Neon Genesis Evangelion is one of the essential titles for any mecha anime collection.  (If you are not familuar with the show, check out DVDTalk's review of it here.)  It caused a stir when it was first released in Japan, and also on this side of the Pacific.  While the show was excellent in many ways, the ending was very confusing and let many viewers scratching their heads.  Eventually the creative team went and reworked the last six episodes.  They did more than just re-edit though, they revised the shows and added new animation to make the story more clear and less ambiguous.  ADV has released these six episodes on two DVDs.  This is a review of the first DVD containing episodes 21-23.

This is the part of the show where some questions start getting answered.  In episode 21, we learn about the origins of NERV.  Through a series of flashbacks we learn about what various characters were doing between the second impact and the beginning of the series.

The next episode is one of the most powerful in the show, for me at least.  The 16th Angel attacks, and Asuka goes out to fight it. But this Angel stays far away, in orbit around the Earth, and launches a psychic attack against the German pilot.  It probes her mind and makes her confront her past and her fears.

In the last episode on this disc a lot of Rei's secrets are revealed.  Another Angel attacks.  Rei goes out to confront it.  When the rope-like enemy whizzes by her, Rei grabs it, and the creature invades her Eva.  It starts taking over the machine, and crawls into her body too.  When Shinji goes out to save Rei, he fares no better, and is about to be taken over too.  But Rei comes up with a plan.

This series is very good.  It starts out like most other mecha shows, with a young boy piloting a huge powerful machine, but it slowly changes.  As the series goes on, the characters become more fleshed out, and evolve from two dimensional generic characters into real people with hopes and fears and weaknesses.  It also changes from a typical light anime show, to something serious and fairly dark.  It is masterful the way the show is able to slowly change its tone without it seeming abrupt or forced.

The big question on everyone's mind is probably:  How much did they change?  Well, they didn't change much, but they did add some.  Time wise, each show had between 2-5 minutes of new material added.  Story wise they cleared up some things, but there were no major revelations in this set of shows.  I didn't have that much trouble following these episodes originally.  As a matter of fact, they were some of my favorites.  So I'm not sure they needed to release 'directors' cuts' of these episodes.  The first episode (21) benefits the most from the reorganization.  The origins of NERV and the history behind it are more clear now.  There is an interesting bit of footage at the beginning of the episode showing the second impact at the South Pole.  There is also some added bits with Asuka which help explain her actions and reactions later in the show.  But while these were nice to see, they weren't necessary to understanding the show.

Don't get me wrong, I like the new cuts very much, and think they are superior to the original release.  This DVD is very nice since it includes the original edit for the purists among us, along with the new cut.  I'm just not sure if it's worth the upgrade.
 
 

The show was presented in stereo, with a choice of the original Japanese or an English dub.  The Spanish and French audio tracks that were included on the original release are left off of this one.   The sound was very good, with some use made of the sound stage.   From what I could tell with a quick spot check of my original release DVD, this is the same audio tracks that the first release had.  I was a little disappointed that there wasn't a 5.1 soundtrack, but I guess you can't have everything.

Video:

The video quality was quite good.  There were few digital defects, aliasing and digital noise being very infrequent.  The colors were bright and lines sharp.  Compared to the older disc, my spot checks led me to conclude that this DVD does look a little better than the first release.  Not a huge improvement (the first release wasn't that bad after all) but still a step up.

The Extras:

Included on this disc are a textless opening and closing, preview to other ADV titles, and an interview with the heads of the team doing the character designs for the live action Eva movie.  This last extra is 21 minutes long and mildly interesting.  I wasn't all that interested in what the designers said, but the drawings they presented were intriguing.  I have to admit I have a bias against remakes and turning animation into live action movies, so I'm not really looking forward to this film.  They have changed the names of the characters (two of the female leads are named, according to the character sheets, Kate Rose (a red-head of course) and Susan Whitnail.)   I just can't see the multiple levels that this show has translating into a 2 hour movie.  They would have to cut an awful lot.

Final Thoughts:

Neon Genesis is a great show, and these directors' cut episodes are an improvement on the originals.  If you are picking up the series one volume at a time, I'd highly recommend that you snag this one instead of the other release.  If you already have the series, you should probably rent it first to see if you think the added material is worth the cost of an upgrade.  For the rating on this disc, I think I'll average the two possibilities and call it Recommended.