Evangelion 1.0: You Are (Not) Alone, the latest edition to every otaku’s favorite mindf*#k franchise, came out in September in Japan to the tune of about $14 million US, making it the top grossing Evangelion film out of the three that have been released over the past ten years. For those unschooled in Neon Genesis Evangelion, it’s an anime franchise birthed in 1995 with a 26 episode TV series about a small group of teenagers who face painful past traumas while piloting giant robots to battle earth-threatening monsters. But the thing about Evangelion is that it’s one of those instances where it’s “not really about that.” It’s actually an arty, philosophical treatise on the loneliness of humanity’s inherent separateness, imparted partly through a conventional story, and partly through an otherwise incomprehensibly heavy use of religious symbolism. And, towards the very end, it gives up the traditional narrative altogether in favor of a seizure-inducing abstraction, edited together in a frantically nonlinear style.

That mostly indiscernible ending was the reason all the movies thus far were made: to retell key parts of the story and provide the literal ending to the series, since it wasn’t at all clear from the wild allegorical imagery that comprised those last few episodes what actually happened to the characters. Also, according to urban legend, the studio received death threats for airing an ending that was so bewildering, even by anime standards. Anyway, the four-part film series that Evangelion 1.0 is planned to spearhead is called Rebuild of Evangelion, and its aim is to — you guessed it — retell the story of the original series. This first film roughly comprises episodes 1-6.

This seems a little weird to me, but apparently not to Japanese fans, who paid generously to prove their satisfaction with the movie. Word on the street is that Rebuild is meant to simplify that death-threat-inspiringly complex story for new fans, and offer more impressive visual effects than the original budget could afford. This would indeed seem to be the case based on the trailer, which doesn’t appear to include any new footage at all, and on early reviews, which confirm that each frame is essentially taken shot-for-prettier-shot from the show. I guess maybe a franchise that tackles such complicated stuff doesn’t have to do much to help people get more out of it. No word yet on who’ll license Evangelion 1.0 in the States.