Welcome to the first installment of my reviews on Rebuild of Evangelion. It's been a while since I've reviewed any Eva-related material, so let's get right into it.
Plot (in short)[]
Terribly animated, lazily-written six first episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion in duller, worse modern animation that the director didn't bother to rewrite, sometimes adding even more plot holes than in the original. Oh, and I guess naked Kaworu is there for the kids to adore.
Plot (in detail)[]
After 40 seconds of logos (CinemaSins reference), we see blood-red waves striking the beach, which is obvious allusion to THE END OF EVANGELION. However, as we later discover, in ROE continuity, oceans worldwide have been completely sterilized, and by that I mean there isn't a single virus thriving in them. Humanity surviving is bullshit, because oceans generate 80% of world's oxygen and probably a ton of humanity's food, meaning that everyone should suffocate and/or starve to death.
We get a bunch of quick shots, one of which shows what looks like a bloodstained mountain with crayon-drawn humanoid figure laying on top of ruined buildings. Apparently, Adam(s) went making Angels in the snow after blowing up Antarctica, only to realize that he didn't have any snow in September, so he improvised.
And there we get to Shinji. After failing to meet up with Misato at the destined location, he sees a vision of Rei. Unlike the original continuity, this doesn't make much sense, considering that Rei doesn't serve any purpose in ROE continuity besides having Simpji doom the world for her and then her getting trapped in Unit-01. Then Sachiel emerges from behind the mountain, looking billion times worse than in the original animation, and about trillion times worse than in Evangelion Proposal.
Retards from JSSDF shot missiles at Angel, being 100% less effective here than they are in The End of Evangelion against both humans and Unit-02. Sachiel shots down one of hover jets for LOLs with its lance, which lands like two inches away from Shinji's face, then leaps on top of it, causing it to explode and somehow not kill Shinji in the process. Then again, Shinji survived a nuclear blast to the face.
Groomer arrives shortly afterwards. JSSDF somehow manage not to kill our two main characters in the process of firing some toy rockets at Plague Doctor, doing more damage to the city than that goddamn thing. Sachiel walks away from the city for reasons beyond our understanding, even though its sole mission is to merge with Lilith and erase humanity. JSSDF detonate non-nuclear nuke that somehow doesn't kill our main characters. Sachiel is, of course, undamaged.
Something that always confused me about Sachiel's design were its gills. Angels were repeatedly shown to survive in space, so they logically don't require oxygen to survive, not counting Sandalphon who couldn't exist outside its volcano. Apparently, Sachiel lacks ability to breathe in space? Oh yeah, and it grows a secondary face as an adaptation against distance attacks. Honestly, I'd love Angels in this series to do that more often and develop evolutionary countermeasures on fly. Also, N² mine nor any other weaponry is never established to be non-nuclear in film series.
I just noticed that they removed the scene with Misato driving around blindly from pilot episode. Good. JSSDF hands control over to Hugo Strange as Shinji descends with Katsuragi down to NERV for quite some time. We then see GeoFront, which looks a little to too pretty for a post-apocalyptic world that had multiple countries bankrupt and collapse. They even have the Las Vegas pyramid there!
Apparently, Ritsuko has time to bathe in sterilized blood of ancient alien god when the son of said ancient alien god is right at her doorstep to destroy mankind. Dunno, something always bugged me about that scene. She then teleports to Misato and walks homosexually close to her, stating that they are short on both time and resources which is not true based on two last scenes. Meanwhile, Misato continues to act like an imbecile completely unsuited for her work.
Ritsuko leads the pedo duo down to pitch-black room, where dramatically flicks the light on. Shinji sees his mother, which Ritz calls "artificial human", which is incorrect given that Unit-01 is (in original series) lower half torn off from Lilith and (in film series) one of Adams, a race that spawned the Angels. They then spend like 10 minutes arguing about getting into the goddamn robo-mother alien giant god thing.
The only good thing this movie does is make Unit-01 look badass at night with neon-green armor, which was absolutely necessary for NERV much like seven colors and like 3,000,000 buckets of paint used to paint Evangelion armor. Shinji then relives the miracle of learning how to walk again and falls flat on his face. Sachiel then breaks Unit-01's arm for falling on its crotch and skull-fucks her like a mile away, somehow not breaking a building in the process.
Unit-01 awakens and goes angry chimp mode, corrodes Sachiel's autism field with her hands, only to get blasted in the face with Sachiel's horizontal cruciform blast. On the side note, how do these cruciform lasers work anyway? Why do they normally project vertical crosses but only now and never again made horizontal explosion? Also, purple guy kicks Plague Doctor in the core and runs head-first into its crotch, rips off its rib spikes and starts hitting it until Sachiel gives her a hug and blows up.
Another thing I really liked about Sachiel and was sad Angels didn't do more was its ability to shapeshift like a rubber. Sadly, its kamikaze attack didn't do a single shit to Unit-01, who starts walking forward menacingly as Ritsuko and Misato gasp in shock for some reason. Shinji then has a flashback from episode 20 (which I yet have to review) about Gendo and Yui picking up his name. Yui then repeats "Shinji", "Ayanami" and "Rei" a few times until jumpscare happens. Also, the scenery is train hallucination from episode 16 for some reason.
SEELE then babble about immense cost of repairing Unit-01, which is strange because we just saw Unit-01 regenerate entirely on its own without S² Engine. Shinji then proceeds to stare at his hand in the hospital, which sadly doesn't have an epic payoff in this continuity. And then Misato adopts Shinji to prison-rape him in her drunken rage and sadness. The most unrealistic thing I find about these movies aren't alien abominations or apocalyptic cyborgs, but the fact that stores have any food to start with in shops after complete and utter sterilization of oceans.
Misato then shows Shinji her messy s̶e̶x̶ ̶d̶u̶n̶g̶e̶o̶n apartament with hyper-detailed cans of beer and Doritos snacks. Was this movie sponsored? Well, at least it wasn't made by SEGA like End of Evangelion. Shinji then goes to take a bath and gets his dick chewed off by a penguin with retractable claws.
Next day, Toji throws a megaton punch at Shinji (based Toji, he should do it more often, especially after the third movie). Ritsuko states that every Angel has a core, which is bullshit, because Lilith, Ireul, Leliel, Bardiel, Armisael and KAWORU-KUN all lack any identifiable cores. Shinji then goes about blasting Simulation!Sachiel into bits multiple times using weird robot head with heart in its throat and eye tits. Shinji mumbles to himself while jerking off to Plague Doctor getting blown to bits.
Shamshel breaks the boredom with its arrival and boy, red doesn't look good at all on it. First off all, how do you fall so low after SACHIEL? Shamshel looks like a copy of some random background Apostle from Berserk that would appear during the Eclipse and get killed instantly by Guts. It literally looks like a penis growing out of really long dress when it stands upright. Red color looks terrible on it. Dude has energy whips and... that's it?! Sachiel had bone lances, self-muscle mass manipulation, enhanced leaps, cross explosions, shapeshifting and self-destruction. I can't believe they didn't replace it with any other series-exclusive Angel or just create a new one. Also, what part of "weird red penis with energy tentacles" is associated with "Lonely Conqueror of God" or "The Angel of the Morning"?
We get really long montage of Tokyo-III getting into battle position, whereas Shamshel just kindly waits in the background. Shamshel is of course unaffected by a rain of taxpayer money and missiles. Unit-01 is dispatched, firing more unnecessary ammunition that crushes cars beneath it. Lucky Shinji doesn't have to pay for all the destruction he causes. What sort of a retard would abandon their car on the street during a giant monster attack, especially in the city DESIGNED to deal with giant monsters?!
Shamshel throws Unit-01 into the mountain, magically making it crash with Toji and Kensuke between her fingers. Unit-01 then blocks penis dress' tentacles even though it just overpowered her a minute ago and sliced through buildings like wet paper. It continues to hold Shamshel back even when Shinji detaches his Entry Plug to let Kensuke and Toji inside. Shamshel then gets casually thrown off in weirdly animated way, before Shinji stabs it and it dies. The Lonely Conqueror of God was like the only Angel lame enough to get killed by Shinji without any help nor berserk modes, by the way.
Misato buys Shinji a drink and then politely asks him as to why did he ignore her order. Shinji acts like an annoying little bitch about, before smirking to himself, showing that him getting grabbed by Misato was his plan all along. Misato dismisses him, with Shinji not throwing his drink into the trash can. Shinji then goes on to live a thug life, hanging out at the town with prostitutes and sleeping on cliffs. However, his escape from town is prevented when he discovers that THE BRIDGE HAS BEEN BLOWN IN TWO!
We then get a real sexy shot of Shinji's ass that lasts solid seven seconds (I checked on a stopwatch) and he immediately gets found by dark division squad. Shinji ponders about how he doesn't have any freedom and shit, sounding like a stereotypical bratty teenager who talks in "uuhh kiinddee" tone that you just want to pound with a hammer in the face. Misato lies about him having any choice over piloting robo-momma and shit, before leaving.
It is then revealed that Hugo Strange and skinny old dude planned Shinji to be whiny little bitch, and they decide to tag him along with his mother's (probably infertile) clone. Shinji punches Toji, who somehow survives skull-shattering power of that 14-year-old, and Rei looks out of the window and is like "OMG Shinji that's so hot can we shake pls?" Of course, every girl in the swimming pool then lusts over Shinji, the stereotypical 14-year-old who is author's avatar. Except Gayanami.
Ritsuko then reveals to Shinji that Gendo has BURNED HIS OWN HANDS to SAVE GAYANAMI from EVIL CYCLOPS NAOKO-POSSESSED UNIT-00. Entry Plug for some reason sticks to a wall upon being ejected. Unit-00 then slams her head against the wall, much like I do trying to understand the thinking process behind the third and fourth Rebuild movie. Oh yeah, and Hugo Strange saves his super replaceable clone FROM CERTAIN DEATH. Ritsuko finishes this with basically "trust me bro" to Shinji.
Shinji then uses his digitalized vision in Unit-01 to spy on Gayanami, a power which never comes into play ever again. Ritz and Misato have another pointless conversation about hot Shinji is and why the fuck does Hugo Strange avoid him. Probably because he would keep cumming at every glance at Shinji. Oh, and Ritsuko talks about some misandry nonsense. After Ritsuko hands Rei's ID card to him, Shinji continuously empties his clip until there's nothing left.
Next day, Shinji teleports into Gayanami's apartament and enters without knocking, stealing Hugo Strange's cracked glasses and putting them on. Unfortunately (or rather, fortunately) for him, Rei can also teleport, standing nude in the corridor and knocking him on herself, also splattering her underwear everywhere. Shinji places his cumstained hands on Rei's chest, but it's okay cuz she's totally into it. End of Evangelion had them reverse roles, except Rei pressed Shinji's tits to hard and shoved her hands into his chest.
Yeah, so basically, they both travel together by the train and Gaynami cavemanly tries to open up the door with her ID card, only for Shinji to teach her how to do it properly. Imagine if Shinji forgot the ID card from her apartament and they didn't have that synchronization test that day. She then slaps Shinji in the face for some reason, obviously having Muzan-level of berserk button, and Shinji cums. Then weird blue triangle thing shows up.
The second Shinji shows up, Ramiel shots Unit-01 square in the chest with its laser, before NERV deploys convenient barrier shield. Ramiels then morphs into cross and melts it, stopping Shinji's heart. Being a chad, Hugo Strange tells NERV to keep watching screaming diamond boil his son alive for a few more minutes. Since only she has some pity for yet-to-commit-a-mass-genocide sex offender, Misato blows up a bunch of pillars and hides Unit-01 from laser gem, who promptly morphs back to weird octahedron shape, Bayformers-style.
Whereas triangle morphs its crotch into earth-piercing angel drill, Shinji is placed into medical tube like Vilgax, apparently without clothes. Ngl, Ramiel looks like it's taking a pee when it uses its drill. OMG, what the fuck are these expressions, Misato? Then Hyuga proposes to wave a white flag. What? WHAT?! How do you wave a flag at an eldritch abomination, dude?! And what?! Do you expect Ramiel to just accept your surrender and live a quiet life afterwards?!
So, we get an unmemorable montage of Misato organizing everything to have all of Japan's electricity drawn to Positron Riffle instead of just throwing a Lance of Longinus at Ramiel and calling it a day. Ramiel also fucks around for 10 hours instead of just blasting a hole in GeoFront like Zeruel and calling it a day. Oh, and Gendo mentions Dummy Plug System along the way, so that Bardiel fight will feel less forced. Also, Shinji has another talk with Leliel apparently. And apparently with Armisael as well.
Shinji wakes up butt-naked in the hospital and sees Gayanami reading a book, to which promptly explains all the details of Misato's plan to murder crystalline laser cannon. Then he stands on a tiny bridge between two buildings, where he has some small talk with Misato, who grabs him by the hand and drags aaaaallllll the way down to Lilith's chamber. She holds his hand all the way through the elevator, very yandere behavior, Ms. Misato. I can see why she got so mad about Shinji not being there for 14 years in the third movie.
Misato mumbles some shit about half of humanity dying 15 years ago in the Second Impact, something Shinji was taught about in school in the original series. She then states that if Angels trigger the Third Impact, humanity will be erased for sure, which isn't true because Shinji triggered Near-Third Impact in the second movie and then Kaworu-kun triggered the real one in the time-skip and humanity was fine.
Goddammit, why did they have to give Lilith such a TERRIBLE design in the rebuilds? Why does she wear Sachiel's face instead of seven-eyed purple plate that represented biblical God's face? Why does her legs move when she literally has no soul? Oh, and she has nails in her eyes for LOLs. The only improvement is that she no longer has a beer gut.
After a bunch of filler shit, Toji records his love confession for Shinji and the action begins. Oh wait, first he has a chat with a girl whose memory will be reset by the third movie and then she will die by the fourth. Sorry, I just hate two latter entries of Rebuild of Evangelion. Ramiel morphs into pentagram and obliterates a mountain with two shots. Shinji decides to be a crybaby again and hesitates. Hugo Strange tries to cut him off, but Misato refuses and Hugo becomes submissive.
Ramiel fires again and Rei blocks it with a shield, giving Shinji enough time to fire another blast. It goes right through crystalline monster and Ramiel farts fire, with its core exploding and drill breaking into LCL that pees all over GeoFront. Unit-01 extracts Unit-00 from hot lake and cuts open her nape with Progressive Knife, making Entry Plug pop out and pee blood in cross-shaped manner. Shinji opens up her capsule and has character development, which obviously goes very far because as soon as Asuka and Kaworu arrive, Rei will be pushed aside and Shinji will masturbate.
Speaking of Kaworu-kun, the camera pans over to the Moon, with hostile genocidal gay monster awakening from a coffin. He talks about "generalization stage", whatever the fuck that means, and SEELE-01 manifests before him. Not gonna ask as to how a panel that can be turned off can teleport to the Moon, don't have time for that. He stands up, revealing much better design for Lilith with anorectic posture. Looking at his dialogue, I'm kinda disappointed that all this complex lore and vague dialogue just leads up to "make depressed antisocial kid happy and universe is saved" nonsense.
Review[]
First and arguably second-best entry of Rebuild of Evangelion, which isn't exactly saying a lot. 90% of the plot is just copy-and-paste of original six episodes with some minor, insignificant changes + Kaworu on the Moon. Visuals are nice at night and inside NERV/GeoFront, but they fall flat in daytime scenes with god-awfully thin lines and dull color grading. Music is mostly just reused from TV series with no noticeable changes. Overall, it's 4/10.