Belated Thoughts: Evangelion 3.0 + 1.01: Thrice Upon A Time (2021)

Had been putting this one off for the kind of time and bandwidth needed to finally digest it, and unfortunately it's pretty much everything I feared it would be.

Visually strong, but so far up its own ass that it ends up designating the entire Rebuild concept to KY Jelly status.

With the original series, the enemy/obstruction was growing up and perpetuating the awfulness of our previous generations.

With Rebuild, the enemy/obstruction is Anno's indifference.

Again, another case of being given all the toys, but no clue as to what to do with all of them. The finale ends up being less a functional dramatic piece of work, and more a grand canvas to get out years of latent, unrealized ideas whether or not it tells a story or evokes an emotion. In the end, Rebuild is little more than an increasingly overwrought rag more interested in fan service and fetishism to the point that it all feels pretty perfunctory and without much left to say. Twenty four years after The End of Evangelion (1997), it's pretty clear that whatever personal turmoil led to the epoch making confessional that is the original series has come around, and it isn't terribly interested in anything outside of objects. The once very compelling character landscape of NGE is now pure spectacle with nothing driving it all but fleeting baubles of interest. Despite all its incredible production muscle, the entire affair is an inert one punctuated by assumptions of depth.

For me there is no sensitivity to incident which is to say that nothing really breathes, which is what I need for moments to build and deliver. There is a lot thrown at us, but those aren't really scenes. Rather they are wildly complex ideas and opportunities for animators to strut their best, but with no authentic purpose outside of how cool it might be. It's something that pervades the Rebuilds, but it is in overdrive here to the point that I felt nothing for anything or anyone.

Worse yet, it's clear that Anno has only learned the wrong things since the original series. The conclusion he comes to here is so backward, so toxic, that it's hard to believe it was written by the same person. If anything, it kind of taints the original if these feelings were always at the back of his mind. That, or marriage and life beyond has rendered him into something the opposite of what made the original so powerful to me.

The fact that it's now all about objects and incident without humanity is the wrong kind of depressing. It decides that the finale of Gunbuster with its Black Hole Bomb was infinitely more interesting than the choices pilots were making or exploring. Give an artist everything they could possibly want, and the end product might be telling of their deepest intentions.

This is another one of those "careful what you wish for" moments. Sure, the original "End" was an emotionally overwhelmed and deeply angry mess, but at least it was a vulnerable, honest mess.

1997 presented us with the Shinji outcome.

3.0 + 1.0 is the Gendo outcome.

FLCL Progressive's debut episode, RE-STA: Inverted Dreams

Opening on what seems to be a desolate planet awash in mostly monochromatic colors, we follow what looks to be our headphones-sporting new central character, Hidomi not looking terribly well. Surrounded by destruction and detritus from what looks to have been a cataclysmic event that has left her equally as tattered. With each step, her form seems to also be exhibiting signs of damage. To the point where she loses both hands as the landscape is soon humming with the familiar incoming of a row of giant steam irons. No means of taking control when she stares into the eye of an alien giant. Only a moment later, the horn protruding from her forehead overtakes, leading to the emergence of an entirely new humanoid robot ready to take on the domestic hordes of normalcy. The buzz of an alarm goes off. Another vivid dream for a girl seemingly gone numb in a world so weaned on her particular brand of disconnect. Her headphones to block out the world, and "tsundere" demeanor, now an accepted part of the daily mosaic that it's only a matter of time before either she disappears, or is confronted head on with these nagging dreams of robots, irons, & guitars. Well, whaddaya know? It's a spiritual sequel!

So here we are at last, catching up with a proper introduction after Toonami's April Fool's event, which was passable at best. And my impressions here are largely no different, save for what scribe Hideto Iwai, and the FLCL team hint drop for us in regards to what happened to our favorite Space Fraternity misfit, and the children she pesters in the name of her own plans. In a town that in many ways resembles that of the original Mabase, we are introduced to a world that has seemingly embraced many corners of questionable maturity in the name of a new status quo. Hidomi's mom is hopelessly chipper, and wildly accepting of her daughter's disinterest to the point of systematic expectation. It has become such an expectation that even Hidomi's part-time diner job is strewn with patrons who praise and fawn over her apathy. These regulars, now an aged version of the generation of fans I have grown up around. It's to the point where upon introducing the franchise's (Wow. I actually said the F word regarding FLCL) latest Spacecop, the more focused and steadfast Cadillac riding, Jinyu, reflects a potentially startling reveal that the battle between factions over the youth of the Earth indeed continues on, and that the intergalactic troublemaker, Rahau Haruhara, is indeed on the prowl again for fresh potential.

We also get to know Hidomi's class, in particular her classmate, Ide who not only has a penchant for stories, but is sporting both glasses and a familiar head bandage. Potential does indeed attend this class, and that teacher's voice should ring a few fan bells. Also worth making a note of, is Hidomi's mother who may have dropped a huge hint regarding the whereabouts of an important character from the original series. Considering Hidomi's current predicament, it makes all the sense in the world.

Now, the episode does finally reveal its hand in regards to where she is and what she has been up to all this time. But the implications of it, made a deeper impression on me than anything else in the episode. Production value vacillates between on par with the original 1999-2000 OVA, and standard television work. But the notion that Haruhara, has indeed been secretly infiltrating the youth in the town, helping engender a population of overgrown infants, is a sobering one. Growing up under the auspices of more conservative leaderships, one of the most popular colloquialisms regarding playing the role, and "overtaking from the inside", has now taken on a borderline malevolent tone. Considering the Japan and the West of today, our dreams may indeed have found themselves corrupted by those eager to exploit for their own gain. Indeed, its seems that FLCL's needle might have indeed shifted, by presenting what could go wrong when unchained youthful exuberance finds itself subverted. It's an interesting turn in what largely felt like already well-treaded ground. So until the next installment, I remain a little ambivalent about the existence of this return, save for some lush animation, and the ever reliable soundtrack by The Pillows.

There is potential for a serious upending of the past, but like the sneak peek from April, all I'm getting here is a nice smell from the kitchen, and no dish in sight.