autaku

By the time I posted my review of Evangelion 1.0: You Are (Not) Alone (just over a week ago) I suspect that many readers (if not most) had already seen it. This review of the the second film in the Rebuild of Evangelion - 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance – is perhaps a little more timely. If you did read my review of 1.0, you’d have seen my assertions that 2.0 strays from the original plot more than that film did. I won’t be discussing the entire plot in detail here (as reviews, by nature, should be written for readers who’ve not see the film in question) so if you are yet to experience You Can (Not) Advance, you can read on without fear of significant spoilers.

2.0, like its predecessor, gets right into the action from the beginning. The first scene actually contains mostly English dialogue, which may annoy some viewers but it’s executed well enough and ultimately is effective in creating a sense of realism. The scene takes place at a NERV base outside of Japan, so it makes sense that people aren’t speaking Japanese. Newcomer Mari Illustrious Makinami makes a fairly impressive debut, piloting her Provisional Unit-05 – a quadrupedal Eva that deviates from the traditional designs in a number of ways – against an Angel. Unlike Shinji, Mari is very cheerful about piloting the Eva and seems to be enjoying herself even when things start to get nasty. She’s both determined and reckless in combat, and this first appearance leaves quite an impression… just don’t expect to see too much more of her in this film.

Following this all-new opening, You Can (Not) Advance weaves faithfully reconstructed scenes with less familiar territory effortlessly and as a result is a much fresher and more engaging experience than You Are (Not) Alone. For existing fans of the franchise 1.0 presented a highly enjoyable but very familiar experience with few surprises; there are no such concerns here. It’s still a joy to see parts of the original series rebuilt to today’s animation standards and there’s still plenty of that, but with 2.0 Hideaki Anno has begun to rebuild the plot as well. The result is a film that offers more surprises and tension for fans of the original all the way to its incredible climax (which I wouldn’t dare spoil for you).

It’s often the case with revisiting existing franchises (or with sequels) that the writers assume viewers already know the characters and therefore they don’t need to do much characterisation, but thankfully that’s not the case here. Evangelion’s characters are already well-developed and, as with the plot, the film refreshes elements from the series while shedding new light on characters and relationships with new developments. It’s difficult as a long-time fan of Evangelion to separate yourself from the series while watching these films, but You Can (Not) Advance offers excellent character development in its own right and I can’t imagine new viewers feeling like the film is relying on outside material too much. The other problem with revisiting beloved stories and characters is that you can’t please everyone. Some will complain when you change nothing, others will complain when you change anything. Opinions on the changes in 2.0 will undoubtedly vary and I won’t pretend to speak for anyone other than myself, but I did enjoy most of the new developments.

Where 1.0 was a faithful reconstruction of the original Evangelion series, 2.0 is more of a rebuild in terms of plot as well as animation. These are still the characters that you know and for the most part these are the events that you know, but much of it has been tinkered with and there’s more new ground to tread on the way to You Can (Not) Advance‘s breathtaking finale, which brings the Rebuild plot somewhere around that of the series circa episode 23. It’s almost easy to forget that there are still two films to come. 2.0 takes the series in an exciting direction, and I can’t wait to see what happens next.