Why Neon Genesis Evangelion is the best Anime ever created.
In this article a series of reasons that make Evangelion the best anime so far achieved. The article refers to the TV series story + the ending represented by The End of Evangelion.
I first saw the series of Neon Genesis Evangelion in 2000, when MTV proposed it in Italy within the much appreciated MTV Anime Night.
At the time I was about 17 years old. The series was aired from December 12, 2000 to March 26, 2002. (I thank Wikipedia for the accuracy with which he noted the dates).
Why this detail? Because the effectiveness and understanding of the series can vary a lot depending on this.
Evangelion aimed at teenagers and Otaku.
Hideaki Anno, the director and creator of the EVA, conceived the series as a message to Japanese teenagers, in particular the Otaku audience, who often became Hikikomori, and retired from social life.
The series is aimed at adolescents of the age of Shinji (and a few more years I would add), Japanese boys who enter the world between the middle and high school, with all the difficulties of the case.
There are also the adult characters: almost-thirty (Misato, Ritsuko, the NERV staff), forty (Gendo), and the elderly (Zeele, Fujuzuki).
But the point of view is that of Shinji, an introverted and shy boy with no particular talents, or excellences.
So, if you are part of the few who have looked at Evangelion and have not appreciated or understood it, it could be for 2 reasons:
- You saw Evangelion for the first time as an adult and it was too late to touch your soul (and overcome your AT-Field)
- You recently started watching only the Rebuild cycle movies.
Wrong: the true sense of the EVA series comes from the rhythm of the 24 episodes, in which slowly we become attached to the characters, and assimilate (as Otaku) all the notions and science of that world: First Impact, the Angels, the Zeele, the Plan for the Improvement, the Wave diagram, and so on. Movies are a good remix, but they are too little detailed and fast. - You are part of the problem behind the series
You have seen the first episodes of the TV series, and you think: “Shinji’s character is just a normal teen costantly afraid and don’t want to drive the fuckin’ robot, he is introverted and he is also afraid of girls!
Probably you are part of the bullies who are afraid of anyone who is not a bully: fear and misunderstanding are the basis of the Human Instrumentality Project, but you do not want to know more…
But let’s start with to the list of Reasons Why Neon Genesis Evangelion is the best anime ever!
Quality: animation, drawings.
Although realized in the mid-90s, before the advent of computer graphics in animation, the quality of drawings and animations is still very high to date. Considering the era, it was a huge leap in quality!
I was struck by the details of the urban landscape like the power lanes, represented with a minuteness by the Gainax’s designers.
But also the style of the characters, and the EVA, with angular strokes and slender bodies, is very captivating and modern. Even the quality of the background landscapes (painted illustrations, as per standard) is very high, and often reflects the feelings of the protagonists.
The animations, although not particularly fluid in the original TV series, never go too far in quality, as often happens in anime in the central episodes of the Japanese series. (It happened in “the mystery of the Blue Stone”, or see the emarassing SSJ3 frames in Dragonball Super).
Because the theme of the series will always be current
The series does not talk about futurism, or mega robot. Ok they are one of the main engines of the story, but the EVAs are just a metaphor of the mother-child relationship…
The real theme of the series is the incommunicability and misunderstanding between human beings, and the fear and all the behaviours that derive from it.
The same plan of Zeele [spoiler!],
anticipated by the Dead Sea Scrolls is to bring humanity back to unity in the primordial soup, through a pseudo mass extinction called Third Impact.
The years will pass, the decades, but the series remains future-proof, dealing with a theme linked to the human soul. In these twenty years we have seen fast internet, smartphones, social networks, and startups, but humanity has not made substantial progress on issues related to understanding and respect among individuals, indeed.
Because it is extremely consistent
Neon Genesis has an extremely coherent script, with no holes (as often happens with Anime), with its own realistic world, and its internal Historic timeline.
Although in the middle the serie seems to take a citation and cabalistic drift, then we understand that it is a series of elements (or clues) that the director Anno puts us at disposal to understand the ending: the Second Impact, the manuscripts of the Dead Sea used by Zeele, the NERV and the origin of its creation. And again the Angels and “what are the Angels”, as explained by Misato Katsuragi in the epilogue.
As in a crime novel, Hideaki Anno presents us all the characters and clues, and only then come the explanations — not even many to tell the truth — the rest must be intuited alone.
Because it show a representation of the Apocalypse so beautiful as to be desirable.
The Third Impact happening in the feature film “The End of Evangelion”, is a final climax of incredible aesthetic beauty, but also one of the most ambitious and satisfying endings I’ve ever seen in an anime.
And more: humanity dies, designing those green crosses, the giant “Lilith / Rei-Adam”, the passing souls, the egg. It should be a massacre, but it seems a joyful moment.
The sequence where Rei appears individually to NERV members in a different form according to each person’s hidden desires is beautiful and suggestive! When the characters open their mind to Rei, they immediately turn into primordial soup (or LCL), just as the rest of humanity.
Mind blowing!
Note and [Spoiler]: Thanks to Rei’s intervention, people have the opportunity to return to their human form. From the ending we know that Shinji and Asuka did it, like a sort od new “Adam and Eve”, but other rare humans could have done it.
Because the humanity of Evangelion confronts philosophic problems head-on instead of “escaping on Mars”…
As we know from the middle of the series, the scrolls of the Dead Sea are found. Starting from the indications contained in them — which are never showed — an old and powerful Masonic society called Zeele, start his plans.
This organisation controls the governments and directs huge funds in the search for Adam and Lilith and then in the construction of the EVA serie to prepare to fight the announced 17 Angels. If one of the Angels were to join Lilith, humanity would just die (they say).
We discover then that the final goal of Zeele is the Third Impact and bring humanity back to its origins by unifying the individualities in the Primordial Soup; this in their plans is achievable through a “controlled union between Adam and Lilith”.
Editor note: the plan of Zeele was not fully revealed, it may be concern a small group of privileged to be transferred to the LCL of an EVA. Otherwise why kill everyone at NERV to get the same result?
I remember that the Third Impact happened is controlled by Shinji along with Rei, we do not know what Zeele would have done if he had taken over the headquarters and controlled the Third Impact!
So, the elites of the humanity — in the Evangelion world — pursue a high and very philosophical aim such as the elimination of misunderstanding due to being individuals in conflict with each other (?).
Human Instrumentality Projects It’s a utopian socialism taken to the extreme, It’s true human progress in opposition to technological innovation only.
Our world instead continues in its contradictions, even violent, and without being able to solve them, we would like to escape going to Mars, without humanity having reached the necessary maturity.
Because it’s a series with a strong “sense of everyday life” and the “passage of time”.
I noticed this at my second full vision of original serie; watching the series 2 episodes at a time, a couple of times a week, in about 12 weeks I went through all the events, and I realised that this was the wanted rhythm, as intended by Gainax: pace / war, or slowness / speed, boredom / adrenaline, that that like a pendulum scans the series.
Of course, there are some episodes a bit filler, but the fact that the “time of the story” is covering several weeks between 2015 and 2016, also the (semi) filler episodes, helps us to acclimatise with the life in Neo Tokyo 3.
The appearance of an Angel interrupts the routine and activates military emergency procedures.
Alarms, anti-aircraft shelters, transfers of civilians, just like in a real war!
The angels attack repeatedly, but the NERV seems able to neutralise the angels when they manifest.
When we finally get familiar with the characters, the situation begins to gradually become more tense, until the attack of the last angel, Kaworu.
There is one quiet last night, and it’s the typical quiet before the storm.
The Zeele first sends a cyberattack, then sends a whole army division to take possession of the NERV headquarters. The last enemy of the NERV is… the man himself, comments the wise Fuyutsuki.
Also, the soldiers manages to penetrate the base better than the angels themselves.
“The last enemy of NERV is… the man himself” (Fuyutsuki)
Because of… Gendo!
Gendo Ikari, Shinji’s father is an unpleasant person. He is ready to do everything to achieve his goals and complete his plan… Like the perfect CEO.
He does not hesitate to put his son’s life at risk, following his iron logic, but then denies himself a few times when in the last days of Evangelion the events precipitate, just like a real CEO!
The motionless and pensive pose that shows off during the most emotional moments have first created a long series of quotes in the souls of the next decade, then even a meme: Gendo pose!
This is further evidence of how much Neon Genesis Evangelion has influenced later anime.
つづく
(To be continued, refined , and updated)
Giovanni Minelli
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Resources and insights:
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Power lines in anime: https://powerlinesinanime.tumblr.com
Human Instrumentality Project https://wiki.evageeks.org/Human_Instrumentality_Project
Tree of Life: https://wiki.evageeks.org/Tree_of_Life
Opening Full - “A Cruel Angel’s Thesis” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nafii87gdzs&list=PLvjHMglcyOtAVQJ71qlR9AQzUCmKdOq06
