Watching the first Evangelion movie is something that’s been long overdue.  Especially considering I should also have the second movie and be awaiting the release of the third.  But whatever.

I own exactly two anime on Bluray: this movie, and .hack//Quantum.  I’ve been meaning to watch them since forever.  To think it would take me until graduation…

I’ve heard a lot of good things about this movie.  Well, I’ve heard a lot of good things about its sequel, at any rate.  But, as you ought to well know, I like to start from the beginning.  And thankfully, I’ve steered clear of spoilers, so let’s do away with any preconceived notions and hype (well, this is a 2007 movie, so whatever hype might have surrounded it is 6 years in the past…).  I have no idea what to expect, so let’s get it on!

*ahem*

In a not-very-distant-at-all future, Tokyo is kind of a hellhole, and the fate of humanity is pinned on a young boy and his giant robot.  Gee, where have I heard before?  In a stunning twist, the boy is not a genius and kind of sucks, so… there’s that.  Prepare yourself, we’re about to delve into the world of…

 

We begin the movie with several cuts to a deserted looking city.  We soon find our hero, a generic-looking kid named Shinji Ikari, who for some reason is looking for a hot chick.  Well, not that you ever need a reason, but still…

Talk about robbing the cradle.

While we’re wondering about what’s going on, suddenly giant monster shows up and crushes things!  CONVENIENTLY, said hot chick shows up to save him!

So, apparently the UN have decided to pour all their budget into defeating this invader the only way they know how:

Throwing dozens of missiles at it.

Unfortunately, the alien – sorry, “Angel” – shrugs the barrage off like nothing.  So they go for their trump card: the N2 Mine.  It… pretty much does the same thing.  The explosion is much more significant, however, and it topples Misato’s car.

Fortunately, it wasn’t destroyed.

Meanwhile, it’s up to hi-tech organization NERV to take on the Angel when the UN decides they’ve had enough and tags out.

Fun fact: turns out Shinji is the son of the director of NERV, and Misato is taking him to their base.  What perfect timing, pops!

It doesn’t take long for us to realize Shinji doesn’t really get along with his dad, which makes us wonder just why the hell he’s here in the first place.

Turns out it’s to pilot their giant robot.

We’re introduced to another important character, Dr. Ritsuko Akagi, who graces us with blatant wetsuit fanservice, but no nudity.

Shinji’s father, Gendo, tells him to get in the giant robot or go home, and everyone involved has to deal with an awkward family standoff between an asshole father and some bratty kid that won’t save humanity because he has daddy issues.

Gendo decides he’s had enough and moves on to plan B: Rei Ayanami, another pilot.  She also may look vaguely familiar.  She’s the emotionless light-haired girl that’s always in these sci-fi flicks.  Because there aren’t enough of those.  There’s just one problem…

She is clearly in no condition to fight.  Everyone knows this, and it’s a wonder no one calls Gendo out on an obvious ploy to shame Shinji into piloting.

Well, somebody better get in this robot fast, because that Angel is honing in on the base!

So, Shinji finally decides to pilot.  Apparently, in order for him to pilot, his cockpit needs to be filled with LCL (or, well, blood… you can breathe…) and that’s just something we’ll have to accept.

As Shinji gets prepped for battle inside the Evangelion (or EVA), we’re bombarded with a lot of jargon, and the gist of things is that… um… things are great?

Shinji is told on the fly how to pilot (Step 1: Think about walking, Step 2: ???, Step 3: Defeat the Angel).

It doesn’t go so well.

The Angel soundly kicks Shinji’s ass until the robot goes into a sort of berserker mode and takes over.  Something that usually can’t be good, but in this case… hell, we’re fucked anyway.  We’ll take what we can get.

I feel like I should mention that quite a bit of importance is placed on “AT Fields.”  Um… I guess they’re really strong force fields?

And apparently the EVA can tear right through it or somesuch.

So apparently the goal is to destroy the Angel’s core, and somehow berserker-mode EVA-01 has just enough cognition to recognize and aim exclusively at this weak point.  Sensing that he’s about to be killed, the Angel decides to do the only logical thing:

Chump.

You thought it was a joke, didn’t you?  Start getting used to seeing crosses and rainbows.

So, turns out there’s an even bigger creepy secretive organization above NERV, called SEELE.  Their job is to throw cryptic biblical references all over the place and hope one of them is actually relevant.

We get some interesting scenes that you don’t normally see: the cleanup from all the collateral damage of the fight.  Also all the blood.  Must be a nightmare to clean.  In more ways than one.

Shinji gets assigned his own room, which is swell… but for some reason Misato won’t have any of that and has him live with her.

I think we know where this is going… or where it would if this were a different kind of movie, anyway.  Or at least a different genre.

So, what can we expect to find in Misato’s apartment?

I ordered me some McDonalds for this watchthrough.  Now I see I should have ordered Taco Bell.

So, just in case the serious mood from earlier hasn’t been bent far enough, it’s time we snapped it in half.

So yeah… that just happened.

All that light-hearted stuff proves to be little more than a temporary distraction, however, and Shinji quickly reminds us that he’ll not be pulled out of that gloomy slump easily.

Misato praises him for his efforts, but a classmate doesn’t quite share her sentiments…

Because kicking kids while they’re down is the best time to kick them.  That bully’s name is Touji Suzuhara, and his sister got injured during the attack.  Hey, count your blessings.  At least she’s ALIVE, y’know?

So, Shinji copes with his situation the only way he knows how: meekly following orders.  Hey, it’s worked out pretty well for me.  Wait, no it hasn’t…

Since this movie has been on a bit of a lull, it was the perfect time to bring on the second Angel.  Well… fifth, I guess.

Shinji engages and fights the Angel JUST like he practiced it.  Unfortunately, he sticks a little too closely to the program and chokes when it comes time to adapt.

Oh, and it turns out two of Shinji’s classmates left their shelter to go check out the fight.  Because, apparently, there’s no security.  GEE, I wonder how well this is gonna turn out.

Shinji notices them and doesn’t fight back against the Angel because he has to protect them… though I think that’s really just an excuse because he wasn’t planning on fighting back anyway…

Rather than escape with the civvies, Shinji decides to go all Rambo on the Angel with a friggin’ KNIFE, and… it turns out THAT does it.  He spent all that time practicing his targeting skills, and it’s a KNIFE that saves the day.  Honestly?  I blame NERV, not Shinji.  They probably just wanted something to blow their budget on.

After the fight, Misato chews Shinji out… which was kind of a bad call since all it does is reinforce the idea that he’s not wanted.

Shinji reacts in the most adult way possible: by running away.

So, Shinji wanders around until he realizes he can’t move any further.  In a surprisingly badass scene, he addresses agents sent to shadow him without even looking at them.

Also, we learn that Shinji’s behavior was EXACTLY AS PLANNED by his father.  Holy shit, what?!

And exactly on cue, Shinji starts noticing Rei Ayanami more, and Ritsuko suspiciously provides for Shinji an excuse to get closer to her.

Pause.  I just can’t let that go.  That is just blatantly obvious the way that look was lifted from Ryomou Shimei.  Jeez, Gainax, are you that unoriginal?  Then again, it would be just like them to give a shout out to such a fanservice-heavy series.

So, Shinji gets handed a renewed ID card to give to Rei, so he heads over to Rei’s apartment, which is… depressingly squalid.

No, seriously, I’m not joking about the garbage bag…

I forgot to mention that Shinji walked in without being invited.  This will be relevant shortly.

Admittedly, Rei never actually wears glasses.  But now that I look at her, there IS kind of an eerie resemblance, isn’t there?  I’m not saying Rei is a copy of Yuki, though.  I mean, that’s just the look of this particular stock character.  I really need to do my job as a bit of an anime historian and dig deep to find out who the origin of this stock character is.  I want to say Miku from Hades Project Zeorymer, but Miku doesn’t have the right hair color, and Zeorymer was never popular, so it’s unlikely that anyone would want to copy her.

Moving on…

Predictably, Rei stumbles upon Shinji in all her compromising glory.

Shinji and Rei head over to NERV HQ, and another Angel attacks.  This one looks nothing like the others.

It truly must be a nightmare for these young teens… to be attacked by geometry.

So yeah… turns out this Angel has magnitudes more firepower than the others.

Shinji gets oneshot like nobody’s business, and he (surprisingly, understandingly) gets his confidence shattered.

Meanwhile, the Angel starts drilling into the underground area that NERV HQ is located in, but it’s doing it very slowly.

In order to combat this new Angel, they need a protoype cannon that uses up all the energy of Japan.  *drool*

Shinji is scared to get back in the EVA again, especially since there’s a high risk of getting oneshot.  So, to motivate him, Misato takes Shinji into the lowest level of NERV, Central Dogma, and shows him Lilith, the Second Angel.

Um… so apparently, if an Angel ever approaches Lilith, it will trigger Third Impact and kill all humanity.

…and you couldn’t just tell Shinji this?  What does seeing this abomination actually DO for him?

Anyway, Shinji agrees to the operation, in which Shinji plays sniper in Unit-01 while Rei protects him in Unit-00.

With pilots in position, the operation begins.  With a barrage of missiles to deflect fire.  You see, the core is only vulnerable while the Angel is attacking, so while the Angel attacks some rocket launchers, Shinji will fire his beam sniper rifle directly at the core.  Simple, right?

BTW, gotta love the logic in the scene where Misato explains the situation to Shinji.  He is told to take into account gravity and interference and make the proper adjustments, since the beam will not fire in a straight line.  THEN he is told that the computers will take care of that for him and he just has to target the core with the reticule.  OKAY.

It takes Shinji just one shot to blast that Angel into oblivion.

Or so you would think.  Turns out, this is the final boss of the movie, and you know what that means.  THIS ISN’T EVEN MY FINAL FORM.

Pissed, the Angel fires its HYPER BEAM at Shinji and the mountain.

I think the important question is, WHERE WAS AYANAMI?  She repeated herself several times saying she was going to protect Shinji.  I think he needed some protecting there.

Gendo gives the order to have Rei take over, but Misato tells them to take a chance with Shinji.

In what is perhaps the best, and perhaps only character symbolization with any substance, Shinji makes Unit-01 crawl up into position and ready himself for another shot.

Before enough energy is gathered up for the shot, the Angel attacks.  Rei decides THIS TIME she’s going to do her job.

This time, Shinji destroys the core and kills the Angel.

Shinji opens up Unit-00 to get to Rei.  They sort of share a moment, and… I guess that’s the big payoff to their non-relationship.

But the fight against the Angels is not over.  There are more out there… and it seems SEELE has a hand in it.

Yeah, I don’t even know what’s going on anymore.

Um… So that’s the sequel hook.  And the movie ends there.  I did find myself watching through the entire credits just because FREAKING KINGDOM HEARTS VIBES.  Hikaru Utada sings the credits song!

BUT WAIT!

After the credits, there’s a preview for the next film!

 

Epicness: 4
Despite a few hangups here and there, the movie was quite a ride.  Not so much when it came to actions, though there were a few high spots.  It was mostly character-driven, and even on that front it’s a bit lacking.  But the visuals… By itself it’s about a 3, but the amazing visuals and the score helped bring it up, they were so god damned pretty.

Pleasure Rating: Proudly Displayed in a Glass Case
I have no regrets about getting this on Blu; it’s very deserving of that, and you should never settle for anything less than a full HD experience from this movie.

Rewatchability: 3
Overall it was a great movie that I wouldn’t mind revisiting, and there were many scenes I’d love to look at again, but the whole thing was rather disjointed, lacking on an overall cohesion.  I imagine it would be a bit of a chore to rewatch, even if nothing in it was particularly bad.

Music: Yuki Kajiura Seal of Approval
The score was good, and there were a few very memorable tracks, and the ending credits song is absolutely a must-listen.

Marketability: 4
The characters have style, you’ve got an interesting design with Unit-00, even NERV and SEELE have unique logos, and Rei Ayanami is blatant bait that otaku will just eat up.  Misato is up there as well, but aside from those two… I dunno.  There’s no one of note when it comes to the male characters, except Gendo, who just really stands out.  Ritsuko is just a bit too off-putting for my tastes.  I could see this having successful merchandise, and the new girls and mysterious guy we’ve seen in the preview for the next movie have potential.  Time will tell.

Overall, wonderful, wonderful movie.  Is it a must-see?  I’m not completely sold on the story, but like I said, it’s absolutely stunning to watch.  You just have to look at the screencaps.

Personally, I think this would have been more suited to an OVA format, or maybe a late-night TV series.