Has everything already been said about "Neon Genesis Evangelion"? Sure, but it's always good to remind how groundbreaking it was for its time and still is after 25 years. Netflix gave me the chance to finally re-watch it as an adult and connect with the material on an even deeper level.

The action and comedy bits didn't age too well, but that has never been the main focus of the series anyway. The classic anime tropes are there only to make you feel comfortable before Hideki Anno starts scraping off the facade and dig deeper and deeper into his characters' psyche and expose their complexity and ambiguity. It faces critical issues of Japanese society like depression, loneliness, suicide, sexual taboos, repressed emotions, fear of human contact, all without any kind of sugar-coating or whatsoever. It's a journey through personal demons as much as it is a (fucked-up) coming-to-age story, but it sometimes insists a bit too much upon silly sexual overtones that felt just like fanservice and end up being detrimental to the moments where sexuality is being used for a purpose.

The controversial ending, which totally gives up the pretense of being a straightforward robot anime to solely focus on the character introspection, is one of the most creative and innovative ways to deal with budget cuts and still deliver the important message, yet I still understand all the backlash it generated. I have a weak spot for dreamy films and psychological tragedies, but that felt like a too easy way out rather than a serious attempt to properly close story arcs and [unfold the various mysteries behind Adam, Eve, Lilith, the Angels, and the Human Instrumentality Project.
Overall, I got the impression that after taking their time for the first dozen of episodes, they ended up without budget halfway and rushed the rest, with compressed story arcs and lots of recycled or still footage. [spoiler]The development of Kaworu and Shinji's relationship is the thing that suffered the most from the cut. The little time they spent together hardly justifies the impact his death had on Shinji's psyche.[/spoiler] A few more episodes or a more balanced distribution of events would have definitely helped.

The feature film "The End of Evangelion", which goes alongside the last two episodes of the series, luckily provides a more satisfying explanation of the events, accompanied by lots of fucked-up yet equally astonishing visuals, and of course some boobs and robot brawls for the nerds. It's a mandatory watch to the point that it should be considered as an integral part of series rather than a related work, and that should be avoided at all costs if you haven't watched the series first.

Just finished watching it (including director cut and end of evangelion). Well, it's good, i kind of get what they wanted to say/give. But damn if i hate Shinji (main character). For me it would be a 10/10, but it loses points:

1 point because you can put inside all the art and the concepts that you want, you can go wherever you want with the plot, i don't mind, as long as you don't leave holes. I don't want to spoiler here, but be aware that a good part of the things you will hear/see concerning the world of this anime will never be explained. So if you don't plan to make a deep analysis (probably on youtube already) just pass on every name, code, terminology that you don't understand. In the end most of the wierd names used to describe the technologies or whatever could be changed with banana/kiwi/avocado and nothing would change.

2 points [spoiler] are lost because the main character is just awful, painful, stupid little brat 100% of the time. There is a tiny window where i though: "wow, maybe we are going to see this character growing." But no, not even at the end of the end he could have a 1% of spine. God i think that he's one of the most awful main character EVER. And yeah child trauma, stressful situations (caused 99% of the time because he's basically useless and just cries all the time, then bad things happen and for what, a little of development? Are you crazy? Is obviously so he can cry again until the next opportunity of moving half a finger, but instead just cry some more, and repeat in cycle the same thing.
Sometimes you see his eyes changing in reaction to something bad, classic trigger before "i kick your ass" moment. NEVER. Crazy demonic eyes, let's get back to scream and cry mode.
For the record i am not complaining about the fact that he's not a super bad ass hero, i'm complaining because for every single reaction of this guy i was thinking "oh my god this guy" and hoping (i knew it was impossible, but i was desperate) that he would have died bad like at half of the serie. Unfortunately i have big problems if i can't "connect" at all with the main character and this is the case. [/spoiler]


Anyway worth watching.