If you’re my age, and you go on the internet a lot, you might have heard of this underground gem called “Neon Genesis Evangelion”. It’s considered unapproachable and hard to understand, truly the final boss of any fan of Japanimation. Thankfully, the director, Anno Hideaki realized this and tried to make a more accessible version for modern audiences. So instead of “Neon Genesis Evangelion”, “Death(true)^2”, and “End of Evangelion” we now have the much more easy to understand “Evangelion New Theatrical Edition 1.11,” “2.22”, and “3.33” followed by “Shin Evangelion 3.0+1.01”. The original is, I’m told, gratingly paced and ableist to people with attention deficit disorder by not cutting to the chase faster and having long complicated scenes of dialogue without fighting. So it’s nice to see the director try and improve himself.
However, one thing I noticed was the deeply problematic prevalence of Judeo-Christian apocalyptic symbolism. For a series that is trying to be inclusive, what’s with all the crosses and geometrical shapes? It makes me wince, to be honest.
Where’s the Buddha? Where’s Mohammad? What about atheists, how are they supposed to enjoy the show? Who am I supposed to identify with through all of this? Shinji is a cis male, and for a person of color he is super whitewashed, Kaworu and Rei aren’t even human, Asuka also turns out to be a clone and an angel so that’s out the window plus she’s white and German and disparages Japanese culture with verbal micro-aggressions multiple times.
The movies are genius when it comes to accessibility and abandoning the old ways with their tell-don’t-show approach to storytelling, but I wish they were as progressive with literally any other aspect of the movie.
Overall, I give it an 8/10
um… hideaki anno is LITERALLY neurodivergent can you PLEASE not dogpile him like this
I farted and shitted and cummed when Asuka shoved food down Shinji’s throat, thank you Anno very cool.