Hige vs. Otaku

Evangelion is now, seemingly, a Tsurumaki vehicle. Or at least, a 21st Century GAINAX show rather than one of the 90s where Evangelion stood as the superlative example.

In principle this would be a good thing. Tsurumaki gave us FLCL and did a good, if very idiosyncratic job on Diebuster (aka Gunbuster 2). He’s becoming a sort of go-to guy when it comes to applying a modern spin on old GAINAX properties. He has enough personality to make them fresh and with a show like Eva, that even the tamest of anime fans have probably seen at least four times, this is important. Yet, Eva 2.0 felt very confused. Or as an old fan I did. Perhaps Diebuster is a good starting point to understand just where this second film is coming from because watching Eva 2.0 is how I imagine diehard fans of the original Gunbuster felt after seeing Diebuster. It’s very much a what is this I don’t even sensation peppered with cautious interest because of the sheer energy and verve witnessed onscreen.

So this is an Evangelion experience paired down to constituent parts, but not necessarily the constituent parts you’d expect. Very little of the psychology is given president. Nor, to my own chagrin, is much of the basic characterisation. Humour and action take much more of a central role with Eva 2.0 than invasive psychological analysis or weighty character development, and because of the breakneck pacing very little time is allowed to build the characters before Things Go Wrong, thus neutering the Serious Drama. If it held true to the humour and action and somehow geared the plot to avoid the harrowing moments that were so dependent on the drier, more staid elements then it might feel more successful. But no, it harkens back to those traumatic scenes with none of the buildup that made them so affective in the original.

The plot itself deviates mainly in how familiar events are ordered, and the introduction of Mari causes a slight disruption to expectations (though it’s no where near the level the hype/excitement suggests). As predictably fanboyish as this sounds, she probably embodies the film’s biggest failing. Not because she’s a bad character in and of herself, but because she’s a very thin GAINAX archetype in a show than sealed its reputation on completely exploding thin anime archetypes. I’m reserving judgment on the whole because Mari’s barely present here and when she is it’s all very enigmatic, but she didn’t offer much in the way of the vitality that many were expecting. I’m hoping the potential anarchy she could bring will get more attention in the third film, and judging by how Eva originally behaved with its characters, it’s penchant for dramatic u-turns, that’s a sensible approach to take. Like the character herself, the hint of disruption is there, lurking in the background jumping out in rather incongruous moments, but feels unimportant and superfluous at this stage. I’m sure GAINAX’s merchandising division would beg to differ but from a narrative standpoint I struggled to see the point of her inclusion. Time will tell.

One thing that feels genuinely contradictory to the ethos of these films – making them accessible to everyone etc. – is that I can’t imagine anyone getting this without having seen the original series. It feels lazy to say that but this film really is quite a shambles without extensive knowledge of the characters. The plot can do whatever it wants, and it certainly does with us reaching the Third Impact by the end of the film, but the genuine worth of Evangelion for me, the rise and fall of its characters, the disturbing, joyous, endearing insight into their minds, is very sparse and messy here. There are lots of illusions to character backstory – Asuka, for instance has a hand puppet baring eerie similarity to her mother’s, and Misato gets a shitey montage depicting her survival of the Second Impact – but it’s all so toothlessly underdeveloped. There’s not enough time to take stock on how these artifacts and memories created the people we see in front of us and it makes for a very bewildering experience.

So, get ready to dust off the zimmerframe and stamp it up and down in a rage because it’s time for the choleric fanboy conclusion. Studio Khara (GAINAX Veteran Retirement Village) have seemingly done the opposite of what they to set out to do here. Rather than give fans and new folk alike the distilled Evangelion experience, something everyone finds accessible and entertaining, they’ve given us something very fun and brisk that’s still mired in all the convoluted rubbish of the original series without its running time to give even the vaguest entry point for comprehension. I was lucky to see this film in a cinema – not so much because of the audio-visual experience, which is lovely, but because of the audience reaction. All the moments where we may’ve winced or sat in quiet dismay in the past are a truncated parody of themselves, deserving of the mock laughter they received. It’s a fantastic film in many superficial ways but very odd when considered in terms of what made Eva special. If there was one positive thing I took away from watching Eva 2.0, though, it’s that the subsequent films are guaranteed to be absolutely demented. By the way things are progressing (that being into batshit insanity) it feels like these films are very much Eva curios rather than a definitive experience. This isn’t a bad thing at all, just . . . tricky to consider.

I remember reading an interview with Hideki Anno in an early volume of the Evangelion manga a year or so after I’d seen the anime. In it he made the simple statement that Misato is the second protagonist of the show, and my hardcore fandom has yet to feel so vindicated. I sat there nodding like a fool, feeling smugly superior to all the Rei and Asuka fanboys who infuriated me online with their ignorance of Misato’s towering significance. At least the creator wasn’t completely preoccupied with a glorified sex puppet or some mouthy ginger bitch; at least Anno knew exactly who mattered in his show.

My love for Misato knows no bounds. She is completely fundamental to my Evangelion fanaticism. Rebuild: 01 loves her, too, and every new or improved scene acknowledges how essential she is to the show’s success. Her friendship with Risuko; her awkwardly maternal connection to Shinji; her fierce sense of duty. They’re all accounted for and accentuated in fantastically moving ways.

Specifically, there’s one scene that really hit me hard. Shinji, having almost died in a previous battle, is apprehensive to fight again. Misato, knowing there’s no other choice, takes Shinji to Central Dogma to see the crucified Lilith and explain his worth and that, most importantly, he is not alone. The camera frequently cuts away to the pair holding hands throughout their descent and in this final scene of encouragement it cuts away again to Misato’s hand tightening around Shinji’s after he accepts to fight ‘one more time’. His hand seems limp under her conviction yet he slowly reciprocates and the camera lingers on their hands firmly in one another’s grasp. The impact of this scene, its structure, the dignity and compassion it depicts, had me in tears.

Scenes like these validate Rebuild’s existence for me. It feels like Anno has taken all the brutally candid Misato-Shinji moments of End of Evangelion and transplanted their sensibility into these earlier events. It’s phenomenally successful and enough for me to ignore the overt cynicism Rebuild inspires as a concept. Everything else is adequate in its reproduction – this first film does little to rock the boat – but these minor bits of refinement make all the difference. If Hideki and chums can keep up their promise of ‘less wankery, more humanity’ and keep doing it like this then I will be satisfied.

I’d be a fool liar if I denied the simple pleasure I get from seeing everything so lushly animated. FLCL and Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo demonstrated that it verges on a hate crime not to animate Yoshiyuki Sadamoto’s character design to the highest possible standard, and Rebuild: 01 joins their ranks comfortably. Plus, the promise of original content in the next film does actually excite me. It suggests Anno has new things to say in his world and I’m inclined to listen when the man speaks. Whether this makes me a complete tool or not is unimportant. Kaworu is coming from the moon in a new Evangelion unit for Christ’s sake. The goddamn moon.

Volume eleven of the Evangelion manga tells the events of the first third or so of End of Evangelion, meaning the manga has decided to follow the film’s continuity rather than the controversial TV ending. Its key differences lie in the minutia rather than any catastrophic deviation from the canon. But it’s enough, as usual, to legitimise the manga next to its animated counter-part. These differences are mostly alternative methods of getting to the same point, and more often than not the manga actively neuters most of the disturbing aspects of the anime’s finale.

For example, Kaworu’s death doesn’t end with that dramatic splash of water, and Shinji doesn’t masturbate over a catatonic Asuka. In fact, in that particular scene, Asuka goes hysterical and attempts to choke Shinji (and rather bloody satisfying it is, too). But these modified moments don’t hamper the manga’s impact. Granted, they don’t systematically wear your emotional state to tatters – one of the many perverse pleasures of the film – but they fit perfectly with the approach the manga has been taking from the outset. Sadamoto has been subtly doing it his way since chapter one, and even at this pinnacle stage he honours the small but important changes he’s made.

In the manga Shinji has always been slightly stronger of will than the trembling wimp portrayed in the anime, and in these final moments his mental well-being is nowhere near the level of despondency as his film counterpart. The key reason for this, I think, is because manga Shinji’s relationship with Kaworu never developed the same intense connection (with Sadamoto implying that his Shinji thought Kaworu to be a bit of a smug twat) so his death didn’t drive Shinji to the same level of despair. This is refreshing in many ways, but it does a lot to undermine the subsequent events. Shinji’s apathy as SEELE descend on NERV for the final showdown just doesn’t have the same convincing sense of hopelessness as the film, and as a result we question why Shinji is refusing to fight when it was indisputable in EoE. The manga ends as the SEELE troops leave on their mission to assassinate the Children and I’m curious to see how Shinji reacts when they place a gun to his head. Perhaps he will beg for his life and Misato will save him earlier. I really can’t imagine it working in the same way as its source; it would undo much of the unique approach Sadamoto has been working on from the start.

This was a very readable volume and the manga remains the perfect compliment to the anime. Sadamoto’s art remains godlike and his reimagining of some key scenes holds all the dramatic poignancy of the anime while having enough personality to differentiate. My only wish now is that the manga’s conclusion depicts Instrumentality as a combination of the event of the film and the TV ending, and builds a bridge between to the two, finally laying to rest the intense schism they’ve caused in Eva fandom. I’m also very curious to see if Rebuild has any affect on the manga. I doubt it will, but Sadamoto has dragged this thing on long enough for it to be rather serendipitous. Perhaps he’ll continue it on to tell the events of the new films. How cheeky and irritating would that be?

Author: Yoshiyuki Sadamoto
Publisher: YOUNG Magazine
Source: Raw scan and translation by ‘M’

I could open with a prolonged gush about my love for Evangelion; the draft before this had a hundred word introduction doing just that until I realized I wasn’t saying anything that hadn’t been said before. Yep, I love Evangelion for exactly the same reasons you probably love Evangelion. No end of personal accounts could really differentiate my experience from anyone else’s, so lets just suffice to say that Evangelion is special.

So the question is: does the manga honour the show, or even compliment it? All the important boxes are ticked, most of which revolve around Yoshiyuki Sadamoto – mangaka and Gainax elite – and I’m inclined to say this one of the best anime to manga adaptations around (though I’d be the first to point out that the manga technically came first). More often than not Eva the manga has supplemented the anime with wholly relevant and interesting material. Granted, conversely, it could be said that Sadamoto has merely pandered to the otaku by giving us more Kaji and more Kaworu, but this is unfair. Each of these diversions from the original work has been solidly entertaining and enlightening stuff. It’s rarely felt like Sadamoto was deviating from the original – simply filling in the gaps, cutting away a lot of the chaff that dogged the anime (i.e. the monster-a-week format). There have been some fairly major differences in story-telling, with Gendou ingesting Adam in this Stage serving as an example of that, but ultimately these are irrelevant. Evangelion the manga is a worthy companion to its legendary sibling.

Stage 71 deals with the later part of the series – around episode 24 of the anime. Ritsuko has destroyed the dummy plug, Kaworu has received his orders from SEELE and Gendou is preparing for Instrumentality. Misato recounts the day of the Second Impact and Shinji gradually realises he has no one left. Consequently, this latter part gives rise to one of the most appealing aspects of the manga so far: Shinji’s massively different relationship with Kaworu. After Kaworu’s previous attempted advances (yes, those kind of advances) on Shinji he no longer considers Kaworu a friend and discards him appropriately. Rather than taking the ‘loved-lost’ approach of the anime Sadamoto seems to be playing the out-right isolation card for Shinji, suggesting a much more muted descent for the forthcoming Instrumentality. I genuinely respect Sadamoto for taking this route; it partly addresses much of the controversy over Shinji and Kaworu’s relationship and spins it on its head while making a clear, definite break from the anime. These subtle (and no-so-subtle) breaks from the original are what make Evangelion’s manga such essential reading for Eva fans.

And then there’s the artwork. I’ll admit it outright: Sadamoto is my Art God. Evangelion, FLCL (especially FLCL), the .hack series. The man is at the top of his game. And his seminal manga effort never, never disappoints. Even if it was substandard story-wise, which it clearly isn’t, his artwork could carry it beyond most other work of this kind. The sequential order is lucid and expressive; the character design moreso, and the composition of each panel is simply clear and beautifully rendered. I still kick myself for not buying Der Mond, Sadamoto’s artbook, when Viz still published it. If I had the £140 it seems to go for these days I’d buy it in a minute. The man just inspires verbose fanboy love like few others.

So apart from the appalling wait between each chapter, this is fantastic stuff. The closer we edge to the final moments the more I keenly anticipate Sadamoto’s take on Instrumentality. Will it be a gratuitous mindfuck of End of Evangelion proportions, or a considered abstract Eva TV approach? Regardless, it promises to be breathtaking. Only another three or four months until the next Stage, eh?