Take A Pick Tuesday- Neon Genesis Evangelion

Take A Pick Tuesday: Having Your Hands Full Edition: Neon Genesis Evangelion

 

 

Now that you've edged someone into anime you can perhaps enlighten their mind with one of the most important anime TV series of all time, Neon Genesis Evangelion. In truth though you could easily have this show be the first one to show someone or perhaps to show yourself if you've never seen it. It's easy to see how this show transcends its genre and has become a universally loved series even to those that don't like Mecha, while helping evolve Mecha. Am I saying it's the only show to do it, of course not but certainly I'm saying it is important.

 

     Why it is important has a lot to more to do than the aspects that place it in the genre it’s in, in many ways its people that are uncomfortable in their own skin, forced to save a world in some ways destroyed, in some ways lost, leaving people to try to discover who they are. Perhaps not liking what they see or we the parallel horror we live through or anyone safe from the grips of our own memories. Are we weapons or hope, or we alive or forced to simply live because of someone else’s command. Have we become something else through this adversity or as people are we exactly the same.

       It’s saving humanity while humanity is asking what it is. Of course that is only the beginning of the exploration that ask complex questions with characters riddled with issues that run parallel to each other, maybe more so than they want to admit. It’s a world that mirrors many similarities of ours, asking questions we’re often asking ourselves. While touching on a range of emotions, various tones in episodes and taking the most philosophical and one of the most controversial endings to an anime ever. Again this is saying a lot but Neon Genesis Evangelion did a lot of important things, something people continue to discover and rediscover to this day.

 

       To understand this is to understand the story. It takes place in Tokyo3, a place that was subject to what they call The Second Impact and  the first contact with what they call Angels. Angels are alien beings that descend from the sky, all different and seem to be a great threat to human existence, the proof seems to be in the city that’s gone. Tokyo 3 is a city that can descend below ground level and ascend back to the surface, unfortunately this doesn’t make the city safe and the world hasn’t forgotten about the Angels, knowing they can return at any moment. This gives the show a slight Cold War feel to it, at least for me, this tension. This sense of impending doom that is the curtain behind these fascinating players and stories and things that are happening.

      It does feel affected by post World War II and even modern day concerns that are always afraid of a triggered event. That sense of not knowing, the vulnerability and yet life continuing but how, these are some of the many feelings that show what the world is like in Neon Genesis Evangelion. While it might be different for every viewer and the inspiration could be broader or on the mark, there is a shared knowledge that it all comes from something close to that or something that mirrors it at the least.

 

      Realizing that something/someone has to handle the possible return threat, some sort of defense to a realized fragile world is the organization NERV. We’re introduced to these things when Shinji Ikari comes to Tokyo, a quiet, insecure, troubled youth who has come at the request of his estranged father whom he has a bit of a complex with. Yes his father is indeed daddy of the year. Gendo Ikari, who happens to be the head of NERV and has never shown him anything remotely close to love, so we think. What happens next is that Shinji seems to realize he is a tool, someone they’ve recruited to pilot what they call EVA’s. Large mysterious robots that can only really be controlled by a chosen pilot with a sort of psychic link.

      This is why they find a child and bring them to NERV, needing the chosen pilot by the EVA leaves them little choice, you’ll see what happens when they allow a pilot not meant to be inside. It takes the concept of a child being thrust into seemingly adult situations that in our world would scar them and runs with it, that concept is turned on its head from how it’s normally used, making it as terrifying as it sounds. There’s a special suit the pilots are given, head pieces and enter what feels more organic and less mechanical, maybe the only thing that does feel Mecha is their pod which could also feel like a claustrophobic nightmare. Shinji is given little choice as he’s thrust into the EVA when an Angel descends from the sky leading into a tense violet conflict.

 

     What happens next is a little different from what you might expect hence the concept turned on it’s head. Instead of a kick ass moment what we’re witness to is a terrifying moment when a child is sent into the unknown and loses control with what they’re given, a high tense moment that solidifies the isolation that Shinji already felt especially with the threat of death present. EVA 01 loses control showing something more than just a large robot, something that feels as though they’re keeping from the pilot. An ok the scene is breathtaking, looking amazingly cool but we never lose sight of what this feels like for the pilot or the people watching.

       Shinji seems as though he’d be destroyed from what he deals with and the traumatic experience is only the beginning of what NERV has in store for him of course he doesn’t want anything to do with the EVA but in a way they give him an alternative, to return to being not needed, forgotten or left alone physically the way he is mentally. So Shinji does the disturbing thing of doing whatever they ask.

 

     He’s basically given to Misato Katsuragi, his sort of sub boss/coach/guardian, overseer of him and the other pilots who clearly has her own problems and she’s a heavy drinker to top it all off. The push she gives him is as true to life not always the solution to his problems. One pilots he meets is Rei Ayanami, a quiet almost to some, emotionless girl who seems to be a rag doll when it comes to the injuries she sustains in the EVA and for NERV but to his surprise she seems to have won the affection and concern of his father. Never a protest comes from her which ironically is something they have in common at times. Rei though is mysterious and when Shinji tries to reach out, it’s to understand her and maybe somehow understand how to be her friend let alone, her team mate. There is though a sense of something she is that he’s not, though it’s far more complicated than that.

 

     Now this also sounds pretty heavy and that’s because it is but there are especially in the early episodes, quite a bit of humor while maintaining the story, the lingering mindset of the characters which will be key throughout the series. Some of the humorous moments are when another pilot comes and lives with them, Askua Langley Soryu, more gung-ho and of course compensating for something, she needs to outshine everyone. So this leads to dueling personalities sometimes on the heavier side, sometimes on the lighter side, the EVA’s trying to be in sync together, the penguin that lives in the apartment and the sexual tension of a boy living with a beautiful girl and a beautiful woman those are all on the lighter side. Though you’d be surprised how that can turn around.

 

         As said before though there is a drawing mystery that the show questions, it isn’t unknown species come to Earth and we have to kill them, it’s why do they come at all, are the things we have truly the right things to have. Are we innocent? Whatever the truth is, will sync when the inner conflicts of all the characters come to a head. In many ways it’s done in a momentous way they you have to wonder how personal this was for the staff to make. The truth is very personal. One well known fact is that legendary director Hideki Anno had been fallen into a deep depression during the production of the series, it didn’t help all the pressure that came with coming to the conclusion of the series, it’s why the breakdown in the last two episodes to some seemed if not a little disturbing than at least not what they expected except it’s also what’s made Neon Genesis Evangelion stand out so much.

 

       Controversial and rubbing some fans the wrong way it accomplished what art does sometimes, embrace the personal and watch it spill in the work they’re making, it often leaves it to be misunderstood but almost always unforgettable. Naturally it brings that reaction but still for the majority the ending made everything become potent, transitioning into a greater level of storytelling.  Displaying the philosophical and metaphorical depths that anime has and can accomplish. Doing this while leaving such an impact on a mainstream audience, a rare and delightful combination.

 

       If there’s any doubts that the show has been an international sensation than observe the countless manga adaptions (including the original manga in which the series had diverted from), the endless stream of figures, the places in Japan that have built statues and hotels dedicated to the series, the clothing lines, the phones, the shoes, and of course the remake.


     That’s right Neon Genesis Evangelion managed to accomplish the same magic twice in the form of a set of movies that retold the story, this time going into uncharted territory and still managing to be critically acclaimed. Anno took what were interesting mysterious symbols in the first series and made them relevant in the new one. Things like the cross are not as common in Japan which is a good portion Buddhist as it is in other countries. Though the show had incorporated symbols from a vast amount of religions and beliefs. Yet he found something new in them that he could explore in this new series.  While you can say it doesn’t leave the same feeling as the series instead it can be said that it carries the tone and that it also invites brand news ones, leaving even more layers to sift through.

       
 At the core of Neon Genesis Evangelion is something unique, perhaps it takes you into some uncomfortable places in the psyche but that’s not always a bad thing, sometimes it’s exactly what an audience needs. Often it brings us to something revolutionary, something only seen in a background of black and a mirror in the other people we see.






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