Product Description: In this major anime work of the last decade, Director Hideaki Anno used the medium to exorcise private demons, leaving hardcore anime fans questioning his complex, fascinating characters. This book answers those numerous questions.
A Thorough Disappointment I was excited and eager to see a book on Evangelion published in the English language. Upon reading this book, I'm inclined to disavow the existance of this book entirely. The book seems to have been rushed, poorly proofed, and written for no other reason than to have a product about Evangelion for sale. It would appear that the authors made an effort to do some original research, but it falls flat on its face, as it is riddled with mistakes, speculation, mistakes, and misconceptions that had long been disspelled in the fan community. This book will only serve to spread more misconception to fans of the show in their search of answers and commentary. I can't recommend this to anybody but the extremely hardcore Evangelion fans for the purpose of snickering and belittlement. If you're looking for something Eva related to read, I would suggest picking up The Notenki Memoirs instead.
Interesting, but factually flawed. This is an interesting guide, and adds some interesting information about the Evangelion series. That said, it is filled with factual, typographical, and just plain careless errors.
For instance, the "Muldock Organization" was actually the "Marduk Institute" (at least in the subbed/dubbed English versions). "Marduk" is significant, as Marduk is a Babylonian god who rose through the ranks from a youth to become the head of his pantheon. This isn't addressed in the book, since the author didn't make the connection.
Another factual error: the book states of the Spear of Longinus that "Longinus was the name of the soldier who stabbed the already crucified Jesus with his spear, killing Him as a result." What? No he didn't. According to John 19:34 (NIV), Longinus pierced Jesus' side after Jesus was dead (from the crucifixion).
That's a really, really careless error, and a big one...and easy enough to have checked.
The rest of it can be at most interesting, but honestly, you can find this SAME information online at fan sites, for free. Let my waste of money be enough. I'm giving this two stars, generously, since it did give me some clarity on a few issues.
Disappointing... This addresses the author(s): The cover that claims, " An Essential Source For Every Anime Fan" is true-- if you are directing this to fans who are going to criticize all the basic facts of Evangelion that were messed up in this book, that is. I anticipated such a book to come out, but only to find it utterly disappointing with just even the countless spelling and editing that were overlooked. If facts are going to be presented, make sure you have the right characters involved. The setup of Chronology was in disarray. Certain events were treated separately when really some should be together. There are information that this book presents as facts that I've not even heard of-- possibly assumptions that present no substance on a solid level in terms of any event depicted in the graphic novels, movies, or the NGE series. I read only 50 pages of it, and I'm on the verge of not reading it anymore.
Mistakes I can note at the moment: AT Field spelled AC Field on a certain page. Eva Unit 03 placed in an event that really belonged to Eva Unit 02.
As Bad as I Feared This sort of book has the bad habit of only being information that one could glean from actually watching the work in question. However, the write up promised something a bit more, so I bought it. 90% of the book is what you would expect from an "unofficial secrets" book. However, towards the end, there is some genuine interpretative work. Unfortunately, this section is not very much based on the actual text of Evangelion, and is pretty obviously not quite right to anyone who has seen it. The author tries to apply some Freudian criticism, but his understand is rather facile and surface-y, not going beyond the pseudo-Freudian langauge esatblished int eh series itself.
Aside from the relative banality of the text, there are numerous typos and a fair number of factual errors. The author has the habit of referring tot he two halves of Edn of Eva as episodes 25 and 26, which while sort of correct, is very confusing. The occasional examinations of much merchidise Eva has pushed and movie tickets it sold are rather distracting in what's supposed to be an examination of it as a work.
In the end, this book is only for hardcore Eva fans who can't understand Japanese themsleves, since this book, translated from Japaneses, translates text taken from Eva very differently from the official US releases in many cases.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Trevor
