Evangelion 3.33 Review

[Admiral X]

I'd be more liable to recommend something like Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex or Ergo Proxy to someone I knew was a sci-fi fan but was an anime newbie. If they liked action, I'd probably recommend them something like Black Lagoon rather than a fighting anime of some kind. And if they liked fantasy, I'd probably recommend them something like Berserk (1997) or Shiki.

[Mecha82]

As far as fantasy anime goes I wouldn't recommend Berserk for beginner because of how dark it is. Look I like Berserk but at least I can't image myself liking it if it had been first anime that I had watched back then. Maybe if that beginner is GoT fan then maybe then but not otherwise.

[rickgriffin]

My intro into anime beyond the occasional kid's cartoon was Trigun. It has a philosophical backing to it but it's SIGNIFICANTLY less dense than Eva, focusing solely on the morality of pacifism. It's got a bleak setting but it's never treated too bleakly, basically it's there if you really want to dig into it.

I do NOT watch anime frequently and am quick to give up if the plot is too dense or nonsensical. I also would be more inclined to recommend anime that actually have a limited runtime and ending, rather than the kind that last for a hundred seasons. FMA and Death Note are the other ones on the top of my list for beginner-friendly anime (older teens+ type) even though I know for a fact someone is gonna make fun of me for it.

Hey, Death Note's ending is convoluted but at least it can be unwound into a concrete logical progression, unlike EVA

[LavarosVA]

In general when it comes to getting people into anime, I prefer to recommend more modern titles. Mostly because that's what they'll end up getting more exposed to thanks to things like Crunchy Roll, Animelab, etc.

[Deledrius]

My intro into anime beyond the occasional kid's cartoon was Trigun. It has a philosophical backing to it but it's SIGNIFICANTLY less dense than Eva, focusing solely on the morality of pacifism. It's got a bleak setting but it's never treated too bleakly, basically it's there if you really want to dig into it.

I agree, it's a good one for those reasons. It's a compelling show with likeable character and some weirdness, but the weirdness isn't something you need to understand to get the show; it's mostly just flavoring and not the meat like it is with Evangelion.

[cloudkitt]

Agreeing on Cowboy Bebop or Trigun being the best recommends for first-time anime unless you happen to know someone's specific interest. (Chuck would probably enjoy Trigun, for that matter.)

I don't like Eva, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't recommend it to a first-timer even if I did.

[Mecha82]

Well I do think that certain genres and franchises have some good entries as well. For example if some one wants to get into mecha anime then I would easily recommend something like Gundam 00 (that is also my pick for introduction to Gundam franchise) or Macross Plus over Eva.

[MyUserName]

This discussion about gateway anime, and the disagreements, reflect what is so wonderful about it. Unlike western animation which is too often used as a toy commercial and seldom treated with any dignity save for Pixars body of work and some dreamworks animated projects, anime literally has something for every taste under the sun.

As for Eva... it's debatable whether it's fitting for a gateway anime. It definitely blows the doors off the "animation is for kids" Stereotype, but its psychological naval gazing is more pretentious and nihilistic rather than deep. A hero's role in any series is to set an example, but shinji never grows or moves out of his neuroses because Anno never does. It does have some bloody awesome mecha battles and awe inspiring imagery though.

[Formless One]

A hero's role in any series is to set an example, but shinji never grows or moves out of his neuroses because Anno never does. It does have some bloody awesome mecha battles and awe inspiring imagery though.

That's the sad thing, though-- Shinji does grow in this series. After Asuka shows up in his life he really starts to come out of his shell, learn to socialize, stop acting pathetic, and eventually even decide on his own to be the hero. His depression never fully leaves him, but its clear that he starts to learn how to cope. That is, until he backslides towards the last few episodes, right about after the point where Asuka gets sent to the hospital for spoiler-y reasons, briefly gets better when Kowaru shows up, then when Kowaru dies (oh, yeah, spoilers again), he has a total breakdown because Hideko Anno had a breakdown at the same time in the show's production. It represents the point where Shinji stops being his own character in a fictional universe and just became the universe's stand in for the creator of the show. That's always going to irritate people. Its also the reason I am at odds with the rest of the Fandom who love Kowaru, whereas I see him as a walking plot device who has barely any real characterization and exists to be the final nail in the coffin for Shinji's mental stability. Why else would he show up on literally one episode?

(That said, I'm fine with him taking up more screen time in the films, because at least that makes his interactions with Shinji more meaningful and shows Kowaru as being a more fleshed out character. But obviously, the films have their own problems.)

The final two episodes of the show (and arguably the second half of End of Evangelion) are basically Shinji relearning what he already learned in the first 3/4's of the show. And while that might or might not be realistic in a psychological thriller, its not terribly good storytelling and is a lot of what makes Shinji so annoying to people. Had the show ended after his Big Damn Hero moment where he for the one time in his life actually commandeers the Eva in order to save everyone, I think a lot more people would have seen him as a psychologically complex but ultimately heroic character and less as a broken individual who shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the cockpit of a godlike mecha. We want to see the depressed individual get better, or at least grow into something not-pathetic. A good comparison would be to Homura Akemi, whose character growth leads her in a direction most of the audience did not see coming, but in hindsight makes perfect sense for her, and definitely wouldn't qualify as "pathetic". Where she is always moving forward, Shinji is just as liable to take two steps forward and then three steps back.

[drcakey]

*sitting on couch doing work* Oh my god Chuck's review of Eva 3.0 came out on the 26th! Priority 1! Priority 1!

So, I'm late to the party. Oh well.

I don't like Eva 3.0, for roughly the same reasons as Chuck. I wanted to like it; I expected to like it. There was an incredibly long delay between Eva 3.0 being screened at cons and it actually being released on DVD, so I heard the opinions of various people before I saw it myself, and what they described sounded interesting. And that stuff was there - it just made up such a small part of the runtime. I was just bored during the 4th Impact sequence. Yay everything is floating and exploding and turning red...again.

Unlike Chuck I actually like the first act of 3.0 a lot. There's a bunch of weird new stuff going on and you're completely lost and it's just this huge shock to Shinji and Asuka has an eyepatch so that's cool too. And I do like how the story pokes the audience in the eye a little: "You know that thing at the end of Eva 2.0 that looked really bad but you thought was good because it felt like something good was supposed to be happening then? Yeah turns out...that was really bad."

But then the movie fails to capitalize on almost all of that. I honestly wonder if it would have been better if the entire first act had been dropped and it was Rei who rescued Shinji at the start instead. I don't care about new geometric Angels or weird cube things they're calling Evas for some reasons - at least, I don't care if they're not even going to be in the movie. The Shinji/Kaworu relationship is fine, but it feels a little perfunctory. They wanted the relationship but didn't want to or couldn't do the legwork to get there. The whole movie has like, 2 plot threads at most.

As for the next movie, rumors of the demise of Evangelion Final...Evangelion 3.0+1.0...whatever it's called now, are somewhat exaggerated. It looks like it's in production hell because he stopped to direct Shin Godzilla (I imagine a scene of him painstakingly defusing a bomb that will kill millions, then his phone rings to tell him he's directing the new Godzilla, and he just immediately stands up and walks away). So it's not in production hell...it's in production purgatory. Much better. (Actually, didn't it get a [new] release date?)

The Rebuilds don't require you to have seen the TV series, plot-wise, but I think they do lean on you having familiarity with the series. You're supposed to be excited about them expanding on Kaworu's role, which is why he pops up like Thanos in the previous movies. So it's an awkward middle ground. Reminiscent of, but not the same as, how each part of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure has just enough of a connection to the previous one that you need to watch/read them all. Of course, there are places where having seen the TV series is probably unhelpful. If you've seen NGE you know from the first frame that the Rei who rescues Shinji isn't the same person he tried to save at the end of 2.0. So you're impatiently waiting half the runtime for him to catch up.

There are a couple replies I wanted to make too, but this post is big enough as it is so I will demurely yield the floor at this time.