Neon Genesis Evangelion

Everyone seems to have to watch Evangelion at some point, if for nothing else, so that they can wax philosophical about it.

I avoided Evangelion for a long time as I had heard that the director had a lot of mental issues he was dealing with at the time, as well as the anime running out of budget near the end and having a somewhat "interesting" resolution. I was concerned that it was going to end up as too much of a mess to end up making any sense, but after viewing TTGL and a few other Gainax studio mech shows, I figured I should take finally take another look after 10 odd years or so since last seeing it.

Well, I finally ended up getting around to watching the series again, and I have to say that I'm left at a bit of a loss as to how to properly evaluate in comparison to other shows, especially considering my personal reaction was to be turned off by just about everything about it, but also wanting to try to be fair towards what (I think) the show was trying to do.

With regards to the technicals of the anime:

The art is a bit dated, but is actually pretty good for the time. Many of the mechas and angels are unique and interesting to look at. There are issues as the series goes on with reusing things quite a bit, but for the most part, the art is fine.

The sound and voice acting are pretty good. For the material that they were working with, my opinion is that the voice actors did an admirable job. The theme is a classic, and most of the soundtrack choices are nice as well.

As the technicals are done fairly well, it's a shame what actually ended up being presented as a story through the characters just didn't work that well given the issues I mentioned earlier.

Mecha is a tough genre to evaluate at times as it has such a storied history from Gundam on forward. Liking one series doesn't even necessarily mean that you'll enjoy a different season or sequel either. Evangelion is interesting in that it is at its heart, a deconstruction of sorts of the mecha that came before it. A bit more of a surreal version of kids at war stories and what may psychologically be happening. Even shows such as original Gundam deal with this somewhat, but Evangelion takes this theme of apocalypse and the kids fighting against it to interesting places and ultimately has you wondering a bit about what exactly is happening here as the internal and external worlds seem to be falling apart as the story progresses.

There are occasions where art through adversity and stories told through depression make for some interesting looks into the darker side of character development. The problem is that as opposed to creating compelling story material, Evangelion relies heavily on shock factor, faux religious imagery (as the author himself has stated), and self indulgent trips into pointless downward spirals of self pity that become a tiresome pattern after a few episodes.

I think that different people are going to get different things out of Evangelion, but as someone who doesn't, and never has for that matter, had to cope with depressive episodes, I don't think that Evangelion was actually written for someone like me to relate to. I've seen terrible things in my life that I don't enjoy remembering. I've also dealt with emotionally abusive people in many different life situations and while it's sometimes difficult, have developed healthy ways of coping and moving forward. Everyone in the show seems to need an intervention before they get anywhere near their mechs and spiral into chaos.

The major characters Shinji, and Asuka have a host of personal issues and angst that is related to the story, and unfortunately they are surrounded by people and situations that do nothing but enable downward spirals of negative character development for the most part. I was left wondering where the psychiatrists and emotional counselors were hanging out, because it seems like everyone trying to save the world had no business doing so. There are no traditional heroes here save perhaps Misato.

Generally speaking, you need something in your heroes to root for, and while heroes are allowed to be flawed, at some point, you expect them to at least make an attempt to put aside their personal issues for the good of others. Generally speaking, outside of a few acts, this is a show where the heroes never get out of their own selfish, narcissistic, woe is me silliness and things continue to spiral because of it. Having the director going through mental issues during the production no doubt had a lot of influence in this, and it felt quite a bit like watching someone railing at the world at times more than a coherent narrative that actually had some sort of meaningful resolution.

My biggest problem with the main characters was that I kept waiting for the payoff, where the heroes would ultimately step up and become something to aspire to, or at least have someone mature drop the hammer on them, and I was left with a character study of what might happen if you were to throw psychologically damaged and unstable people together and tasked them with "saving the world". It's a pretty frustrating experience from that standpoint. Of course, this was quite likely besides the writer's ultimate point here.

There is a layer of tragedy to the interactions between these broken individuals that could potentially be related to. As I mentioned earlier, as someone who works beyond these issues in life, I found it really difficult to get through the series and relate to the characters. I honestly didn't like any of the characters in this show. I can understand and sympathize with their plights, but as much of it is self-inflicted and driven by choices they make, it's impossible to root for them and eventually they become quite tiresome to watch. Real people would also show some sort of empathy during these difficult situations too. Not once did Shinji ask anyone else how they were doing, he just worries about himself. To be fair, no one else in the story, save for Misato seems to have any basic empathy at all. The characters are so deep in their own issues that they are difficult to relate to as a human being. I kept hoping for some meaningful resolution and growth that never quite got there in the end.

It isn't fun nor is it cathartic (at least for me personally) to watch characters spiral into the depths of despair and self pity and not find some growth to overcome obstacles. It's best to avoid falling into these traps in real life and help people you know suffering like this get help, not wallow in the depths with them. A quasi-military group like NERV would have to understand that keeping their pilots mentally sound and healthy is a top priority to keep them effective, especially when their mental state directly impacts their combat effectiveness. Yet, they just seem to ignore it, or just be "disappointed" when Shinji doesn't want to get in the robot. When they're treated like tools and not people, and the people themselves show little care for others, it's really tough to like them or see them as inspiring at all. It almost seems to be a parody at times with how these people are responding to each other. If these characters are "realistic" than reality is in a lot of trouble.

These problems ended up making Evangelion a slog to get through. As the budget ran out and the story took the tone shift into these downward spirals of character development, I was relying on inertia to get me through the final few episodes. Much has been written on the ending to Evangelion, and my general feeling is that I was disappointed with it for the simple reason that it is obvious that you should "accept yourself and move forward". As I mentioned earlier, any competent therapist could have worked with all these people and got something like that into their minds earlier and saved us all the freshman tier philosophy and pseudo-Freudianism. Budget issues or not, rehashing the characters problems and trying to add some kind of deeper meaning to the narcissistic self-pity was taxing and in the end, it felt at best a cop out, and at worst a middle finger to everyone who hung around.

Much has also been written about the supposed religious symbolism that the show used as well, but I tend to side with the folks who believe that it really doesn't mean much unless you are trying to insert your own meaning as it's difficult to find a coherent pattern to the symbolism and haphazard usage of actual religious lore. I tend to view the religious symbolism in much the same way that I view the Galactic Empire in Legend of Galactic Heroes vaguely Nordic religiousness. It was tossed in there to add a bit of flavor, but not much else. There isn't anything wrong with inserting a personal meaning, as this show leaves you with a lot of questions if you look for them, but personal interpretations are just that, personal.

At the end of the day, I understand why the show is discussed as much as it is, but I'm also disappointed that it's discussed as much as it is as I can definitely see a path towards what happened to more modern anime because of this show. I wanted to enjoy the series, but it felt far too self-indulgent and pretentious and ultimately didn't end up moving me like I thought it might. I was pretty disappointed in that as the actual conflict with the mechas and the behind the scenes political intrigue gives this show the tools to be great, yet the overall themes I mentioned clumsily derail the train into a psychoanalytical mess of sorts. The later rebuild movies make this far more explicit, which is likely why they get mixed reviews from Eva fans as well.

For mecha, Tengan Toppa Gurren Lagann is a better (albeit cheesier in a great many ways) mecha story by the same studio. I have rewatched that show after Evangelion and have a deeper appreciation for TTGL reconstructing what Evangelion deconstructed. Simon from TTGL is a flawed character in terrible traumatic situations in a crappy world who finally ended up "getting it" and stepped up in meaningful self-actualizing ways. Shinji... well, I just don't know. I'm sympathetic with the poor kid, as it's an impossible situation and his colleagues certainly don't help, but I don't watch giant robot fiction to be disappointed with the protagonist's lack of development and triumph over adversity. At the end of the day, I believe that an anime ultimately stands on its entertainment value. Evangelion was a chore to sit through. I didn't hate it, I certainly didn't like it, but I was very happy when I finished it and could check it off the list of "must sees" as I really wasn't enjoying it all that much and was a bit frustrated by how it ended.

The rebuild movies add some meta context which I'll spoiler as the 4th rebuild movie has only been released in Japanese as of the time of this writing. I saw the movie recently and have a few additional thoughts on the series that I'll spoiler. I won't give away the broad details of the movie, and I offer a deeper overview in my review of the second rebuild movie to flesh out these thoughts a bit more.

It's tough to recommend people avoid something like Evangelion, as it is discussed so much that just about everyone who gets into this medium is going to be exposed to it sooner or later. There is some merit is seeing it if for no other reason than to help connect the dots on how anime was affected by it, but I don't consider this to be a show that I can say I enjoyed. There are also works that offer different endings, such as End of Evangelion which can add a bit more context, but as a stand alone series, Neon Genesis Evangelion is a bit of a hot mess.

Best I can offer as a final thought is to go in without preconceptions and see what you get out of it. Hopefully it is more enjoyable for you than it was for me.