Review of Neon Genesis Evangelion

I recently finished this series after its inclusion in Netflix and I must said I was kind of... disappointed. I had been hearing for years about this "masterpiece" of anime and how it reformed the mecha genre. I must say I was really enjoying the series up until the half-point, where it takes a drastic turn towards a more psychologic approach. I don't mean to say I didn't like the topics and feelings it tries to express, but I, personally, found it extremely hard to follow at times. Especially during the last episodes. I've read about the running-out-of-budget issues they had and how they tried to experimentto give the series a proper finale instead of cancelling it. It kind of works up to an extent but for me it was not enough. Many things are left out in the air and there's a lack of a proper conclusion to a build up of 26 episodes.

The animation isn't bad at all for a middle 90's low budget series, except for the last segment, where the recycling of previous frames and "weird" approach gets a bit tiring. It also abuses of still frames and a lot of dialogue, but that is not necessarily bad. The OST was wonderful for me, every track works phenomenal and reinforces whatever is happening on screen.

Another thing I found very well done were the characters. They feel like real people, far from the typical anime hero stereotype. Each of them have their own inner issues and some of them actually surprise you at times. Asuka for examples seemed to me like she was going to have the typical rival/friend relationship with the protagonist. I won't get into spoilers but as the end of the series gets closer, her character acts in a way we would not be used to see in this genre of anime.

Evangelion is a series that deals with many psychological topics like depression or anxiety, all covered up by a premise of Mechas and a few action scenes that don't seek to be the core of this work. I know The End of Evangelion gives a better explanation to the ending, but for me the finale of this series was very detrimental to the whole pack. I had to look for some websites that told me what I had just seen when I finished, and even then I was not completely sure of some things.

To this day, many plot points are not fully explained, being supported only by theories or discussions. Maybe that was the intention of the author, maybe I'm too stupid to understand them or maybe it's just makes little sense and it's too complex.