IN 1995, ANIMATOR Hideaki Anno created Neon Genesis Evangelion—a 24-episode, giant robot epic with enough explosions to keep Michael Bay jerking off for a decade. Add the prerequisite anime babes, a wild subplot that deconstructed religion, plus an Oedipal love story, and the end result was a gateway drug to the world of anime and J-Pop—and one that kept a generation of American nerds tripping over their JNCO jeans on their way to their local crackhouse hellhole, Suncoast, for their monthly Evangelion fix.

"You start to want to believe it's real," one of those nerds, director Wes Anderson, said earlier this year of Evangelion. "This could spawn something like Scientology."

Fourteen years after Evangelion's multinational assault, Anno once again bitch-slaps our inner otaku into submission with Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone, the first of four feature-length films that he describes as a "faithful remake of the original series." Evangelion: 1.0 is, indeed, true to form, complete with a new widescreen format, reimagined character designs, some of the most frightening sound effects ever recorded, some conspicuous product placement (Doritos), and a not-so-conspicuous titty shot (titties).

Hideaki Anno puts his pants on one leg at a time, just like the rest of us. But the difference between Anno and us is when he has his pants on, he makes fucking awesome robot movies. Bring on the next three.