Customer Reviews

Neon Genesis Evangelion - Perfect Collection

5 star:		(203)
4 star:		(39)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(19)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

I have reviewed all the individual DVD's in this series, so this won't be a review that focuses on plot details. Whether you like it or hate it, there is no denying that Evangelion looms large in any investigation of anime as an art form. In truth, there is very little to dislike, but director Hideaki Anno has put so much into it that the story is prone to take sudden changes in direction. Usually right after the viewers think that they have everything figured out. This is intentional, but sometimes it is a source of temporary discontent.

Put simply this is the story of three fourteen year old children - Shinji Ikari, Rei Ayanami, and Asuka Langley - who have been bred to be able to merge with giant bioengineered creatures called Evangelions, EVA's for short. Their task is to protect a post apocalypse world from the invasions of giant angels. These are creatures much like the EVA's, whose agenda is not completely clear. Of course, the truth is that this is perhaps 30% of the story, which is a combination of psychodrama, metaphysical mystery play, and an investigation into the potential of the human race. In fact, nothing is ever exactly what it seems.

As an example of the many layers to the story, there is a tremendous amount of Judeo-Christian symbolism worked into the story. The Sephiroth, the Kabalah's tree of life, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Lance of Longinus, and cruciform images abound. All of this adds up to an impending sense of apocalypse, but the truth us far stranger. Hideaki Anno has intentionally used this symbolism to create an atmosphere that is 'mysterious' to his Japanese audiences. Yet there is a whole other spiritual layer that is uniquely Japanese, drawing deeply from the Kojiki, an ancient creation legend. This is something many non-Japanese viewers will miss.

This is one of many cases of the subtle undercurrents that make this series far more than an action oriented mecha story. Characters are complex, and develop rather than stay single sided. Anno's artistic control creates a visual layering that is just as right as the ploy. Careful attention to details will reward the viewer with all manner of hints and indicators of what is to come and what is happening. All production values are excellent and Anno shows he is willing to take real creative risks in his efforts to communicate.

Of course, if you are considering buying the series, this collection really is the only sensible way to buy it. Despite the alarming price ticket, it is still much better priced than the one at a time charge. Whether you buy, rent, or borrow, this is one of the anime series that must be seen. You will not be disappointed.

For the record, I am not a huge fan of Anime. Maybe I am looking in the wrong places, but everytime I start to watch a series it ends up as mindless action or mindless comedy. I've only seen 2 that can truly be called intellectual. Serial Experiment: Lain was one. Neon Genesis Evangelion is the other.
I cannot say enough good about this series. It it quite simply the best piece of work to ever have been broadcast. Anywhere. Nothing to come out of America, nothing to come out of Japan, nothing anywhere can meet the sheer brilliance of the 26 episodes of this most disturbing, heartwarming, and beautiful anime.
Evangelion starts out simply enough. Ikari Shinji is a 14-year old boy who gets called upon to pilot a giant mecha, called an Evangelion. He, Rei, and Asuka are the three children that have the ability to pilot these machines. Simple enough, right? The first 3/4's of the series deals with the relationship between these 3 and the various leaders of NERV, the organization they work with. It is highly entertaining, beautifully drawn, and very engaging. Alot of the middle episodes are very light hearted, and nothing too fantastic, but enjoyable in their own right.
It is in the last quater of the series that it becomes brilliant. Shinji, Asuka, Rei, and Misato (one of the leaders of NERV) become very introspective. By this point their back stories and personalities are developed beyond any rational expectation. I don't want to spoil the moving experience of this anime, but let me just say that it is incredibly philosophical, psychological, and depressing.
Oh, and for the love of all that is holy, DO NOT listen to anyone who tells you not to watch the last 2 episodes. They are, simply put, fools. The last 2 episodes are jarring, disturbing and very hard to watch. They do not give perfect closer to the whole series (don't worry Plot [enthusiasts], End of Evangelion, due out in September ties up all the loose ends). But they made the series for me. You have to see it to believe it and I am not going to spoil it by saying anything more. Just trust that it is simply breathtaking...

What can I say that hasn't been said about the Evangelion series? I'll spare you the rant and just tell you about the dvd collection. First of all, I really dislike ADV Films, and one of the main reasons is for what this set could have been if they had only spent a little more money. Gainax, the studio that created eva, gave ADV films the chance to get the digital masters of the series complete with the directors cuts of episodes 21-24 (the directors cuts were extra footage added into episodes 21-24 when the box set was released in Japan), but instead they opted(more than likely to save money) to just buy the rights to what was broadcasted on television. They didn't even do the transfer right as the picture in some points in the series was very jumpy(they somewhat coorected this later on, and in the box set there was a very noticible fix on DVD 1). Then they claim that DVD 1 was "re-mastered", and by re-mastered they mean they fixed the spine to match up with the other ones and got rid of the annoying layover which they never should have put in to begin with. Finally, the fact that the series spawns 8 discs just shows where their main concern is, their pocketbook. Bandai has released many great 26 show anime series on a mere 6 discs(not to mention with many more extras and much better production quality). Overall, I still recommend you pick up this great series at a VERY reasonable(thank you amazon.com) price! Just write letters to ADV! (And by the way, appearently I'm not the only one ADV is upsetting, GAINAX recently cut all ties with them, so no more ADV distributed GAINAX anime! Hooray!)

With "Evangelion", anime fans seem to be split into two camps--those who really, really like it, and those who don't. (An apparently small but occasionally vocal minority.) Many of the reviews here (I can't say most, since frankly I haven't read all 228 evaluations of this item) seem to be from the former group. I'm here to present a dissenting, though hopefully level-headed, opinion.

The series starts out with a lot of promise. A potentially very interesting plot and cast of characters, boosted by some very intriguing foreshadowing. Unfortnately, this holding of the proverbial carrot in front of viewers' noses goes on for the entire first half of the series, with far more questions than answers being dispensed. In the second half of the series, the story itself begins to short-circuit--ANNO Hideaki, the director, wrote this more or less as it came to him, and it shows in the way that the actual plot never quite comes together. (The last time I watched this series, I tried very, very hard to make sense of all the divergent plot points we're given, and although in several episodes everything comes really close to making complete sense, it ultimately dissolves again each time. The only thought I have on this is that Anno himself didn't really know what was going on while he created the series, and it hurt the plot badly.)

While the comprehensibility quotient of the story goes down during the series' second half, the strange symbolism quotient rockets up, compounding the issue severely. This is really the deciding factor: many fans seem to love the apparently random barrage of symbolism (which in an interview, Tsurumaki, the co-director, admitted was largely a meaningless lark), and mind-boggling amounts of literature has been written about this show. (It also plays this symbolism very straight and serious, which makes occasionally feels odd.) If you're the kind of person who is okay with that, or even enjoys it, then by all means, buy this show. If you're like me--someone who doesn't really appreciate symbolism where the creators didn't seem to have any intentions at all and it's up to viewer to impart any meaning at all to it--you may want to be careful.

As an aside, I also don't feel that the characters are advanced at all over the course of the series. I think the manga remedies this immensely and recommend trying Sadamoto Yoshiyuki's ambitious reinterpretation of the series even if you didn't like the show. That said, Eva is also home to some very impressive mecha battles--the climax of episode 24 is, in my opinion, one of the most thrilling battle sequences to come along in quite a while.

Nonetheless, I urge everyone to see this show at least once, whether you buy it or borrow it from a friend. Why? Well, whatever you or I may think of "Evangelion", it is inarguably one of the most influential anime shows of its era--I can't bring to mind another series that has been more widely or more passionately discussed and debated by this generation of fans. If you are an anime enthusiast, it beehoves you to see this show if for no reason other than to know what people are talking about with it and so you can know where you stand when the issue comes up.

I'm hard-pressed to say that "Evangelion" is an unequivocally bad show, because it does have good points. But amidst all the fan-love usually directed at this series, newcomers may want to take it with a grain of salt.

This is a 26 episode series on 8 DVDs. It revolves on the workers of a Secret Organization known as Nerv, in an apocalyptic age, that protect the Earth from surreal invaders known as Angels. In this story Nerv develops bio-machine robots that 3 children operate to defeat the 17 Angels that come to Earth, based on the prophecies in the Dead Sea Scrolls. It starts out simple enough, kill one Angel move to the next etc etc. But each new Angel is more harder to kill, and not everything at Nerv is as it seems.

This series presents many religious and philosophical questions, dealing with God, Man, his place in the world, and explores many psychological issues of modern man. It goes into an in depth look into its characters, what makes them who they are, why they are, why do they do things, what purpose do they serve, what is the meaning of their lives, and how to improve their lives and find happiness. The dialogue and questions raised can be debated many times. This is just the themes, and ideas being presented, I haven't even mentioned the intriguing story that unravels as you get further and further into the series. There is a lot of conspiracy and secrets, and things that are not as they seem. I won't spoil it here and give any of the secrets away, that would not be fair. If you enjoy Anime that makes you think, and that you can come back to, and analyze and go over many times, this is for you. The animation, battle sequences, music, all add to the quality of the story, themes, questions, and answers brought out in this series. This is a great piece of art that rewards upon multiple viewings. Bring your friends, watch, and when its all over, you'll have lots of things to talk about. 5 stars. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Neon Genesis Evangelion is a must-have for the true otaku.
The story revolves around Shinji Ikari, an insecure 14-year old boy who is chosen to pilot a living weapon known as Evangelion to save the world from the mysterious beings known as Angels.

Shinji is not alone in this endeavor. Fellow pilots Asuka Sohryu and Rei Ayanami battle alongside him, trying to save humanity from a relentless menace.
But each of these pilots holds secret pains and sorrows deep inside that could jeapordize the mission and endanger the world. For Shinji, it is the hidden memory of his mother's death and the sinister secret hidden by his estranged father.
For Asuka, it is the memory of seeing her mother driven slowly insane and abandoning her before committing suicide.
And Rei holds the final secret, the answer to the Evangelions, the Angels, and the Fate of the world.

If the Evangelions are defeated, humanity will be destroyed. Should the Evangelions prove successful, then the world as we know it will cease to exist.

All hope rests on the shoulders of these three children, and the machinations of Shinji's estranged father, who just might be the Devil himself.

Animation that's top notch, with a superb cast in both the Japanese and English language tracks. The story is exciting and engaging, with a controversial and surreal ending that will keep you guessing long after it's over. A series that has spawned countless imitators.

Evangelion does have some nudity and adult themes, and it requires the viewer to have an ability to reason things out as the clues to mankind's destiny are laid out slowly over the episodes.
But this is one of the finest series out there. Definitely on my must own list.

...I started watching EVA sometime in 1997. I had seen a few of the tapes on the shelf at Suncoast, I think there were four or five volumes (each containing two episodes) available when I first noticed them. I knew nothing about about the show, I suppose I thought the title alone was intriguing. But not to the point where I was just going to buy it cold. It was around this time that I asked someone who was more hardcore about anime than I was if there was anything new I should check out. He told me to watch Neon Genesis Evangelion. That was how I came to start watching it. There was no hype, no controversy at the time. I'm thankful for this, I think these things tend to have a very negative effect on people who get into a series later, when it's weighed down with so much baggage.

I enjoyed the first few volumes a lot. It seemed to have it all: action, drama, comedy, great art direction, excellent script, and overall high production value. But somewhere after the middle, the series took a HARD left turn into some majorly complex psychological and philosophical territory. It really threw me for a loop, at first. But I knew that this was easily the richest, heaviest anime I'd ever seen. My respect for the series increased ten fold. Then I saw the last two episodes, and I just didn't know what to think. The ending was pretty disappointing, that's all I can say. And I'm a little suspect of anyone who claims that they weren't disappointed in the ending. Then, well over a year after finishing the series, I was finally able to get my hands on a fansub copy of the theatrical movie "End of Evangelion," which is more or less an alternate to the original TV series ending. To this day I still consider EoE to be the one greatest work of anime that I've ever seen. Furthermore, it made the TV series ending easier to take, and I was able to appreciate it more that I had originally.

All I really want to say is please, PLEASE disregard anyone who tells you that it starts out good and then "just gets weird" or "loses focus" etc. These are very shallow and dismissive views. I know fawning, closed minded fanboys are annoying, but I think it's a fact that there is a LOT going on this series, it's up to the viewer to appreciate it if they can. It's worth your time.

I missed the entire TV broadcast of this series and the debate that ensued mainly because I was in the United States during that time period. When I came back to Japan in the spring of 1999, Neon Genesis Evangelion was already a thing of the past, and everyone was talking about the Princess Mononoke by Miyazaki Hayao.
I have just recently seen the entire series and the two theater versions and now wish that I had seen them all much earlier. As is often pinted out, this series is rather wretched largely due to the puzzling last two episodes, and I frankly do not care so much for all the psuedo-Christian icons that the work carries with it. What is of greater importance is that this series seems to delve into the ever-pervasive sense of insecurity and nihilism lurking underneath the subconsious of modern man. I also belive that this only could have come out in the aftermath of the mayhem caused by the Kobe Great Earthquake and the Tokyo subway gas attack perpetrated by the Aum Doomsday Cult.
One thing that striks me is the lifelessness of the futuristic Tokyo, the home of NERV. It is a fortress replete with all the defence mechanism. An evacuation order is issued everytime an Angel comes to attack the city, but not a soul is seen to be running on the street or anything. And then it is this series of Angels that puzzle the viewers. We are never told where they are actually coming from; they just show up out of nowhere only to be annihilated by the Evas and NERV. It is not until after the twentieth episode or so that we learn that those Angels are actually the externalized forms of the fear and insecurity that the NERV personnel carry deep inside themselves as the traumatic past that each one of them has becomes gradually apparent.
And of course the series abounds in various feminine symbols, the Evas themselves being female figures with the umbilical cable and whatnot. It is in this context that Rei Ayanami plays a pivotal role as she shows up in numerous guises: as a mother before Shinji; as an direct antithesis before Asuka; as a wife-daughter figure before Gendo Ikari; and as an archrival before Ritsuko and her mother.
All in all, this is an anime that ends all other animes as there is so much in it that goes against the traditional notion of what the anime should be like. Although I am relatively a newcomer to this series, I must admit that watching the whole series was a deeply moving experience. And I urge you all to see it as Neon Genesis Evangelion has definitely something important to tell us.

Most great anime series tend to tie things up within either the 26 (Trigun, Cowboy Bebop, RahXephon) or 40-plus episode (Great Teacher Onizuka, Tenchi Muyo) frame--Rurouni Kenshin's 90-plus aside. But what is it about this 26-episode series that has it so oft-mentioned with the phrase "greatest series ever"?

The most basic of Evangelion's numerous layers of plots goes as follows: as a gigantic, indestructible creature, later dubbed an "Angel," wreaks havoc on Earth, adolescent Shinji Ikari is sent for by his father Gendo, head of the supersecret underground organization NERV. With no prior training, Shinji is reluctantly able to pilot a giant robot called Eva Unit 01, destroying the creature. As the series goes on, Shinji's reluctance to pilot 01 grows as he battles more of the evil "Angels," along with fiery German import Asuka and silent, unnerving Rei Ayanami and their Eva units.

The questions will fly fast and furious. What are Evas and how were they created? What and where are the Angels from? What is their link to the "Second Impact" that put the Earth in its current state? Who and what is Rei? Why does Unit 01 respond the way it does to Shinji, who becomes NERV's best pilot despite his reluctance and lack of training?

The other plot layers weave a complicated but intriguing web that you will understand better with more viewings. There are secret organizations who can predict the arrival of Angels and the outcomes of battles. There are double agents, faked histories, cover-ups and painful betrayals. Mix this in with the heavy theology: the idea of Angels as the bad guys, and the giant light crosses that erupt at their demise; the naming of objects--Adam, The Spear of Longinus (Longinus being the centurion who speared Jesus on the cross), man as a creator of something that will bring about his destruction, Shinji as Gendo Ikari's forced sacrificial lamb...and on and on. Read into everything the series gives you to gain a full appreciation of how deep the creators wanted you to ponder.

This is, Cowboy Bebop in mind, a terrific accomplishment in terms of music and sound. The orchestra plays majestically in a very "Empire Strikes Back" way during scenes when 01 goes berserk or into battle, or rings lightly during the more comedic moments. At times the creators are content to have nothing more than the sound of dripping water, the hum of generators or music from headphones serve as the soundtrack. Shinji's pained cries scratch your soul, as much as Rei and Gendo's coldhearted replies chill you to the bone. Background noise from the radio or the television often play some role in the foreground conversation between characters, who speak in mumbled whispers or echoing one-on-one conversations in cavernous settings.

The art is very realistic. Bodies, vehicles and water wakes move exactly as they're supposed to; computer screens move with Matrix-like speeed; reflections, gusts of wind, the display on a minidisc player--it's all very real. The Eva designs are spectacular, very detailed, but at the same time presenting a very primal, brutal image. Themes are well emphasized through the art, be it a plain white ceiling or a pair of broken glasses.

Character development is a must and Evangelion steps up to the challenge. Plenty of time is spent what drives each character, be it something from the past, or something in the present: Misato's traumatic childhood, Ritsuko and Asuka's respective mother complexes, and Shinji's tenuous relationship with Gendo. In the same way Rurouni Kenshin looked at the backgrounds of its Soujiro, Shishio or Aoshi characters, Evangelion doesn't mind deviating just to be able to flesh out a character better.

The biggest criticism or praise (mostly criticism) will be regarding the ending. It's extremely ambitious and very "artsy" and philosophical, relying heavily on words, flashbacks and image montages. I certainly had a lot on my mind after that, thinking this or that. Good thing they came out with the Evangelion movies that gave this series a better, but still ambitious ending. If you don't want to sit and ponder, the movies are a must.

The series is indeed the greatest because it gives the viewer credit. It assumes that we can handle deep plots, that we can pick up subtle messages, and complete loose ends. Studying symbolism and metaphors in English or film class is gonna pay off immensely; if not, you can sit back and watch the fulfilling visual feast Evangelion offers. Subtitles will help, especially since they usually also show what is being said on the radio or television.

It's definitely a thinker and multiple-watch series. You've seen the crazy fights, bouncy girls, blazing guns and power ups. It's time to see them again, through the lens of maturity. Highly recommended for those needing a good brain stir.

The final quality of image and audio aren't the best, and between cuts from frame to frame, are jumps of image.

Listen to me, better buy Evangelion Renewal or Platinum, all the serie is remasterized in audio and image, and has the director cut's...