I've been thinking about it a lot as of late, and I think that I should finally make a thread about my own experience with a show that I've been divisive on.

After reflecting so much on the series, here it is.

My Complicated Feelings on Neon Genesis Evangelion.

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From just the beginning of this thread, I can already tell that I'm getting menacing glares from Elitist Evangelion fans.

Just to be clear, I absolutely adore Evangelion. It's one of the most stunning pieces of fiction I've ever seen.

But the show is somewhat strange to me.

As much as I love the show, I genuinely have a very hard time talking about it with others.

To me, Evangelion is so much of a personal experience that it's hard to describe.

While writing this thread I'm genuinely worried about what I may say about it.

Where do I even begin with this show...

I suppose I'll say that my feelings on Evangelion aren't divisive due to "being uncomfortable with the subject matter".

I wasn't. The series exploring depression, nihilism, and the existentialism of the human world is already something-

i'm familiar with. Growing up with depression at an early age, I've already dealt with the problems that the characters in the show have gone through.

Bottomline, the themes of the story aren't new to me. But the way they were explored definitely were.

I feel a strange relationship with this series.

The characters of this series stand out to me, as while I genuinely consider all of them to be excellently written...I don't like some of them.

I've never really dealt with these kinds of feelings on characters before.

The characters of the series are some of the most realistic, flawed, and divisive characters in fiction for me.

While I genuinely have nothing but positive feelings on some characters no matter their flaws...

Some aren't so lucky. So I may as well explain my feelings on each.

Shinji is...sadly relatable.

Relating to such a sad, lonely, and pathetic character is one of the most hard things to come to terms with.

But while I do think it's obvious why many relate to Shinji, my experience through living has genuinely a lot of parallels to his.

Part of the reason why Eva is hard to talk about for me, is because my own personal life is hard to talk about.

But needless to say, Shinji is not only one of the most relatable characters in fiction for me...but I'd argue one of the most realistic and well written characters.

I genuinely love Misato.

She's one of the most positive characters in the story for me, and while she's no doubt as flawed as the rest of the characters...I find her presence always enjoyable.

I respect how she wanted to give a somewhat sturdy home life for Shinji and Asuka.

Kaji is a handsome motherfucker.

In all seriousness, I consider Kaji to be one of the most admirable characters in the story.

While he has his moments of being a genuine creep, his motivation to Shinji is some of the most powerful and heartfelt stuff I've ever seen.

The most despicable character in the show is one of my favorites.

Although, while Gendo has the appearance of a mustache twirling villain, his complicated relationship with his son is one of the most hard things to watch for me.

It hits home. It really does.

Oh boy.

Asuka is the most divisive character for me. She's one of the most well written characters I've ever seen.

But oh my god...I genuinely can't stand her a lot of the time. I know people that act similar to her, and a lot of her scenes make me sigh.

Love her writing tho.

While she is no doubt the most popular character in Eva, I think Rei is somewhat underrated to an extent.

Most people just like her due to being attractive, or other artificial reasons. But her character arc is very strong.

Love her arc as well as dynamic with Asuka.

Kaworu is an interesting case.

I genuinely love this character, and he does so much for Shinji's arc. Kaworu's legacy for some is just "the gay character", but he's way more than that.

The idea of one of the only people treating Shinji as a nice person is an Angel is...tragic.

I'm not going to talk about the rest of the characters, as the rest of the side cast is solid but I genuinely have no strong feelings on them.

So I may as well talk about some other things in this show. Because then I can make this thread go even longer :D

The direction is superb, I don't even need to go into detail as to why.

It's so strong that it puts some modern anime to shame, and it's kinda crazy lmao.

Nothing much else to say, it's well ditected and animated. I love it.

I'm going to now go into some of the miscellaneous things I've had experiences with regarding this series.

Mostly how my opinions on certain aspects have changed. As well as some that haven't.

The abstract sections of the story involving certain dream sequences was something I had to grow on.

I at first thought it was confusing, and somewhat of a lazy excuse to not animate certain things.

But they're genuinely very well done depictions of mental breakdowns.

The lore is also something that I've had a hard selling on, and I genuinely still think it's one of the series low aspects.

It barely explains anything. I had to look up a lore video to tell me everything I need to know about "Lilith", "Adam", and the Black and White Moons.

Although it can be argued that not even Evangelion gives a shit about that, but in that case why have it be so complicated in the first place?

Just something that's been bothering me, and I bet I'm probably gonna get some wise ass in the replies regarding this.

But that's okay.

Lastly, I need to express how this show made me feel afterwards, as well as my experience with Eva fans.

I felt nothing short of empty after finishing End of Evangelion. I felt both satisfied yet unsatisfied at the same time, and it was striking.

I can't tell if it was on purpose, but I felt pretty still after that experience. It didn't make me cry, it just made me feel...empty.

Obviously I still appreciated it and thought it was amazing, and feeling empty isn't necessarily bad. It's just interesting.

After this, I immediately went to social media to explain my feelings that weren't fully developed. It was recency feelings.

And while part of that is on me, I genuinely felt an amount of hostility from certain fans of the series.

It seems that if you misinterpret, prefer certain possibilities the story could have gone, or just didn't enjoy certain things that you're "disrespecting Hideaki Anno."

This is somewhat why it's taken me a while to talk about this. Just a bad taste in my mouth from fans/elitists

Regardless of that, after reflecting on Eva a lot...I've come to realize how much it means to me.

It's probably the strongest relationship I've had with an anime I consider a 10/10.

But I thank it for that experience. A lot.

I thank Hideaki Anno for this series.

Also the Evangelion manga and movies seem interesting. I'm checking them out and I don't care what you say.

Thanks for reading.

[THREAD END]