lesser men trying to emulate his greatness mistook the superficial for the essence. Kazuo Ishiguro Remains of the Day https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/839734152470724661/1124781473929646090/1real.jpg?width=1248height=702 Hideaki Anno is a genius. Hes a super fan turned auteur assistant turned master a director turned referential catalogue. He can do spastic bursts of energy His And Her Circumstances he can do quiet contemplative train rides Neon Genesis Evangelion and he can do everything in between no matter the medium Love Pop. Seemingly Hideaki Anno can do very little wrong and even if he did hed still remain at the top of the list for animes greatest directors lodged right up there with Hayao Miyazaki Isao Takahata and Satoshi Kon. But even the gods can stumble. 1995s Neon Genesis Evangelion is arguably Annos Gesamtkunstwerk the echelon of animation combined torn apart and put back together in so many different ways it becomes mindboggling. And if Evangelion is a Gesamtkunstwerk End Of Evangelion is a step above not only acting as an alternate conclusion to the telelvision show but as a conclusion to this section of Annos life a retrospective on his depression his anger and his attempts towards piecing his life back together all amidst a struggle with the medium his fans and the world. Though many many others assisted Anno on this project with their own personal flourishes Evangelion is unique because of its intimacy. How often do you get to delve into someones lifelong trauma their illogical inaction their recession into themselves? And even less often do you see the lack of resolution to these things. Yes our characters recieve some sort of temporary relief but Evangelion makes its characters confront these life events as monuments that cant be surmounted in a single leap. The spritzy redhaired Asuka must come to terms with failure that she cant always be the best. The introverted klutz Shinji must confront his problems face on lest his world be constant running away never amounting to anything. The everexpressionless Rei must find out who she really is with little to no assistance from others and must continually discover herself over and over again month in and month out. These arent simple questions these characters confront these are life long struggles and these teenagers are confronting these struggles deep within themselves every episode and with each episode we see them carve out their own definition of who they are or we see them regress we see them fail. Even in side characters like Misato and Kanji whose curmudgeonly relationship splinters again and again despite all efforts because of deepseeded issues like Misatos loss of her father at a young age and seeking some sort of a father figure in her lover as a replacement. You dont see this in just anything. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/839734152470724661/1124781862250889317/3a31d16adeb053f196a1bd608ea9c3e22629917476.png And you dont see this confronted with humour either with the joys of life as well as its sorrows with a bag full of absurdities for every grounded emotion Evangelion is notoriously slapstick at the drop of a dime much more so towards the beginning but again with each passing episode we get to peer further and further into who these characters really are. Anno and his team dont hide anything from prying eyes in fact he practically invites us to pry further to peer into the aspects of himself he doesnt particularly enjoy but acknowledges nonetheless all through the guise of a real robot show A type of show Anno is an immense fan of Is there anything more personal than doing what you love and knowing who you are? Its with these thoughts that I went into the Evangelion Rebuild films with films that promised to rebuild hence the name the story of Evangelion with a practically endless stream of money provided by Annos new studio Studio Khara and bringing on a variety of talent from equallyclassic OVAs of the time period. However my mentality proved to be a big mistake. The Evangelion Rebuild films start off as cute summaries with a few additions namely more fight scenes one more character and a few alternate twists. 1.0 the eponymous first film summarises the first ten episodes fine enough but immediately youre hit with a bat named uncanny valley. Where was Hedgehogs Dilemma? Perhaps the most notorious Evangelion episode episode four where our protagonist Shinji Ikari foregoes his responsibilities of saving the world to seep into himself to escape to ignore the world collapsing around him in hopes that it would all just go away. This is accented greatly by the lack of dialogue the noise of clacking train tracks and wide shots which hold for tens of seconds. Hedgehogs Dilemma assists in knowing the character of Shinji because by his posture and by his inner thoughts you can hear the doubts he has not only in himself but the world around him. Its this episode where Evangelion became something special to me as I too forego responsibilities in the pursuit of ignorance. Escapism. An alltoohuman emotion Im frequently partial to. And Im not saying that Hedgehogs Dilemma had to be in Evangelion 1.0 the constraints of the films length are obviously going to play a part there but we dont get a single character moment like Hedgehogs Dilemma to peer into the character which is what Evangelion was all about. Instead we get an extended fight with Ramiel a floating screaming tetrahedron representing the opposing force of the series The Angels. The fight scene is punchy flashy and looks great but raises an eyebrow. Is this what Evangelion was really all about? Sure it contained these elements but they acted as outbursts for character progression for emotion not action for actions sake a la Mission: Impossible. Again not to say that theres anything WRONG with Tom Cruiseesque stunts but thats not what the series has come to be. Ah you may say so this is the Rebuild. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/839734152470724661/1124782451823235113/TheSixthAngelsHaloRebuild76306756.png It only gets more and more concerning as it continues. 2.0 sees the introduction of our tertiary protagonist Asuka who is now named something different from Asuka Langley Souryuu to Asuka Langley Shikinami. Which checks out because hardly are the two the same character. Sure both may possess the staunch adamancy towards our protagonists and the endless desire for victory but thats just about where the comparisons end. 2.0 doesnt delve any more into Asukas character instead making her as abrasive as possible establishing herself as a sort of rival to Rei and Shinji instead of an antiheroic ally and we dont get any sort of insight into why she is like this. She is merely like this because this is the Asuka we know. Sort of. Like a Great Value item you can just feel that something isnt quite right that something isnt name brand. And 3.0 just goes completely off its rocker timeskipping after 2.0s ending to plop us alongside Shinji in a reddened world we dont know nor care about riddled with floating CGI ships a la Space Battleship Yamato and people screaming at Shinji for what he did though never telling him what he did outright. If theres anything 3.0 proves its that Evangelion is truly a Rebuild a rebuilt husk of its former self. Only the shell none of the filling. It may look pretty but thats all there is to it. 4.0 then is much of the same that the third film gave us. The opening scene in Paris has little to no relevancy to the actual plot instead acting as a time capsule of a tech demo which has already been outdated just a year later. Compare this to Across The SpiderVerse andNo dont thats just unfair. One outstanding example of just how different this film is in its depiction of its heroines. 4.0 objectifies its women where the 1995 television series critiqued it. most of the shots are framed in such a manner to upskirt our heroines to peer in on them partially nude or fully nude. That says enough as it is 4.0 is filled to the brim with lecherous angles for the sake of debauchery. At this point I wasnt asking for 1995s ake on threedimensionallywritten twodimensional drawings the previous three movies primed me into not expecting that I just wanted some consistency motivations and personalities befitting of a character any character. But all I get are Asuka dropping her catchphrase anta baka fortyfive minutes into the movie as a sort of glint of the sun as Studio Khara inquires Did you remember that line from the television show? with a reprehensive grin on its face. Its me Aida Kensuke a man says in this film. But is it? https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/839734152470724661/1124781474252587108/huh.png This film waxes and wanes between existentialism and staunch optimism never striking a true balance between the two merely placing weight on either one or the other like life itself was easily black or white. Where were the grey hues? Where was shunning all responsibility because all you know how to do is reject? A childlike exposition while a oneeyed redhead force feeds you certainly shouldnt set you back on track. But otherwise wouldnt be understood wellenough would it? Gone is the intimacy and the personality and the brevity of the original. Gone is the diary entry styling of everything being laid on the table yes this is merely another franchise film in a sea of franchise films. Open wide because there are many many more on the way. Buy our merchandise For as much as I hated this film when Shinji Ikari sat alone framed smaller than a rabbit ocean stretching beyond the reach of the screen clouds littering the sky with their multitude for a single moment I felt knowing of him again. Of his loneliness of eternal selfcontemplation and bewilderment of my small part in the world. It was Hedgehogs Dilemma we were given a moment to contemplate with him to peer out into the world so oppressive so incomprehensible so foreign. That is until a bodytight skinsuitwearing blueberry girl walks up to him and explodes into a burst of tangerine semen. The Evangelion Rebuild films substituted the superficial for the essence and it was difficult to witness this great piece of art lose its life. https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/839734152470724661/1124781474781077504/whao.png?width=1745height=716