Evangelion 1.11 - You Are (Not) Alone

Seeing as I afforded plenty of time and space to voice my thoughts on Evangelion 1.01, I'm not going to spend too much time dissecting the Blu-Ray release of Evangelion 1.11 - You Are (Not) Alone for obvious reasons, namely that basically all of my points made on that occasion still stand with this release.


It probably sounds obvious to say this, but seeing the Evangelion universe and characters in full 1080p is an awesome experience - One or two scenes which looked a little wobbly or less well mastered aside, the entire viewing experience is undoubtedly enhanced by Evangelion 1.11's High Definition treatment. Even some of the CGI scenes which I previously expressed doubts about having watched 1.01 seem to blend in and work far better here - No question about it, this is the best-looking Evangelion yet.

As far as the additional scenes thrown into this release are concerned, I can't really compare them with the changes between 1.0 and 1.01 as I never saw the original theatrical release, but for me (and I was as surprised as anybody to feel this) they all actually helped tremendously with both pacing the story better and sewing up loose ends with a view to the forthcoming movies. While 1.01 occasionally felt as though it was skimming over certain points, 1.11 tries harder to make everything feel like part of Gendo's and/or SEELE's grand plan - Revisionist history you could argue, but it somehow helps justify the more ominous tones that You Are (Not) Alone exhibits against the early episodes of the original series.

Evangelion nut that I am, I was never really going to complain about yet another excuse to watch my favourite anime in its latest incarnation, but I seriously have to say that this 1.11 release does the job better (albeit subtly so) than its predecessor. With 2.0 on the way very soon (with lots of changes I feel a great deal of trepidation about), hopefully this will see an end to anybody messing with 1.x any further - It's a shame that the US release coming soon appears to be sticking to the original 1.0 release, we'll be missing some good stuff.