Neon Genesis Evangelion #1 ADV 120 minutes English/Japanese English Subtitles 05/16/2000

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I'll lay it on the line for you right now. I don't like Evangelion. At some points I can see why people might like it, but for the most part I just don't get it. What does it bring to the table? Maybe eight years ago it was something spectacular but, Jesus, the animation quality isn't even that good. And that's something that pisses me off a real lot, everyone's always like "The animation's spectacular! The animation's spectacular!" Spectacular for WHAT? A child with cerebral palsy? Evangelion has nice character designs and all, but there's more to making a good soup than just the broth. I think I'm going to make my very own Neon Genesis Evangelion drinking game. You know what the only rule would be? Every time there's a pause in the animation for more than 30 seconds take a drink. You'd die of alcohol poisoning by the end of the fourth episode, but you'd probably be better off than you would watching the whole thing. I know I certainly would've preferred a painful, vomiting death to watching this again, but maybe that's just me. I suppose it's conceivable that a vast majority of the anime watching population aren't entirely wrong and that this show has SOMETHING going for it, but I am just unable to imagine what it is. Frankly, I think Evangelion is mired in a bit too much of its own proprietary bullshit to be really good. But that's something that really comes into play later. The first half or so of this series is pretty watchable, and that's why I gave it that middle grade up there... though many people might be surprised that I didn't totally annihilate it right off the bat.

 

Like I said, it's got redeeming qualities, it does right now, anyway. It shows a bit more story and science than some other mech shows are wont to do, and some of the directional techniques are pretty cool (the incredibly confusing but oh-so cool way you're made to wait to find out what happens in the climactic battle during episode 1 is mainly what I'm referring to) but on the whole there's a little too much story and WAY too much science. Stupid science too. Here's some made up chemical names! We won't tell you what they are! Our giant robots are powered by a giant extension cable! That might sound smart, but it's really not. More than that, it just gives an excuse for the stupid cable to get cut like every other time the robot gets sent out. You want to know what the "ultimate weapon" of Evangelion's giant robots are? The Progressive Knife. Don't get me wrong, that's an awesome name, but just think about it. Woo hoo, we have guns but they don't do jack shit, time to break our GIANT TURKEY CARVER. That's just stupid. When a giant robot in another series has a sword or something it's okay, because they're supposed to be ridiculous but Evangelion purports itself to be at least semi-realistic and the first thing they want you to believe is that they're sending their elite troops into battle with what basically amounts to a pocket knife.

 

Not only that, but these so called "elite troops" are all children. As any fan of giant robots would attest to, the only place for a child in a robot show is as the precocious but still troublesome youth sidekick. Sure, maybe they'll get in the cockpit and cause some trouble once in awhile but they sure as hell aren't going to protect the world from intergalactic aliens. You want to know why? Because little kids can't do stuff like that, they'd be crying for their mommy the first time they saw the giant mechanized evil alien menace. And then, I guess it makes a bit of a sense that the main character, Shinji, is always babbling to himself about how he shouldn't run away... and why he's such a basketcase all the time, but it wears thin really fast. This is just ridiculous. I hate to spoil it for you, but he never gets better and that's my main problem with the show. Maybe more on that later, but let me approach a different thing about Shinji. I really hate Spike Spencer's voice acting. Much like Lisa Ortiz, I'm sure he's a great guy. I bet if he found me broken down on the side of the road he'd tow me and then pay for my car repairs out of his own pocket. That doesn't change the fact that his voice is just... well, let's just say I feel bad for the guy.

 

Who I DO like though, is Joe Pisano as Toji. I don't know if a lot of people do, hell, I might be the only one. He doesn't give a particularly stunning performance and as far as I can tell he's never been in anything else but damn if he doesn't have a cool voice. Toji's an interesting character already, one of the only useful ones in the show, and Joe Pisano's voice just gives him that much more pull. There's just something about it, it's got this cool thickness to it, like he's always chewing on a sandwich or something. I don't know, it just works. In closing, Evangelion isn't entirely useless in the beginning. There's characters that aren't too hard to become attached too and the action is pretty good despite all the flaws I've mentioned before. There's just so much in it that I hate, and it really only gets worse from this point on. Maybe it's good for some people, but certainly not for me. Frankly, it could've used a little less of that flip flopping between serious and whimsical that so many shows seem to love, and a LOT less little boy ass, because really... that's just not cool.