[OAVs, Movies and Full Series]

End of Evangelion: I swallowed hard, like I understood

Posted by Martin  [Tags: Evangelion, Gainax, Hideaki Anno]

As I’m typing this long-overdue (and lengthy) post I’m listening to the debut record from 65 Days of Static, The Fall of Math (hence the above title), which to me is an appropriate accompaniment to this film. I’ve gone over how I first encountered the show already but as with most people who have seen the feature-length alternative ending, it has been a long-standing source of wonder, discussion and head-scratching ever since. My appreciation of both the likes of End of Evangelion and music that’s also thought of as experimental and alternative is fairly similar: they are challenging and take a bit of getting into, are all too able to lose you in the layers of meaning and artistry but you can’t but admit that they’re an impressive piece of work. That and the fact that the song title in question pretty much sums up how I feel that you don’t have to ‘get’ everything about this movie to appreciate it. A seminal film in anime history is of course quite different from an instrumental rock album recorded by four guys from Sheffield…

The token symbolic-looking screenie, complete with a naked Rei/Lilith to placate the fanboys

The first half of EoE is brutal to the point of excess and the second half feels like a storyteller being deliberately obtuse (given the death threats and various other forms of psychological trauma he experienced, I can’t say I blame him either) and yet it’s still something I can re-watch. For one thing it’s head and shoulders above the TV show in terms of art quality - we had to wait for the first Rebuild movie to see what Anno and co would do with a big budget. More interestingly it’s also the first time we see him take on live-action film making and spread his wings in a feature-length presentation.

[10 Comments]

[OAVs, Movies and Full Series]

Rebuild of Evangelion 1.0: you are (not) alone

Posted by Martin  [Tags: Evangelion, Hideaki Anno]

I was initially very sceptical of an NGE remake due to the cash cow-milking that the show has suffered from during the past thirteen years already; as much as the original series and cinematic alternate ending have been instrumental (pun intended >_<) in my interest in anime, it’s always felt like an exercise in taking a good story and squeezing as much money out of it as possible. Not that this stopped me watching the first Rebuild movie anyway, you understand.

My reasons for having any faith in this new Eva outing are largely centred round the fact that many of the key staff from the original series are on board, from the likes of Shiro Sagisu and Yoshiuki Sadamoto (soundtrack score and character design, respectively), Gainax alumni Kazuya Tsurumaki and Masayuki, not to mention the main VA telent; it’s like catching up with old friends. Even the maestro himself, Hideaki Anno, is sitting above them all, supervising with an eerily Gendo-esque air of Just As Planned on his face. When he’s revisiting his most famous creation after so long it certainly suggests that he has a damn good reason to revisit it.

[7 Comments]

[OAVs, Movies and Full Series]

Evangelion: my baptism of fire

Posted by Martin  [Tags: Evangelion, Gainax, Hideaki Anno, Over-analysis, Self-indulgent nostalgia]

On a number of occasions I’ve alluded to my somewhat unconventional (albeit not unique) introduction to anime fandom. While it hasn’t exactly changed my entire outlook on life or anything, it certainly set the course that my viewing and appreciation would take and even to this day shapes my views on many of the aspects that make up the reviews and editorials on this very blog, for better or for worse.

I’m doing this review partly because Neon Genesis Evangelion hasn’t had a full review or editorial here dedicated to it; also it’s a way of putting my current opinions on anime in general into context. Two of these are those of the Apologist and Elitist stances, which hopefully will be accompanying posts in the coming weeks. Everyone’s hobbies and interests have to start somewhere, even if that somewhere is a little embarrassing and inappropriate; this was mine, and I’ll leave it to you to decide how embarrassing and inappropriate an introduction it was.

[6 Comments]