Most of us like EVANGELION. How could you resist a pop-up city protected by a giant robot that plugs into a wall socket? In episodes three and four Shinji and the rest of NERV continue to protect Tokyo-3 (and the rest of mankind) from the mysterious Angels.
The animation in this series is a major selling point. I especially like the way the characters are drawn. Their faces are vivid and express wonderfully. It's no GHOST IN THE SHELL, but it's very good. At least usually; the food processing squid-bug of an Angel in this round is a bit disappointing. But it does do some interesting city planning that would make Godzilla proud. And at least the Angels aren't going to be the same things over and over.
The music was basically the same as the first volume's. I like the opening theme but, aside from that weird Sinatra-echo ending, I found the rest unremarkable.

Shinji fires a wild burst at an incoming Angel.

No, the real question here is the dubbing. I must admit, I was prepared for the worst. I saw the first EVANGELION volume in subtitles, so I braced myself for linguistic torture. However, my fears were for naught. Misato actually sounded sleepy in the morning! Allison Keith presents one of the best voice-over performances I've heard. That's all it took to make me forgive the stiff and unnatural moments that occasionally cropped up in the rest of the tape. The rest of the cast do a pretty good reading, but Misato's lines made me cringe the fewest number of times. When compared to most other English dubbed anime this one shines. The language is clear and usually isn't too clunky. Dubs really are getting better, and the future sounds pretty good.
However, declaring the Eva dubs better than average isn't saying much. Most English dubbed anime is awkward and sounds very artificial. This one is only an exception in its degree. It still isn't smooth, it

"Shinji's classmates? What are THEY doing here?!"

still ruins sentences for the sake of lip-synching. And no one seems to know how to deal with all those Japanese grunts and murmurs that sound so goofy in English.
Action fans might be a little disappointed in the story. There's only one battle here and it's pretty short. It's got all the wanton destruction and desperate heroism, but it's still pretty quick. (I hope this broken umbilical thing isn't going to happen every battle now.) Most of the story centers on Shinji's character development. Melancholy Shinji has no real family, no friends, he hates his job, and there doesn't seem to be any Prozac in the next century. The old standbys of courage, sacrifice, and responsibility run throughout and so far it works. The story is involved and becoming more so, with the characters as much more than background for a big puple mecha. The superficial premise (big puple mecha beats up Angels while falling all over what's left of civilization) is moving along slowly. Like PATLABOR, the mecha here are secondary to the characters and their interactions. At least for now. I eagerly await the next pair of episodes, dubbed or subbed.

NEON GENESIS EVANGELION - GENESIS 0:2
ORDER NUMBER: VHSEV/002D
PRICE: DUBBED $24.95 - SUBBED $29.95
60 MINUTES
Copyright 1996 GAINAX / Project Eva * TV Tokyo * NAS
Copyright 1996 A.D.Vision