Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo - Reviews

Warning: Spoiler Alert

After glimpsing at some of the other reviews, I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who is completely and utterly perplexed as to what's going on here anymore.

Since the end of the second film, fourteen years have seemingly passed and once again we're reunited with Shinji. He has apparently been in some sort of coma and when he wakes everyone hates him. Yet they tell him nothing. He asks and asks what the hell is going on but nope, they just ignore him and tell him not to do anything stupid. But how is he supposed to know what is "stupid" or not if they don't tell him anything?

So it came as no surprise to me that he escaped and went off with Rei. Who apparently isn't Rei. But actually a copy? Or maybe a reconstructed image of Shinji's mother? I have no idea. Rei was always strange but she's even more so now. Literally just living to follow orders. Shinji then makes a new friend, a white haired young man who can play the piano. They spend hours together bonding and playing, preparing to pilot a dual eva together.

Though the others who are angry with Shinji don't want him to pilot an eva yet don't say why not! All Shinji knows is that he needs to collect these two spears as that's all his new friend has been talking about. But as soon as they get close, his friend freezes and says they can't. But doesn't say why not. Instead he lets Shinji pull out the spears and then admits that he is the first angel and then randomly and spontaneously implodes!  Then everyone fights and if I remember correctly, manages to stop another impact from happening. But I honestly can't remember

So... what's the deal with Rei? What's the deal with Shinji's father wanting to kill humanity? How did Shinji's friend get off the moon? What's the curse of the eva's? What is the actually purpose of this anime anymore???

Apart from the utter confusion that is the plot, I do enjoy the action of these films. The graphics in this installment have improved significantly and are just as bad ass and epic as before. I just wish I knew what was going on...

Evangelion 1: you are (not) alone   great!!!
Evangelion 2: you can (not) advance   great!!! 
Evangelion 3: you can (not) redo. . . . .you know what? lets change the name to;
Evangelion 3: you will (not) be pleased


I dont know exactly where to begin, but I will start by telling you the major things that went horribly wrong here, then I will tell you the few things that were ok.

1) 96 min of movie 15 min of important sh*t got done within those 96 min.

to elaborate, this movie felt like the series, which showed waaaay to much unimportant crap.  Way too much scenery (and other weirdness), 15 episodes worth of Shiji sitting around trying to figure out what the f*ck to do, ect.  

2) SPOILER  Suddenly we jump 14 years into the furture. "Shiji Ikari, you will never do anything again" . . . . wait WTF?  I though in the previous one they wanted him to man up and do somthing?   Ok well thats fine but WHAT THE F*CK DID I DO WRONG?  Oh im sorry we cant tell you that because I DONT KNOW WHY.

they gave NO INFORMATION, you are left wondering what the hell happened.  Furthermore Shiji seemed to be sacking up a bit but in this one he didnt do ANYTHING TO TRY TO FIGURE OUT WHAT THE HELL WAS HAPPENING.  I felt like I was left out of a joke, but due to the fact that I was left out it just appears to be a sick joke.  Shinji could have said something like "would someone tell me what has happened, I cant remember anything.  Why is everyone mad at me?"   since everyone was giving him douchy looks for NO APPARENT REASON.  What is this curse?  Why the f*ck is Asuka mad too?  how many angels have they fought?  How many evas are there?  What happened to create WILLE?  Why are they fighting NERV?  Where did they get their giant ship from?  WHAT THEY HELL IS GOING ON IN THIS MOVIE

this  made the whole thing a massive clusterf*ck

3) no continuity.  oh cool a giant awesome looking ship. . . . .  that you will see once at the beggining for 2 minutes and once at the end for 2 minutes.  Why does it look like angel bones OH THATS RIGHT WE ARENT GONNA TELL YOU SH*T

hey lets play the piano to "speak" to one another.  hey lets play shogi to "speak" to one another.  Hey lets keep going back to the room scene and Rei's room scene to waste time NOT TELLING YOU WHAT THE F*CK IS GOING ON.  Shiji just ends up hopping from scene to scene screwing around doing whatever.  He ends up in weird places at weird times.  

another thing that made this a clusterf*ck




THE GOOD:  wait there is something good?  in fact, yes

animation was good like the first two, but not as good as either in my opinion.  Subpar to the standard they created with Eva remake 1 and 2

the soundtrack was ok 

lastly, even though no one told shinji sh*t and Asuka seemed to hate his guts right up until the end, they reverted back to showing that Asuka actually cares for Shiji from Eva Rebuild 2.  The problem was that Shiji reverted back to his Neon Genesis little bitch Shiji, which sucked because I thought he was really gonna grow a pair and be awesome.  I really liked the way that she was becoming attached to him, but at the beggining of Eva 3 it seemed like she just hated him and wanted nothing to do with him anymore.  


SO WHY DID I GIVE IT A 7. . . . . . massive amounts of pity, but they have a lot of sh*t to get right in the next one, because as it stand Im not buying this sack of crap unless the last Eva remake makes it worth it.  

I had really high hopes after  Evangelion 2: you can (not) advance.  It was awesome.  And they f*cked up this one really badly though.  just my opinion.

Three words to sum up 3.0: Confusing. As. Hell. 

What is actually happening? Who the heck are all these random characters I've never seen before? What is going on? Why won't anyone actually explain to Shinji why what he did at the end of 2.0 was Very Bad? What was the point of saving Shinji if there was a large chance that he would act like an idiot and potentially destroy everyone again? Wouldn't treating him like a piece of mud and refusing to answer any of his questions only increase the chances of that happening? What?

The plot had me in a permanant state of furious denial, all the characters seemed to have had personality transplants overnight (or in the last 14 years, boy what a time skip) and were staggeringly different to any previous portrayal of them. I even questioned at the start if Shinji had just accidentally fallen into some sort of parallel universe. The whole "curse of the Eva" to explain the ageless 14-year-old-28-year-olds failed to.. well.. explain anything. 

The overall mood was very depressing, even by Evangelion standards, but the doom and gloom was accompanied by some rather awesome music. The soundtrack was ace. At least when confronted by the end of the world over and over, we'll have some nice tunes to go with it. And as expected, the animation was beautiful. Some - ahem one - of the scenes was very haunting, to the point of trauma, and that was the only scene where I felt that Evangelion 3.0 had exceeded my expectations. 

Overall, a little disappointing considering the high standards of the rest of the franchise, but not a "bad" film by any means. 

Evangelion 3: You Can (Not) Redo or "Fuck it."

SPOILER ALERT: IF YOU ARE STILL WAITING FOR A GOOD COPY OF THIS FILM TO WATCH, DO NOT READ ON. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

Boy, oh boy. So the new Evangelion film finally came out, eh? Well, time to watch a crappy camrip and see what I think of it.

*An Hour and A Half Later...*

Oh.

Evangelion 3.0 You Can (not) Redo is finally out in Japan. Quite possibly, my most anticipated anime film since...um, hold on, let me get back to you on that.

So, how does it fare with the other two? Well....

"Well, what, mrlandmine? Come on, tell us! Did Shinji save Rei? Does Misato fall in love with Kaji again? Is Asuka alive? Does Gendo realize how much of a dick he is? Does Shinji keep being a badass?"

Yeah, let's talk about that.

So, what's the story this time? Well, 3.0 takes place after the events of 2.0, naturally. Oh wait, I'm sorry let me rephrase that. 3.0 takes place 14 FUCKING YEARS after 2.0. That's right, ladies and gentlemen! It's a time skip! So, let's take a look at that 3.0 preview again, shall we?

How much of that preview made into the actual film? None of it. Not a single frame. So, of course, this leads to more questions than The Dark Knight Rises did. What the hell happened in between the last two films? Who the hell is Mari, exactly? Why is Gendo such an asshole? Ok, i'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start at the beginning.

We start off in SPAAAAAAACCCCCCEEEEE (sorry) as Eva Unit 02 goes to retrieve...a thing. Honestly, I have no idea what it is. But, it's apparently important enough to be needed for something. So, as the scene plays out, we find out that Auska actually survived the Bardiel attack but now has a patched up plugsuit and an eyepatch. Really? Unit 01's dummy system almost crushed and she only loses an eye? You'd think she'd get a few broken bones along the way. But then again, it is a time skip.

Not only that, but Mari's there too!...for some reason. Seriously, all she does is snipe some weird ass tentacle things then leaves. Yeah...

So anyway, as Auska finally makes to the...thing, an angel appears out of nowhere! Oh noes! So how is it defeated? Well it turns out that Unit 01 was in the...thing the whole time and completely massacres this tentacle angel thing with EYE BEAMS. Good to know you haven't lost your touch with overkill, Unit 01.

So, Unit 02 and Unit 01's cage start falling back down to the red earth after the victory. As it falls, Kaworu watches as it enters the atmosphere and says, "Welcome back, Ikari Shinji-kun. I've been waiting." Yeah, Kaworu's an odd character but we'll get to him later.

In the next scene, Shinji's getting carried off to some place as a bunch of guys have some guns trained on him. Meanwhile, a girl asks him questions to make sure it is, in fact, Shinji Ikari. Turns out, he was inside Unit 01 and is just now waking up. But, where is Rei? We'll get to that later.

Shinji makes on to the bridge to find Misato and the bridge bunnies from Nerv, along with some newer people. Let's see, there's a guy that looks suspiciously like Spike Spiegel, a guy that looks suspiciously like Jet Black, and some pink girl who looks like a humanized Pinkie Pie.

So Shinji looks around to notice everyone giving him angry looks at him. He doesn't know why, but we'll find out soon enough. Shinji then notices some sort of collar on his neck that he can't seem to get rid of. So yeah, Misato apparently hates him now, Ritsuko has extremly short hair, and Aoba has a fucking beard. Something happened.

But no time to find out! Another angel has appeared. They mention something about a Nemesis series but I have no idea what that's all about and the movie never mentions it again. Ever. Yeah.

Shinji wishes to help too but Misato won't let him. In fact, she says that he'll never do anything again. Something clearly happened while Shinji was away.

So what happens next? It turns out that they're on a some sort of flying battleship called the Wunder which has the firepower to take out an angel on its own. It also helps that Unit 01 is the very core that runs the ship. So they take out the angel and fly away to God knows where. 

The next scene, we Shinji being detained as Ritsuko begins explaining a few things to him. He can't sync with Unit 01 meaning that he can't operate it anymore. Also, if he happens to cause another Awakening like in the beginning scene or the end of 2.0, the collar on his neck will kill him. Geez.

Then later, as it turns out, the girl from earlier is actually Toji's little sister that was briefly mentioned in the last 2 films and was promoted from being an extra to being second lieutenant.

Then Pirate Auska appears!...and she's mad. She punches the glass between her and Shinji causing it to crack. Shinji notices that nothing's different about her appearance. She mentions that it's something called "The Curse of Eva" and walks away. As it would seem, piloting the Evas seem to cease aging all together, which is clearly seen by both Auska and Mari. So technically, they're legal now which means fanservice all around! Also, this is never mentioned again throughout the rest of the film.

Shinji starts asking about what happened to Rei and if she was saved or not. Ritsuko says only Shinji and S-Dat player were found, but not Rei. Then Rei appears and blows a hole in the Wunder. Rei beckons Shinji to come with her, but Misato says otherwise.

Misato explains that she and the others don't work for Nerv anymore. They left and formed a new organization called Will-E, the worst fucking name anyone could give an organization. Will-E is determined to destroy Nerv, Seele, and the Evas. Shinji refuses to listen to Misato and goes with Rei. As they get away, Misato puts her finger on the detanator for the collar but trembles. They soon lose contact and let them go.

Now, here's a scene I liked the most. No matter how cold she acts towards Shinji, her hand trembling on the trigger shows that she still somewhat cares for him. Aww, that's nice. Meanwhile, Big Bossuka decides that's Shinji's not an idiot, just a brat, thus giving him a new nickname.

Then, the title comes up. Seriously? It's been 20 minutes and you're just now showing the title? A bit late, don't you think, Anno?

Shinji wakes up yet again, this time at Nerv with Rei in a black plugsuit standing beside him. Shinji decides that Misato is a liar and starts following her. As they go down to the geofront, Shinji notices that he can still see the sky, which you normally couldn't 14 years ago. As they walk, Shinji finds a white haired boy playing some damn good piano music. 

They later end up in the same place in the beginning of the first film where he met his Dad. Gendo then appears with, quite possibly, the silliest looking visor ever. Seriously, he looks like Cyclops from the X-Men if Cyclops had a chin beard and was a complete fucking asshole. Gendo tells Shinji that he will pilot a new Eva, Unit 13 with the white haired boy that he saw eariler. This is Kaworu. Like I said, we'll get to him later.

So Shinji later goes to visit Rei, happy to see that he's saved her. But, something's off. She's living in some small room next to a tube of some sort. Also, Rei doesn't seem like the Rei from the last film. She's back to being cold and emotionless. Shinji tries to talk about her favorite books but she responds with "I don't know" and shows no emotion whatsoever saying that she's waits for orders and that's it. This is a very heartbreaking scene as you notice that Shinji didn't really save her and that something's terribly wrong.

So Shinji, being Shinji, starts getting depressed again. But then, Kaworu invites him to play some piano. Shinji doesn't know how to play, but Kaworu insists on showing him how. They start becoming instant best friends and play piano together each day to pass the time. Because there is seriously nothing to do at Nerv other than walk around and talk to your Not-Girlfriend who may possibly be a clone.

You see, in the original series, Kaworu was a bit...flamboyant. He went to the showers with Shinji, slept with Shinji (Not what it looks like), and stats that he 'loved' him. It's not as profound as you would think for Kaworu is a bit more than that. He's not gay or anything, he's just a bit...complex, if that's the right word to use. Oh, and he was also the last angel.

The next day, Shinji notices 2 things. One, that his S-DAT player is broken and two, he's wearing one of his friends' shirt. Shinji goes to Kaworu and asks him what happened since he's been gone.

This is when shit starts to hit the fan.

It turns out, in the end of 2.0, as Shinji was getting Rei out of Zeruel, he caused Third Impact and wiped out a huge chunk of humanity. Not only that, but the whole earth is now red with a bunch of Evas scattered about for some reason. It's never explained, though. So, this breaks half of Shinji.

The other half breaks when he meets Fuyutsuki, who's apparently not dead yet. Seriously, if you looked at this guy in the movie, he's like 10,000 years old now. He invites Shinji to play some Shogi, which was actually his mother's favorite game before she passed away. Turns out, he actually wanted to tell Shinji about his father's true intention. 

Now, it gets weird. He hands a picture of his mother, Yui, whose maiden name was actually Ayanami. She was one of Fuyutsuki's old students that dated Gendo when they were with Gehirn. When they tested Eva Unit 01, Yui proposed direct entry into the cores. So they did that, and now her soul is planted inside Unit 01. When they tried to get her out, they only found her DNA which they then used to make the Ayanami series which are basically a shit ton of Reis.

So yeah, the Rei that Shinji knew and the one wandering about now are clones of his mother and that Rei wasn't actually saved at all. She's still inside Unit 01 somewhere. We don't know if she's dead or not, however.

Shinji is now completely messed up. He vows never to pilot an Evangelion ever again only to be calmed by Kaworu. Kaworu tells him that there is a way to bring everything back to normal. If they go down to Central Dogma and get both the Lance of Cassius and the Lance of Longinus, everything Shinji did would be undone. To regain Shinji's trust, Kaworu unlocks Shinji's collar through magical means and puts it around his own neck.

Shinji then agrees to get into the new Unit 13, which looks similar to Unit 01 but has 4 eyes and arms and has a double entry system for two entry plugs. They can see each other but are seperated by an invisible wall. As Unit 13 is activated, Will-E takes notice of this and set off to Nerv to stop them.

So, they go down with Rei's Unit 09 to Central Dogma where the floor is covered by a bunch of Eva skulls. Kaworu calls this the failures of infinity. Maybe it has something to do with all those destroyed Evas outside?

So they go up to Lilith's corpse, but Kaworu notices something. He sees that the two lances look the same but he tries to figure out why. Before he can deduce however Auska comes out of nowhere and starts fighting Shinji, who is still determined to get the spears. They have a little fight, but in the end Shinji holds off Auska long enough to go and pull the spears. 

Kaworu tells Shinji to stop but he doesn't listen. The spears are already pulled and Lillith explodes, revealing Kaworu's Eva Mark 06 which has been infected by an angel. Unit 13 then starts glowing and eats the core of the angel. 

Then, everything goes to shit. It turns out the two lances weren't the ones Kaworu and Shinji were looking for and were instead planted by Gendo who puts Seele out of power and is clearly revealed as the main villian of the series. The sky turns red as the Door of Guf is opened and Fourth Impact begins. Shinji realizes his gigantic fuck-up as the collar starts to activate around Kaworu's neck.

In short, there's a fight scene between Unit 02 and Unit 09 which is an Adams vessel, whatever that means. Unit 09 begins infecting the Wunder, which basically spams the Seele logo everywhere. Auska turns Unit 02 beserk again like Mari did in the last film, this time using something called Code 777. Meanwhile, Rei begins to become self aware and starts asking who she really is. Rei ejects out of the infected Eva as it fights Unit 02. Auska then decides to self destruct Unit 02 and ejects as well. Unit 09 is defeated and free reign is given to the Wunder.

Meanwhile, Kaworu explains how he started out as the first angel but ended up as the 13th. Confused yet? So, since two souls are needed to carry the two spears, Kaworu ends up sacrificing himself to stop Fourth Impact. This causes his head to explode right in front of Shinji, which completely breaks him at this point. This is quite possibly the most powerful and emotional scene I have ever seen in an anime. The music sets the tone and it's just a really hard scene to watch without crying.

As Unit 13 falls, Unit 08 comes and ejects Shinji out, causing 13 to shut down completly. The sky is turned back to normal, the door of guf is closed, and the day is saved for now as the Wunder flys off to somewhere.

Later, Auska finds the entry plug containing Shinji and drags him out. Shinji is basically at the point where he doesn't respond and can't even stand up straight. Rei appears but doesn't say anything. Asuka states that they're going to where the Lilin are as she drags Shinji along with her. He drops his S-DAT player that he apparently had with him. Rei simply just stares at it leaving some hope for you shippers out there. They walk across the red earth as the movie ends and is played out with a new Utada Hikaru song.

So, what did I think of 3.0? Not really that bad. They said they were taking a new spin on the Evangelion series and I'll be damned if they didn't. They are still some inconsistancies like what the hell happened between the last two films? Where's Rei and the others? Where the hell was Kaji? Hopefully, this will be answered (but probably not) in the last film in the RoE tetralogy.

Oh, and about the last film, the preview shows Eva Unit 8+2 running around fighting some MP Evas, which are basically green Mark 06's. Unit 8+2 is also just Unit 08 and Unit 02 stitched together. Yeah, neat design there, guys.

So yeah, that happened. 7/10.

 

So "You Can (Not) Redo" eh? I feel like you're trying to confess something to us Anno; if this is your confession, then yes, I have to agree with you... "You Can (Not) Redo"!

After the last Rebuild movie, I thought things might be proceeding on the right track, but this movie shattered that illusion; I have to wonder if Hideaki Anno has a fortune teller machine, to which he continually asks the following question, "Should I wreck Evangelion yet?"

I'm not normally a guy for reviews; I'm usually too accepting of things, as someone will say something is trash, and I will say "I didn't mind it actually", but Evangelion 3.33... I think I can review it, and along the way, I feel I may throw in my two pence on other bits of Evangelion too!

Synopsis:

We start in space, Asuka and Mari have been tasked with a mission to recover a vessel holding EVA Unit-01, and any possible inhabitants; the two are met by resistance from enemy combatants, which they promptly defeat; just when they're about to recover the vessel, a new enemy appears, from a compartment on the vessel itself; out of ammo, Mari withdraws, and Asuka finds herself in danger gripping onto the vessel as it twists and turns in the Earth's upper atmosphere; Asuka calls out for assistance from (Idiot) Shinji, and a beam shoots out of the vessel, destroying the enemy.

We now cut to Shinji waking up and being hastily transported to the bridge; on the way to the bridge, a girl asks Shinji various questions to assertain his current state; at the bridge Shinji is met with hostility, even by people he knows; Shinji is not provided with any answers to his questions, the main one being "where's Rei?"

Story:

Watching this movie blind is not a good idea; I technically didn't watch it blind, but it had been some time since I watched Evangelion 2.22, so I was pretty much in the dark as to what was happening; ironically enough, you could say this put me in Shinji's shoes, I didn't know 14 years had passed, or why everyone was so eremitic towards Shinji - I could have read the synopsis on the back of the DVD/Blu-Ray cover, but reading the back of DVD/Blu-Ray covers ruins the experience.

After watching this movie, I did re-watch the previous movie again, which has now resulted with me listening to Utada Hikaru - Beautiful World on repeat ever since; I have to wonder if I understood the ramifications of Third Impact/Near Third Impact from the last movie, as I can only remember thinking "what a good movie!", not "damn Shinji, think what you're doing here!!" - it takes until halfway through the movie (might not be halfway, but I'm judging it based on the placement of the "eyecatch") for this to be touched upon.

It seems that the movie has received quite a bit of a revision since what was featured in the preview at the end of the last movie, and what features in the movie itself; it's possible in the original concept for this movie, there was no timeskip, and there were some ups with the downs, given the content eyepatch Asuka in the previews, compared to the discontent one we get in the movie.

As none of the scenes from the prevew at the end of the last movie actually featured in the actual movie, this may be reason why the preview for the next movie was just a battle scene; watching Evangelion 2.22, I noticed some differences between it, and the current movie; in 2.22, Shinji states that he doesn't care what happens to the world, as long as he saves Rei, but in 3.33, he's distraught over what happened to the world, but then this could be due to this happening, and him still not saving Rei - Idiot Shinji... oh god, I've turning into a half-German tsundere.

Re-watching Evangelion 2.22, did lead me also re-watch Death/Rebirth and End of Evangelion, and... I survived - I think there must be a medal out there for watching four Evangelion movies and still being alive after the experience.

Re-watching Death/Rebirth and End of Evangelion reminded me of what a trainwreck it all was:

• Death was a disorganised clipshow, with some battles broken up and re-grouped into one of three main acts, each corresponding to one of the three protagonists;
• Rebirth was incomplete, with only twenty minutes of its story completed before deadline day;
• End of Evangelion was essentially a completed version of Rebirth, repeating the previously seen twenty minutes, and then goes on to continue the story.

The concept of Death/Rebirth and End of Evangelion is fine, but the execution of it all is the problem; this can also be said for the ending of the series itself, with episodes 25 and 26 coming out of "nowhere"; Death/Rebirth and End of Evangelion fill in the gaps, but they themselves bring their own problems; for the best viewing experience, I wish I had bought Revival of Evangelion, as apparently that does away with the incomplete Rebirth!

Back to Evangelion 3.33, unless it's a different room, Shinji doesn't acknowledge waking up in "that room", it looks pretty similar to me; the plug suits are pretty poorly designed this time round, or actually I think it's just Asuka's, it looks like it's being held together with different colours of sticky tape, which have been strategically placed to  mirror the colours of the plug suit they have been taped to; whilst not stated, it appears NERV are the ones that put EVA Unit-01 into space, as it looks like there is a NERV logo on the vessel that EVA Unit-01 is in.

Score: 4/10

Animation:

Short and sweet - it looked good, didn't see anything wrong with it, looked more polished than in previous entries, which ironically took away from the Evangelion/Gainax feels, although the Gainaxing with Mari did bring the Gainax feels back for a different reason; in addition, I was disatisfied with the first encounter between EVA Unit-08 and 09, as Mari destroys the head, it cuts to EVA Unit-08 running, cuts back to EVA Unit 09, which has regenerated its head, now with a bit of a boost, or make that four boosts... rocket boosts - I would have liked for the regeneration to be seen as well, as it feels incomplete to me the way it is.

Score: 8/10

Sound:

Either there was a lack of sound in this movie or the DVD/Blu-Ray has been configured for 5.1/6.1 systems, with the soundtrack being on the 3.1/4.1 parts of the output, that is lost when you only have 2.0; it seemed the music was quieter, occasionally I felt I could hear a familiar melody here and there; maybe due to the events in this being completely original, the music didn't invoke the same Evangelion feels as the previous movie, but mostly I think it was just a lack of sound - that said, bits of the soundtrack have been continually playing in my head, so I thought I would bump up the score, but it's already on the score I was going to bump it up to, so I'll leave it as is.

Score: 5/10

Characters:

Only discussing new or changed characters (compared to previous movies, or continuity), and will be going in order of appearance:

Mari Illustrious Nakanami - eccentric pilot of EVA Unit-08; she sings when she's working, much to the annoyance to Asuka, and has pet names for Shinji and Asuka, whilst the latter even has a pet name for Mari; first introduced in the previous movie, she is still an interesting character.

Sakura Suzuhara - Toji's younger sister, now older than Shinji due to the EVA's curse -I will discuss this later-, part of the medical staff of WILL-E, and a second lieutenant; Sakura seems like the new heart of Evangelion, as she shows a level of forgiveness towards Shinji -I will discuss the previous heart later-, but you can see she still does have some resentment towards him.

Midori Kitakami - one of the bridge operators for WILL-E; I love her voice (only listened to the original Japanese version - even though the dub of the original series is so ingrained in my head, due to the fact that there was always a trailer for Evangelion on every ADV DVD, I couldn't bring myself to watch the dub), and her lines, "Wait, is that one of my jobs?" followed by "No way!", when told it is.

Misato Katsuragi - the captain of the Wunder, an airship that is powered by an EVA Unit; since the last movie it seems she has been training to be a Jedi jerk, under the tutelage of Jedi Jerk Master Obi-Gendou Ikari, but left before her Jedi jerk training was complete, as it is shown she still does care, somewhat, maybe slightly, for Shinji.

Maya Ibuki - formerly a bridge operator for NERV, now the chief engineer aboard the Wunder; since the last movie, it seems that Maya has become pretty hardhearted, she is no longer the heart of Evangelion due to the horror she witnessed previously (and I include the other continuity), which, in this respect, you could think of Maya as being a proxy for the audience.

Everyone else I don't see as changing that much, or didn't have enough screen time for me to pay enough attention to, however the score will be in regards to all characters, not just the ones discussed above.

I do feel that by including Sakura more into the fray, it would have been an idea to expland her role in previous movies, such as have her and Shinji form a bond, as it would have been an interesting dynamic to pick up with now; one of the first things I learnt about Midori, was her lips, as there was a picture I saw with the title of something like "bridge bunny with the big lips".

Learning about Sakura and Midori was actually what started my interest in watching this movie; I was curious who these characters were, as they appeared to be new characters.

Score: 6/10

Overall:

As mentioned at the start of the review, I feel that the previous movie showed so much promise, but this movie has thrown that out the window; I feel it would have been better if it hadn't timeskipped, and picked up directly from the end of the last movie - it would have been nice to see the things that were mentioned in the preview for this movie actually... occur; explanations coming in quicker might have been appreciated, such as finding out about the 14 year timeskip, or why people are eremitic towards Shinji.

I will be watching the last movie, when it is released, but I do not have much hope for it, well, unless it does that which Shinji was hoping to achieve, when he ended up instead nearly bringing about Third Impact; restoring the world, however the manga has covered that route, so they may choose not to follow that route.

I think I might consider focusing more attention on the spin-off Evangelion manga, such as Angelic Days, Campus Apocalypse, Shinji Ikari Raising Project and Shinji Ikari Detective Diary - Evangelion stories that might be a bit happier than the actual story.

Just read through Campus Apocalypse... and it's not much happier... that said, I can't even remember how it ended now; I thought initially it started well, or interestingly at least; I would have liked to see Maya teaching maths, rather than just being told about it -I have to wonder if she looks similar to the ANIMA manga/light novel (whatever it is), sporting a pair of glasses-; it does feature the NERV technicians, Satsuki, Kaede and Aoi in nuns' habits.

Score: 5/10

Final thoughts:

It seems there are a couple of changes between the Rebuild continuity, and the previous continuity/continuities:

• Ikari was Yui's surname in the original continuity, and Gendou took her name in marriage, but in this continuity, Ikari is Gendou's surname, whilst Yui's surname is Ayanami;
• Yui interfaces with an EVA's core directly, and is absorbed into it in this continuity, whilst in the previous continuity it was an accident, or sacrifice, whilst in the plug capsule - I have to say I do like the symbolism of this event in Rebuild.

Initially I was against the "EVA's curse", halting a pilot's aging, as I thought it was something the pilots agreed to, which is something that happens in some anime, but I've accepted it somewhat, knowing it's an "actual" curse; does make me wonder now thought, who is Mari actually referring to when she states to Rei II that her original was easier to get along with?

I originally thought it would be Rei I, but she may in fact be referring to Yui, especially as she puts the "-kun" honorific after Gendou, but that could be her eccentricity; in the manga, there is scenes of Yui, Kyoko and Mari at school, but it has been stated this is just "fanservice"!

Finally, unrelated, but looking into things, I stumbled across art for all three of the Horaki sisters; whilst Hikari has featured as part of both the previous and current continuities, Kodama and Nozomi have not; it's interesting to see artwork for them, but it does make me want to see them make an appearance somewhere... perhaps some spin-off manga in the future, chronicling happier days, maybe one of an EVA and Angel free world!

It seems that the pieces regarding the Horaki sisters is falling into place; when I originally included the image of the sisters, I had no idea what any of this image is about... I still mostly have no idea, but I believe it relates to the anime series Shinkalion, a series which decides to give a big send up to Evangelion with its thirty-first episode.

Episode 31 sees the return of familiar seiyuu and music, an amalgamated Angel, Gendou-ism, and the animated debut of Hikari's sisters, all voiced by the same seiyuu as Hikari, Junko Iwao, which works surprisingly well, as she manages to find different voices for all three characters.

The episode ends whether what happened was all just a dream, or if the protagonist found himself in an alternate universe; the protagonist wakes up after appearing to have suffered a heatstroke, but he still has the pictures he took on his camera from the other world, which includes one of Hikari.

Right, so with that, this review is officially over, I will now proceed to re-watch RahXephon, a story of mecha pilot saves the world whilst fighting Evangelion-type monster of the week, done right, to clense myself of Evangelion.

Images come from my photobucket and cubeupload accounts; photobucket keep adding restrictions on free accounts, so you'll start to see more of the images uploaded through my cubeupload, rather than photobucket.

However uploading aside, the images came originally from the following websites; evageeks, Evangelion wikia, tumblr and Fandom wikia.