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Neon Genesis Evangelion is gorgeous. Many people don't like this anime and some make fairly good points. This anime is not perfect and even I have some criticism to acknowledge but even with its problems it still is absolutely fantastic.

Animation-wise it looks very good, the aesthetic is very well built and really all designs seem cohisive inside the universe. Sometimes in a shot every now and then you can really see the low budget, with a few weird angles or reused drawings.
The music works wonders with this, be it intra or extra diegetic every sound effect or song playing in scene contributes in a ... great way to the staging of the show.

About the characters: this show is not just about parent issues. It may be present in some characters but it is not the only thing defining said characters since very one of them has their own personality and character traits defined by their actions and interactions between them. A lot of mental health issues here, yes, but it is what makes it the most interesting to me. Diving in the psyche of a character I've been getting to know throught the show, unraveling their past and understanding their behaviour and thoughts really helps you to connect with them. Look, you aren't getting characters that grow and learn fast here, people in Evangelion have some behaviours deeply rooted and they are not going to change all that quick, but in spite of that they still go through growth, they analyze their actions and ask themselves questions in regard, then behave accordingly to everything that was presented. Characters resemble real people despite suffering from bad states of mind and I think that makes it very good as well.

Apart from characters, the plot is great also. The succession of events is damn interesting, having a relatively complex plot with lots of lore and small details that really add up to the final script. The show hooked me from episode 1 and I just couldn't stop asking myself questions that made me want to continue watching. And even tho I find it to be very good, plot-wise is where I find some minor issues with the show, mainly about some Eva fights that were just not that good or I didn't find the explanation for an event convicing enough.

I don't think every show should be like this, I mean, you only get so many Evangelions so be happy with the ones what you get. But are shows like this that people use as benchmarks in anime history, and it just happens to be fantastically enjoyable as well. I'm feeling a strong 9 to a 10 on Neon Genesis Evangelion.

NOTE: I watched Sephirotic's NGE release, 26 episodes with director's cut editions of 21 to 24 and full EoE movie.

I will give credit to this show first saying that it is geniunely enjoyable, it's just another romance between unexperienced teenagers who struggle to express their emotions to each other. Nothing special about it, but you get to see 90's gamers developing feelings between them and it can be quite refreshing seeing this instead of your classic high school art club shit or whatever.

Now, on the other side: the main character is your average twatless, low grade, video game enthusiast who cares about nothing but games and doesn't even seem to be competent socially. Really, he is barely shown having normal conversations with classmates or ... other people, everything is about videogames but the part that makes it dumb, is that is always about HIM playing videogames, just Haruo in his own world. Never plays with any of his friends, not hangs out, goes out for a coffee or anything, it’s a one dimensional gamer.

I can understand Ono having feelings towards this guy because they have known each other for years, experienced various things and played together for a long time, but it just does not make any sense for me that Hidaka falls in love with him. He clearly is a childish gamer that knows nothing but playing, does not care about girls, school or any other thing. Instead of her finding interesting how passionte he is about videogames, it would be more of a redflag on how neglected he is.

Ono never talks, and even tho she is sometimes called out with things like “oh you don’t talk a lot don’t you?”, how can it be that anybody is asking her why she does never say a word. You just can’t take that for granted, it’s dumb, she just never speaks. Being timid is one thing, but to caricaturize it to such an extent makes her void.

The progression of the show is quite predictable, where Haruo of course does not notice that Hidaka wants his D and is still obsessed about being better than Ono at videogames, but that obsession makes him start developing feelings for her, but they can’t see each other now and bla bla bla... Nothing interesting really happens, but this is something that Hi Score Girl Extra Stage kinda takes care of.

I could go on for a bit more about plot and characters but I think its enough, these are my main issues and most of them regard main character who is very dislikeable. The show brings nothing new to the table, if you like retro videogames (mainly fighting games) you will be entertained with all of the arcade references. Characters are nothing special and feel like exagerations of personality traits and story-wise, not a lot of things happen. This anime is just an average shojo that manages to play the nostalgia game with all those 90's arcades. I'm feeling a strong 3 to a light 4, on Hi Score Girl.

The concept of Death Note without anything of what makes the actual DN manga good.
I wasn't expecting great things of this one shot, I didn't even knew this existed but got to read it because I stumbled upon it while wanting to read the actual Death Note manga.
Characters are super bland and generic, the plot is nothing interesting, it does not have any of the interesting detective play of the actual series. The only thing I can salvage from this is the art, drawings are OK.
This one shot only worked as an introduction to the Death Note concept that later lead to the full manga ... that is far better than this short story. Wouldn't recommend to read it, only it's worth if you are a fan of Death Note and want to find out the origins of it.