evangelion notes

There was a world before, and a world after Neon Genesis Evangelion.

The anime industry flourished in the 80s as a result of the bubbling Japanese economy. There was so much money production committees just invested in ambitious directors creating equally bold projects. It led to a wave of high-budget experimental films, often masculine space operas influenced by the international commercial success of Star Wars. However, as with any bubble, it is destined to pop eventually. At the end of the 80s, the biggest anime production ever (Akira) failed domestically, anime & manga godfather Osamu Tezuka passed away, and the general market deflated.

In the meanwhile, Hideaki Anno spiraled into a deep depression after the completion of Fushigi no Umi no Nadia and a failed sequel to Wings of the Honneamise. His own 4-year depression inspired him to educate himself about mental illness and psychology. Hundreds of essays have been written about the complexes of the multi-faceted characters, each being an expression of Anno's own struggled mind, and many parallels can be drawn to the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, or the existentialist philosophy of Soren Kierkegaard.

In the mecha genre, leads were often idealistic and unbeatable adult men piloting their robots with heroic morals. Evangelion upended that entirely by putting a meek teenage boy and two emotionally immature girls as main characters. In Evangelion's wake, mecha anime now often have vulnerable leads, whereas Rei Ayanami's personality traits has ushered in an entire new wave of copycats, with many acclaimed shows emulating her.

This unique character writing and its children's time slot allowed Evangelion to not only revitalize its genre, nor the entire anime industry as it heavily suffered from creative bankruptcy, but heavily influenced both domestic and international pop culture. Anime changed in its entirety: auteurs now got more creative control, there was greater freedom in merchandising, more investment in off-kilter and ambitious projects, and its cinematography/editing became a staple in anime directing.

Otaku culture drastically expanded globally. Evangelion turned an insignificant sub-community into the inescapable, worldwide phenomenon that we know today. Although stated in early production that Anno wanted to develop this culture, ironically during production he became disenchanted with its corresponding lifestyle, much to the contempt of Eva's fans. Well, I'm getting too far ahead of myself right now, I'll talk about it more at End of Evangelion.

*production issues
*stunning cinematography, aesthetic, relatable, and difficult to watch albeit worthwhile

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10: Magma Diver fucking sucks. There's only two redeemable shots in this entire episode which are Rei getting out of the pool, which is only serviceable because she's adorable, and Shinji catching Asuka at the end.

Granted, that final cut is a very necessary mutual understanding between Shinji and Asuka that leads into the final acts of Evangelion.

But all in all, it's the weakest episode in Eva's entire run-time. It provides practically nothing from a story perspective as it just meanders around the same plot points, is awfully slow (in the literal sense too, with the descent into the magma pool being agonizingly long), and suffers from an ugly red color palette without any semblance of aesthetic, and a setting that doesn't allow for the ambitious directing that Evangelion excels at. Combine it with the awkward fat-suit fetishism for Asuka and Magma Diver feels more like an Eva fan-fiction episode than one meant to push the story forward.

11: Asuka really bothers me right now. While her introduction only a couple episodes ago was a breath of fresh air, she also took the show into an entirely different direction for a significant period which led to a much weaker Evangelion. The last slew of episodes have felt lackluster. However, The Day Tokyo-3 Stood Still is a massive leap into the right direction. It returns with a moody, melancholic tone with the power outage and reliance on human contact in an era of suffocating technology. Unlike the former few episodes, 11 raises a couple of worthwhile plot points and, most importantly, is the first time the three Evangelion pilots sortie and interact with each other for extended periods of time. Kind of irked by the clunky way Shinji asks questions at the very end. It is rather on-the-nose, which is a spot of disappointment in what otherwise is a return to form in storytelling, atmosphere, foreshadowing, and art direction.