| 6:8 - The end of the End of Evangelion (please!) |
Where to start? The endings, and related events, of Neon Genesis Evangelion could fill
entire libraries, so I'm not going to pretend that this essay
contains all the answers. Japanese speakers can get hold of the
Dictionary of Evangelion Terminology, the two Anno interview books,
Schizo and Prano, and Kabutogi Reygo's Pedantry of Neon Genesis
Evangelion, which apparently even contains a Jungian analysis of Pen-Pen. I can't hope to better all that.
Rather it contains all the answers I could find, plus a few that I
came up with on my own. It happens. To start in a rather mundane
way, [MM#3] gives the following list of reasons for the final
episodes of Evangelion:
| 1: | These episodes were a cynical marketing ploy to get viewers queuing in the cinemas to see the "real" ending. |
| 2: | End of Evangelion was always intended to be broadcast, but studio executives refused to allow it. It would certainly get an 18 certificate in the UK (FYI the highest rating the Evangelion video releases received in the UK was 12 - Subi), and would be eminently unsuitable for broadcast at 18:30 on Japanese television (which, despite the cries from the more jingoistic sectors of the press community, is not the sea of sex and tentacles that they think it is - Subi). These episodes were thrown together as a last-minute replacement. |
| 3: | Gainax were forced to make a more traditional ending and release it as a film because the general reaction to the television version was so bad. |
| 4: | Gainax fell behind schedule, their financial troubles are well known (in fact, I have read one review of Evangelion where the reviewer claimed he kept seeing "the bits where Gainax ran out of money" - Subi), and were forced to release these episodes as a stop-gap measure. Many members of staff would prefer that the episodes released as Genesis 0:13 be quietly buried and replaced with the real thing. |
All of these, apart from point one (which is really just fan
paranoia), have solid evidence behind them. And we need to face the
fact that we are never going to know the real reason. Forget it.
Whichever one it really is, someone is going to have to back down and
that just isn't going to happen.
One of the reasons Evangelion is such a good series is also one of its major
problems, it works on so many different levels, and therefore causes
much confusion and argument. It's one of those series that repay
viewing many times. In fact, it's almost essential to do so - for
most fans. Broadly speaking though, fans of Evangelion can be broken into
two categories: Those who thought the series was about the
characters, and those who thought it was about the plot. The first
group like the television ending with its resolution of the
character's problems, and the others prefer the movie, which explains
(most) of the mysteries.
This was not limited to the West either, there was just as much of an
outcry from the Japanese fans, although some for a different reason.
Western viewers have long been used to television series that only
have a beginning and middle - the end never being shown, or even
written or recorded, because the series is dropped by its network due
to falling popularity. For example Dark Skies springs to mind.
Babylon 5 is a notable exception, and, even then, NEARLY suffered
this fate (and, because of this, the final series sucked ANYWAY IMHO
;). However, Japanese viewers generally don't have to put up with
this, if only because the anime in question is based on an already-
completed manga (like Record of Lodoss War) so the surrealistic
"non-ending" of 25&26 threw them completely.
It isn't as if this is the first time Gainax have done this either.
Blue Seed also had a semi-metaphysical ending. Others have likewise
used this technique, the most famous example, to which Evangelion pays some
homage (Shinji's resignation and the scene where his card is
invalidated), being the British '60s television series The Prisoner.
In fact, similar outrage was expressed in Britain when The Prisoner finished
it's initial run, and what's more, it was, like Evangelion, mostly written,
directed, produced and lead acted by one man (Patrick McGoohan). Evangelion
itself was also, by the end of its first airing in Japan, causing
consternation with its levels of extreme violence and adult content
in what most assumed would be just another series about big robots.
The critical difference is that Japanese fans did not have to PAY for
the experience of being bewildered and confused. They got it on
public broadcast. The Western fan, however, has shelled out upwards
of one hundred and seventy pounds, or two hundred and seventy dollars
for the entire series. An almost indecently large amount of wodge,
considering many fans are still in education, or at least working to
pay off student loans. Therefore, the average Western fan feels they
have more of a right to complain (but complaint is one of the few
rights of a fan anyway ;)
So, which ending actually happens? Some may say who cares? It's
nice to have a choice of conclusions for a change. Anno, however,
has gone on record as saying that BOTH take place. Exactly how is a
little confusing. If we accept that 25&26 take place in Shinji,
Misato and Asuka's heads, then theoretically this could have happened
at any time. However, the most likely point is in End of Evangelion, when each of
the above is absorbed during the Third Impact. 25&26 state that the
events they portray take place during instrumentality, and there are
brief flashes of Misato and Ritsuko's dying bodies during them, along
with Gendo summoning Rei to perform the task she was created for,
which fits with that timeline. Whatever lovers of the movies prefer,
Shinji's psychological drama takes place in End of Evangelion as well - only with a
lot more graphic sexual content.
But, that being said, there is a MAJOR difference. 25&26 suggest
that Shinji rejects the loneliness of his life up to that moment, and
accepts instrumentality and the absorption of his self into the
gigantic single being that the human race has become. With the
tearing down of the wall separating him from the rest of the cast,
Shinji joins them in the next stage of existence. End of Evangelion, on the other
hand, has him asserting his individuality and returning to Earth. So
we STILL have a choice of ending, possibly the ultimate cop-out on
Anno's part, although maybe that's a little unfair.
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"I'm always trying to remind people that it comes down to the original creators. When you watch Evangelion, you can feel that there's a real person behind it."
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To find a reason behind the endings we really need to look Evangelion as a
whole, not to mention Hideaki Anno himself. As creator, writer,
director and artist he obviously had a major influence. It is, after
all, his series. The bare facts are that in the early '90s Anno fell
into a deep depression, and spent the next four years "simply not
dying" in his own words. He was pulled out of this by picking up a
book on Jungian psychology and recognising many similarities to
himself within it. This inspired within him many of the ideas that
were to become Evangelion, not least of which was the naming of all the
soundtrack pieces after Jungian imagery.
Many see Evangelion as a rewrite of one of Anno's previous anime, the
seminal Gunbuster. Gunbuster also has psychological elements,
particularly the moment at the beginning of the fifth episode when
Noriko, the main character, realises all her friends have grown up
whilst she is, literally as well as emotionally in this case, still a
child. It also touches on the confusion surrounding growing up,
despite having the responsibility of being one of Earth's saviours -
Noriko's first love in the form of fellow pilot Toren Smith. As for
the ending, the climax of Gunbuster is also, like parts of 25&26,
only shown as a series of black and white sketches. At the end of
episode four, Chibi-Noriko explains to the audience that she cannot
give a preview of the final two episodes, as she has done with the
earlier ones, because they've only just been approved and haven't
been written yet. Are we seeing a pattern here? ;) Having said
that, Anno has been a fan of "non-visual" science fiction all his
life, from book to radio, so on many occasions he has chosen to make
his audience work, and THINK, for a change.
However, Gunbuster is still far more traditional than Evangelion, with it's
wish-fulfillment fantasy of a klutzy young girl achieving the status
of top pilot due to some "natural talent" that is sure to manifest
itself in time (at the end of episode four to be precise), rather
than actual skill. Although the sheer ridiculousness of this is also
questioned by Noriko's "big sister" (which is what Misato was billed
as in early Evangelion adverts) Kazumi. In Evangelion Shinji and Toji don't want
the job, Rei was created specifically for it and Asuka clearly has
the talent for it - all marked differences from Noriko. What reasons
does Anno himself give for Evangelion?
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"How could I think of doing another old-fashioned robot anime? Our reason was that we though it would be good to put on TV a robot anime that was not sponsored by a toy company. Robot anime has been stuck in a pattern, and we wanted to break out of it. For example, I wonder if a person over the age of twenty who likes robots is really happy?"
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A rather simple answer, and presumably a quote from a longer
conversation. His remark about toy company sponsorship is somewhat
ironic, considering that, according to [FAQ], one of the sponsors of
Evangelion was, in fact, Sega.
A popular theory to explain Evangelion is that Anno and the rest of Gainax
simply wanted to ask the question, exactly what IS it like to be the
suicidal pilot of a giant robot? It must be said that the whole
concept of using huge mecha to fight battles is somewhat ridiculous.
The average Mechwarrior platoon could be taken apart by one guy with
a bag of hand grenades who went around blowing the legs off. At
least Misato does at one point (episode 8) state that "hand-to-hand
combat is the best way of defeating the angels", therefore giving the
Evas more of a right to exist than, say, the robots in Patlabor.
The ultimate rejection of the standard giant robot plot comes in End of Evangelion,
when Asuka takes on impossible odds - and loses. Usually, last-ditch
desperate attempts cannot fail, to quote Terry Pratchett, "million-
to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten". Not this time, which
shows that this really isn't about the plot at all. For Anno, at
least, Evangelion is about the characters. Indeed, one of the most
suggested ways of getting 25&26 to make sense is to replace every
instance of the word "Shinji" with Anno himself. The man is working
out his own personal demons in Evangelion, he is even said to have used the
same mantra as Shinji to get himself though the project: "I mustn't
run away".
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"Evangelion is a therapist's dream. Anno obviously didn't get along well with his mother or any female. My guess is that Anno hates women. He must have been one very lonely little boy. Rumour is that when he finally finished Evangelion, he shaved all the hair off his entire body... all of it. That's just weird."
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(Amanda Winn, from [AF#2])
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Gainax have long had an obsession with "fitting in", in that it's
nice to be different, but occasionally you long to be one of the
crowd. Again, take Noriko in Gunbuster, who is still a child whilst all her
friends have grown up - she stays young and attractive but starts to
wonder if there isn't something to growing up after all. Much of
this is lost in the English translations, not through the fault of
the translators, but because of the language. The concept of "coming
home" infuses many of the conversations between Shinji and Misato.
25&26 end with Shinji saying "To my father, thank you. To my mother,
goodbye", possibly a pretty much conclusive glimpse into Anno's mind,
although that might be a little unkind. So, Shinji is screwed up
because his creators are screwed up, therefore we really should have
expected a screwed up conclusion. ;)
By bypassing the traditional big bang of an ending Anno is drawing
attention to himself and his own ideas and reasons. Evangelion destroys
thirty years of giant robot traditions, which started with Mitsuteru
Yokoyama's Giant Robo in the late sixties, so where does that leave
someone who makes his money from them? Have they deliberately shot
themselves in the foot? Certainly, Anno's next two projects, Love &
Pop and His Secret Her Secret, were a departure that no-one was
expecting, and the latest rumour is that he has defected to Studio
Ghibli to make another live-action film. Actually, there's even a
part in the Evangelion radio-play CD drama where the characters find
themselves unemployed once the series is over and fake an angel
attack to get their old jobs back. They have done what they were
created to do and now feel as if they aren't needed anymore - which,
of course, they're not.
But this writer's personal favourite theory behind 25&26 is that
Anno, in the end, is holding up a mirror to his audience and
reminding us that Shinji has been like this all along. He's our
hero, we stuck his poster on the wall, we bought the T-shirt, we
dressed up as him at conventions, we wrote the fanfics, but he's a
complete and total psychological basket-case. You even get a taste
of what COULD have been written in the hideous-to-some alternative
reality segment where all the characters are straight out of the
Urusei Yatsura sketchbook (who said Battle Skipper? ;) Gendo as a
henpecked father, Yui as a domesticated mother and Misato as a purely
textbook sexy older woman. Not to mention Asuka as Shinji's proto-
wife, Rei as the new girl, Shinji, Kensuke and Toji being
stereotypical lads, and lots of jokes about panties and arguments
between girls over boys.
Of course, there are many Evangelion fans, despite loving the series as much
as they do, who would prefer if PRECISELY this had happened. Fans
who prefer the first few Asuka episodes before somebody turns all the
lights off and lets all the psychological demons loose (are you
reading this Andrew Huang? ;). Whilst I stand second to no-one in my
love of Tenchi Muyo and it's ilk (in fact, as I type this, I am also
rejoicing that I have FINALLY found a source for the Urusei Yatsura
TV series - hey, life is hard for the UK anime fan! ;), I can't help
feeling that this would lose the point entirely. Still, I do like
that scene, and enjoy all the fanfics written in that vein.
So what of End of Evangelion? No matter what the reasons for the film, it is still
fairly shocking. In fact, scrap the fairly (and you should have seen
some of the films I watched for my English degree! ;). It isn't a
straight action flick, nor an X-Files/Twin Peaks crossover, nor a
John Carpenter-esque horror. It's a very, very nasty piece of
psychological deconstruction, with more-than-occasional pointless
violence, and sexual scenes for which, for many people, Anno's
excuses fall flat. Why make a film so different in execution to the
television series? There may be a reason.
To begin with let me tell you of a precedent. I'm sure that you all
know of a gentleman by the name of Gene Roddenberry who created this
cheap little television series called Star Trek. Years after the three original series had
finished and had been aired to death in just about every country in
the world a sequel, Star Trek : The Next Generation, was made. The Next Generation horrified
many of the original fans, who claimed it went against the traditions
of the original series. One of the reasons given for this was that
Roddenberry was so sick of having his life made a hell by all the
obsessive fans of Star Trek that he made The Next Generation the way it was simply to piss
them all off and get his own back. It is to be noted that Voyager, a
supposed return to the original values of Star Trek, did not come about
until Roddenberry's death.
So it is possible that this is precisely what Anno had in mind with
End of Evangelion. He was so sick of all the complaints about the ending of a
series that meant so much to him that he deliberately took a
completely different track with the movie, even down to changing
Shinji's final decision as to whether to accept instrumentality or
not. Certainly he at least had a broad idea of some of what was
going to happen in End of Evangelion when 25&26 were made (there are brief flashes
of these events in 25&26, after all). But End of Evangelion contains all the
violence, the beheadings, the lack of emotion, the masturbation, and
the sexual explicitness that you DIDN'T expect, right from the first
scene. Not to mention the fact that the bad guys actually WIN. End of Evangelion
is a classic revenge tragedy, in the simplest sense with the UN
eviscerating NERV. There is also Rei rejecting Gendo, which has
shades of King Lear, with the old ruler being rejected by his
daughters, not to mention Gendo's realisation that he rejected the
one child who (once) loved him. However, it's pretty much conclusive
that Shinji, unlike Cordelia, did NOT still love his father. And,
also like Lear and many of Shakespeare's other tragedies, End of Evangelion
contains the death of many major characters, some almost casually
killed out of sight of the viewer. In the highest sense though, End of Evangelion
is Anno's revenge on the ungrateful fan.
Incidentally, I have to warn you, be prepared for more of this. Evangelion
was a huge boost to the anime industry in Japan, and, needless to
say, many Evangelion clones have appeared. Whilst Anno and Gainax have
moved on, others are cashing in. Brain Powerd and Gasaraki (to which
AD Vision have already obtained the English language rights) are a
couple of notable examples, and Yoshiyuki Tomino, creator of Gundam,
has claimed that his new series (presumably Turn-A Gundam from what I
read in NewType) will "out-do Evangelion". To my knowledge though,
none of the people behind any of these have QUITE the same
psychological problems as Anno, so maybe that's why people are saying
that they're just not the same.
Ah well. In the end, read Evangelion as you want. If you enjoy the series
and/or the movies, it doesn't matter WHAT you think, as long as you
get SOMETHING out of them. I can put it no better than Rei and Yui
did:
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"Well, that's good for you."
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BTW: I'd got to Rage Against the Machine's first album by the time I finished this. ;)
Sam "Subi" Brown 20/08/99
subi@gameart.com
http://www.gameart.com/4ca
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