User reviews

It's hard to imagine that fans of Evangelion won't be pleased with this leaner, gorgeous rebuild of the original anime series. And if you're new to Evangelion, this is a great place to start. 

You Are (Not) Alone is a pretty straightforward adaptation of the first six episodes of Evangelion. It's somewhat condensed but still containing all the major moments and plot points. While the next three movies promise new story additions and characters, this movie contents itself with mostly cosmetic changes, along with tightening up the story, a few extra scenes, and eliminating some filler. There wasn't a lot in the first six episodes that needed to be altered. 

That means slightly less whining from Shinji. SLIGHTLY.

The animation and visuals are outright beautiful, especially on blu-ray. I could recommend this on that aspect, alone. The re-designed Angels and action scenes are improvements over the original's (especially the sixth Angel), in my opinion and the voice work is great.

Does You Are (Not) Alone make the original series redundant and unnecessary (or vice-versa)? No, I don't think so. Both of them have merit, and both are worth watching. But, I'm very interested in seeing if the next three Rebuild of Evangelion movies rectify some of the mistakes that the latter portion of the series fell prey to.

This is probably not the best place to start the eva franchise with, but for a loving fan of the original series its just incredibly fun to see the already beautifully animated fights of the original series with the polished quality it deserves. The animation is really great, especially for a 2007 movie, and really catches one's eye. The great designs of the original series really come to live here. Other than that, the first rebuild doesn't really add a lot to the plot of the main series.

This is just a nice snack for any Evangelion fan, and as such lit up my heart. I'd recommend this series to anyone who liked the original Eva anime and is hungry for more.

Much better than the anime version, its animation has an incredible improvement.

The design of the angels is something I love a lot, and it's what I like the most about Evangelion, although I think it's great to understand the psychology and to know Shinji's life. Maybe we were all like him once upon a time, but I find the plot of the angels very gripping. I feel like the soundtrack could have been better, but it's rewarded by the good battles we see, though I was left wanting to see more.

It feels a bit rushed, but it's a very good and much needed reconstruction for Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Pretty much the same as the first few episodes of the series but the story goes a little faster. Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone is nothing special but it I enjoyed it really much. It just feels great to go back into the world of Evangelion. The new animation looks awesome and I hope the next films are also that good or even better!

Evangelion 1.0 takes us right back to those first few episodes I struggled with, and almost recreates them shot-for-shot. The movie starts much the same way, with Shinji on the streets during an Angel attack, before being picked up by Katsuragi and briskly escorted to NERV HQ. He's thrust into service as the pilot of EVA Unit 01, suffers the cold shoulder of his father, and grows jealous of the relationship Rei has with him. He suffers injuries from Sachiel before his EVA goes berserk on it, he takes out Shamshel while simultaneously saving Toji and Kensuke, and him and Rei have to set up on a nearby mountain in order to snipe Ramiel with the electricity of the entire country. So far so Neon Genesis Evangelion.

The most immediate difference is the massive animation upgrade Evangelion 1.0 enjoys. It's a huge step-up, from cheap still images from the 90s, scaled up to multiple moving layers, crisp colouring, and even dashes of CGI here and there to really up the scale. This movie is, by all accounts, gorgeous, and visually competes with anime being made today. But it's not just that. While many scenes from the show have simply been recreated with better animation, the increased budget allows for some interesting new shots as well, such as the city surrounded by crimson red oceans, a slightly tweaked appearance for Lillith, and Ramiel has been almost completely redesigned. No longer is Ramiel an unmoving prism with a fleshy drill coming out the bottom, but it's now a fully animated creature that shifts shape and form into other mathematical shapes and patterns.

On the other hand another big, obvious difference is how much was cut to condense it down into a tight movie. Evangelion 1.0 definitely prioritises the angel fights over anything else, and they are recreated in full without exception, some even enjoying a bit of an expansion. This means a lot of the more nuanced character work is gone. We don't see Shinji's first introduction at school for example, instead cutting straight to the punch to the face he gets from Toji. Then again, we don't get overlong shots of banality backed by the annoying sounds of a chirping cricket so that's a plus in my book (although the cricket does make a bit of a cameo once or twice).

During the first half of the show, I made some public remarks about how women were treated in it. On one hand it seems like a celebration of women and what they can achieve, placing them high in NERV's hierarchy, portraying them as professionally very capable and knowledgeable, whether it be piloting an EVA, or commanding a military operation, and the show passes the Bechdel test on a number of occasions. On the other hand the female characters were often shown in compromising positions, sexualising and objectifying them. Back then I understood it as just an aspect of adult anime, and now I understand it even more as showing Katsuragi's promiscuity and desire for sexual validation, or Shinji's awkward teenage misogyny. And yet looking back I still feel it went a bit too far and could've gotten the message across without seeming so sleazy and exploitative. This aspect is not gone from Evangelion 1.0. We still get an obtrusive shot of Katsuragi's butt in hotpants taking up half the screen, and Shinji and Rei still have their awkward encounter in her apartment (which is actually one aspect where better animation was a bad thing - no, I don't need to see the bare breasts of a fourteen-year-old girl). However there is less of it. What's left are quick shots that never linger too long and never reappear, and of course after having watched the show in its entirety, I understand the context much better so it didn't bother me nearly as much.

Ultimately this still feels like Evangelion. As far as I'm concerned it's a strict upgrade to this part of the show, but I hear 2.0 takes the story in a vastly different direction so I'm definitely looking forward to that. As a movie in it's own right I'm not sure how well it would stand up. My viewpoint is likely coloured by having seen the show so recently, which inadvertently added a whole bunch of context I wouldn't have had if I had just jumped in with the movies. It's very fast-paced and lacks some of the deeper character moments, but I think enough of it is left intact for the message to still get across. Of course by this point in the show we hadn't really tackled the deeper themes either, so it's hard to judge. I give Evangelion 1.0 a solid 8/10. As I said, as far as I'm concerned this was a strict upgrade to those episodes in the show.

After half of humanity and the world was destroyed by an incident in the arctic (referred to as the Second Impact) from the unearthing of a creature known as an "angel", the remaining forces through the orchestration of the United Nations establish an agency called NERV to combat Angel attacks headed by Gendo Ikari. When the Fourth Angel appears and begins attacking Tokyo-III, Gendo's estranged 14 year old son Shinji is brought in to pilot the Evangelion Unit-01 (Eva for short), specially designed mechas composed of mechanical and organic elements that sync with pilots on a psychological level. Shinji is reluctant to pilot the Eva with his feelings complicated by his troubled relationship with his father, unresolved grief over the loss of his mother, and Shinji's insecurity in himself which manifests in his relationship with his guardian/NERV operations director Misato Katsuragi and Evangelion Prototype Unit-00 pilot Rei Ayanami. Shinji must reconcile his psychologically injuries from both historical trauma and weight that comes from piloting the Eva.

Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone was intended to be Hideaki Anno's attempt at expanding the Evangelion series in a similar manner to how Gundam despite being created in the late 70s still had a foothold in popular culture with no installments still being produced. Initially intended as a three part trilogy retelling the events of the original television series, Anno established the "Rebuild of Evangelion" at Studio Khara believing that a new take on the material could not be achieved at Studio Gainax who originally produced the show. Production was chaotic with many of the original source drawings from the series lost meaning the production staff had to begin from scratch in many instances and the film began to deviate from the original source material. Despite the chaotic and loose development and production cycle, Evangelion: 1.0 became a success both in Japan and abroad and successfully started another run of Evangelion.

The movie covers roughly the same material as episodes 1-6 of the TV series beginning with Shinji's recruitment to Nerv and culminating in the confrontation with the Sixth Angel and the first major point of development in Shinji and Rei's relationship. Because Evangelion is at its core a coming of age story set against the backdrop of apocalyptic giant monster attacks, the movie avoids many of the pitfalls that other anime films based on TV shows run into with the movie incorporating most of the major events of episodes 1-6 of the tv series without making the film feel like it's just the episodes daisy chained together. While the major plot beats from the show are prominently on display, they've been remixed as to become part of a cohesive whole with Shinji as our anchor point. While Shinji is still the same character we know from the show and the movies from the 90s, there's undeniably an arc present with the character in the movie with some new scenes not only clarifying elements of the surface plot of Nerv and Seele, but also some good scenes between Misato and Shinji that are new to the film such as when Misato shows Shinji he's not the only one putting his life on the line in a way that both strengthens the core mystery for the film series as a whole while also developing Shinji and Misato's relationship and characters. My one major gripe was the reduction in presence for the characters of Toji Suzuhara and Kensuke Aida who in the series became friends with Shinji (eventually), while key beats involving the two are still here, we don't get the full impact of them as characters with a memorable scene between Aida and Shinji from the show gone. Granted they're supporting characters, but I still feel they could've been incorporated better especially with how important Toji was to one of Shinji's mental breaks in the show.

The animation is a bit of an acquired taste as there is a bit of whiplash with the more polished look the film sports in comparison to the older animation of the TV series especially with its inclusion of digital painting and CGI elements. The animation does mean there's fewer instances of long scenes of characters standing around or tricks designed to cover mouth movements and minimize motion, but the show was clever in utilizing those moments to build scenes of emotional catharsis, unease, or awkwardness that helped convey the inner states of the characters. With that said, we do get some new dynamic recreations of scenes from the show with more elaborate motion and added details that weren't possible in the original run. I can't guarantee everyone will like the new aesthetic choices, but as an example of applying contemporary style to a classic property it's pretty well done.

Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) does a good job of retrofitting the first 6 episodes of the Neon Genesis Evangelion tv show into a film giving us a narrative with a traceable arc in the foreground while laying the groundwork for further development in the background. The movie is accessible to both newcomers and franchise veterans and keeps the core of the series intact while giving itself enough leeway to go somewhere different with it.

I bought this anime on Blu-ray off of "amazon.com" a while ago. I saw the movie and I really enjoyed it.I mean not in the way that I should. The story is that earth is under attack by the Supernatural race known as "THE ANGELS". The film takes place in Tokyo-III where "Shinji Ikari" (our main hero) is given a call by this mysterious woman named "Misato" for the extraction to this underground civilized based called "NERV" an army trying to lead to mankind's future against the Angels by piloting these giant robots known as the "EVA". Shinji has this complex relationship with his father "Gendo Ikari" (who is the head of NERV) and shinji wants his son to pilot the latest "EVA UNIT-1 prototype".

The film is actually based on the first 6 episode of the original series and turned into an epic anime film series. I have note seen this anime series before. However, when I first saw the trailers for this film I know its going to be enjoyable and awesome (Which it is here). The cons are that the main character isn't the kind of person who would just stop complaining and just go out and fight. and that the film could of been a bit longer.

Aside from the problems I Love this anime for its Outstanding animation, best story, great music, and Overall am grading this anime a B+.

Great start to start watching this new series.