Tokyo 3 is a city fortress under attack from a malignant and destructive celestial force known as the ‘Angels’. The last line of defence for this beleaguered city has been placed in the hands of NERV, a secret organisation that has developed a series of Eva Units (giant super robots) to protect the city without stomping on its citizens. Each Eva Unit needs a pilot, not only to operate the machinery but to actually bond with it. Here’s the catch: because of the psychic rapport that must be shared between pilot and Eva Unit, the pilots are chosen at the ripe old age of 14.
When I was 14 years old, I used to regularly stub my toes, trip over gutters and would skin my knuckles trying to ride through the front gate on my bike. Even if I were capable of piloting a giant super robot to save the human race, there is no way known that Mum and Dad would have let me. Enter Shinji Ikari, the tormented son of NERV director, Gendo Ikari. Shinji arrives in Tokyo 3 as the reluctant and somewhat cowardly pilot of Eva Unit 01 and finds that despite his fame as a pilot, he can never quite fit into everyday life. To complicate matters, Shinji works alongside, and is drawn into competition with, his fellow female Eva pilots, the enigmatic Rei Ayanami and ûber-brat, Asuka Langley Sohryu. If this weren’t confusing enough for the poor little guy, he has to share an apartment with his spunky and somewhat provocative minder, Misato Katsuragi. Like puberty isn’t difficult enough…
As simple and as light-hearted as it sounds, Neon Genesis Evangelion is no day at the beach. What begins as your everyday, heroic-teens-save-the-planet-style beat-em-up, soon develops into a dark and complex psychodrama. Aside from delving into, and taking a swipe at, Judeo-Christian mythology, the series is dripping with teen angst, existentialism and even goes as far as to explore the relationship between God, Adam and all humanity. That’s right, ladies and germs; this cartoon achieves all that. In fact, by the final episodes, you’ll be lucky if you can even understand what the hell is going on.
By stretching the epic over 26 episodes, Hideaki Anno has managed to infuse the series with a rare subtlety that most animated features try to avoid. Rather than dumb it down for the masses, the characters and relationships are given plenty of room to breathe and develop. As a consequence, the characters carry so much emotional baggage and self-doubt that, at times, you feel like giving them a good shake (note: If someone dear to you is suffering with emotional baggage and self-doubt, a good shake is probably not the answer). The real stars of the show, however, are the Eva Units themselves. These staunch defenders of Tokyo 3 are beautiful in design and rendered in stunning graphic detail by the Gainax animation team. Indeed, combined with the dramatic score and the metal-shredding sound effects, the fight sequences are the best you could hope to see in the medium.
As the series was originally aired to great acclaim on Japanese television in the mid-'90s, each episode is interrupted every ten minutes or so for a station break. Although it is only a still screen featuring the show’s title and episode number, there is no doubt that the series would benefit from a little rudimentary editing for a smoother transition between sections.
Like most anime, Neon Genesis Evangelion suffers from poor dubbing into the English language, with much of the voice acting containing more ham and cheese than a family-size pizza. For that reason, you may find that listening to the Japanese dialogue track with English subtitles is a more atmospheric experience. Of course, the other advantage to watching the series in Japanese is that it is much easier to convince yourself that you are a World Cinema buff enjoying a multicultural experience and not just some geek watching cartoons about sexed-up teenagers and giant super robots.
Now, about those difficult-to-understand later episodes: It is true that the plot becomes a little convoluted toward the end, but it still manages to tie in with the greater story and add weight to the hero’s journey. There are two ways to approach the final episodes: you can either hang from every word, replay key dialogue excerpts and try to put the whole glorious shemozzle into perspective, or you can just look at the pretty colours and pray that you are never put in a position where you will have to explain it to anyone.
Since this series was only ever produced for the small screen, the transfer is presented in 1.33:1 and therefore is not 16x9 enhanced. Over the 26 instalments, the transfer is reasonable and although it wasn’t particularly noticeable while viewing, the later discs seem slightly superior to the earlier ones. If Japanese animation can offer us anything (aside from schoolgirl ninja), it is bright colours and slick artwork. Although a lot of the series doesn’t necessarily lend itself to racy colour schemes, there are occasions where some of the colours seem a little washed out. Still, overall the saturation and the line definition measure up nicely.
I am generally forgiving of the more minor technical shortcomings of a transfer, but on these discs there is a great deal of telecine wobble. Personally, it took no time for me to adjust to the fact that it was almost ever-present throughout the series, but the fact remains that it does exist and therefore bears mention.
Overall though, we have a reasonable transfer of a good-looking series.
The series is presented in two 192 Kb/s Dolby Digital 2:0 tracks (one in English and one in Japanese) which, for the benefit of the presentation, seems ample enough (although it must be said that some of the more spectacular action sequences would have benefited from a decent surround workout). At the very least, the sound is generally very clear and contains no real noticeable levels of distortion or unwanted noise.
Naturally, with any feature that is animated, the synching will never be perfect and the fact that one soundtrack is dubbed from the original Japanese into English (or at least an American approximation thereof), any problems barely seem worth noting. The score can seem a little cornball in places, but overall it compliments the action well, switching from the bubblegum pop of the title theme to the nostalgic sci-fi vibraphone that accompanies the attack sequences. No complaints here, then.
