Evangelion: Death and Rebirth
Introduction
The Evangelion Movie Review -- March 30, 1997
*** Spoilers Lay Await Inside ***
Anime movies come and go with some frequency in Japan, although they
seem to be a little more common in the Winter of 1997. Usually, when an
anime movie tours Japan, it stays in any given theater for 2-3 weeks,
and is played in the matinee slot in the mornings on the weekends.
Most movies cost 1800 yen (120 yen = $1, March, 1997), although you can
get coupons for 200 yen off. For this reason, I don't normally watch
movies in the theater. The cost of the ticket also contributes to my
impression of the movie -- "Was this flick worth the cost to just get in
to see it?" The Anime Fests (one each winter, and one each
summer) attract mostly young children. I have no idea who will come to
see Dog of Flanders, which has been remade using LOTS of high
quality animation and detailed backgrounds. Most of the people watching
Death and Rebirth were college boys, with a few college girls,
and some older adults in attendance.
The amount of paraphenalia available at the counter changes radically
from movie to movie. During the Anime Fests, there's all kinds of stuff
(pencil boards, stickers, notebooks, souvineers, etc.) For Death and
Rebirth, the choice was limited to two different program books (one
for 500 yen, the other was 1000 yen.)
Anyway, the trailers shown at the beginning were primarily ads for
various fantasy role playing games. Then, there were announcements for
the 1997 Summer Anime fest, which will consist of 3 short films again.
This time, they will be: Jigoku Sensei Nuubee, Cutey Honey
Flash, and Gegege no Kitaro. (No details as to what the
stories will be, though.)
After the trailers, there was a short comic flick, and then the main
feature.
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The short comic flick is something called Lunar. It is a VERY
silly dungeon and dragons parody, involving 2 girls, a boy, and a cat
that are on a quest to save a lot of townspeople from Men Face.
Men Face is an evil leader, with a six-foot tall face, and a tiny little
body. His only assistant is a whip-wielding S&M queen. And, there is a
super-strong tiger that works as their minion, but he ends up causing
more problems than not.
Of the three heroes, one of the girls -- a witch -- is allergic to cats.
So of course, the cat spends most of the time riding on her back. The
heroes go into a deep cavern, and confront Men Face -- who is also
allergic to cats. The villain threatens to lower the captured
townspeople into a molten lava pit. The heroes are in a pinch, until
the cat turns into a silver dragon, and loans some of its power to the
heroes. Men Face decides that now would be a good time to go home
early, so the S&M queen and the tiger take all of the damage in the
resulting battle. The heroes are so happy with their new powers, that
they completely forget about the townspeople that are currently being
lowered into the lava, and turn around to return home.
Lunar is a very funny, silly, short film (5-10 minutes.) Well
worth watching, even though the artwork and character designs are pretty
primative.
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|
Evangelion
|
Death and Rebirth
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Approx. 60 Minutes
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Note: I received an e-mail from "icie" <leung_isaac@hotmail.com>
correcting some of my mistakes. I've inserted his comments within the body
of the following review.
Some of the EVA prototype test pilots are:
- Shinji Ikari
- Misato Katsuragi
- Rei Ayanami
- Shigeru Aoba
No. its just Shinji Ikari, Rei Ayanami, and Asuka
Langley Sohryu. Later pilots include Touji (EVA-03) and Kaoru (Angel). No one
else.
Your names are all spelled wrong. Douji is Touji, Osuca is
Asuka (see above). Misato is just the commander (mentor of the pilots. Shigeru
is a very minor character...he's one of the operative personnel for NERV).
To learn more about these, and other Evangelion characters, I suggest
that you visit one of the many web sites dedicated to this series,
starting from the
Anime Web Turnpike.
The first half, entitled Death, is just a combination of short
cuts taken from the TV series and earlier OAVS. It's really hard to
follow, since I don't know the story and many of the cuts go by too
fast. However, the cuts are all held together by a very simple concept.
Shinji walks into a dark gym, sits down, and starts playing a cello.
(The music for all four pieces are all old classical compositions. If I
remember correctly, there is a cello, viola, violin, and one other
instrument.) What follows is basically a montage of anime sequences
that tells a little bit of Shinji's story. Later, he is joined in the
gym by Osuca Ranguree (the redhead whose mother had committed suicide)
who plays a different instrument, and we get some of her story. Later
still, Rei (the clone) comes into the gym, and we get her story.
Finally, Douji (the bully) comes in to play the violin.
Touji does not enter the gym. As seen later, he is
sitting outside. Kaoru enters, not Touji (Douji).
Through a series of flashbacks, cuts, and other cinematic tricks, we
learn a little more about Nerv; Shinji's attraction towards Rei; Osuca's
horror, buried ever since she'd discovered her dead mother's body;
something about the "Angels"; and the fact that Gendou -- the old man
that runs Nerv -- is a real bastard. At the culmination of all this is:
Douji and Kaoru are both dead; Shinji is an emotional wreck that just
wants to die and end it all; Osuca is lying at the bottom of the main
lake in her EVA in a coma; Rei is the same as always, but she's
disappeared from sight (she's in the cloning room, where all of the
corpses of her other selves are still floating in the tank.)
Gendou is Shinji's father.
All four EVA pilots stop playing music and leave the gym (thus wrapping
up Death.)
I thought Death (depending on which version you saw)
ended with a flashback of Shinji killing Kaoru.
(The first half lasts about 30 minutes.)
The second half, Rebirth, is basically straight combat as an
outside human army -- the JSDDF -- infiltrates Nerv and makes its way to
the command headquarters. The JSDDF is merciless, and takes no
prisoners. They find Shinji huddled under some stairs and are about to
shoot him in the head. Misato rescues Shinji, but he'd rather just die.
Misato pours him into her car, and drives away (probably to an EVA
silo.) Gendou leaves his post, telling Makoto and Shigeru to defend the
computers while he's gone. (Up until this point, Nerv has been fighting
aliens. Now, they are fighting other humans, and they don't like it at
all.)
Makoto and Shigeru do a lot of shooting, but it looks like a lost cause,
and that the EVA command center is going to be overrun. The other
console operator -- Maya -- hates guns, and hides under her console in
fear. Just about everyone else is dead. Gendou finds Rei, and tells
her its time to "fulfill her promise." (Ritsuko had gone into the
conduit tunnels sometime earlier, and hacked into a different computer
access line, and has caused the three "Magi" -- Melichor 1, Balthasar 2,
and Casper 3 to wake up (or at least become more active).
Finally, the JSDDF starts dropping BIG bombs onto the NERV HQ, and into
the Lake where Osuka is battling her own personal demons. She keeps
remembering all of the bad things that had happened to her after her
mother had hung herself. Eventually, Osuka starts yelling that she
wants to live, and wakes up to find herself under attack. Osuka's EVA
becomes active, and she gleefully starts wiping out JSDDF's attack
craft. Seele recognizes that something's going on with Osuka, and they
send out 9 missiles that turn into fat white attack gliders. The
gliders just circle the Lake in the air above Osuka.
At the end, Osuka is consumed in bloodlust; the gliders just glide above
the lake; Rei seems ready to do "something"; and Shinji is still curled
up into a ball in the car, but seems to have perked up a bit on hearing
that Osuka is still alive.
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Personally, I'm now a little more interested in learning about Evangelion
than I was before (I'd seen some of the TV episodes, and didn't care for
it.) I like some of the psychological elements of the story. But,
there's a LOT of reused animation, and in several places, Gainax padded
out certain scenes to make them WAY TOO LONG (either holding on a still
picture while the voice actors talk for several minutes, or looping the
same cuts over and over 6 to 10 times.) But, the closing theme music is
good, and I like some of the ideas in this story (the concept of giant
robots attacking each other with daggers is too stupid for me,
though.)
I like some of the animation, and the character designs can be pretty
good occasionally. But, I paid 1800 yen to watch this film, and I don't
think it's worth the $16 to see it in a theater. (I was lured into the
theater by the barrage of advertising for it.)
For fans of the series, Death and Rebirth is a must have on video tape,
simply because it does advance the storyline a little bit. (That, and
Rei's nipples look REALLY cute... ;) ) Don't expect this movie to come
out on tape for several months, though.
If you haven't visited the Gainax website lately, you might want to do
it soon. I can't say for certain, but there's probably some coverage of
this movie there, with .gif stills.
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Revision History
- 03/31/95: Created this file.
People who helped me on these files:
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You can contact me at: riemann96@yahoo.com
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