Rebuilding Evangelion
By Angela Roberts
February 7, 2011
Back when I was in my college’s Anime club, one of the ‘challenges’ we had was to watch the entire series of Neon Genesis Evangelion back to back through to the end (and that includes the extremely weird and mind-bending final episodes). I did it, although not in one sitting. Neon Genesis Evangelion, a Japanese mecha (giant robot) anime created by Hideaki Anno, was an immensely popular television show that ran from Oct.4, 1995 to Mar. 27, 1996. It is considered to be an absolutely ground-breaking series, not only for its innovative character and robot design, but also for its exploration of psychological, metaphysical, and existential themes. It was not for kids. It was, in essence, a series that would blow your mind. One thing about Evangelion, or Eva as many fans refer to it, is that there is no way it could ever be considered light entertainment.
Recently, Hideaki Anno made the decision to revisit his acclaimed anime and remake it in the form of a tetralogy of films, the Rebuild of Evangelion. It is a mostly faithful scene by scene recreation of the series, with some new scenes, characters, and use of new animation technologies. The first two films have come out already; Evangelion 1.0: You Are (Not) Alone in 2007 and Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance in 2009. I saw 2.0 in a special presentation at the Scotia Bank Theatre here in Montreal, and borrowed 1.0 from a friend. It was a unique experience, revisiting a series I hadn’t seen in several years. I recognized all of the characters immediately, but the plot wasn’t fresh in my mind. The choice to see 2.0 had been made at the last minute, having only discovered by chance that it was playing.But seeing both films, I noted again the elements that had made the TV series so worthy of notice. While Anno has claimed an intention of making the series more accessible to the general public, it’s still more to be appreciated by fans and anime fans who demand more from their anime. The average consumer of anime today won’t get much out of these films; while the selection of works available in North America has vastly improved since Evangelion came out and even since I started watching anime, much of what is commonly popular is still extremely commercial and kid-oriented. Usually whatever can be translated into a toy line. And this is true of Japan and of America (Canada included). The designer of the Evas famously designed the giant robots the way he did because he wanted to make a mecha that couldn’t be made into a toy. This was because he was dissatisfied with the intrusiveness of the studio’s relationship with their toy company sponsors. It’s that iconoclastic attitude in the making of Evangelion that has made it the seminal work that it is, and continues to be displayed in this newer version. Although to call it new is a stretch; perhaps revised would be better.
It would take too many words (and a whole other blog) to discuss the religious and existential themes in Evangelion. In any case, while these elements are still quite present in the films, they do not appear to be exceptionally played up (so far anyway). Even a great deal of the psychological and interpersonal issues dealt with by the characters in the series are not as present in the films, probably because of time, but also because of a clear focus in the narrative, one that was always there, but perhaps is even more obvious because of the condensed nature of the tetralogy. A major theme present in Evangelion is loneliness, human connection, and the difficulty of all of the characters to form those connections. They’re all isolated in some way, all isolating themselves, while still striving for some feeling of belonging. And the pilots and their bond with their Evas is the ultimate reflection on this need for connection.
But there’s another theme, one that is exceptionally present in the films, and that is of the relationship between parents and children. Many of the teen Eva pilots have some sort of complicated relationship with their parents; Shinji and his emotionally absent father, Asuka and her insane mother, Rei and her bizarre relationship with Shinji’s father (the man who raised her and apparently cares for her above his own son). And others as well, Misato for one, whose strained relationship with her deceased father mirrors Shinji’s relationship with his father. It’s said over and over, “You are the same,” when people refer to Misato and her father and Shinji and his father. Shinji is driven to seek his father’s approval, if only to validate his own existence, and it is only the sheer horror of his father’s betrayal in forcing him to witness his own Eva attack and nearly kill Asuka that forces him to finally stand up to his father and refuse to continue fighting. Of course, this may all be part of his father’s manipulations, as it is finally when Shinji decides on his own to pilot the Eva that he and Rei achieve the enlightenment that Commander Ikari has been working towards.
These are definitely not themes that can be resolved in one or two films, and much more will likely be said before the tetralogy is through. Many writers dream of having the opportunity to revisit their previous works, to rewrite things to make them just a bit better. Hideaki Anno has seized this opportunity and run with it, creating so far an experience like no other. Whatever anyone thinks of Evangelion, it’s still quite the mind-altering encounter.