Neon Genesis Evangelion

Watching any anime series twice is pretty unusual for me, but three times... Well, it just doesn't happen very often. But, between the release of You Are (Not) Alone in Japan and me having a week with plenty of spare time on my hands, I found myself sitting down once again to make my way through Neon Genesis Evangelion - Doing it 'the proper way' of course: Episodes 1-20, the Director's Cut of Episodes 21-24, and then End of Evangelion as Episodes 25' and 26'.

For some odd reason, Evangelion is the only anime series I've only ever watched in its dubbed form previously, so third time around I righted that wrong and watched it with subtitles, and boy am I glad I did. I'm not sure whether it's down to a superior translation in the subtitles, better voice acting from the Japanese seiyū, some kind of third time lucky effect or just the fact that things work better in my head when I read them rather than hear them, but somehow this time around many of the subtleties of the Eva universe I'd missed out on previously clicked into place. Perhaps it's simply that I've matured, but watching the series this time, I found myself understanding far better the feelings, idiosyncracies and inter-personal relationships of the main characters, which made for a more satisfying and 'final' experience, particularly when it comes to that much-debated final episode in End of Evangelion. That isn't to say that I've completely figured out what those meaning-laden final seconds and words mean to me personally, but somehow this time around I came away with a more comprehensive feel for the world left at the end of the movie.

The one thing I really still can't get my head around is why so many people (and by this I'm talking viewers of the series, rather than in the show itself) hate Shinji Ikari so much. Of course, he is very much a 'flawed hero', and an excellently realised one at that (second only to Code Geass' Lelouch by my reckoning), but is he really the whiny, irritating character so many people see him as? Considering he's all but press-ganged into risking his life under the command of a father he hates, while being subjected to emotional and physical ordeal after ordeal, would anyone expect any different? I suppose it's just a personal thing, but I've always found Shinji's character fascinating, as I do Asuka's - I guess they simply both have facets that I can relate to directly, either in myself or people who I've been close to.

Anyway, at the end of the it all, the one thing I love most about Evangelion is how it engages your mind on so many levels - You come away from that closing scene wondering so many things, not just about the series, but also about yourself, your place in the world, and indeed the world around you itself. I really hope the new tetralogy of movies manages to keep that depth, while still adding something new and interesting to the franchise - Personally, I can't wait to see the first installment for myself, even though it appears to offer little deviation from the first six episodes of the original series (albeit squeezed into almost half the running time).