RKasa

As stated in my review of 1.0, I'm currently in the process of rewatching the first three New Evangelion Movies in preparation for the fourth. We've rounded out this weekend with 2.22, and will pick things up again on Saturday with 3.33 and the final film. For the record, my original Anime-Planet score of 2.22 was two stars. Spoilers this time for not just the TV show, but events new to the movie.

While 1.11's highlight was the level of detail and depth it added to the Evangelion universe, the best parts of 2.22 are its homages to my personal favorite Hideaki Anno-directed work, His and Her Circumstances, aka Kare Kano. This series was Anno's next anime after the original Eva TV series, and a manga adaptation, which was unusual for both him and GAINAX at the time. Evangelion composer Shiro Sagisu also worked on this show, and a handful of his Kare Kano compositions appear within 2.22. What I noticed this time around was that it was more than just music which made the transition: there are also visual trappings strongly associated with Kare Kano, such as telephone poles and power lines silhouetted against colorful skies and hand-sketched scenes of a character's painful memories.

In a way, this makes an odd sort of sense. Kare Kano is about two intelligent and ambitious high school students who hide the less savory aspects of themselves from others. A similar description could also be applied to Asuka, one of two new Evangelion pilots who make their first formal appearance in 2.22. Asuka is a genius and a brilliant Eva pilot, but, similar to Kare Kano's Miyazawa and Arima, her core personality takes some of the shine off her achievements. In Asuka's case, she's a classic tsundere, and as in the TV show, she constantly pits herself in competition with both Shinji and Rei.

However, she also shares traits with Toji and Keisuke from 1.0/1.11 in that her personality has been simplified for the sake of the movie format. While never my favorite, the TV show's Asuka was an emotionally complex character; in addition to being a tsundere, she harbored a crush on her one-time guardian Kaji, and seemed to be in a rush to become an adult. She also made an effort to hide the nastier aspects of her personality whenever adults were present. In 2.0/2.22, there is no crush on Kaji or any other adult, nor does she hide behind a polite mask; she's simply a tsundere and egomaniac whose emotional failings are made clearest in a monologue, of all things. Asuka has been robbed.

The second new Evangelion pilot is Mari, a cheerful girl who, like Asuka, has come from the European branch of NERV. Unlike Asuka, she is completely original to these new movies. Her presence in Tokyo-3 is a secret to everyone but Shinji, who she literally stumbles into upon her arrival to the city. Knowing what I do about her now (thanks to a certain official manga story that was published prior to the final movie's release), her interactions with Shinji and others are interesting, but during my original viewing of 2.22, I saw her as an interloper who, besides her unusual amount of knowledge about the Evas, was someone of little consequence to the overall plot. I suppose Anno wanted to infuse her with some sort of mystique in preparation for the next two films, but it doesn't really work here. Mari comes across as tacked-on.

Plot-wise, a handful of Angels appear over the course of the movie, including a new one whose design is even wilder than Ramiel's in 1.0/1.11. We don't get to see any embryonic Angels in volcanoes or synchronized Eva dance routines, but that's not to say that other famous battles aren't recreated. One of these is the showdown between EVA-01 and an Angel-infected EVA-03, who has a different pilot this time (the winks and nods to Toji not being selected as the pilot are nice little details). Not only has the pilot changed, but so has the origins of EVA-01's dummy plug, which is arguably an improvement over the original show's plot. However, the movie's plot starts to fall apart late into the battle against Zeruel, the chonky Angel whose arms become deadly, slicing ribbons. Rei's literal bombing run against Zeruel goes quite a bit differently this time, and what Shinji triggers while attempting to rescue her appears to go against the logic of both the original show and of what the first new movie had established. This deus ex machina of a climax seems to exist largely for dramatic impact, as well as, well, another type of "Impact".

The non-battle scenes contain some lovely moments. Misato and Kaji's interactions are abridged here, but are more fine-tuned than chopped up. There's the usual handful of Easter eggs for Eva fans to look out for, including a Tree of Life in a surprising location. The decontamination sequence set during a field trip to an oceanic research facility is one of the funniest scenes in the movie, and includes the first of many appearances of food as a vehicle for bringing people together. Food appears again with Shinji putting together bentos for Asuka and Misato, and yet again when Rei, whose character development continues to be deftly handled, is inspired to cook for everyone. There's even a couple of appearances by Kaji's watermelons. Along with the Kare Kano references, food is a theme which runs through, and enriches, the entire film.

Evangelion 2.22 goes even further than the first movie in terms of differentiating itself from the original show, and marks a major turning point in the film series' overarching plot. However, it does all this at the expense of both Asuka and the Eva world's own logic. The results are mixed, making for a less satisfying film than it could've been.