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Death Note is one of the best mystery/thriller anime ever made. That's hardly an objectionable claim, and Death Note reminds you of that fact almost every episode. The constant gamble pile-up between Light and L is never boring, all the characters do their required narrative jobs without ever feeling like just avatars of the narrative, and the pace builds and builds to one of the most perfect endings I've ever had the pleasure of enjoying in an anime.

If there's one thing to critique about Death Note, it's that they kill L and replace him with quirky expies who don't do anything L couldn't have ... narratively done by himself. The death scene itself is certainly stunning and effective, but I think the final product is lesser for his absence. Still, Death Note is worth every watch and rewatch you give it, and has rightfully earned a place in the collective pantheon of Truly Great Anime.

End of Evangelion exists for anyone who watched NGE, found themselves sitting down watching Shinji be congratulated for finishing his character arc, and asked themselves "What the hell was that?" In a way, it's like a cleverly constructed artistic trap. The studio knows you want answers as to what really happened to Shinji, Asuka, Misato and the rest, and EoE is going to solve that, right? No, it's not going to. If you come to EoE hoping for straightforward lore explanations to some of the questions episodes 25 and 26 gave you, you'll find a few. But overall, EoE is just going to confuse and ... baffle you more in that wonderful way that Evangelion alone can manage. If you enjoyed the surreal darkness of the original series and are hungry for more, EoE is going to satisfy you completely. If you're hoping for a straightforward thematic explanation and some answers as to what all was happening while Shinji was undergoing group therapy, you'll have mixed feelings. But either way, if you were engrossed in NGE, EoE will engross you just the same.

As far as shot-for-shot retellings of the first six episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion go, Rebuild 1.0 is good. The updates to animation look nice, the few lines of dialogue/scenes added to the story are fine, the pacing is well done, and everything comes together in a way to make a fine, singular movie. Rebuild also does some great stuff! Ramiel looks amazing, the finale comes together to do justice to one of the best scenes in EVA as a franchise(Is any retelling of EVA complete without Rei's smile?), and the fact they made it come together to be its own movie is admirable.

But ... there is very little reason to watch Rebuild 1.0 if you already own NGE. Not even if you want to watch the second Rebuild, you can just watch up until the end of Rei II from the original series, slot in Rebuild 2.0, and congratulate yourself for saving the money you'd normally spend on this movie. But if you can watch Rebuild 1.0 for free or as part of a subscription or really in any way that's not putting your hard-earned money up for this product specifically, there's no harm in watching.

If there's one thing to be said for Genocyber, it's audacious. Very few anime, regardless of budget, studio, or intent, are as violent as Genocyber. If your sole consideration of quality is the amount of blood and guts spilled per episode, Genocyber may very well become your favorite anime ever. But if you value any other metric of quality in your art, Genocyber has nothing to offer you. The characters are functional only in that they propel Genocyber's limited and unsatisfying plot forward, the animation does a good job with the gore because anything beyond that is a bit too outside of Genocyber's focus to ... warrant spending time or money on to it look good. Aside from a helicopter turning a group of children to chum, there is also very little that's memorable within Genocyber.

Overall, these five episodes are worth watching just to see lots of blood, and that's it.

Elfen Lied's pros/cons come down to personal opinion on almost every level. Objectively speaking, it's a gore/nudity filled suspense story with comedic and harem aspects. I found the story pointlessly bleak(It's hard to connect to anything when the plot read, to me, as a series of people doing bad stuff because the world has been shitty to them), the characters hard to feel for(The most emotion that came to me during my watch was the periodic twang of pity/sympathy for Lucy/Nyu, but even then, my sympathy can only go so far when it's rewarded by the story with nothing but bloodshed), and the animation functional ... at best. Additionally, the shows' attempts at lightening the mood with its moments of comedy/psuedo-harem subplot either fell entirely flat through merit of both not being very entertaining and being both too tonally dissonant to feel right but not tonally dissonant enough to justify themselves through audaciousness.

However, these views are all personal, and Elfen Lied is a short show. Unless you have a categorical revulsion towards all that is dark and edgy, it's worth a watch. Who knows, you might find one of your favorite anime ever lying here.

My personal holy grail of anime. There are no other shows that have made me feel as deeply for their characters, have stunned me so thoroughly with their presentation, and engrossed me in their plot/ideas as much as Evangelion has. I'm very grateful to live in a world where I can enjoy a show like this.

If I had to really dig deep for nitpicks, Evangelion dances around its main theme(Human connection is messy and difficult, but we are better for having these connections than we would be without them) way more than it needs to. I personally find the surrealism and monologue segments very ... engrossing, but it's understandable if anyone else finds they make the entire thing a lot less enjoyable. Additionally, your ability to enjoy Evangelion rests almost entirely on your ability to empathize with and care for its characters. I introduced the series to a friend and he went in under the impression it'd be a cool, lore-focused sci-fi action with horror elements, which it certainly has aspects of, but when the series showed its hand as a character-oriented artistic therapy session he had to reorient his expectations entirely to enjoy the show on its own terms.

Bottom line is, Evangelion is a singular experience when it comes to its characters and presentation, and I cannot recommend it enough to anyone who has yet to see it. I prefer the ADV dub if you're a dub watcher, but Netflix did fine too.