In 2007, Hideaki Anno released the first of four films re-examining Neon Genesis Evangelion from the beginning. The first question everyone asked was: is it actually different? The answer, for this one, is: sort of.
This week on Toonami Absolution, Alyx, Jon, and Sam cover Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone. the first entry in the Rebuild of Evangelion tetralogy, and the beginning of an ambitious project that would take nearly fifteen years to complete.
The film covers roughly the first six episodes of the original TV series: Shinji Ikari is called to Tokyo-3 by his estranged father Gendo, placed in Unit-01, and told to fight the Angels, despite having no training, no preparation, and no particular desire to be there. He fights the Fourth Angel, nearly loses himself to the Eva during the process, and slowly forms something approaching a relationship with Rei Ayanami in the lead-up to Operation Yashima, the precision long-range attack against the Fifth Angel Ramiel, here dramatically redesigned from a floating octahedron into a continuously morphing geometric entity that transforms between attacks in a way the 1995 budget could never have managed. Kaworu Nagisa makes a very brief appearance at the end that should not be possible given where he appears in the TV series timeline, in a scene that the film declines to explain.
Much of 1.0 plays as a faithful, shot-for-shot re-animation with a significantly upgraded budget, the city of Tokyo-3, the Angel designs, the synchronisation sequences all look extraordinary. What it does not do, yet, is substantially diverge from the story everyone already knows. That comes later. We discuss what 1.0 accomplishes on its own terms, what it means as an entry point versus a re-entry point, how the Ramiel sequence elevates the source material, and what that final scene is setting up for 2.0.
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