Foreground: Shinji Ikari (front); Rei Ayanami (back, left); Asuka Langley Shoryu (back, right) with their Evas in the background
From what I read online about this, is that this anime came out with an incredible big bang when it reached hundreds and thousands of TV screens throughout Japan via TV Japan’s television network. It’s helmed as the greatest ground-breaking form of mecha anime in the mid 90s that no ordinary people would expect to see. Meaning this is not one of your average mecha anime where good-giant-robots-come-out-to-save-the-day-from-the-monster-terrorizing-your-regular-neighbourhood format and each week there’s always a new monster featured in each new episode, as that’s part of the tradition of every mecha program we all watched like Mazinger Z, Getter Robo etc etc. Rather, the theme of the series breaks itself away from that classic style of mecha genre and set a new and yet unconventional design of a robot which is neither a super robot, nor real robot. In fact, it;s more of a fusion between the two forms, to put it more technically accurate.
The series is said to be a commercially and critically successful, influential, and controversial Japanese anime that won several animation awards in the Japan Media Arts Festival including the prize for best animation. It was so good that it’s recognized as one of the great mecha anime classics of all time after the awards were received. It sure was very impressive that they’re amongst the anime greats when considering the many controversies it had to face with its grave depictions of teenage boys/girls suffering severe cases of clinical depression(which the author Hideaki Onno personally experienced before making this film), several biblical references used throughout the series (eg the cross beam emitted after mecha monsters unleash the attacks on our heroes robots) that cause the big divide in the Jews/Christian world, and characters experiencing social and emotional problems that later introduces the psychological harm not only to the characters themselves, but also the viewers as well, as this influences children under 15 who have not reached emotional and mental maturity to cope with the graphic details that the main characters are experiencing, hence can lead to long-term permanent damage to their psychological wellbeing, not being supervised properly. Very perplexing indeed.
Nevertheless, onwards to the synopsis of the film. The year is 2015 and we have three main heroes of the series as depicted at the start of this post. They are the three chosen “Children” to drive their own mecha which deviates a lot from other usual mecha mainstream we’ve seen in the past recent years. And they’re on the mission to stop the threatening forces of the “Angels” whom wrecked havoc upon the world since the “Second Impact”
Shinji iKari, the main child star of the series, introduced as the ‘Second Child’. Seen to be very socially inept, very withdrawn, always lacking of self-confidence when facing tough challenges on the fields of battle whether at home, school or even against the Angels. Always have the tendency to run away from problems that he couldn’t handle. His mecha is Evangelion 01 (code named Eva01). It comes in purple color and its main traits (shown throughout the whole series) were of his ‘berserker’ nature. This ‘temperament’ of Eva gets triggered only when he’s in a losing battle against the Angel and the outcome of who’s going to lose was obvious. But just when you think all hope is lost for our young friend and his compatriot, the purple giant managed to turn things around to his advantage after completely taking the opponent apart. Piece by piece. Said to be born one of the original Angels that first appeared before the Second Impact on Earth. It has genetics properties of Adam and Lilith.
Rei Ayanami, our second main child star, has great beauty complexion with silver blue hair comes with a seemingly very introverted personality like Shinji, however she appears to be not friendly often so rarely interacts with anybody. Thus she does give everybody the cold feet whenever she refuses to react in a certain way a normal person would do when having a great conversation with someone else. Despite this, she’s nothing short of proving her great prowess in handling her own EVA, which is why she’s called “First Child”. Her Eva is codename EVA 00. It’s said to be the prototype EVA ie the first EVA ever produced before they were signed off for mass production (hence the codename 00). Eva 00 comes with one eye Cyclops, comes in orange colour, usually. Nothing much is said to describe its true origins compared to the Eva 00. Nevertheless, it’s proven plenty of valor in combat when facing Angels as it’s handled well by a very capable pilot. Unlike her counterpart, Shinji, who hesitates and doubts more often than he should in his attacks when he’s plenty of sometimes easy chances to win several battles in this war.
Asuka Langley Soryu, is the “Third Child”, who’s the complete opposite of Rei. A young woman who comes from Japanese and German descent, whose language skills as bilingual comes as no surprising manner. And said to be child genius as some sort when she obtained a university degree before any children ever hit their puberty soon. She’s born in a family of professors and scientists, whose mother, Kyoko Zeppelin Soryu, was part of the Evangelion Project and she assisted in working with Eva 02 Unit development project. She comes as an extroverted person, so she’s very outspoken and aggressive in making blunt and sometimes intrusive comments on people’s mediocre achievements and how she always has high regard of herself and look down on other people, trying to prove that she’s unmatched. Her Eva 02 is considered as the first Production Eva, ie is the first time it’s used for actual combat so it’s equipped with many various armour pieces throughout the body that Eva 00 and Eva 01 do not normally have such as its mouth and legs. It’s expected to handle any type of combat situations using various weapons at their disposal.
Together, our three brave young heroes are embarking on a quest to eradicate all the Angels that come to Earth in order to prevent another apocalyptic end to the planet Earth, aka “Third Impact”. They were selected by the secreat oganisation ‘Nerve’ as they’re the chosen ones and they’re only ones capable of piloting the mechas due to the high synchronisation rate with machines ie they’re able to get along with the Evas well. Their mission to defeat Angels would be possible without the help of these five people.
A colonel amongst the ranks of the officers in Nerve, whose love affair on her day-to-day job of focusing issues at hand when giving orders to the EVA team to fulfill many tasks in defeating the ever-menacing Angels. She’s a professional military strategist that would soon see herself move up the ranks amongst other officers and many of them do realize the value she’s provided in terms of strong leadership and making sharp judgments on tricky situations. On the other side of her life, she is very unskilled cook, prefers takeaways, tv dinners, large quantities of beer cans/bottles that comes with no limit, and smokes aplenty. A difficult atmosphere for Shinji and Asuka to live in for sure as she’s their acting guardian during the course of their mission.
A chief commander of Nerve, the head honcho who masterminds the entire operation of the Eva Research and on the ultimate quest to resume work on the Human Instrumentality Project to create humans as if they were done by the works of God, just like the Book of Genesis. He;s notably seen to be cold, mean and completely distant towards his son Shinji whenever they looked at or passed each other. As if he’s treating him like a complete stranger. Sources indicated that he’s so cunning he would perform any means by hook or by crook to achieve the success he seeks. Even at the expense of not affording to show any care for people around him. Especially Shinji.
Major scientist at Nerve whose specialist skills were military repairs, enhancements, and maintenance on the Tokyo-3 city’s defence system. She’s very intelligent and bright that she’s proven very capable in analyzing different states on data within MAGI (the supercomputer which she developed) that controls Nerv and suggests any resolution on technical faults under extreme pressure. One interesting fact about her involved with all this is that her mother Naoko Akagi, was romantically linked with Gendo Akari during the development of Nerv many years ago. But it was later found that Gendo intended to use her for his sole aim to succeed in getting the Human Instrumentality Project done. Ritsuko is said to have a brunette, like her mother.
Gendo Ikari’s right hand commander of Nerv. Formerly a professor at Kyoto University, whose subject interest is mainly meta-biology. How he ended up with being Gendo’s right hand man was that Gendo’s deceased wife, Yui Ikari, was Kozou’s mentor and the sponsor for the human science project she took. Along the way after Gendo married Yui, Gendo and Kozou travelled to the ruins of Antartica and Kozou learned the hard truths that Gendo’s association with Seele is a serious threat to mankind existence and after event of Second Impact (which Seele’s initiated) Kozou saw little choice to reject Gendo’s quest for creating a new future for the mankind after what Gendo has shown Kozou the full capabilities Salee could do. Kozo accepted his invitation inevitably.
Said to be Misato’s ex-boyfriend of 6 years, also bit of a playboy with his dashing good looks for any young innocent girls that he could hook with while working inside Nerv hub. He works as triple agent. He works for the Japanese government to track any activity within Nerv so they could make informed decisions on whether Nerv is seen to be ally or a much greater threat to the humanity on the whole and take any appropriate actions to deal the matters at hand. At time, he has his own personal agenda to sort out which has no bearing on his missions during the series to discover the truth behind Human Instrumentality Project, Nerv and Seele.
My final question still remains unanswered on the whole thing. Is this show considered to be an epic genius or an utter revolt of the 90s mecha shows? Unfortunately, I could not reach an conclusion to have an answer and it’s up to the general masses what they think of the whole thing. Some people say it’s fabulous and it’s deserved self-worthy praises. Some people say it’s not and it should be censored, otherwise they will received receive backlash from the smaller sector of the society who believe the anime company, Gainax, has created an abomination of its Christian symbols used throughout the series. So we have a strong divided opinion here.
But, without a doubt that it’s not your usual mecha program (like I used to know) where there’s a usual weekly routine of new monster featuring to attack the neighbourhood. It’s far different from the norm and it’s shifted into this whole new paradigm of science vs religion debate, which I find it difficult to comprehend both of them crossed over each other like that. We see how characters developed, each of them have their own difficult struggles with interpersonal relationships with people around them, including themselves. The story revolves around deep psychological thoughts of every main character that had difficult relations with their parents. Much like Shinji’s with his father for a start. Their portrayal of their struggles throughout the film were subject to controversial viewpoints that children under 15 could suffer mental harm due to several scenes that proved disturbing for the general audience to bear and such works should be banned or (at least) censored, and that argument is sure debatable. Despite this and the clear evidence of several biblical references usage from the Book of Genesis throughout the series’ story development, it’s made a great impact on the anime community and it;s not usually a negative one. Nor it’s a positive one either.
Rather, the series was likened so much by the public that the people pay special tribute to the show for its ultra uniqueness by making subtle references of the film into their works everything from musical influences, movies to video games etc over the years. It may take a while to get used with the theme as I’m not into metaphysical and psychological thrillers myself but as long as it’s got the mecha anime in a special way, then it’s alright. Since then, several reincarnations of the series were made during the last couple of years of the 2000 era so obviously fans of new and old are eager for its comeback to the big screens.
An epic that comes with twisted proportions, can hold this much appeal. Â Stay tuned for more info on its myths, beliefs, data on the monsters the Evas faced in the series ,aka as Angels.
Neon Genesis Evangelion Gang
