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.