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Neon Genesis Evangelion: |
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Review by Tasha Robinson
n Genesis 0:1, 14-year-old Shinji Ikari was the most miserable child in anime. He'd been dragged from his home to become an unwilling experimental pilot, the last line of Earth's defense against a mysterious, malevolent, hugely powerful alien force. Under the watchful eye and merciless thumb of his despotic father, he was being sent out into the field in a barely-tested battle suit. Although he defeated the aliens against incredible odds and despite incredible agony, no one seemed to recognize his achievement as anything more than his unquestionable duty.
This second tape in the series presents episodes three and four of Neon Genesis, "Transfer" and "Hedgehog's Dilemma." The themes are almost identical to those of the first two episodes: Shinji fights the aliens. Shinji wonders why he has to fight the aliens. Shinji considers not fighting the aliens at all. Shinji claims he's not going to fight the aliens any more. Shinji suffers a hail of verbal and emotional abuse, decides maybe he really should continue to fight the aliens, and is rewarded for his sacrifice by even more abuse.
The only element new to these two episodes is a look at Shinji's life at a new school. Most of his new classmates admire him, while one teenager, whose sister was wounded in the latest alien attack, wants to take his anger out on the only available target. But Shinji suffers from the "hedgehog's dilemma" -- however much he might want to get close to others of his kind, he's afraid it will only cause more pain.
Can we move on now?
The strengths of the first two episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion are the worst weaknesses of this second installment -- in part because episodes three and four offer little new material to work with. There's nothing new about the alien invaders, the Evangelion battle suits, or even Shinji's absorbingly critical and cruel father, who only appears for a few seconds.
Overall, the pacing here suggests a daily television show rather than a videotape series with months passing between each installment. As a break in the action between fight episodes, this segment of the story might be more tolerable. As a stand-alone tape, however, it's irredeemably slow. "Hedgehog's Dilemma," in particular, consists in large part of Shinji wandering silently through the city, sitting alone on the train, etc. The animation rests heavily on extreme long shots of perfectly motionless figures, giving the impression that the animators all went off to lunch and left the camera on.
And the characters -- with the exception of Shinji's new friends, who unfortunately are underdeveloped -- are simply walking through the same ruts they established in earlier episodes. The same fights, both against the aliens and against Shinji's self-esteem and sense of duty, are fought all over again, with little change. With this much repetition, why not just let everyone go back and watch the first tape over again?
I gave the first Neon Genesis Evangelion high marks for being something new and different. This is something old and redundant. Still, I suspect the slow release is the primary problem -- more episodes per tape, to move the series along to the action, might help a great deal. -- Tasha
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