teddY-risatioN™

I wouldn’t call this a review - I’ve been so in love with it that I can hardly make any critical comments about the film… seriously. It isn’t a good thing to be a film reviewer because you’ll need to put all those enthusiasm and love for a particular film aside… which I can’t!

[Edit] I’ve reorganised the before and after comparison between identical scenes found in the original anime and the first film into their respective episodes. I hope this will make things a little clearer! This post will be continuously updated if I have extra before and after stillshots to compare [/Edit]

The latest count puts the number of screenshots in this post at 37. I may have more to add in the future!

Introduction: Neon Genesis Evangelion

*Skip this part if you’re tired of wordy posts, and proceed directly to the ‘Read More’ link happily browse through the pages! There’s so much information that I have to abandon the Read More link and use pagination instead.

I first learnt about Neon Genesis Evangelion (NGE from now on) from my ex-roommate, Pow. I immediately fell in love with it because of the unique mix of psychological experience and mecha-anime, which is previously unheard of. Shame on me, because I’ve been very out of touch of the anime world that before being introduced to NGE - the only animes I have in mind is Naruto. I don’t particularly adore other animes because they aren’t really quite my cup of tea (seriously, I get bored with these stereotypical male hero, female warrior, boy-girl-relationship, adventure themes…)

Produced and directed by Hideaki Anno, NGE offers a whole new perspective to anime. It’s an old anime, I would call it, since it was aired about 13 years ago and it surprises me of the producer’s ability to portray a futuristic Tokyo-3 in a very realistic manner. It deviates from the normal anime by resurrecting the mecha theme (big giant robots) in Japanese anime culture. It stuck to the old methods of mecha anime, but it has added something deadly inside to make it such an addictive mix - psychological turmoils of each character, making them either horribly introvert or notoriously extrovert. Almost every character have to deal with their inner demons and their struggle with existence.

NGE was such a huge hit partially because it leverages heavily on religious icons of Christianity. Such incorporation is largely based on the producer’s observation that Christianity was not a well-known and understood religion in Japan, and thus will give NGE-viewers a cutting-edge experience. He was even quoted that if he knew NGE was to be aired in overseas, he would have abandoned the incorporation of Christianity themes (but if he really did, NGE will be a total disaster, I think).

Basically the storyline of NGE surrounds the three protagonist - (from left, as seen in the image above) Asuka, Shinji and Rei, who are child pilots to the three respective Evangelion units and are responsible of defending Tokyo-3 from attacking Angels (huge monster figures that either approach Tokyo-3 by land, by air or appear directly above it). The series got progressively (but I think it’s more towards exponentially) darker as it progresses, partially influenced by the producer’s prior experiences with depression. The end of the anime was very apocalyptic, for the sake of those who are yet to watch it, I’m not going to reveal the exact details, but it is generally an end-of-the-world scenario. No spoilers!

There are before and after comparisons of the new film to the original anime (19 screenshots in total) after the jump! Keep reading

Here is a menu of the following pages, just in case you get lost:

1. Introduction: Neon Genesis Evangelion » You’re here!
2. The Remake: Rebuild of Evangelion 1.0
3. Comparisons: Episode 01
4. Comparisons: Episode 02
5. Comparisons: Episode 03
6. Comparisons: Episode 04
7. Comparisons: Episode 05
8. Comparisons: Episode 06