Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death and Rebirth is a 1997 film that acts as both a recap of the original series Neon Genesis Evangelion and a preview for the at-the-time upcoming film The End of Evangelion. The Death and Rebirth in the title refers to the two segments of the film; Death being the recap, and Rebirth being the first half an hour of EoE.At the time of the film's release, the film was supposed to act as an alternative to watching the original 26 episode series, most likely to draw in non-fans to come and see End of Evangelion. In my opinion however, the film isn't a very good alternative to watching the original series. It's organised out of chronological order and forgoes a lot of the plot to give brief outlines of the main character's personalities, which could lead to a fair amount of confusion. Most of the animation in the "Death" segment is just reused footage from the series. The only parts of the film that are not reused are scenes where the three main leads practice classical music, which are more or less purposeless and really only serve as an excuse to listen to nice music. If you had not seen the original series before watching this, I would guess that you would be rather confused.However if you are a fan of this franchise (like me), you'll probably quite enjoy it. Though the recap is strangely organised, it's still Evangelion, which is inherently pretty cool if you love the show. The organisation can be seen as an interesting new way to experience the show, and it can also act as a nice refresher on the events of the series. While The End of Evangelion segment is kind of pointless, it's still the End of Evangelion, which, in my opinion, is one of the best animated films ever made, so watching a bit of it is hardly a bad thing.Still, the film only really functions as a curiosity piece for super fans. If you are not super invested in the franchise already, you probably don't even know it exists, and if you do, you probably don't care.

Evangelion is a good series, but stay away from this. If you've seen the anime before, there is really nothing you can get out of this. Most of the film "death" is just recycled footage rearranged in cool ways. There are also violin solos in between "intermissions" that are very nice, but I came here to watch a psychological mecha anime, not to hear people play music. It might be useful to someone who hasn't seen the anime, but I feel they're better off watching the TV show. All that rapidly flashing text isn't going to be very helpful, and might knock seizure prone people out. "Rebirth" is something new, but it's made redundant by End of Evangelion so if you've seen the series, head to that instead. Like many before me have said watch the series first, or else it will really mess with your head! One thing that rebirth has that EoE doesn't is the ending song "Tamashi no Refrain" which is a very cool song sung by the same woman who sang "Cruel Angel's Thesis," the title song of the series. Speaking of that, you're much better off watching the series as I really love that song. For the Lazy:Pros: Violin Solos are pleasant Ending song is great Interesting way of organizing the eventsCons: You can get most of this content elsewhere Mainly recycled stuff, making you feel you got ripped offCheck the CD's out for the music, check the series for the story, and check the End of Evangelion for the ending. But don't check here, unless you are a devoted fan and MUST have everything eva-related.

Hmmm..I saw episode one on a mates old VHS copy of NGE and toyed with the idea of buying the box set on DVD. Before I shelled out all that bread I thought I should probably check out death and rebirth. What has been billed by some as a 'synopsis' of the series (except the last two eps).What I actually got was a confusing hour or so that was edited at such fast pace I went cross eyed. When a new character or plot point came up a little caption was introduced to tell you who it was. This remained on the screen for about 12 frames. I had to keep freezing it to find out. This pretty much sums up death and rebirth.I must admit, trying to fit 15 odd hours worth of plot onto a single disc is a pretty big ask but im positive they could have done it better than this.The speacial feature was pretty good, though. It was similar to the follow the white rabbit on the matrix dvd. Everytime something new came up you were prompted to press enter and you were given a brief overview of what was happening.

If you're going to see the series and the End of Evangelion, you're wasting your time here. This DVD contains a short overview of the series, followed by the first bit of The End of Evangelion. If you don't want to sit through the series (shame on you), you'll want to see the first half of this before watching the End of Evangelion, but otherwise it's not really worth the money.