Neo Genesis Evangelion

[The Forsaken One]

I just watched the last episode, End of Evangelion.... and I must say I dont know what I'm feeling. Watched it alone in a dark room with noone or nothing around and when it was over I just sat there and now 2 hours later find myself here trying to figure out what I just saw and how I think and feel about it.

This is definately in the top 5 of things I've seen that shook me to the core and which left me like what he hell do I feel now. Allthough I don't know what I feel, it feels powerfull though.

This was shocking terrifying and somewhere maybe even a bit enlightening.

Serious how did people who watched the show feel about this finale?

Whatever I expected of the last episodes this was it times a 100 or more.

 

[KenM]

I have never seen it myself, but everyone I know that has tells me that they eaither love the ending or totally hate it.

 

[Ambrus]

The question is "which ending?" There are two endings;

Spoiler

one in which Shinji eventually figures out that he is his own person and everyone is standing around him in a green field clapping hapilly at this self-reveletion (which I believe the series creator wrote during his mental-breakdown), and the other, in which Shinji ends up on a beach of blood next to a giant Rei head and tries to choke Osuka.

I don't really like or hate the endings. They are what they are. Very very weird.

I think the lesson to be learnt from either ending is: don't strap a mentally-unbalanced fourteen year old into a giant robot and expect him to save the world.

 

[Wycen]

That's the one where the author/artist went crazy, right? I wouldn't put too much thought into it.

 

[Testament]

Hideaki Anno wrote NG:E while he was clinically depressed and his Prozac prescription had run out. It was a form of self-therapy from all accounts. The other important thing to remember is that while the first half of EoE, "Episode 25': Air/Love is Destructive" is what he originally intended episode 25 to be, he did not want to make "26': Yours Sincerely/My Purest Heart for You", the second half of End.

Is it brilliant? Oh hell yes, no matter how many times I see it, I'm moved almost to tears by it. However, I belong firmly to the camp that believes that the last sequence sucks.

Spoiler

In my opinion, it should end about five minutes earlier, with Unit 1 drifting out into space, with the Lancea Longini accompanying it, and Shinji's last hushed words, "goodbye Mother".

The sequence on the beach adds absolutely nothing to the film, other than leaving you shattered, deflated and despairing at the fact that THOSE TWO are the sole surivivors. It also contradicts Yui's final message to Shinji, which is pretty much the central message of the whole damn series! Or maybe that's just my burning hatred for Asuka and Shinji coming through.

It's quite a turnabout from the original ending, that while cryptic, at least didn't leave me wanting to shoot myself like the film did. The rest of the series is emotionally wrenching enough (Eps 23-24, "Tear" and "The Last Messenger" being the big ones for me) to be more than suitably cathartic.

Forsaken, if you haven't seen the original final episodes "The Third Impact" and "The Beast that shouts 'I' at the centre of the Earth", do so immediately. Also check out the director's cut episodes, they were greatly enchanced by the otherwise minor additions to them

Oh, and Ambrus, I always thought that it was a sea of mingled blood and LCL. Considering what happens during "Yours Sincerely", it makes sense, which is more than can be said for the rest of that episode.

 

[Ambrus]

Oh, and Ambrus, I always thought that it was a sea of mingled blood and LCL. Considering what happens during "Yours Sincerely", it makes sense, which is more than can be said for the rest of that episode.

Spoiler:

Spoiler

Oh you're probably right. It's just that, by that point, everyone has popped/exploded, Rei has grown to titanic proportions and her severed head has become a floating island, the world as we know it is devastated and been covered in thousands of glowing cross-shaped explosions, ect... I simply can't bring myself to really make sense of what I'm looking at or what the blood red sea that Shinji or Osuka are lying next to happens to be made of. By that point in the episode, in my mind at least, it's the least puzzling thing that I need to have clarified for me.

 

[Alzrius]

I personally liked episodes 25 and 26 of the TV series much better than the movies. While I can understand people saying how the last two episodes of the TV series didn't present a conclusive ending in terms of plot, they were the greatest examples of character development in a series that did an incredible job with interesting, deep characters.

I found episode 26 to be incredibly moving, and it left me feelings completely stunned by what it presented. Looking back, I realize now the reason it spoke to me so profoundly was because I have a lot of the same issues as Shinji (my father left me when I was young, and I spent a long time trying, futilely, to get into his good graces so I'd feel worthy of being loved). I consider seeing that to be one of the turning points in my life.

In terms of the movies, they do present the same message ultimately (that people are as happy as they make up their minds to be, among other themes), but after having it stated in such a raw, powerful manner at the end of the TV series, the movies lack the emotional intensity it had before, and left it feeling somewhat anticlimactic, despite the plot resolution (IMHO, anyway).

A few specific points:

Spoiler

The sequence on the beach adds absolutely nothing to the film, other than leaving you shattered, deflated and despairing at the fact that THOSE TWO are the sole surivivors.

Spoiler

Shinji and Asuka are not the sole survivors. Shinji chooses to restore the AT Fields that prevent all souls from merging into one...in effect, undoing the anti-A.T. field that caused people to dissolve. It's a small leap of logic to say that everyone who was alive when they lost their physical bodies had their physical selves restored.

Spoiler

Rei has grown to titanic proportions

Spoiler

This is REALLY splitting hairs on my part, but that was Lillith, the second angel, and not Rei....not wholly, anyway. Rei was part of her, since Rei was a clone of Yui Ikari mixed in with Lillith's genetic material.

 

[RangerWickett]

If anyone is interested, the best anime music video I have ever seen is The Evangelion Opus, an End of Eva video set to a subtly intermixed studio/live version of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody." I have on my computer what may be one of the few copies, since the creator took it off the internet.

End of Eva is . . . cool. I kinda wish I'd watched it in English rather than the cheap fan subs my roommate had, because sometimes I wasn't sure who was talking.

Y'know, they released End of Eva in theaters in Japan. When they did, they handed out pamphlets that explained the damned thing. A thorough Google search might turn up a translated copy, but it's too late in the evening for me to try.

 

[Testament]

The English dub was quite good. Not as good as ADV's absolutely stellar work on the series, but still well done.

The Red Cross Book (the pamphlet) is easy to find on the internet. If you have even passable Google-fu you'll find it.

 

[Rackhir]

One "theory"? I've seen about the endings is that the one in the series is the Happy Ending. Shinji finally grows up, starts to live his life and mankind evolves to the next stage. The "End of Evangelion" is the "Unhappy Ending" where everything gets wrecked and destroyed.

My basic reaction to the original ending was "Well that was quite interesting, but what the hell did it have to do with the rest of the series?"

I've also heard that some people speculate that the entire series is a halucination/mental breakdown on Shinji's part.