I watched Rebuild of Evangelion
[Finished December 5th, 2023. Rating: 9/10]
Prior to watching the Rebuild movies, I recently re-watched the original Neon Genesis Evangelion series along with End of Evangelion. I mainly wanted to reaffirm my opinion of Asuka, who’s always been one of my favorite fictional characters, but I was also curious to see how the rest would hold up without the hype of seeing it for the first time.
It did not hold up very well. Asuka is still a brilliant character and the best part by far, but I felt Shinji’s conflict was painfully barebones for the plotline that defines the entire show — despite the gorgeous visual storytelling, it quickly runs out of steam past establishing the basic premises of his character. Yes, he’s depressed and alienated from others as a result of his father neglecting him, so he projects his need for comfort and validation onto piloting the Eva/the women in his life. But that summary pretty much encapsulates all of his characterization, and the show is content to put that on loop rather than examine any deeper or more complex ways his perspective on others (or himself) might be developed from that premise. The other characters don’t have it much better; Rei and Misato’s depersonalization and self-harm both feel written as the endpoints of their characters, rather than a base upon which to explore those mentalities more intricately. And, of course, Shinji’s the only one to get an actual conclusion by the end of the show. It isn’t even a very good one.
Going from this to End of Evangelion, I started to believe that the series wasn’t really written for someone like me. Despite its one success writing a phenomenally believable and interesting high school girl with abandonment issues, Asuka seemed the exception to the rule — that Evangelion’s writing prioritizes the aesthetics and surface-level emotions of mental illness, rather than meaningful portrayals of them. That skepticism carried over to the first two Rebuild movies as well. Seeing them more or less just repeat the original show’s plot made me sink even further into doubt that Asuka’s complexity was anything but a lightning-in-a-bottle success, especially with the second movie’s uncomfortable tendency to objectify the women far more than the original series ever did. My interest slightly returned when the third movie seemed to go in a new direction, but it didn’t get the chance to develop those ideas enough for me to feel too compelled.
Then I watched Evangelion 3.0+1.0, and everything made sense.
3.0+1.0 ties the Rebuilds together into a beautiful and entirely purposeful meta-commentary on the original series, as well as a fascinating portrayal of coping with trauma on its own merit. Everything — the pointless repetition, the fetishistic reduction of interiority, the bizarre and half-baked attempt at telling a new story — everything comes together as a cohesive perspective shared by the characters in-universe, unhealthily attempting to reconcile with their pasts and force maturity upon themselves. It’s really difficult to explain why this story comes together so well without massive spoilers, but I’ll try my best to give a vague yet accurate summary.
After a fairly standard mech fight scene, the final movie’s plot begins for real when the main characters reach a village of survivors from the apocalyptic events of the prior film. Right off the bat, it’s an incredibly different vibe from anything the series has done prior: unlike the focus on action and intrigue the main plot provided, or even the melancholy and introspective tone of the more depressive character-focused scenes, the village is serene in an almost otherworldly way. It’s full of side characters who have moved on from their previously depicted lives to become matured and fulfilled people even in their bleak situation. Our protagonists are wanderers outside of time here, both literally and metaphorically. The survivors’ attempts to support them and help them develop as people only serves to disorient them further — Shinji chooses to cut himself off from the community entirely to indulge in his own self-hatred, Asuka awkwardly forces herself into the goings-on despite her discomfort, and Rei is so socially unfamiliar that she has to learn her surroundings in much the same way as a newborn child. These three adjusting to the world like this is not only fantastically conveyed emotionally, it also does a great job setting up a conflict which drastically differs from what the rest of the series has to offer. They must now confront the much more grounded issue of how to function in a world they feel has left them behind as they cling to the rigid values imprinted onto them by the story of Evangelion.
As the story progresses, even as the characters are thrust back into the paradigm of rest of the series, these ideas expand into the framework that defines not only 3.0+1.0 but all of the Rebuilds before it. Unlike the original show, 3.0+1.0 is a movie where Shinji reckons much more deeply with the small scope of his coping mechanisms; his repeated attempts to force dysfunctional ‘solutions’ on himself lead to reductive moral conclusions about his nature and his past. His conflict is between desiring to think he’s improved and hating himself for reflecting on the way he used to be, things he views as fundamentally incompatible with each other. It’s a cool basis for a character already, but what elevates it to brilliance is how it’s paralleled with being an Evangelion fan through Shinji’s fictionalized way of looking at the world. The commentary here is easily my favorite part of the Rebuilds and yet it’s very much a spoiler to go into detail, so I’ll just say that the way it reflects on the writing choices of the previous movies and thereby contextualizes confusing writing priorities as parts of the characters’ ideologies is seriously clever.
While this direction feels designed mostly with Shinji in mind, it also ends up greatly affecting the rest of the cast. Basically every character is enhanced in some way because of how their relationships with the plot end up being inherently metaphorical for the moral stances they have, and it somehow works insanely cohesively to give every main character the satisfying conclusions they were never afforded by the rest of the series. Misato reconciles her feelings towards herself as a parental figure and how she internalizes her own responsibility. Asuka makes peace with her inner child and learns to stop her endless chase after self-sufficiency. Even Gendo, whose presence in the original series was little more than a vague antagonistic figure, has a segment giving him extensive characterization and a very personal relationship to the themes. 3.0+1.0’s thematic core is just so capable of multifaceted exploration that it feels perfectly integrated across the whole cast, applying in equal measure to all of them while also representing many different things based on their individual positions.
As I said, I can’t properly express how 3.0+1.0 informs the rest of the Rebuilds without spoiling the specifics of its metanarrative, but I think these movies do a shockingly great job justifying themselves as a four-movie saga concluding the series. They’re clearly made with a ridiculous amount of love for Evangelion and its fans, and that’s really the aspect that makes me love them the most: despite all the meta-criticism of the series and its reception, this is a celebration of everything this story has stood for. It’s so earnest in its metaphor for moving on from the series in a healthy and self-reflective way while also packing a ton of complexity into that positive message, and it hits the exact sweet spot of what I adore about that style of writing. Does it singlehandedly justify watching the entirety of what came before it? That’s debatable, but I think it’s the most rewarding experience possible to anyone with the passion to get that far.
