Shin seiki Evangelion Gekijô-ban: Air/Magokoro wo, kimi ni (1997)'s comments

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KuroSawWhat

I hate to break to to everyone, but Evangelion--both the series and this movie--is neither deep nor complex. It is a shallow alien-invasion robot mecha anime, written by a man battling depression, animated by a talented studio, which was mis-managed and ran out of money during production, leading to a finale that consisted mostly of clips from earlier in the series combined with minutes-long shots of a single frame of animation and nothing happening. They randomly threw in lots of Biblical and mythological names to make it seem "interesting and exotic" to Japanese people, never intending for it to be seen by Western audiences.

End of Evangelion is their re-try attempt for the final 2 episodes of the series, which they were forced to make because the fans of this unusual anime were so pissed off at what an underwhelming piece of crap they had been given for an ending, even vandalizing the animation studio.

In the writer/director's own words, this is what the show is about: http://wiki.evageeks.org/Statements_by_Evangelion_Staff#Hideaki_Anno:_What_were_we_trying_to_make_here.3F Note, there is nothing out of the ordinary there, aside from his obsession with being depressed. It is a giant robot show. That's all.

A typical scene of Evangelion might run something like this:
"The Magi have detected an Angel, Type Blue! Activate the Eva unit! We need the Lance of Longinus as specified in the Dead Sea Scrolls to defeat it! Activate the 666 Barrier or they might reach Central Dogma where Lilith, our source of Adam, is!!"

Translation:
"Computers have detected an alien presence, red alert! Prep the mechs for combat! We'll need to activate the super-weapon that we got from the alien technology to defeat it! Shields up! We can't let them into our core area of some importance, where we keep our captured alien!"

Yes, the animation is beautiful. Gainax is a very talented studio. However, the story is filled with annoying, unlikeable characters, constantly whining about their lot in life. My favorite must be Shinji, known for sitting in a corner and crying. He opens up the movie by visiting his friend who is in a coma and masturbating onto her chest. He's a really "deep and complex" character. The plot is, similarly, about an inch deep, and all the pseudo-Christian imagery in the world doesn't change that. To quote Roger Ebert: "If you have to ask what it symbolizes, it didn't." None of the questions from the series or this movie are explained, like "What the hell was going on?" It is thoroughly unsatisfying.

I'll admit, I almost enjoyed myself during the second quarter of the movie, when it was bordering on coherence. But after that, it all falls apart into a massive cluster-hump of pretentious, impenetrable symbolism that doesn't symbolize anything. A movie that begins with a character jerking off, ends with the director jerking off, and he's the only one having fun, assuming he wasn't still on suicide watch.

(feel free to call me an unintelligent rube who just doesn't "get" it)

10 years 4 months ago

LMTR14

and no, you can´t skip eps 25/26. they happen simultaneously to eoe (at least partially)

10 years 6 months ago

Duke of Omnium

I rented this disk without being familiar with the series . Little or no exposition here; it obviously presumes familiarity with the background and characters. It was visually impressive, and the characters almost made me want to know more about the Evangelion series (except for the whiny little guy). The action was kind of creepy, which is a tribute to its complexity and the seemingly inherent strangeness of anime in general.

My only excuse is that I was chasing iCM checks.

11 years 3 months ago

Siskoid

Bringing the tv series to a (second) end, it manages to ask a lot more questions than it answers them, but seen with the series, resonates for a long time.

6 years 6 months ago

Nowhere Man

The fate of humanity lies upon the whims of a self-obsessed, whiny, cowardly teenage boy.

P.S. watch the tv series first.

3 years 6 months ago

Bianco215

Transcendent

13 years 10 months ago

boulderman

Following the advice of other comments on here I watched the series first. It is quite a commitment as it is around 8-9 hours of viewing before the film and THE Check. I (we) enjoyed the TV series (yes, now aware the film is a feature length run sandwich of episodes so is sort of the TV show too). The depth in the series kicks off from episode 14. I did research the show before watching, using Wikipedia and the scientific theories such as the Freudian phases. It made it compelling to know this in advance and see the it subtly appear. You can tell as you watch the episodes that the series was designed upfront and wasn't a free-flow of filling in one episode to stand independently (like, well e.g. South Park). Personally, I preferred the TV show to the finale. Having said that, I wanted to imagine I hadn't seen the series first, and within minutes there were at least 4 points which would make it unclear (enough) to properly understand, and would take a while to explain, which is tough in itself! Whilst I didn't like the "film" as much as the previous episodes, it is also needed, otherwise unanswered questions, phrases and actions would not get resolved (3 major ones are explained in the film). So, like Neon Genesis, it is a paradox, you need one to need the other, and that partially sums up the programme. I would also state that the Eva's are in a large part a MacGuffin. (I upvoted the "do not skip eps" so people are aware. Additionally it isn't hard to get all the episodes when you find the "check" :)

6 years 8 months ago

LMTR14

best animated movie of all time

obviously watch the series first or you won´t understand shit

10 years 6 months ago

Boei

Truly an agonising sit through. Happy it's over. If it wasn't this painfully boring it would actually be funny how ridiculous it is.

Just check the top comment by KuroSawWhat and you know exactly what this the fuss all about; nothing! (Might be the best comment ever on icheckmovies.com, great explanation, thanks!

So this is just a silly anime with a cult following proclaiming it to be something it is not.

2 months 2 weeks ago

Scream1008

I need to address two incredibly pretentious comments here (more pretentious than the movie, which I overall liked, but yeah I could see it being a little pretentious).

First off is this person who left the longest review here. When someone starts something off with “I hate to break it to everyone,” you just know it’s going to be an “I’m right and you’re wrong” kind of post when our opinions about art and entertainment are just that, opinions.

Then there’s the person who intimates that anyone who likes this but didn’t like Green Book is an idiot of some sort. Some people like the trippy sci-fi movie better than the “white people saved racism” movie, get over yourself.

2 years ago

OOOO

Evangelion detractors can sugondese, this is an incredible series that changed the goddamn game in anime (I think, don't really know anything about anime but figured it's probably true). I don't give a FUCK if the christian shit is meaningless, not everything in a movie has to have deep meaning. Sometimes things can just be neat. Normalize neat stuff.

The story enraptures you, the characters call out to your pathetic little heart, they persuade you to care and then DESTROY YOU. Shinji haters have no soul, no empathy for the downtrodden. I guarantee if you put any antishinjite in a St. Jude's hospital they would SPIT on those poor kids. They don't give a FUCK about the suffering of innocent children who grew up without parental figures and never learned how to love or be loved. And, really, that's what Evangelion is about. Looking for love.

Although TBH the actual series finale was more rewarding. The second half of this really is sort of a clusterfuck that emphasizes the action and crazy anime shit over the characters, WHICH ARE THE HEART OF THE SERIES!

2 years 1 month ago

demagogo

this is closet you can get to freud something right

6 years ago

Scratch47

An extraordinary and challenging piece of work. Who needs a philosophy degree when you've got Evangelion? WARNING: watch the series first.

13 years 2 months ago

lolita_mistrix

Brilliant. Completely brilliant, though somewhat confusing. It's very psychological and metaphorical, and it's meaning is more than likely left to the viewers interpretation.

I recommend watching the series beforehand though, or this movie will definitely make no sense. Trust me, I'm quite the fan. ^_^

14 years ago

heatmiser1059

Freud was a mistake.

6 years ago