Evangelion Shin Gekijōban: Jo premiered in Japan recently and one of our readers -Rodney – has seen it! Here’s what Rodney had to say:

I saw it last night in Osaka, and I’ve gotta say, it seem pretty frickin’ good. No spoilers, not that that’s really a possibility in this case.

I remember being appalled by the first two movies that attempted to cram a series into 4 hours, and that certainly wasn’t the case here. It’s like the most self-indulgent aspects of the series have been edited by someone that has a clue, while at the same time weaknesses that I didn’t even really realize were present in the series have been addressed. The characters seem more believable, more human. The city actually seems populated by people. The narrative flows more, and is more coherent. And the added effects are (generally, with one notable exception in my opinion) pretty well done and serve the story/mood well. Oh, and best of all the annoyingly tedious pervy moments that stopped me from being able to recommend this film to people who aren’t used to excusing that from anime have been drastically reduced! I mean the famous scenes seemed to still be there, but a lack of lingering focus make them a much better fit with the story and less a hands-down-trousers-for-otaku type of thing.

So all in all, pretty damn well done really. Good to see a cool story with incredible design getting a well-deserved makeover. I’ve gone from being a cynic to a believer. Fingers crossed for the other two…