Neon Genesis Evangelion Rebuild on Prime Video: why see it and in what order

Neon Genesis Evangelion Rebuild on Prime Video

The importance that Neon Genesis Evangelion had for the world of Japanese animation is simply disconcerting: it is an anime that has literally changed everything, probably one of the most famous and influential of all time.

The series was born in the early 2000s from the mind of Hideaki Anno, head of Studio Gainax, and from the pencil of Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, who until then were known to most for having worked on The Mystery of the Blue Stone, another cult anime made on horseback between 1990 and 1991 and which was regularly broadcast in Italy. Explaining it from the beginning, after so many years, would not make sense: if you are passionate about Japanese animation, you have probably already seen it in all sorts of ways, but perhaps the same cannot be said for Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0: Thrice upon a time, the feature film. that puts an end to it - for real! - to the work of Anno and which will arrive exclusively on Prime Video on August 13th, dubbed in ten languages, including Italian.

But this last chapter will not be published alone as it will arrive on streaming platform accompanied by the three previous films that make up the so-called Rebuild of Evangelion.

What is Evangelion?

Evangelion, the protagonist Shinji Ikari Neon Genesis Evangelion is an animated series produced by Studio Gainax is set in an alternate 2015 where humanity is still recovering from a mysterious cataclysm that has rocked the planet. The protagonist, Shinji Ikari, is fourteen years old when he is summoned to the city of Neo Tokyo-3 by his father, Gendo, with whom he has developed a conflictual and detached relationship. Shinji arrives just as an Angel appears, a gigantic, disturbing form of extraterrestrial life that immediately puts the military in difficulty.

Gendo Ikari, who heads an agency called NERV, has prepared the Evangelion, a humanoid machine piloted from within through a complicated process of mind synchronization. For initially incomprehensible reasons, Gendo claims that it is his son who is fighting the Angel with the Eva-01 unit: this could be the classic story of a brave boy who throws himself into battle and wins with the power of friendship, firing torpedoes. photonics and holding space halberds, but it is not. It really isn't.

Evangelion isn't even the usual anime of fighting between giant robots and alien invaders: those are just the outline of an introspective work in which the characters, their psychology and their complexes emotional and sentimental plots continually steal the stage from battles, however frequent and exciting. It is difficult to explain Evangelion in words. In the span of twenty-six episodes and various films, everything really happens and the twists and turns follow one another at a fast pace, often in a dramatic and unsettling way.

To make everything even more engaging, there is a powerful mystical / religious symbolism . We do not want to add more because if you have never seen it, it is right that you do it completely in the dark, but if you decide to embark on this adventure, we suggest you read the next lines to understand how to deal with it in the best way. .

How to watch Evangelion

Evangelion, the unit Eva-01

Neon Genesis Evangelion episodes 1 to 24 [Evangelion Death (True) ²] Neon Genesis Evangelion episodes 25 and 26 The End of Evangelion Evangelion 1.0: You Are (Not) Alone Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance Evangelion 3.0: You Can (Not) Redo Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0: Thrice upon a time

Neon Genesis Evangelion consists mainly of twenty-six episodes that make up a single season, already available in streaming on Netflix. In the catalog you will also find two feature films entitled Evangelion Death (True) ² and The End of Evangelion. To explain ourselves better, we have to do a very small spoiler: the last two episodes of the animated series could blow you away.

In the middle of the real climax of the series, director Hideaki Anno decided to focus mainly on psychological analysis, leaving the essentially unfinished story. The reasons for this choice revolve various stories and legends that speak of budget cuts and time problems, even if some say that Anno has chosen this approach to convey a very specific message. In any case, to understand Evangelion you have to go through those twenty-six episodes first ... or alternatively watch Evangelion Death (True) ² which, effectively, summarizes the whole story in about an hour of animation and introduces the contents of The End of Evangelion in the last minutes of the film.

Evangelion, Rei Ayanami pilots the unit Eva-00 The End of Evangelion is, in many ways, the true ending of Evangelion, and this too could ideally be divided into two parts . The first is a revised and corrected version of the unedited screenplay of Evangelion Death (True) ², while the rest is the shocking epilogue of the animated series. In summary, here is the order in which you should watch the series on Netflix: Neon Genesis Evangelion 1 to 26, Evangelion Death (True) ² is optional, The End of Evangelion.

However there is something else you should know about Evangelion. First of all, the character designer Yoshiyuki Sadamoto wrote and designed the comic adaptation: among the various manga released on the theme, this is the only one that is really worth reading, also because the others are spin-offs full of fanservice that often they profoundly alter some key moments in history. Sadamoto's manga follows the plot of the series and The End of Evangelion, deepening some aspects, and closes it all with a completely different epilogue.

What is Rebuild?

Evangelion, the Eva-02 in a scene from Evangelion 2.0 A few years after The End of Evangelion was released in theaters, Hideaki Anno began shooting a series of four feature films with his Studio Khara - founded in 2006 precisely to relaunch Evangelion through Rebuild - who recount his work all over again, but at a certain point take a totally different drift.

The first feature, entitled Evangelion 1.0: You Are (Not) Alone, was released in Japan on end of 2007 and retraces roughly the first six episodes of the animated series over an hour and a half, boasting higher quality animations and drawings. Although it seems like a more concise and clearer summary than the original script, the small but significant changes in the narrative make the vision fundamental to understanding the rest of the work.

The second feature, Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance, released in 2009 and quickly detaches itself from the original storyline, to take a completely different path with the introduction of unreleased characters and a general disruption of the original plot.

Evangelion, the cast in a scene from Evangelon 2.0 The third film, Evangelion 3.0: You Can (Not) Redo, dated 2012, continues the story in an unprecedented way, twisting the original screenplay of the animated series and partially reshaping the events of The End of Evangelion. It is the most controversial and discussed film of tetralogy: extraordinary from the visual point of view, it suffers in the narrative that insists on cryptic and self-referential messages, as well as on a development perhaps too distant from the original plot, complete with a "time skip" that projects the characters fourteen years into the future, in a completely new context that redistributes the power games, roles and bonds between the characters. A sort of necessary reset which, however, justifies the sense of Rebuild once and for all, no longer a reinterpretation of the original work but something more interesting and ambitious.

Evangelion, a scene from The End of Evangelion Passed it The rock of the third film, however, Rebuild has plunged into a real abyss for years. Written and rewritten - Hideaki Anno supervised directing and screenwriting, leaving the processing in the hands of his loyal Kazuya Tsurumaki, Mahiro Maeda and Katsuichi Nakayama - Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0: Thrice upon a time (but the Japanese subtitle is even more bizarre: "𝄂 ", which is a sign of repetition in musical scores) should have debuted in 2014, only to be completed seven years after Evangelion 3.0 but, thanks to some problems, and then the thrust of the pandemic, it arrived in Japanese cinemas only last 8 March, cashing in an absolutely ridiculous amount of yen at the box office. On 12 June it was then redistributed in Japanese cinemas, in a revised and corrected version: some scenes added, others redesigned, with a view to the release on Blu-ray (which is why the home video editions sport slightly different titles, for example Evangelion 1.1 instead of 1.0 and so on).

This will be the version that Prime Video will publish all over the world, including Italy, on August 13th. And for those who have not yet recovered the three previous films, the digital catalog will offer those too.

Why watch Evangelion?

Evangelion, Eva-00 attacks an Angel in a scene from Evangelion 2.0 On the importance of Evangelion and on how it has influenced Japanese animation, storytelling and, quite simply, popular culture of the last twenty years, we could write a papyrus. First of all, we need to understand the period in which Evangelion began.

In the 1990s, Japan was facing a serious economic crisis that affected especially the youngest. Director Hideaki Anno had been suffering from depression for a long time and had decided to write this story almost as an outlet, in the hope that he, and all of him in his situation, might feel less alone. The various characters that appear in the story, starting with the protagonist Shinji, represent the different ways in which individuals establish their identities and distance themselves from those around them: not surprisingly, Evangelion speaks above all of the human soul, and of what it means to relate to others and to oneself.

Evangelion, the Third Angel pierces the Eva-01 in Evangelion 1.0 The science fiction component is a red herring. Initially it has a strong stage presence, especially in the first episodes, but then it slips into the background, leaving room for the protagonists and the bonds they have established between them and with the world around them. Most of these characters suffer from more or less obvious mental or emotional disorders ranging from simple post traumatic stress to separation anxiety. They are often ambiguous characters who struggle to integrate into society or who wear Pirandello masks. Evangelion wanted to be a kind of indirect psychotherapy especially for hikikomori, Japanese inmates who prefer isolation and solitude to real life, and who often surround themselves with fiction and video games to escape them, a real social scourge in the land of the Sun Levante.

Evangelion, Misato Katsuragi and Makoto Hyuga in a scene Evangelion, in short, is a deconstruction of the mecha genre and the title, "Neon Genesis", also refers to that: in the 90s, the overwhelming Most anime with so-called super robots focused on the more technical and sci-fi aspects, as well as action and combat. Anno's work, on the other hand, analyzes the psychology of the protagonists with an enormous attention to details of a scientific, military or philosophical nature, making use of a powerful metaphysical symbolism that offers itself to multiple interpretations.

La massive religious iconography, mysticism and continuous references to the Jewish cabala or Christian mythology are simple misdirections, details chosen more for their exotic charm in Japanese eyes than for their meaning: Anno wanted multiple perspectives to be mixed in his work, nourishing a mysterious and eerie atmosphere that would keep viewers in suspense, prompting them to do research on their own.

Why watch the Rebuild?

Evangelion, Asuka Langley Shikinami pilots the unit Eva-02 This is an excellent question that many fans have asked themselves, especially the purists who consider the original series untouchable and look suspiciously at the reinterpretations. in retrospect of such iconic works.

The first answer we can give is also rather trivial: the four Rebuild films deserve to be watched because they are simply excellent animated feature films, from every point of view. Even the faintest of tetralogy, Evangelion 3.0, is a feast for the eyes and ears, thanks in part to the excellent soundtrack that includes the melodies of composer Shiro Sagisu and songs by Utada Hikaru. The Italian version of the work is also embellished with a first-rate dubbing and an adaptation that fortunately has nothing to do with the Cannarsi debacle of the first relaunch on Netflix in 2019.

Evangelion, the three Eva in one action scene Secondly, the Rebuild deserves attention for another more particular reason: it is not a real reinterpretation of Neon Genesis Evangelion, nor an alternative vision of the original work. It is part of the imagination of Hideaki Anno, it is an integral part of his project and, indeed, it is a sequel to the series in twenty-six episodes and to the feature film The End of Evangelion for reasons that we do not want to anticipate but that you will probably have guessed if you chew a little 'the language of the author.

The Rebuild is literally the conclusion of the story that began in 1995, as well as the official farewell - in current intentions, at least - by Hideaki Anno to his work, which saved him, healed and enriched, but also tormented, for over twenty years. And to which he was finally able to say "sayonara" with his heart in peace, a luxury that few authors and directors have been able to grant.

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