Neon Genesis Evangelion Review

Shinji is the reason it lasted. Anno wrote a pilot who is frightened, resentful and desperate for approval, then refused to let him grow out of it on schedule, and every character orbiting him carries a comparable injury the plot treats as its actual subject. The Angel fights are staged as horror rather than spectacle, with long silences, real property damage and an enemy design language that never repeats itself. Then the money runs out. The closing episodes substitute held cels, unfinished pencil tests and typed text on black, and the result is the most argued-about ending in the medium, partly because the constraint forced Anno to make the interior collapse literal.

Shiro Sagisu's score and the use of the Ninth Symphony over a battle are permanent fixtures of the form. The religious iconography is decoration and the staff have always said so. What keeps the animation grade honest is that the compromise is plainly visible, and the theatrical rebuild exists because Gainax knew it. Nothing made since has been anywhere near as influential, and very little has been as uncomfortable to sit with.