Review of Neon Genesis Evangelion

Contains mild spoilers I'm writing this for myself but also for anyone interested. this show is far from being the best anime in the world, but it is one of the densest shows and one of the most fascinating i ever saw. First of all art is great, period. Then the story. This muddy mess with religious symbols and end of the world schemes is at first glance just completely incomprehensible, which it is. It is super rich, but you don't understand half of it because the show decided half way it didn't care explaining it, or probably that it cared more about other things. Which means you'llhave to find other sources to understand it, which I did and it changed the way I see the whole anime. If you don't take on your own time to fetch fanbased essays its almost not worth watching the end of the show and that's the biggest flaw of this anime. Because of time, budget constraints, they tried to do something to big and basically failed.

(super good explanation here : https://medium.com/@scottgladstein/evangelion-explained-e9d1c2c3e04 )

But the result of it is still super interesting, the fact that it is obscure made me just more curious about it and it was a nice change of all the animes with to much exposition.

Once you understand the plot the show is basically the story of how a bunch of 14 year olds will shape the world because they absolutely have to. And how do they want to shape it? It entirely depends on how they see the world and themselves in the world. This is how the character of Shinji becomes super important and the main reason why we care about his psychological state and the way the story transforms him. If he didn't go through this whole ordeal, his choice at the end and the fate of the world would be diffrent.

To sum it up real quick if you stop at the actual show it's not worth your time, it is far from being a finished product, it lacks exposition, it is too ambitious for its own good and can be a bit pretentious at some points. But it is also what you make of it. If you want to think a bit and fill the holes with your own ideas and theories, it can become something really original and that's what I like about it and what makes it so influencial. It would have been better with a few more episodes to explain the whole Lilith/Adam subplot obviously but I really respect the ideas behind it. The beginning of the show and its tone had me engaged just enough to overlook its issues and enjoy the journey. And even if you end up not liking it, it will certainly stick with you a lot more than the average anime.