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This review will serve as a follow up to the review I wrote recently on the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion.

When I finished Evangelion I was a bit confused, as most people are, I think. I had heard that this couldn't really be considered a true ending and that I would need to watch the Evangelion movie. So I did.
That, in my eyes, is a flaw. Not a huge one but it's still a bit of a faux pas.
You shouldn't have to watch the movie to understand the anime, that's just how I see things. However, I knew what I was getting into when I started ... it, so I don't hold it against the production team and the people involved.
Maybe it was designed like that from the beginning or something, I didn't look into it but it's just a little weird.

- The Good -

A fitting end -

As I mentioned before, this is the true ending of the Evangelion saga.
Everything that was developed comes at an end here.

! SPOILERS !

SEELE's plan and vision, Gendo Ikari's plan and character arc, the EVA series and their true purpose, Adam and Lilith and what they really are,
everything gets it's rightful conclusion and questions are answered probably the best way that they could have been.

! SPOILERS !

Animation -

Damn. Gorgeous, fluid and everything you're looking for in an anime or this era. Also, 16:9!! That was a nice surprise I got when opening the movie, considering that a huge percentage of anime at that time was still in 4:3.
The Asuka fight scene, among many others, are an all time classic and will probably stay that way for many more years, just perfect.

Soundtrack -

The soundtrack is a straight 10, imo. The use of classical (sorry, not a connoisseur) in the Asuka fight scene is incredible and Komm Süsser Tod is a classic at this point and damn it hits the right spot.

- The Bad -

Nothing of note at all, really.
One little nitpick, tough, is that I didn't get the thing with Asuka.

! SPOILERS !

I think I understand that the whole coffee scene was in Shinji's mind although I'm not 100% on that. But the scene at the very end is confusing. Seeing as she didn't blink for a solid minute, I don't know if she's just dead or something. I'm pretty confident in saying that this is reality and they're really sitting there, but I'd like to think that she didn't actually speak.

! SPOILERS !

That just feels out of character, since she doesn't really despise Shinji, or at least I think so.
Lots of hypotheses but this is an open-to-interpretation movie after all, so it's only natural.

- Conclusion -

This is it. This is what Evangelion was supposed to be, and the apex of the saga.
Just a great movie, really. I'm torn between a 9/10 and a 10/10, so I'll stay with a 9,5 for the moment.

- TLDR - Should you watch it? -

If you watched Evangelion, yes. It's objectively the right way to enjoy the series and it's ending and not doing so would greatly impact your understanding of the events. Plus, it's just so great that you're not taking a lot of risks by watching it.
If you didn't watch the anime first, you wouldn't understand anything. Well, maybe you would, but it wouldn't be very enjoyable. So watch the anime first and then come back to it.

Neon Genesis Evangelion is an anime released in 1995 and produced by Gainax. It is one of the most debated and hated / loved animes of all time.
Everyone has their own little take on it, be it "best anime of all time" to "utter shit", which can be said for a lot of animes but I found to be even more true for this particular one. Statistically it's the ~55th most popular anime of all time (according to MAL and AL), but everyone and their mothers has heard of it at least once, which makes it somewhat special in my eyes.
You might say that EVA ... is to Japan what Star Wars is to the West.
This goes without saying but my expectations were mid to high, also helped by the fact that some friends had recently watched it and liked it a lot.

I was somewhat disappointed.

Brief story resume and quick thoughts

There is no way to correctly summarize NGE, but here's my attempt.

The year is 2015. 14 years ago, the entire south pole was completely vaporized by supernatural creatures called Angels in an event called the Second Impact. The only hope of humanity is Nerv, a super secret super cool agency whose only objective is to defeat the Angels to prevent the Third Impact, which would eliminate humanity. To accomplish this goal, it has created giant robots maneuvered by 14 year old children called Evangelions.
Sounds dumb?
Okay to be fair, I've only explained the bare minimum.
If this sounds okay to decent to you stop reading here, because I'm going to dive into spoilers.
Turns out the super shady organization who does shady things was shady after all! Nerv is controlled almost entirely by Gendo Ikari, the father of the main protagonist. He is allied? to an organization called SEELE who are following some sort of script called the Dead Sea Scrolls, and whose endgame is to achieve the Human Instrumentality Project, which would basically unite all of humanity in one soul. This would allow them to rule on the entire species and basically become gods. I won't lie to you reading this, I don't understand how that would work. I am guessing there must be some sort of explanation in the movie but I haven't watched it yet, so uhhh.. Yep, this is weird.
I found the story to be just plain confusing. I'm sure I could understand every single notion if I read the wiki but should that really be necessary? I think of that as being so bad though, they tried and mostly succeeded, it's just really difficult to follow for an average person like me who wasn't 150% into it. Anyway, moving on.

The characters

This has probably been said a million time but jesus christ, the characters in Evangelion are bad bad bad. This is where the anime falls flat and it's really a shame, because it had good potential and it could have done so much more with them.
Okay, I'm going to touch upon the characters of the main three and briefly on the others.
The main problem I found is that too much time is spent on the big three, and even more so on Shinji. Which on paper is fine because you need your focus to be pointed somewhere but that time isn't well spent.
During the entire running of the anime, the characters each go through a journey of discovery and understanding of their own mind.
Asking themselves questions, finding or not finding answers. That's an interesting dimension to have! But it goes on so slowly that I gradually lost interest. This goes hand in hand with another issue I have with this anime which I will discuss after this bad character resume sheet. I won't go into too much detail because it has been done a thousand times already.

Please keep in mind that these are 14 year old children and I only speak ill of them in the context of this anime. Please don't be a weirdo.

1 - Shinji

One of the most annoying characters in all of the anime I ever watched. Although I will admit that it gets much more bearable as time goes on and as he slightly matures but god damn. Shinji is at the core a crybaby and a coward and I think he might have bipolar disorder at this point, it's really incredible.
Shinji fears being lonely and hated.

2 - Rei

Rei is an interesting character in the way that you have no idea what the fuck is wrong with her until near the end and even then it's still kinda bad. So basically Rei's emotions are comparable to a robot but she does seem to be having a love/hate relationship with Gendo Ikari, powered by the fact that he keeps selfishly reviving her every time she dies. She seems to be remembering parts of her previous self, which is an interesting concept.
Rei ultimately fears death and wants to be loved.

3 - Asuka

Asuka really is a cunt and I kinda hate her. She is a 100% concentrated ball of jealousy and hatred for everyone and everything it's really incredible. I liked seeing the development in her "spiraling out of control" arc of personality. I found it to be really well made and believable. She had the kind of spurs and actions that I would have expected out of her which is a good sign for a well written character.
Her Japanese VA talking in German was fucking hilarious though I'm sorry I just had to point it out.
Asuka fears being lonely above all but at the same time hates people, what a weird little person she is.

That's it for the characters now.
As I said previously, their development takes too much time (but is well made!) to be the best it could be. And it's a shame.
Speaking of taking time there's something else I'd like to talk about, and it's the anime itself.

Time tantrum

It's so slow. Agonizingly slow. Okay, it's 1995, I get it. But damn.
Every shot takes an eternity, and that whole issue is summarized best by that famous / infamous elevator scene.
That's just one scene but every time something is happening, it's as if it's in slow motion. It's a feeling I got right away as I started watching and I couldn't shake it off, even if I tried a little.
Sadly, this means that I had to push myself that much further to finish it and I found that the pace really picked up in the second half / second third of the anime, so that was very welcomed. As soon at I had gone past the very slow start, I was able to watch it much more willingly than before, if that makes sense.

The rest

Art -
The art style and animation in general are great imo. It's fluid and has a really distinctive style which helped make Evangelion a staple of the genre. When you see some stupid ass twitter screenshot, you can tell which anime it's from.
The "fight" sequences are very well made and gets you very much into it. Huge props for that.

Music -
Nothing remarkable, really. In fact, I have nothing to say about it.
OP and ED are classics thought, that doesn't count.

Conclusion

Neon Genesis Evangelion. Classic anime with huge cultural impact.
It's good!
Decent story although quite tough to follow.
Alright characters but will a slow development.
Great art style and animation for the time and era of anime.
I enjoyed my time with Evangelion. It's a good watch, really. I'll watch the movie, and then I will probably be satisfied to call it quits.
Overall, all things considered. I'd rate this 6.5/10
Probably more 7 than 6 :).

Should I watch it?

If you want to know you classics, yes. Then you will have your own little personal take on it, like everyone. It's sweet, really :)
Even if you expect nothing grandiose you might be pleasantly surprised, as I was.
Keep it mind that there's a 99% you'll appreciate it more than me, I'm a bit pessimistic.

If you don't care about your classics, then no!
But really, you should. Shame on you.

It's good, but nothing revolutionary or groundbreaking.

I finished Kill la Kill today. It took me almost 8 months to complete (started May 2020) because I don't know if it's only me, but I just didn't want to watch it that much. I mean I still liked it more than I disliked it in the end but damn it just keeps on going much longer than it ought to.

Killakill is basically an humour driven "parody" anime with a story shoved into it.
Which on paper sounds okay right ? Ehhh it's shaky, for a few simple reasons.

The humour is extremely hit and miss.
... In the first few episodes it's better because it kind of takes you by surprise if you don't really know what to expect but after that it gets dull really fast. Some of the running gags are really funny I'll admit (red kanji being interacted with, animation frames just being obviously reused on TV screens and such) and always put a smile on my face.
But! That was because they were very scarce (sadly but at the same time for the better! that's what made them great).
You can probably see where I'm getting at. The main jokes of the show are the same ones repeated dozens of times.
Mako's speeches (funny at first, somewhat annoying later on), the censorship being overly present but only Mikisugi, etc etc.
In the same idea, the godrobe animations. It's a small thing, really. But with the amount of times we see them in total throughout the show, they just take too much time to complete.

Something else that bothered me for 80% of the anime were the typical anime stereotypes. At first, I took them ironically but as the show developed and seemingly tried to become more serious, they just struck me as oddities. I didn't know what they were anymore, if they were comedic or just there with no other purpose.
And in an anime where one of the subjects covered indirectly was anime in general, I paid close attention to those kind of things and it really didn't work out for me in the end.
Things like (spoiler!!!) the enemy really is the good guy in the end! or the true true enemy is my mother and my past enemy which really is my ally now is my sister! (spoiler over!!!)

I just found hilarious, but for all the bad reasons.

The characters in general are quite shallow and one-dimensional but it's fine imo. They're not supposed to be ultra deep or anything, they just fill the role they're supposed to fill and that's it. Nonon best girl tho love her to death

That's about it for the "fatal" flaws I found.

Also, the soundtrack was average. Nothing really stood out except for that one OST which was used 100 times at the end of fights as the climax is reached so that's a bit disappointing. I understand it's like "the theme" but I didn't find it to be that good at the beginning and certainly didn't find it better towards the end. The first opening was quite good tho, so credit where credit is due. Second one kinda sucks unfortunately.

The art is quite good! Not awesome and not bad, just good. Colours are for the most part great and the style is quite sharp and good looking, kind on the eye. Which is always appreciated, no problem with that what-so-ever.

And that's about it. Kill la Kill is an anime with some things which make it interesting, but it drags on too much and gets borderline annoying after some time. It's still good fun if you can tolerate it or are more merciful than me. I had an overall good time with it but I don't think I'll be rewatching it any time soon.
6/10

Eh, it's pretty bad.
I didn't hate it. I think it's decent to worse-than-good but it's not horrible.

First, the characters and their dynamic.
There are three main characters:
Natsuo is your typical romance anime protagonist, nothing more to say really.
Rui, your typical romance anime tsundere but she has a little more depth to her character than Natsuo, so it's fine in my book. Plus, her design in itself stands out a lot more than N, which kind of makes her the true protagonist in my eyes, if that makes sense. I think it's more interesting if you look at it that way.
Finally, we have Hina. Ahhhhhh, what a ... horrible person. Really, I have no idea how you are supposed to like this character. This b*tch is literally manipulating a high-school student (6 year gap btw, this is totally fine) to almost completely remove himself from society and lie to EVERYONE HE KNOWS (!!!) about the nature of their relationship.
Man, that's so fucked up.
Little side note on N x H, even ignoring the fact that it's morally wrong and kinda fucked up, it just feels so wrong! Not morally, but it's just awkward. I can't really describe it but every time they were on screen together I felt some sort of uneasiness because I feared it was gonna go to shit.
To summarize, the characters are mostly one dimensional don't really make much sense except for Rui, who I find to be a very well crafted, believable and most important of all relatable character.

My second major issue is that the story is very awkwardly written.
Depending on how much you read into things, it's obvious by episode 1 perhaps 2 that Natsuo and Rui are supposed to end together.
But by episode 10 and 11 (only ~9% of the anime to go btw), he's still madly in love with Hina willing to go as far as to die with her (???), which I find just wrong and doesn't work at all.
How is the MC supposed to let go of her and learn to accept that Rui is in love with him and he might be too in such a short period of time??
Well, short answer, he doesn't.
He fucking writes a book and now everything is better.
Even after externalizing it, he still loves her. Okay so what was the point ?
No idea.
And then Rui decides to force herself on him.
Whatever, who gives a fuck. It doesn't make any sense and I feel robbed.
I understand that it would have been just another generic "in the end I realized I really loved you but couldn't admit it" or some shit type anime end but really, that would have been so much better.
You leave the watcher with a feeling of emptiness after watching 12 episodes, which is quite a feat. Really, what harm would have been done in adding one or two episodes to properly wrap up things together? That would have been so much better.

Eh, who cares.
I don't regret watching it but damn, what a bad taste it leaves in your mouth.
4/10

Koe no Katachi is simply the best manga I have ever read.
At first, I really didn't think I would like it. I bought the boxed set but kind of dismissed it earlier on because I'm not a very emotional guy.
Boy was I surprised.

Story & Character - The entire manga revolves around its characters so we can talk about Story and Characters at the same time. Every single little detail in this manga are impeccable. The plot itself is extremely believable and might happen to anyone, you never know.
The characters are endearing and likeable (well some of them, anyway). They might not all be relatable but ... they feel oh so real. They pretty much each cover a stance on bullying from different point of view, which I find original and interesting. It's not trying to be deep or anything and it's pretty obvious but it doesn't make it worse.
You can more or less understand every decision they make from an objective point of view and that's what makes this manga feel special in my eyes. The only exception to that I would make to this is Shoko but whatever.
Some of them are assholes and some of them are nice, just like real life.

Art - The art is genuinely 10/10 for what it is (a story/character driven-shonen) and the page turn (for those that read physically) is very well executed and sometimes struck me pretty hard (specially at a certain moment near the end, those of you who have read it know what I'm talking about).

Enjoyment - Sitting at 7 volumes and 64 chapters, I had a great time for what I consider a very short manga. Even if you don't think you'll enjoy it, like I did at first, I suggest you just give it a try. You never know, might just end up with a new favorite manga!

This is my first review so I'm very open to criticism, have a good day!