"I don't understand, why me?"
"There is no why. That destiny happened to be yours; That's all. However, I want you to understand that you're not the only one risking your life in this fight; We are all in this together."
And with that comes the subtitle "You Are Not Alone".
Let's go back to when I was in high school, I remember I was just getting my license and watching Neon Genesis Evangelion for the first time, I still remembering sitting in the car on my way to school just thinking about that ending. At the time I didn't have knowledge of "The End of Evangelion" just the reboot trilogy so I started this movie right after I finished the series, thinking it was entirely different. To my surprise I found out that it was recapping some of the events of the original just in a different light, so I skipped ahead to the next movie and I was confused as all heck so I said that maybe I'll come back to it when I've forgotten the specifics of the series because I wasn't watching a recap of the anime I just saw.
So, here we are today, I'm in my 20s now and seem to have forgotten a decent amount because I went into this remembering stuff left and right, it was like a trip down memory lane. The anime is special and in a way, I wouldn't think I could recreate that magic, considering the time-frame I watched it was more or less in the same as Shinji Ikari, the protag. So when I found out about End of Evangelion, I decided best not to watch it, I actually kind of liked the ending to the anime if I'm honest, though very unexpected.
How do you reboot a series to add new content but want to build off of the old content?
Imagine being a fan of the original during its original end in 1996 or even seeing "The End" in '97 and then seeing a reboot movie come out ten to eleven years later in 2007, I feel like the experience I had was just what they were going for, this is very much for fans but I imagine that newcomers are welcome. I will say this, it's not going to be easy on newcomers because it speedruns through a good bit of the original story without all the context but for me, I actually feel like I understand it more because of my growth over the years and because of knowing what I know now, I can appreciate the psychology behind it even more. Not to mention the visual storytelling, it's great, it's like seeing these scenes for the first time again because some of the scenes I don't even know if it was in the original.
To build off of the quote from earlier, I've been asking myself a lot of questions about my life lately, similar to how Shinji is. I think that's what makes him a good character, they make him relatable. There may not be an answer to those questions but it doesn't matter, I'm focusing on the wrong thing, you don't live life by asking questions, you live life by doing. This was the movie I needed right now. ENJOYMENT - 8
STORY - If you like the anime, you'll like this.
ANIMATION - I already said the visual storytelling is great, if anything watch for the juicy new animation. 9.
CHARACTER - Again a 9, still don't like that they decided to keep that Rei shower scene though.
SOUND - I don't actually remember if they played the music on Shinji's walk-man in the original but it's absent here (at least on the dub) The ending is sung by Utada Hikaru which you Kingdom Hearts fans know, so I have to give a round of applause for that, my heart jumped when I saw that. So, I guess an 8 for the score (Utada gets a 10 alone though)
OVERALL - I'll knock it a little because there are recaps out there, in fact I believe that's what the first movie was (Revival) however this is probably the best of its kind because it's not just a recap, it's an overhaul/retelling. It surprised me with how much I enjoyed it and has made me excited to see the following parts, because it only covers a chunk of the original story. (Asuka doesn't appear yet) Some scenes were even an improvement over the original.