Though Neon Genesis Evangelion may not be everybody’s cup of green tea, it comes with no end of hype and recommendation. In its native Japan, the series enjoyed unprecedented ratings success (for an anime), sold a squillion copies on video and the sale of merchandising even surpassed that of Star Wars: Episode 1 which was released in the same year. The entire series has a running time of approximately twelve hours and spans a mammoth twenty-six episodes. On DVD, the collection is presented over eight discs and, in it’s entirety, succeeds in weaving an intricate (if not slightly convoluted) tale of teen angst, psychology and even biblical existentialism. Forget about those old episodes of Gigantor - these cartoons is all growed up. Collection 0:1 contains the first four episodes of the series and, though entertaining, serves as little more than an introduction for the action to follow.
The year is 2015 and Tokyo 3 is under attack from a terrifying celestial force known as The Angels. These giants show up at random, without warning and have a near relentless capacity for stomping humankind into butter. As Earths defences begin to buckle under attack, it seems that mankind’s last hope lies with the NERV agency and their Evangelion program. The Evangelions (or EVA units) are giant humanoid robots that have the capacity, not only to penetrate the Angel force fields, but also to tackle each invader in direct combat. Naturally, an EVA unit needs a pilot.
Our story begins with the arrival of the anxious and painfully introverted Shinji Ikari. As it happens, the fourteen-year-old Shinji is known as the ‘third child’ (they’ll explain later) and as such is chosen as pilot for the powerful EVA 01 unit. His father, Gendo, is head of the NERV agency and rather than welcome his son, spurns him and sends him to live with the spunky Major Misato Katsuragi (plenty of unsettling sexual innuendo ensues) in her downtown apartment. Can Shinji save Tokyo3? Can he resolve his differences with his father? Who is the mysterious Rei Ayanami? Why do the Angels attack? What wiped out Tokyo 1 and 2? Can Shinji conquer his inner demons? What about his schoolwork? Who the hell keeps a pet penguin in a downtown apartment?
Well, guess what? By the end of episode four you still wont know the answers! You may however, be a little more interested in finding out.
With such a long running time, the series enjoys the luxury of being able to introduce its players gradually and to explore their characters and their inter-relationships. As a consequence, the characters become quite complex and you may find yourself feeling an unreasonable amount of sympathy (or frustration) for our boy, Shinji. There are even attempts to lighten proceedings with occasional humour (let’s face it – as far as humour goes, Japanese animation has given us some great…er, giant robots).
Clever as the scripting is, the show without a doubt belongs to the awesome EVA units. From the first moment one of these wrecking machines takes its first steps, the whole series shifts into a higher gear. By the time the EVA unit enters its first battle against the Angels, the atmosphere is one of genuine suspense (no, really) and intense action.
The animation in the battle scenes are of high quality and each painstaking detail has been applied in bringing the EVA units to life. Conversely, much of the animation in the more dialogue driven scenes is a little underdone (plenty of still frames with ‘mouth-only’ movement). Almost without fail though, the backgrounds to the main action are, quite simply, stunning.
The greatest advantage to watching this on DVD is the option to hear the dialogue in Japanese with English subtitles. The English dubbed option is also available but is so horrible you would need the constitution of a Sumo to make viewing palatable. We are not dealing with Bambi here so you might as well make the whole experience as surreal as possible. Go on, watch it in Japanese – it’s only twenty-six episodes.
Since the series was only ever produced for the small screen, the transfer is presented in 1.33:1 and naturally, is not 16x9 enhanced. Sadly, the picture quality on this release is not all it could be. The colours, which could have been so vibrant, sometimes appear a little faded and the picture quality, although certainly sufficient, is not as crisp as I would have liked. Having viewed the rest of the series on VHS, I am unsure how the transfer measures up in later releases but since these discs were released a couple of months apart, I would like to think that this is one area that could be improved upon.
It seems to me, you either like this stuff or you don’t. If you are unused to it, the thought of sitting through two hours of anime is probably about as appealing as smearing wasabi into your eyes. If however, you have ever found the medium even remotely entertaining in the past (Akira or Ghost in the Shell, perhaps?) then you may find Neon Genesis Evangelion well worth a look. If nothing else, it is rare to find animation that gives this much thought to the areas of plot and character development.
Er…did I mention this series has giant robots?
