END OF EVANGELION: A REVIEW OR WHATEVER

 

END OF EVANGELION:

A REVIEW OR WHATEVER

By Bonglorio.

I’m going to start this by saying I have no knowledge of the Evangelion series. Zilch. I only watched part of one episode on Toonami one time and I don’t remember it. You’re probably asking why I’m reviewing a movie that is part of a series I am so unfamiliar with, and all I can answer is that I thought it’d be fun to go into one of the most infamously obtuse anime movies with a completely fresh perspective.

[Editor’s Note: Bong, make sure you send this back to me one more time before you submit. I have a couple things I want you to fix. And you really should watch the series first, it’s not really professional to just skip that.]

First impression, I like the little ladybug robot thing in the Production I.G. plug. After a minute of studio logos, the title comes up and I feel a pang of fear overcome me, like a dog about to receive a suppository. But enough about Cody’s mother, let’s watch this thing.

Opening shot is a kid with a bowl cut among debris. It’s enigmatic, but alright. Then Shinji is in a hospital room standing like a creeper over a comatose girl. He starts begging the girl to help him. Now, I’m not a licensed doctor, but people in hospital beds probably aren’t in the mood to give handjobs or whatever Shinji is pestering her for. It’s kind of a really uncomfortable scene as he shakes her, begging her to wake up despite being in a hospital bed with an EKG. Is this a thing in Japan? Do they just let people go into hospital rooms and whine at the patients?

So anyway, Shinji manages to turn Asuka over with his twiggy little wimplord arms and her gown falls open, giving us a shot of comatose girl chest because this was not awkward enough already. And then we got a shot of Shinji’s spunk-covered hand because Gainax thought that was the way to open up a movie about giant robots.

“I’m so fucked up.” Shinji whispers as I look around for my Bible. What was the point of this scene? What part of the artistic vision hinged upon Shinji playing pocket pool while standing over a coma patient? Is this the Japanese version of a Get Well Soon card? Are we supposed to like Shinji? Because it’s really hard to empathize with someone’s angst when they make like a bored zoo chimp in a dang hospital. Imagine the plight of the nurse who has to clean his genetically-depressing jizz off the floor.

There’s a merciful scene transition and we go to a science-y looking place. A bunch of people in uniform are chatting it up over break, saying the Angels have been defeated. Okay cool, now heaven is depopulated or whatever.

We cut to a lady moping in her car about Instrumentality. I don’t know what Instrumentality means, so I’m just going to assume there’s a top secret plot to make everyone join a band like that one episode of Spongebob. I wish I were watching a good anime like Spongebob.

And then we see a mysterious board room meeting between a bunch of multi-accented black rectangles named SEELE. The rectangles argue with a dude in glasses about death and rebirth. Is this a cult? Before the international house of parallelograms can say anything that makes sense, we cut to Rei waking up in bed alone; probably seconds before Shinji busts in and skeets all over her. Shinji does not actually choke his chicken to Rei, because she is not unconscious enough. Shinji, honey, if you can only get it up if she’s out cold, just get a blow-up doll. They don’t mind you crying on top of them either. Win-win.

I Googled their names and found a lot of porn, so I know that after a few more sorta-kinda atmospheric shots we’ve cut to Misato. She’s typing away in a lab full of wires and glowy stuff, which is how you know that she is doing some major science.  They delete her file as she reads it, which sets off alarms. This is why you use proxies, kids. So you can do science in secret labs without getting caught.  More alarms go off and screens flash important sounding words and NERV’s top minds prattle about Magis, which is what they call the super-computers or whatever.

There’s this blonde woman in a cell, and they tell her to go do the thing with the computer’s defense system. I don’t know what’s going on, but it all feels super-duper important because everyone talks in a really tense, important tone. You don’t say “I walked the dog” in Eva, you say “I have taken my Wiseman outside the complex because our bodies are flawed and require regular exercise.”

We cut to lots of wires and notes and blonde lady does science on a laptop. It’s kind of like the same scene we just had, so maybe they’re trying to appeal to IT people. She calls the computer “Mother” which is kind of kinky. I just assume everything in anime is a fetish now, and I’m usually right. The rectangles gripe about the firewall and they launch the invasion forces, because apparently the army answers to geometry now. Soldiers and jet planes emerge from a forest and stuff blows up. Now I just want to play Contra.

A guard gets shanked commando-style from behind and the bad guy army rolls into the complex. Why are the guards packing Uzis? If you’re on security at a top secret government organization, you should be packing at least an AR-15.  The bad guy army has rocket launchers and shit and NERV, an organization founded to fight big monsters has to make do with Scarface props. That’s kind of dumb. The soldiers run in a really awkward way like they’re glitched up Counterstrike models and we get the tense “shit is actually happening now” music.

After Misato is done yelling orders at the team, we cut to a scene of a girl floating in a big bottle of Tang and they launch the red robot. They can’t launch Eva 01 because Shinji is being useless under stairs. More shit gets wrecked by SEELE’s super troopers. We get to see unarmed workers get blasted because that is how you show who is evil in anime: make them do something needlessly brutal and also make them competent. The goons steamroll everyone and I just mute the video player and listen to Doom music because I might as well make my own fun.  Misato orders places sealed off to make sure that any survivors can’t escape and they flood rooms with what looks like red pudding.  They call it Bakelite but I don’t think that word means what Gainax thinks it does. I think Gainax doesn’t know what a lot of words mean.

Shinji continues to mope while people die violently, the people in NERV who actually have survival instincts lock and load their small-caliber weapons. Maybe if Shinji’s dad took him hunting he wouldn’t have turned out like such a wimplord. Sure he’d cry and masturbate all over the dead deer but at least one problem would be solved.

Gendo, the Abe Lincoln-looking dude rolls up on Rei as she’s standing around being all naked and mysterious. He says ‘let’s go’ and I know where this is going. It’s Japan; it’s not a full day over there without some ephebophilia.

Three soldiers corner Shinji and one of them sticks a gun to his head, making them the best characters in the whole movie. Shinji just sits there as a gun gets put to his melon, of course.  If Shinji isn’t even going to do anything, they might as well cap his ass and make Darwin proud. Misato runs in and shoots two of the soldiers dead before pinning the third against the wall. She utters a Duke Nukem-style one liner and pops his dome with a cartoon tomato sound effect.

In this dramatic action scene, the soldier’s rupturing head makes a Looney-tunes splat sound. What am I watching?

Misato gets bad news while Shinji mopes, I hate Shinji. Misato yells at him to do something and she drags his limp ass along. I continue to hate Shinji. We cut back to the shootout and the bad guys drop a big special effects bomb, that causes a lot of light and sound but doesn’t really fuck anything important up.

Meanwhile, Misato rambles about how the Angels are humans and the humans are Angels and we came from a being called Lilith and she’s the sheriff and the Angels are out here and what I really want to know is where’s the caveman.

Asuka sits in her robot at the bottom of a lake because that’s what NERV thinks is a safe place. To show how safe she is, she gets shot at while she sits in fetal position in the cockpit of an inactive robot under the water where there is no escape. NERV sure is good at making plans.  She finally snaps out of it and it turns out the robot is her mother and she makes a laser cross explode out of the water and what is even going on?  Asuka starts calling the robot mother and I know for a fact this is a fetish now. She throws a battleship at the army’s missile vehicles in an actually pretty cool scene that gets ruined when a rocket cartoonishly flattens against her robot’s face with a hollow bonk.

Asuka wrecks shit good and hard which is admittedly cathartic after watching Shinji be completely worthless. NGE should have just been Asuka being teen girl Duke Nukem. The rectangles complain some more and black jets poop out white robots with big Piranha Plant mouths. Then we go back to Misato and Shinji the Mighty Masturbator, who still insists on not doing anything. [Note: I object to this nickname. Shinji would never last 16 minutes. OOOOOOOOH!] Misato drags his dumb ass along, but at least he’s using his legs now. The bad guy soldiers shoot at them, wounding Misato while leaving Shinji unharmed in a brazen defiance of natural selection.

Shinji whines at length about how much he sucks, which I agree with completely; if only he’d fellate a gun barrel already. After Misato gives him an angry pep talk, she gives Shinji her necklace, which is worth more than him by virtue of not bitching all the time.

Then she kisses him, meaning she probably doesn’t know Shinji’s only into coma patients. This is Misato’s fatal flaw; she has shit taste in teen boys. She shoves him into an elevator and then dies. I know Shinji is supposed to come across as conflicted and depressed, but he’s handled so ham-fistedly that he comes across as a whining, spineless pussy. Shinji is such a pussy that he has to get check-ups at a gynecology clinic. Shinji is such a pussy that he gets charged for a Brazilian wax every time he gets a haircut. Shinji is such a pussy that nerds steal his lunch money.

We cut back to Asuka ripping the shit out of the albino Petey Piranha robots almost as if the movie is trying to console us. “No no…” The movie says. “We still have one competent hero.”

Asuka continues fighting the Peteys while yelling about how Shinji isn’t around to help. Good idea, Asuka! Maybe Shinji could cry on them really hard. Then we cut to Gendo Lincoln and a glowing Rei staring at a doughy white monster on a cross because symbolism.

Blonde woman pulls a gun on the two and we cut back to Asuka taking her mommy issues out on the Peteys while unfitting classical music plays. I was expecting to hate this movie but mostly I’m just sort of scared and confused, like I’m watching a clown stripper… but enough about Max Vader’s mother. Blonde woman tries to foil Abe Gendo’s plan only to fail and get her ass capped like Tupac, making the whole scene sort of pointless.  Asuka turns out to have less than a minute’s worth of juice for her robot and Shinji is still fucking moping instead of helping. I hate Shinji. If this movie does not end in Shinji getting pistol-whipped into utter oblivion by shirtless commandos, I will be sorely disappointed.

Asuka’s robot gets shanked in the face by the Lance of Longinus, which is named that because reasons; and the Petey Piranha robots come back to life because Gainax hates us all. They jump on her robot and eat away at it like pigeons on a dropped Big Mac. The way they pull her guts out in long strands just makes me want spaghetti. Mmmmm…

Then it builds up to another angry rampage from Asuka only for the tension of the scene to deflate as her robot gets stabbed with more spears. So to recap: Asuka ran out of power fighting the Peteys, the Petey Piranhas she killed came back to life and they owned her hard. The whole fight was rendered completely pointless, especially with Asuka raving about the protection of her robo-mom.  Shinji’s robot breaks out of its red plastic prison and grabs him. Shinji freaks out and we get an intermission because they split this dickery into two parts. I wish I were a pregnant seahorse.

The second part kicks off with Gendo Lincoln talking about fusing with Lilith while Rei’s arm drops off and plops to the floor. No buildup or anything, it just falls off. It’s supposed to be disconcerting but the arm just looks like it’s made of Plasticine.  After that disarming scene, Gendo takes off his glove and grabs Rei’s boob, his hand sinking in like she’s made of biscuit dough.  [Editor’s Note: Find a synonym for “disarming”. I refuse to accept puns in these reviews. We have standards!] This is supposed to be visceral and disturbing, but it just reminds me of an erotic version of the Pillsbury Doughboy.

We return to Shinji screaming as a spear from the moon shoots at his robot’s throat, to the approval of the SEELE rectangles.  No, that sentence does not make any more sense in context.

Shinji’s robot gets captured and put on a laser cross because Shinji sucks wide open ass at accomplishing things. Why is he an Eva pilot? A dog would be better. His name would be Barkley and his inner conflict would be if he’s a good boy or not. Somebody write this down, I got an idea for the next smash hit anime series: Canine Genesis Evangelion.

Everyone panics as Third Impact begins, which is supposedly very scary and bad. This could be the party where Shinji finally comes through for everyone, if he weren’t a pussy.

Shinji is such a pussy that his breath smells like fish. Shinji is such a pussy that Misato’s kiss with him is labeled a Cunnilingus scene. Shinji is such a pussy that school bullies think of him when they need motivation.

A big pink explosion happens and a big zygote moon appears. Rei’s body chomps Abe Gendo’s arm off as she rebels against her creator or whatever. Rei clearly isn’t a human girl, maybe she was made using Marshmallow DNA. She flies up to the crucified putty monster and is absorbed by it. How is this movie making less sense?

The giant clay monster turns into a big Rei and important classical music plays importantly. Shinji freaks out as Stay-Puft Marshmallow Rei advances on him. Literally everything this boy has done is useless. The Petey Piranhas glow and sprout smiling anime faces and Shinji continues to freak out. This is supposed to be a dramatic moment, but between the anime girl faces on the monsters and Shinji screeching like a constipated rooster, I can’t take it seriously.

A vision of Shinji’s gay friend from that one episode that I saw in the porn I read for research appears before him and his robot turns into a giant red cross and why am I fucking laughing this shit is bonkers.  We cut to a flashback of Shinji’s childhood, which is very artsy or whatever. Why do we need to see Shinji make a sand pyramid? Do we need to see how much he sucked even at an early age?  I look at the timer and I still have 30 minutes left.

We get a shot of pseudo-existential philosophy while Shinji watches two people have sex, Shinji and Asuka argue and I get the feeling all of this is footage from the series. Shinji is all mad that the woman is having sex because apparently he’s bitter on top of being a total bitchling. Again, I have to wonder if this is a thing in Japan. Do they like this kind of protagonists? Were people over there asking for an anime starring an emotional wreck with a Moe Howard hairdo?

We get another awkward scene of Shinji, our main character who is meant to be sympathetic, spazzing out like and wrecking up a kitchen like Gordon Ramsay on bath salts while Asuka watches. That’s another thing about this kid; he goes from 0 to batshit with nothing in-between. I feel like his inner conflict would be solved if he went to a therapist. Does Japan have therapists? You’d think that’d be a profession in high demand in a country that has toilet-themed amusement parks.

So any way, Shinji chokes Asuka and we see a bunch of drawings. It’s so nice that they got their kids involved in the production. We get more angsty talking over footage and I have myself a little drinky. I love Jim Beam, he’s good to me. The black planet rises and the good people of NERV freak out. This is a movie where the protagonists fail. It doesn’t even make that the point like in 1984.  It just leads you on, thinking that the achievements and struggles of the main characters will amount to something, anything and presents it to you in a way that makes it so that a positive outcome feels right in the tone of the series and then it pulls that shit away and goes. “SORRY FOLKS! WE CAN’T GIVE YOU THE ENDING YOU WANT. IT’S ANGST TIME MOTHERFUCKER”

And then it slaps you to the floor and plants its big fat ass right on your mouth and takes a massive, roaring shit all over your face. This series actively punishes you for getting invested in it. Imagine if in G Gundam, Domon failed to stop the Devil Gundam at the last moment and then all the characters get raped to death by hyenas while soft jazz plays. That is what this feels like. It’s not an ending, it’s an insult. This fucking thing is going to end with footage of a fat woman sitting naked on a toilet crying and eating ice cream right out of the bucket.

Stay-Puft Marshmallow Rei takes Planet Metaphor and sprouts wings while 90’s-as-hell pop plays. At this point, being part of a hive mind without free will is starting to sound pretty fucking nice compared to this. Where’s the fucking Borg when you need them.

So a bunch of glowing Reis show up and we see the remaining named characters turn into orange juice. That is not me joking. That is what it looks like; the climax of this movie is every one turning into Tang. This is how the world ends, not with a bang but a kick in the glass.

Gendo Lincoln talks about his feelings to visions of dead people and I hate this movie. They trade ambiguously-significant pseudo-existentialist quips while everyone finishes turning into orange soda. Everyone turns into an orange juice hive mind and everything the characters have done is meaningless. Apparently, the human race becomes Tang because people are sad and hurt because they’re separate entities. Hey, you know what causes pain and sadness? Being turned into a fruit drink! Come on, folks would you rather be lonely and sad or a delicious, healthy part of your balanced breakfast?

Gendo Lincoln dies as the purple Shinji robot snaps into him like a Slim Jim. He literally just gets his head bitten off. No fanfare or buildup, he just gets emancipated of his noggin by the doughboy of the apocalypse.

More dumb imagery happens, the world turns into bullshit because of bullshit the giant Rei did and it’s all bullshit. A giant vagina appears on her forehead with an eye ball and a cross goes into it and I hate this movie.

17 minutes left.

H E L P

After a pointless as hell interlude where Rei and Shinji babble about dreams being reality and reality being extensions of dreams and thank you for finding the moon, but I wish you hadn’t. The giant Pillsbury Dough-Rei sprays blood out of her neck and dies or something. This symbolizes the success of Gendo’s plans in the end. He has finally made her squart.

And finally we’re at the end. The closing scene has Rei’s hilarious looking bisected face peering out over an apocalyptic moonscape with crucified robots everywhere. Shinji chokes Asuka again and then he stops and cries on her.  God this is pathetic. Shinji, you’re the last man on earth, everyone else is Hi-C and it’s all your fault.

The movie ends.  I feel like I’ve just passed a very wordy kidney stone, but I think that’s the spoiler for another Evangelion movie.

What did I just watch? What was the point of all this? How is this movie supposed to conclude the story of the Evangelion series?  I admit I don’t know much about the series even now, but this doesn’t feel like an ending. It feels like a prank. Like this was meant to deliberately piss fans of the series off. Shinji does literally nothing; all the named characters die or become orange juice. Nothing feels resolved or concluded. It’s like if Seinfeld ended with a murder-suicide between the main characters and Newman running naked through the streets of NYC screaming about the arrival of the Deep Ones.

Now I’d like to take a moment to break down the deep symbolism of this movie. End of Evangelion has been presenting its symbolism right in my face like a baboon in heat so I figured I might as well humor it.

Let’s start with the crosses. This movie loves it some crosses. The crosses symbolize the crucifixion of Anime Jesus. And just like Jesus, Gendo Lincoln so loved his creepy albino jail-bait that he made his only begotten son get inside a robot.

The giant moon spear is called the Lance of Longinus because it too was used to superficially wound a dying person. It’s also a metaphor for the penis. Asuka’s robot is pierced with it and that is what kills her robot. Sex is seen as a destructive force in End of Evangelion. You want to give her the D, but like the hedgehog’s dilemma, she cannot handle it. The D stands for Dick but also Destruction.

Stigmata imagery shows up a lot in the later half. The Stigmata is an archetypical sign of holiness. Shinji’s robot gets stigmata when it gets space-cruficied by the Petey Piranha monsters, symbolizing Shinji’s messiah complex. Like Jesus, Shinji is a virgin who got left for dead by his father.

Vagina motifs abound, especially when Rei is on screen. This represents Gendo Lincoln’s repressed desire for underage poontang. He may be fourscore and seven years older than Rei, but he cannot deny his feelings. His ephebophilia is ultimately presented as a tragic flaw, as his obsession with Rei’s flat, underage booty ultimately leads to his downfall. It’s just as well, if it weren’t for the robot snacking on him, he’d be Chris Hansen’s bitch.

There is a recurring theme of loneliness in End of Evangelion. Shinji associates with dominant women like Asuka and Misato because he secretly desires to be pegged on the first date. In contrast to Gendo Lincoln whose pursuit of his obsession destroyed him, Shinji denies his yearning to be a male sub and ends up ruining fucking everything, Remember guys, if you have a choice between taking it up the ass from an angry redhead or dooming the human race to become Tang, just bend over and do it for America.

However, the truly central theme of End of Evangelion is race. The pasty Rei ends up destroying human civilization while the Asiatic people of Japan fight to preserve their dignity. Rei’s whiteness symbolizes the homogenized, America dominated global society and NERV represents the native cultures that get forcibly subjugated when they refuse to surrender their dignity on the altar of capitalism. The Tang apocalypse represents the inexorable spread of corporate influence and mass media and the giant robots are Mcdonald’s. I don’t know, I hated this movie.

 

PROS:

• I would totally fuck the Petey Piranha robots.
• It ends eventually.
• The animation would make for a cool Tool video

CONS:

• Makes no damn sense.
• Shinji does not get torn apart by wild hogs.
• Needlessly depressing ending
• Tang apocalypse
• Really wonky pacing.

VERDICT: