[contains spoilers for Evangelion 3.0+1.0: Thrice Upon a Time]
Evangelion 3.0+1.0: Thrice Upon a Time is the highly anticipated ending to the Rebuild of Evangelion series. Twenty-six years after the release of the original series, Thrice Upon a Time carries the burden of being the last release of the Evangelion franchise (as long as creator Hideaki Anno doesn’t change his mind). While the expectations of fans have been hampered by the lack of quality of the Rebuild series so far, it is reasonable to say that fans still wanted an ending that answers the questions posed in the series. As we all know with Evangelion, there are lots of them.
Many have described Thrice Upon a Time as a meta film. In some parts, the story presented itself as if it were a direct metaphor for Anno’s relationship to the franchise as a whole. Evangelion always has a certain amount of “meta” in its narrative. It doesn’t shy away from critiquing its own audience, as we can see from the final act of End of Evangelion. End of Evangelion balanced the actual narrative of the film with the meta narrative that Anno’s trying to tell, in this case the relationship between fans and a fictional work. His critique of fans using Evangelion as escapism made sense, because it directly ties into Shinji’s tendency to run away from his problems rather than face them.
Thrice Upon a Time tried to push a meta narrative of “moving on” from the franchise, while there’s nothing to indicate that even the characters are ready for that. The film, and the Rebuild series to an extent, lacks characterization that was so prevalent in the original series to balance out the meta narrative. Thrice Upon a Time doesn’t feel like Hideaki Anno’s trying to end the Neon Genesis Evangelion story, but rather his own attachment to it.
Anno once said that “Rebuild of Evangelion is probably kind of a love letter to my wife.” He has spoken about his struggles with depression before and how his wife, Moyoco, helped him through it. If you factor in the context of Anno’s personal life when analyzing the film, it seems like the perfect ending for a series that has been a major part of Anno’s life. But if you set aside the meta and only think from a narrative standpoint, does it provide a satisfactory ending for the franchise?
Under its mecha anime facade, Evangelion is a story that focuses on the psychology of the characters, their struggles, and how they cope with them. Instead of a finale that focuses on that, the film was filled with incoherent dialogue and over-the-top action scenes that contribute little or nothing towards the film. In the original series, the action scenes always felt like they were merely additions to its overarching psychological themes, but sadly the same can’t be said about the Rebuild films.
We receive nowhere near enough information on Asuka and Misato’s background, which makes them completely unrecognizable from the original series. The film may have struggled to give detailed information due to its shorter running time compared to the original series, but I personally don’t think that it can be used as an excuse not to develop two of their most important characters. They had plenty of time but for some reason decided to stop developing them after the second Rebuild film. Asuka is reduced from a character with a complex background about the relationship with her parents to a clone who barely adds anything to the story after the second film. The same can be said about Misato, as the Rebuild series barely touches upon her relationship with her father and Kaji. Meanwhile, the only character that received a considerable amount of screen time to develop, Rei Q, was killed halfway through and was merely being used to further another character’s story.
Mari, a new character who was introduced in the Rebuild series, never had the chance to grow as a character. She has appeared in three films, and what we know of her so far is that she’s a bit weird, likes reading, and is somehow friends with Shinji’s parents. Compared to the others, Mari’s character seems one-dimensional, lacking psychological depth regarding her motives and struggles.
As referenced before, Anno is no stranger to inserting some of his personal experiences into his works. During the creation of the original series, Anno, who had been struggling with depression, created Shinji as a representation of himself. While Moyoco has said that she didn’t want to be compared with Mari, there seems to be a parallel of Mari helping Shinji during the ending, and Moyoco helping Anno in real life. We’ll never know whether Anno deliberately made that parallel, but this is one of the instances where the narrative of the film was enhanced only by knowing the context of Anno’s life. If we completely ignore the meta, Mari is just a character who barely interacts with Shinji before this film, yet somehow has a huge role with him during the ending.
To give Anno some credit, we finally see another side of Gendo’s character that’s willing to change. This was hinted at in the second Rebuild film, You Can (Not) Advance, when he was supposed to join Shinji for dinner before everything went wrong. The whole sequence at the end of the film made him one of the characters who benefited from being developed more in the Rebuild series. Another such character is Kaworu, who received a considerable amount of screen time in the third Rebuild film, You Can (Not) Redo. His character’s role in the original series was very limited, and it is nice to see the importance of his character and his role in the grand scheme of things in the Rebuild series.
I can go on and on writing about the issues of this film, and it’s clear that I don’t like the direction Anno took regarding the narrative. I don’t mind Anno’s decision to insert a meta narrative to the film, as it’s one of the reasons why the original Evangelion series is as good as it was. As I said previously, my problem lies with the lack of characterization, which made the ending seem so abrupt and made a few characters lack the depth they had in the original series.
If we’re talking about the narrative alongside its meta context, I completely understand why Anno took that direction. It is important for someone to channel their identity and outlook on life on their creative works. You can’t expect someone to put out works of art with the same themes they did 20 years ago when their life has changed. Since the earlier iteration of the series, Anno’s outlook on life has changed, and thankfully it’s for the better. I just wish that he had balanced the actual narrative and the meta narrative better, as he has done before.
While it’s always important to consider the context when judging a piece of art, I find this film relies too much on its meta narrative to hide the flaws in its actual narrative. Hideaki Anno’s life has progressed, while the characters are left behind. Instead of bringing them along and making them experience the hardships of getting better, he took a shortcut and made them better straight away, ignoring the characterization process. Evangelion 3.0+1.0: Thrice Upon a Time serves its purpose of being the ending of the Evangelion franchise, albeit in a very abrupt way.
[The article was updated on 26/8/2021]
