Yes, it has been nine years since the last movie released. Lots of things have changed since then. Let’s ignore all that and get to talking about Evangelion.
So the Rebuild series is finally over and what a long journey that was. The isekai trend literally boomed around the time the last movie came out (it was the same year Sword Art Online exploded in popularity for those who don’t know) and is still going strong today. If that’s not an indication of how long it took for Eva 3.0’s cliffhanger to be resolved, why don’t I just point to the million other ways anime culture has changed over the last decade? Like how all four films are now legally available to watch on Amazon with over twenty different language dubs, including a new English one.
As for this project itself, I definitely understand why people consider this Evangelion to be the more acceptable way to get into the series by modern standards. Because let’s be honest, while there’s no denying that the original Evangelion changed the anime landscape forever with so many anime to this day borrowing from its legacy, the actual series hasn’t aged too well for people who didn’t grow up in that era. The symbolism was always horse shit. The animation budget dried up. The episodic storytelling is dated. The ending…well who doesn’t know of it by now?
It makes sense that people consider Rebuild to be the version of Evangelion that’s actually good in the same sense that a lot of people who love the original series didn’t like how Rebuild turned out. People like the more consistent character development of Shinji in this new iteration, but other people prefer how he literally fucked the world in End of Eva. Not that he didn’t do that in Rebuild as well, but these days, audiences are not even open towards the idea of shows that deliberately give middle fingers to their audience. And it doesn’t help that said middle fingers come off as very immature, if the debacle surrounding the new He-Man on Netflix is any indication.
But as for me, I loved the final Rebuild film. There were two scenes where the animation budget seemed like it just vanished and I wish Anno’s new ending didn’t resemble Madoka’s as much as it did, but I get what he’s conveying with his new conclusion. Spoilers for those who didn’t watch the final movie: Shinji basically rewrites the Evas out of existence at the cost of sacrificing his parents and all of the other important characters get to live in what’s basically “the real world” if Covid didn’t exist. It’s unclear if Shinji or anyone else actually remembers what happened prior to the rewriting of the world since if the Evas don’t exist in this reality, why would they have any knowledge of their previous fights or past relationships? I mean it’s the only way I could justify Shinji flirting with Mari given how they’ve barely shared screentime in this project.
Again, this is very similar to when Madoka wished aways the existence of witches in the finale of her own show, but Rebuild is more meta in its execution, right down to these 2-D/2.5-D characters living in our own 3D world. Basically, Anno is saying that Evangelion is over with and we should move on with our lives without clinging to the franchise. It’s a very mature message in my opinion, especially since he didn’t sacrifice a lot of what made Evangelion so good in the first place in order to deliver it. There’s still the nonsense symbolism, epic robot fights, and broken characters we’ve all come to expect. And while Shinji does grow positively in this iteration, he still acts like a bitch until he finally gets his resolve. Rei is just destined to not have a long lifespan. Asuka is still a mountain of issues wrapped up in fanservice, exacerbated by how she’s actually not the real Asuka, hence why her last name was different in this version. Kaworu gets his time in the spotlight before his quick death breaks Shinji.
And that’s what I love about the Rebuild of Evangelion now that we’ve finally gotten the complete package. How it’s still the same deconstructive series it used to be while being different in very important and more consistent ways. I like how each subtitle (You Can Not Redo, Thrice Upon a Time, etc.) conveys what the plot of that specific film is going to be. I know that individually, the films can have issues. The third movie was more of a setup to the finale rather than its own thing and the first one was basically a recap version of Evangelion’s first six episodes with a new coat of paint. Maybe not every movie in this series is amazing. But I think I can say with full confidence that when I watched the entire thing, this project lived up to expectations and more.
Apparently the public agrees, because the final Rebuild film was received positively and made a ton of money despite the long wait. In order to celebrate, I think I’m going to do what Anno expected me to do after finishing 3.0+1.0 and move on from the franchise. Leave it off with this description of my feelings and not even bother to watch the lore analyses or observe the fan wars that I’m sure exist on the Internet by now, or will exist in the future.
I’ll still rewatch these movies on Amazon when I’m in the mood to see how the new English dub is like, but otherwise, I’m going to stop thinking too much about this series (granted, I think I and a lot of people stopped thinking about Evangelion due to the long wait, but it should be obvious what I actually mean) and look at some other things now. I finally started watching The Sopranos and it’s pretty much as amazing as its legacy stated it would be. And if you want something from the isekai genre to enjoy, it’s obviously not the mainstream fantasy isekai that we can’t seem to get enough of, but Sonny Boy is pretty interesting.
Standing On My Neck 