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Errinundra's Anime

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ANN Kazuya Tsurumaki page

My average ranking: 6.14

Director Pantheon: Kazuya Tsurumaki▲▼ Rating▲▼
(The) Dragon Dentist (specials) Good

Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone (movie) Decent

The whole franchise is terribly overrated.
1) If you were the angels would you send your troops in one-at-a-time to be cleaned up by NERV? A basic military premise is to apply overwhelming force on an enemy’s weak point. Clearly the angels aren’t dumb, so what on earth are they trying to achieve? If it were me I’d wait until all sixteen (or was it seventeen?) were ready and give Tokyo a real good shellacking.
2) I have a theory that the only people who think Evangelion is brilliant are or were about 15 years of age when they first saw it. Sadly for me, I lucked out and didn’t have the privilege until much older. The teenage pilots may well be justified in feeling set upon but do we have to be trawled through all their wretchedness. And then some. I get the picture. More finesse with the exposition, please.
3) Evangelion suffers severely from rabbit-out-of-the-hat syndrome. It goes like this. Heroes must fight monster. To be exciting the monster must push the heroes to the very limit of their capabilities. To continue the excitement the next monster must be stronger than the previous one.
Warning. Warning. This will exceed the abilities of the heroes.
Heroes pull a rabbit out of the hat to win. Problem escalates. Credibility suffers. Evangelion is the worst example of this I have ever seen.
4) They had the nerve to go and saturate all the water in red. It's not as if the franchise wasn't already pretentiously overblown.
5) Oh, and did I mention the infantile fanservice?
I don't know why I have persevered with the franchise. It all rapidly becomes very tiresome.
Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance (movie) Good

The various rehashes of the original series generally make worthwhile efforts to ameliorate its many problems. As in E1.0, E2.0 compresses the original story, emphasising the drama and downplaying the psychological issues of the pilots. No longer does the sight of the kids make me want to puke they way they did over 26 episodes. Shinji comes across far more heroically than has ever before and Rei more appealingly. The coming Human Instrumentality Project denouement is better flagged, however the final battle tries so hard to emphasise these metaphysical notions it becomes something of a giggle. There's more emphasis on the fights with the Angels than in the Death / Rebirth / End of Evangelion suite, highlighting the rabbit-out-of-the-hat problems of the franchise. Happily, the artwork and animation take a huge step forward and the fights are a kinetic marvel.
Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo (movie) Weak

Iteration #3 brings back to the rebuild series everything that was most excruciating about the TV series and had hitherto been avoided in the films - emphasis on Shinji. And beyond him there isn't one single interesting personality or character in any iteration of the franchise. Well, that's not entirely true: Misato Katsuragi could be fun at times, especially when seiyuu Kotono Mitsuishi was at her most melifluous. Here she only opens her mouth to bellow orders. Shinji spends much of his time in characteristic foetal position while Rei spends her time perfecting her thousand-yard stare and Gendo is as inscrutably obnoxious as ever. Despite his best efforts, you just know Shinji's going to bring about the end of the world as we know it.

The rip-snorting action of the opening and closing sequences have more in common with Gurren Lagann, what with all the explosions and corny stunts, than the original Neon Genesis Evangelion. There never was much philosophical substance to the franchise so if the producers wanted to up the ante I suppose the only way to go is the bigger and bigger explosions route. For all the noise and colour it was, in a word, boring. It's empty and silly and, this time, not even the action sequences could save it.

Extended review

FLCL (OAV) Decent

A truck load (or, perhaps, a scooter load) of mesmerising anime elements are thrown to together into a great pile that never manages to work as a whole. Or, if it does manage some coherence, it's really just an insignificant tale that is being told. No matter, it's the individual moments that make this short series as memorable as it is, along with a great soundtrack from the Pillows.
Japan Animator Expo (ONA) Very good

Directed The Dragon Dentist. Rating: decent.

Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death & Rebirth (movie) Decent

Directed Rebirth. Rating: good.

Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion (movie) Decent

Terminal faults ruin yet another re-write of the Evangelion saga: the long rehash of the Death and Rebirth episodes and the ongoing tedium of the self-absorbed protagonist. The outcome is typically ambiguous and typically silly, however there is some reasonable action on the way there.