NOTE: This review is a continuation of my reviews of this series. If you have not seen any of the volumes or my previous reviews, you risk spoilers by continuing.
 
The Intro
 
You know, my job as an anime reviewer used to be a lot easier. I would get up, pop an anime volume into my DVD player and pretty soon, I would have a pretty clear cut opinion to put down into words and all this would be done by the time lunch came around. Then I started watching Evangelion and things got so much more complicated!!
 
The Story
 
Three more episodes are brought to us again and imagine my shock when I find out that they are actually good!!! No one was more shocked than I was to find that most of this volume was very entertaining and actually start to get me into the series once again.
 
In the first episode, we see more story development in one episode than in most of the previous volumes put together. It’s almost hard to get to everything that was talked about this in episode but let’s see if I can do a quick recap…. Misato goes to a wedding with fellow NERV employees and afterwards gets drunk with Kaji and reveals to him her fears and apologizes for their past together. Meanwhile, Shinji visits his mother’s grave with his father.
 
Then we also get to deal with more and more about NERV being revealed to us and not all of it is very good business. I won’t reveal what is said about NERV in this volume but I’ll give you a hint…… pay close attention and listen for Marduk Industries and the number 108. If you miss out on this bit of info, you’ll be kicking yourself later.
 
The last interesting thing to happen in this episode is definitely a moment to be seen that involves Shinji and Asuka. Believe me…… this is the moment that many of us have been waiting for!
 
In the second episode, we see the only Angel to attack during this volume and it’s a weird one! It’s hard to explain what exactly it is but whatever it is, it manages to suck Shinji inside of it and completely cut him off from the real world. With his power supply and life support quickly draining NERV and the other Evas work hard to figure out how to get him out. This episode wasn’t as entertaining but it was still good. Askua really lets her catty side out in this episode after she scores lower on the harmonics test than Shinji so be prepared for that.
 
In the final episode of the volume, the fourth child is chosen as the next pilot and the entire episode deals with the build up on who is going to be named the next pilot. Two choices are given to us throughout the episode on who it might be and if you foolishly read any web sites or the character bios that are included within the extras of this volume than you already know who it is but I really get the feeling that even if I hadn’t done those things it still wouldn’t have been that big of a shock to me. Easily the weakest episode of the volume.
 
The Good and the Bad
 
This series is an absolute pain in the butt to review! That’s the bad! It seems that it can never make up it’s mind on if it wants to be good or bad and up until now, it’s been pretty bad but now….. but finally it’s thickening. Nothing has really been fixed from previous volumes except for the plot is starting to thicken a little which is very good!
 
Music
 
The music has started to pick up a little as well. The theme music is still incredibly annoying and I still skip over it every single time but the background music that they use in the episodes has started to become a bit more apparent and ominous. It finally stands out and really makes you feel the mood of the scene.
 
Extras
 
The extras still aren’t even worth mentioning. Same as always. Character bios, trailers, credits and a link to the ADV web site. The only thing that should be mentioned is to not read the character bios before you watch the episodes or you might risk some minor spoilers.
 
Overall
 
The plot is finally start to thicken and take some shape which I’m very happy about. Only 3 more volumes of the TV series are left followed by 2 OVAs and I can only hope that they keep the pace going that was set by this volume.