I went into the series without knowing much at all about it, apart from its importance and the mecha stuff/deconstruction. For the first half of the series, I was pretty well entertained. The characters were okay, but mostly irritating or boring. But it was okay. And then it started to get weirdly psychological, abandoning it's initial plot drive, and by the last two episodes ended up as a huge dumpster fire. I'd say I've never been as disappointed in the way a series ended as I did here (well, maybe Shingeki).
Briefly, the interesting characters...
Shinji, the spineless central character who is at times very pitiable.
Rei, who... well, who knows? It's just WEIRD, and involves too many spoilers.
Asuka... irritating, conceited, unbearable. Pitiable because of her traumatic childhood backstory. A very confused person who loves an older man AND Shinji, but doesn't know how to handle any of those emotions at all.
Gendo, the terrible father, very good at being despicable.
Misato, my favorite character... good at her job, but a drinker and hell-raiser. Reconnects with Ryoji, probably my second favorite character.
So it seems that the reason the anime changed direction was that the writer, Anno, got all metaphysical after read a book on mental illness. And that's fine... people learn, grow, gain new interests, explore new creative avenues. Unfortunately for viewers, it culminated in a final two episodes of bizarre animations, weird art, a general sense of LSD-induced flashbacks and various other... weirdness. It was terrible.
Clearly, this is as much of a love/hate anime as you're likely to ever see. Ultimately, I'm not a fan. It started off really well and then became an unenjoyable mess. And these endless post-series movies? Stop. The forgiving part of me thinks that they were just trying to resolve the problems of the series in a final form, but it's just very difficult to fix something that's so ingrained into the very fabric of anime culture. But the cynical part of me thinks that it's just an endless cash-grab, pulling in more money over and over again with unsatisfying movies and bizarre Schick razor commercials (really... go find that and watch happy (!)Gendo smile (!), and see for yourself the terrible face of pure evil and sell-out commercialism).
I don't understand how anyone could actually enjoy the series... different strokes for different folks, and more power to you.
