Reviews

Time flew and there humanity was, 1996. The timing was just right, a new millennium was about to come, even though its predecessor’s problems remain: climate conversion, pollution, overpopulation, religious and social conflicts,… The creators of Neon Genesis Evangeline couldn’t find the solutions for those matters, but they could talk about something more fundamental, ‘human’. The term is for a species that resides on Earth, also the culprit behind the things that certainly will endanger the existence of the precious life, the one and only known across the universe. It is expected that humanity, with intelligence and cooperation, would overcome those menaces. Nevertheless, there is also a fact that the ever-changing future brings uncertainties, and those are possibly the cause of anxiety, ignorance, or simply the darkness within one’s inner self. That darkness has also become a hindrance that each human being should be aware of and accordingly find a solution.

Well, Neon Genesis could have talked big, huh. However, what did we have there? They had 26 episodes, but was unable to work it out, which resulted in a movie as the epilogue. That was a huge failure in term of pacing. There were at least 3-18 times 23 minutes of fillers, which didn’t contributed anything. I remember there was an episode recaptured all the previous incidents, and the question is, why they didn’t take advantage of it, in order to bring out the answers for the unresolved mysteries and conflicts within the world of Evangeline, or dig deeper into the inner selves of the characters, inflicting the damage gradually yet sharply, painfully yet comfortably, undesirably yet inevitably. The time could have earned would have been enough to insert the entire movie, but what had done was done, and the final minutes of the TV series were just the characters screaming to their heart content. As the consequence, the protagonists, aka Shinji the Garbage and Asuka Langley, initially supposed to be sympathisable, were utterly disgusting and there was nothing to learn from them. In addition, there wasn’t much to say about Rei Anything-could-fit-here. Indeed, she had ‘many’ ‘characters’, and her words of wisdom were empty, yet full of unoriginality... Wait, perhaps Miss Langley had done something meaningful...

There are reasons why Neon Genesis Evangeline could be more than it is. Still, the show is just a spectacular failure. I wish I had experienced 4 minutes of Beware of Darkness, 1970, way earlier... Anyway, good times, bad times.