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Hideko Anno is a genius who made this absolutely perfect ending to an anime which was already a masterpiece on its own. This film is the most beautiful, touching and remarkable pieces of fiction I’ve ever seen, and is most definitely one of my top 3 favorite films of all time. This and the anime before it is an absolute must watch, at least as some point in one’s life. I truly couldn’t recommend it more.

SPOILERS BELOW
(Adding some more info down below to allow this to be posted.)

The visuals are nothing but the best, completely astounding especially for it’s time. I especially liked the ... visuals at around the last 15 minutes of the film, and the music choice for the end of the world was absolutely perfect, and if the world ever ends that might just be the song I’ll listen to on the way out.
The film kept me on the edge of my seat. I barely muttered a single word throughout the film, I practically had my eyes glued to it. That should say something.

Shinji’s relationship with the other characters (especially Asuka) were deepened very well. The very last moment of the film of Shinji nearly choking the life out of Asuka will never not be powerful. The characterization brought by the deeply talented voice actors added so, so much personality and heart to the characters and ultimately to the film as a whole. Hats off to them!

I dare say that this film is perfect, as I really don’t have any gripes with it. I loved each and every moment of it and will definitely give it a rewatch when the time is right.
As said earlier, I recommend this film (after watching the anime of course) to the utmost, and I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: Hideko Anno is a genius, and the art department of this film are absolute troopers for bringing such great visuals to the big screen. I practically had goosebumps the whole way through.

Visuals: 10/10 (I wish I could rate it higher though)
Sound: 10/10
Characters: 10/10
Story: 10/10

Psst, spoilers ahead.

Basically, I think this anime is fantastic, and does what it sets out to do very, very well. The visuals are beautiful, and so is the soundtrack. Also, Shinji is a great character, actually. You get the point, I gave this a ten. Keep reading if you want further reasoning as to why. Enjoy!

Okay, so I’m not entirely sure where to begin here. I guess I’ll start by saying that I haven’t watched a lot of anime, so I won’t be taking other titles into consideration or comparison. I’m sure there’s some other obscure anime out there that supposedly does what NGE set ... out to do but better, but to be completely honest I don’t really care for that. I just want to get that out of the way.

I have to say that whenever I review a piece of media I’m usually very pessimistic. This time however, with the memory of the show fresh in my head (I finished it less than an hour ago), I figured it would be best to just have at it while I still can. I have a tendency to be swayed by others opinions and reviews, and perhaps that’s exactly what’s happened this time too when I saw the high average rating of this show. But I also feel like the opposite happened when I saw these low-end ragebait reviews flooding this site, so I felt like I should just let the rating I gave the show right after finishing it stick to my opinions.

Now to the show itself and less of my faux-intellectual rambling that you skipped. The show LOOKS amazing. The visuals, animation, character designs and general aesthetics look very very good especially for being released in the mid-90s. The mechs look especially good in and out of restraints, as do the various segments taking place within Shinji’s head.

And speaking of Shinji… we have to talk about him. I see him getting shit on constantly for not being part of the one-dimensional hero archetype that’s prevalent in so many anime protagonists. There are exceptions for this, naturally, but more often than not the audience get all pissy if the protagonist isn’t this iron-willed, overpowered confident type. A lot of criticism is thrown towards the character of Shinji not necessarily just because of this, but because he’s viewed as a self-pitying loser by many. And my verdict on this, is that you’re right.

I too want to smack some sense into him, I too want to tell him that he’s nowhere near as useless as he’s convinced himself to be. Yet, even if I tried it’s not certain that he would take it to heart. And that’s why I think Shinji is such a great character. He goes through so much throughout the story, and grows greatly as a character. He made himself believe his purpose was piloting the Eva, and nothing else. Yet at the end of the story, he learned that he didn’t need a purpose to be permitted to exist. And that has weight to it, believe it or not. Shinji isn’t made to be a lovable silly goose of a character who gets a cliché happy ending with everything he wants. His life sucks, he views himself as completely worthless towards the end of the show, and before that believes his only purpose in life was piloting his mech. He is a complex, well-written character, despite all these flaws. A character made to be perfect is hardly ever a perfect one, yet one who is the opposite isn’t either in the slightest. There has to be a balance between feeling frustrated and feeling sorry for a character, and Shinji is one of those characters that just tread that near silk-thin line perfectly.

There’s also a lot of artsy elements to this show, along with a lot of philosophical topics about existence, purpose, and valuing oneself. The show did an excellent job at portraying these thoughts, but I do however understand if others don’t like these parts of the show. It’s not for everyone, but I personally found myself enjoying these parts of the show a lot. They looked visually appealing albeit if some parts didn’t have a lot of animation budget to them. However, the show did a phenomenal job at working around this with use of the incredible voice acting present throughout the whole show. The voice acting here just added so, so much and in my opinion really makes or breaks the characters. They killed it in the recording studio, and that made a huge impact on the show’s characters.

Now, the rating of 10 has been given to this show, but that doesn’t mean I think it’s complete perfection in absolutely every regard. Art can’t be perfected no matter how hard we try, so acting like any piece of media is perfect is to lie to oneself.

The plot hops around a bit much for my liking. It’s not immediately clear what’s always going on. It’s vague. Some people like this, and some people hate it. I’m somewhere in the middle, in not being immediately drawn to it but also getting somewhat used to it over time. Certain things could however been made clearer, like what Gendo’s ultimate goal was, why nobody told Shinji about his friend being the 4th pilot, and why so little action to calm and keep the teenagers under control, especially Shinji and Asuka.

Speaking of Asuka, she was also a great and compelling character. She had great character development, albeit a depressing one. She didn’t seem very German however, in that her name sounds more like a mix of Japanese and British naming practices, for example.

Overall, my gripes with the show are mostly nitpicks. There might be something I’ve forgotten about or subconsciously overlooked to justify rating the show a 10. Either way, the show was of very high quality in the vast majority of aspects which is what ultimately matters most.

Call me an excessive optimist if you like, but calling this show a masterpiece just feels right.

Visuals: 10
Sound: 8
Characters: 10
Story: 8

Total rating: Strong 9/10