Review: "Neon Genesis Evangelion" remains a beautiful, frustrating nightmare

There is a distinct line in the history of anime: before Evangelion, and after Evangelion. Released in 1995, Hideaki Anno’s magnum opus initially masquerades as a standard "monster-of-the-week" mecha show, following 14-year-old Shinji Ikari as he is forced by his abusive, emotionally distant father to pilot a giant robot to fight alien beings called Angels. For the first half, it is a brilliantly directed, thrilling action series. But around episode 16, Anno’s own real-life battle with severe clinical depression bleeds directly into the script, and the show descends into an agonizing, surreal psychological horror.

The genius of Evangelion is how it weaponizes its own genre tropes. The teenager in the cockpit isn't a hot-blooded hero; he is a terrified, traumatized kid having panic attacks because the adults in his life are fundamentally broken people. Asuka’s aggressive tsundere personality is revealed to be a fragile coping mechanism for extreme abandonment issues, and Misato’s cool-older-sister vibe masks a deeply self-destructive alcoholism. The animation, heavily constrained by a collapsing budget, shifts from fluid action to avant-garde, minimalist imagery, utilizing long, uncomfortable static shots that force the viewer to sit in the awkward silence.

For all its brilliance, Evangelion is incredibly frustrating. The religious symbolism (crosses, biblical names) is largely there just to look cool, tricking generations of fans into over-analyzing meaningless plot points. The original TV ending is notoriously incomprehensible, taking place entirely inside the characters' minds, which forced the studio to release The End of Evangelion movie just to give fans a "real" (and deeply apocalyptic) conclusion. It is a messy, pretentious, and flawed masterpiece, but its emotional rawness makes it absolutely essential viewing.