Neon Genesis Evangelion Episode 26 Discussion

shotta77 said:
Thank god this crap is over...finally whew!

masaba said:
the whole congratulations Shinji thing was gay, but I thought is really unique and deserves some credit for being done on a limited budget.

tsudecimo said:
lol wtf?
7/10
does the movies explain stuff ?

Elikar said:

Well, you could say it explains some things...

It's kind hard to describe. EoE is just as much, if not more of a mindfuck as the original 26 episodes are. To understand the series properly, including it's themes and plot, it takes time, research and introspection.

tsudecimo said:

im plainning to watch all the movies , to be honest i didn't think the series (26 eps) was a mindfuck at all , i just think people focus too much on it is psychological aspect , and i didn't really found anything unique or special so meh.

Baldark said:
Finally finished this classic after all these years. I have a friend who had all the VHS and DVDs of this series and he swore up and down it was the best. That was back in early 2000's and now it is 2013. As I am writing this, I still don't know what to give this classic. So, let me try to work out how I should rate this. I haven't read up on anything yet, but I plan to after watching EoE.

A good place to start would be the characters. The important characters had a good amount of time dedicated to them while the side characters, basically classmates, had maybe half to a full episode to develop. On that note, I found that the important characters were all unique and interesting. Each has some kind of twisted thing wrong with them that helped form who they are. The struggle against this aspect of themselves is what makes them so interesting.

The story/setting is very unique. The world is constantly being attacked by "Angels" who want to reach Adam in order to bring about the destruction of Humanity. While this is all happening, we don't even know why they are attacking and thus leads to a huge overarching mystery that starts to unravel near the end.

Let my try to piece together what I gathered of the story. From what I can understand, the appearance of the Angels were all foretold in the Dead Sea Scrolls. It told of what would happen when Adam was reached and what would happen once all the Angels were defeated. Very few people knew of this development and Shinji's father is working hard to achieve this ending.

There appears to be some conflict between Shinji's father and Seele. Shinji's father is hoping for the defeat of the final angel while Seele, hoping for the same thing, believe that he is taking it too far in become god. I am not sure how he goes about doing this, I would have to rewatch some of the episodes again, but all I can remember was the scene where Commander Ikari had some new angel growing in his hand. Shortly after that scene, Seele is talking with the final angel about Commander Ikari becoming the revival of Adam. What this means, I am not entirely sure, but he appears to be doing it for his wife Yui.

It appears that his plan was successful and that is how we got the last two episodes of the series. This event that was happening was called "The Complementation of the people by the Instrumentality of Man" experiment. Apparently, human's lost something from their minds long ago and this event will gain it back. From what I can tell, each person creates their own world how they want it, but at the same time everyone's mind is becoming connected.

As stated in the episode, there was not enough time to explain the process, so they just give us Shinji's complementation of the mind. From that statement, that is how I deduced that this was a world event. I found it interesting to note that we see everyone taking part in Shinji's complementation. Everyone's mind is becoming part of each others. The comments from each of the characters were probably those people's thoughts entering Shinji's.

Let me try to explain my reasoning. It was mentioned that if one person was in someone else's mind, then that person is also in their mind. For example Misato was sitting in the chair when Shinji came up behind her, Shinji said that he was going to look at the Misato that was within himself. At that same moment, Misato said that her mind was within him. This is what I can understand of this big event.

The ending showed that Shinji was finally able to love himself. That is all I can say about that last episode. Shinji keeps talking bad about himself and how he doesn't have anything to live for. Everyone he knows convinces him that he is valuable and he becomes happy realizing he is a somebody. There was some interesting points being made such as how one can view the truth, but it wasn't something I never heard before. It basically is the old saying: Life is what you make it out to be.

After Shinji finally grows up, everyone claps and takes turns saying congratulations. When I say everyone, I mean everyone. Even PenPen was there along with his dead mother? Then Shinji thanks his father, says goodbye to his mother, and tells all the other children congratulations as well. Now, these last few lines were pretty interesting.

The first when he thanks his father. It appears that Shinji now understands what his father was trying to achieve, otherwise, why would he thank him? Problem here is that it isn't explicitly said why he thanked him. It is left up to us to figure out. The second line about saying goodbye to his mother shows that, despite seeing her in that last scene, that those that died in the past are forever lost or that the new world they live in they can still die. It depends on how you want to look at it.

For that last line, I interpreted it as him telling everyone else congratulations on their Complementation. When he said children, I believe he was referring to all that are born from Adam which would be all of Humanity. To further support this, what we thought was Adam underground was really Lilith. That final angel referred to all humans as Lilums. This further supports this interpretation.

Okay, now that all that has been taken care of, I can start wrapping up. I'll start off with what I liked about it. The characters were all complex and intriguing. Some more than others, but overall great and memorable. The story was very good and the setting was very unique. They slowly reveal the world to you that makes you want to keep learning more. The mysterious creatures called angels attack Tokyo-3 and no one tells you why. They keep giving us bits and pieces to form the whole story.

The battles with the angels were probably my favorite parts, but there were some that were kinda lame. I didn't like the angel that cried acid or the angel that would drop itself on Nerv. There might have been a few others that I thought were lame too, but I can't remember them. The episodes themselves probably made up for it.

Another thing I liked was the animation. Especially of the Evas. There was so much detail in how they moved and looked that makes me just want to rewatch some of the angel fights. The music was also fitting of the series. It made the fight scenes that much more exciting. Plus, who doesn't love that opening song?

Now for what I didn't like about the anime. I already mentioned some of the lame angel fights. Another thing would be the pacing of the show. It had that common rushed feeling towards the end. I believe someone told me they were running out of funding. Despite that, the beginning was pretty exciting, but somewhere between the beginning and second third of the series were okay at best. There was a period I stopped watching because of this. I ended up wanting to watch something else, but around episode 17-18 was where things started to get really good all the way to the end.

I actually liked the last two episodes. They gave us a lot of insight of the characters and what was happening to the world. I found them to be quite good, but the problem was that they were the last two episodes. The ending just wasn't enough for me. They just gave us Shinji's Complementation and nothing of the other characters. It also didn't show how this major event impacted the world. I'm sure the movie will fill me in on this for which I am glad, but as for the anime itself it is lacking a real ending. I would have preferred Shinji not being happy with himself for a more fitting ending, but maybe this was their focus all along in which case is fine.

With all that said, I'll rate this classic an 8/10. I almost gave it a 9/10, but the slow pacing of the middle and the rushed/unsatisfied ending bump it down to an 8. If both of those were fixed, it would have been an easy 10/10. Everything was great besides those two factors. Can't wait to start the movies!

einherjan said:
I must say, that was the oddest ending to an anime I have ever seen. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying it was bad it was just different. I should have expected that from one of the more "intellectual" animes. I think the last two episodes were a bit hard to take in (at least for me). That could have been because this is the first time I have watched this anime and should watch it again to be able to catch some more things. Also I should maybe read the manga. It may have helped to read wikipedia before hand, but that would really just ruin it.

So, the last two episodes were extremely interesting. I am still confused on what is going on in the episodes though suppose the Human Instrumentality Project has commenced. Though the HIP was revealed slowly throughout the series, the major part of it was really just sprung at the very end. At first I thought the Human Instrumentality Project was what Gendo was doing with Rei with the tube and the big brain. Though I was completely wrong. So what I am trying to understand is what is the Human Instrumentality Project and why is it necessary to have a collective conciseness? I am most likely missing a part of the story here, because I still don't understand what the "plan" was. I think although that the last two episodes were executed very well though, though I think they could have done it a little differently, though I am sure they didn't know how to do it. I think it was very philosophical to say the least. Though I think that they could have made episode 25 and 26 one episode and added a real ending to it, but that would defeat he purpose for the spin off movies. Though they aren't how I would end it either (from what I have read on wikipedia).

With these two episodes aside, I'd still rank the series 10/10, if including them 9. I haven't seen an anime like this in awhile that actually made me think. I'd rather see an anime like this than a run of the mill hack and slash. So it was a nice change.

dextronaut said:

uhm idk really what to say about this ending.

Ayanami17 said:
In my opinion episodes 25 and 26 offered a lot of valuable insights into the characters mental states but failed miserably as an actual conclusion to an otherwise amazing series.

For me, I was expecting a much more melodramatic and traumatized protagonist. I found Shinji to be quite bland in comparison of my expectations. He resembled a typical insecure, 14 year old boy with fears that are commonly discussed and, unfortunately, are romanticized throughout media and culture. I felt as if the director was trying a bit too hard to make this project come across as deeper than what it really was, especially displayed within episodes 25 + 26.

Smooched said:
You disappointing me NGE. Don't give me the 2deep4u ending. Was this a budget problem or was the director trying to be a smart ass?