EVA is Done, FINALLY!! My Review of Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time (2021) directed by Hideaki Anno

 Thanatos - If I Can't Be Yours ("10 Years After Remix") by Loren & Mash

Finally!! After 14 years of these "Rebuild" films and 26 years of the franchise overall, Neon Genesis Evangelion has ended. This franchise has spanned nearly 2.5 generations of anime fans. I first heard of it when part of the original tv series was featured on Toonami's "Robot Week" back when I was still in grade school. Now I am way older I have seen everything and had to wait over a decade for this crazy, beautiful-looking, overloaded with pop-philosophy, glorious mess wrap-up. I'll let everybody else talk about the "message" behind this movie and the franchise as a whole (you have 25 years worth of that to read/watch), but I'll just try to give my very short takes on the movie and the franchise.

Everything You Ever Dreamed (Alternate Version) by Arriane

The movie is basically trying to one-up and undo the art and message of End of Evangelion (one of the most controversial films in anime history) respectively. The question that folks had going into the "Rebuild" films was is Hideaki Anno going to let Shinji & Co. have a happy ending compared to how the franchise originally ended in 1998 or was he going to screw them all again? Thankfully, he chose the former: let them have as happy an ending as possible and send them on their way. The story is very much what you expect from Eva, but the ending allows everyone to get on with their life. The true wonder of this movie is the visuals. This being the last Evnagelion property means that they went all out and it looks amazing, no other way to put it. The music likewise is pretty much what you expect and want from Shirō Sagisu at this point and his original music and the pop songs used in this film (both English and Japanese) are what you want from this franchise. On a different note: did you know that Sagisu made a British R&B/Hip-Hop album remixing his music from Eva to coincide with the release of EoE in 1998? It is official out-of-print, but you can find the whole album on the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/evangelionvoxflac 

Promised Land (F-2) by Loren & Mash

While Shinji Ikari will always be one of my least favorite protagonists in fiction as a whole, this franchise pretty much re-wrote the rules of anime and is one of the most well-know properties this sides of the format. So much anime that we have now simply would not exist if a man did not think: "what would really happen if we put traumatized teens into giant 'robots' to fight supernatural aliens?" Well, 26 years later and I guess we have the answer...and it ain't just more fanservice.

One Last Kiss by Hikaru Utada

My Goodreads Review of Animal Farm by George Orwell

Today marks the 75th anniversary of this book's publication. I took my time getting to it, but Orwell's style of writing has always impressed me with its clarity and his ability to communicate ideas and images to you without any baggage.

Animal Farm by George Orwell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"... for the past ten years I have been convinced that the destruction of the Soviet myth was essential if we wanted a revival of the socialist movement. On my return from Spain [in 1937] I thought of exposing the Soviet myth in a story that could be easily understood by almost anyone and which could be easily translated into other languages." - Appendix 2 (The Ukrainian-language preface)

When I first joined Goodreads, the first book I added to my "to-read" shelf was this short novel. It is one of those books that are part of the "you must read this and be terrified" list. I pretty much knew the plot since high school (despite never reading it, or any Orwell, there). Because of pop-cultural familiarity, I had put off reading it. I felt there were more relevant dystopia to be read. So I spent seven years on this site adding and reviewing books, watching the cold-swing of the pendulum like Ol' Benjamin says in this book. But, then the history-nerd in me woke-up for a minute and I was reminded that this is the 100th year anniversary of the Russian Revolution: an event that changed everything outside of Russia, but not much in it (if you know that country's history). So, I finally had a reason to read this (I am one of the worst procrastinators I know).

I will not retell the plot because it basically is the first three decades of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, but I do want to quickly meditate on the use of the fairy-tale/children's story aspect of it. I feel that the motifs of the animal characteristics serve well here to match the historical counterparts. It also serves as archetypes of itself in the majority of successive revolutions that have taken place (this could have easily taken-place with more Asian-specific animals or tropical animals or sub tropical, etc.). I liked the way anthems and slogans were highlighted because it brings to mind Orwell's essay Politics and the English Language which everyone who writes reviews on this site should read. I am also happy to say this is the least dense prose I have read from Orwell at this point, and that is a big plus.

So, why is this a good book to me? Because it is the most basic explanation of totalitarianism, or on a more basic level, bullying that you can read. If you're trying to make people understand on an elementary level why liberty and equality are good this book can show you (provided you are good at discerning irony and do not fall victim to Poe's Law). As for this book's ability to scare me...it is not very effective now-a-days. This is not Orwell's fault, but my own background. One must understand, as an African-American I come from an ancestry which has more than an acquaintance with dystopian life. My grandmother's grandmother lived a life that was far worse than what the Soviet proletarians endured under Stalin: his victims were disposal humans, my near-ancestors were legally considered livestock. With that prospective, one is lucky to have one leg to stand on.

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My Review of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

I wrote this LONG ago in a time called 2011, my whole way of reading books and understanding them was different and much more limited, but I'll share this anyway for the hell of it.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I've always thought of Brave New World as the most "honest dystopian novel". As much as people fear George Orwell's 1984 as somehow being even possible, It always seem to me this Huxleian tale of a dark future had a much better chance of happening and in fact we seem to always be marching just a little bit closer to A.F. time (After Ford) so I think this novel should be studied by everyone as to what to guard against. It won't be the taking away of freedoms that will end Democracy but the saturation and neglect of it by materialism.

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