Neon Genesis Evangelion Director's Cut - Resurrection

This is it, Neon Genesis fans; the buildup to the End of Evangelion. This landmark animé, the first one to truly cross the border into the West, is preparing itself to wind down here. But, in true artistic style, this contains not just the three episodes of 21 thru 23, but also includes the extended director’s cuts of each episode. This lends each about another six minutes, most likely originally edited out to fit into programming schedules, and does buoy up the content of each. It could be argued that they slow down the brilliant pacing of the series, but I didn’t notice that. In fact, I felt the weight of the situation amplified by the extra material, rather than slowed by it.

As everyone knows by now, Neon Genesis: Evangelion deals with the forces of humanity who have mysteriously been visited by ‘Angels’, seemingly alien creatures intent on destruction. The only defense against them is the Evangelions, genetically altered technology spawned of the Angels themselves. These are massive humanoid creatures controlled by single teenage pilots who must destroy the Angels before they destroy humanity.

"No, I am me, not you."

However, their arrival was heralded in the Dead Sea Scrolls and a faceless collective of world leaders control the events and the organisation NERV, who maintain the Evangelions, or Evas. The arrival of the Adam, the first Angel was the First Impact and from Adam the technology for the Evas was taken. This was followed by the Second Impact in Antarctica, which destroyed the continent and half the world’s population. The Scrolls predict that Third Impact will destroy humanity itself and this is what the Evas are trying to prevent by killing the entire group of predicted Angels.

The first time I ever saw this show it was as confusing as hell, but after a time the entire complex storyline is quite clear. There are multiple storylines and subplots going on here, with some traditional animé silliness even peppering the landscape. However, on the whole, this is a deadly serious series and one that is of far more complexity than any other animé I can name. Perhaps then, this is the reason for the show’s breakaway success in the Western world, this complexity of very serious issues. It’s by no means an easy show to first grasp, but those who stick with it (and must have done so far to be reading this review) will find themselves richly rewarded. The series is so richly genius in its construction and full of metaphor and messages regarding us as humans that there is more than just the surface level of ultra-cool animation. It also has much more to offer on repeated viewings, as the deeper levels of understanding are more easily assuaged after an initial understanding of the end result.

Here the three episodes, while containing far more long term information, run simply like this:

• Episode 21: NERV is Born. In a series of non-chronological flashbacks, we come to understand the history of NERV and its creation.
• Episode 22: At Least, Be Human. Asuka and her Eva are assaulted by an Angel with a psychological weapon, and Shinji must risk all to save here, which includes using the Lance of Longinus.
• Episode 23: Tears. Some final deep-running facts about the conspiracy behind the Evas are finally revealed to Shinji and Misato.

This release is the prelude to the director's cuts of episodes 24 thru 26 to be released on DVD soon. These will be the original episodes scorned by fans worldwide that spawned the creation of the newer End of Evangelion two episode compilation.

There’s no trouble here. The episodes have been cleaned and remastered and look sensational. The only flaw of any note is in the original film stock and cel wobble. This is inevitable on a shoot of this sort (being hand-painted cel) as an overlay (a still cel that is put atop moving animation) gets increasingly wider marker peg holes with being continually put on and taken off marker pegs. This gives the impression that still objects aren’t exactly stable and is therefore a noticeable fault. However, this is the only real issue here with this 4:3 delivery and due to its rooting in the original stock, is irreparable.

Colours are bright and occasionally lurid (a trademark of Evangelion) and the layouts are dynamic at all times. Another trademark of Evangelion is the brilliant ‘camera’ angles in many of the scenes that make this look far different to many more cheaply produced animés (or Mangas, for that matter). These angles strive more to encapsulate mood, rather than being just simple visual imagery, and this works immeasurably well in this series.

Sadly only a Dolby Digital stereo affair here, though this is, of course, how it originally aired on telly. The dialogue (in the English language version) is all well delivered and well acted too; another surprise considering the sub-par deliveries in some animé. Sound effects are awesome and well delivered with clarity and the music of this series floats about a whole spectrum of different genres. For the most part, some of it gets a little cheesy, but in the action scenes it can be really quite riveting. Shiroh Sagisu’s score is groundbreaking, however, and again has set the benchmark for other animé to follow.

This selection doesn’t really count for much with clean title animation being the first cab off the rank. This is the show’s opening and closing titles sans text and is okay I guess, but not a huge prize.

A bunch of trailers being the ADV Previews come next and these are for Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi, Rahxephon, Final Fantasy Unlimited and Full Metal Panic!. These are all strung together and run for 6:41.

Finally, something that heralds itself as much more is an interview with Ben Wootten and Richard Taylor of the Weta Workshop in New Zealand where we get a ‘sneak preview’ of the Evangelion live action version. While running for 21:19, we get a bit of concept art, but not a single look in at any of the animation, and most of that time is focussed on these two New Zilland blokes talking about their experience on Lord of the Rings and Evangelion. Big deal, show us the Evas!

Well, this probably won’t be for people who haven’t ever seen Evangelion as we are deeply immersed in the storyline from the moment we begin here. However, it’s been a while since I saw it and I picked it up eventually. Regardless of that though, this disc does start at Episode 21 and ends in an almost prelude to The End of Evangelion at Episode 23. The End of Evangelion is Episodes 25 and 26 with the original and director's cuts of Episodes 24 thru 26 yet to come, as noted above.

Fans will find this as gripping as the rest of the series, but for the uninitiated, my recommendation is check out the lead up to this one first. It’ll taste sweeter that way.