Misato isn’t much better: a hopeless alcoholic and part-time seductress, she continually questions her own devotion to NERV, despite the structure it has given to her life. As the other two pilots, Rei is a laconic, expressionless creature that lives in an empty apartment and does whatever Ikari tells her, while Asuka is wildly insecure, desperate to prove her superiority, and hurling insults when none are necessary. All this is made more unsettling when we gradually realize how many characters lost their mothers while working at NERV. Part of the fun of “NGE” is in how it gradually reveals its secrets, and I wouldn’t dream of spoiling them. But I will say that for every answer an episode provides, about six questions are left delightfully unresolved.
Despite its cheap exploitation of its female characters, “NGE” is successful in showing us Shinji’s budding curiosity about the opposite sex. If there’s anyone who can’t be blamed for lusting after fourteen-year-old girls, it’s a fourteen-year-old boy, and “NGE” had more than a few moments in which I could recall what it was like when lust was a new thing. Because both are essentially orphans, Shinji and Asuka find themselves living with Misato in Tokyo, and their saving the world plays interestingly into their adolescent interactions. Shinji is attracted to Asuka despite her constant hostility, to Misato despite the pseudo-Oedipal complex this forms, and to Rei, for whom his sexual curiosity becomes just another element of his curiosity for her unknowable past.
“Evangelion” hits its stride in its final handful of episodes and in the feature film. After spending so much time with the characters we understand how writer-director Hideaki Anno uses them as examples in his philosophical treatise on suffering and immortality. Shinji and the others enter drawn-out, impressionist passages in which their self-loathing and weariness are examined with the freedom of animation. Shinji despises his suffering almost as much as he despises himself, but he learns that without suffering there is no free will, and, while in a limbo space brought on by his Eva, he realizes that a world of absolute freedom is one of solitude.
When “NGE” ends, it is open to an enormous amount of interpretation, if for no other reason than because it ends twice. The television series is completed in the twenty-fifth episode in an elegant set of sequences almost entirely within the minds of its characters, with no battles and no violence. The consequent uproar from the show’s fans was so intense, however, that a feature film titled “The End of Evangelion” was prompted. With higher production values, the washed-out look of hand-drawn cartoons is replaced with sleeker, sharper images, and while there is a lengthy robot battle just before the halfway point, it is much more impressive than its predecessors, kinetic and gory. The second half of the film is almost as cerebral as the ending of the series, but astute viewers will notice that it does not take place after the end of the series, but actually at the same time: the twenty-fifth episode is what is taking place in the minds of the characters during what happens during the film.
From a strictly narrative perspective, “NGE” is not airtight (where the Angels have actually been for millennia isn’t mentioned, and why, for instance, if an Eva can use its weapons to destroy an Angel, can’t those same weapons be attached to a tank or a B52?). But “NGE” is more surreal and cerebral than it is realistic, and questions like that aren’t really important. Its “story” is not resolved in any traditional way; in fact, the ending of the movie and the ending of the series, while ostensibly taking place at the same time, seem contradictory. But as a philosophical treatise about the duality of man—about free will and the limitations of freedom, about resigning to life or controlling it, about being an individual and being part of a whole—the two endings compliment one another. Most importantly, the two endings are good food for thought and discussion, even if they’re told under ridiculously perky music.
Hideaki Anno tells the story of Shinji, Misato, and NERV in images that are surprisingly stark and still, given the short-attention span reputation that violent animes have acquired. Tokyo seems constantly bathed in the songs of cicadas and “Neon Genesis Evangelion” is filled with many pensive silences. “End of Evangelion” even contains a few live action sequences, not for the sake of the story, but as points in an argument between Shinji and an entity that might be God. To save on animation costs—which is an easily excusable sin for a fourteen-hour series—still or repeated images are used whenever possible. Memorable setpieces include Ikari’s formidable, desolate office, and the vast underground lair where NERV is stationed. Religious imagery seems to accompany everything that NERV and SEELE are up to, and just keep in mind: Jesus is said to have seven eyes in the Book of Revelation.
Would I like “NGE” more if the same concepts and characters were conveyed with a different look, if everyone looked more like Bart and Homer? If the T&A were removed altogether, if the dozen-plus robot fights were reduced to four or five, or replaced by a different venue for Shinji and the others to find self-worth and defend the world? Chances are good. But I’m thankful for what I’ve seen and admire those involved, especially those responsible for the stream-of-consciousness sequences. Mainstream American feature-length animation may look more polished but, with the exception of Richard Linklater’s “Waking Life,” very little of it has the depth “Evangelion” acquires after growing tired of robots smashing each other. So, if you don’t squirm too much when animated bimbos bend over right in front of you, and if you can sit through twenty-story robots pounding each other over and over again, than “Neon Genesis Evangelion” is an entertaining and rewarding thesis about why we suffer, why we live, and why we hope. Maybe that’s a few too many “ifs” to deserve an unqualified recommendation. But what the hell.
P.S. “NGE” is available on VHS and DVD, the latter featuring commentary tracks from those in charge of the English language translation. Endless interpretations and arguments about its meaning(s) can be found on the Internet—that’s what the Internet’s for—but I suggest sticking with the piece itself.
P.P.S. The Keeper of Tickets is going to love the ending of “The Wild Bunch.” So nobody spoil it for him.
Finished November 6, 2002
Copyright © 2002 Friday & Saturday Night