Neon Genesis Evangelion is the pinnacle of the 90s when it comes to anime, and has become one of the most influential series of the decade (that continues to this day). So naturally, people wanted to bank on its success by wanting to make their own Evangelion, whether to prove they could do it better, or just for a quick buck. Likewise with all titles that followed the leader, success varied for each “Eva-clone” that was made. So, uh, you know how every director and every studio, no matter how critically/universally acclaimed they are, has that one bad movie/series they have in them that they have to get out somehow? I think I found the one for Sunrise, the studio that is basically the king of the mecha genre, and Yoshiyuki Tomino, the guy whose reputation amounts simply to “Kill them all”. (Oh, he kills them all, alright. Those braincells ain't coming back.)
STORY: Don't make me laugh, what story? Oh, there's a story, but don't ask me what it is because I'm a goldfish. But according to Wikipedia and TV Tropes, the story is, uh, let's see, about a futuristic Earth in which an alien spacecraft that's dubbed “Orphan” is resting at the bottom of the ocean where it's stirring from its dormancy and will kill off all living beings when it decides to leave the atmosphere. A group of people calling themselves “Reclaimers” believe they're the chosen ones Orphan chose to take them to the stars, and wants to aid it by hunting down plates to revive the spacecraft using mechas called “Antibodies”—or Gran Chers—to collect them. One of the residents, a boy named Yuu Isami, revolts against his parents and flees with a newborn “Brain Powerd” (which are basically infant Gran Chers) and runs into a group of rebellious Antibody pilots known as Novice Noah where he becomes attached/attracted to a girl named Hime Utsumiya, who is orphaned and had accidentally become an Antibody pilot to a newborn Brain Powerd, and together, they try to prevent Orphan from emerging and destroy all life.
Sounds simple, yes? Far from it. The introduction was too complex for my poor albeit-educated brain to grasp, and it became more convoluted as time goes on as characters are introduced with their own personal demons (and most of them are—what a shock—orphans or those who have parental issues) and yet don't have personalties to call their own. Then revelations of Orphan and the Reclaimers come to light, characters start fighting with each other and angsting/not angsting about their crappy lives, and then the United States gets involved at some point, and what the hell just happened? I'm not going to pretend I was the least bit interested in what was going on, because I wasn't. The beginning episodes-aside throwing us into the action without proper introduction (at least Evangelion was courteous enough to show what was going on), it tried to be interesting, but it was clear no one knew what the hell was going on. I don't know what it's like in the original Japanese, but the dub by Bandai sure was scrambling to find footing and giving up very quickly.
Apparently, this is Tomino's take on Evangelion, but I'm clearly not seeing why or how. In fact, I was actually a little surprised how much I was reminded more of Vision of Escaflowne than I was Evangelion, although it's kind of a hybrid of the two. It feels like story ideas that were canned from Escaflowne were used here, except then taken into a different direction right off the cliff à la the fate of the last graboid in the first “Tremors”.
CHARACTERS: I'm good with recognizing character designs, so I can see them all in my head. However, when it comes to their names, I can only think of three without looking them up: Yuu because “SHUT UP, YOU”, Hime for “Excuuuuuuse me, princess!”, and Jonathan because that's my brother's name even though the character doesn't act at all like my brother—unless my brother went rogue or something. The other names I didn't bother to remember because they're too exotic or too bland to think of anything to memorize them. Even then, I wouldn't be able to tell you their importance to the story because then that would mean trying to figure out what their personalities are.
Yuu is basically this anime's Shinji, except as a generic protagonist who apparently has issues with his family especially his sister, and they tried to make that the central point of his character yet it didn't stick. Hime is the redhead, thus she's the Asuka of this anime right down to the love interest, right? Not quite. She's actually the Anzu/Téa of this anime. So yes, that means friendship speeches. This is her character. Jonathan is like the rival/antagonist/Dilandau of this anime and has mommy issues up the wazoo. And people get on Shinji's back about his daddy issues, but that's because he's more engaging about it, and no one cares to remember this show enough to remember this brat who complained to his mother whom he was about to shoot that she never gave him Christmas presents.
The mechas themselves would count as characters if they were interesting enough. They're sentient enough that the pilots bond with them and talk to them and address them as “boy” (they all do it), and they all apparently have the likeness of a child which goes with the themes of childlike ideologies of the world and what it means to grow up. But they're boring. At least when it came to the EVAs, while they didn't talk, the way they bonded with their pilots had emotional connection to the characters, as well as distinctive looks (and in a way, “personalities”) from one-another. And with Escaflowne, while the mecha also didn't talk, it was the god of war in Fanelia, and thus there was importance to its presence in the series and the connection it had with the main characters, particularly with Van.
I can't tell you thing one about the Brain Powerds and why they're important to the series outside of the fact only children can pilot/befriend them (sort of, I guess) simply because they're children themselves. Even though wouldn't it make more sense for an ADULT to be the pilot to help nurture these Brain Powerds?
ART/ANIMATON: Sunrise as a whole typically produces some exquisite artwork, and had their own style that can be pointed out in a line-up. Sure, you can totally tell this is from them in the 90s, but this is not one of their best works. It was obvious they sent this off to the new people who weren't being paid enough to even give a rat's ass about it while all the experts worked on Cowboy Bebop, which aired at about the exact same time as “Brain Powerd”. The animation is so dated for the time that it's embarrassing because of all the shortcuts and post-production effects that were done, and there were a lot of clunkiness to be found in every episode. The only time it looked good and had that Sunrise touch was when it was admiring the female body in the opening credits.
Sunrise is also known for their mechas, as mentioned before, and they have made some creative and distinguishable mechas over the years even though it was all to sell toys in the end. The mechas designs in “Brain Powerd” are some of the most uninspired designs I've ever seen. There's apparently two different mechas used throughout the series, the Brain Powerds and Gran Chers (although they're the exact same mecha, just one's a child and the other's the adult), and I can't tell the two apart at all, which made it infuriating during the battle sequences against the Reclaimers' Antibody pilots. Doesn't help that the Brain Powerds tried to get different designs for each new pilot (especially the one pair that were twins), and I still couldn't tell them all apart.
Oh, and the cockpit is in the groin area, and whenever the hatch opened up, it looked like an erection. Make of that what you will (though it explains why everyone would call their mechas “boys”).
SOUND: I chose not to watch this in Japanese because I figured this was going to be a doozy to keep up with, and I'm sure I chose the lesser of two evils. My God did no one at Bandai care—which says something because a lot of these voice actors are actually well-known and have done other dubs before and after this (I want to say the Escaflowne dub was done prior to this one because Andrew Francis sounded like he had hit puberty prior to being cast in this anime). I don't know who the ADR director for this was, let alone who translated the scripts, but I bet you no one on that staff and in the recording booth knew what was written on those pages or what was going on on the screen. Everyone sounded confused when they're not stilted in delivery, it was really awkward.
The only person who seemed to have cared may have been Yoko Kanno, although if she half-assed it, it's not THAT noticeable. But her music for this show honestly isn't worth looking for despite the soundtrack being the best thing about the show (to the point I was more invested in the music than I was in the scene or the dialogue). And I hate saying that about her, but considering she was working on Cowboy Bebop's soundtrack at this time as well, her priorities were elsewhere alongside everyone else's.
Also, the opening song, “In My Dream”, is too good for this show and thus it's the only thing I'm taking away from this. And no, I don't get why it is there were naked women in the opening, which is the only opening I can think of outside of Elfen Lied where nudity was rampant.
ENJOYMENT/OVERALL: My brain puked. That's... that's all I can say. I've tried, people, but all I could do was ramble because I have no idea how to process this show. When you're reduced to a blabbering mess and you just go into a trance and wander around trying to acknowledge the surrounding world, your mind goes elsewhere. Well, that could just be me, but this is what this anime has done to me in a way very few anime has had the privilege of doing to me. I'm legitimately surprised I can even function right now, I thought the number of headaches I had developed from watching/half-watching this baloney would've given me an aneurysm.
In fact, just thinking about it makes my insides clench and my brain to throb and I want to puke, and I don't want to talk about this anymore. It probably should've stayed that way so it would've saved me and the rest of you the headache of trying to comprehend my thoughts.
