Gush / Neon Genesis Evangelion

• Neon Genesis Evangelion deserves its legions of fans and place as one of the most influential series ever. It gets plenty of things wrong, but what it does right is done to perfection. At the very least, it helps remind oneself that no matter how bad things may be in Real Life, they can easily become far, far, far worse.
  • This troper likes it for the action (so I usually just watch the middle episodes), but the later ones are nice too (Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, the fourth movement goes SO WELL with Kaworu's head popping like a Pez dispenser).
  • This troper personally loves the relationship between Shinji and Kaworu and wishes that it had been given another episode to be fleshed out.
    • Actually, the fact that it wasn’t just adds another layer of meaning to the plot: Shinji doesn’t cry when Kaworu dies, but he does when Misato dies. Misato had been there for a long time and made a tremendous effort to do what’s best for him, even if she did make mistakes, and Shinji suddenly sees how deep their connection was and it moves him much more than losing someone he had known for such a brief time. And better yet: it motivates him further. This is what NGE is all about: overcoming loss and handicaps and emerging stronger.
  • Eva is this troper's favorite television show ever. Period. Its exploration of the human mind helped pull him out of a long depression.
  • In this troper's opinion Evangelion is one of the greatest stories ever told. Realistic characters, Earth-shaking battles, and the source of more Wild Mass Guessing than you can imagine.
  • This Troper just has to agree with everything. It may have flaws, but if you let yourself get lost in the psychological aspects of it, it's simply amazing. If you're able to connect with the characters, it really is an emotional experience without any parallel. And the fight scenes are great too, with just the right mix of wanton brutality and gracefulness to make them infinitely watchable. This Troper considers The End of Evangelion to be one of his most beloved movies of all time, largely because of Asuka's fight against the Eva Series (the Soundtrack Dissonance and the animation make it one of his most-watched anime fight scenes), and the part where everyone hugs and turns into tang (as ridiculous as it sounds on paper, he finds this sequence almost flawless).
  • Rebuild of Evangelion. Just... Rebuild. Takes everything the original did, dials up the Nightmare Fuel dilutes the angst, and mixes in a shitload of badass. This time around, the fights are even more awesome, the mood and scenery are amazing and the way the characters interact with each other is brisk and entertaining. A theatrical budget that makes everything before look inadequate kinda helps too.
    • AMEN! This troper was originally disappointed at how boring the original series was and distanced himself away from it as far away as he could. I was reluctant to watch Rebuild until then, even knowing that it was a recut. When I eventually gave in to the hype and saw it, I was stunned. They took out most of what made the TV series monotonous and replaced it with mind-blowing action, visually amazing scenes, and genuinely likable characters! Rebuild completely changed my attitude towards the series and made me a hardcore fan.
  • The good thing about Eva is not the way that it throws in all the imagery, the psychological aspects, or the awesome giant robots running around stomping things, but rather the message at its core. It's just a shame it took Third Impact to teach Shinji that it's ok to live life, even if you have no idea what you're doing. Seeing that message pulled this troper out of long-term depression. He went from thinking he'd be polluting the gene pool if he reproduced to being engaged within 12 months. Ignore the pretentious stuff and all Eva tells us is it's ok to live for the hell of it.
  • This long-time lurking troper got an account just to state that he was in a seven-year-long depression that he never thought he would get out of. After discovering Eva, however, this troper began to relate to the characters, see why he was depressed, and learned from the ending that his entire reasoning for being depressed was unnecessary. This troper has now been depression-free for two months, and he only has Hideaki Anno to thank. It is a good anime in and of itself, with deep characters, great action, and a very promising-looking reboot, but the fact that can do something like this convinces this troper that Hideaki Anno legitimately deserves a Nobel Peace Prize. Not a single word of this was exaggeration.
    • (Knight Of Balance) Hmmm. I'm one of those heretics (just joking here) that dislike Evangelion. I always disliked how the show built up the characters only to break them beyond repair, However, I am truly glad something that optimistic came from something so dark. Although I may never like or fully enjoy the series, this troper will give this anime the respect and admiration it deserves: Although it made me more disturbed, it seems to have helped others. It paved the way for all the deconstructions in anime today. Without it, we would not have The Attacking Titan of Puella Puella Madoka Magika.
  • NGE is my most beloved series ever, by a fairly wide margin. To a certain degree it often serves as a gauge I use to point out what other series did wrong. Its flaws are minuscule in my opinion: even supposed drawbacks, such as a limited animation budget, turned out to be benefits―the animation was often very good, by mid-‘90s standards, when it needed to be, combined with minimalist animation (not poor animation, there’s a difference) that throws the viewer off external conditions to make them focus on the characters’ psyches and get hooked hard. (This is a feat Rebuild disappointingly couldn’t pull off.) I have yet to see any other film or series reproduce this feat. Most importantly, NOTHING I’ve ever watched could create the same intense feeling of catharsis that lasted for literally days after I watched the original ending. It was just that poignant. I did not like Rebuild, though, for reasons this is not the place to relate, but it did cheer me up to think that Anno, who is now married and happy, could no longer tap into the original depression that inspired NGE. I am eternally grateful to Anno for creating NGE, and I am very happy he’s happy now.
• While the classic anime and Rebuild obviously are amazing in and of themselves, it's only fair that we also mention the Licensed Game for N64 as well. Can't say anything about the game's production history because this troper doesn't know, but the music is amazing and borrowed from the anime, each mission in the game works as an adaptation of its corresponding anime event and is either passable or near-perfect in its execution, and playing the game really captures the feel of what it might be like to have really been an EVA pilot. Additionally, depending on player performance, certain sequences can be either almost perfectly re-enacted from the anime, or can be made much more awesome (it is completely possible to give the Sachiel, Shamshel, and Bardiel an absolute Curb-Stomp Battle with Shinji's sync rate climbing to 170 or higher), and the potential for Epic Fail during certain misses can be utterly hilarious. Sure it has some flaws, but overall there's No Problem with Licensed Games here!
• This troper may not like EVA personally, but the characters and setting are well written are undeniable. The characters are flawed and unlikeable, which seems to go with the deconstruction of typical anime tropes.