The End of Evangelion

I have finally gotten through the controversial anime Neon Genesis Evangelion in its entirety. (Minus the waste of time "Death and Rebirth".) Final thoughts:

Whereas I understood the studio's reason for the original two endings due to budget constraints, I admire the simplicity in the approach. The original endings approached the material humbly instead of "End of Evangelion" where everything seemed blown out of proportion. The first half of movie started off beautifully where the 24th episode left off, excluding Shinji masturbating over a comatose body. However, as we near the halfway point, the movie starts to veer towards the obnoxious. The religious symbolism went from modest to "LOOK AT ALL THESE CROSSES". My main problem was how the complications went from human to other worldly. Whilst the rest of the series falls into a plausible alternate reality to our world, the apocalypse leaped past plausible and felt way too "epic."

While the original endings left so many questions unanswered, the end result was something very abstract. Instead of having all these loose ends tied up in the final film, we are presented with this philosophical concept: if all of humanity joins into one being, how does one accept this totality? The Human Instrumentality Project was a project wherein all of humanity would fuse into one being and we'd all live in harmony. We'd give up all of our issues, hopes, and fears to become one. We are presented several cases of the characters questioning their very existence, resulting in confronting issues and mistakes in their past. We finally rested on Shinji's case wherein he goes from wishing for a secluded and apathetic reality to a happy one. However, it doesn't fall into the trap "End of Evangelion" falls into because it keeps the audience connected on the intimate human level.

"End" is so caught up in the bombastic destruction of humanity that it sacrifices the human stories for showmanship. Even when the second half of "End" tries to step back and chronicle the mental collapse of Shinji, the narrative hits so many wonky notes along the way. Live action sequences. Comical uplifting music. Little children with disturbing faces. The focus seems lost and we're presented with this bizarre patched-together Frankenstein of a picture which tells and shows way more than it needed to.

But I still really liked the original series so I hope to watch it again in the nearby future. I might actually buy the series because it was one of the few times I really REALLY got into a TV series, especially considering my bias towards television and my original disliking of the series.