Review of Neon Genesis Evangelion

Neon Genesis Evangelion was one of my first animes that I watched back in the 2000s that I came across by chance in my brother's DVD collections. I was way too young to fully grasp probably 90% of what was going on in the show, but at the time NGE was at the top of its league. The story plot of pilots operating giant robots to fight against the invading Angels was a fresh idea, the tsundere personality of Asuka was a gamechanger in the character inventory, and the art was quite exceptional at the time. It started off light-hearted enough for me to fullyappreciate the humor, but as it got darker and deeper into Shinji's psyche and the art transitioned to crayon scribbles, I remember feeling incredibly lost. After finishing Season 1, I was left with many questions like who is Adam and Lilith, what exactly was Rei's role then, why was Kaworu introduced and how did Shinji really feel towards him? I remember having to watch the End of Evangelion movie which helped in filling some of those holes, but I still felt way too young to fully appreciate NGE.

Over 10 years later, I watched it again, but this time on Netflix rather than on those now archaic DVDs, and I know why out of all the animes I've watched including the endless amounts of shoujo trash, NGE remained the most memorable. It still remains true that watching Season 1 alone leaves you with many questions, so if you were to judge NGE, you'd have to also watch the accompanying movies, but I still think it was done well. A lot of the character's relationships seem "broken," but many animes try to give their characters a complex backstory without diving much into just HOW broken and complex one's life experiences can be and how it can motivate their actions whether they're good or bad. I think NGE is one of the first animes to really convey that many life traumas lead to this psychological distress etched into your every day life that you carry with you, shapes your struggles of existentialism, and sometimes bleeds and breaks your perception of others or of the world. The development of showing Shinji's rollercoaster emotions is necessary to say that one's progression through their hardships is far from linear, and I find very few animes currently out there really showing a character just consistently struggling as a true bildungsroman. While albiet slow and some scenes repetitive, it still remains captivating at the same time. I still appreciate this anime even many years later and look forward to their new upcoming movie.