The End of Evangelion

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The End of Evangelion 新世紀エヴァンゲリオン 劇場版
Directed by	Executive director Hideaki Anno Episode 25': Kazuya Tsurumaki Episode 26': Hideaki Anno
Produced by	Mitsuhisa Ishikawa
Written by	Hideaki Anno
Starring	Megumi Ogata Megumi Hayashibara Yuko Miyamura Kotono Mitsuishi
Music by	Shiro Sagisu
Cinematography	Hisao Shirai
Editing by	Sachiko Miki
Distributed by	Toei Company, Ltd. Manga Entertainment Madman Entertainment
Release date(s)	July 19, 1997
Running time	87 min.
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese
Preceded by	Evangelion: Death and Rebirth
Followed by	Revival of Evangelion

The End of Evangelion (新世紀エヴァンゲリオン劇場版 THE END OF EVANGELION, Shin seiki Evangerion Gekijō-ban: The End of Evangelion^?) is a 1997 anime film written and directed by Hideaki Anno along with Kazuya Tsurumaki.

The film, divided into the approximately 45-minute Episode 25': Air and Episode 26': まごころを、君に (Magokoro o, kimi ni, "My Purest Heart for You"), can be regarded as either an alternate ending to the popular animated series Neon Genesis Evangelion or a more detailed, "real world" account of the series' original ending in episodes #25 and #26, which takes place almost completely in the minds of the main characters (the style being largely shaped by time and budget restraints).^[1]

The film won both the Animage Anime Grand Prix prize for 1997 and the Japan Academy Prize for popularity^{[citation needed]}.

Plot

Beginning shortly after the end of the end of the twenty-fourth episode of the Neon Genesis Evangelion television series, Third Child Shinji Ikari is still despondent over the death of Kaworu Nagisa and ends up pleading for help from the comatose Second Child, Asuka Langley Soryu. Angrily shaking her for a response, he accidentally dislodges her hospital gown to reveal her breasts (over which he proceeds to masturbate, to his own self disgust).

The secret organization Seele, with the threat of the Angels gone and Gendo Ikari's betrayal of their plans obvious, orders the JSSDF's forces to initiate a large-scale assault on NERV headquarters. Asuka is hidden away in the sunken Unit 02, which she is able to reactivate under the threat of death and understanding her mother's soul has been bonded to the Evangelion all along, while Misato Katsuragi recovers Shinji from his hiding place under a flight of stairs to have him pilot Unit 01. She battles her way past JSSDF soldiers and is able to bring Shinji to the Evangelion's cage, but is mortally wounded in the process. Asuka is eventually defeated by the arrival of the "mass-production" EVAs, which force a horror-stricken Shinji and Unit-01 to begin Seele's version of Instrumentality.

While NERV collapses, Gendo attempts to implement his own version of Instrumentality to reunite with his wife by merging the embryonic Adam (bonded to his right hand) with the First Child, Rei Ayanami. However, Rei takes over the process and reunites with Lilith, who finally regains her soul, and creates a planet-wide anti-AT Field, negating the AT-Fields of all of humanity and causing their bodies to dissolve into LCL. The souls of all human beings are absorbed into the Egg of Lilith, a giant dark sphere cradled by Lilith/Rei, as she grows into a supreme being of size comparable to the Earth itself.

As the souls form a single, complemented existence, Rei gives control of the process to Shinji. At first, Shinji's emotional sufferings and loneliness prompts him to accept this new form, believing that there could never be happiness in the real world, but recognizes after a series of mental journeys and monologues that it is necessary to live with others, and that to live life is to experience joy as well as pain. This constitutes a rejection of the goal of Instrumentality and Lilith/Rei decays and dies, releasing the anti-AT Field and allowing separate beings to potentially come back into existence. In the last sequence, Asuka and Shinji are shown to have rematerialized from the sea of LCL together on a beach looking out on the severed head of Lilith/Rei and the apocalyptic landscape. The film ends without revealing what happens to the rest of the world; the final scenes are further explored below.

Production

This section requires expansion.

Gainax launched the project to create a movie ending for the series in 1997, first releasing Death and Rebirth as a highly condensed character-based recap and re-edit of the TV series (Death) and the first half of the new ending (Rebirth, which was originally intended to be the full ending, but couldn´t be finished due to budget and time constraints). The project was completed later in the year and released as The End of Evangelion.

Episode 25': Air, utilizes the original script intended for episode 25 of the original series and forms roughly 2/3 of the previous film, Rebirth. The End of Evangelion later became the second half of Revival of Evangelion, a concatenation of Death(true)² and The End of Evangelion.

Among the images used in the film are of some of the hate-mail and death threats (including graffiti on Gainax's headquarters) as well as letters of praise sent to Anno.^[2][3]

Analysis

Please help improve this article or section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page. (May 2009)

Gendo's silent line

Gendo's final words to Ritsuko are muted and were never scripted, as they were originally meant to be inaudible over an explosion. Even after it was cut, Anno still wanted the line to be unheard.^{[citation needed]} Yuriko Yamaguchi had difficulty delivering Ritsuko's response ("Liar") without knowing what Gendo had said, but successfully delivered the line after a hint from Anno.^[4]

The final sequence

A scene from the ending sequence; the dead Rei/Lilith's arm is in the background

In the final sequence, Shinji and Asuka have separated themselves from the collective human existence, apparently alone in the post-Third Impact world. Shinji tries to strangle Asuka, but stops and breaks down in tears after she touches his face in the same manner that his mother did during Instrumentality. Their interactions display a wide range of positive and negative emotions. The world is irreversibly changed, however, and what happens afterwards is not revealed.

While Manga Entertainment originally translated Asuka's closing line, "気持ち悪い。" ("Kimochi warui."), as "How disgusting," it can also be ambiguously translated "I feel unwell/terrible/sick," "What a disgusting feeling," or "Feels bad." According to an episode of the Japanese anime show Anime Yawa aired March 31, 2005 on NHK's satellite TV, the final line was initially written as "I'd never want to be killed by you of all men, absolutely not!" or "I'll never let you kill me." ( "Anta nankani korosareru nowa mappira yo!") but Anno was dissatisfied with all of Yuko Miyamura's renditions of this line.^[5] Eventually Anno asked her a question which described what he was going for with this scene:

"Concerning the final line we adopted, I'm not sure whether I should say about it in fact. At last Anno asked me 'Miyamura, just imagine you are sleeping in your bed and a stranger sneaks into your room. He can rape you anytime as you are asleep but he doesn't. Instead, he masturbates looking at you, when you wake up and know what he did to you. What do you think you would say?' I had been thinking he was a strange man, but at that moment I felt disgusting. So I told him that I thought 'Disgusting.' And then he sighed and said, 'I thought as much.'" ^[6]

Tiffany Grant, Asuka's English dub voice actress, says this:

"The most widely circulated translation of the last line of EoE [End of Evangelion] is "I feel sick," but Amanda Winn Lee (Rei Ayanami's English voice actor and director of End of Evangelion) said she asked several translators, and she felt "disgusting" was the most accurate adaptation. You could say she is disgusted with/sick of the situation or with Shinji himself. My favorite explanation though, is this one: My husband, Matt Greenfield, directed the TV series and is very familiar with the whole Eva franchise. Matt has said that although (Eva creator) Hideaki Anno seems to change his mind frequently about what various things mean in Eva, Anno once said that Asuka's comment about feeling "sick" was a reference to morning sickness. Now THAT gives ya something to think about, doesn't it! Of course, Anno is quite passionate about the idea that every person should decide for him or herself what Eva means to them."^[7]

Despite the somber ending, it is made clear earlier in the film that the results of Instrumentality are not permanent. Both Rei and Yui comfort Shinji and tell him that people can restore themselves to physical existence if they want to, depending on the strength within their hearts. This being said, it is obvious that Asuka is one of the first persons to manifest herself back into reality. Another Evangelion trading card explains:^[4]

"In the sea of LCL, Shinji wished for a world with other people. He desired to meet them again, even if it meant he would be hurt and betrayed. And just as he had hoped / wanted, Asuka was present in the new world. Only Asuka was there beside him. The girl whom he had hurt, and who had been hurt by him. But even so, she was the one he had hoped/wished for...."

Postmodernism

This section requires expansion.

One of the e-mails to Hideaki Anno briefly shown in the movie; the text reads "Anno, I'll kill you!!!" (庵野、殺す!!!, Anno, korosu!!!^?).

Several scenes in the film, including a young Shinji building and destroying a Geofront of sand on a film set and usage of live-action video footage (of a movie theater audience and scenes of everyday life) could be construed as being highly postmodern. Much of the artwork has been used by artist Takashi Murakami to create the superflat style (a Japanese genre of postmodern pop art); scenes from the film have been featured at Murakami's exhibitions, and were discussed in depth in his book and exhibition, Little boy: The Arts of Japan's Exploding Subculture.

Music

In addition to Shiro Sagisu's original scoring, the film prominently features selections of Johann Sebastian Bach's music throughout the movie. Episode 25' has the Japanese title Air, being named after the Air on the G String which is played during the episode. Among the other pieces included are Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major (I. Prélude), Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring (transcribed for piano and later played again with string instruments in the end credits), and Pachelbel's Canon.

Among the other insert songs are "Komm, süßer Tod" (Come, Sweet Death), an upbeat song in which the singer describes their motivations for suicide (which appears in the film at the beginning of Instrumentality), and "THANATOS -If I Can't Be Yours", which is played in both the end credits and the credits to episode 25' (the song is based around "THANATOS", a background music piece used in the series).

Release

This article or section is missing information about: the original theatrical release.. This concern has been noted on the talk page where it may be discussed whether or not to include such information. (May 2009)

For the first laserdisc release of the series, which also included the first release of the video versions of Episodes 21-24, The End of Evangelion was split up into two 40-minute episodes with brief intros (similar to episode 22), edited credits (for each episode instead of credits for both between the two), redone eyecatcher-textboards (showing "Neon Genesis Evangelion Episode..." instead of "The End of Evangelion Episode..." and next-episode-preview-section in Episode 25. The episodic version of the film was on the last two discs of the 1997/1998 laserdisc release of the series (Genesis 0:13 and 0:14 respectively), each containing 2 episodes (the original TV episodes and the new End of Evangelion episodes respectively), although the movie was also released in its original cinematic form on VHS, laserdisc, and later DVD.

English release

In the English dubbing of the film, several minor creative changes include the addition of the line "Hit 'em again" to the scene of JSSDF soldiers burning NERV employees (offscreen) with a flamethrower (where there was no corresponding Japanese line), splattering sound effects when Misato shoots a JSSDF soldier through the head as well as when the replicas of the Lance of Longinus on which the Mass Production Evangelions are impaled swell and explode, and the use twice of the word "fuck" (a stronger level of profanity than in previous "Evangelion" dubs). Though some fans criticized one or more of these decisions, English-language director Amanda Winn Lee defended them in the Manga Entertainment DVD's commentary and contended they were completely appropriate given the context of the scenes.

The End of Evangelion: Renewal

A new version of The End of Evangelion was released on June 25, 2003 in Japan by Starchild and King Records as part of the Renewal of Evangelion box set (which compiled "new digitally remastered versions of the 26 TV show episodes, 4 remade-for-laserdisc episodes, and 3 theatrical features" as well as "a bonus disc with never-before-seen material").^[8]

This version of the film conjoins the "recap" film Evangelion: Death with End, omitting the Rebirth segment from the first film, and added a new live-action scene with the seiyū for Rei (Megumi Hayashibara), Asuka (Yūko Miyamura), and Misato (Kotono Mitsuishi) portraying their characters from the series, ten years after the events of "Evangelion". In this continuity, Shinji does not exist and Asuka has a sexual relationship with Toji Suzuhara. The sequence ends with Shinji's voice saying, "This isn't it, I am not here," proving it is a false reality seen through his eyes.

Manga Entertainment stated in 2006 that it was "ironing out the contracts" to release the Renewal versions of Death & Rebirth and The End of Evangelion, with the hope of being able to release them in the United States within the next year, though this has yet to occur.^[9] Currently, Manga Entertainment holds the overseas license for the pre-Renewal versions of the movies, whereas A.D. Vision holds the license for the Evangelion TV series, including the Renewal editions of the TV episodes (released under the subtitle The Platinum Edition).

Reception

This section requires expansion.

As of April 2009, The End of Evangelion is ranked #43 on IMDB's "Top 50 Animated Films".

Red Cross Book

The RCB's cover

The Red Cross Book (RCB) is the unofficial name of a Japanese pamphlet that was sold in the cinema for 800 yen^{[citation needed]} to people who came to see The End of Evangelion. The book is printed on A-4 sized paper, with the cover consisting of a red Georgian cross over a black background and "The End of Evangelion" printed on it

The book is essentially a canon glossary, authored by Gainax and various members of both the Evangelion TV series and movie staff, of many of the terms used in the TV series, manga, and the two movies to introduce the film's background to unfamiliar audiences. Also included are an interview with deputy director Kazuya Tsurumaki, a listing of seiyū and brief essays written by them on their respective characters, short biographical sketches, commentary on the TV series and production of the movies, and a "Notes" section covering the setting of the movies.

References

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: The End of Evangelion

See also

Evangelion portal

• Neon Genesis Evangelion
• List of Neon Genesis Evangelion media
• Human Instrumentality Project

External links

• The End of Evangelion
  新世紀エヴァンゲリオン 劇場版 at the Internet Movie Database
• The End of Evangelion
  新世紀エヴァンゲリオン 劇場版 at Allmovie