I Finally Watched Evangelion 3.33 and The Love Live! Movie as a Bonus

It has been a pretty good week for viewing anime movies.  I had to wait three years for Evangelion 3.33 to be released in North American on DVD, but I did see the last showing of the Love Live! movie in the theatre as a lucky bonus.

The DVD is nicely packaged with an illustration booklet and a sleeve.

Reception for the 3.33 movie was kind of mixed when it first came out and the movie takes Evangelion into mostly new and uncharted territory.  After watching it for the first time, I'd have to agree.  I would say that most of the movie is slow paced, with plenty of angst for Shinji, but there are some great action scenes.  I don't like how Shinji seems to have regressed in his psychological health as the movies showed him to be more resilient than in the TV series, but he is a kid trying to do good.  It doesn't help that everyone seems to hate him for starting the 3rd Impact in the second movie, but no one really explains this to him after he has been awakened over a decade later.  Some of this has got to be a Japanese world-view kind of issue (their government cover-ups seem to be better than ours in fiction). Still, the movie progresses along with some expected and unexpected plot twists.  I like that you get to see the main characters as much older people (other than the EVA pilots due to the EVA curse), but I would have liked to have seen them develop a little more.  The story still seems to be driven by NERV and their secret agenda, with Misato leading the resistance against them in her new flagship powered by EVA Unit 1.

Parts of the movie were really enjoyable, some parts were WTF and the movie does kind of leave you on a bit of a cliffhanger.  The story arc does wrap up, but not in a nicely packaged kind of way, as it definitely feels like part 1 of a two part movie.  I kind of suspect this move gets better with a few additional viewings as there are some subtleties that are missed or you get over the shock of things developing in a particular way.  I just hope it comes out sooner than later.  Another three year wait is a little too long.

The Love Live! movie on the other hand was a predictable and fun experience.  The movie was in limited distribution to the theatres, with only two showings in February.  I missed the news completely and saw the second showing only because a Google search showed that there was one showing a little later that day.  Absolute luck.  A few of us went at the last minute and there were less than 20 people in the theatre, but it was a nice last send off for μ's to wrap up the two seasons of the show.  We got to see our favourite characters again in New York, they sang some great songs, and their perky energy filled the theatre for us.  I'm definitely glad I managed to see it, especially after some 20 minutes of digital broadcasting problems that occured with the theatre's equipment.  Still, I received a free movie pass to compensate for it and we did see the whole movie and best of all, there were free posters being given away.  A pretty good event overall and made better with popcorn.

I also went to visit the Love Live Shrine and Akihabara in the spring of 2015 and you can see the post here.