Neon Genesis Evangelion is a 26 episode anime and widely hailed as one of the most influential anime of all time. This is apparent once you begin watching as it still holds up solidly after more than two decades. It takes place in a world where something called the Second Impact decimated a large chunk of the population. The governments have explained it was a meteor that smashed into Antarctica, causing the icecaps to instantly melt and rapidly raise the sea levels. This catastrophe decimated a large chunk of the population. Fifteen years later, giant alien beings known as Angels have returned and started attacking the cities once again. The anime starts right in the thick of things with the appearance of an Angel in Tokyo-3 and we’re shown that conventional weapons are useless against these beings.
A short cut to Shinji Ikari later and we are quickly introduced to Nerv. Nerv is a secret government organization that has developed giant mecha known as Evangelions, or Eva for short. Shinji’s father is the director of this organization and he had called in his son whom they had not met for three years. He asks Shinji to pilot one of the Eva and it seems like these Eva’s are finicky about their pilots and the pair has to be compatible in order to work.
The anime doesn’t go for the typical tropes. Shinji isn’t immediately amazing at piloting, nor does he easily win and bask in glory. Instead, Shinji is a reclusive person. He is not on good terms with his father, nor with anyone else. There is a complicated relationship between Shinji and his father. His father doesn’t have too many redeeming features as his demeanor is cold and he is too dedicated to his work. Shinji has trouble connecting with others and will often just agree and go along with whatever is being asked of him. This can make him a tough character to sympathize or cheer on for.
While there are pretty cool fighting sequences between the Eva and the Angels, with some of the best animations in these scenes that is not the focus of the show. It portrays the tough and traumatizing experiences of these young teenagers as the pilots of the Eva. It has a heavy atmosphere and there is tremendous pressure on these children that already have fragile emotions. There is a sense of grand scale with the anime, many of the scenes are tense with slow pacing and characters in deep thoughts, often without speaking while life goes on around them. There is an abundance of slow paced panning shots throughout the season.
When all is said and done, Shinji can be too much to take since he self-pities too much. He has various attempts at running away but he will always return to do his duty. However, there are enough moments where Shinji bravely moves forward that you still cheer for the guy. He slow learns and accepts the situation he is in, helped by having actual friends and calling Misato, the Major that he is living with, his family.
The other pilots aren’t perfect either, each of them have their own flaws. Rei is cold and seemingly lacking emotion. She also has trouble interacting with others but in a different way to Shinji. She seems to have a good relationship with Shinji’s father which puts his father in a bad light, and also makes you wonder what makes Rei so special.
The third pilot, who is introduced later, is Asuka and she is the complete opposite of the other two. She is self indulgent and has a personality that gives her too much of an ego. She immediately starts bullying Shinji and it takes a while before the trio gets over their differences and works as a team. The anime likes to show that nothing is as idealistic as one would hope, and the trio never actually become friends.
The first half of the anime builds up on the mystery of the Angels and the Eva. It constantly hints that there are more to them that what we are being told. It takes a long while before we get the first answers. Both the Angels and the Eva’s have unique and iconic designs that make them memorable. The Eva’s are shown to not only be mecha but has some sort of organic origin as well. Nerv is constantly doing tests with the pilots and their Eva’s, and the Eva has shown to exceed their expectations and do the impossible several times. The Angels on the other hand also appear to be adapting, as their attacks get closer to success each time. There appears to be a reason why the Angels always seem to go for Nerv headquarters.
The second half of the season still has the Angels attacking but puts a lot more focus on the toll it takes on the pilots. Shinji experiences several distressing moments, more than enough for anyone. Unfortunately, even though you’d expect the shift in tone and drop in animation quality due to its infamous production budget issues, when it actually happens it is still extremely jarring. It starts off a clip show midway through the season and then you’ll have the next episode dip in terms of the fluidity of the animation, but it is still acceptable. Then in the next episode, it completely changes in tone, reuses animation frequently and even has static images with voiceovers. The quality then keeps dropping and never recovering.
It keeps getting more and more personal as it inches towards the finale. It shows off how Nerv started and what the Eva’s are. This is also when the anime starts having massive tonal shifts with psychological themes resulting in odd scenes, and different ideologies. It becomes a lot more abstract with the pacing and narrative both suffering because of this.
The anime continues to deteriorate where all the cost saving techniques are culminated into the final two episodes. The result is that the scenes mainly involve seeing and hearing each of the characters’ thoughts as they contemplate their own existence and the events that impacted their childhood. The final episode is literally a combination of photographs, static images and recycled animation. There are literally scenes where nothing onscreen moves and it is in completely silence, which goes on for a tad bit too long to overlook. Considering how strong the first half of the anime was, you can’t help but be disappointed by this ending. It just makes it all seem so pointless and a huge waste of time. It doesn’t give us a satisfactory resolution to all the (interesting) questions it had raised. Maybe if the staff had enough budget this idea for the ending could have been executed better, but as it is, it is polarizing to say the least.
Overall, there’s no doubt that Neon Genesis Evangelion has done something different and unique that not many anime has done before or since. It merges the giant mecha genre neatly with an in-depth analysis on the personalities of the characters. It has a great balance between these two elements in the first half of the season but the second half leant too much on the psychological issues, where it becomes too much of a mind screw. This leads to an ending where you can’t help but feel disappointed and wondering what just happened.
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