Neon Genesis Evangelion
Special Edition
******
Death and Rebirth/The End of Evangelion
(Manga Entertainment Region 2 PAL 3 Disc DVD)
(1997)
review by Blackgloves

It is difficult to think of another recent Japanese anime series that has achieved anything like the same kind of influence on the genre as Hideaki Anno's remarkable "Neon Genesis Evangelion". A product of the animators at Production IG and Studio GAINAX, the original 26 part series appeared in 1995 after GAINAX took a four year break from the anime scene -- due, largely to director Anno suffering a bout of depression. The show was instantly successful and has become a massive phenomena, spawning a loyal and obsessive fan-base the world over.

It's extremely difficult to sum-up the show for those who have never seen it before: on the surface it appears to be a traditional "giant-monsters-fight-each-other-in-a-futuristic-post-apocalyptic-Japan" sci-fi series, with the usual fan service titillation and relationship drama distractions to fill in the spaces between the bizarre and bloody battle scenes. The series certainly reinvigorated the whole sci-fi anime scene, and it is impossible to think of many subsequent series which have not incorporated at least some of these elements into their basic scenarios. But, there is much more going on beneath the surface in Evangelion: not only are nearly all the relationships between the (rather large) cast of characters extremely rich and detailed, some of them also become unbelievably dark and, sometimes, quite disturbing; the apparently straightforward "humans-against-alien-robots" plot-line conceals a complex subtext that is really an attempt to synthesis a whole range of human philosophical ideas and creation myths spanning the gamut of cultures and time-periods, joining them up in the kind of fully worked-out philosophical system that would probably give Immanuel Kant pause to scratch his head in puzzlement!

The series develops a bewildering, mind-expanding blancmange of religious mysticism, modern biology and techno mumbo-jumbo that is (in the very true words of one of the participants on one of the commentaries in this set) "meticulous in its incomprehensibility!" But it's precisely this quality that has generated such an insane level of fanaticism, as fans search for hidden meanings in every frame. By the final, feature length episode, Anno was deliberately pandering to this obsessive trend, and just jamming the film with subliminal single-frame symbols and images, obscure references and head-spinning plot twists. This makes the series something of a nightmare for the newcomer of course, and this three disc box set from Manga Entertainment attempts to be a kind of starter pack for the Evangelion newbee while servicing the needs of the seasoned Eva fanatic by collecting the two theatrical, feature-length series spin-offs in one place. Does it succeed? Well ... partly, we'll return to the actual content of this set and how it deals with the startling complexity of the series later. Firstly, here is the basic background to the original tv show.

15 years after a catastrophic impact wiped out the majority of the earth's population, the futuristic city of Tokyo-3 is being attacked by huge alien beings called Angels. It turns out that the original catastrophe (named the Second Impact) was the result of the discovery of "the first Angel", Adam: found buried in the Antarctic by an expedition who were sent there on the strength of information discovered in the Dead Sea Scrolls by an organisation called SEELE. The Angel attacks seem to have something to do with man's interaction with this strange creature and the UN (manipulated by SEELE) sets up the agency known as NERV, apparently in order to defeat the Angels and prevent the Third Impact, which is also predicted in the Scrolls as the eventual outcome of the Angel's coming. To do this, NERV reverse engineer the remains of Adam to create a group of giant, half-machine, half-biological combat creatures called Eva-Units, which can only be piloted by 14 year-olds who were born exactly nine years after the second impact!

It seems that specific children have to pilot each Eva Unit since each pilot must "synchronise" with his/her Unit in order for it to become active. NERV's main pilots are Shinji Ikari, Rei Ayanami and Asuka Langley Soryu: who pilot Unit-01, Unit-00 and Unit-02 respectively. The original series initially concentrated on troubled student and Eva Unit-01 pilot, Shinji in the first few episodes. Shinji is the typical adolescent hero of anime: a gauge, shy and oversensitive boy besieged by strong, ass-kicking females while being unable to crystallise his growing feelings for them. As in much anime, Shinji usually finds himself in rather compromising situations with the other females at NERV, the most memorable of which ends up with him falling on top of a naked Rei Ayanama with the entire contents of her clothes drawer (which apparently consists entirely of knickers and bras) on top of him! The over-nervous and under-confident Shinji is summoned to Tokyo-3 by the Commander of NERV, his father Gendo -- a person he has not seen for years -- who requires him to pilot Eva Unit-01! Although Shinji has no wish to do so, he does what he is told by the overbearing adults around him and proves to have an unusually high synchronisation rate with his Eva Unit which continues to increase over time, despite the young pilot's reluctance. The reason for this proves to be one of the central mysteries in the series which is at the centre of the true goals behind NERV and also involves Shinji's manipulative father Gendo's private, secret project. The other two Eva Unit pilots, Rei and Asuka have equally troubled past lives: Rei is the withdrawn, almost mute charge of Gendo -- brought in to pilot the test type Eva Unit, Unit-00. Her past is a mystery, since all of her records have been erased. But she, along with Shinji, is to play a central role in Gendo's secret plan. The other Eva Unit pilot is the fiery Asuka. Her mother was a NERV operative who went insane and hung herself in front of her daughter when she was very young! Asuka is an aggressively overconfident young woman who actually enjoys wreaking death and destruction on the mysterious Angels!

The original series may have contained lots of other characters with complex interrelationships as well as brain-twisting and utterly surreal plot developments and revelations; but spread over twenty-six episodes the viewer had plenty of time to digest, adjust and think about them. The final two episodes produced a volatile reaction from fans though, as the series became a surrealistic, experimental collage of images and sound with director Hideaki Anno concentrating on fusing the personal journey of Shinji with the allegorical, philosophical ramblings that underpin the basic plot. Anno even received death threats from disgruntled viewers as a result! Partly dissatisfied with the rushed conclusion himself, Anno determined to finish the series off properly with an alternative feature-length version of the show. Before this though, came the theatrical Evangelion overview, "Death And Rebirth -- the first film to feature in this box set ...

Split into two parts, "Death And Rebirth" is an incredibly dense, sophisticated piece of experimental film making that pushes conventional narrative devices to the limit while fusing the disparate fragments into a whole by fitting them around a unifying framework device which involves the Eva pilots participating in a classical musical recital at their University. Pitched as a recap of the series for Japanese cinema audiences who may not have had prior knowledge of the tv series, and combining new animated footage with previously seen tv footage, the film feels more like a lyrical meditation on the events and ideas behind the show, with the personal reflections of the main characters on the series' events taking precedence over the action (though it's still punctuated by heavy bouts of giant bio-robot killing frenzy). The first part, "Death" begins well before the original series, and goes back to the discovery of Adam, the first Angel, in the Antarctic, which leads to the second impact and the melting of the Antarctic ice sheets. The only survivor of this catastrophe was the young Misato -- future NERV operations director. From here, the film starts zipping backwards and forwards in time, illustrating the series' main developments while frequently looking back at the character's past histories. Although it may be claimed that this is an ideal entry point into the series for those new to the series, I'm not sure I agree. This is one of the most mind-cracking films you are ever likely to see! Not only do you have to try and make sense of all of the complicated plot revelations, a whole host of characters and the complicated relationships between them, you also have the film's dizzyingly complicated structure to contend with; not to mention the in-depth subtext behind it all! "Death" ends with a whole cavalcade of bizarre revelations that link Evolutionary ideas, religious references and militaristic technology into one confusing and intricate theology, which will be completely incomprehensible to anyone who hasn't had any previous exposure to the series! After a five minute interval (which is actually included on the DVD), the final half-hour section called "Rebirth" plays out. This also proves to be the same as the opening half-hour of the final feature length conclusion to the saga and opens in typically Japanese uncompromising fashion with Shinji masturbating over the breasts of a comatose Asuka! All of the Angels have apparently been defeated but it turns out that SEELE has an entirely different agenda from the one that has always been assumed. What is The Human Instrumentality Project and what does it have to do with the giant crucified Angel, Lilith, kept in the bowels of NERV? Why does Gendo have Adam the first Angel shrunk to embryonic form and implanted in his hand? Who is the Eighteenth Angel? What is the purpose of the completed Eva series? Anyone who has previously watched the tv series will already know most of the answers and may well find their appreciation of the show considerably enhanced by this freeform recap, while those entirely new to these events will almost certainly find themselves overwhelmed and completely confused!

It must have been with this in mind that Manga Entertainment conceived the content of the second disc in this collection. While disc 1 features a non anamorphic, widescreen version of "Death And Rebirth" with a whole host of audio options which include: English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound; English stereo 2.0; Japanese stereo 2.0, and English and Portuguese subtitles -- along with English translation of on-screen texts while watching the English version of the film -- this second disc features "Death And Rebirth" once more, but this time with a basic English mono soundtrack and accompanied with an interactive Evangelion "Encyclopaedia" Mokuli feature, which is intended to fill in the many questions the Eva newcomer might have, as well as providing a means of future research for the Eva obsessive!

It works like this: as you play the film with the Mokuli feature activated, from time to time (say, with the appearance of a new character or every time a technical term is introduced) a number of texts appear on screen which indicates that the viewer may highlight any one of them and press ENTER on their handset, whereupon they will be taken to the relevant Encyclopaedia page which will explain the term or character and give them a summery of where it fits into the plot. This massive file of terms can also be accessed away from the movie by selecting "The Magi Archives" option where all of the entries are sorted under several headings: "Central Dogma", "personnel Files", "Heaven's Messengers" and "The E-Project". Once again, I think this is more helpful to the Evangelion obsessive than the newbee; for a start, it makes the experience of watching the movie closer to that of cramming for an exam in an incredibly esoteric subject such as Quantum Field Theory rather than an engaging form of relaxation! It also means that it takes about six hours to get to end of the film, by which time you will probably have forgotten most of the complicated information anyway! It does help in explaining things If you are prepared to persevere and commit a hell of a lot of time to it, but there can be no real substitute to watching the original series rather than reading a load of convoluted texts about it.

One extra, also included on disc two, which is interesting and helpful is the audio commentary track with English language director -- and voice of Rei -- Amanda Winn Lee, producer Jason C. Lee and Evangelion obsessive Taliesin Jaffe. Here we find a comprehensive insight into the series with Jaffe furnishing us with all sorts of bizarre theories about the show and explaining various obscure references, while the producer/director husband and wife team behind the English language version explain how they went about deciding how to realise the show for English speaking audiences. Incidentally, the English language 5.1 track is a head-exploding improvement on the original Japanese track in terms of an all round audio experience, though I still prefer the authentic Japanese voice version. Other extras on disc two include trailers and a pointless photo gallery.

Once you have imbibed the heady madness of "Death And Rebirth" and tried to make sense of it all with the help of the Mokuji interactive feature and commentary track, you are as ready as you are ever likely to be for Hideaki Anno's utterly devastating, revisited conclusion to the saga: "The End Of Evangelion" ... probably the most sustained head fuck in all of anime -- maybe all of cinema -- history!

It's quite pointless to try and summarise the content of this film. Anno spends the first half of it giving the Evangelion fans what they say they wanted from the original series: explosions galore and massive robots slugging the hell out of each other! But the results of this are far more devastating for the characters who we have come to know over the course of the series than any fan of the series could have anticipated! The second part of the film is nothing less than a poetic representation of the end of the world -- in fact -- the end of everything! This must be one of the most breathtaking pieces of anime ever created. Think of the last section of "2001 - A Space Odyssey" and multiply it by one-hundred for psychedelic weirdness and incomprehensibility! The strength of this part of the film comes from the way Anno ties it in with the conclusion to Shinji's story to create one of the most powerful and emotional pieces of anime I think I have ever seen! Real film footage is merged with the disturbing, surreal and fantastical animated imagery and by the end one can't help feeling moved by the intensely sad mood Anno creates with the film. Ironically, it is not even really necessary to know that much about the series to be able to appreciate this final portion of the Evangelion saga: the beauty and poetry of it shine through!

The magnificence of this visual feast is enhanced with an English 6.1 DTS audio mix for those with the equipment for it. There is also a Dolby Digital 5.1 surround mix; English stereo 2.0; Japanese 6.1 DTS; Japanese Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround sound; and Japanese stereo 2.0 -- phew! We also have English and Portuguese subtitles. Extras include trailers and another commentary track from Amanda Winn Lee, Jason C. Lee and Taliesin Jaffe. Once again, the transfer is, disappointingly, non-anamorphic.

This set is a must for fans of Evangelion, but, for those new to the show -- beware, you'll be throwing yourself head first into the deep end!