Reviews

Evangelion went out the way it had to go out, sincere, haunting, and touchingly beautiful. The movie isn’t perfect, it is certainly confusing at times, convoluted, and tends to let characters go on long monologues, but that’s partly why I fell in love with the series to begin with. Other have complained that the ending lacked meaning, but I disagree. I would argue that it’s just as meaningful as the other endings to the series, this time focusing very much on themes of resilience and growth. Learning to bend without breaking, adapting to the cards that life deals you, and having the audacity to triumph in the face of impossible odds. The film isn’t for everybody, some people will not like it, but it is a true piece of art and it absolutely redeems the lacklustre ending of 3.33 when watched in sequence. One of my greatest fears was that this film would struggle to bridge the gap between the void of nothingness that 3.33 left us in and the satisfying ending the series deserved. I sincerely believe that it succeeded in this.

The last thing I want to highlight is the absolute quality of the English dub on this and the Amazon redub of all of the prior rebuild films. This dub is the single best dub of any Evangelion media ever. Even though the cast is largely left untouched compared to the Funimation dub of the first three rebuilds (and some are still around from ADV’s NGE dub). This is the first time that it felt natural. Spike Spencer and Tiffany Grant, whose performances of Shinji and Asuka I’m nostalgic for, but not typically not a huge fan of, absolutely killed it on this one as did most of the rest of the cast. Credit also goes to the studio for letting them swear and use coarser language that isn’t typically found in anime dubs. Moments like the pilot yelling F*** as his helicopter got destroyed in the opening minutes of 1.11 really add to the realism of the dub and help it sound like it was written for English instead of being a translation from Japanese. (Though, all that said, they kept “four-eyed crony” in from 3.33 which killed me a little bit every time they said it…)

Overall, I’m incredibly sad to see such an iconic series finally end. Honestly, I feel a little empty inside. Eva has meant so much for me in my times of darkness for the last seven and a half years and now it’s really done. But I really believe that this ending is going to age well. It felt definitive, final, and whole, with all of the artistry that I have come to expect from Anno. Bravo. And to all the children: Congratulations.