomplishes the same goal as the TV show’s middle half: allow the characters time to relax and develop and achieve some degree of hope, then sit back and laugh as it all comes tumbling down, tumbling down.
And to the movie’s credit, it mostly makes this condensed structure work. There are still a few shots and sequences directly ripped from the show, but for the most part, it relies on new or re-adjusted scenes to communicate the same emotional points as the show without copying it outright. One of my favorite bits is when the gang visits an aquarium that’s designed to replicate how the ocean used to be before the Second Impact. Not only is it a great way to give the characters space to breath and hang out, it says so much about the state of the world, and the tragedy of what was lost when the angels descended. Even blue, fishy water is a relic of a bygone era, and these kids will never know what it was like to live in a world full of oceans that weren’t red and dying. The juxtaposition of those two sentiments- endearing character work and large-scale, primordial tragedy- is Evangelion at its best. This is what the Rebuilds should be: not just repeating what’s come before, but reinterpreting it in new forms without losing its emotional center. As much as I loved 1.0′s slavish recreation of the show, it’s great to see 2.0 really flex its muscles and offer its own point of view.
That said, there are some areas where I feel like this movie’s changes make it an overall weaker experience than the show. First, I feel like the characters are way too self-aware in this movie. So much of NGE’s drama came from the characters not understanding themselves, or understanding themselves but not being able to put that understanding into words, or struggling with how to even go about understanding themselves. The pain of what’s left unspoken, unprocessed, was crucial to that show’s success. Here, though, it feels like every character has a moment where they basically turn to the audience and say “Hey, this is my emotional baggage and here’s how I’m trying to deal with it.” Asuka tells Misato unprompted about her complex over being alone, Shinji explains the symbolic purpose of the Walkman he always carries with him, and even Rei, the least communicative character of all, is able to verbalize her situation. These don’t feel like conversations between emotionally stunted teenagers; they feel like Anno literally explaining himself to the audience because he’s tired of the point going over people’s heads. Which, you know, I can’t say I blame him for that instinct, but aside from Misato’s wrenching goodbye to Shinji when he leaves her apartment for the last time, these moments don’t pack nearly the same punch as all the times the characters talked around each other in the show.
Second, and most obvious: the fanservice. Now, I’m not gonna pretend the original NGE was some paragon of using sexuality in fiction. It had its fair share of sleazy camera angles and perverted situations, especially in the parts of the show this movie is most drawing from. But it also knew how to weaponize that sexualization, to twist in ways that forced the audience to confront the dark currents underpinning anime’s constant exploitation of the female body. That is not the case with 2.0. All the fanservice in this movie- and there’s quite a bit of it- seems to only exist to BE fanservice, to give the audience something to leer at mindlessly at the expense of the female characters. There’s a scene from the show where Asuka falls asleep in Shinji’s bed, and the way the camera puts us in his eyes as he gazes at her defenseless body forces the audience to internalize just how fucking gross it is to ogle a teenage girl who’s nowhere near mature enough to even process her sexuality in a healthy manner. A remixed version of that scene exists in this movie, but instead of making a subversive point with the ogling camera angles, it just... has ogling camera angles. Why are we staring up the crotch of her panties as she rolls over? Just to stare up the crotch of her panties as she rolls over? Because if so, uh, you could not be missing the point harder if you tried.
And speaking of Asuka.
Look, there’s no way I can be fair about this. Asuka Langley Soryu is my favorite fictional character of all time, the character who speaks most directly to my own struggles and has had a genuine positive impact in my life. I care too much about her to discuss her with any kind of objectivity. But I really don’t like what this movie’s done to her. She’s turned into a fanservice pinup more times over the course of 2.0 than she was in the entirety of the original show. Worse still, her character’s been simplified to such a degree that she comes off as little more than a stereotypical tsundere. Violent with Shinji for no reason, dumbass accidental pervert scenarios, all abrasiveness all the time... where’s the zest for life? The enthusiasm? The sheer confidence and spitfire personality that made Asuka such an electrifying, human presence? Considering she has a different last name for some reason, she may well be an entirely different person, similar to the Asuka we know but more angry and bitter and closed-off. She even plays with a game console in her spare time, using technology to distract herself from her isolation much like Shinji does. But even if Asuka Shikinami is meant to be her own person with her own place in this story, the shadow of Asuka Soryu constantly hangs over her, making it impossible to ignore how little she measures up. This should be one of the best parts of Evangelion, and it just falls so fucking short.
Now, I’ve just complained for quite a few paragraphs. With so much negative to say, you might think I’m really down on 2.0 overall. But that’s actually not true. Because there’s one more part of this movie we have to talk about.
We have to talk about the ending.
The climax of Evangelion 2.0 is the moment the series truly comes into its own. It takes the same basic structure as episode 19: an Angel breaks into NERV headquarters as Shinji tries to run away, the other Evas are soundly defeated, and Shinji is forced to return and pilot Unit 01 for the sake of saving the people he cares about, unlocking beast mode at the last moment to achieve victory at the expense of something fundamental to his humanity. But instead of following those beats to the letter, 2.0 takes that framework and pushes it as far beyond its limits as it can possibly go. And as a result, what was already one of the series’ jaw-dropping moments becomes nothing short of astounding. The way it builds off what’s come before and yet breaks from it entirely, the way it raises the stakes to End of Evangelion levels, the way it uses the subtle changes the Rebuilds have been introducing to utterly flip the story on its head, the way it’s simultaneously a moment of extraordinary triumph and shocking personal failure... I’m still reeling from how extraordinary that was. And more importantly, it’s so thoroughly changed the story’s trajectory that the next movie has no choice but to fully leave the show behind. From this point on, the Rebuilds physically cannot just be a rehash of story beats from 20 years ago. They have to become their own thing, with new ideas, new arcs, new things to say and new ways to say them. This is the moment where Evangelion is truly born anew, and its baptism is as appropriately cataclysmic as I could possibly hope for.
From this point forward, we’re truly in uncharted waters. Neon Genesis Evangelion the show has been retold, cut short, and set down an entirely new path. It’s time to truly leave the past behind and see what’s waiting for us in the future. So despite all my frustrations with 2.0, it’s left me more hopeful than ever to see what the Rebuilds have in store. It’s bold enough to try new things, smart enough to mostly do them right, and exciting enough to keep my expectations sky-high for what comes next.
And lastly, a couple quick things I couldn’t fit in above:
-I don’t think using an insert song for the Eva 01 Dummy Plug Rampage scene was a good idea. It takes away from how fucking visceral and awful that moment should feel.
-Kaji and Misato’s romance... strangely works a lot better here? It cuts out all the moments where he’s being seriously creepy, so it’s a lot more palatable.
-Building the main emotional hook around Rei trying to reconcile Shinji and his father was a great idea and it works like gangbusters, especially when Gendo inevitably betrays Shinji’s trust and Shinji chooses to spite him for Rei’s sake.
-We’ve only had a few scenes with Mari, so I don’t know quite what to make of her yet. That said, something about her almost seems designed to, like... I don’t know, intentionally feel out of place and weirdly self-aware about the “point” of the story she’s in? Maybe??? I dunno, hopefully 3.0 gives her more time so I can start figuring her out.
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