I’m not really an anime fan. Sure, I grew up watching the Studio Ghibli classics like “Spirited Away” and “Princess Mononoke,” and I’ve been known to watch an episode of “Cowboy Bebop” every once and a while, but that’s as far as I have really sought to expand my experience of the genre.
I think the reason why is two-fold.
First, there is just so much of it, and not just in variety, but in actual content inside that variety: do you know how many episodes of “Bleach” there are? 366.
If you combine both “Naruto” series, do you know how many episodes of “Naruto” there are? 720. How about “One Piece?” Try 981.
I still haven’t even finished “Cowboy Bebop,” which is tiny in comparison at a measly 26 episodes.
The second reason I can’t get into anime is the rampant over-sexualization that seems to take over every series.
It seems like you can’t go more than 20 minutes without seeing something wildly inappropriate, and by inappropriate I don’t just mean “inappropriate in front of mom,” I mean “watching this should put me on a list.”
“Neon Genesis Evangelion” solves one of these problems, and if you count the recent spinoff titles (which I don’t really care about), only solves it halfway.
I began to watch the show after every one of my friends argued that even someone like me could appreciate it, and I caved in when I saw it was only one short season and an
optional movie ending. So yeah, that means that “Evangelion” doesn’t solve the over-sexualization problem, and I’m going to get it out of the way and say I have never felt more disgusting watching a show in my life.
“Evangelion” follows the story of a fourteen-year-old old boy named Shinji and his friends as they battle in “Evas” (think big robots) against giant monsters in an attempt to stop the world from ending (again? Kind of again?).
It’s not afraid to show you a lot of perverse content surrounding these kids.
For that reason, I don’t think I can recommend it. But “Evangelion” also deals a lot with trauma and trauma recovery, which I was told going into the show, and that was the reason I watched until
the end. Shinji is a really messed up kid and if I’m being honest, a total waste of a human being (you’ll understand when you get to the movie ending), but “Evangelion” makes you feel for him, and “Evangelion” makes you root for him and the rest of the cast, because man, do they feel real.
Shinji has an abusive dad. Asuka suffers from PTSD. Rei is constantly having an existential crisis. These people are real and relatable, and that’s what makes “Evangelion” watchable.
The last real important part of “Evangelion” is its ending. The final two episodes of the show are wildly different from the rest of the single season, reportedly because both the production studio, Gainax, had used up its entire budget, and the show’s creator, Hideaki Anno, had no clue how to end it.
The optional
the movie ends, “End of Evangelion,” was an attempt to amend the show’s ending and answer questions that were left hanging. I still resorted to Google to understand a lot of the background information. I still walked away satisfied.
I don’t regret watching “Evangelion.” It’s hard to explain it, but the show does such a great job at establishing its characters, making them feel real, and making them fight past their trauma that I can’t say I didn’t like it.
Like Shinji, “Evangelion” itself is twisted and perverse and hard to stomach, but it’s also something so hard to root against.
Hideaki Anno wrote “Evangelion” in a period of severe depression in his life, and the characters are clearly heavily influenced by that period as a result. It’s hard not to resonate.