The Genre: Science Fiction

The Format: 8 DVD - 24 episodes @ 24mins each

The plot: The Day of the Lord is at hand. In an era of apocryphal cataclysm, divine mandate looms over creation in the horrifically tangible form of Angels. But man is no longer the subservient, passive creation, rather he will concede no peer, accept no superior.

Neon Genesis Evangelion is the stirring saga of technologically enhanced heresy, of mankind racing for evolutionary escape from a super natural fate. Enigmatic and profoundly sensitive, Evangelion is a story unlike any other. A frail messiah, a heartless prophet and a foundation of lies and shadow are the last hope, the only hope.

Hmmm ... Eva. You either love it or you hate it, I guess.

Me, I love it.

Before I actually managed to get to see the series I’d heard quite a lot about it on various forums and in reviews and in other places. The general gist seemed to be big mecha (yay), religious stuff (hmmm), too much angst (oh dear) and a very poor ending (ungh). So as you can imagine, I wasn’t really expecting a particularly enjoyable time of it. However, when I finally got the discs spinning I was very pleasantly surprised.

The thing that set it apart and got people dribbling at the corner of their mouths in girl-shy exstacy was that it had a plot. It wasn’t just about blowing the crap out of a bunch of alien scum (though there was plenty of alien scum kicking about just asking for the crap to be blown out of them) there was a reason to pay attention.

And this is pretty much what Eva did to the giant mecha genre. It took the well-worn plot of Samurais-as-robots and shoehorned in some completely new elements. You’ll have to watch it to see what these are, but the most important thing is that it really injected some excitement into a rather predictable genre.

Well that’s my analogy. It’s not a very good one, I admit, but I think you get the point. The thing is, though, that these introductions can be seen as being either a good thing or a bad thing. The giant mecha genre isn’t in itself a particularly bad one, so there’s plenty of entertainment to be had from those series that don’t have all of these new fangled ideas shoved in. It’s probably best if you make up your own mind, but personally I’ve always liked it when things get spliced together in this fashion.

As with a lot of Japanese stuff there’s a tendency to make things overly abstract. The Japanese are big fans of metaphor and burying important ideas in layers of misdirection. As such, viewed from a traditional western point of view things can get more than a little annoying. Even in the most obscure and abstract western work at some point a final ‘correct’ explanation will almost probably be provided.

There will be both motivation and explanation, in other words. Now whilst these things are provided in Eva, they aren’t done in a particularly transparent way. Those familiar with anime, manga and the Japanese way of telling a story won’t have too much trouble dragging some of them out, but you won’t get them all. Well you may do, but only if you go and do some research. Which is really a bizarre situation, when you think about it:

“Watch this cartoon, it’s great. But you’ll only understand it fully if you read these books and web sites. And even then, many of the bits haven’t actually got answers, so you’ll probably have to think of your own.”

Personally, I find this to be a fascinating and enjoyable take on the whole thing, but then I’ve always enjoyed biblical stories taken in this context. By which I mean as works of fiction. I’m sure many don’t though, and I’m also sure that many people in the modern world find religion boring from pretty much any perspective.

Having said all this there’s plenty of action and cool stuff along the way, with some really quite gory bits and a whole family-sized bag of fan-services (some of which is a smidge on the dodgy side, but then discussions about the Japanese obsession with sexualizing youth are best left for other times and places). So, if you want to switch off your brain and just watch all the fighting, explosions and tits-and-ass then the series works quite well too.

Except for the end.

Ah, yes. The end. Possibly the most loathed two episodes of any anime series ever. Which is quite an achievement for what is one of the most loved anime series of all time :/. Personally I really liked the ending. It does come as a bit of a shock to the system, I admit, but if you give it a chance and have a bit of a think, it’s actually quite an appropriate way for the series to end.

Overall, one of the aspects I really liked about the series was that there were plenty of things left open to interpretation. Sometimes it’s good to be faced with something that’s a challenge to understand, which is why I liked the ending. It kind of says “Well that was the series. This is an abstract representation of the end. You decide what it all means.” I appreciate many see this as both a cheat and a cop out. I also appreciate that many people don’t like to be asked to think. But I do.

Well sometimes, anyway.

The Summary: Lots of mileage for those that like to think, and some for those that don’t as well.

The Score: 5/5

The Pictures:

(click for larger versions)