Shinseiki Evangelion Movie: Air/Magokoro wo, Kimi ni

Story

The story starts in a fairly disorienting manner and then moves quickly from there. After about 20 minutes of confusion, however, the anime soon finds its feet and I began to be able to follow what was going on. At around 40 minutes in I was actually somewhat interested... and then, the anime falls apart under its own philosophical weight. Apparently, the creators of this anime thought that they could substitute all semblences of plot with random scenes that supposedly have symbolic meaning. A quote from Roger Ebert's movie glossary comes to mind: "If you have to ask what it symbolizes, it didnt."

I have seen ... this movie several times, and still cannot enjoy the film one iota. I do not believe that it is because I didn't "get" the film; I believe that there is quite simply nothing to get. Certain Neon Genesis Evangelion fanboys have gotten a huge kick out of analyzing the show and attempting to fabricate some sort of interpretation of the events that transpire, but in my opinion this is a futile endeavor. The shows plot was deliberately made incomprehensible for incomprehensibilitys sake; there is no meaning to the show other than to have no meaning whatsoever.

The difference between this film and other virtually indecipherable anime (see: Cat Soup, Paprika) is that End of Evangelion pretentiously demands interpretation.There is nothing to entertain the viewer beyond the movie's pompous symbolism, and this is the film's downfall.

Animation

Generally, the animation is pretty damn good. Because of the film's obviously larger budget, End of Evangelion improves on the excellent original character designs with greatly improved fluidity and backgrounds. A sequence near the end, where iridescent crosses spring from Earth, is one of the nicer pieces of eye candy that I have seen. Another highlight is Asuka's central fight midway through the show, which oozes with perfectly stylized violence.

The awesome animation is marred, however, by two dreadfully awful sequences. In one scene, the "anime" is not animated at all. Instead, a person with a low budget camcorder randomly wanders around town, filming things like empty movie theatres. This comes as quite a shock midway through and manages to come across as exceedingly ugly. Many people I have spoke with have tried to defend the scene by citing its symbolic meaning, but all of them have given me different answers. Ultimately, the sequence is a jarring break from the continuity of the animation, and definitely hurts both the show's pacing and overall video quality.

In another scene, there is a horrendously long sequence in which thousands of still frames are flashed across the screen at a mind-numbing rate. Never before have I had to sit through such an obviously expensive, thoroughly pointless, and horrifically painful section in anime.

Sound

In general, I found the sound to be pretty much flawless. The music does a pretty good job of setting the mood even as the story is falling apart, and voice acting is still excellent. Sound effects, particularly in Asukas battle, are nicely done.

Characters

Some may disagree, but I thought the original characters of Evangelion were excellent. All of them were almost perfectly imperfect, and as a result managed to capture some of the darkest parts of the human soul. While none of the characters were particularly likeable, every single one was captivating in their infinite flaws.These promising characters, however, are pretty much destroyed in the treadmill of an awful story. By the end of the show, just about every single individual has lost his or her humanity; their actions no longer reflect any semblence of logic or compassion. Forget character development - this is an anime about action figures.Because of this, what was arguably Neon Genesis Evangelions greatest strength becomes End of Evangelions biggest fault.

Overall

I went into this anime genuinely hoping that at last I would find a little closure to Evangelion. Instead, I got this. Deliberately plotless, the creators apparantly assumed that they could pass off mindless and pointless scenes under the pretense of "art." A huge budget is wasted, a good storyline is desecrated, and one of the most promising animes of 1997 is put to shame. Pretentious and disappointing, End of Evangelion is certainly down there among some of the worst anime that I have seen.

When a film starts with the main character giving himself a wank over an unconscious girl after he reveals her breasts by accident, you know you're in for a treat.

"It's the end of the world Ladies and Gentlemen, and I'm feeling fine".

After a huge middle finger to the audience that were episodes 25 and 26 of the TV series Neon Genesis Evangelion, and the not-unexpected outrage and protests by the fans, the series' creator Hideaki Anno fell into a whole new level of depression that was so deep it hit the centre of the Earth, bounced back through its own anus, turned into a hysteric ... hatred towards the fans and shot up right back into Anno's big head, traversing his large intestine on the way back and thereby planting some serious shit into his head. The result was a giant wank in the face and the ensuing skull-fucking that was the "End of Evangelion" movie. And what a movie it is!

Films like End of Evangelion are a rarity, and only come about every couple of years. This movie is the anime equivalent of "Dungeons and Dragons" or "The Room"; a movie so epically bad it's a joy to watch. Though, there is one precondition to properly enjoying this film if you have the misfortune of owning a brain ( unlike the people who rate this magnificent turd a 10/10 ); you have to give all your fucks beforehand. The opening scene of Shinji wanking over comatose Asuka should assist you in switching off the "caring" mode, in which case, you're in for a roller-coaster ride through some of the most amazing shit that has ever been animated. I'll say it openly: I enjoyed this movie a lot, only not in a way you'd usually associate with the word "enjoy".
You may have noticed by now that this review is already different from my usual ones, and that's due to two reasons:
1. End of Evangelion is in a special league of its own regarding the films in general, let alone the anime I usually watch
2. I just don't give two f*cks. This is a rant and I intend to enjoy it. So buckle up and prepare to go!

As the opening scene plainly shows, Anno's single most important objective in this film is pissing the fanbase off as much as possible, and he accomplishes this superbly and in numerous ways.
First of them; making the already unlikeable and despised Shinji as appalling and disgusting as possible. There isn't a single person with a sane mind that doesn't loathe and hate Shinji and doesn't want to torture him in the most gruesome, most painful ways possible. If you thought he was spineless and whiny in the series, just wait to see how he acts during the film, and in particular during the first half of the series, when instead of fighting off the enemy in his Eva, he sits under the staircase, weeps and cries for the unconscious Asuka to come and help him. After he gave himself a wank over her just two minutes earlier. OUR PROTAGONIST LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!
What he does in the face of an impending apocalypse is even more admirable, but I shall discuss that later.

Sadly ( well, for me, fortunately! ), other characters aren't spared either.
Remember Major Misato Katsuragi ( which reminds me that Masamune Shirow and Mamoru Oshii should sue someone ) and how she was turning into Anno towards the series finale ( along with the rest of the cast )? You know, becoming all depressed and upset and stuff? Well, mr. Anno clearly doesn't, for she's all tough and fiery at the beginning of the movie. Hell, she basically bitch-slaps Shinji for being such a whiny, spineless bitch, and practically embodies the feelings of the audience in doing so. Shame she doesn't put a bullet in his head, not only would she make the viewers happy, she'd save the whole of mankind from turning into a stale orange juice. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Anyways, her character in the movie, while awesome, is inconsistent with the series, and seeing how this movie is supposed to replace episodes 25&26 as the proper ending for Evangelion, that's a minus I can't overlook.

Asuka starts off as being unconscious, then wakes up to be catatonic and scared and depressed - just like she was at the end of ep 24. Then, in literally 20 seconds during which she has a vision of her mother, she makes a 180 degrees turn and proceeds to kick some evil-Eva arse. Great writing there, Anno!
It doesn't at all negate and spit on what was arguably the best about NGE!
Immediately afterwards, though, as soon as she fulfills her role of a plot device, she's cast aside until the very last scene of the movie.

Same with Rei, who is barely present for the first half of the movie ( albeit it's understandable why that is so ), only to saturate the screen for the most of the second half. She's also ripped of her previous personality, uncompromisingly sticking it to Gendo and accepting her destiny as Anno's final plot device in the quest to piss the fans so much you can cover the entire Earth in piss.
Even though there was hardly anyone really likeable in the NGE's cast of characters, and even though they were all deeply flawed as people, they were believable and good characters ( until the last third of the series at least ) and End of Evangelion stripped them of everything, disregarding continuity and only making Shinji the most hated fictional character of all time after Jar Jar Binks.

Well, the first batch of turds, in form of handling character development, is done with. Onwards, to the plot!

Plot-wise, End of Evangelion is rather similar to the preceding TV series; it starts off decently enough ( not counting the opening wank scene ), only to collapse spectacularly in the second half, falling so hard it destroyed the world and liquified all living things in the process.
But while decent, the first part was still not very good, and in retrospect, it falls apart together with the rest of the movie. It's riddled with the aforementioned character inconsistency, plot holes, contrivances, repetition of ad-hoc resolutions from the original series ( namely, when Ritsuko stops a massive hack of the Magi supercomputers... AGAIN, and in the exact same way, only much, much faster ), and much more. There's also some ridiculous no brainers like this one: the Japanese military are assaulting the NERV HQ. While their forces are still inside the facility, trying to retrieve the Evas, their own forces DETONATE AN N2 MINE OVER THEIR HEADS, blasting the Geofront into pieces. I don't care if it doesn't have any radioactive fallout, a nuke is still a nuke and you don't shoot it at a target when your own men are inside!
While entertaining, the first half is convoluted, full of contrived plot points and generally a fine example of lazy writing that's only done in the first place to prepare the setting for the ultimate mind-fucking-wank-fest-epically-pretentious-mind-numbing metaphisical clusterf*ck that is the second half of "End of Evangelion".

To put it simply, if the infamous live-pudding-scene from "Akira" and the Eclipse episodes from "Berserk" had an s&m orgy during a black mass and conceived a baby, which in turn were to be raised by David Cronenberg, than the second half of the movie would be that baby.
There's just no point in explaining it, you have to see it to believe it. If the episodes 25 and 26 were mindfuck. then this is an all-out gang-bang orgy of Anno randomly throwing around epically grotesque and random scenes filled with pointless and shameless religious symbolism that very unsubtly screams "ASK ME WHAT IT MEANS! ASK ME WHAT IT MEANS!" What does all that symbolism mean? Fuck all, that's what, and it's so painfully obvious, that the endless and futile attempts by the rabid fans to read some deeper meaning into it causes me, and the creator, that big troll, to laugh my arse off because they've taken the bait and allowed Anno to win.
Also, if I may quote from Roger Ebert's movie glossary: "If you have to ask what it symbolizes, it didnt." Albeit the quote goes a bit too far, the point still stands.
We also get some of the trademark navel-gazing too, because ep 25 and 26 just weren't enough. What a joy!

Anyways, all the spectacular mind-fuckery and endless nudity of the second half aside, there's one remaining and pretty major flaw of the story. Guess what it is. If your answer was: it's not conclusive, then CONGRATULATIONS!
Yes, despite being promoted as a proper and cohesive conclusion of the series that's supposed to tie up all the loose ends and provide answers to countless questions that were raised over the course of the series, it fails to achieve that.
As previously mentioned, many of the "resolutions" were either contrived and unsatisfying, or were drowned in the sea of random grotesqueness and symbolism of the second half of the movie. And to top it all, the ending only raises some more questions, leaving the story without a proper and complete conclusion once more. Well done Anno, there aren't many people with the ( lack of ) skill to do that. I'd take my hat off for you if I had one.

Now, the few good things about the movie. I gave it 3/10 not 1/10 after all.
The visuals are very good throughout the movie, with the exception of a short period of live-action stock footage near the end of the film.
In that one scene, a person with a low budget camcorder randomly wanders around town, filming things like empty movie theatres or city streets. This comes as quite a shock midway through and manages to come across as exceedingly ugly. The point? A pretentious and futile attempt to make the movie relevant to the real world and probably further connect with the audience. Well, it failed.
Again towards the end of the movie, there is a horrendously long sequence in which thousands of still frames are flashed across the screen at a mind-numbing rate. People suffering from epileptic seizures are warned. This warning also applies to the people without such medical conditions. It's very tiresome.

The music does a pretty good job of setting the mood even as the story is falling apart, and voice acting is still excellent. Sound effects, particularly in Asuka's battle, are nicely done. Obligatory pretentious tracks ( namely J. Sebastian Bach's music ) are obligatory. The climactic scenes of apocalypse are played to the sounds of a pop song "Komm, Susser Tod", a bright and upbeat piece that could be played at parties and weddings if its title weren't "Come, Sweet Death!" and if its lyrics weren't about suicide and the end of the world. I'll give you three guesses as to who wrote the lyrics.

Well, that's it! The end of End of Evangelion. And what a steaming pile of dick and cock it was, yet I absolutely loved it! The main reason why I loved is because, unlike NGE, which was an extremely mixed bag with some very good stuff and lots of very bad stuff, End of Evangelion was just plainly horrible and I could just indulge in pure, justified hatred that my rational and objective mind didn't allow me with the original series.
This is the film that turns everything it touches into shit, and yet dances around pompously, demanding attention and critical recognition in the most trollish manner possible. Its story fails at just about every level imaginable - truly, a movie of such epic and total badness only comes around once a while. In every aspect; plot, characters, dialogue, style, themes... it was such absolute rubbish it reached a Nirvana of Bad and moved to a higher plane of existence.
An incredibly entertaining movie if you watch it with a certain mindset. If not, you're either going to smash your TV/computer, or become even more depressed than Anno after pondering the fact that the humanity has been destroyed and turned into a giant orange soup by a character so spineless an disgusting, he makes Werther and Jar Jar look like appealing characters.

Do NOT watch this movie. It is the single most soul-crushingly depressing thing ever spawned from the depths of human imagination. It takes all of the closure, hopes, and expectations you had for the end of the series and blasts them into the sun. It is the single worst possible ending to anything EVER.
I guess I should explain myself. Admittedly, the first half of the movie wasn't so bad. It was exciting and tragic and incredibly cryptic, all things we've come to expect from Evangelion. It was all really just a backdrop for the end, when all of the loose plot threads and secrets that ... the series had been hinting at here and there but never got around to adressing would finally be brought to a glorious and satisfying conclusion that would be sung about by nerds the world over for generations to come. Except that that didn't happen. No, what we got instead was what can only be described as the horrid fever dream of a delusional psychopath bent on destroying the spirit of hopeful geeks everywhere. Seriously, I can't even describe it. I'm not even sure what the hell happened! All that I knew by the time that it was over was that everyone on Earth was dead. Or maybe they weren't. I DON'T KNOW!!!!
So in conclusion, don't watch this movie. You'll regret it for the rest of your life and anyone who says otherwise is a dirty liar that you should reevaluate your relationship with to see if they don't actually secretly hate you.

ABSOLUTE WASTE OF TIME. If you watch this movie for its "deep plot" you will be disappointed. The Neon movie gets a 10 by a lot of people mostly because it just looks like a classic movie poster, but don't get it twisted. This movie does NOTHING amazing except for having a higher budget in its animation with smoother fights, darker tones, and more gore and nudity than a TV show.

Main problem:
It attempts to be complex, but ends up being inconsistent, riddled with plot holes, villains with god-like power, absurd characters....

Many people argue that "no bro you just didn't understand the symbology." No. I got ... it. It's pretty clear if you ever watched the TV series or this movie what the message goal was of spirituality, free will, and confronting reality is. It's so dang simple, I get it. The problem IS that this message gets stretched out harder than a college student racing to finish an essay 15 minutes before its due. The essay becomes one long filler just to explain why water is wet. That's why this movie's plot fails as well. It takes almost 40mins of flashy scenes just to repeat the message of having a choice, i.e. what is Shinji's choice that he makes.

Shinji is a problem in itself as addressed in my Neon TV review, but in terms of what "Shinji resolves" it doesn't matter because Shinji does not undergo any learning curve. What does he learn in the TV show? Nothing. What does he learn in the movie? To accept reality....then choking Asuka because JK Shinji is still the same angry wimp with self issues.

The only ACTUAL learning curve that Shinji ever showcased was in the TV series, and that was just a filler episode that by now doesn't even count in the main plot (the scene when everyone is congratulating Shinji).

No. Because Shinji DOES NOT have any character growth means that the plot for this movie was wasted. All that absurd fiction. All those absurd drawings and animation. All those absurd moments of flashy edgy attempts of attempting to depict a theme or message, were all wasted the moment Shinji chokes Asuka. WHY? Because how does that scene DIFFER from Shinji in Neon episode 1? Answer: it doesn't. That's it. No character growth. Plot wasted. Message wasted. Consistency wasted. ALL IS WASTED. Shinji is meant to be the character that the author chooses to be a figure for its plot, but SHINJI turns out to be the same wimp, the same inconsistent motives of whos side is he on, the same empty pervert, the same bland character. Shinji does not exist. The sooner people can accept that, the easier it would be to watch Neon.

Once you accept that Shinji doesn't matter, you start loving Neon because Neon's "deep plot" doesn't matter. Why? Because Neon's "deep plot" has so many plot holes, fails to be consistent, and fails to be a good story because the main plot just does whatever it wants, no ifs ands or buts. If the world turned yellow. Don't worry guys its "a deep plot." If everyone turned out to live,Don't worry guys its "a deep plot." If a giant monster appeared, and the universe caved around it, Don't worry guys its "a deep plot."

This is why I say that Neon's attempt of having a message becomes TOO edgy, too convoluted, too poison, too absurd, too complex falling into itself, to SIMPLY just gloss over and say "yeah, I liked what Neon's message was." Because there is no 1 message. There are SERIES of messages that all fall into each other. Like slapping a bunch of paint and calling it art. Like pasting a bunch of symbolism and calling it deep. Like drawing a lot of animation and calling the movie good.

I can't rate the manga, but I CAN say that both the anime and the movie were gorgeous to watch, but as a whole completely butchered it's own lore through inconsistencies, shadow secrets people never learn, pacing direction that is just all over the place, bland characters, and a horrible main character.

If you really cared about the Neon series, you would recognize these flaws. In a future recreation you would want the story to be clear, the characters to be alive, and the plot to be decisive. No reason why doing this you can't also be a little artsy. But it seems Neon TV and movie went the other direction with being too artsy first, and everything else second...... 6/10 for pity.

I am not a fan of the Neon Genesis Evangelion franchise but I pushed myself to see why many people would consider this to be a anime masterpiece. After watching 1 hour of hormonal teenagers screaming, mecha mutilation and nonstop fan-service. I came to the conclusion that End of Evangelion is the worst piece of crap atrocious animated film in history and it would better to call it a badly acted porno film than an actually anime.

The biggest problem of the film is the overly complex plot and it pulls too many philosophical themes in the story. I think it's often with these kind ... of films, that the creators confuse complexity with intelligence and as a result, make a film that is far too complicated which goes into the lines of stupidity. Complexity doesn't always reveal someone's intelligence and the reason why people wouldn't be able to understand the film's overly convoluted plot is because they are not stupid but just don't understand it's themes because the film is ludicrous.

The second problem is with it's main character, Shinji Ikari who is one of the most terrible characters in all of fiction. The reason why is because Shinji is more of a two-dimensional robot than an actually human being. Plus all he does is scream and weep like a toddler who didn't get their favorite candy. I'm not saying those qualities are bad for a character, they just overly use them and wastes their potential character development and ultimately these leave Shinji as a one trick pony who can't bother to do anything because he's drowning in his own self pity. We all feel sadness in our lives and it's tough but when we overcome the feelings of despair, we become stronger people. IGN even ranked Shinji as the greatest anime character of all time and the writer described him as being the most emotionally true to life character in anime history. The guys at IGN must have pea-sized brains if they think that's true, Shinji is unrelateable as his non intriguing and should never be called a work of art but rather a robot with flat character traits who is trying to act like a human.

I won't get started on the ending but honestly there are no words that can describe my disdain for the ending. It was simply too weird and even generic, plus it all felt rushed as characters started dying too quickly and the female giant monster was placed there, just to add more drama. Overall it was a nauseating and smutty ending that didn't give any satisfaction, I wouldn't even call it a downer ending, it was a ending that sucked. Devilman Crybaby had a similar ending but it was well executed and thought out in a good way while End of Evangelion rushed their ending too much and lead to a fountain of colossal fecal matter failure.

In the final points of my review, End of Evangelion is the worst thing I ever saw in recent memory and it shouldn't be included in any of the greatest animated film lists. The film should stay within it's own world because it will never be a genuine piece of artwork but rather a disgusting joyless animated mess of wasted talent and toilet slop. Hideaki Anno, you are not a good director at all but you are certainly a wiz with animation, too bad that's your only strong point.

(Note:- Review applies to both NGE and EoE)

Unpopular Opinion:-

As everyone seems to praise the shit out of Evangelion, I beg to differ as I have formed certain opinions about it which everyone won't agree. So if you're someone who gets offended quite easily, please scroll away. And with that disclaimer out of the way, let's begin without any further ado.

Neon Genesis Evangelion is a poor mashup of sci-fi and Christian philosophy. In the name of creating a "masterpiece", while being high ofc, Hideaki Anno tried to create a kaiju-mecha sci-fi anime with Christian philosophical references, but halfway, when his "budget" was almost blown away, he ... apparently got into "depression", which lead him to show and create painfully cringy and slow episodes in the name of "psychological" art. I mean, the elevator scene was a single frame shown for a freaking minute, and nothing significant happens for so many episodes after a certain point. The last significant thing to happen was deaths of Kaworu Nagissa and Kaji. And oh! How atrociously painful and slow the final two episodes were! In the name of psychological art, everything built up was thrown on the wall to see what sticks, and that "Congratulations" in the final episode is cringy yet so freaking memable to this very day!
Sure, we did get EoE, and yes, while it definitely was better than the monstrosity the final two episodes were, well, again, Hideaki Anno just seemed to throw everything towards the wall to see what sticks, but in high-quality animation.
And, let's not even talk about characters! Shinji, a pussy, Asuka, a whinny intolerable tsundere bitch, Rei, a lifeless hag, Shinji's dad, even bigger pussy than him and also a pedophile, rest all characters except Katsuragi Misato and Kaji are either godfucking annoying or just forgettably blending in the wallpaper of a shitshow!
Overall, Evangelion is a 3/10 anime for me. Evangelion will only look deep and appeal to those who are 14 year-old woke kids who don't know shit yet can't shut the fuck up after getting offended just slightly.

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*Edit
I hated the movie because I hated how the whole story ended. I will re-watch the series at some point and give the movie a proper score, but this review will stay, as these were my initial thoughts on the show.
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Let it be known that this is more of a mindless rant than a review, and I'll probably spoil the entire movie.

So, we get the stupid cop-out ending of what was, for the most part, a fantastic show.

"What's that? They're going to fix it? That's great!"
...
No, they don't fix it. I was confused by the end of the series, but the movie is leaving me just confused and angry.

The first thing I hate about the movie is what they did to Asuka. I love Asuka! And the first thing we see is Shinji crying over her naked, unconscious body while she is in a hospital bed. Great start for the lady. (Edit* Just remembered that he also jacks off on her.) But afterwards, she gets better, regains her self-confidence and pilots her Eva again! That's good right? Well, it would if she didn't get almost killed, then gets completely broken down emotionally again, and then gets killed. Just...wonderful.

Included in that time is 45 minutes of all hell breaking lose, people getting shot left and right. NERV gets invaded by some people that have proved virtually inconsequential until this point in the series. Then, for just a moment, you think that Shinji will actually grow balls for the first time in the series to save Asuka. I already told you that Asuka dies, so now I'm telling you that she dies because Shinji still didn't grow balls.

The movie is also just filled to the brim with overly-sexualized depictions of Asuka, Rei and Misato, as well as flat out gross images of...idk, it’s like the chimera gods just decided to have a party in Evangelion's animation studio. Like, there's this part where there's a giant naked Rei and its splitting in half and things are growing out of it like eyes and stuff and things are like inserting themselves and molding into it and...and...ugh.

And want to know how it ends? Everybody dies! At least I think so. The last thing you see is Shinji squeezing the neck of Asuka's dead body on the shore of a beach with a red blood ocean filled with crosses. I mean, what is that supposed to mean?

Not to mention that 20% of the movie is filled with the same kind of psycho crap that is in the last two episodes of the series. Can't the creator try less hard on being all symbolic and stuff and just write a good traditional ending? All I want is some closure!

Neon Genesis Evangelion is still a great anime series, but End of Evangelion sucks ass.

Please don't be mad at me when I write this review.

At first, I find this movie interesting because of how the main cast Rei, Asuka and Shinji overcome their problems and there is this monster fighting scene which is very exciting. However, the plot is totally messed up and I don't understand what is going on at all. The second half of the movie shows random scenes. Basically some reviewers think that this movie is about how horrible and tragic both Asuka, Rei and SHinji's life were. However, I just couldn't dwell in the story and the cast because of how hateful Asuka and SHinji ... were. Not only that the confusing plot.

Asuka is aggressive and sometimes very mean while Shinji is a coward who couldn't face his problems properly. These symbolism in this movie really bored me a lot and it is quite offensive. I wouldn't go into too detail.

Overall, it was more confusing than the anime itself and I really cannot get into it. There was actually no character development at all, just random scenes taken. So basically, that's it.

[Second thought]
I realised that Shinji is the most despicable person because when Asuka is in danger, he didn't save her. He just bawls in the corner crying for regretting being born and hates the world. I just can't believe he ruined the show for me.

(This review will also cover the TV series and "Death & Rebirth." It'll also cover the "Rebuild" series while I'm at it.)

This needs to be said: The Evangelion franchise is basically what's wrong with anime today. And why it's known as "animu."

* I'll start with the now-generic self-insert nobody known as Shinji Ikari. After him, discussions about "what makes a man" or "manliness" are now jokes. The kid is just pathetic; not even suicide can cure it. Him masturbating over a comatose girl (during End of Eva) was the last straw for me.

* Then we have this BITCH (because there's no other way of describing ... her) Asuka. She's "tsundere;" but she'd be one of those super-powered villain if she starred in a Marvel/DC comic. She's annoying, sadistic, and evil... And only the reality-challenged would cry over, or fap to, her lifeless body.

* Then there's Ayanami Rei. This girl is a doll with no personality whatsoever.

* Then there's Gendou Ikari. He'd be another super-powered villain; "the villain behind the villain," if he starred in a Marvel / DC comic. Why Superman or Wolverine didn't sock his face in while his crap was destroyed, I do not know.

* But the main blame goes to Hideaki Anno, Gainax, and the people behind this franchise for turning it into what it is today and keeping it alive for that long. Tapping into the darkness of the otaku-base (and squeezing money out of 'em) is very sneaky of these people. Taking the cherished "giant robot" theme and turning it into a mind-raping "snuff flick" / giving it a "glorified bad end" is very "deconstructionist" as well.

During that time; Anno said he was having issues, depressed, and considering suicide. (Based on what I saw from "Otaku no Video,") I thought he was some retarded super-otaku who was so full of it that an explosion was eminent.

So with all the current talk over how "anime needs to be saved..." Even though everybody's copying off of Evangelion, then Haruhi... And Mamoru Oshii had already said that anime now is "A copy of a copy of a copy." The animu industry, as of right now, can't even save itself as long as the people behind / around it fear and hate the outside world.

And although ADV / Section 23 / "Snickering Fat Guy" failed at trying to make a live-action Eva movie for the US; I can still see the babies latching on to Evangelion. Their umbilical cords are still attached to it, and they are unable to grow and mature. Sad, really.

Will Hideaki Anno ever figure out how to end an anime? Legend says even today he still probably haven't figured that out. We'll see whenever the final rebooted movie(s) comes out of this franchise. After watching the main anime I had low expectations when I started to watch this entry what to expect next.

Did you know that the Japanese have a term for that small period of time when a man has clear thoughts after he ejaculates? It's called 'kenjataimu'. I don't know about you, but Anno Hideaki really should have rubbed one off before even thinking about in creating this alternative ending in ... the first place. That statement really becomes clear when you see an Asuka Langley Souryuu in a coma and Shinji "I'm so fucked up." Ikari alone together in the very first scene of this entry in a hospital room. If people really weren't satisfied with the previous anime ending, I'm sure there will be people that aren't pleased with this ending and I'm one of them. It even made me rethink my score on the TV series...

Iether way, boy I do hate it when I'm right about my assumptions. I really don't want to repeat everything once again like I've written in my previous review about the TV series, so I'll try to keep this review as short as possible since you probably already know this is an alternative ending to the TV anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995). Atleast you're allowed to view it as an alternative ending.

The anime in general tried in showcasing the dark side of humanity, which is a good thing. Too bad the execution is pretty bad to say the least. The half end of the anime (the TV series) got butchered by poor budget and really felt rushed where they smartly avoided it by making the final two episode's happening inside the mind of the Shinji Ikari, so they were kind of forced into making this entry to please it's fans when there was once again a budget as an attempt to save the anime series. Yes, this entry Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion is just the streched out alternatieve ending for the final two episodes, nothing more, nothing less. To keep it short: both the movie and anime are honesty executed poorly. This series is the result of someone trying way to hard. Throwing random religious reference here and there without any reason, a couple of inappropriate scenes, ... I'm sorry, I just don't like it. This series could have been a terrible hentai for all I care aswell and nothing really have changed at all plotwise. Atleast for this ending we have gotten a bit more Dementia and Action, so that's atleast something. So which ending did I enjoyed the most? Honesty I find that the TV series ending slighty better but that's just a matter of personal taste.

I rate this entry a 3 nuts out of 10. One nut for Shinji for discovering his wiener, one nut for Anno Hideaki in the hope his mental health is better now and one nut just for the memes and the temporary clear thoughts. Remember fella's: when you're dealing with a woman and don't want to end up in misery; rub one out first before making your decision.

OKay, I am an Asuka fan and I am here to complain about Asuka and how she got pushed to the sidelines. She is my favorite character and I don't like what they did to her. It was too torturous, they ruined her eye and her Eva REALLY BADLY and Shinji just got even more hateful by going crazy, crying, and even choking her at the end (gladly, she didn't die).

I do not get the hype for this. The movie is boring. Asuka is what made the series better, I would've got bored and I did skip the episodes if she wasn't in them. So, ... I guess I do not get this movie or maybe I have to watch the series again.

So, now we got to suffer an hour of Shinji's pansy butt. Like in the series, he did get more likable towards the end when we learn about his past. I did like Misato more, too. Rei had a more decent ark, but I don't like the end of the world thing at the end. No one else I really could care much for.

This movie was just creepy and violent. I was thinking that this would be a great film but it was just very over-hyped. This movie just had me screaming at the computer through. The characters are quite different, Asuka is worrying about her mother and I was wondering if like I heard, it may be because her mother's soul was there or she was just relying on her to try her best to get through this hard battle but she had a really evil face on sometimes during the battle, I understand that this type of facial expression was new for its time but it still looked too evil. Misato seemed to have been in love with Shinji, she might've been this way in the series, too. And I don't understand Rei's arc of being above the world while it was destroyed.

I also did not like the new facial expressions for Asuka representing the scenes in the anime like when she wakes Shinji up, she's now more scary and hateful than she was likable and funny.

I also do not like the live-action combination in this, even though it did have a good message about reality in dreams.

The jazzy song at the end of the first half was okay but it was smoother than Fly Me To The Moon.

Gladly, it did not have Hikari in it but it still could do better than this.

First of all I have to mention that I have recently rewatched the essential Neon Genesis Evangelion TV series after a few years and certainly I was not disappointed. It was a great pleasure to experience emotions exposed in the show and enjoyable story of course. Many aspects seem different than I have remembered. After dissatisfying and confusing end of the promising series I expected and needed answers to some important questions about further fate of the characters. And that's exactly what The End of Evangelion feature-length movie was supposed to be.
Unfortunately, instead of deserved explanations of many significant threads we are given even ... more questions, misleading scenes, confusing dialogues and terribly written end of the story, which I personally find unbelievably stupid. Moreover, many solutions chosen by the producer or director are in my opinion absolutely misguided, for example featuring some live action footage or focusing on variety of pictures which appear on the screen really fast and are supposed to create a mood of insanity.
Furthermore, there is one crucial disadvantage which in my opinion simply cannot be forgiven, namely that the great characters known from TV series have been awfully destroyed and once again scenes like those featuring Shinji and Asuka which were supposed to show extreme desperation and hopelessness are actually grossing the characters out. Only advantages of The End of Evangelion are simple but attractive music, expressive and admirable work of voice actors and actresses and vintage graphics style. Unfortunately, taking all that things into consideration I can undoubtedly say that this movie is absolutely NOT worth watching and if you enjoyed the essential TV series and expected to see satisfying end of the story, you wouldn't be attracted to The End of Evangelion.

IF YOU FOUND THE SLIGHTEST BIT OF CLOSURE OR CONTENTMENT IN THE FINAL EPISODES OF THE SERIES, DO *NOT* WATCH THIS FILM!!!

EVEN IF YOU DIDN'T, YOU MAY STILL HATE THIS FILM!!!

This film contains many of the same elements that the final two episodes of the series did (without going into detail, the whole human instrumentality project monologue still happens, although with a very different resolution). I (thought) I understood what this film was supposed to accomplish - an action-based resolution to the events presented in the first 24 episodes of the television series.

The film held my interest for about the first 75%-85% of the ... duration. I thought, like the series, it was well executed, emotionally impactful, and everything one came to expect after viewing such a great series. However, the final segment of the film is what prompted me to disregard any rave reviews I knew I'd inevitably see.*

I'LL ATTEMPT TO MAKE A SEMI-SERIOUS POINT HERE!!

I became confused as the beginning of the end of the film began. However, by the time it began to wrap up, I still had a positive view of the movie and was starting to understand the events that were taking place. THIS was a welcome relief to me, because as I found after watching the series (and then this movie) it seems the more Evangelion you watch, the less you know. Allow me to take a stab at explaining this further.

It becomes more and more apparent as the series (and again, this movie) progresses, that there is so much stuff happening off screen, in the canon history of the Evangelion universe, and in the private lives of the characters that you are a proverbial bug on the wall who aspires to one day understand just a simple majority of what the fuck is going on. It makes the viewer feel small and foolish. In a way, this is a testament to the story's great underlying architecture. On the other hand, it felt unnecessary and frustrating.

*Returning to my previous point, I started to feel like I understood where this movie was going with the series. Then, the last scene happened. My brain could be hooked up to a machine and used to its full capacity as a high powered CPU for years on end to attempt to determine the reasoning behind it and I probably wouldn't find an answer.

Well, really folks, hyperbole aside, I could probably understand it if I really wanted to, but I don't. I just don't. I don't know how anyone could come away from this film satisfied. And yeah, there's that whole "it was just such a magnificent piece of art that it's worth the pain" thing. I assure you, there is none of that to be found here. In a way, I'm glad I saw it, and maybe someday I'll watch it again and have a more mature and satisfied take-away from the movie. However, I felt much happier pretending that one of the many possible moe realities presented in the end of the series was the "true" ending. I basically already regret writing this review.

There's nothing wrong with hating a film that many others love, especially if a significant portion of those people only "like" it to make themselves seem smart. If you liked the end of Evangelion in the least bit, save yourself the confusion, frustration, and burning rage and do not watch this film.

Seeing other reviews, I guess this isn't a popular opinion but this movie sucks.
It's more confusing than inception and not in a good way. The ending leaves you more unsatisfied than after finishing the neon genesis series and watching FMA (non-brotherhood).

Spoilers below
Honestly what is going on? Maybe I missed something, but Shinji, is all of a sudden a spineless pleb again, making all of his character development in the neon genesis series worthless. On top of that, I don't understand what is going on in the action scenes. There is never anything conclusive to say whether a characater is dead or not, and the SEELE ... organisation is still shady with no further explanation as to who they are. Are NERV the "good guys" or are SEELE? They all seem to want to destroy mankind but are fighting against each other or something
And then the story ends with "Shinji is doomed to float around space as the only remaining living thing for all eternity". WHAT THE ACTUAL BEEP? There were so many opportunities to have a good ending, either the happy fun type, with defeating SEELE or finding out who creates the angels and a final conclusion on shinji and asuka/rei. Or a darker where they they do die, but not in the weird messed up way that makes no sense.

This is so poorly written. Just a huge mess that makes no sense whatsoever, completely lacking in exposition or even the slightest attempt to explain what's going on. I can't really say this is even a better ending than in the original series...for something meant to resolve the series it mostly just creates more questions and confuses the viewer more. It more or less starts off as a typical Eva episode, robot battles and all that but then it just becomes this ridiculous psychological hellscape that doesn't provide anything constructive other than 'wtf'.
Watch it to get the full Evangelion experience I guess, but ... I didn't like it.

My friend in college compared End of Evangelion to Schindler's List in terms of the emotional response the movie generated. As ridiculous as it seems to compare the monumental Holocaust film to one of them Chinese cartoons about giant robot thingies, I kind of understood what he was saying after I watched EoE. Both movies left me with a lingering sense of dread and sorrow on the days that I watched them.

I can accept Schindler's List making me really sad. As depressing as that movie was to watch, I recognize its educational and historical value. It's important to be aware of the great atrocities in ... human history, so the new generation can hopefully stop future crimes against humanity.

As for Third Impact, can that actually happen? Maybe, I'm wrong. Maybe, we'll all explode into orange soda: an apocalypse that would make Kel Mitchell proud. But, as of right now, End of Eva is an endless train of misery that I'm not sure I really need. I think there's some kind of message at the end of the movie, but all I got out of the experience was "look at these anime characters. They're all gonna die horrible deaths!"

And, I'm not an Eva-hater. I liked Evangelion. I liked it when it was a colorful giant robot show. I liked it when Anno went off his meds. But, I never thought the show had some deep philosophical or religious subtext. I viewed Eva as an interesting case study of what happens when an author's personal issues sink into his work. By the time I got to End of Eva, it was just sinking in too deep.

Not every anime has to be rainbows and sunshine, but great stories can use the sad moments to make the happy moments worthwhile and use the happy moments to make the sad moments hit even harder. EoE is just emotional torture porn.

THIS MOVIE SUCKED!!!!!! it was maybe the most fake deep thing i've ever seen. i will elaborate.

but first! positive things: i loved the animation and the fight scenes. they were so cool. i also really liked the soundtrack and komm susser tod will always be a depression bop. it all returns to nothing babe. i also really liked the scenes with asuka because she is my favorite mean lesbian who doesn't know it yet <3.

things i disliked:
1. it ruined shinji. in the original show, shinji is supposed to be a sympathetic character that people struggling with depression relate to and see themselves in. but this ... movie put the middle finger up to anyone who related to him by making him a terrible person with regard to his behavior toward asuka.

2. this was a problem i also had with the original show, but it was way too weirdly horny about the kids. please stop doing that. thank you.

3. it made less sense to me than the original ending and was also less compelling. i loved the character explorations in the original ending and that was definitely missing in this version. i feel like i never learned anything about anyone or knew what anyone was feeling at any time. i was also just Confused by a lot of the plot and felt like things weren't explained, but that might be a universal problem of the evangelion franchise.

4. the abrupt beginning. the movie felt like it started out of nowhere and i had trouble placing it in the evangelion continuity. it also gave you no time to get situated and get used to the characters, which is probably just a personal opinion of mine.

5. not enough pen pen. need i say more.

finally, i'd like to close with saying that i don't think this is a good alternate ending. i would have been perfectly happy with the original ending being the actual ending, as it was more interesting and made more sense.

The fact that so many people think this is a masterpiece and rate it 10/10 is, frankly, the only proof you need that some of the ratings on this website are a complete joke.

Well, it's been some time since I watched this flaming pile of garbage, but the feeling of absolute disgust towards it is still present. Controversial opinion alert! Despite obviously low production quality of the last 2 episodes of the original show, I found that to be a much better ending to the series than THIS.

The original show was bombastic and pretentious as well, but one could definitely enjoy it. Most ... importantly, it tried to make a point. This horrid mass of animation, on the other hand, throws all of it out of the window. There's a rumor going on that when making this movie, the original creator was depressed and totally despised his audience who demanded "a proper ending" to the original series. So this whole movie is a giant "fuck you" to the fans.
The most ridiculous thing is - the fans gobbled it up and called it a masterpiece. It is not. It's pretentious just for pretentiousness' sake. The symbolism pretty much makes no sense what-so-ever and is probably there just to ridicule the symbolism itself and people trying to find a deeper meaning when there isn't one. A lot of the characters were massacred and did not receive not even a hint of the proper conclusion to their stories.

I despise this movie just as much as it despises its audience. Although it's well-made and pretty to look at, watching it was one of the worst experiences in my life. After completing the original series, it was like being thrown into some resemblance of phantasmagorical hell, where everything was a cruel parody of the world I knew.

An absolutely horrible mess that doesn't deserve even the tenth part of the fame it receives. I don't want to write even a single word more about it.

I think this movie is the minimum which should be delivered as an ending for NGE. It makes things somewhat clearer about what Seele is.

But I'll save myself and you from a long drag and tell that it is a quite of an inconclusive ending as well as the serie's original. The animation is >>somewhat<< better but still is not good and after watching this movie I was still pissed of with how NGE ended. So I think it is a must watch for anyone who watched NGE but still it sucks as a finale.

The characters - with exception of Misato - still ... suck balls but unlike in the series here you who expected to know more about the mysterious characters and other mysterious aspects of the series will be left disappointed. So as the movie doesn't develops a lot of other chararacters it is left to deal with the characters you already know, which grouped together is just a bunch of disturbed psychos - something which is cool during the series, but you who were expecting they were going to get any better with this ending, give up your hopes: they don't.

So after all, I think it's necessary to watch this if you watched NGE and I know this move is meant to replace episodes 25 and 26 of the show. However it disappointed me, because for me at least NGE was quite of a show (with a hell lot of problems in it but still a tremendous show) until episode 24. Then the roller coaster of emotions ends and you have a quite of a train wreck as an ending (episodes 25 and 26). The least you could expect is that Hideakki Anno would kinda fix it and conclude the story. So he released this movie which "kind of fixed" the story but also kind of left it as is, since this movie doesn't really change the ending and it's inconclusive state, but adds the events that happened in reality there (since the original ending takes place on the protagonist's mind), but doesn't really change the terrible ending the series had.

I believe this movie is overrated. The first half was good but when the second half came on, it felt like the movie completely lost its direction.

People are claiming this is a masterpiece mainly for the underlying meanings and confusing nature as a whole but I strongly disagree with this way of thinking.

I felt like all the characters were thrown out the window during the second half (almost literally) and it felt like I was watching eps 25/26 of the original anime. It's just a mess to be honest and the underlying meanings and the presentation don't add anything to the movie.

The ending sentence perfectly ... describes the movie too.