In the history of anime no series has sparked more debate then Evangelion. No, it has nothing to do with the biblical metaphors and psychological drama of the show but rather the argument rests on whether it is deserving of all the hype is has received. Some anime fans swear by it and call it a masterpiece, the pinnacle of the medium. Others point out its flaws and loathe the fact it has gotten such praise. The truth is a bit in between. When trying to explain my feelings about Evangelion it’s admittedly tough, but here goes. If anyone has heard the song “Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zeppelin (and if you haven’t go do that right now) and pondered why it’s so beloved you begin to see some similarities between the two seemingly unconnected works. “Stairway” clocks in at over 8 minutes, but it takes over five of those minutes to actually get to the emotional climax of the song. It’s basically five minutes of enjoyable throwaway music with three minutes of the best song ever made at the end. Evangelion has a similar conundrum. It’s beginning and conclusion are nothing special, in fact the original ending is so atrocious and convoluted they made a new one, but the middle section of the show is probably the best 13 episodes of anime you’ll ever find. If the above paragraph is a bit confusing I apologize, this is what watching Eva does to you.Evangelion is a show about a teenage boy named Shinji who is thrust into the position of savior. He has a natural gift at piloting giant mecha, known as Evangelions, and with the help of fellow Evangelion pilots Asuka and Rei he must try to stop giant “Angels” from wiping out humanity. Reading a simple summary of the plot really doesn’t do it justice though. On the surface Evangelion is just another giant robot anime but when you delve a bit deeper you find some surprisingly amazing pieces uncharacteristic of this type of show. The director, Hideaki Anno, chose to sprinkle in bits of biblical imagery throughout the show and puts major emphasis on the personal psychology of each character. This is both a blessing and a curse. The characters in Evangelion have great depth and feel fully fleshed out, but at times you can sense the creative team got too impressed with their own ideas and what was once clever metaphor becomes grating and repetitive as the series progresses.It takes a few episodes to get off the ground but when Evangelion gets going every episode is a treat. While the action isn’t constant, thanks to the low animation budget, the characters mesh so well that you can sit back and enjoy watching them work things out. The myriad of personalities in the show are dull when alone but they have such a great chemistry when together that you actually begin to feel for them. What Anno failed to understand when writing this show was that the viewer does not care about sitting inside one character’s head for thirty minutes. To know what someone is like you don’t listen into their thoughts, you watch their actions and how they interact with everything around them. When interaction is emphasized Evangelion is a masterwork deserving of every bit of praise it gets, when isolation is emphasized the show becomes redundant and mediocre.In many ways Evangelion is a show that succeeds in spite of itself. It has many debilitating qualities, a terrible ending, too many meaningless biblical images, a protagonist who is easy to hate, that would kill a lesser show. But Eva perseveres in spite of all this because when it puts all those things aside and actually chooses to be an action show it’s as good as any anime around. It’s distressing because after trudging through a handful of boring episodes you finally get to the catalyst of what makes this show work, Asuka, and then the writing swings totally away from her as the series comes to a close. Evangelion works best when the characters are bouncing off one another and Asuka makes that happen. When she’s in the thick of things Shinji is forced to actually interact and make decisions and kept from the annoying, and depressing, self-hatred that drags this series down at times. It’s clear that the show takes a dramatic shift in tone when Asuka enters and when her role is diminished the show crawls to a grueling close. Asuka herself is not that amazing but the fact she keeps the others from going off on mental tangents makes her the straw that stirs the drink during the best stretch of episodes in the series. Anno clearly favored the psychological drama that Shinji brings over the action and energy that Asuka provided, and while I can understand that he had a story he wanted to tell sometimes you just have to suck it up and go with what works. Instead he decided to put the audience through episodes of worthless crap so he could feel like an artist. That’s basically Evangelion’s problem in a nutshell: it’s a great action anime show based around Asuka and Shinji’s opposite personalities but it wants so desperately to be an art piece that it shoots itself in the foot.The animation and soundtrack get the job done but aren’t particularly spectacular. Evangelion was in production during a time when the animation budget was tight at Gainax, because of this as the series progresses you see more recycled footage. It’s done in very clever ways though, characters just happen to talk with coffee cups covering their mouths or the camera shifts to a view of the scenery during a long conversation, these solutions keep your attention away from the fact the show is reusing frames and the mediocre animation doesn’t even cross your mind until the second or third viewing of any given episode. One odd quirk about the soundtrack is that the end theme, “Fly Me to the Moon”, is performed differently in each episode. For a show with budget constraints it’s absolutely beyond me why they felt the need to waste resources by recording the end theme 26 times.In the end Evangelion’s flaws are substantial but its successes are even greater. While the show really only has twelve enjoyable episodes those episodes are so excellent that they make it easy to overlook the inadequacies found in the rest of the series. Evangelion is a great series and a benchmark show in anime history, while this review may seem critical it’s only because Eva had so much potential and just fell short. Some proclaim the series as fantastic because of the religious or psychological themes, those people are wrong. Eva fails to deliver anything intellectually stimulating but excels when it just lets loose and allows the audience to have a bit of fun. Definitely recommended viewing for any anime fan, but prepare to be frustrated if you aren’t into senseless psychobabble.Final Score: 9.7Storyline: GoodAnimation: GoodSoundtrack: GoodDub: Excellent
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