Post apocoliptic. I’ll take some of that.
OK. So when Gamin wrote his bit about loving the post apocalypse in all of its glory and lack thereof i had to think a bit. I kinda like the genre, but i’m not sure i’m too passionate about it. I couldn’t write about any movies that i particualy loved. There are some neat ones to be sure… but how devoted am i to any of them? At the time i had to say little to none. Naturally though, i was forgetting something, and it took me till now to realize it. I was forgetting anime.
How could i forget anime and what prompted me to remember it(you almost certainly are asking yourself)? The dvd of the new Evangelion movie was just released and promptly subbed by a rabid Evangelion fanboy fanbase. Honestly i was caught of guard by this. I had no idea anything new was happening to the Evangelion series but i am a fan so i watched it, preparing for some horrible sequel or some other abomination. I was even more disappointed when i realized that it was just the original series reedited… but then i realized something else. ALL of the animation was completely redone and CG elements were inserted into practically everything. It started to dawn on me how beautifully done everything was an i got hooked all over again. HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS? Then i realized i did know about this. I heard about it about a year ago and dismissed it, thinking ‘oh great, now it isn’t just George Lucas redoing his stuff, its all my favorite animes too’. Well… now i realize how much of an idiot it was, because the new Evangelion is spectacular.
I guess i should give all of the uninitiated an idea of what the series is about. In order to do that i have to jump back years ago to me hanging out with Gamin and watching random stuff. We popped in Neon Genesis Evangelion wondering what we were in for. The title is really something after all. Hmm…Neon…Vegasish maybee?… Genesis…Music group or bible reference?… Evangelion…well thats just standard anime word BS. Nothing new there. The box art looked good though so i was sold from the beginning. I am a sucker for good artwork after all. The show followed a young kid that was showing up in post apocalyptic Tokyo just in time for a huge monster to attack it(no it isn’t just a Godzilla ripoff). Thing was, Evangelion really shined in its ability to put you in the character’s shoes as he tried to deal with the reasons he was summoned to Tokyo while trying to get the attention of his parentally absent father. Big jump huh? Godzilla to psychological drama. Well oddly enough it wasn’t a big jump. It was damn near perfect. It was hardly noticeable that the main character had been put into the ludicrous situation of fighting off the creature In a giant robot looking thing. But thats when the series got really good. The end of the first episode the kid manages to summons up confidence in himself and defeat the monster easi… well… Ok. So the kid fails horribly and gets his ass kicked. Like majorly kicked. He trips the giant robot and falls right into the clutches of the monster who promtly rips the robot thing’s arm off then delivers a killing blow to the head. All of this leaves the main character in pain and near death because his brain is hooked up to the thing. How that ends up saving the day, you have to see for yourself, but i think both Gamin and I were stunned. The kid failed? WHAT? It was a spark of realism that we weren’t expecting from the series, or from anime in general. I was fatally hooked.
So here i am now, geeking out over them remaking this thing. They are making a series of four movies that retell the story of the anime, as well as putting in some stuff the comic series had, from what i can tell. Good thing too, cause the TV series had one of the shitiest endings of all anime. They eventually fixed it with a couple of movies to properly finish the series… but i digress. If i get all serious about reviewing the new movie i have to admit that the story isn’t told as masterfully as the a original series did. They wanted to cover a lot of ground and only had a couple hours to do it. It’s hard to compete with the amount of time a tv series can take to flesh out characters etc. But still, its done very well considering. AND THE VISUALS! The originals series had really great animation and beautiful settings, but it was just before computer animation was anywhere near cost effective. This time around everything is digitally done with crisp clean colors and lines, as well as even more beautifully rendered backgrounds(aided by cg). It is visually badass.
What it all comes down to is this. If you have never seen anything of Evangelion, check this out. If you have seen Evangelion, check this out. For now i have to say that the original series had a bit better story, but the next installment might blow that out idea out of the water. i’ll have to get back to you all about that when i get a peek at the next one.
For more anime post apocalyptic fun, check out Akira (manga if you can), and Appleseed(manga, 90’s anime movie, then new movies). I might write about more obscure ones at some later point.
Later peeps-
- The j suN
Ah yes I remember us renting this at blockbuster I believe. I remember finding the fact that they had to actually use a gigantic size power cord to power the “mech” very intreging(it actually added to the plot) since up until then power sources were just assumed to come from “future technology”.
I would definately be interested in checking this out. A word of warning though in regards to the original anime. The english dub has some really annoying voices(which is a shame cause some of the others are quite good). If you can muscle through the annoying ones it’s not too bad, but just something to consider.