Review of Neon Genesis Evangelion

Let me set it straight, NGE is by no means a spectacular work of the century series, it's overrated for sure, but for those ranking it on the lower end of the score spectrum, I don't agree either. Ironically, though the story and character developments are supposedly the main focuses of the series, it fails to reciprocate that with a well made script. Where it really shines is directing and their imaginations. Creativity: The great minds behind the art of NGE should definitely be proud, and I'd consider the creativity behind all of the mech and design in the series to be the work of the century, thesheer imagination required to create such intricate designs, models, technology and especially the city is absolutely baffling for a series dating back to 1995, hell, even now I would still be impressed. It's incredible and you can really see just how much care and effort has been put into creating an immersive and believable setting for the environment.

Cinematography:
I personally am a huge fan of cinematography, I know good shots when I see one, and NGE certainly has one of the best directing I've seen in anime, with just how well the shots are done and the HUGE effect it has had on the overall experience. It's incredible and shocking just how well it has been executed and it is an outstanding example of the grand effect that good cinematography can have on a series.

Rest of Production:
The rest of production was nothing less of a mess beyond belief, certainly the story is fine if you just ignore the MULTIPLE plot holes it has, and the lack of likability that the characters have.

Shinji and Asuka are two of my most hated anime characters even beyond annoying fan-service lolis, due to the fact that they come from a genre in which characters are all supposed to be understandable and therefore likable but yet the script has them act completely unrealistic manner despite their backgrounds. As an example (spoilers): even though the world is at stake, Shinji decides to make it all about him, his daddy issues, and his insecurity while billions could die. I refuse to believe that anyone who doesn't intentionally want everyone to die would refuse to grow a pair and man up for the job and worry about it later. He's so emotionally fragile beyond comprehension for a 14 year old who should be mature enough to decide whether or not saving Earth is his priority.

The sound isn't amazing though I do appreciate the 26 versions of "Fly me to the moon" outros they ordered, but I do find for the most part, the sound design does it's job, and I also enjoy the consistent use of cicadas which really adds onto the realism.

Overall:
NGE isn't bad, it's certainly one of the more memorable animes I've seen, with me jumping out of my chair in amazement of the great cinematography, I've had my fair share of enjoyment. I sometimes say in my others reviews that "It's not that deep", and that you shouldn't think too deeply about it. But for a psychological series that is begging you to think deep about it, my advice is that you really shouldn't, but I suppose it's inevitable. With a similar issue that some of the other series I've watched have, its focus is too directed towards making it look impressive which it definitely is, but for a psych series it's very very bad news. The focus should've been on the plot and characters even more than an average series but it failed to realize that and ended up with a hollow but visually impressive series. But nonetheless it delivered what it was about in a half-assed way that redeemed it from being complete garbage, the basic ideas were there but it's execution was just not it. In other words, if I judged it based on the criteria for what a psych series should be, it'd be a 3, but for the sake of the impressive artistic feats that I enjoyed, I'll give it a 6.