Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death & Rebirth (1997)

A recap of the first 24 episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion, followed by a 30-minute continuation of the plot that would later form the first third of The End of Evangelion.

Directors:

Hideaki Anno, Masayuki

Writers:

Hideaki Anno (screenplay), Akio Satsukawa (screenplay)

Stars:

Megumi Ogata, Megumi Hayashibara, Yûko Miyamura

1 win.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Megumi Ogata	...	Shinji Ikari (voice)
Megumi Hayashibara	...	Rei Ayanami / Yui Ikari / Pen Pen (voice)
Yûko Miyamura	...	Asuka Langley Sôryû (voice)
Kotono Mitsuishi	...	Misato Katsuragi (voice)
Fumihiko Tachiki	...	Gendô Ikari (voice)
Yuriko Yamaguchi	...	Ritsuko Akagi (voice)
Kôichi Yamadera	...	Ryôji Kaji (voice)
Tomokazu Seki	...	Tôji Suzuhara (voice)
Motomu Kiyokawa	...	Kôzô Fuyutsuki (voice)
Miki Nagasawa	...	Maya Ibuki (voice)
Hiro Yûki	...	Makoto Hyûga (voice)
Takehito Koyasu	...	Shigeru Aoba (voice)
Tetsuya Iwanaga	...	Kensuke Aida (voice)
Junko Iwao	...	Hikari Horaki (voice)
Spike Spencer	...	Shinji Ikari (voice)

Storyline

The Evangelion saga from TV is artfully recounted, with some additional scenes, in part one see: "Shin Seiki Evangelion" (1995) Part two starts immediately afterward, where the NERV organization has outlived its usefulness. The shadowy covenant of SEELE launches an all-out commando assault against the ill-defended headquarters. Asuka, semi-comatose, is placed in her EVA for safety, while Misato and company struggle to find Shinji and Rei before they're assasinated by SEELE's forces.

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Plot Keywords:

anime | older actors younger roles | purple hair | fourteen year old | fourteen year old boy | 

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Taglines:

Welcome to the Apocalypse

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Genres:

Animation | Action | Drama | Fantasy | Sci-Fi

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Did You Know?

Trivia

Death and Rebirth is divided into 2 segments. Death consists of clips from the main series while Rebirth is the first half hour of The End of Evangelion.

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Quotes

Shinji Ikari: I'm so fucked up.

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Crazy Credits

After the credits for "Death", there is a short scene of Shinji walking silently out of the recital room with his cello followed by a loud slamming sound as the Japanese text "zoku-geki" ("the movie continues") appears on the screen. A four-and-a-half-minute intermission follows, preceding the "Rebirth" segment.

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Alternate Versions

For the Netflix release of this film, it was re-edited and re-titled to Evangelion: Death (True)². This version of the film only runs for 1 hour and 9 minutes, with significant cuts made to the film.

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Connections

Follows Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995)

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Soundtracks

Suiten für Violoncello solo Nr. 1 G-dur (BWV 1007)
(Suite for Unaccompanied Cello No. 1 in G-major)
Music by Johann Sebastian Bach

User Reviews

A good way to prepare yourself to Evengelio 1, 2 and 3 if you did not see the series

I did not watch the original 26 episodes series but I watched in these days all Evangelion films, because of the high ratings: Death and Rebirth (a recompilation of the original series), The End (a rewriting of the End of the series, still considered one of the best Anime ever), and then the last three, 1 and 2 which reboot the series apparently without mayor changes, and 3 which goes in new territories. At first I will write about Evangelion in general, and then about this specific movie here. In all Evangelion the writer touched any possible demagogic stereotype and cliché on earth: father/son relationship, Oedipus complex, a bit of the typical Manga Style sexuality, cheap psychology, and a huge amount of very cheap esoterism with symbolisms of all kind. My opinion? A big omelet of everything, which finally means absolutely nothing. Wiki says that after the failure of his previous works (which he judged as childish) he wanted to make something "deeper". My impression is that he did not even try to BE deeper, rather just to SEEM deeper in order to impress the audience. And I am afraid that only the Naive could be impressed by such a confused mess.

I can still see why this show had success: Evas are cool, fights too, and there is enough mix of drama, action, teenage nerd sexuality in the typical Japanese style, and some sort of epic. I suppose that if you are younger than me and without any knowledge of psychology or esoterism, and a bit nerd, you may enjoy this works pretty much more than I did.

About this film: well, the first half is just a recompilation of episodes of the series, and the second part is a preview of the movie "End of Evangelion", so I would say: watch the first half. If you like it, you can watch directly End of Evangelion skipping the last part of this movie. I personally did so. The first half of this, then the End, then 1 and 2 (reboot of the Series), and then the horrible 3. Even if I am sure that watching the whole series would be a more complete experience, the vision of this recompilation and of the reboot 1 and 2 gave me enough not to feel I miss the series, and showed me that I may not like the series so much to dedicate to it more time.

Details

Official Sites:

Official site

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Release Date:

15 March 1997 (Japan)

Also Known As:

Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death & Rebirth

Company Credits

Production Co:

Gainax, Kadokawa Shoten Publishing Co., Production I.G.

Technical Specs

Runtime:

101 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1