Review of Neon Genesis Evangelion

|SPOILERS| To put it lightly, this is a bit of a divisive show. What cannot be denied is the gigantic influence this show has had on anime. Its opening theme paved the way for more exciting and hyped-up openings for animes, and they are often classified as pre-Evangelion and post-Evangelion. In fact, this can be suggested for anime in general - by combining the genres of mecha, kaiju monsters, and psychological drama, Evangelion completely revolutionised the use of heavy and uncomfortable themes in animated media. In my opinion, these themes are explored extremely well - this is one of the greatest explorations of the human psyche I believeI've ever seen. Shinji is an extremely traumatised and introverted kid, who throughout the series gains more confidence, yet becomes more and more closed off to the people and world around him. Rei is a mysterious, emotionless girl who turns out to be a soulless clone of Shinji's mother, trying to explore and understand the emotions and feelings she experiences. Asuka wants to feel loved, and validated, but still closes others off under a facade so as to make herself feel independent, which backfires horribly. And Misato is the slightly-goofy, broken woman who, in the end, fails as a guardian to these children, despite her best efforts. Even worst dad Gendo is interesting. All of these characters, when it comes down to it, are lonely. This leads to the horrible disaster that is Human Instrumentality.

This show has some of my favourite episodes ever created as well, most of them found in the second half. Rei II and the Dancing Episode are both great, awesome episodes with interesting character development, cool action and even some light-hearted fun occasionally. Ambivalence is probably my favourite episode, where Shinji is forced to watch from his own robot as he brutally destroys his friend's Eva, almost killing him, as he screams all the way. The following episode is an awesome illustration of why Shinji pilots the robot, why he mUsn'T rUn aWAy, and why everyone should be terrified of the robots oh my god what the hell why is it eating the angel. And pretty much all of the last six episodes are awesome, with Asuka's broken mind, Kaworu's impact on Shinji, and the exploration of Shinji's personality in the two-part, completely low-budget finale.

My main problem with the show stems from these last two episodes, despite the fact that I love both of them. While it is an emotionally satisfying conclusion, it doesn't really wrap up any of the questions most people had, including me. While finales to shows don't have to answer every question, it would be nice if some were answered!
This show is often very deliberately confusing, and that is always a detriment (even if I don't mind it that much). Once I had looked up explanations of Evangelion's questions, they were very satisfying answers, but I had pretty much no chance on my own, as with most of the audience. And that is a big problem.

Overall, amazing series, but I would only recommend it to a select amount of people.