Asuka is (Not) the Devil: Evangelion 2.22 You Can (Not) Advance
Greetings, ladies and
gentlemen! Welcome back to part two of This is (Not) an Evangelion Event! As many of you know, this week I’ll be taking
a look at the second movie in the Evangelion
Rebuild film series. And while I
gave a few spoilers to the plot already in my Talkative Thursday post earlier, hopefully
it won’t deter you completely from this week’s review. That being said, let’s talk about the second
film in the Evangelion Rebuild saga, Evangelion 2.22 You Can (Not) Advance!
Oddly enough, the film opens on a
moment that was completely new to the franchise, complete with new
characters. In a test facility in China,
tests are being run on Eva Unit 5 when the third Angel breaks loose. The pilot of the Eva, later introduced as
Mari Makinami, is able to destroy the Angel, but at the cost of destroying the
Eva and the facility. We then cut to a
graveyard outside of Tokyo 3 where Shinji and Gendo try to have something of a
bonding moment while visiting the grave of Yui Ikari (Gendo’s wife and Shinji’s
mother). The meeting seems to go well,
but Shinji seems a little discontent with the encounter. While Misato and Shinji are on their way back
home, the seventh Angel attacks.
However, it is quickly defeated by Eva Unit 2 and it’s pilot Asuka
Langley Shikinami. This defeat is later
followed by one of the most triggered moments in anime for me as Asuka’s
behavior is nothing short of atrocious as she insults and bullies everyone she
comes into contact with. Things do calm
down as we’re briefly introduced to Kaji, a new agent for Nerv as well as
Misato’s former lover. Not long after
this attack, Gendo and his second in command Fuyutsuki leave Nerv on business
where they travel to Nerv’s lunar base to check on the progress of a new Eva
Unit. It’s also here that we get a brief
scene of Kaworu on the base. As this is
going on, Shinji, Rei, and Asuka go about their normal days with school and
training. That is, until the eighth
Angel appears. The odds of defeating the
Angel are reportedly slim to none, but somehow, all three pilots are able to
defeat it. In fact, the fight seemed so
impressive that Gendo actually thanked Shinji for his hard work. It’s not long after this that Rei decides to
throw a dinner party in an attempt to help Shinji and Gendo patch things up
between them. As this is going on, an accident that destroys
one of the experimental Eva projects in the United States sends their latest
model, Eva Unit 3, to Japan. This puts
Eva Unit 2 on ice (literally), but this also allows Asuka the opportunity to
test Eva Unit 3. Originally, Rei was
meant to pilot the Eva, but Asuka took her place due to the dinner party taking
place the same day as Rei’s dinner party.
The test goes horribly wrong when the Eva goes out of control. It is then labeled as the ninth Angel and Eva
Unit 1 is sent out to defeat it. However,
knowing that Asuka may very well be alive in the Unit, Shinji refuses to
attack. This prompts Gendo to initiate a
Dummy System that completely overrides Shinji’s control of the Eva, and Eva
Unit 3 is brutally destroyed and Asuka is nearly killed. After this incident, Shinji leaves Nerv. However, it’s barely long before the tenth
Angel appears and attacks Nerv, managing to reach headquarters within
minutes. However, Mari-who arrived in
Tokyo 3 earlier in the film- takes control of Eva Unit 2 and sends it out to
fight the Angel. Rei also joins in
later, but both Units end up being defeated, with Unit 0 and Rei being devoured
by the Angel. Shinji, convinced by Mari
in a ravaged Eva Unit 2, returns to Nerv after his evacuation shelter is
destroyed and pilots Eva Unit 1 once again.
He manages to land some pretty serious attacks on the Angel until Unit 1
quickly runs out of power. But somehow,
and after being dealt several blows, Eva Unit 1 goes Berserk and kills the
Angel. Shinji then attempts to save
Rei. However, contact with the Eva, the
Angel, and Rei sets off Third Impact where the film cuts to the credits as it begins. In an end credit scene, Eva Unit 1 is impaled
by a Lance of Longinus by Eva Unit 6-piloted by Kaworu in one last cameo- which
stops Third Impact.
Of the three movies I’ll be
reviewing for This is (Not) an Evangelion
Event, this one was probably the strongest.
And yes, story plays a huge part in that, but it also involves some
little details that it added that made it unique. Overall, I give Evangelion 2.22 You Can (Not) Advance an 8 out of 10. Much like the first movie, 2.22 played out as a summary of the
latter half of the series. However, the
nice thing about it is that it’s not just a summary like 1.11 was. This film included
the absolutely necessary details the audience had to know and left out any
filler. It gave us everything we needed,
and nothing we didn’t. And to help
bridge some obvious inconsistencies, they added little plot points to help move
things along or changed some of the longer details to help translate the
content to film. There were scenes like
a visit to a government owned aquarium that weren’t in the series but helped
add some story. And then there was the
end to the film, which originally was supposed to be just Ev Unit 1 going
Berserk and there being no Third Impact.
Heck, Rei and Unit 0 aren’t even touched by the Angel in the original
series. And while I’m still on the fence
about the fight ending with the Third Impact, it was the number one moment that
I thought Rebuild got right. Even if it’s just one scene, this movie did a
lot of things right!
On the other hand, while there were
a lot of things the film got right, there were a lot of things it got
wrong. Getting straight to the point,
Asuka was the worst character in the entire film! She had no development and her personality
was awful. If anything, the one thing
that keeps me from watching the second film so much is her! Mari was another character that I thought got
zero development throughout the film as well.
Ironically, these are the most iconic characters of the franchise. Yet somehow they have so little depth and
interest to them except for the fact that they’re damn good Eva pilots. If the only interest to these characters is
that they’re good Eva pilots, then they’re not really good characters. Besides that, there was one particularly bad moment
that the film took and made it, for me, laughable and cringe-inducing rather
than dark and disturbing as it was meant to be, but I’ll talk about that later. Still, despite its flaws, I still think this
movie was the best of the three thus far!
So to sum up this week’s review, Evangelion 2.22 You Can (Not) Advance perfectly
combines old and new to give us one spectacular film! And so, that wraps up another review for This is (Not) an Evangelion Event. Stay tuned next Sunday for the third and
currently final installment of the Rebuild
films, Evangelion 3.33 You Can (Not)
Redo! Also stay tuned for Talkative
Thursday where I go from talking about some of the best moments in Rebuild to the worst. So remember that scene I talked about earlier
as well as Asuka and Mari! Just wait and
see!
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