Rating: Summary: Interesting show but flawed DVD Review: Evangelion is in one sense a typical giant robot show, where 14 year old pilots save the day. On the other hand, it is a bizarre and confusing interweaving of mentally-ill and often morally-dubious characters with heavy-handed religious symbolism. The backstory, which is only hinted at in the first 4 episodes contained in DVD Collection 1, appears to be that an extraordinarily powerful group of entities called Angels smashed a meteor into the Earth in the year 2000 and started returning 15 years later. As ordinary weapons are useless, humanity is creating (in an ongoing process) living weapons called Evangelions (the giant robots) which only a few 14 year olds can pilot. Examples of the rampant references to religion are the first angel's weapon which creates cross-shaped explosions, and the motto of the secret agency NERV: God's in his heaven, all's right with the world. I imagine such things only become more prevalent as the series continues.There are two real problems with this disc. The first is technical: this DVD has horrible image quality. Not just bad or annoying, but horrible. The sky is a dancing pattern of bluish-grey pixels; smooth lines become jagged, blocky monstrosities. It's just ugly, and inexcusably so. The second is the lack of any real figure with which to empathize. Everyone is so screwed-up mentally, or so obnoxious, or cowardly, or heartlessly cruel (but in uninteresting ways), that I found myself rooting for the Angels, even without knowing why they were attacking. The only sane creatures might be the Evas (as they are called) themselves, rather than any of the people creating them.
Rating: Summary: The DVD isn't as bad as it sounds Review: Im a big Evangelion fan and this DVD, despite what people have said about it, made me happy. As far as extras go, Evangelion doesn't offer much, but you can also choose French and Spanish versions which is a good treat. IMAGE AND SOUND QUALITY The images weren't as bad as everyone says they are. It looks fine to me. The sound was the best. Made Evangelion seem even better. TRANSLATION The English is well done with some notable voices. The Japanese is very typical, but still good. French is done rather well, although Shinji sounds like an 8 year old when he screams. Kudos to the Spanish which give an admirable performence. As for the subtitles replacing the Kanji, it wasn't all that bad. In fact it is easier to read this way. EXTRAS The first DVD has bios on Shinji, Misato, Keoske, Eva 01, Angel 3 and Angel 4. The previews are ok and they do have the ADV preview of Evangelion. I do like the music choice used for the menus. The main menu has the opening song, the extra menu has the ending song, language selection has a really easy listening song and scene selection features the sound of the Evangelion cockpit. If you haven't seen Evangelion in a long time or ever, buy this and see just how cool this series is for the first time or first time in months. You won't be dissapointed.
Rating: Summary: Kawrou is wrong, EVANGELION is the greatest achievement of m Review: I absolutely LOVE Evangelion, I deplore this DVD. The menus are shoddy, the picture is cack, and the monsters hacked EVA apart and pasted English over the Kanji. For example when Shinji is at his desk and his classmates send him a message... in the VHS release the message is in Japanese. Some hack video editor translated it to English and slapped it over the kanji. This DVD is equivalent to the painting of the Virgin Mary covered in elephant dung. I read that ADV could have gotten the same *angelic* quality that the Region two DVDs have; yet they didn't want to fork over the woolongs. So if you're reading this ADV.. I'm not buying another EVA DVD until you do it right.
Rating: Summary: I love Evangelion but this new DVD version is poor Review: I like Neon Genesis Evangelion. It's literate and intelligent. It's not for everyone and some may even be offended by some quasi-religious themes. You may try renting it somewhere to see whether you'll like it. What I don't like about this release is the technical prowess -- or lack thereof -- with which this DVD was produced. Keep in mind I am writing about the new DVD release -- not the older one, which I am told had problems. Well, in my opinion this new release has some problems of it's own. The video quality is fairly bad. Aliasing is much worse on the DVD than on an uncompressed NTSC source. There is prominent chroma noise throughout. Pixelization and posterization are potent absolutely everywhere -- especially static shots, slow pans, tilts and dollies. It looks almost as if the DVD is only running at about 50% resolution. Quite frankly, VHS tape looks much better than this DVD -- and I have very good video gear in my home theater. Most of the DVDs I own look very good indeed. My gear isn't the problem. This DVD is the problem. There are far too many soundtracks. This means the video needs to be compressed even more to fit on the disc. I suspect this is one of the reasons why it looks so bad. In fact, I was shocked to see the previews of other ADV titles looked much better than the actual program material on this disc. It's a very sloppy compression job to say the least and it grates across your eyeballs like sandpaper as you watch it. ADV should find a new compression house. I am disappointed with this DVD -- and so should Gainax be. This new DVD should have had better video quality. Evangelion is a feast for the eyes. It is extremely well animated and crafted. And all the hard work Gainax did on the series is lost on this DVD. The poor video quality of this DVD nearly ruins the viewing of this excellent series. I can't give this product any more than 3 stars and the only reason it gets that many is because I love Evangelion. My advice, if you are interested in Evangelion, is to get the VHS version.
Rating: Summary: Good... but NOT the best... Review: Hey all you who are considering buying this... It's worth it... but it ain't as good as it can be, and EVA demands perfection! NOTE: THIS IS THE 2ND VERSION OF THE EVANGELION DVD! THE FIRST VERSION WAS HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE! I CANNOT STRESS THAT FACT ENOUGH. ADV, THE STUPID IDIOTS THAT SCREWED UP THE 1ST EVA DVD, HAS MANAGED TO ATONE SOMEWHAT FOR THEIR INCREDIBLY STUPID MISTAKES BY MAKING A SECOND VERSION... Payce foolz!
Rating: Summary: The best anime in my opinion!! Review: Eva is about biomechanical robots w/c are piloted by 14 yr. olds. Aside from the cool robots, evangelion has a great story. The first 4 episodes will hook you up for sure. The version of evangelion is way better than the vhs. It contains 4 episodes, dubbed in 4 languages and you even have the choice to view it with subtitles. Some extras include character bios and previews. It's true that the dvd quality wouldn't measure up with the quality of most dvds today, But believe me..it's really acceptable and it's not that bad. Besides the price is really unbeatable. With this price you can only get 2 episodes on vhs. Not to mention it's only in 1 language or subtitled. note: ADV films just anounced that the release date of collection 2 will be on nov. 21st(and i am eagerly waiting for it!!). They delayed it for quite a long time, mainly because they want to improve the quality of the dvd.
Rating: Summary: Mindblowing Review: The mark of a masterpiece in any medium is the way in which it draws forth emotions normally suppressed in the daily affairs of human life. This is made abundantly clear by Neon Genesis Evangelion. The first few episodes lull the viewer into thinking this is just another "big fighting robot anime." While thoroughly enjoyable, these scenes are just a backdrop for the deep philosophical questions posed by this series. When I first saw this NGE, a friend of mine who had seen other works by this directory told me to expect the series to take a "left turn" somewhere around episode 17. How true he was. By the end you'll have no doubts that this is not just about fighting robots. I must admit that I'm dissapointed in the way ADV has been handling the DVD releases. They cannot afford to let the viewers hang on the first four episodes alone. NGE is something that needs to be experience in all its glory in a short period of time. I had the fortune to see the entire series in a weekend. I must confess, it was one the most mind-blowing experiences I've ever had. For the next week, I was unable to keep myself from spending every waking moment pondering the questions posed by NGE. This is something that cannot be accomplished by just any run-of-the-mill anime, but Neon Genesis is definitely not run-of-the-mill.
Rating: Summary: Probably the best thing I've ever set my eyes on Review: Although this is a very very very good anime, I do not recomend it to anyone for it has a immensly deep philosophical content only matched by the texts and drawing from Kaballa.The influences of this misctical doctrine are clear, but far from simple. It is good to warn te viewer that the anime gets heavier and denser as it draws to its end (which by the way is very frustrating for the close minded viewers). Well actually I can't find any words to describe it (if not a very long text)I can just say that influenced my life a lot, and since I saw it, I've been reading a lot of Kaballa stuff only to begin to understand it.
Rating: Summary: The best show I have ever seen...but no the best DVD Review: I love this show, and I has been the source of several serious ponderings on my part. Please buy it and enjoy the depth it gives to human nature and who we are. Yet remember that the dvd transfer by ADV is probably one of the worst I have seen...so don't be dissapointed by the reworking of the Japanese text into english... But please, above all, enjoy this series.
Rating: Summary: Wonderful Review: A simply splendid DVD. The first four episodes begin to realy draw you in and leave you unable to wait for the next episodes. The animation and sound (the music and all 4 language dubs) are very good and the story it shows to you is very intruiging. ADV did a great job puting it on DVD. I truly enjoyed this and would highly recomend it to anyone.
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