Now I have re-watched this controversial anime. I can be almost sure that you will love it or hate it, some of you might feel bored because the anime has quite slow pace. By this I mean that it's not slow paced in its story telling but I found the setting quite moody and slow like a song from a doom metal band like I was watching a dream and I feel this anime can also feel surreal .
I really like the story and the setting. I am huge fan of sience fiction and this anime can throw in religious elements and still have the scifi jargon mumbo jumbo which I always like to hear. It does not feel forced but a part of it. I'd like to even say that Neon Genesis Evangelion's world is a mix of religious and science fiction aspects. In fact it reminds me of a Dan Simmon’s book Hyperion but I dare not to talk about it more because I would need a book to cover it if I start to compare NGE (Neon Genesis Evangelion) with other pieces of art and at the same trying to write a review about it.
I was sucked in to the experience and in fact I watched the series in a few days marathon. This is a usually a point which makes a good experience for me you can’t just stop watching to the point it’s almost harmful. Some point I realized that the clock was 6:00 am and I overslept waking up at 2:00 pm. Maybe you will be hooked? Or you throw the anime over your shoulder after two episodes.
So the art is quite nice it’s almost vintage as been told in other reviews and the age of the anime shows but this is not a bad thing for me. The action scenes are really well made I can see that special care was taken in to them: they are fluid and an enjoyment to watch. But the main problem is that the action seems to fall short. I felt the villain was destroyed in one hit so you just got a small taste of the cake. I would have loved to see more epic long shifting battles but I guess they didn’t have the resources to do that.
Sadly there are many almost laughable moments when you are only shown a still image for couple of minutes. At first you could say this is an artistic solution which at first I thought it was. The still and anemic points integrate well with the slow pace and mood I mentioned earlier but the threshold is crossed just by a bit and you start to think that is there something wrong? Why the image is frozen? So in a way you can think that these moments are there to amplify the feeling of NGE: the gloomy mood which shadows everything. The gore and violence is executed perfectly in my opinion it’s not there for the shock effect like in many other works of fictions: Hey he’s head exploded and now there’s blood and brain matter everywhere how cool is that? In truth I felt disgusted when the gore was finally shown. Those moments are rare and very powerful they are not here just for the sake of violence.
I really like the EVAs which are the mechas of this anime. They are slender and beautiful they seem like humans to me. I usually think mechas as bulky and buffed war machines. EVAs are colorful and I really love their design for me they are very memorable and unique. But with EVAs you could say that they are “more than meets the eye” if you keep watching the anime which makes them even more bizarre and to the point again very repulsive.
Apart from the great and catchy theme in the beginning of an episode I can’t say anything from the music. The theme is on my top anime openings of all time but the rest of the music did not seem to exist for me sure I realized there was music but it sounded boring and dull so I did not even try to listen to them. There is a music for an intense moment and when there is danger but they don’t hit your balls like the opening theme. I must say the howling of the Unit 01 was dreadful it sounded like a trapped and tortured being like it should and I almost did not want to hear it and this was the part of the repulsiveness that I had when I was watching the anime. I felt sad and terrified when I heard the screaming and the howling.
This review is just expanding and while I am writing this I really feel I need to publish a book to cover everything I have to say. So about the characters: they are very deep. At first I hated one character but when the story unfolded I even felt sympathy for him. There are many sides to the characters and I feel they are realistic. Many have opinion about the main hero that’s he is an annoying sissy and a crybaby. Well to be honest I would cry and scream if I had to pilot a giant robot and fight monsters and experience pain and violence every day. Maybe these opinions are there because that we don’t want to see a weak hero in fiction. We want to be like the hero and we want to be strong and brave and we want to identify with the hero. But NGE can show how we people truly are: We as humans are flawed and most of us all really broken and all humans have their issues and negative sides. That’s why we have fiction so we can be somebody else but NGE does not give you that chance it tries to be realistic when it comes to characters. The creator’s mental state can be seen in characters and in fact I feel this anime resonates with my own depression and suicidal thoughts and at some points I felt even more anxious when I kept watching. I think that’s the charm of this anime because it reminds me of myself even though that side is not a pleasant side to see.
So in the end I feel this is an anime everyone should watch just for the sake of it. For the same reason we have Mona Lisa and people tend to go and watch it in Louvre you should watch this anime. I’ve tried to keep talking people to watch this because I would like to talk about it. I assume people are still after over ten years trying to make sense to it and speculating endlessly but that is watch makes a great experience for me. The enjoyment does not end after you have watched, read or played something: you want to talk and share your thoughts about it. In fact you don’t know how not to talk about it constantly. I almost gave this anime 10 out of 10 but because of technical execution in sound and animation and objectivity I lowered the score to 9. If this anime had the visuals of Hellsing Ultimate series or Vampire Hunter D: Blood Lust and memorable soundtrack I think this anime should be worshipped as a unique masterpiece: a pinnacle of great work of fiction.
