8 / 10
score
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The Disc

Extra Features
Sadly, the disc has a rather paltry selection of supplementary material including a developmental featurette showing how the sketches led to the finished animation, some previews for other films and a music video.

There are two different versions of this release: Standard and Collectors. The Standard Edition just has the film on one Blu-ray Disc whereas the Collector's Edition comes with the BD plus an extra DVD with Evangelion 1.01 and some specially commissioned packaging. As the price difference is nominal between the two (with the Collector's Edition having an RRP £2 higher than the Standard Edition), I would recommend the Collector's Edition but I can only comment on the Standard edition as that was all I was provided with.

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The Picture
Without having seen the anime on DVD to compare this against, I don't know how much better this than the series or the previously released film; I can just say that this looks stunning in high definition with wonderfully crisp edges, vibrant colours and battle sequences that are better than any anime I've seen.

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The Sound
Pretty much every anime that I've seen has given more prominence to the English dub track than the native Japanese soundtrack, normally giving a Dolby Digital 5.1 English track and a 2.0 stereo Japanese option. It is therefore all the more pleasing that both the Japanese and English tracks have Dolby TrueHD 6.1 tracks. Both of these are excellent, with clear dialogue, beautifully presented atmospherics and surrounds really come to life when the guns start firing.

I didn't watch this through twice, once for the soundtrack, but stuck largely to the Japanese was flicking to the English every so often. The dubbing is very good with most of the voices suiting the characters very well but, and this is a big but, but one voice that doesn't really work is Shinji's. In Japanese he is a more complex and likeable character of the English dub makes him annoying and whiney.

The subtitles are very good, well written and error-free, but it's a shame that you only have the choice of subtitles on or off with no option for a "signs only" subtitle. This means you miss out on some slight details in the film but, because the track wasn't there, I don't know whether I missed out on some big plot points or not.

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Final Thoughts
Evangelion 1.11 is extremely good film and one of the best anime movies I've ever seen. Admittedly that list is short, but I know a good film when I see one and I know that this is top entertainment. Cleverly written, beautifully animated and with characters given real life and energy by the superb voice cast, this is a formidable animated film.

As I was only given the single disc Blu-ray for review, I can't comment on the Collector’s Edition which apparently includes a DVD of Evangelion 1.01 and some other material including special packaging.

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