Review for Evangelion: 2.22 You Can (Not) Advance (Review)

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Introduction
At any other time, getting to review the Evangelion 2.22 movie would have been the highlight of my month. After all this is the rebuild of Hideaki Anno's magnum opus that we are talking about, the television series that for a generation simply defined anime, that took existing tropes and clichés about giant robots, and turned everything on its head, delivering something fresh, original, and epoch defining. Before Evangelion, every giant robot anime wanted to be like every other giant robot anime. After Evangelion, they all wanted to be like Evangelion. It had been over ten years since the Neon Genesis Evangelion television series hit, and fans the world over wondered what Hideaki Anno would deliver. After all, part of Evangelion's longevity is down to how many ways the industry has found to sell the same series over again. But Hideaki Anno delivered something truly fantastic. This is after all the 21st Century, where everyone has high definition home cinema. Evangelion would be rebuilt from the ground up, with modern animation, in widescreen, in high definition, in four theatrical features. For those of you who would worry about redundancy, this Evangelion is telling a different story from the television series, even if the characters are the same.

Last year saw the UK release of Evangelion 1.11 You Are (Not) Alone, the first instalment of the re-imagined story. It was stunning, managing to invigorate and make original a story that most anime fans will have seen a dozen times before. That movie, with one or two major alterations, told much the same story as the first five or six episodes of the series. This second movie, Evangelion 2.22 You Can (Not) Advance, takes us into new territory, with new characters and a different story. This should have been my dream anime feature film release for June 2011. Except that Manga Entertainment are releasing both this, the first Eden of the East feature, and Akira on Blu-ray in the same month. I'm deluged by an embarrassment of riches. It's like giving a starving man a menu.

The defeat of the sixth Angel at the end of the previous film must have made an impression on his father; Gendou Ikari actually spends some time with his son Shinji for once, even if it is to pay a visit to the grave of Shinji's mother. Father and son still aren't exactly communicating though, and Misato is there as a chaperone. But even this brief interlude is interrupted, the Angels' war on humanity rages on, and the Evangelions are called to fight more and more, and not just in Japan. Acheron base is destroyed when Unit 05 self destructs rather than allow an Angel to get to Limbo, its rookie pilot managing to escape the maelstrom by ejecting the entry plug. The Ikaris' day out is interrupted when an Angel attacks Neo Tokyo 3 again, but this attack heralds the arrival of Unit 02, and its pilot Asuka Langley Shikinami, who quickly shows what the benefit of a military training allows for. She instantly reveals an antagonistic disdain for Shinji Ikari, an idiot who is only there because of his father, and Rei Ayanami, a teacher's pet, and doesn't look too keen on the idea of teamwork.

Misato decides the best way to deal with this is to have her move in with her and Shinji, as well as go to school with him and Rei. That doesn't exactly have the desired effect, but as the 9th Angel will show, the three pilots will have to have teamwork if they are to succeed. But while the children are finding it hard to get along, it's no easier for the adults, with Ryoji Kaji's return making life a little difficult for Misato and Ritsuko. His return also add to the political complications that NERV has in dealing with the other nations with their own Evangelion projects, as well as the friction with SEELE, and the Human Instrumentality Project. When Unit 04 and its base are destroyed, it suddenly seems expedient for Japan to bear the burden of the Evangelions, and Unit 03 is sent there to be tested. No one expects it to actually be an Angel, and the tragic results leave NERV hopelessly undermanned when another Angel attacks. Unbeknownst to everyone, there is a fourth Child in Neo Tokyo 3, another Evangelion pilot.

Picture
The audio and visual specifications for the Evangelion 2.22 Blu-ray are nigh on identical to the first film, so with a judicious bit of cut and paste… The 1.85:1 widescreen image is sublime. The image is clear and sharp throughout, the animation is smooth and detailed, colours are rich and vibrant, and there are absolutely no typical DVD issues like aliasing or mosquito noise to worry about. Detail levels are high, and the depth and clarity of the animation comes across in full effect. There are one or two slight moments where you might see some colour banding, but these are few and far between. Evangelion 2.22 maintains the high standards for Blu-ray presentation set by the first film. Blu-ray really is the way to see this movie.

The images in the review are sourced from the PR, and aren't necessarily representative of the retail disc.

Sound
The Blu-ray offers you the choice of Dolby TrueHD 6.1 English and Japanese, with optional translated subtitles and the signs only track (I haven't seen the DVD to know if it suffers from the same subtitle issues that plagued 1.11). The sound here is outstanding, an enveloping and resonant experience, making great use of the soundstage to convey action and effects, ambience and atmosphere. Just as with the visuals, this is a chance to give Evangelion the space it always deserved, and watching and listening to this film, I realise how confining a medium television was for this epic story. Shiro Sagisu's music is present and correct, but has had a full orchestral makeover for the film, sounding richer and fuller than it did in the series. The remix version of the end theme by Hikaru Utada is still very catchy.

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