Shin Evangelion Movie:||

Over 8 years of waiting for this, what a disappointment. Thrice Upon a Time feels more like a fanfic or parody than the "culmination" of Evangelion (that culmination came in 1997 with The End of Evangelion). I really thought it couldn't get any worse than the previous movie, but Thrice somehow managed it, no wonder it had a troubled production (production was a disjointed clusterfuck as seen in the documentary 'Hideaki Anno: The Final Challenge of Evangelion'). This was Anno's last opportunity to fix all the problems of the previous Rebuild films, especially after 3.0 left so many important questions unanswered. Why was the Near ... Third Impact so destructive? (at the end of 2.0 Kaworu stopped it just in time) How did Gendo and Fuyutsuki manage all NERV on their own when it seems that absolutely all the NERV staff betrayed them to form WILLE? What happened to Kaji? Why did SEELE disappear? What's the in-world explanation for the Eva's curse? Who is Mari? This movie either ignores or provides very unsatisfactory answers to these questions. Anno not only didn't fix any of the plot holes and inconsistencies, he made them worse, it's so bad it retroactively makes 3.0 even worse. Some may say "That's ok, Evangelion's focal point is its philosophical message and the characters' psyches, the post-apocalyptic narrative and robots are just dressing", that might be true but just because "the robots" end up taking a backseat to the introspection sequences doesn't mean bad writing should be given a pass (this movie fails at being a psychological exploration of its characters anyway).

Thrice runtime is 2 hours and 35 minutes long, it's the third longest animated movie ever made. Two and a half hours of bad exposition/info dumps, asspulls, contradictions, unconvincing character development, in-your-face/condescending meta-narrative and mindless CG action. The only good part of the movie is when they are in the village. This segment is the only part where the writing and character interactions felt natural (even though character development felt extremely rushed and unbelievable). It’s also visually impressive, the 2D animation, background art and cinematography really shines, unfortunately this doesn't last long and the rest of the movie mainly consists of bombastic action. It wouldn't be so bad if at least the action was good, but sadly long gone is the quality of action scenes like Asuka vs the Mass Production Evas from EoE; elegantly choreographed and accompanied with well thought out composition and camera movement, the amazing 2D animation of this scene looks just as good today as it did 24 years ago. Now we have ugly CG Evas (that already look outdated) with unnecessarily convoluted designs, stiff animation and a camera that cannot be still for a second (the constant camera spinning was absolutely nauseating). It's not just that they look bad, there's also no tension or anything at stake since Asuka and Mari can easily defeat thousands of Evas by simply shooting them with their guns (what good are their AT fields?).

The plot is very straightforward but full of unfamiliar terminology and lore exposition since the worldbuilding continues to be incredibly sparse compared to NGE. This has been a problem with the Rebuild films since 2.0 and it only got worse with each subsequent entry thanks to the timeskip. NGE had excellent lore and worldbuilding, it never gave you all the answers, but it gave you enough information to make sense of what was going on, while remaining consistent and believable whitin itself. Rebuild is a complete failure in this regard, and in Thrice everything feels more contrived, nonsensical and excessive than ever. Anyway, this movie gets so ridiculously meta none of this ends up mattering, so let's move on.

[ Beware of spoilers from now on. ]

What about the characters? They were always the strong suit of Evangelion. In NGE it took a realistically long time for Rei to behave like a human being in front of anyone that wasn't Gendo, in Thrice she's suddenly a cute baby full of curiosity, even though not long ago she was an emotionless doll, colder than ever during the events of the previous movie. Her character arc and relationship with Shinji are ruined with the awesome revelation that Rei was programmed to like Shinji à la Mikasa and is not choosing him over Gendo out of her own free will. I have to admit it was nice seeing Rei farming and hanging out with the old ladies, but this is the 2nd time we're seeing her humanization in these movies, it feels very redundant. Shinji starts out very depressed because of the death of Kaworu then Rei (after winning his affection) dies in front of him and instead of falling further into depression he suddenly becomes a stoic chad who is unfazed when someone points a gun at him. He transforms into an overly optimistic character, absolutely motivated to play the hero completely out of nowhere and of course everyone keeps telling him how much he has grown up, "Wow Shinji you have grown, you're a generic shonen protagonist now". Such is his mental fortitude and gravitas that he can talk Cyclops Gendo (a literal god and 4D chess master) into submission, not bad for someone that a few days ago suffered from severe depression and PTSD (he was borderline suicidal). Asuka continues to exist only for blatant fanservice (she spends most of her screen time half naked for no reason) and to tsunderely have a crush on Shinji, we hardly see anything from her past that makes us sympathize with her or a justification for her toxic behavior and instead we get a last minute asspull revelation: Asuka was a clone the whole time, because that's what Evangelion needed, more clones. Mari always felt like an unwanted guest on Evangelion, a Mary Sue whose dialogue consists almost entirely of one liners and only appears during combat/fanservice scenes, never having any meaningful interaction with any of the other characters. I've always hated Mari because RoE already had simplified versions of the original cast, with far fewer scenes to develop as characters than they had in NGE and she was stealing precious screen time from them. "No matter where you are, I'll come get you, Puppy Boy", yeah, yeah, shut up Anno's wife self-insert. This is the final movie and we do not see another facet of Mari or an interesting origin story relevant to the plot, no, she is still the same one-dimensional character singing and fooling around during critical moments, her existence in these movies is never justified. Worst of all, out of all the movies, this one gives her the most screen time while far better characters like Misato and Ritsuko were put aside. Yes, Misato is once again relegated to a very minor role, most of her dialogue is just poor exposition about what happened to Kaji (Gendo and Ritsuko were also reduced to exposition spouting robots).

This time around the Human Instrumentality is much more direct thanks to Gendo constantly explaining everything with unnecessary info dumps, "This is the world of your memories. Our senses can't perceive the anti-universe. Therefore the LCL has created a virtual environment we can perceive", it's all dumbed down so even the dumbest normie can understand. It's as if during the sandbox sequence from EoE there was some know-it-all character explaining the meaning behind all the symbolism and metaphors, ruining the atmosphere and leaving no place for interpretation. The Human Instrumentality should offer viewers more space for imagination and self-reflection. Fourth Impact, Another Impact, Additional Impact or whatever the fuck it's called, basically consists of bad CG, superficial visual callbacks to EoE, Gendo's backstory/introspection (admittedly this part wasn't so bad) and happy send-offs to all the main characters that felt rushed and unearned. Yeah, Shinji is such a Gary Stu now he doesn't even need psychotherapy through Instrumentality anymore, instead he is the fucking psychotherapist fixing everyone's problems. Our protagonist was reduced to a plot device.

3.0+1.0 also went way too far with its 4th wall breaking elements. Once again EoE did it so much better, it just works better when it's done subtlety (e.g., the death threats/fan mail flashed on screen at the end of the live action sequence). Shinji saying "Neon Genesis", bad CG on purpose (Unit-01 vs Unit-13 fight in Tokyo-3) and uncanny valley giant Rei were just too much, instead of leaving me in awe or perplexed I was laughing and unimmersed.

Even the message of the movie feels wrong. The message of NGE was: "You are worthy of love, especially from yourself. Social interaction can be painful but you need to connect with other people in order to be happy, don't be afraid/don't run away". The message of this movie is: "Say bye-bye to Evangelion, it's time to grow up. Stop being a loser (otaku), go outside and touch grass. Get some pussy like I (Hideaki Anno) did". It's very meta but also very condescending, hypocritical and redundant. This meta-message felt so much more sincere and empathetic the way it was delivered during the live action sequence in EoE ("You were avoiding the truth by escaping into a fictional world"), mainly because there wasn't a "gorgeous gal with big boobs" representation of Anno's wife lusting over Shinji/Anno, and because 'The END of Evangelion' was supposed to be the end of Evangelion, but no, Anno had to make 4 more multi-million dollar movies in the span of 14 years just to tell us once again to move on from Evangelion, not content with that he's also judging us as immature while simultaneously putting more butt shots in this movie than the entirety of the previous Rebuild movies and NGE combined. Meta-narrative aside Shinji literally ran away from HIS real world and all its problems, this is escapism at its worst. In both EoE and NGE Shinji rejects Instrumentality and decides to return to the real world even though that means being hurt, basically he decides to stop running away from reality and start facing it, this movie is the complete opposite. The realistically optimistic EoE: "Anywhere can be paradise as long as you have the will to live". The overly optimistic and delusional 3.0+1.0: "Erase your reality and get yourself isekai'd to a different reality". World resets are such cop-out endings, they don't belong in Evangelion, they are incompatible with its anti-escapism message. And of course Shinji ends up with Mari, even though story-wise it doesn't make sense since they hardly ever interacted with each other (plus Mari is really a 50-something year old woman making moves on a minor, that's fucked up), but that's just how it had to be because Shinji is Anno's self-insert and Mari is Anno's wife self-insert in this condescending allegory of growing up.

In the 90s Anno was struggling with depression and Evangelion was a way of therapy for him. So Eva has always been a deeply personal reflection of its creator, but its themes were universal and relatable, knowledge of Anno's personal life was never necessary to understand and appreciate NGE. Unfortunately that's not the case anymore. Shinji is suddenly a completely different person, he's full of confidence and optimism, why? Because Anno is a different person now, he's no longer in a dark state of mind. The only justification for Mari being a complete non-character is that she's a representation of Anno's wife, coming into his life to make it better. You need to know a lot about Anno's personal life to justify Shinji acting so out of character, him and Mari ending up as a couple, Mari's role, and the forced overly optimistic/happy ending (Shinji getting his choker removed is obviously a metaphor for Anno breaking free from the burden of Evangelion, specifically the burden of "Rebuilding" Eva, a burden he took upon himself when he didn't have to). Having an underlying meaning behind all the in-world nonsense doesn't make a story good, good writing does. There's only one thing worse than knowing Anno ruined RoE's narrative and characters for the sake of an extremely personal and overindulgent meta-narrative, and that's being completely in the dark about all of this, which is the case for many new fans and casual viewers, and let's not forget RoE main target was to attract those people.

On a side note this movie has one of the worst cases of unwanted fanservice during a serious moment I've ever seen, yeah I'm talking about the butt shots of Toji's sister during that dramatic scene. Evangelion has always had lots of fanservice, but unlike this movie it was always used at the right times.

TLDR: Thrice Upon a Time does not give a satisfactory answer to the many unaswered questions left by its predecessor, Anno no longer treats his audience with respect and now feels the need to explain everything with bad exposition, character development is unconvincing or lacking because most of the runtime is wasted on awful CG action scenes (those first 10 minutes in Paris were so incredibly unecessary), the meta-narrative/4th wall breaking elements felt too intrusive and the message is condescending, hypocritical and redundant.

No one ever believed that the Rebuild films could possibly leave a legacy comparable to that of NGE and EoE, but I think I speak for many Eva fans when I say that we didn't think Anno would disappoint us so badly either. In its advertising this film has been announced as "The end of Evangelion" ("Bye-bye, all of Evangelion"), but for me this is only the end of Rebuild of Evangelion. I don't care about endless cycles, time loops and multiverses, for me the real end of Evangelion happened in 1997 and that's the way it should have stayed.

What's Evangelion to you? For me it's both a touchstone and an uncomprehending able vision created by "Hideaki Anno" ~ double as enthralling as the mecha anime genre show it is and as distressing in the exploration of despair, making for a whole different level of an epic tale about angels and inner demons. Arguable as one of those shows that have numerous hidden messages in itself as the show has been going on, while some argue that it only plays up to a definite fatuous philosophy of the world. Whatever the case may be, NGE has established itself as one of the hot topics ... in the anime world for more than a decade now. It takes some time but every once in a while a movie is released to such a vast prolonged well-known admiration; that the likes of Your Name, Ghost In The Shell, Spirited Away, The Wind Rises, Howl's Moving Castle, Ponyo, Kimestu No-Yaiba Mugen Train, Princess Mononoke, The Secret Of Arrietty, are welcomed as an inspirational and adored by most, with some redefining features. Evangelion 3.0+1.0 is no exclusion as a movie that perhaps is not as ground-breaking currently as the original series was at the time of release that it peaked to its utmost limits and will ever be, but nevertheless, it is an awe-inspiring work that raises the bar even higher. An anime feature that can stand up to with the greats of the original releases. Neon Genesis Evangelion will always be broadly considered as one of the most momentous animes that was created in the 1990s, if not of all time. It will always be enormously well known for its heroic efforts to turn the mecha genre upside-down, its deep character improvements, and its eccentric subplot. Created by an acclaimed studio Khara, and written by both admired (and sometimes hated) writer Hideaki Anno, Evangelion has always been called a magnum opus by most anime fans.
Does it deserve the commendation?
Yes.

Story ~ 10
Evangelion tells a succinct and stunning story that tracks the emotional ordeal of its teenage hero characters, which stand as the solitary fighters of the war that humans don't stand a chance of winning. They're required to pilot gargantuan machinelike monsters (considered as Evas) to battle intractable enemy ones, called Angels. There's a massive count of people who live and breathe anime this is for them. With dozens of industry giants agitating out so many shows since Evangelion first came out as a mecha show that stole hearts away, today there isn't a shortage of shows of the same genre to watch, and the creators know their audience. They know what people want to watch nowadays; and the ability to live a fictional world that makes you feel authoritative, be adored for, and free from realism. To stand up with the best, with the likes of Evangelion 2.0 and 3.0 this movie is a masterpiece.

Animations ~ 10
The movie can be appreciated on a purely filmic level, as a mecha head trip. The images are created as an amalgam of hand-down and the CG simulation that allows complete flexibility of crusade, with some glimpses that swoop all around and through the cleverly complex machinery. The development of each of these new high-tech geniuses such as the space battleship Wunder, which has decks and wings prickling in all directions, like a giant robot's army knife – has an operational sense of scale. (The smart mechanism is designed by Ikuto Yamashita). All I could say about the animations briefly is that it was phenomenal.

Sound ~ 9
The theme song is "One Last Kiss" by Hikaru Utada ft. Hina somehow makes me feel a little uneasy because it also makes me realize that this is the last installment of the series, that being said it has nothing does nothing wrong with the song, its rhythm and its style marks the joyful and playful akin to the metal situation of the '80s. Being sad as it is it makes no difference on how beautiful the song is. I admit that I was doubtful and figured that I'd end up with a remix to a previous song but I was amazed to the core while I stayed and heard the whole song. A little oblivious and a little heart-melting that's what I feel about this song.

Characters ~ 9
It somehow seeks to disconnect all the characters from real people and swap them in its place with fictional characters that they can understand easily and behave in ways that are necessary and foreseeable. In truth, it's an amazing poisonous and blank existence and it can only be replaced by realism for so long for the characters living it. Ultimately, the tried-and-true deceits begin to run empty and the loneliness and the desolation sink once more, except now when you open your eyes and look around at the realism, that it's completely left behind to look back on and realize that your daily simple life has left you behind and all your left with is the despair and no option but to keep moving forward and to see a different world.

Enjoyment ~ 9
The original Neon Genesis Evangelion showed people that it understood them: Shinji's terror of denial, his ambiguity as he created this art of his to such acclaim, his solitude, disbelief, hindrance, and feebleness echoed within so many people that they believed that it was their own story because everyone could narrate to these passionately authentic human sentiments. The Evangelion Rebuilds are more pointed than that though and will always steer you away from realism and beyond normal beliefs of life strongly dividing its watchers into believing that it’s their own and making them live through it. In the end, I cried a little thinking it's all ending all of a sudden as the movie was about to end, and then I realized how far did we come since then and what a great journey it has been for all of us, that's what put a smile on why face while I stood there applauding.

Overall ~ 9
Now, this is where it gets dazzling.
Let's talk about the anime for a moment.
Escaping into another world that is entirely liberated by any of the aspects of our normal world: different from live-action television which still uses actors, situations, and scenarios that are shot in real places with real people, anime is something that is given life into existences and entirely erected worlds. It's such a mesmerizing experience. Don't get me wrong, this can be an unbelievable feature used to tell tales and stories that are greatly effective and likable. I will always love this genre for what it has to offer and how much it has accomplished and how dazzling and astute fragments that it can often produce.
It's not just high-class to anime, either: the moving ideals that can get people so hooked to the anime and patent themselves in many forms, from video games to online forums. These sensations and sentiments that move this kind of activity are not restricted to such a precise community, though. They seek to outbreak anime itself.
Neon Genesis Evangelion is universally appreciated, but its reconstructs are designed and targeted at people who have already had the experience with the genre itself, and people are not happy with what the bulk of the standard has become.
Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0 is an absolute spectacle, as astonishing to the eyes as it is to the ears. The fourth film can out-do the first, second, and third installments in so many more ways, all the while taking the storytelling in a thrilling new way and new directions for both the old and new fans. A re-creation would have been too easy for Hideaki Anno and his crew – instead, they went for an above and beyond, reincarnating the ideals of the Evangelion verse that we've come to adore, offering us new elucidations fifteen years on, proving with some level of ferociousness that Eva is far from gone and forgotten. This movie solidifies its franchise, as it has done more than enough to surprise and inspire fans all over the world once again, reminding us all why every Eva fan fell in love with it in the first place.
Hugely experimental and magnificently exceptional, Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0 is a roaring success.
And my last message ~ “Sayonara Subete No Evangelion”.

After watching this movie 2 times and the documentary i can say that this is just a "more worthwhile experience" for the non-thinker a movie for the "fan of movies and entertainment".
you just can sit and gobble your popcorns and candys without the arduous task of thinking, don't be objective don't think that is for pretentious people just give this movie a 10 or 9.

This is just the equivalent of a marvel movie aesthetically stunning but hollow.
is trying to do what his 20 years old counterpart did 10 times better.

But that doesn't mean that it has no value on its own.

Art is ... just outstanding, being able to see those beautiful places one after another is a pleasure.

Sound is not far behind, and the final theme song by hikaru utada is just amazing ( that by the way will stay with you more than the actual ending).

And there is moments in the film that you can see the old Hideaki the one that cares for the world that he help to bring to life and the one that make you raised questions about oneself.
but it's pretty apparent for the lack of this moments that he just wan to get over and pute a final point to it giving you a ending that don't challenge you to think anything a ending that don't bring any retrospective and try too hard to not alienate no one that just one his brain off.
In conclusion, you will forget the ending the next morning.

At the end i just hope that the hope that this film talks so much about is that Anno Hideaki has overcome the curse of evangelion and be happy with what he created.

Edit 2024-01-18
So... i just rewatch this....
What a POS

Thank you, Mr. Anno. Thank you for delivering the finale we all been waiting for since 2013. Thank you for not disappointing. It is and will remain a very satysfying ending for the beloved franchise.

Is is, in fact, an end of all Evangelion. Hopefully no one will come up with milking it no more.

Before starting the entirety let's all of u ask yourself, how much u love Evangelion, what it's mean for you? This finale is pretty much definition of love letter, not only for the fans, but as well Anno himself from himself. At last we are bound to strict and smooth ... vision, that ending in so bombastic but as well self-aware style it's beyond me and whole franchise as it is.

This review is completely spoiler-free.

THE STORY: 9
We do pick up basically more or less where we left off all these years ago. But thanks to enormously long runtime we have all of the characteristich psychological issued deepened and even further explained. What maked this movie the deepest and most intriguing in the whole tetralogy. Plus realism of writing is taken whole level up, especially considering what our expectations were towards Shinji, we can count on few really nice suprises. Ultimately is is cathartic and sad piece of work, but not to spoil, it is't End of Evangelion. It's Anno strong and clear with his vision. Yall be satisfied.

ART: 9
Well, it's outstanding, polished designs on the big screen are just like wet dream come true. Plus the art direction, world and mecha designs top notch with outstanding mix of really quality CGI was done more than decent. Color palette is light and very bright, create king of lighthearted atmosphere when it's really necessary, plus wide camera angles make it wven more fun. It's studio khara's best quality work up to date, immersive and eye-catching. A must see on big screen, so when yall have a chance - just head for your local cinema.

SOUND: 8
Sound design if reminded me of anything - Youjo Senki. Beautifully mixed and astonishingly rendered was an concerto for my ears. Returning seiyuu staff delivered what we expected, both - realistic and powerful performances. Soundtrack is as epic as it should be, monumental with some electronic extras here and there. And finally the beautiful ending theme 'One Last Kiss' by amazing Hikaru Utada ft. Hina, it hits harder and deeper, when u realise it's the final ending for the franchise. Song and artist choice was perfect. Will leave u sobbing at the very end of the ending credits.

CHARACTER: 8
Here I can literally say: HERE WE GO AGAIN.
But no, somehow I felt huge difference between earlier works and this. Now, when we entered the mature world of the ending, our characters have even less choices and there are still sacrifices to make. Shinji's progression is actually my favourite one, unlike in the old version, he became somewhat likeable and strong character. Plus having all the burden on the back shared just with the girls is feelable. It's definitely the best in the series from the point of psychological build. And rebuild, movie touches differently - meaning it will have different impact. I might bitch a bit, but unfortunately Maki character is the weakest part of the movie, but here I go again - no spoilers.

ENJOYMENT: 9
Well, I was always having tons of fun speaking of Evangelion in terms of enjoyment, but yes, this is bombastic, powerful and just stromng ending. Delivered tons of fun, great, great fights and huge destructions on-screen. Great action flick, great psychological tractat, great audiovisuals. Yes, by all means, I enjoyed it. And I enjoyed it TWICE. And will enjoy couple more times definitely. Plus, come on, it's damn Evangelion, we all have been waiting for it. And waiting since forever. Let yourself enjoy this movie, it's worth the time, money and your smile mixed with tears.

OVERALL: 9
Yes, it is ultimate Evangelion for the new generation, lighter, funnier and definitely less depressing. I like Anno when he have his vision sharp and clear, this time there's no place for some weird complications, it's a great finale this franchise deserves, it's as well poignant goodbye. Never expected to get such an ending, especially having orgy of destruction before my eyes. But yes, you will be satisfied, whether u are fan of the franchise or just casual viewer. Evagelion is done.

The end of all Evangelion has finally arrived, rejoice. It was great 25 years long journey. Thank you Mr. Anno, I am forever grateful. We all are.

I just came back from watching this in the theatre. A tl;dr: The most satisfying ending to Evangelion with some caveats.

I should say off the bat that I only recently sat down and watched the original series and remake movies, and honestly I was kinda iffy about them. This review is coming not from an Eva super-fan, but a fan of movies and entertainment. What I found satisfying might ultimately not be what someone who has stuck with and loved the series for so long is after. That being said, let me start with what I know best: Animation and art direction.

Animation/Art: 8
This movie is ... beautiful. All the more on the big screen if anyone is lucky enough to get the chance. I was blown away by the colour choices and sheer love put into every scene, and I was impressed by some of the bold moves taken by the directors; Not every film will be able to get away with doing what Eva did in this movie, but it pulled it off well and added a level of sincerity to an animated film that one rarely sees. The camera moves are astounding in the fight scenes and the cg is blended very well with the traditional hand drawn animation. Where I dock points is when the CG animation gets clunky at a very pivotal moment in the film. I was pulled straight out of the scene for a moment but I was drawn back in as soon as the traditional animation took over. If it wasn’t for that, I might have given the art a 10, but it was a big hit. If you can forgive one or two sins, you will love the art and animation in this movie.

Sound: 9
Great sound design goes unnoticed, and the sound design here is masterfully unnoticeable. The combination of some of the sound effects and animation almost moved me to tears. The soundtrack is also great and Hikaru Utada’s theme songs will be stuck in my head for a while to come. Not much to say about the sound, it’s good and it won’t distract you from the movie.

Character: 10
The characters are classic Evangelion; deeply flawed and painfully real. Whilst I had my doubts about what fans might want earlier, I don’t think any super-fan of Eva will be disappointed in the characterisation in this film. I can’t say really anything about how this plays out without spoiling everything, so I urge you to bear witness to them yourself.

Story: 8
Again, it’s very hard to say anything about the story without spoiling the entire thing, but just know that it was cathartic for me. It’s only an 8 because Eva will do Eva things but if I was judging it based on how the writers handled the ending to a series this massive and convoluted, it’d be a 10.

Enjoyment: 10
I cried. The people sitting next to me cried. I also gasped and laughed and felt angry and elated. I don’t know if I can ask for anything more from a piece of media. It’ll definitely stay with me and I’m glad I watched it.

Overall: 9
I rarely give 10’s and this is no exception. It was a step away from perfection but slipped and made a really good recovery. If you’ve already seen the first 3 movies I have no doubt you’ll see this one, but if you were in doubt about starting up the series I assure you that the ending, at least, is worth your time.

World-building (and World-Destroying) of Evangelion - 1.01+2.22+3.333+(3.0+1.01): This is the Suspension, Beyond Belief

Warning: Spoilers

Compared to 3.0, which was notoriously reticent to explain the whys and hows of its newfangled setting, Thrice is dedicated to filling in old underlines. But the delay has colored the viewing experience a shade, making it hard not to feel palpable elation or dread as minute one begins, having over the years remained in suspense to find out what it was we watched a decade ago--no one could say if 3.0 (and Rebuild as a whole) checked out or not, even if they felt more or less sure about their ... gut instinct. Whether intended or not, part of what watching Thrice means is that 3.0 looms large in mind, almost like a picture-in-picture, new pieces of information grafted back to try and make sense of an entire other film--not a problem in itself, and something that could have potentially been novel if not for the fact that Thrice's infodumps are both rapid-fire and, after all this suspension of what could have been belief, pretty much nonsense. Many have already defended Thrice's rapid pacing in the same way they defended 3.0's inscrutability, as a means to place the audience in Shinji's shoes empathetically; the point is to feel overstimulated. But that excuse doesn't stand to reason for long because while Shinji took a proactive role in 3.0, he's apathetic from minute one of Thrice, though we as an audience are eager to piece things together, and so Shinji's role becomes a tagalong slumped in the corner. Although she's no proxy for the audience, Rei begins to function nearly as well, fresh eyed and reacting to what details the script throws her way, but though the village from her perspective is calm and patient, everything goes as rapid as anything else, including herself when she unceremoniously melts.

Perhaps the calculation was "if we don't dwell on it, the faults won't be detected," or a simple case of script length conflicting with budget and runtime limitations. Nonethless, Thrice begins at a sprint. Back when, distilling NGE's plot into a tetralogy was already chaffing at the runtime, far before there were 14 years of brand new mostly unreferenced chronology. Despite the breakneck pacing, 1.0 & 2.0 were at least heavily grounded in their real-world setting in terms of character; everyone was motivated (or not) by their sense of purpose within rigid bureaucratic structures, there was a sense of realism to the fact they had authorities under which they bristled, and this created instant relatability to their duties, even bridge bunnies or schoolchildren. Montage scenes were spent inside giant silos, metropolitan Neo-Tokyo, environmental restoration projects and a civilian life plagued by the effects of a recent crisis. Come the time-skip the afforementioned was totally laid to waste, and but to replace it nothing that did remain was dwelled on and what retroactive explanation we would ever get, turns out, would occur in 2-3 second glimpses a film later. Ignoring how effective lack of information was (or wasn't) to bring us into Shinji's confused perspective at the time of 3.0, in effect it meant no one was motivated by anything but unrevealed pasts, secret plans and what might have been (who could be certain?) make it up as you go sci-fi magick.

The post-timeskip setting, no longer able to run from light of day, can best be described as scorched-earth in the not strictly apocalyptic sense. The absence of a near-conspicuous pretty much everything, as wrought by the most recent of who can keep track of how many by now Impacts, feels less like an effective premise and more like the hand of the writer reaching down through a black hole, crumpling up every country, and thus any nitty-gritty, perhaps challenging real-world constraint, for the sake of not having to bother. The suspiciously threadbare quality of the post-timeskip setting also turns out to have applied, no surprise, to the characters who inhabited it and the events that occurred therein, as ridiculous as this all along: every world government has collapsed into Gendo on one end and Misato on the other, the nearest comparison to the dramatic effect of which are saturday morning cartoons where no one matters but He-Man and Skeletor et al. Sure the bad guy is always around the corner, about to close in with sinister iron-clad machinations, and maybe the heroes show momentary doubt and a setback or two as they flip a thousand times and run up the side of a building, but the jeopardy and stakes are as much a gesture as the commercial breaks, and we all know how it proceeds.

Everything works and looks as it does just 'cause--sure there's catastrophic near-annihilation of the race, but this isn't really getting anyone down, or at least not enough to prevent them from jiggling their busts and throwing out their hips in super-stylish, immaculately designed sci-fi gear. A lampshade is hung in the pre-credit sequence when the pink bridge bunny gripes about skintight suits, the conceit being that all appearances aside, they must merely need to be skintight 'because science,' neglecting that the designs are half greebles and racing stripes, clearly useless and clearly highlights to emphasize bust, pelvis, etc. in new and unexplored ways. Not even the previously unglamorous and strictly unspecial tertiaries register as mere humans anymore; nerdy male bridge bunnies get plugsuits, and even Gendo has a sleek, sexy redesign. Misato is brooding and tragic while cosplaying in some patchwork recreation of famous anime ship captains, made possible by whoever might be Wille's fashion designer, impossible to imagine as an actual character and not merely the real-life otaku who neglect to pen them. Plugsuits and battle regalia are one thing, but the idea that Gendo spends his time in his drafty, devoid silo ruffling up his hair with bedhead mousse every morning in his bathrom mirror is another. Who cares about looking like they're on the cover of Newtype when the world is all but destroyed? But increasingly outrageous aesthetics and commerce has long since overtaken Eva's enduring qualities as a story, the omnipresence of which Eva Doritos and the Radio Eva fashion line attests to and at a more consistent rate than Eva's presence as a theatrical event. In-universe in Rebuild our hero characters wage war against the devastation of world catastrophe, but in our very own real world the very process through which world destruction occurs is through mechanical warehouses squirting molten PVC into molds of these stylish folks en masse. One imagines a sun-blistered hunter-gatherer 1,000 years from now picking at the ash heap of debris that's become of once first-world nations, finding a smudged figurine of Asuka or Rei (who can tell, the head is missing and the colors faded), what once was a mere lewd 14-year old a new century Venus of Hohle Fels, and deeming it no practical use and throwing it over their shoulder or sticking it into a potato sack to jack off to later.

At least Thrice's opening village brings us back to a lived-in setting; brutalized to the point of what would be considerably reasonable insanity, everyone has become confident, worldly and stern, the village life ideal. Not to be a pessimist and say outright that such an attitude and community is impossible given the setting, it's just that the population number plummeting so low is less significant as a horrible fact and more suspicious as a drafting convenience: just the right size for nothing negative to be organically developing, and thus explored, just the right scope for a purely rhetorical tool, little more than a prop, none other than a snowglobe (what with the spotlight of green against all that crimson), full of hyperbolic grace and generosity, merely to contrast with the toy ship that is Wunder, and its fleet of irrational misunderstanding assholes. Immediately compassionate to Shinji, super welcoming to Rei as an outsider, fresh off the product line of the nemesis though she is, and compared to the typical Eva pessimism, almost like a Hallmark fantasy. But in reality, once the population grows past a certain point, reaches a certain saturation, very real problems are going to rear their head, and not because of limits forced upon them from outside the dome--they'll eventually modernize, industrialize, and pollute--in fact, they could conceivably have all the modern problems of real-world Japan. What then?

Jump ahead a few action scenes to the climax, and when the inevitable Instrumentality occurs, it's treated less as an actualization you might not be ready for and a defiling wisdom you might never recover from, and more like a mcguffin, wielded by Gendo to get what he wants, handed off to Shinji to get what he wants. It's almost like the trajectory the setting takes is from one that's plausible enough to one outright implausible, and then even further into a completely solipsistic platonic realm, but without the maturity or self-scrutiny of a Charlie Kaufman script or any earlier example of the same conceit. Each half of the movie is left suffering from its own different blindness--the village is ideal, there's nothing negative--and Shinji exiles it anyway and transmutes it into modern live-action Japan, but nothing of modern Japan's qualities, positive or negative, are alluded to. We're left divorced from the prior setting but withheld from the new one. The film constantly shifts around what could conceivably resemble anything real and serious, neglecting opportunities at every turn, and instead uses the existence of Evangelion Units themselves as a bizarre scapegoat--all you need do to fix the universe is pull yourself up by the quantum bootstraps, attain total cosmic control, wish away industrial eldritch abominations, and talk everyone out of their secret foibles. The apotheosis of our godhead-dipped Shinji ends up being mundane, the kind of talismanic willful optimism you can find just as easily in the grocery store bestsellers rack, on Oprah, or through a vision board. All questions one might still have--about the setting, about what particular characters may or may not themselves understand--are summarily discarded as obstacles should they risk getting in the way of the predetermined wholesome end. Although much has been made of the "long desired" finality of Thrice, the presence of conventional resolutions only bleeds out and undoes what was once distinct from the narrative; it was interesting in episode 26 and End of Evangelion that there wasn't a final battle, nor a heart to heart between father and son obligated by the trite notion that it must occur no matter what, no matter how genocidal the father, no matter if the absence, omission or subversion could have been more interesting, realistic, effective, novel, etcetera.

The world-building is discarded by Anno through Shinji, but never in the realm of endless internet analysis does something escape the fate of swirling forever in posterity, and the byproduct of Thrice's loredump excretions is, well, exactly that. Before I get a stick and begin poking into it, full-disclosure: lore was not the grand point of Eva for me. It's always been its sense of emotion and its formal experimentation with its medium, the design philosophy and visual storytelling, the (previously) delicate handle on character and setting. But the thing is, with Eva of old, if you did want to focus on the lore, it was rewarding enough to track and felt like it added to the atmosphere if anything. When I did a rewatch recently, me and my viewing partner (who also took an interest to the lore purely as an added extra) felt like in our teasing-out of the big picture that while we ran into places where information or clarity was withheld, there never felt like huge gaps in logic, not in terms of something not working with some effort on our part, and not in things seeming like they were being discarded without justification. It was easy to form a perspective on the lore in a way that dovetailed neatly into the experimental sequences and overall meaning. Seele is there from the start, and although they clearly turn into something different than their initial appearance, they do so with consistent rate & rhythm. The spear is introduced slowly, the way Angels, Evas, Lilith et al function is introduced at a good clip, Human Instrumentality is there since the opening credits, Rei's origins, the origin of Nerv, etc. all have their time. When everything goes down into surreal territory, the sequence of events leading to it track as real events that unfold, even if certain elements are inscrutable or the physics of the spears verges on the ridiculous. The overall nebulous armageddon of it all contributes to the feeling of a difficult and alienating world, even if you can't get a grasp of, say, the Doors of Guf. Nonetheless, the idea of Human Instrumentality checks out as a hard sci-fi premise and Shinji's purely psychological journey that it affords also feels like a solid tracing of something from Point A to Point B. The series and what it presents itself as morphs over time, but it's a morph you can swallow and track.

Now we have Rebuild, where even before the phantasmagoria begins, the physics of the spears out of nowhere apparently function under the whims of human emotion, Misato's ship is capable of transformation in the same 'just because' fashion of Unit-02 morphing into a cat, there's a third, new spear out of nowhere, not to mention a "Book of Life" that somehow explains and doesn't explain Kaworu's loop, which I struggle to understand the workings of (if I don't chalk it up to purely figurative metacontext operating as literal plot device). NGE seemed like you could squint and make sense of the calculus, so long as you didn't get too close to what were maybe some rough rafter beams. But in Rebuild there seem not to even be connecting joints. Case in point, Seele once had the benefit of being an obscure, mystic organization with religious eschatology beliefs and fealty to the arcane, so as to drench the hooey in thick enough shadows. But now all of that has been shouldered onto Gendo the all-powerful (and thus dramatically impotent) plan-wizard. Nothing in NGE compares to the absurdity that he's contrived Rei and Kaworu's interactions with Shinji as a means to lead the plot to its goal, confident that their interactions will give the plan either exactly what it needs or in the worst case can easily be incorporated into anyway. Even Seele talked about compromises, backups and powerlessness on their part. But how is it Wille scrounges for scraps but Neo Nerv can spit out newly-minted tech in perpetuity? At the end of the day, these are just random elements that don't dovetail or fit in with everything else, or at the least have any sense of buildup to their inclusion. NGE set limitations and discarded them, but not to this haphazard extent. Whereas Eva Units once had to operate under the restricting principle that they need connection to a power source, now we can say, thanks to the unending convenience of the timeskip, 'well, they formulated a way to get around that business.' Much like the Nemesis Series, Opfer Types, and Mk. Units, the supposition crazy new forms of tech occurred in the intervening years is just an unrestrained excuse to indulge in new designs and action sequence pyrotechnics.

Although a tremendous effort is undertaken to hide the shallow waters at the drama's core with run-on technobabble gobbledegook, the whole of the Rebuilds is basically a long-winded calculus--old elements and rules from the old show are put into new forms, a new "anti-universe" is appended, things melt and transport and woosh by the camera. What suffers most is a sense of character--something, as a result, my review has mostly avoided as well. Things jump ahead, get obliterated, rewritten and propped up for money shots too fast for the characters along for the ride to sufficiently exist, their desires and actions strangled and dragged by plot requirement or snubbed in favor of another color-bomb acrobatic mech romp interrupted here and there by jargon. 1.0 & 2.0 had a lot of shorthand, scenes working as stand-ins for several at once, characters getting folded into each other, etc., yet it was easy not to get lost in the breathless condensation because you had interior reference to the original as you watched and parsed, and perhaps part of the calculation from a scriptwriting sense was to rely on old knowledge as a safety net when glossing over the plot. 3.0 & Thrice feel much the same, but with the huge exception that whatever longer-form material there is to fall back on doesn't actually exist. As a result, each story beat is so preoccupied with justifying itself retroactively, backtracking and playing keep-up, that we never get a foothold until the events which erase the scenario unfold. As one example of egregious narrative expedition, Misato makes a heelturn of taking responsibility within the same scene we're given a 30-second insight into what she's heelturning from anyway. Each moment is too top-loaded, and because so little time is spent living inside the scenario as a time and place, I almost feel in many ways the post-timeskip script often forgets the timeskip even occurred, as strange as that sounds, simply because the characters aren't believable as people who ever lived outside of exposition. There's no moment where they just are, no sense of the gravity to the setting as they've seen it or what it's like to strive from inside of it. When characters do talk, they often say things to each other they should both already know, because they're not really talking to eachother, but the camera.

A setting works or it doesn't, and I'm not sure I can say with confidence that post-timeskip Rebuild even counts as one. It's more like a painted backdrop for the characters to exist in front of in forms detached from anything remotely resembling life or how real people are, and then they're swallowed up in another complete setting change when metafiction (read: Instrumentality) overrides the time-skip and everyone just becomes a symbol or self-reflexive comment on themselves. The problem is that this metafiction is very restricted and reticent to actually stare itself in the face; why not go all the way and have Rebuild question its existence as a commercial property? The answer is likely that the money is greatly enjoyed, and the largest share of audience-goers want the kind of smile from Shinji that disposes of any notion of lasting or forthcoming discomfort. Those who treat Evangelion on par with Schopenhauer would do well to remember that Eva has since become a sizable portion of Japan's overall economy and Anno a real estate speculator. As the saying goes, "systems don't teach you the means to topple them."

Any critique of the film based in convention would rate the film Evangelion: 3.0 + 1.0 rather low. For those who have not followed the over two decade in-the-making franchise, Evangelion: 3.0 + 1.0 would seem to be a bizarre mess of technobabble, epileptic visual effects, strange sound decisions, questionable pacing, gratuitous amounts of fan service and more. Even for fans of the franchise, complaints about previous Rebuild films remain unaddressed, while many (and I mean many) plot holes and character backstories remain unresolved.

Cinematically, the film is certainly far from perfect - it could almost be called disastrous. And yet Evangelion: 3.0 + 1.0 ... is without a doubt one of the most impactful, inspirational, and satisfying films I have had the pleasure of watching in my short adolescent life.

Fans of the Eva franchise are a diverse bunch ranging across different ages, demographics, and interest, just like any other franchise. I cannot claim to represent the entirety of the fanbase; however, I hope that my account resonates with fellow fans, persuades viewers of the film that 3.0 + 1.0 is a masterpiece, and most importantly, that those who have never seen Evangelion may give it a shot.

I'll split my review into two parts: a formalistic view on the film's plot and the meta-film. And reader, thank you for sticking with my verbosity thus far.

Part 1: A SHALLOW, SURFACE LOOK AT THE FILM:
I'll quickly go over three MAL critierions, and save story and character for the end.

ART: The art is fantastic at times, and strange at others. Though art is subjective, most fans will agree that the vast majority of the film is in line with the animation and artistic quality of today. It is important to note that blinding lights, strobe effects, and extremely bright colors are employed throughout the film. The film is certainly not safe to watch for those who are epileptic / have risk of seizures. Another critique revolves around the CGI, which is a controversial aspect of the film. Personally, I thought the usage of CGI was tolerable, and appreciable if you accept the "bad" CGI as being intentional (Hard to explain, but the subtext of the film seemingly justifies it). This is hard to explain without spoiling, but overall, the art certainly does not detract from the experience.

SOUND: The sound design was exceedingly wonderful and well-fitting at times, paying homage to the originals. However, certain pieces were chosen during certain fight scenes that felt ... rather goofy. The usage of these pieces in high risk, action packed fight scenes felt extremely off-putting and frankly detracted slightly from the experience. Furthermore, the audio did not feel very spatial, as explosions, bullets, and dialogue all felt like they came from the center of the scene rather than where they actually belonged on the screen, although I did watch on Amazon Prime. The overall audio experience can best be described as mixed: It's fantastic (I'm looking at you, One Last Kiss), adding some powerful emotional flavor at times, but extraordinarily off-putting and questionable elsewhere.

ENJOYMENT: The film was enjoyable, and at the very least, interesting. It's without a doubt a captivating film that's never boring. Watching previous Evangelion films/show is mandatory, however, to fully enjoying the film, which probably creates some kind of bias here.

STORY AND CHARACTER:
To reiterate, Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0 by itself is not great, for reasons stated above. However, when viewed in context of the 1995 television show, the film End of Evangelion, and the newer Rebuild films, dissatisfactions with each medium are essentially addressed. For example, through striking, heartfelt scenes in a slice-of-life setting, 3.0 + 1.0 satisfyingly explains the off-putting attitudes displayed by characters in previous films that bothered many film viewers. Another example would be the character progression of fan-favorite yet severely underdeveloped Rei Ayanami doing a remarkable job of illustrating the relationships of characters, but also the strange, new post-apocalyptic world. Indeed, the film excels at using frightening, incomprehensible perils as a means to bring characters together or even against each other, allowing for excellent character analyses to occur. Is this a revolutionary technique? Absolutely not, but it is pulled off spectacularly. The greatest scenes in the film are not the incredibly detailed, visually stunning fight scenes but rather the heart to hearts characters have with one another. And that's always been the essence of Evangelion.

The mythology of Evangelion is overwhelmingly complicated. The usage of extreme religious overtones, biblical imagery, and cosmic horror is certainly interesting, but difficult to follow, with probably thousands of reddit threads and wiki pages of speculation and theories explaining the whats of Evangelion. Though ordinarily this overcomplication and lack of clarity is a great cinematic sin, it somehow ... works. Personally, the desire for explanation strung me along for the ride, as it did for many other fans of the franchise. In a way, without the artificially generated intrigue for lore, many viewers would probably lose interest.

And to lose this interest would be a great mistake. As so many have stated before, it is for the unparalleled analyses of the cast that Evangelion should be lauded. Nearly all of the praise for the original television show revolved around the deconstruction of Shinji, Asuka, and Rei, the protagonists of the franchise. At the same time, much of the criticism of the originals revolved around just how convoluted and complicated the deconstruction was to understand.

After all, most people do not want to sit through Freudian and Jungian psychology, strange dilemmas, and metaphysics.

3.0 + 1.0 seems to be criticized for how "dumbed down" it is. Most negative reviews seem to herald the originals as deep, profound, and touching, and the rebuilds as pretentious and shallow. Though I can understand where these sentiments come from, I believe the finale to the Rebuilds democratizes the core messages of the originals. Without a doubt, the lore and plot of the Rebuilds is exclusively hard to understand. However, what the film leaves you with at the end is abundantly clear - and that's the most important part.

Part 2: ANNO, THEMES, and IMPACT
Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0 concludes nearly 20 hours of Evangelion. For many fans, it concludes over two decades of waiting for and consuming Evangelion. For Hideaki Anno, it concludes a heartfelt franchise he poured his life, depression, and joys into. For me, it concludes a significant chapter in my life.

I've been treating this review as essentially a review of the entire franchise, and that's because I really believe Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0 emblemizes the entirety of the series. It borrows thematic elements from every Evangelion medium, pays homage, thanks the fans, and admonishes the fans. Outside of the incredibly satisfying (and well-deserved) ending it gives to the cast we've grown to love, it also builds upon various messages Mr. Anno has been delivering since the conclusion of Neon Genesis.

Evangelion is truly a piece of art. The greatest works of art leave the audience with a great and powerful feeling and a personally constructed message. Every anime we've seen has been entertaining, but not all of them have left us with heartfelt, resounding messages. Though every anime has themes, not every anime connects these themes to us, the audience. The end of 3.0 + 1.0 is the most direct, heartfelt, and literal connection I've seen made from a cast of fictional 2d characters to their audience. It didn't feel contrived, forced, or even strange. It felt natural, perhaps a first for the franchise.

It might seem like I'm embellishing or even being pretentious. After all, I'm not even telling you what these oh-so-great messages are!

The thing is, the lessons of Evangelion aren't anything that will blow you away. They're lessons that we more or less know, lessons that are incessantly drilled into us by the media, television shows, books, and life. And yet, Evangelion succeeds where others have not. The creative team understands that inspiring and instilling goes beyond just telling. And though it might not have succeeded for everyone, Anno and his team's wacky, wonderful storytelling succeeded for me. Their storytelling is thought provoking, fascinating and touching. It has a lovable, extraordinarily well-written cast with gripping lore, drama, and dialogue. It is artistic, extremely avant-garde, and both like and unlike anything you have ever seen.

Outside of the film, Evangelion remains one of the highest-grossing and influential franchises in the East, signs that its Evangelionness has really touched the hearts of millions, despite its glaring imperfections. Like Evangelion so emphasizes in its characters, flaws and quirks are integral to the human experience - and that's perhaps why Evangelion has remained an enigmatic, global phenomenon for the past 26 years.

And those 26 years have bloomed for one last astounding time.
Good morning, good night, thank you,
And good bye Anno's Evangelion.

------SPOILERS FOR EVA 3+9+10+11+12-42+1.01 AHEAD------

I have consumed at least some of nearly every non-game Evangelion property, and I can confidently say that this is the singular worst property. Yes, worse than Rebuild 3.0. Yes, worse that ANIMA. YES worse than Campus Apocalypse. The sheer audacity of this movie; to spit in the face of the audience, insult their intelligence, ignore the lore & continuity of the previous movies and series, and produce a mediocre product created for absolutely no worthwhile reason.

Let's go in order here.

First up, Story: I give this a 1.
The first ~50 minutes of this movie are really quite well done. Art is ... solid, plot is relatively consistent with the previous movies, and its a well done work which shows the character growth of Rei Q, Toji, Kensuke, and Shinji. Then the plot goes downhill from there, moment to moment, until it reaches utter rock-bottom by the end of the film. The film ignores basic plot-points from previous films, introduces plot contrivances and mcguffins to carry the protagonists to the end of the film, and refuses to explain absolutely anything—until the last 45 minutes where every single line of dialogue is exposition to explain just HOW THE FUCK what we see going on is possibly occurring.

To touch on a few specific scenes: somehow NERV can just initiate Another/Final/Fourth/Additional Impact whenever they want, as well as having literal millions of Eva 4-somethings to send around the world, and yet they somehow haven't won? Meanwhile WILLE is throwing around random-ass technology to fix the world, Asuka is a clone now, and Mari is immortal. A series of nonsensical plot choices drive this story into directions that the story had no right going, and which serves no purpose as a fulfilling story.

Next up, Art: 5
The art and imagery in this film ranges from excellent (from ~15 minutes to 50 minutes--i.e. the village scenes), to absolute shit (i.e. most of the rest of the film). Standout terrible moments include Mari & Asuka falling toward Unit-13, a scene with absolutely no sense of tension, scale, nor time-scale; the giant Rei head (people say it was supposed to evoke the same sense of 'aaaahhhh' that the OG in EoE did. I just laughed my ass off); the whole 4I scene where Gendo has his breakdown is an unnecessary callback to EoE with its hand-drawn panels, and the film would be better without those nostalgia trips.

In fact, so much of this film hinges on nostalgia and callbacks to NGE and EoE, nearly every scene has some uncalled-for reference. Some of them are done well, while others are just there for the eponymous fanservice the series has always claimed to have. It's pointless, but the drawings still look fine. CGI has somehow gotten shittier over the series despite the 14 years that passed between 1.0 and 3.0+1.0.

Sound: 4
Evangelion Rebuild 1 and 2 had excellent soundtracks, both in the orchestrated battle music from Sagisu, as well as other offerings such as Beautiful World, the best ending song the Eva series has ever had. Eva 3 continued this trend to an extent, while Eva 4 completely drops, dropkicks it to space, and then stabs it with the Spears of Despair, Hope, and WILLE.

There were no standout song throughout the entire film except the various Decisive Battle remixes, the ending song One Last Kiss, and the reused Beautiful World (da capo).

Character: 1
There is not a single character in our main cast whomst I think was well done. Outside of our main cast, the list only includes Toji and the village old ladies. Throughout the rest of the cast, so many of them did complete 180s from their characters in 3.0, some with no explanation, others via a heelturn brought about by another character who said "lol actually ur wrong" to which they just immediately agreed. The amount of backpedaling for actions in 3.0 makes this movie seem more like Rise of Skywalker with how much retconning is going around. Let's briefly go through each major character.

Asuka: Suddenly she's a clone! How much buildup was there to this reveal? Absolutely fucking none! Also she wants headpats I suppose. Her character is mostly unchanged from 3.0, and is still shit. One interesting facet of her character is that her comfort-blanket comes in the form of Kensuke Aida now... a character whom she's never shown any interest in, and actively disliked in the original series. (I can't remember if they ever interacted in Rebuild 2). AND ALSO SHE'S AN ANGEL NOW (kinda foreshadowed, and actually pretty interesting twist here).

Mari: Actual-factual cradle robber right here. She's around the age of 60, while Shinji is still 15. Bruh wtf. There are a lot of reveals about Mary Iscariot in this film, and very few-to-none of them are explained or even foreshadowed. No idea why she's so into Shinji though.

Kaworu: he shows up again, despite being, y'know, dead. Apparently the time-loop theory is correct, and Kaworu and Shinji are destined to meet forever and ever unless Kaworu suffocates or smth. Also apparently he has some connection with Kaji told in the form of flashback? Completely unexplained.

Misato: backpedaling on her 3.0 characterization, now Misato actually really thinks Shinji is a great kid and didn't do anything wrong.

Ritsuko: see above.

Sakura: see above but reversed LMAO. She straight-up tried to shoot Shinji to keep him from getting in the robot... when the world was literally ending and Shinji was their only hope to stop it.

Gendo: this man was so antisocial as a child that the moment anyone showed romantic interest in him the phrase "I'd end the world to see your smile" wasn't so much of an exaggeration anymore. Also he became God somehow? I literally could not follow the last 30 minutes of this movie despite watching it twice. Him being able to fly, shoot lasers, and transform into Cyclops from X-Men was cool, even if completely moronic.

Shinji: This man gets better not by the power of friendship, but through a 3 step program. Step 1: get force-fed by an immortal German angel. Step 2: sulk. Step 3: have a clone of a clone of a clone tell you she likes you, then watch her explode. Profit. Shinji makes a complete heel-turn to a confident-shonen protagonist, that both doesn't feel genuine, nor like an Evangelion character. Manga Shinji or ANIMA Shinji—both of whom ARE basically shonen protagonists—feel much better realized than Shinji in 4.0. His dialogue at the end of the film about how he "thinks he can handle pain and heartbreak" just sounds terrible considering his character arc in the Rebuild films, let alone how poorly it was handled in this one.

Enjoyment: 1
It was a shitty movie. I watched it twice in the span of two days, and it only got worse on the second viewing. Series of plot-contrivances combined with crappy music and art and culminating with a cherry on top of inaccurate characters led to an unenjoyable film experience.

To recap:
Story: 1
Art: 5
Sound: 4
Character: 1
Enjoyment: 1
Overall, 12/50 or 2.4/10

Edit: It has come to my attention that Mari might also be a clone, due to the similar suffix of 'Nami' in her name. I think that that's stupid, and if it is the case, it simply adds more fire to the problem of "too many clones".

Could content made by the original creator still be classified as fan fiction? Well, technically no, but leave it to Hideaki Anno to make the impossible, possible.

The Evangelion Rebuild films aren't so much about telling their own story or introducing new audiences to the world of Anno's Evangelion as it is about Evangelion itself. Not Evangelion the original series and film mind you, but what it's come to represent in the collective minds of all those who've ran away with romantic notions of its placement as a bedrock of their youth. If there's anything "existential" here it's in a generation's obsession with iconography, the hive-minded ... fan-culture that surrounds it, and ultimately, the commodification of these attributes by celebrating the steadfast loyalty of continuous consumer support, well into adulthood, because after all, Evangelion helped you cope as a teen, right? Well, at the very least, that's how I choose to view these gussied-up Rebuild celebrations because if viewed as actual films, they're a mess.

Gobbledygook that borders on self-parody—congratulatory about using metacontextual frameworks to aid in its commentary as if the Japanese New Wave of the 60s didn't already came and went. The Evangelion rebuild films are at best, well-intentioned nonsense, and at worst, try-hard nonsense. The kind of neurotic patch-job of "this would look cool" storyboarding decision-making blended with a cocktail of Terrence Malick-isms via insular logic. It's its own religious institution, built inside the pop culture echo chamber that houses it—don't expect common sense to make any appearances here.

Philosophical word vomit, fashion accessory human trauma, comically nebulous dialogue, and superfluous worldbuilding are all the name of the game when discussing these films. What's important is that you "feel" it or whatever that means. But honestly, it's about audience participation, your willingness to ignore all prior convictions for perceived issues you've lobbied at other creator's art before, and instead, choose to see the sincerity in what's essentially "Gurren Lagann but pretend it actually makes sense logistically" all without a hint of self-awareness, irony, or acceptance of the fact that this works because it's inherently childish. Kids playing with their toys: Smash! Grrrr! Pow!, robot go BOOM! PEW PEW!

These installments, and Thrice Upon a Time especially, are about these dreamt-up escapist scenarios. Expanding the lore of Angels, Seele, vague prophecies, Eva units, and other tidbits that at one point were just tertiary mechanics in exploring the characters themselves. For as high as the stakes and situation were for the original Evangelion tv-series and subsequent film, it was never actually about those things. The spectacle was grand, but ultimately, the intent was intimate. It was about dealing with depression, imposter syndrome, parental (ir)responsibility, the inherent ugliness, and beauty that came hand-in-hand with growing up. Navigating the uncertainty of adulthood. It's about everything else that the cool-looking mecha series came to inhabit. Evangelion was the title, but ultimately, not the point.

The same can't be said about these rebuild films. Exploitatively mining these aspects, yes, but now it's about pre-established value, no different than what the Star Wars property has become over time. In a way, that's commendable, that an anime property outside the behemoths of Gundam or whatever long-running shounen is airing at any given time, that what was at once a cult-classic, has now grown to a size capable of supporting such an excursion by its head architect. An adoration not even George Lucas was able to maintain.

But if you're not a subscriber that deifies this creative and everything they attach their name to, it becomes harder to justify any of it. This is a film that makes broad emotional story beats, patting itself on the back for taking what iota of characterization exists in its current state and proceeding to overanalyze it, making supposedly "profound" discoveries, despite having to rely entirely on the audience to at least have a cursory knowledge of the original material to make any of these epiphanies stick because otherwise, they don't. If viewed independently, they're all facsimiles of the content they came from. Personalities robbed of nuance, where it expects the audience to fill in the gaps with what they've gathered prior to viewing it, as well as whatever projection already grafted onto the material from years of germinated love for their status symbols. Whatever brief moments of cleverness or insight that these Rebuild films end up landing on are continuously thwarted by excessive, unchecked indulgence.

In a way, this film is reflective of that infamous scene in The End of Evangelion, where we, the audience, get the privilege of being the bedridden Asuka, while the film itself is Shinji, hovering over us with its seed in its palm. You'll either relish the opportunity to be the object of your cult leader's affection or just find the whole thing incredibly awkward.

These films aren't necessarily for fans but more so for diehard fanatics. And you know what? That's fine.

What a colorful, sincere shit show.

I can not express how much feelings I have for Evangelion
as I watch the ending of a beautiful series,
the satisfaction I got,
the feeling of you want it to end but also you don't,

It has been a beautiful journey through ups and downs,
as I watch all of the series, seeing all the characters grow as it grow with me,
what it feels and what it takes to be, human,
through the tears and joy, the feelings we all share together,
from the original series to the rebuild movies
... Evangelion will always be remain in my heart, forever,

Thank you Mr. Anno for making this series,
Thank you Mr. Anno for delivering the ending of an era,
Thank you for all the staff involved for making this possible,

Goodbye, all of Evangelion.

Well, here we are. After almost 14 years since the beginning of this tetralogy and over 25 since the television series original run, it seems Evangelion has come to a definitive ending...and what a journey it’s been. The television series, which changed the entire landscape of anime, forever leaving its mark on the industry and creating one of the biggest franchises to date. The film End of Evangelion, which has gone down as one of the most jarring, surreal and greatest anime films of all time. And finally, the Rebuild films series, which sought to recreate the iconic series in 4 parts...but to what end? ...

At the announcement of the Rebuild series, Anno had a lot to say (which I recommend you look up). He said how the work was meant to “connect today’s exhausted Japanese animation industry to the future and fight the continuing trend of stagnation in anime”, “to support fans that support animation...a work that would appeal to middle and high school aged men, who quickly grow away from anime was necessary” and also that these new films sought to” create a form of entertainment that anyone can look forward to; one that people who have never seen Evangelion can easily adjust to”. I feel like the new film series as a whole accomplished what Anno set out to do from the beginning, all fairly par-for-the-course stuff, but one line from that interview always struck me ““many times we wondered, “It’s a title that more than 10 years old. Why now? Eva is too old”, we felt. However, over the past 12 years, there has been no anime newer than Eva.”” Some see it as an extremely arrogant thing to say, but considering this was just ten years after Evangelion, a series that shook the industry to its core, it absolutely has merit. The fact that Evangelion has consistently been one of the most discussed and theorized anime over the last 25 years is a testament to its “newness” and ability to engage its audience over such a long period of time, even with huge gaps between releases.

While Anno's quote on Evangelions "newness" can be attributed to many things, like it's (at times) avant-garde style, one of the core strengths of this style is Evangelion’s ability to lay puzzle pieces (as early as the opening shots of this new series) through it's visual storytelling and is one of the most enjoyable aspects of the series for fans. It seems like almost every week, even without any new information being available, someone will create a new chart, diagram, explanation video or side-by-side comparison trying to get their newest and craziest theories out into the world. These range from the simple “Look at the opening shots of the water and white outlined T-pose giants, It’s a time travel/loop from End of Evangelion!” to “The Zoa, represented by Tharmas, Urizen, Luvah and Urthona (as well as Adam and Satan) are clearly represented as the 4 Adams seen in second impact, who’s souls were once a single being. The colours of the 4 Zoa are seen as the skin under 4 specific Evas since their cores were used to make Evas and their 4 souls were reincarnated as Shinji, Asuka, Kaworu and Mari”. While a theory like the latter might seem outlandish, Evangelion executes visual storytelling so well and has such a pedigree of outlandish deep lore set by the television anime and film, that with the proper images and explanation, some very crazy things seem possible. So, I obviously believe Evangelion has been able to maintain this "newness", even throughout the release of the new films. Notoriously, the third film opened a whole new can of worms, with a swath of the fan base turning on the film But over time, many warmed up to it and the speculation reached a fever pitch. Beyond the puzzle it lays with it's directing style, it's also made fresh by its unprecedented and shocking imagery culminating in End of Evangelion. This final film cemented Evangelion as an all time classic, creating a surreal, grotesque, bleak and fascinating ending fans still pick apart and try to understand the meaning of to this day. So, after this huge and longwinded introduction, does Evangelion 3.0+1.0 stick the landing? Does it still feel NEW after all of these years?

I have seen the film three times now, and still feel like I want to see it many times more in order to give my final, absolute rating of the film. I’m going to ask myself a few question here so bear with me. Did I enjoy the film? Absolutely, yes I did. Did I enjoy it as much as End of Evangelion? No, I did not. Did it live up to the almost unprecedented hype I had built up in my head for the last 8 years? No, not really...I’m not sure if that was possible. I may be sounding a bit down. Honestly, I think it might just been the bittersweet feeling of my favourite anime franchise coming to an end, with no more of that crazy fan speculation and wonder to look forward to any longer. But don’t get me wrong, I did say I enjoyed the film didn’t I?! I cried, I grabbed my head with my mouth gaping wide, I smirked like an idiot and I genuinely felt a visceral giddiness and excitement watching and discovering that film in the theatre I probably won’t feel for anything else for the rest of my life. This is certainly due to me being a person who has enjoyed this series and followed its rabid discourse for over 16 years, but I’ll be upfront about those feelings before being more objective. I’m sure there will be people in my exact same position who will absolutely loath this film (there are, I’ve already seen it).

The story picks up immediately where 3.0 concluded, but after a bombastic action set piece (which have become how we start these films since 2.0) the film swerves to a new location where the pace is slowed drastically. The exceedingly long run time of the film (now the third longest animated film of all time) allows for this deliberate pace as well as plenty of time to introduce and reintroduce many characters. This is also the segment where we witness almost all of the character growth and development between our main characters for just about the whole film. It’s a tranquil setting that’s lusciously depicted, punctuated by tender folk music and poignant character moments. The 2D art really is fantastic during this section, probably the most beautiful of the whole film and the music is touching, surprisingly there are 3 English songs used! Upon rewatching, this might have become one of my favourite parts of the film and where I probably dropped the most tears.

From here, we move forward with a “beginning of the end” midway multi-segment-battle which I loved seeing on the big screen. While the sequences are phenomenally staged and choreographed, I do feel like the CGI, framerate and camera work could get out of hand at times (though that chaos was also fun to see unfold). I think it is important to point out that this is certainly the most bombastic and (kind of) only big action set piece of the film. This is comparable to the Asuka vs Mass Produced Evas of End of Evangelion, but I say this EXCLUSIVELY in terms of placement in the film and action. If you were to compare the two (and why the hell wouldn’t I? They are both big midway battle with Unit 02 in a finale film) End of Evangelion blows it out of the water in almost every aspect. While 3.0+1.0 is ambitious in its scope and effects, End of Evangelions fight’s animation, choreography pacing and climax are way better. It’s still an exciting sequence, don’t get me wrong, it’s just so hard not to compare these things in my head. The music is still great throughout, however, as it is the entire film. There is a great moment at the start of this action sequence where a very fun and bombastic song is playing during a very tense scene. The juxtaposition was really cool and made gave the scene a very heroic feel even given the dire situation. The song that led into Asuka and Mari’s action sequence gave me goosebumps of “Oh shit, let’s goooooo!” and the operatic pieces were awesome and ominous as usual.

From here the next leg of the film is probably the part I found the least interesting. We are given big info/lore dumps, some character drama and stakes as well as some new development for a long standing character given the leading villain role. Things pick up when we enter the sort of “instrumentality” of this this film but again, it isn’t anywhere near as bizarre and surreal as End of Evangelion...not that it’s trying to, but it wouldn’t have hurt to be a bit more ambitious in the crazy and unpredictable aspects of the film. I think this is the point of the film where I realized one of the biggest flaws of this film, at least for me personally. It’s the predictability of it all...One of the major things I would always hold Evangelion, especially End of Evangelion, in such high regard for not being. With Japanese not being my native language, I assumed I would have left that theatre in a daze of confusion (that I was absolutely looking forward to!) but found I actually understood the film perfectly well. I think this was by design, however, and leads me to the end of the film.

The last quarter or so of the film does have some pretty perplexing stuff going on, mainly concerning Mari and many of the other core casts “relations”. I don’t want to say how the film ends at all, as I feel I’ve done a pretty dang good job of avoiding spoilers, but I will say that the film concludes quite definitively. The tag line of the film is “Bye bye, all of Evangelion”. The sentiment behind this tagline rings true in more ways than one as the credits being to roll. It really is over. There is some "interesting" CGI use during 2 climactic sequences I feel were used in a meta way. One using Evas to emulate a sort of amateurish tokusatsu scene (reminiscent of some of Anno's early works and passions) as well as a scene I feel is supposed to draw contrast between the new and the old. There are lots of other strange images I'm still mulling over and such as the use of heads, headlessness and mismatching heads and bodies I'm still trying to figure out, which is a good sign of Evangelions classic puzzle-like storytelling through images.

So, were all the loose ends tied up? Did all the crazy theorise people have about all the puzzle pieces and bread crumbs left in the previous films come to fruition? No, I don’t think they did, and like I hinted at earlier in the review...I think this ended up being by design. Even the 14 year time skip between 3.0 and this film was glossed over very quickly in this film, given 2 brief scenes , where I (and I think many others) figured big reveals would take place. Even in those brief glimpses, however, along with many other new puzzle pieces, we are shown small clues which allow for various speculation even after the series has concluded, which is right in tune with what Evangelion has been all about. At the same time, I think that the way the film concludes allows for the alternate take as well. That it really doesn’t matter, that it is now over, and that it is time to move on. So which is it? Even as a mega-fan, I am happy to accept an ending of “it’s over, move on” but at the same time, find it difficult when the film continues to introduce new questions and hints at what may have happened.

So, with the conclusion of the Rebuild series, is there still no anime newer than Eva? That statement may very well hold true, MAY being the key word here. I want Anno and his staff to tell the story they want to tell and I’m sure after meditating on this film longer and seeing it many more times, my opinion might change drastically. For me personally though, “New” is generally a case of unpredictability. “New” is something I could have never seen coming. While this film is a great send off to the story and character I’ve come to love so much over the years, I don’t think Anno’s revolutionary words coming off the end of End of Evangelion ring as true with this new conclusion.

Bye Bye, All of Evangelion.

The second coming of Christ is here boys and girls. Anno has delivered yet again something that will have you saying,”what the fuck did I just watch?” For years to come! If you loved End of Eva for the vegetative like state it put your mind in then you’ll love this! Just imagine and follow me here. End of Evangelion, but in reverse. Did you have one, two or maybe a few hundred questions after 3.0? Some that even a psychologist couldn’t answer? Because God himself has answered some prayers. We did it. After a decade we FINALLY get some plot holes patched! Now how ... they’re explained may make you more comatose than the infamous Asuka scene, but for Evangelion we’re talking miracles. Kinda like when you go the gas station and you’re a couple of cents short, but luckily they have that take one penny tray. So thinking you’re in a green you take two and next thing you know you’re German Suplexed. So think of the day they let you take two.

But let’s take a moment of Silence for those who went out with Covid thinking only their grandchildren’s children would see how Eva would end. You’ll forever be in my thoughts that you didn’t get to see your ship sink harder than the Titanic.

I think the only true place to start is to state right off the bat, it’s a clusterfuck. But it’s Evangelion so that’s a given. This however, is done in almost all the right ways amounting to what can be called no less than gods plan. After 25 years we get to see Eva finally put to rest the same way as my grand pappy. As in someone definitely left a crack pipe or two laying around. Because that’s the only true way you can produce something that nobody else has or ever will think of. Probably for the better. There are times you’ll be thinking to yourself,” wow! This is ingenious!” and other times where you’ll think,” this is when switching up the drugs would have been nice.” As far as original goes, I don’t know how many will be able to top Anno’s last depression induced work of art. You know that skittles saying Taste the Rainbow? Well you can definitely taste the Anno. It’s got his signature spice of “I don’t get it or want to get it, but I’ll watch it another 5 times, say I do and change my mind later” because of how long that spice be lingering for. For that reason alone though, while Eva finally have been put to rest, it’s going to comeback strong as Casper and haunt you until you die because you’ll never fully get it. Nobody’s ever understood the original series so why would the rebuilds be different?

You will however get some closure. While I had no idea what to expect except for the usual blue balling I’m surprised to say the biggest plot holes get hit with that Flex seal max. Now I’m not saying you’ll understand them the first time, but they’ll make somewhat sense eventually. Hopefully. The more psychiatric medication you’re on the better off you’ll be. Either you’ll accept it and praise Anno for really being up there with Einstein and Hawking or you’ll feel you were telepathically robbed. My last two braincells fought viciously to process some key parts not gonna lie. More so when points from 3.0 were being connected and even expanded upon until a viable conclusion was reached. Like who knew?? There’s even some juicy references to the older parts of Eva that just give it that cherry on top.
Now what I’m about to say next you’ll ask if you need to call for an ambulance. And this was how I knew it was the second coming of Jesus. We get not one, but MULTIPLE completed character arcs. I nearly had a stroke. I was probably pronounced dead for a hot minute, but being as much of a degenerate as I am a little brain damage never hurt anyone like me.

So let’s get a quick recap: story is nothing short than to expect with it being Eva, plot holes are patched far better than the potholes on my way to spread my blessings of degenerate anime to newcomers, and I’d let Anno have my children knowing characters arcs are competed. So what about the art/animation? Orgasmic. If my eyes could have boners they would. My nips were showing a few times through my shirt. Other times I felt that I was missing my shirt. Very weird indeed. Maybe it’s because they wanted to read it like Braille. I didn’t want to just SEE the art, I wanted to FEEL THE ART! There’s a lot to take in. I felt like the scriptures from the holy thighbible had reached Anno. There were was a fair bit more fan service than all the rest of Eva and degenerates like me did nothing more than slap them hands together and pray. In all honestly most of the movie looked extremely crisp. The amount of CGI used though is very apparent. If you hate CGI, this could very well do the opposite of what a masseur Is supposed to do. With the exception of a few scenes that will be giving you berserk 2016/17 flashbacks a lot of it hightens scenes that would feel very dull if otherwise hand drawn. The second half is nonstop action and we would probably never get to see this movie in our lifetimes if it didn’t have so much CGI. I won’t lie and say it’s on par with ufotable. As far as the animation goes there’s not many who can stand with them. There’s a reason why demon slayer is ranked so high.. as long as you aren’t as allergic to CGI as I am to pupas adaptation you’ll be good! Of course every part that’s hand drawn is beautiful asf, but that’s a given. The CGI scared me the most and I could live with most of it. Other times the PTSD was real.

The music is always voluptuous. That in and of itself explains it all. The only other thing that can be said is that Fly Me To The Moon now has a contender to sit right up there with it. A homage to all of us who were getting ready to sell organs to see the end of an era.

You don’t know it yet,but Gendo takes best dad of the century award. Misato is going to show you why even if she isn’t your best girl, you’re wrong, you need to rethink your choice and come to the conclusion she’s always been best girl. While simultaneously Mari and Asuka are going to lap dance what few braincells you’ll have left learning what they really are. Did I forget to mention you learn about Kaji, Toji, Kensuke and Hikari? My brain was already doing somersaults when it was confirmed Kaworu was best boy. As a true Eva degenerate I’ll gobble up anything Anno slaps his name on. Even if it’s a hot dumpster fire. Sometimes though, these dumpster fires turn into the most beautiful bonfires. Despite any flaws you will most definitely find it’s a genuine masterpiece. I expected no less than to feel like I witnessed the greatest end to Evangelion while also wanting to throw hands with the person next to me.

Contains some spoilers. (4/10 means I didn’t like it but it definitely isn’t bad. I thought it’s especially important to note for this review.)


Evangelion 3.0+1.0 (4.0) is difficult to completely hate. It's not amazing, yet possesses a given charm that makes it as irresistible as it is flawed. Well that is unless you’re one of those of ill-reputation intolerant OG Eva fans who recoil in apprehension at the sight of changes and unforgivingly deem a rebuild, of which serves a completely different purpose, already pointless from the get-go; or you somehow believe the anime is persuading you to touch grass and get pussies (unironically one ... of many stupid popular non sequiturs). No the rebuild isn’t unavailing, because it’s not some reciting remake to revisit for old time’s sake. It’s something that should not only be viewed with context, but also for what it is, and for what it’s worth. So instead of being annoyed by how your good ol’ themes are ostensibly being regurgitated but worse, let’s really try to be more objective here and look at what Anno REALLY wanted to communicate, and possibly where he succeeds and fails in doing so.

So why is it particularly difficult to hate 4.0? For starters, 4.0 is a glaringly personal work, and combining with the original Eva series and its 1997 sequel movie, it’s almost autobiographical for both Anno and the franchise itself. It’s really endearing in a way. The growth of Anno as a person and as an artist, not necessarily better but a growth in artistic philosophy is to be reckoned, is vivid. It isn’t concealing, if anything often a bit too blunt. Though I wouldn’t call the film 100% straightforward with its execution, it certainly is very frank with its emotions. An emotionally sincere movie is, after all, an honest attempt at reaching the audience, sans façade or snobbery. And that is, at the very least, a commendable effort. This directly reflects EoE’s approach, though the difference is black-and-white. You could say the 2 movies are of polar opposites despite their evident similarities. And this is key in understanding the rebuilds, as well as Anno as a changed man.

Since the majority of 4.0’s criticisms seem to stem from EoE's direct comparison, I think it's important to talk about EoE alongside. Now EoE isn’t an exceptionally well-structured film, nor is it a tonally firm one, nor does it have a very convincing narrative. But what matters is that some of the most prominent critiques I’ve seen directed at 4.0 is what EoE itself commits, and these detractors often love EoE. The plot is unnecessarily convoluted, basically neglecting some of the most important questions, and the structure makes it tonally unstable. EoE also outright refuses to give any reasonable payoffs to its supposed mystery, i.e. Adam and Lilith’s origins. Or truth is, it’s not that it didn’t really explain it, it sort of did but not in any proper manner. It doesn’t even seem to care about any of this at that point, which is... fair? Sure the movie’s focal is the characters’ psyches, hence a convoluted mess of an end product that shouldn't have made its other elements a cerebral exercise. And it's not that I’m intellectually handicapped or anything, the movie literally gives up on explaining any of this properly. It wasn’t being subtle, it just wanted to gloss over it. Unless you actively read on these to get some valid answers for yourself, this is simply something the movie chooses to do. It still makes sense, and yes you can even make sense of the disowned symbolism, but the neglectful approach is ultimately suboptimal. And yet many people agreed that it's for the better, so hey, if that’s the case then so is 4.0.

4.0 isn’t well laid-out either and seriously, the expositional info dumps make almost no sense whatsoever. The main thread that I seem to have a grasp of is its end goal of each event; everything else, from the perhaps allegorical/symbolic black moon to the “Pattern Blue! L-field is currently disgorging an infinite amount of Evangelions right out of its vaginal areas”, is all shit pulled right out of someone’s ass. Then again, I’m almost certain that in near future, there will be some 40-page journal article explaining every detail. But not that it matters, because this isn’t even what the film wants to convey, which only makes it all the more annoying. The stuffs that didn’t matter much are what you must work on the most. Sure it does complement the movie thematically, but like EoE, it probably boils down to very elemental concepts (such as of religious epiphany, or the death/ever-preeminent ‘existence’ of a greater being). For being a less-than-significant factor, it should be executed conceivably more unobtrusively to avoid striking as overbearing. And yet in both the rebuilds and the original, this was not the case. The series builds up its mystery around this, while 4.0 uses a large chunk of its runtime to explain, well, things. Which is why both of them annoy me, and I consider this to be an issue shared by the two films.

“4.0 is action-filled fan service trash.”
Can't say that's really a bad thing in itself. Even if it is for the thrill and less the philosophical rambling, that doesn’t mean it’s any cheaper. For the most part, the action is, I guess, alright. Breathtaking at times, and then you have some jarring CGI that somehow looks infinitely worse than 3.0. Maybe it was intentional for one or two instances (that one blatant 'unedited set' scene) but no, literally every scene with CGI looks awful. For a movie that has much to do with the action genre, it’s become a flaw. The soundtracks are great as standalones, but honestly the constant majesty of it does wear me out at some point. So there’s not much emphasis when it comes to the music, because the music directing isn’t super brilliant or anything. The choreography is fine. It does its job but other than that I don’t find much reason to adore it as much as EoE. But overall, I’d say it has some pretty high budget, especially for the meticulous and painstakingly gorgeous first act with breathtaking hand-drawn backgrounds and movements.

“The characters in 4.0 are worse than that of EoE. They aren’t as fleshed-out and some characters are worth as much as a couple of fan service.”
I will say this isn’t a completely confounding argument, but I generally disagree. Let’s get to the basics first. What constitutes a good character? It’s not that a more fleshed-out character is necessarily a better one. It’s not that suffering makes one more likable. It's not a prerequisite to have multiple episodes for the audience to get attached. Depth really isn’t so simple. But rudimentarily, characters are good when they serve the narrative well. An adventure film doesn’t need a tragic villain, and in some cases, that might even work against the narrative, especially tonally. Similarly, Evangelion doesn’t need Freudian psychoanalysis for it to be good. The narrative of the rebuild makes it quite apparent that that isn't the focal. 4.0 functions as a continuity of what had come before rather than a reiteration of the same idea. It is supposed to be an evolution. Shinji is still the center of the attention, however the rebuild leaves bread crumbs hinting small changes within him and what the people surrounding him means to him to eventually turn him into what he is in the end. And that is what 4.0 wants to focus on. Sure this might mean that some characters work more as archetypes to fulfill a development or theme, but that doesn’t mean it’s unequivocally worse.

For instance, to Shinji, Asuka is the love-hate relationship that's difficult to let go, though after a 14-year gap, they must both do so. It’s like Evangelion to Anno, a burden on his shoulder that he just has to set himself free from (the time-skip of the rebuild is 14 years after EoE as well, so some funny "coincidence" for you). But it’s not just a mental burden for a once depressed man, it is a work of passion and love from someone who's desperately honest in his arts. And he wants to confirm that, even back then, albeit engulfed in hatred and sadness, he really did love Eva anyway. Shinji loved Asuka too, and that’s what Asuka needs to hear, even if things cannot be reversed. Which is why Asuka is a subject of heavy fan service in this movie, because she desires to be seen as a woman by Shinji. And I’m not saying this really is the way to go about executing this, but I do think that’s the point. In their most vulnerable, naked self, instead of choking and continuing on hurting each other, they instead open up to finally move on, freeing themselves from their own shackles. The cloud of resentment has cleared after 14 years, and Anno can finally confess his love and gratitude to his very own creation, unlike the attitude we saw in EoE. And no, we didn’t get a full dive into literally every single insecurity there is in Asuka, but for what she is in this narrative, her character arc is sufficient. So it’s not so unmistakable to claim that EoE Asuka is decidedly better when the narratives are too fundamentally at odds with each other. Some characters, such as Rei in her previous appearances, definitely work as mere archetypes of Shinji’s own fantasy of being unconditionally loved. And I suppose I’m fine with that. I don’t need Rei to be so incredibly profound for the films to demonstrate its point, and I do think her characterization is at just the right amount.

Also, it seems that the perspective that 4.0 takes is often misunderstood (just like the unfairly hated prequel 3.0 but we’re not here to talk about that). There is a reason why 4.0 avoids the overly bleak scenario of the human psyche, and maintains a more balanced position. We all know every character in this film has insecurities and other personal issues, and the film doesn’t deny that. What the film denies, and this is the greatest divergence from the original, is that these characters aren’t all about insecurities and depression. A lot of them won’t cower in their own distress and anxiety, and instead choose to keep moving on. Certainly there are characters who can’t do this, or those who have yet to manage to do this. And for better or worse, this is definitely a more accurate representation of humanity, not from the lens of a depressed man, but from the lens of someone who understands human behaviors and treats it with greater objectivity. To me, this is where 4.0 exceeds EoE. EoE makes every single one of its characters so frustratingly psychologically similar, even if their issues aren’t. And in a way, it reflects Anno’s whilom view on humanity and human relationship, but that view is inherently of little worth because it’s so filled with dissatisfaction and misanthropy. I mean, sure the ending made up for it, but it definitely didn’t change its view on humans as a whole (who seemingly aren’t made up of good values, so EoE’s persuading people to appreciate one another for their true, vulnerable and selfish self instead of seeking what good traits they have). From how I see it, 4.0 has a point of view that I much prefer.

But let’s not get too content here. The characters’ interactions, dynamics, relationships and most importantly, roles in the narrative, all suffice their existence in the movie. But that doesn’t mean everything is nicely executed. Overall, I’d say character writing is generally fine, but the execution greatly fluctuates. Shinji’s selfless act of freeing everyone at the end comes across as good-guy-solving-everyone’s-problem; also probably a bit too out of character for such little time. It’s not that I think the progress didn’t make sense, at least writing-wise, but the execution was incredibly heavy-handed at times. The dialogues are sometimes so un-organic, like Rei asking a simple question “What do you think I should do?” to a random stranger to which she receives a baffling response “You’re yourself right? So you should do what you like?”. I mean I’m sure they have no idea what she thinks or believes at the time, so answering as if you’re spoon-feeding her with goodwill ideologies definitely makes it less engaging. Also, most of the dialogues are about things that you probably won’t and won’t need to understand, and there’s a lot of that. So I don’t think I enjoyed the script all that much.

And tonally, the movie seems to be incapable of settling on a certain one. And a ‘certain tone’ doesn’t bespeak an unchanging tone. Even with tone shifts, there should be a thread of consistency. The first few sequences aren’t bad, it gets things done by setting the film out to be action-filled. Then comes the first act, which reasonably gets slowed down significantly. But then, to balance out the first act and the bombastic and climatic third act, the second act needs to be extra heedful in order to make it work. Which it isn't. The second act is what you can call almost tonally nonexistent. It is supposed to build tension from peacefulness of its previous act, but it doesn’t take its time to do so. It is monotonous and forgettable, which worsens everything subsequently. It is arguably the most important segment to make the whole function work, but unfortunately it didn’t pull off. All things considered, the movie has a bad sense of tone, and everything following act 1 is cluttered events that make me almost lose all interest.

But, be that as it may, 4.0 is nigh beguiling, additionally for whatever befuddling emotions it has managed to evoke in me, I do think it is, to put it mildly, worth the time. And while 4.0 might not incorporate that dense esoteric cinematic language that would have Eva fans ejaculating uncontrollably, the movie definitely doesn’t treat the audience like some airhead adhd dumdum either. Being more contemplative (which EoE arguably isn’t), slower (not EoE) or more indecipherable doesn’t make a movie more intellectual, nor does it make its enjoyers any smarter. The cleverness, or even intelligence, of a movie doesn’t lie within that. For what it is, at least 4.0 sort of delivers. I’m sure my view on this movie will continue to change, but for now, I’m both disappointed and strangely satisfied. It has this bittersweet but unfalteringly buoyant finale that kind of hits the right spot for me, despite every stupid little thing happens before that. And I guess Anno once again has accomplished what he’s best at, dividing the anime community. This movie will enrage people, make people either screech in anger or feel inspired. It either touches your heart, or makes you hate positive Anno and beg him to become depressed again so that he can cook you some experimental art-house movie like in the early 2000s. Either way, it is quite a memorable experience, altogether frustrating, uplifting, disappointing and satisfying. And I’m sure this movie will be talked about for years in the future, for what it is and not just for being part of an already established legacy.

I know this is not the best score to give to such a praised piece of art, but here I am, telling you all just how I feel, and how the Rebuilds achieved Hideaki Anno's dream of turning Evangelion into just another generic mecha series.


We need to begin from Neon Genesis Evangelion.
An absolute masterpiece. Its animation style might be old, but it achieves to show SO MUCH in a spectacular way. It deals with profound topics and themes, like loneliness, depression and trauma in a fascinating world with the main idea of anti-escapism.
And Hideaki called it a generic Mecha show.
It's an exploration of the mind, ... a cry for help, and a showcase of humanity. We all know that and it is why it has survived to this day.

So then Hideaki makes The End of Evangelion, as revenge, trying to sabotage the ending, adding confusing and uncomfortable scenes... And it all just sent Eva into stardom. It is a fantastic ending that fits perfectly ALONGSIDE NGE's, resulting into a piece of art that can work as a source of hope for everyone who watches it.


The rebuilds are his second attempt, and sadly, he has achieved it.
The characters changed so much, what made them good in the first place is ruined by the time 3.33 ends. They are generic and stereotipical, with close to no development. ESPECIALLY Mari.
Evangelion LOSES its essence in the rebuilds, and truly becomes a generic mecha show, that is weird JUST BECAUSE it's called Evangelion.

Now, sure, the industry benefited from the Rebuilds. The redesigns of the angels truly make them seem Cosmical, and the battles turn out spectacularly. I would also be lying if I said I could live without Shirou Sagisu's soundtrack.
But its story ruins it.

SPOILERS FOR 3.0+1.0


I absolutely hate what this movie proposes.
It makes absolutely no sense, it turns out as completely unnecessary, and it ruins the original message of the first one.

I DESPISE the Idea of it all being a cycle.
It turns out as something absolutely DEPRESSING, because if you're someone who comes from NGE and The End, you know Shinji has moved on and accepted the fact that there will be pain. You know that The End is actually a happy one. But now, they tell us it is a cycle. Now NONE of that progress, None of that suffering matters. They will ALL forget it. And repeat, and repeat, and repeat.
A fate worse than death.

Neon Genesis Evangelion is NOT that.
The Rebuilds make me wish they were not canon.
Just watch NGE again instead.
It's much more worthwhile.

Hideaki Anno has completely ruined Neon Genesis Evangelion by utterly disregarding the fans hopes and expectations. It was such a long journey from the first movie in 2007 to this final movie in 2021 just to metaphorically slap all the fans in the face by this disaster of a film. The worst thing about this movie is the message they're sending out to every single fan of anime and that is "to grow up and move on with our lives." and specifically, moving on from anime and becoming a productive member of society. I vehemently despise that message. You never have to grow up if ... you don't want to. You can remain a child at heart forever and anyone who tells you otherwise is a hypocrite and a liar. There is a reason why people go on vacations or quit their jobs (or change jobs) and that reason is because nobody wants to work all the time. We all want to be happy and enjoy life without having to work our entire life away. Anyways, to conclude, I vehemently despise this movie (and it's message) and will not be watching anything else from Hideaki Anno. He has completely and utterly failed the fans and I am no longer a fan of Evangelion.

Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time is the culmination of the Rebuild series, and much like the other movies, it's pretty mediocre overall.

This movie spends too much of its runtime on CGI fight scenes with no discernable stakes and confusing goals hidden behind a veil of nonsensical esoteric lore that doesn't really matter to the overall theme of the movie. While yes, the original Eva was confusing as hell, the lore was just decoration, as the main appeal of the anime was the characters and their interactions and growth. This is the biggest problem with the movie (and its predecessor, 3.0): the character interactions ... are forgotten in favor of bombastic fight scenes that amount to very little, to the point that you forget you're watching actual characters and just give in to the absolute nonsense that are the bad CGI fights. It feels like a Transformers movie.

The pacing is also terrible, with one hour of barely anything happens before the plot kicks into motion. But at least that hour is full of interesting characters and actually visually beautiful scenes, and once the movie devolves into exaggerated, unnecessary fight scenes you quickly wish it went back to being meandering but charming. Ironically, the movie is at its best when it's just characters talking to each other, be it Rei, Misato, Gendo or Shinji. Kaworu and Kaji also get their time to shine, which feels good considering how poorly they were handled in places. I still don't understand why Mari is in this at all, though.

That said, the music is astounding and some of the characters get a very satisfying send-off at the very end, which I wasn't expecting. There are a few experimental / esoteric scenes that remind me of late Evangelion and EoE, and those are handled perfectly. Problem is, they're buried under a mountain of boring action scenes that feel like they don't belong in Evangelion.

“Part of the journey is the end”

For 25 long years, we have waited for a satisfactory conclusion to what I deem the greatest anime series of all time, Evangelion. It’s been equally criticised and praised for its existential themes and religious imagery. Each time we’ve got to supposedly “the end” of Evangelion, we’ve been left with more questions than answers. Finally, after two decades, Shin Eva provides the much needed conclusion to this masterpiece of a series and I am so glad I got to experience it.

The most difficult thing about ending an extremely popular franchise is writing a satisfactory ending that ties up ... all the loose ends. With Eva, I was cautiously optimistic just because of the sheer amount of plot threads that had been set up over the course of the TV anime, EoE and the rebuilds. It’s so easy to lose yourself in the sheer depth of Evangelion. I felt that Shin Eva addressed all of the major set ups we’ve got over 20 years and left me crying at the end. It’s hard to go into detail of said set ups without spoiling, but there have been several very popular theories floating around the community regarding the timeline in the series and the movie does a great job of addressing that finally. Asuka, who before this movie was probably my most hated anime character of all time, became very likeable to me. The main trio+Misato as well as side characters like Ritsuko, and Shinji’s childhood friends even get great endings. I think the movie makes excellent use of its long run time and fleshes out Rei and Asuka in ways we’ve never seen them before. As a Rei stan who’s dealt with years of people talking about how she has no personality, it was great to see her get more development in 30 minutes than in 25 years.

I think most of the criticisms levied at Shin Eva are due to people reading too much into things. At its core, Eva is about people dealing with trauma, how everyone copes differently and ultimately about letting go of the past and moving on. Life, while difficult, is equally as rewarding and joyous. Yes, some things were not explicitly addressed, but that’s because they didn’t need to be. They were ultimately not important to the message Anno wanted to convey. In fact, I would argue reading too deeply into Eva is the exact antithesis of what Anno wants. Just like you don’t always get the answers you want in life, but you have to move on. When Anno made the original anime, he was in a very dark place in life and the show reflected that. He is no longer that same person, just like we have grown as viewers. Different periods of your life come with different priorities.

The art and animation were as superb as you’d expect following a 12 year development cycle. The background art and key set pieces were simply beautiful. Khara managed to put together the best CG/3D animation scenes I have ever seen. Normally, I hate CG, but it was so well blended at times it would be impossible to differentiate between computer and hand drawn scenes. Voice acting is superb as you’d expect and the movie, despite being 2.5 hours is so well paced that you forget how much time is passed. Excellent job from the staff involved.

In the past few years, only two anime have given me that feeling of emptiness and sorrow at their conclusion. Violet Evergarden: The Movie, and Shin Evangelion are those two. Both left me with an existential feeling of loneliness. It’s like you’re sad and happy something is over at the same time. That feeling is why I fell in love with anime in the first place, and I am so glad to have that flame rekindled with this. I do truly think we’ve seen the end of Evangelion. I think any subsequent series would only ruin a perfect ending. We, along with Anno, have been able to grow and go from angsty young people to adults who can accept life for what it is. Full of ups and downs. As much as it pains me to say, “Sayonara subete no Evangelion”.

Shin Eva gets 10 pen pens out of 10.

This is currently rated higher than the original end of evangellion. If you ever wanted more proof the average MAL user has brain worms.

The rebuilds were built out of pure hatred Anno has for his audience. Imagine making an anime that is explicitly about how shit anime is. Every character in Eva is a direct refutation of all the shit tropes. Asuke is the red haired Tsundere. But in Eva it asks the question of how a person could become so unable to genuinley express themselves, it shows the pain and horror of being unable to show affection. Rei is the Kuudere and in ... the end she is just one of a trillion clones showing how shit the trope is. The point is Anno is showing the audience the horrible trappings of anime and aims to go beyond them, deconstruct them. And it was amazing. And then it ended in the greatest movie ever seen.

So then years past and noe Asuka and Rei are waifu icons with their faces plastered on fanta cans and pillows for weebs. All the depth is gone. His creation given to his fans and they wiped their asses with it. Seriously here is what he did.

First movie nothing changes, its literally just eva. An almost 1:1 remake. Yay fans got "more" eva but really we got nothing fans were left disspointed, seriosly go and check the review from 2007. Then the second one again gives the fans what they want Shinji mans up and changes the timeline he becomes a genrric shounen charcter. And it was grabage. Then in the third asuka isreduced to fanservice no trgaic backstory just here are some 14 uear old tits No complexity just a fuck you.

Then we have this movie which shits on the franchise even more. We literally have the iconic imagery shat upon with shitty CGI mecha fights. here you pigs eat your slop. You never got what I was saying so here are some robots hitting each other really hard oh and 20 shots of asuka with no top or pants. Every iconic moment is retread on to no effect just horrible CGI with nonsensical dialogue. Basically "here you are an idiot heres some bright coulours oh and buy some Mari merch while your at it".

I mean even "thrice upon a time" sounds like he is done. We have to end this shit 3 times PLUS one more time. Even Anno admits he wanted to do live action after eva but he got ropped in to this rebuild shit. Like why do you think it took almost Seven years for this to come out? Was he working on it the whole time? No. He literally made other movies the whole time. Only when Corona hit was he actually forced to sit down and finish it.

the shitty generic J-pop the never ending garbage dialogue "oh the l layer is negative 4 blah blah" they are not saying anything. He did what most fans wanted. He removed the meaning and instead we got robot fights pasted on top of the real scenes. The shounen fans can be happy. Shinji got a big titty GF. Everyone is happy.

in the beginning of 2018, i finished NGE and watched End of Evangelion for the first time.

it was the lowest point in my life. i was out of rehab for an amphetamine addiction, was recovering from a mental breakdown, my grandfather who i adored had just passed away, my father was deported and i had to relocate to a new state, my mother lost her job and now i live beneath the poverty line, i am thousands in debt, i was severely underweight, i had pneumonia that would ravage my body for over half a year, i had to drop out of college, the girl ... i'd fallen in love was someone i could never have.

i was done with everything at this point. jobless, schoolless, loveless. i burnt many bridges, lashed out at anyone around me who tried to help. i wanted it all to just end.

but Hideaki Anno dared me to love myself again.

End of Evangelion is a cathartic treatise on the human condition. many people cite it as a "depressing" movie, but thematically and emotionally, it's one of the most uplifting films i've ever seen. and seeing it when i felt like i was at the lowest point in my life, it felt like the film understood me better than i understood myself.

it's honestly the only film i can think of where i can confidently say it literally changed my life. my outlook on myself, the prospects of a better life, the very concept of a healing process, all of it crashed down on me in the last half of EoE and i was a mess of tears and snot for a good hour before i spilled my feelings in my review.

a LOT has changed since then.

i feel happier than i have in years. i have a woman who loves me, supports me, cares for me. i've made a career change into a role that i absolutely love with huge earnings potential. i'm healthy. my friends are healthy. i have an actual social life.

but i couldn't even be a fraction of how happy i am without that kick in the gut that i got in the beginning of 2018. sure, the road ahead was tough. sure, i still had depression in the coming two years, but it never got as dark as it could have if it wasn't for End of Evangelion looking straight into my soul, and challenging me to just keep walking. to just, keep living.

suicide attempts stopped after End of Evangelion. days wasted away where i would stare at the ceiling were gone. Anno told me that, impossibly, it was ok for me to love myself.

fast forward to now. i spent a good hour and a half sobbing, thinking of how far i've come, how much i owe to everyone who's helped me upon my feet along the way, how much i owe to Evangelion. it makes the central message of the film hit that much harder.

with this film Anno is telling me, and everyone else who's held the story of Evangelion so near and dear to them, is that our lives are the real story; Evangelion has always just been there to help write it.

if End of Evangelion dared us to consider loving ourselves again, Thrice Upon a Time dares us to learn to love each other again.

where else do we refuel the boundless hope for peace? where else do we find the drive to keep going? where else do we find the solace and the vision for a future to fight towards? it's through each other.

no man is an island, and Anno, in his medium-bending metanarrative, urges us to connect with each other. he challenges us to try and lower our AT Fields with one another, to remember the bonds that we so easily forget are there.

he thanks us for joining him on his artistic journey, has the characters we know and love find all the happiness they could possibly find, as if telling us "this story is over. the ending happened thrice upon a time, and now they've found that happily ever after. please, find yours."

the film actively acknowledges that there are people, LOTS of people out there who have found peace and hope through Evangelion, and now it pushes that even further, challenging us to internalize everything we've learned from this incredible saga and apply it to our own sagas. he takes the line between fiction and reality, and literally destroys it.

now it's up to us to to birth our own neon geneses. the fiction of Evangelion, through the lessons we've learned from this saga, becomes reality once we share it with those around us.

and the gospel is love.

life will go on. things will change. new rough patches will appear. a second impact may lead to a third, and then a fourth. but one thing is for certain: i will carry Evangelion with me for the rest of my life.

thank you for telling me that things are going to be okay, Anno-sensei.

thank you for daring me to finally be happy.

this film was not great

Story: 5/10

The story is the worst part, which sucks because it is the most important part.

It's unconnected nonsense, it doesn't explain, justify, or forecast the important things that happen.
This, unfortunately, means you (cannot) feel any anticipation or expectation (or have those expectations broken) as you watch the film because the things that happen happen as unexpectedly and reasonlessly as the things that don't happen.

They manifest a new (most important object imaginable) near the end as the means to do what they just said couldn't be done.
There is not a single person who after watching the movie could tell you how or ... why that happened. Because the movie doesn't actually care that it makes sense but uses enough big words and in-universe logic that you can't say that it doesn't make sense.

"Oh. I guess they can't do anything to solve this problem"
"Oh. I guess they just solved the problem because of something which they had all along but just didn't say anything about"

"Oh. I guess this person has to sacrifice themselves to accomplish this thing"
"Oh. I guess they survived anyways because this other thing which was introduced as it happened, happened"


Characters: 6/10

The story is a mess and it makes the characters a mess.
All relatability to Shinji is lost.
Rei isn't even rei because she has none of the personality or memories and gets the most screentime of anyone in the first 50 minutes and then disappears, and I couldn't even tell you why.
Asuka is good but the evolution of her relationship with Shinji is what we've already seen before, not even just within the evangelion franchise, but the rebuild series. Seeing her coldness and hate slowly building to warmth and understanding with Shinji and then completely forgotten so that it can be done again in the next movie is beyond annoying.


Sound: 9/10

The sound was good. The sound design hasn't changed much from the rest of the series. There are still clinks in place of grinding metal and echos on the skyscraper scale robot fights, but the new music is really good and fitting.

Art: 7/10

Evangelion does endings well because it does those reality-bending visuals really well. The excuses and reasons for why things look the way they are is loose, but it still looks cool.

Maybe the worst is that instead of 4 robot fights, we got two "robots spinning meaninglessly around in a red blank space firing giant guns that are supposedly hitting those tiny enemies in the background", one "giant ships crashing into each other as a means of combat" and then 1 robot fight at the very end

Enjoyment: 5/10

Overall: 6/10