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My Evangelion review is probably my greatest regret when it comes to this website. I was using a sort of super-minimalist reviewing style where I just briefly mentioned what I considered to be the most important things. That's quite a contrast to my current style, and I'm inclined to regard it as lazy.

For a series as frequently debated as Evangelion, I think a more argumentative approach was probably needed. That is, rather than stating that Evangelion has intricate themes and three-dimensional characters, I should have set out to prove that using specific examples from the show. I don't know if I was capable of that at the time, but I feel ready to take a crack at it now, and I've written up a rather massive (4500 word) review for End of Evangelion which analyzes multiple scenes from both the series and the film. I'll probably sit on that for a while with the aim of improving and if possible shortening it.

I've been re-watching the series mostly because I felt I needed it. I've been in a bad mood lately so I think it will be helpful to sit down with something that I really love. I'm going to record some thoughts on specific scenes on here, as I go.

I've just finished watching episode 6, which is stellar. It's full of characterizing moments, intense action, and satisfying adversity. What I especially love about this episode is how hopeless the battle against the fifth angel feels. Shinji immediately gets near-vaporized the second he deploys and spends half the episode in the hospital. The angel's over-powering offensive capabilities and defenses annihilate traditional weapons and it starts burrowing toward Terminal Dogma with about 10 hours left for humanity. There's a great exchange of dialog where Ritsuko calls Misato's plan reckless and Misato responds that it can be executed within the time available and has the best chance of success (something like 8% according to the MAGI.) Shinji understandably expresses hesitation to pilot the EVA against it again and when he ultimately agrees, he and Rei are left together before the mission to talk about how little they have in the world and how low their chance of survival is. The "why don't you try smiling?" exchange at the end is a really nice moment of relief after the tension of the rest of the episode and shows the build of the relationship and the individual progress of both characters involved.

I still maintain that Evangelion has the best fight scenes in any anime. The battle in episode 2 is particularly great in this stretch. Well-animated, sufficiently dark to match the tone and associated drama, full of high-impact gore and violence, and long and uninterrupted enough to achieve a good sense of flow. I think the quick cuts to the bridge really work. They help convey the feeling of tension without interrupting the actual fight much. The element that really elevates Eva's fight scenes and makes them the best is how story-relevant they are. The traumatic nature of the battles and the pragmatism that NERV fights them with are key elements of the character arcs. The frequent feeling of hopelessness mirrors the constantly degrading emotional states of the cast.

"Shinji is a pussy" and "Shinji, get in the robot" are two big cliches associated with discussion of this show. The first one is ridiculous as far as I'm concerned. In Episode 1, Shinji is presented with the demand to pilot a giant metal monster he has never seen before or been trained on. His hesitation is completely rational and understandable. I think people get too caught up in their own knowledge that he's the hero of a TV show when they judge him in that scene. He agrees to do it in any case when he sees the injured Rei being brought in to do it instead, which is the early expression of his heroism. The following scene does an excellent job of reinforcing how justified his hesitation was. He can't even walk in his Evangelion, and then he trips over and lies helpless and justifiably terrified as the angel closes in on him and starts tearing him to pieces. In episode 6, he experiences the feeling of being burned alive by a particle beam and his heart nearly stops, and he mopes for a few minutes when he regains consciousness before getting up and trying again. Have a little patience, guys! I doubt I'd be as resilient as him in the same situation.

Eva has a lot of pretty good dialog and is great at showing rather than telling. Kensuke is kind of a foil to Shinji because he's the kid who is really enthusiastic about the idea of the EVA, like a lot of viewers seem to wish Shinji was. The scene where he and Toji escape from their shelter to film the battle and then get caught up in it is a great example of the serious attitude Eva takes toward its military-like affairs. The contrast between those two kids joking around and breaking rules at first and then crying out of fear when they're really in danger is good tonally-consistent characterization and helps to add to the genre deconstruction idea people talk about with Evangelion. There's a very nice exchange between him and Shinji a little later:

Kensuke: I wish I could pilot the Evangelion just once.
Shinji: You shouldn't. I think your mother would be worried.

A lesser show, and a whinier character than Shinji, would've responded to Kensuke's statement with a long rant about how stressful and dangerous piloting the thing is. Shinji's line here communicates that general idea but is much more understated and makes him look sensitive and concerned about others rather than edgy.

The opening episodes are full of little humanizing character moments. Shinji exchanges banter with Misato, gets excited by the spectacle of the geofront and Tokyo-3, shyly goes along with Misato and announces "I'm home" when stepping into her apartment for the first time, gets teased by his friends about his attraction to Rei, and parallels his dad by burning his hands to rescue her after the battle with the fifth angel. Even the ridiculous "toothpick scene" shows that he's self-conscious and easily teased. Imagine someone like Squall Leonhart in the same situation for a testament to how "emo" Shinji actually is. Squall probably would've just scoffed at Pen-Pen and gone on with his bath. For all the complaining about how depressive he is, he actually shows a lot of emotional range and spontaneous happiness.

The direction in this show is really great. The opening scene of the third angel traveling underwater, the juxtaposition of quiet atmosphere with the danger and monstrousness of the angels, the framing of the fight scenes with cuts to the terrified operators on the bridge, the use of muted dialog and unusual episode structures - it's really a masterwork of creative setups and structure. One scene I really love is the one where Shinji sits in the cockpit of his EVA and watches Rei cheerfully speak to his father. I love the quick cuts between his uncomprehending face and the pair of them talking and smiling. I think it's greatly enhanced by the fact that we don't get to hear what they say, and by the background ambience of mechanical humming and workaday dialog between technicians on the intercom.

Evangelion is centrally about the difficulty of human relationships and the emotional cost of their destruction. Episode 4 is the earliest one that really deals with that in depth. Shinji doesn't run away from NERV because he's scared of fighting the angels. He runs away because he's terrified of rejection from Misato. It's her chewing him out that really breaks him down. The first time he leaves he's not that serious. He needs some time away and after a train ride decides to go back. But the next time Misato confronts him, when he says that he'll keep piloting because people like Rei, Misato, and Ritsuko are counting on him, and when that makes Misato angry, that's when his will really gets destroyed. He's trying to make Misato happy by saying things like that, so her response is confusing and emotionally agonizing. On her end, Misato is trying to look out for Shinji by helping him find his own purpose and keeping him away from the EVA when he has motives that will make piloting even more dangerous. Her good intentions end up backfiring when her words hurt him so much that he nearly runs away. It's a good example of how positive intentions can still hurt others in human relationships, a theme that returns again and again throughout the series. Shinji doesn't arbitrarily decide to stay after he resigns from NERV and nearly gets on the train. Kensuke and Toji coming to say goodbye is an important factor in that decision. Having them act friendly toward him is a powerful motivator for a kid like Shinji, and helps him remember that Misato cares about him too. The scene where the train vanishes and Misato sees that Shinji's still there, while Shinji himself discovers that Misato came to see him off, is a huge moment of emotional triumph for both of them. Eva is pretty subtle about that! It doesn't use any triumphant score or long-winded cheery dialog to communicate it.

I'll go ahead and mention a few niggles while I'm here. There are some awkward drawings in the show, which you can catch pretty frequently if you pay attention. I'm also not sure I really buy Shinji's motivations when he ignores Misato's orders and keeps fighting the fourth angel. I think that part of the scene is a little bit stilted. I can see why people find this show melodramatic or dislike it's characters, but I think its flaws, though present, are tiny in the face of what it gets right. And maybe I'm too soft on kids, but when I watch the early parts I always just want to give Shinji a hug.