The Anime TV Thread

I kind of gave up on Steins;gate's purported more logical attitude to time travel during the whole Mayuri must die every time arc. The series took time travel seriously right up to the point it'd be more melodramatic to not.

Evangelion

Well, it’s not so much a movie as it is two extended episodes, although the “real” thematic break actually ends up somewhere in the new episode 26. It’s a bit jarring, having only seen the rather cathartic television finale a few days ago, to see Shinji back in his ultra-depressed state over killing Kaworu. But things get into swing quickly enough, and when NERV gets attacked it’s nice to get back in the old swing of things, seeing the old graphics and hearing the old gearing-up-for-battle music. And it’s nice that we get Asuka really kicking ass in the way that we were always told she could (to Bach, no less—reclaim the Baroque!). Of course it reverses quickly (and the emotional whiplash is great), but it was a real fuck-yeah moment.

flowsthead mentioned that the two finales were pairs to the same coin, and he’s right on that—we do know in episode 25 that something very terrible and final happened at NERV HQ (Misato having been shot against a wall in particular), but since we’re in the midst of Instrumentality we don’t really know what happened in the outside world. Here we get to see it. Ritsuko and Rei tell Gendo off (the latter more effectively). In a nice twist, we get to spend a lot of time with the three computer techs and Fyutsky, who completes his journey from vaguely menacing second-in-command to being the protagonist of his own little storyline—their running commentary from NERV HQ helps keep the increasingly weird orbital stuff grounded.

Less well-served was Misato—I think that she’s a big, underrated part of what makes the series work, and I’d go so far as to call her the deuteragonist or even co-protagonist of the entire TV show—she tends to take initiative and show the most agency. Maybe it’s due to being closer in age to Misato than to Shinji, but she often struck me as the driving force of the show, gathering everyone together and trying to piece together what was really going on. And by the end of the show ends up one of the most, maybe even the most, layered and human of all the characters. And Misato does show a lot of growth in the short span here—she’s connected with her maternal side here (although in a very Oedipal way by the end). But there’s a feeling that she’s sacrificed by the story, and that her arc ends with her protecting him. That doesn’t sit well with me (though in the confines of the story she’s splendid—the philosophy of life she outlines to Shinji is, almost word-for-word, my philosophy of life, which was passed down to me by mother, who also has a thing for coupes…oh God, you can’t watch this show without stepping on a psychological mine, can you?).

Anyway, the first story pretty much ends when everyone pops into primordial goo (everyone say “aww” for Maya and Fyutsky), a little while into the second half . Then we go back into a more inner story, albeit one mediated more by more trippy visuals—and interspersed live action—than collage of familiar animation like we got in the show. While there’s some element of repeat from the final episode—the importance of loving yourself and not shutting off others—we also get a very explicit note that you can’t live in a fantasy world. This seems like both an addendum clarifying that the previous ending wasn’t intended to be read as solipsism, but also a critique of obsessive fandom in general: “Get a life!” in the words of Bill Shatner.

I looked up my my reflections on the first eleven episodes of Evangelion from almost exactly a year ago (press “load more” four times so you can see both the comment and the discussion) and I expressed my reservations about some of the more fanservice-y seeming elements. I was first exposed to the show years ago with Asuka’s introduction, which struck me as over-the-top pervy when I first saw it, when I watched it as part of the series I started to wonder whether it was satirizing both teenage views of love and the way these sort of shows tend to be designed to facilitate a bit of perving. Flowsthead told me that a lot of it would seem less so as the show progressed, and he was right to a degree. While the show, particularly early on, tried to have it both ways, the show ended up depicting sexuality as a very complex thing, and did a much better job of showing the emotional entanglements that go along with it than lots of more “adult” entertainment. And it’s also good at showing naïveté. I did a bit of reading on the show after finishing the series, and saw that Asuka and Shinji are partly gender-reversed versions of your typical hotshot pilot and meek quasi-romantic partner. In this context, some of Asuka’s more eye-rolling stuff—the breast-size:temperature mini-lecture, for instance—makes more sense. It’s almost an aggressive male approach to sexuality, but coming from a girl, which only stated to come into focus with her over-long kiss. Although much is made of the film’s opening scene, it’s pretty clearly in the context of Asuka’s first appearance—alerting the audience to their gaze, though in a way that leaves a lot less room for having it both ways. And there’s no little schoolroom fantasy here—real life isn’t like that.

Of course, the show develops Asuka far beyond that, and she’s very well utilized in the first part of the finale. Misato and Ritsuko’s arcs get brutal closure. Rei gets her big “I’m not a doll” moment. But after Instrumentality, the story is essentially all Shinji’s. This was true of the final episode too, but there we were preceded by a sort of shared-mind group therapy session among the four leads in the Episode 25, and the fact that there wasn’t much in the sense of traditional narrative meant that we got of voices contributing. And we just find out in Episode 25 that Instrumentality happened, but it happened to everyone, so there’s no real sense of Shinji as chosen one.

We’re explicitly told the fate of all life on Earth is in Shinji’s hands in End of Evangelion, though. And after Instrumentality it is essentially all from Shinji’s POV. And its not the minds of his colleagues and remembered experiences that guide him so much as it is Rei/Lilith and Kaworu/Adam—he has privileged access to the angels here. Some of it works, like the playground, and some of which works less well, like the re-imagined version of Asuka learning of Kaji’s death that results in Shinji choking him. Although there are a lot of arresting images—Rei and Shinji interpenetrating on the orange-and-red sea, for instance—I actually think the original, cobbled-together episode 26 worked better. Since it was heavily montaged from previous series it served to highlight experiences the audience shared with Shinji, making it more effective. And the more ensemble-oriented nature means that we get a better sense of both the interlinkedness of humanity under Instrumentality and the potential to forge connections as individuals.

Upthread I compared the ending of Evangelion to the scene in Hannah & Her Sisters where Mickey gets over his fear of death by laughing at Duck Soup. End of Evangelion isn’t nearly that positive, even though it carries the same message as the series finale—if I were to sum it up in one line, it’s “but we need the eggs” (just so no one thinks my only reference point for existentialism is Woody Allen, I actually have read some Sartre and a bit of Kierkegaard; plus a ton of Camus, though I don’t know whether he counts in this case). No applause for Shinji when he wakes up. Asuka being there seems to imply that she had a similar experience to Shinji, even if we didn’t get to see it. Anyway, we get the choking—which really perplexed me, but the best I can think of is Shinji’s just confused and reaching for anything to prove the reality and some kind of reaction from Asuka. And he gets it: “How disgusting.” They’ve re-established contact for the first time since the series, but they still have a lot of work ahead of them. That touch to the cheek, though, was legitimately touching.

I think Evangelion, the TV show and its original ending stand perfectly well on its own, in my opinion. Although I know there’s stuff I missed out on or was slow to catch due to my lack of familiarity with anime (Evangelion is literally the only anime TV show I’ve seen, and all the Japanese animated films I’ve seen were from Studio Ghibli, so I’m really not familiar with anime as a whole at all), I think I benefited more from not having any expectations and going in with an open mind. We have so many cinematic and television apocalypses today, so it was great to see a show that took apocalypse, really the Apocalypse, more seriously. Early on I thought the Biblical stuff was just set-dressing, and even though it played a role to a great extent I was right. Though the show expertly sustained sense of mystery to the end, I think my initial impression was right—the Biblical stuff was just set dressing. The show’s really about people, how they alienate themselves, and how they try to repair the damage. The depth isn’t in what’s in the show’s version of the Dead Sea Scrolls, but in the characterization and quality of the ensemble. Even in End of Evangelion, which in my mind faltered a bit on this (with the exception of Fyutsky & co. and Gendo), even the tertiary supporting cast is still growing in some way.

While it’s nice to see the “outside” narrative of episodes 25 and 26, I don’t think it’s entirely necessary. End of Evangelion is, in my mind, more a complement than a completion. The action has real punch to it, there’s some legitimate expansion the themes of the show, but none of it feels strictly necessary. The additional explanations or clarifications of the machinations surrounding NERV and technology are fun, they’re not they’re not the focus of the show. It also felt at times like End of Evangelion was really straining for grandeur, which is a feeling I never got from the series (on a personal note the heavily red-tilted palette during the Instrumentality/Black Moon scenes didn’t totally work for me either). I much preferred the less grandiose, “now the world is like this” approach of the show to the self-impalements, swirly ghosts and arrays of crosses.

But a preference for one thing doesn’t mean tossing aside another. End of Evangelion isn’t necessary, but it’s still a worthwhile watch and recommended.

Random Thoughts:

*Although a lot of the mysteries of the show are more-or-less solved by the end, we’re still kind of in the dark about what Gendo was up to—Yui was depicted as basically 100% sympathetic, and it seemed to me like Gendo was trying to undermine SEELE from within with his own plan. I also liked the implication of Gendo essentially being what Shinji would grow up to be if he didn’t get an attitude adjustment.

*Major props on the design of the mass-production Evangelions.  The wings folded up in a manner that reminded me of Greek icons, but those snouts were absolutely horrifying—big teeth and no eyes (i. e. windows to the soul).