Reviewed on May 30th, 2006

Visually

This anime looks very good, and it is very vibrant, especially the fights of the Evangelions with the angels. The anime looks new and fresh, and the characters look awesome.

Audio

The music in this movie consists of classical orchestral music. It fits the parts and brings out expression in tense moments during the film. The makers of the film incorporated the music with the anime by having the characters playing the music during the movie.

Storyline

This is the most confusing anime movie in the world, unless you have seen the show. The movie jumps from time period to time period. It gets very confusing and in order to understand it you have to watch a couple times. Death and Rebirth is part one of two movies that ends the Evangelion saga. Ok, so here's the scoop, the Angels were predicted by the Dead Sea scrolls to destroy mankind. The only hope the earth has is the Evangelions, which are bio-engineered vessels that were created from the Angels. The main character is Shinji Ikari, who is a 14 year old boy that pilots Evangelion Unit 01. He is tormented by his father and believes himself to be a coward. Sohryu Langley is the pilot of Unit 02. She's arrogant, egotistical, and extremely annoying. The most mysterious of the group is Rei Ayanami; she acts as though she is a robot. She doesn't fear death and believes she can be replaced. As a side note she does try blowing herself up in the movie, but she fails. The movie goes through a plot while examining the past of the main characters. There is a large amount of graphic battle scenes throughout the movie. The story line is one of the most deep and involving of any anime.

DVD

The DVD is double sided and features the movie on one side and extra features on the other. This is a drawback, because you have to be extremely careful not to scratch it. It is full of extras including: a photo gallery, trailers, commentary, and in-depth index. It has English and Japanese, along with English subtitles.

Overall

One of the most notorious anime movies of all time lives up to its name. With awesome visuals and in-depth storyline this is a great movie that any anime fan should take a stab at. It is unrated, but would be R rated if it was (nudity and violence). You should watch the anime series before you watch the movie or you will be lost. It is one anime movie that should be added to your collection.

by Aidan