Shinseiki Evangelion Movie: Shi to Shinsei

In the year 2015, more than a decade has ed since the catastrophic event known as Second Impact befell mankind. During this time of recovery, a select few learned of beings known as the Angels—colossal malevolent entities with the intention of triggering the Third Impact and wiping out the rest of humanity.

Called into the city of Tokyo-3 by his father Gendou Ikari, teenager Shinji is thrust headlong into humanity's struggle. Separated from Gendou since the death of his mother, Shinji presumes that his father wishes to repair their shattered familial bonds; instead, he discovers that he was brought to pilot a giant machine capable of fighting the Angels, Evangelion Unit-01. Forced to battle against wave after wave of mankind's greatest threat, the young boy finds himself caught in the middle of a plan that could affect the future of humanity forever.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Souryuu, Asuka Langley Main

Miyamura, Yuko Japanese

Ayanami, Rei Main

Hayashibara, Megumi Japanese

Ikari, Shinji Main

Ogata, Megumi Japanese

Katsuragi, Misato Main

Mitsuishi, Kotono Japanese

Nagisa, Kaworu ing

Ishida, Akira Japanese

Ikari, Gendou ing

Tachiki, Fumihiko Japanese

Kaji, Ryouji ing

Yamadera, Kouichi Japanese

Akagi, Ritsuko ing

Yamaguchi, Yuriko Japanese

Suzuhara, Touji ing

Seki, Tomokazu Japanese

Aida, Kensuke ing

Iwanaga, Tetsuya Japanese

Ishikawa, Mitsuhisa Producer

Anno, Hideaki Director, Storyboard, Screenplay, Key Animation, Setting, Animation Director, Mechanical Design, Creator

Tsurumaki, Kazuya Director, Storyboard, Setting

Masayuki Director, Storyboard, Key Animation, Animation Director

Reviews

May 5, 2010

kekekeKaj

Recommended

I love "Death and Rebirth", I really do. In my mind, it's probably the least flawed segment in the Evangelion franchise. But I guess I know why people are rating it so low.

There are two reason people tend to give this movie a low score. The first reason is that this movie is split cleanly into two halves, and the first half, named "Death", is essentially a recap. I think most people just aren't as patient as I am and loathe recaps in general. "Death" deserves mention though, because they're probably the most well done recaps I've ever watched. It's not just scenes from the ... Evangelion series edited together, there is a considerable amount new footage and narration added in that combine to make the events that happened in the series a lot clearer (though there is still a good deal I didn't understand by the time I finished it). The edit is done extremely cleverly, retelling the story from several personal perspectives, all revolving around the theme of Shinji, Rei, Asuka and Kaworu turning up to the auditorium for a rehearsal of Pachebel's "Kanon in D-dur". I love the rendition that piece along with others such one of Bach's cello preludes. The classical music is used throughout the "Death" segment to great effect, lending it a certain elegance that the series, often riddled with cliches, sometimes lacked. This isn't the only improvement either. Since the recaps cherry picked key moments from the series really well, and got rid of most of the less interesting angel-of-the-week padding, it's not only easier to connect the dots in the story, but also gives "Death" a greater intensity and urgency when compared against the series. It's through this that I caught a glimpse of the greatness that people often go on about when they talk about Evangelion.

The second reason people hated this is because of the second half, "Rebirth". And no, it's not because "Rebirth" itself is crap, not by any stretch of the imagination. The reason people hate it is because "Rebirth" is repeated in its entirety by the follow up movie, "End of Evangelion", which kind of reduces "Death and Rebirth" to nothing more than a recap movie. But to be fair, since "Death and Rebirth" came before "End of Evangelion", I think it make sense that the latter should be one that gets the heavier penalisation for repeating what's already been shown in the former. The segment in question itself is excellent. Though it lasts less than half an hour, it's a very compelling watch with sky high production values. It really sets up the "End of Evangelion" movie in style, ending on a scene that made me want to continue on to the final movie immediately.

There really isn't anything majorly wrong with "Death and Rebirth", the few complaints I have are all rather minor. For one, some of the words that flash up on screen during "Death" disappears far too quickly and I couldn't read a lot of them - what's the point of having it at all if they're so hard to read? For another, at the start of "Rebirth", Shinji does something pretty f*cked up that I feel isn't really consistent with his cowardly character, so I chalked that scene down to something that's there for shock value more than anything else. Finally, there's the intermission. Yeah, that's right, this movie even has its own built in intermission. In a way, I didn't mind the idea itself. But considering the intermission lasts not one but TWO songs, and comes after the 5min+ ending credits of "Death"... that totals up to about ten minutes of doing nothing (although the ending credits of "Death" does have "Kanon D-dur" as backing music, so I didn't mind it so much")! It's all a bit too much really.

If you haven't seen the series, there is no point at all in watching this. Prior to "End of Evangelion" coming out, watching "Death and Rebirth" after the series made perfect sense - I believe it was released a year or two after the series (though don't quote me on this), and so the first half served as a nice condensed reminder (with bonus new footage) of what happened in the series while the second half wets the appetite for the finale. "Death and Rebirth" served its purpose as a bridge perfectly back then, but with "End of Evangelion" eliminating the need to watch the second part entirely, is this still worth watching just for the (ittedly beefed up) recaps? Well, it really depends on you. If you're a hardcore fan of the franchise, or if like me, you want to watch these kind of things for completeness, then yes. If there's only one recap that you'll ever watch, then make it this one.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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May 11, 2008

Venneh

Mixed Feelings

Death and Rebirth is a two-hour long movie that consists of two halves -- Death and Rebirth, each about an hour long. Rebirth will not be covered in this review, as its footage was expanded on and included in The End of Evangelion. It was produced by Production IG (famous for their work on the Ghost in the Shell series and xxxHOLIC) and Gainax (famous for their work on His and Her Circumstances and FLCL), and directed by Hideaki Anno (famous for his work on the original Gunbuster OVA and His and Her Circumstances). It was released on March 15th, 1997, and ... has been licensed Stateside by Manga Entertainment, and was originally released on July 30th, 2002.

So, what we're left with is Death -- which is more or less the entire series in an hour-long recap with minimal new footage, and lots of flashing text, like we saw more in the second half of Evangelion.

Do I think this was worth it? Having just finished the series and gone onto this, I found that I didn't really need a complete recap of the series, as Death covered the most important events from the series, most of which were pretty memorable anyways.

There's not really a lot to say about anything besides that, as you've pretty much seen it before this if you've watched the series.

All in all, if you don't have the time to watch the entire series, then yes, this is worth a watch. But if you have seen the series, it's a waste of your time.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Aug 17, 2018

TakaCode

Not Recommended

If there is one thing I hate about in any medium it would be cash-grabs to existing and popular properties.

Cash-grabs, in general, is just a shitty scheme for companies in any medium to make poorly done squeals, to having unnecessary remakes and spinoff of existing properties. 95% of the time cash-grabs to popular works fail because not only do the companies would often run out of ideas but they will also heavily milk that cow even when it’s dead. Assassin’s Creed is the worst example of this. For a series that I use to love has now turned a milking cow for Ubisoft where after ... the release Assassin’s Creed Revelations Ubisoft has been desperately been milking the franchise by making poorly done squeals such as Assassin’s Creed Unity to unnecessary spinoffs such as Assassin’s Creed Chronicles which was a side-scrolling/Puzzle/Stealth game that not only bored me to tears but it perfectly represents how the Assassin’s Creed series has fallen just by being milked to death.

The same cash grabbing bullshit can apply for anime and the biggest offender for this is easily the Naruto franchise. Not only they have made countless pointless Naruto movies but the creators for that show constantly tried it’s hardest to keep it alive by having a crap tone of filler episodes to having an awful squeal series Burto the next generation which was the creators attempt to keep the Naruto series alive even though it’s getting One For All smashed by My Hero Academia constantly. How does this cash grab bullshit relate to Neon Genesis Evangelion Death and Rebirth? Well to put this straightforward Neon Genesis Evangelion Death and Rebirth is one of the most shameless cash-grabs to ever come out from this medium. Unlike the other two series that I just mention where I slightly give them points for trying to make they series reverent in the modern era for they respective mediums this movie has no reason to exist whatsoever and it should be burned to the ground.

The first 67 minutes of this movie being the death part is a lazily done recap off all the events of the first 24 episodes off the show including the director’s cut stuff that was released later by ADV Films? Not only does this part of the movie does an aboustly horrendous job at telling all the important events off the series but it somehow manages to completely butcher certain iconic scenes from the series by adding in shitty visual directing as well having a laughable script that wasn’t present in the original series at all.

Before we talk about my favorite part of this movie let’s quickly talk about the rebirth part of the movie. Despite being the first 30 minutes of End Of Evangelion where it actually has new scenes that never existed in the TV series it’s still a pointless teaser for End Of Evangelion movie where once again it only exists just to lazily draw people in. I won’t be talking about the Rebirth part of the movie because I will be talking about it in my End of Evangelion review.

Now with that said let’s get to my favorite part of this movie the 4 minutes and 24-second intermission. No joke. That intermission countdown along was the best thing to come out from this movie because not only it features relaxing and chilling music but the almost fully black screen fully symbolize that the series from this point onwards is going to hell. This is easily the best part about this pointless movie.

As for the visuals minus the intermission screen and the rebirth apart of the film, the visuals were shit overall thanks to the creators lazily reusing footage of the series but somehow making the visual and audio quality worse than the TV series.
Music is still great as ever but that’s should be expected at this point. The same thing can apply for the voice acting not counting that horrendous English Dub for it.

Overall minus the amazing intermission countdown screen, this movie is absolutely pointless. The Death part of the movie was horrendously directed to the aboustly core, the rebirth part of the movie despite being a 30-minute teaser of End Of Evangelion is a shitty attempt at drawing the audience in and the visuals quality in the movie is shit.

If your planning to check out the Evangelion series go watch the TV series instead. This movie is not worth your time at all.

Final Score 2/10

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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