16 September 2007

Neon Genesis Evangelion

I started watching this mainly because it keeps getting mentioned in relation to Bliss Stage, which I'm pretty interested in right now. Last night I watched the last few episodes.

It's kind of hard to look back on, due to the fact that the different parts of the series have very different styles. The middle part, in which the action is pretty much constant and the characters are most well developed, is fantastic. Before then, it starts a little slowly. Finally, at the end, it goes into full-blown crazy psychological stuff that is fairly unclear.

Anyhow, it's a cool study of some fucked up people given terrible things that (they believe) are necessary to save humanity. The protagonist's entire story is about having the courage to do what he has to versus his desire to run away and have a normal life again. His father, a remote and hostile figure in control of the EVA robot program, has pretty much decided what needs to be done and resists any deviation from his plan (which later turns out to be diverging somewhat from the plan his bosses intend him to carry out). The other characters generally seem to include variations on these sort of stories, too.

The animation quality varies somewhat - at it's best, there are some very good sequences, but sometimes it's pretty lazy (stills montages, characters talking while their mouths are covered to save on animation, shots that just plain aren't animated that well).

It's a good one to watch, but doesn't challenge Cowboy Bebop as my favorite animated series.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Comments:

1. Make sure you watch End of Evangelion (for a better IMO yet even more weird ending).

2. NGE is quite old. The animation was top notch at the time. On saying that, there is a 4 movie series which redoes the entire series with new animation (and a slightly clearly story line) called Rebuild of Evangelion.

3. RahXephon (or even just the RahXephon movie) is a much pretty (and arguably sanitised) version of NGE. It has some very impressive art even being 5 years old now.

4. If you like Cowboy Bebop, have you watched Samurai Champloo?

Unknown said...

Yeah, I saw that there was that alternate ending film. I might check it out.

I have watched Samurai Champloo, but I didn't like it. I'm not sure exactly why - just that the style didn't appeal, maybe?

Anonymous said...

There is a long story to the End of Evangelion. The ending of the series was the result of a lack of money, time and coherent energy to finish it as envisaged. It got a lot of flack and the director became embittered. He was then asked to do a movie which captured the original vision and he did it. However, it has none of the positive elements of the original ending. Instead, it is one of the most impressive "up yours" I know off on DVD and it is splendid (then again I like the depressing stuff).

Apparently, Rebuild of Evangelion will have the technical grace of End of Evangelion but with the message of the original series (or something like that) :)

I am not surprised regarding Champloo. If you like sci fi and jazz more than you like samurai and urban beats then you will like Bebop more.

Unknown said...

Thanks for the comments on Evangelion.

Actually, neither samurai nor the music style where the reason I didn't like Samurai Champloo. It was more to do with the story and rapid cut style - both led to me basically having no idea what was going on. Also the characters weren't as cool as Spike, Jet and Ein (and the others, I guess).

Anonymous said...

Actually, neither samurai nor the music style where the reason I didn't like Samurai Champloo. It was more to do with the story and rapid cut style - both led to me basically having no idea what was going on. Also the characters weren't as cool as Spike, Jet and Ein (and the others, I guess).

Okay, in that case you have me at a loss as I disagree with you on both counts, but thats cool.

Unknown said...

Wait... you can't disagree that I had no idea what was going on!

I'm prepared to believe the characters were cooler as the story built up, but I found the first few episodes just too confusing to carry on with it.

Anonymous said...

I am at a loss as I don't have either of your issues with the show and can't really understand why you think the wya you do (though I am cool with the fact that our brains work differently).

IMO Mugen and Jin were both cool as Spike and Jet (and possibly even cooler given how the show developed, though it depends what mood I am in) and the stories in Champloo were overall much more polished than Bebop. For example, the opening episode of Champloo is my all time favourite opening (and possibly single) episode of anime.