Impressions of Evangelion 2.0
A few hours ago I got myself a cam-rip of the movie and I’ll say that it certainly was different. Due to the sub-par video and audio as well as the fact that there were no subtitles, I will not be seriously reviewing what I’ve seen since I don’t think that it’s is a fair representation of the work, but I will comment on what I’ve observed and keep it as spoiler free as possible.
My main criticism of Evangelion 1.0 was that it was such a close interpretation of the source material that I wondered what the point was besides Anno Hideaki making a hell of a lot of money. For 2.0, I get to whine about how everything has changed. Besides the new character Mari, the biggest changes were in the personalities of Shinji and Asuaka. I believe that they are fundamentally different characters than those from the original anime. Asuka gets screwed since she is presented as an even bigger tsundere than ever, and due to the show’s short run time, she was not given the adequate character development needed to show that she has any greater depth. Unlike the television series’ incarnation, this Asuka doesn’t seem to care all too much about how others perceive her; she is often found sitting in the corner of the room, alone, playing her hand-held video game console. On the other hand, Shinji takes a massive step forward since he is actually capable of love (yes, love) in this weird parallel universe, and he is more than willing to fight for it. There are times when he could have shouted “who the hell do you think I am!?” and I would have bought it if only because of the sheer power of the moment.
The new Eva pilot, Mari, is in one word “hot”. She is strong, assertive, feral, and her odd character quirks indicate that unlike the old Asuka these traits are not for show; they’re innate. But then again, she has something like fifteen minutes of screen time and most of it was spent kicking ass inside an Eva, so this assessment is premature at best. As for the rest of the characters, they’re pretty much exact replicas from the original series except one could argue that the characters are different in that the way they interact with Shinji (and to a lesser extent Asuka) has changed, especially Rei (who is cuter than ever and more assertive).
The new animation was not as impressive as the first movie, but I was watching a cam-rip, which pretty much explains why I felt this way. From what I could make of it, there doesn’t seem to be much change from the first movie’s approach, so if you enjoyed the first movie’s animation, you should enjoy 2.0’s. Once again, the visually most striking elements of the movie are the Angels. I thoroughly enjoyed Studio Khara’s re-imagining of the Angels since their new designs made them look more like celestial monsters than plastic toys.
The music for 2.0 was interesting since a good deal of the musical tracks came from Kare Kano. Virtually every interaction of Kaji and Shinji had some variation of the song Miyazawa Yukino (Nocturne) playing, and a lot of the school moments used bouncy music from Kare Kano. The only change I really didn’t like was the choice of music for the climax of the Eva Unit 01 vs Eva Unit 03 fight. The Beast II beautifully encapsulated the sheer carnage of the scene in the original series, but the movie chooses to emphasize the tragedy aspect by playing a lighter, more poignant piece. Considering that this is the scene where Shinji loses his sense of power and purpose to a point that he quits piloting Eva, I believe that the former is a far more appropriate choice of music (Then again, this may be simply because I prefer hearing violent music as Eva 03’s brains splatter across the countryside).
Overall, the movie is an engaging retake that I would have more than willingly dished out good money to watch on the silver screen if I had the opportunity. Though many of the major plot elements remain the same, the movie has a distinctly different feel with a stronger Ikari Shinji taking the helm. I suppose with the all changes this movie has written into the old plot, the third will have even more unexpected twists than this one. “Good” I say. With the exceptional sales of Evangelion 1.0, Anno Hideaki could have simply rearranged and reanimated the original anime and made a lot of money, but he went out of his way to create something new. Though the changes do have their flaws, at least the fandom has something new to talk about instead of having the same old dialogues that never seem to go away.
PS: The images are taken from a trailer since I didn’t feel like uploading low quality images tilted 5 degrees inwards on the left side.
I’m simply looking forward to watching all four movies in one go. That ought to be interesting, I would imagine, although it may be hard to actually get around to doing it when the time comes.
Ah! I just watched it! All right, so I only understood about 50% of the dialogue… I’ll have to wait for a subtitled version (preferably top it off with a DVD rip!) for a more detailed/accurate response.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
The changes to the characters’ personalities is welcomed. It is much more streamlined and accessible, which fits the format of a film. However, Rebuild of Evangelion will supposedly consist of four movies, each about 90-100 minutes, equaling out to about 20 TV episodes. Now bear with me; I don’t think anyone who watches any Rebuild of Evangelion film will not watch the rest of the films… I think 20~ 25 minute episodes is sufficient time to develop four (originally three) characters: Rei, Shinji, Asuka, and Mari. What I missed then was Asuka’s strong characterization, apparently in the TV series. Here, she is reduced to a Bicycle playing card, two-dimensional and predictable. Personally, if Mari’s screentime was completely swiped, or postponed until 3.0, Asuka would have had a little more breathing room. This is essential in order for the EVA angel invasion scene and her subsequent “death” to be effective. With her demise, I cannot believe that someone unfamiliar with the series would be as “stricken” as I was. Aside from screaming in my head, “Wait, wait, this isn’t Asuka!”, I was in disbelief: “She can’t be dead. That’s Toji. C’mon.” (On a side note, the switch is perfect for this reductive film format… it would have been odd to have Toji… while in the series he was given enough elaboration) But that’s not to say that I was affected, rather I was confused as to why she had to die so early. Regardless, for the film format, Asuka was an interesting character.
I enjoy the new Shinji, though I didn’t mind the old one. The new Rei is somewhat difficult for me. Her subtlety is still there, but it has been drastically simplified by making her “more human.” The point of Evangelion was to have “unlikeable” characters–different and interesting characters. At the least they were not one-dimensional, so I have no right to complain. This different take on the love triangle has me intrigued. Was this really Anno’s original intention? I thoroughly enjoyed the complex and difficult relationship between Asuka and Shinji in the series. It’s hard to swallow this “new” Rei and Shinji connection, especially with the “DMMYS” (Dummy System) in mind and that she is Yui’s (Shinji’s mother) reincarnation–a clone, basically. Will all of those details and background be dropped in light of the format? So no Rei III? Just Rei I?
The music pisses me off. Whenever the Kare Kano pieces played, I frowned. This is just lazy work, Anno/Sagisu! The score probably works for those who have not seen Kare Kano, but it’s a huge bomb for myself and others: the Kare Kano soundtrack is very dear to me. Additionally, who likes the vocalized ‘new song’ that replaced Beast II? Pretty bad. Didn’t work for me. Perhaps I was just thrown off that Asuka was in there instead of Toji. But wait, they played the song again when Shinji reached for Rei inside that angel! …Yeah, it’s bad. They used Namida decently, however.
Nonetheless, I’d have to say that the third act was pretty freaking awesome. It’s not the Evangelion I knew, which is good–it is more exciting and compelling. So is this what Anno wanted? The pacing isn’t as neck-breaking as 1.0 and gives just enough pause for those special moments. I like all of the small changes (instead of visiting Antartica and the Second Impact ground zero on a boat, they use an air/spacecraft; the ocean being red/blood, and the juxtaposing aquarium visit; etc.). Mari is a hot character, and I wonder where she’s going in 3.0. She did seem superfluous in 2.0, likely intentional as a setup for 3.0–who can resist a girl who presents herself in fleeting images, with extravagant entries and exits.
it’s unfair to judge the animation based on a cam-rip (conflicting recording settings like framerates, autocontrast, etc.). But it does seem fluid and movie-quality, though we don’t get the tiny, tiny details like threads of hair shaking or clothes wrinkling. Studio Khara did a great job re-inventing the angels, indeed. But I still wonder how Production IG would have handled the animation.
SPOILER ENDS
I enjoyed the film and am looking forward to a clean DVD rip with subtitles!
@A.H.
I believe that the movies are entertaining enough to be fairly easy watches regardless of whether you view it piecemeal as it is released or in one sitting.
@Tamashii
When I do finally review 2.0, my biggest complaint would be how they simplified both Asuka and Rei. They teetered dangerously towards dating sim girl archetypes rather than unusual but believable individuals. Then again, I found that a good deal of the movie focused on Shinji essentially “courting” Ayanami by finding about more about her and trying to be kind as possible.
Interestingly enough, by the plot point reached at the end of the movie, Asuka was a complete train-wreck in the original series. By removing her temporarily with the Unit 3 incident, she retains her spunk well into the final stretch of the series. So, we’ll almost certainly see an even larger departure from the source material in 3.0.
As for the Kare Kano music, I was fine with the use of Miyazawa Yukino (Nocturne) playing while Kaji described second impact, but the later usages did draw my attention away from the movie unnecessarily as I thought to myself “wait a second.”
The complete train-wreck Asuka was amazing. I liked how her character played out, it was quite unique and intriguing. The same can be said for the other characters. I thinking that these new characterizations are due to Anno’s desire to make a more accessible Evangelion, not the format of film. The original series was, on one level, a message to anime otakus, as Tsurumaki and Anno once admitted:
‘…Tsurumaki said of the series, “”But when all is said and done, Hideaki Anno’s comments on ‘Evangelion’ + ‘Evangelion’ are that it is a message aimed at anime fans including himself, and of course, me too. If a person who can already live and communicate normally watches it, they won’t learn anything.”‘
Now that Anno has gotten over himself, he probably looks back at the television series with mixed feelings. Rebuild of Evangelion is his revision.
I was extremely lucky and got to watch this movie in Nagoya on the big screen whilst I was in Japan a couple of weeks ago, and so naturally my view on the animation is going to be a little different. For someone like me who has only ever viewed anime fights on a small screened T.V or computer it was outstanding, though the soundtrack did disappoint me.
I was surprised at the difference between the movie and the original, but I really like Mari, she has a lot of spunk. Hopefully she’ll have more screen time in the next movies. As should be expected from Eva, I was pretty confused, especially because of my sub par Japanese, but for some reason I didn’t notice how confused I was until I left the theater (It may have been because of how ridiculously loud the sound was that it almost broke my eardrums, which I didn’t mind at all, by the way.)
But I like to think that Evangelion holds a very nostalgic feel to it that even though your confused as hell, you don’t really mind.
All in all, even though I was squashed between to very large, sweaty and loudly chewing men, I enjoyed the film a whole lot, and enjoyed the interesting character development from Rei and Shinji.
I guess now all we have to do is wait until Kaworu appears and then cut loose. I dunno if Shinji and Kaworu will connect as well if Shinji isn’t… Shinji changing them all so fully from this intro point really will affect the plot ahead so… who knows? I’ll wait to watch them all and then call it.
Watched this a few days ago at the cinema and loved it.Cant wait for 3.0.