This is (Not) a Summary: Evangelion 1.11 You Are (Not) Alone

Greetings, ladies and gentlemen!  And welcome to the official start of This is (Not) an Evangelion Event with my first review of the month.  It’s no secret as to what I’ll be reviewing and I’ve been dying to get this event started, so let’s dive right in.  Let’s officially kick off This is (Not) an Evangelion Event with my review on Evangelion 1.11 You Are (Not) Alone.

Much of this first installment in the Rebuild film series is a condensed version of episodes 1-6 of the original series.  But assuming that many of you reading this have not seen the original series, I’m going to move forward with a synopsis.  Fifteen years after a catastrophic event called The Second Impact, the world has become a much different place with much of the landscape having changed due to the aftermath.  Tokyo-3 is one of those cities.  As the film opens, fifteen year old Shinji Ikari is waiting for a ride to see his estranged father.  During his wait, a giant creature known as an Angel appears and starts to wreak havoc.  Shinji gets caught up in the cross-fire between the Angel and the military until his ride, Misato Katsuragi, arrives and quickly takes him away to Nerv, a secret organization that specializes in fighting off Angels.  Unfortunately for the group, the military refuses to get them involved until a land mine fails to kill the monster.  With Shinji now at Nerv, his true purpose for being there is revealed; Shinji is asked to pilot a giant mech called an Evangelion Unit, which is specialized to combat and kill the Angels.  At first, Shinji refuses to pilot it, which prompts Gendo Ikari, the head of Nerv and Shinji’s father, to use an injured pilot in his place who we’re later introduced to as Rei.  But after seeing that some of her wounds haven’t fully healed, Shinji agrees to pilot Eva Unit  1.  Shinji is later able to defeat the Angel at the expense of taking some serious damage to the unit and suffering some injuries.  Following these events, Shinji moves into Misato’s apartment and later attends school.  There are two students who at first give Shinji a hard time but later befriend him after a second Angel attack.  When the boys sneak out to watch the fight in action, they get caught up int the scuffle and eventually take refuge inside Eva Unit 1.  Shinji, once again, is able to take down the Angel with fewer injuries than before, but becomes so distraught by the stress and pressure from piloting that runs away and wonders Tokyo-3 for the entire day (even sleeping out on the street).  He eventually agrees to come back and continue piloting the Eva, but not after Misato gives him a warning that his complacent attitude will not help him in the future as an Eva pilot.  It’s after this debacle that we finally get a proper introduction to Rei. 

Much like in the original series, she’s a shy and quiet girl who pilots Eva Unit 0 and seems to be very friendly with Gendo.  In fact, Shinji and the staff at Nerv are painfully aware that Gendo has a better relationship with Rei than his own son.  Shinji finally gets his opportunity to meet her when asked to take her new ID card to her.  The encounter becomes awkward very quickly as he arrives at her place after having taken a shower, which causes Shinji to leave and forget to give Rei her ID.  Shinji is able to give her the card at Nerv, and afterwards the two have something of a conversation.  But when Gendo is brought up, it goes south and ends on an abrupt note.  Following this, the sixth Angel appears, and Shinji is once again the forerunner in the attack.  However, things go south very quickly when Shinji and the Eva are brutally attacked.  Shinji is severely injured as a result and once having regained consciousness questions whether to pilot the Eva again.  Meanwhile, Misato comes up with a plan to take down this new angel by using the Evas as snipers with a powerful laser cannon that uses the electricity of the entire county to power it.  When the time to attack the Angel a second time comes around, Shinji is still complacent about getting in the Eva again.  Misato decides to show Shinji something that Nerv has kept in it’s headquarters for quite some time: the remains of the second Angel, Lilith.  According to Misato, Nerv headquarters is set to self destruct if the Angels were to ever reach Lilith as contact would trigger another Impact.  All Nerv staff are aware of this fact and that the Evas are the only line of defense they have.  After telling Shinji this, Shinji agrees to pilot the Eva once again.  The attack on the Angel starts not long after.  Though it takes two actual shots and Shinji to take the helm of the canon, the Angel is defeated.  Concerned for Rei, Shinji rushes to her Eva Unit to free her, burning his own hands in the process.  The action reminds him of a similar incident he heard about with Rei and Gendo, which causes him to cry.  Rei isn’t sure how to react, but gladly accepts the rescue.  The film ends with a brief introduction to Kaworu (who we don’t get introduced to officially until the third installment) who in a very surreal scene has a brief conversation with Seele and notes his later encounter with Shinji. 

Overall, the first Evangelion movie wasn’t all that bad.  Granted, if you saw the first few episodes of the original series, the problems become very obvious.  But on the whole, I give Evangelion 1.11 You Are (Not) Alone  a 7.5 out of 10.  I can’t really say too much about this film in terms of story and plot elements cause, once again, if you saw the series, much of what the movie had wasn’t anything new.  But the one great thing about the series is just how it looks; the newer animation makes the film look very nice.  Sure, I like the vintage cell painted animation style that the show originally had, but it’s nice to see what it looks like cleaned up with some modern animation.  Plus, the film also had the benefit of having some CGI animation to it as well.  Some parts of Tokyo-3 and two of the Angels look great.  Ramiel, the sixth Angel, gets an especially nice makeover.  In the series, Ramiel stuck to its two dimensional diamond-esque shape.  But here, it morphs into many different shapes.  It’s the one time in animation where CGI was put to good use and is absolutely breath-taking!

As I previously stated, much of Evangelion 1.11 ran like a summary of the first couple of episodes.  And that’s really what I had the biggest problem with.  Watching it made me feel like I’ve could have gotten a lot more out of the series than watching the movie.  In fact, there were some scenes from the series that weren’t even in the movie, like Eva Unit 1 protecting Shinji from falling debris (which I’ll talk about later this month).  On the other hand, there were some scenes that they added or redid completely.  For instance, the scene where Misato shows Shinji Lilith wasn’t in the series.  In fact, Misato doesn’t learn about Lilith till much later on in the series!  It didn’t hurt or hinder the plot of the film all that much and was a nice serious moment for the series.  Still, whether the film took away or added scenes, at the end of the day, I couldn’t help but feel like I could have gotten more from the series.  But, I will say that if you are new to the Evangelion franchise, this actually isn’t a bad place to start.  So while I do call it a summary of the first six episodes, I think newcomers to Evangelion will find it welcoming.

 It may be just a summary, but Evangelion 1.11 You Are (Not) Alone a great way to start off Rebuild and this event!  If you want to watch the film for yourself, it’s available wherever anime is sold.  And so that wraps up this week’s review!  Stay tuned for this Thursday when I talk about some of the best things to come out of Rebuild, and of course for my review on the second installment Evangelion 2.22 You Can (Not) Advance!

-Hanime on Anime

Evangelion 1.11 You Are (Not) Alone