8BitKid: Living Bit by Bit

This past weekend I sat down to watch the latest Evangelion DVD. Gainax has returned their seminal anime series that debuted in the mid-90’s. The “rebuilds” are a revisiting of the original story, told in four new films. The first three will retell the happenings of the series, while the forth will present a new conclusion. I first watched the series in a bit of a bender when several college friends and I watched every episode in succession our sophomore year.

The DVD recently came out in Japan, and I finally felt mentally prepared this weekend to dive into the film. Although I missed not having the movie open with the original theme, Cruel Angel’s Thesis, I was instantly struck with the visual beauty of the presentation. The film has many shots similar (if not identical) to those that can be found in the original series, and so you can’t help but notice how much better everything looks this time around. Throughout my viewing I had a continuous string of “wow” moments as I smiled in appreciation at being able to soak in the visual upgrade.

In terms of story, the first film tackles the first six episodes of the series. While certain sacrifices have to be made in order to compress the story into the film-sized chunk, I actually enjoyed absorbing the story through a film’s narrative. They did an excellent job of not just making the film feel like a stilted stitching of the episodes, but instead they sprinkled various elements across the duration of the movie to help provide a cohesive story arc. Of course, the movie’s ending provides little closure, but I’d put it on emotional par with Empire Strikes Back, if not a little more upbeat.

I’m not going to even begin to delve into the mythology in this post; that is worthy of a book. I will say that if you haven’t experienced “Eva”, you owe it to yourself to do so. If you can happen to track down this DVD, definitely give it a watch.

- mp3 courtesy of “crime of innocence“