Subject: Well, I've watched the first two episodes.
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Posted on: 2019-06-22 15:33:00 UTC

Note: I have never seen this show before, but I have spent a lot of time with people who have. Spoilers beyond the first two episodes may or may not be present in the following summation, I have no idea, but fair warning in case something I propose as a wild guess is actually true. (And please don't tell me either way.)

My summary:

An Irresponsible Woman drives recklessly through an abandoned city, in lockdown due to an attack by a monstrous being called an Angel. One of these hasn't been seen in fifteen years (and the current year is 2015, lol). She picks up a Hapless Youth from a street corner. They are nearly wrecked by the explosion of a weapon meant to take out the Angel, but it's okay: our Hapless Youth's head is cushioned from the blow by the Irresponsible Woman's pillowy bosom. They're both fine, and they make their way to their destination.

It seems the Hapless Youth has been summoned to an underground military establishment known as NERV, which is tasked with fighting the Angels. The summons comes directly from its leader, his father, who is such a Hard Bastard that he can break an I-beam with his face. No, really, that actually happens at one point! Okay, there was reinforced glass in between, but they framed the scene to look that way, so I'll interpret it that way if I want to. {= P

Hard Bastard wants Hapless Youth to pilot a giant robot, or Evangelion, known as Unit 01. The Evas are totally not actually Angels that have been hacked by NERV and encased in armor, I'm pretty sure. Hapless Youth, disappointed that his father didn't actually want to see him out of love or anything like that, refuses. He just got here, he's never seen any of this before, and why should he? Hapless Youth is absolutely correct in this. Irresponsible Woman and Hard Bastard don't try to force him, they just summon the other pilot, who is a Listless Waif due to being more or less on death's door from her last attempt to do this.

By the way, the success rate of the Evas is zero. This has never worked, ever. And yet they still want to chuck Hapless Youth into this thing and expect him to just agree out of patriotism or something, even though he's like twelve, probably. This is insane.

Still, seeing Listless Waif attempt to drag her broken self back into the Eva, Hapless Youth has second thoughts. Also, the battle going on above-ground causes some structural damage down where they are, and some debris nearly squashes Hapless Youth, but the Eva acts of its own accord to protect him, flinging the debris aside to break on Hard Bastard's face. The Eva should not be able to do this, it's not even plugged in. This is Significant.

So Hapless Youth eventually climbs in, and we have evidence that in the 90s, people totally believed that liquid oxygen was going to be a thing by 2015. Hee.

Hapless Youth syncs up perfectly with the Eva. This has never happened before! Amazing! They shoot him to the surface to fight the Angel, and things look promising: the Eva walks! Incredible!

... Then it faceplants and the Angel shoots it in the head. Oops. I guess that's... the end of Evangelion. {= D

No? There's more? Okay.

So Hapless Youth doesn't actually die. In fact, in flashbacks, we learn that the Eva more or less comes to life, heals itself, and proceeds to beat the snot out of the Angel. Hapless Youth is totally fine, if somewhat traumatized. He's given quarters in NERV, but rather than make him live alone, Irresponsible Woman decides to take him in. She likes beer. She drinks beer. She may have had one or two dozen beers. She is also totally manipulating Hapless Youth to be sure he'll be combat-ready again. Nice.

Meanwhile, we see that the world is run by a council of totally-not-evil dudes who all look more or less like the Penguin. (The DC villain, not the actual hyperintelligent penguin Pen-Pen who also lives with Irresponsible Woman and Hapless Youth for some reason.) I'd call them a shadowy council, except they each get their own color spotlight, so they are the Rainbow Council. I'm sure they're not somehow responsible for everything that's wrong with the world.

And that's pretty much it for the first two episodes.

What do I think? It's weird, I don't know any of these characters well enough to care about what's happening to them, and I don't know why the show dives right in and expects me to be invested. Still, the designs are cool, the soundtrack is good (if lined up rather oddly with the action at times), the action is good, and the mystery of what the Angels are, where they came from, what's NERV really all about, etc., is intriguing. So, sure, why not?

I expect some super-weird weirdness going forward, though. So far, I'm not feeling it, and the hype is large. {= )

I'll try to give more thoughts as I go, but no promises I'll be very consistent about it.

~Neshomeh

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