Anyone who's a long-time troper has already heard a lot about this series; I went into this knowing all the characters, that it's a deconstruction and a psychological study, that it's an end-of-the-world drama using and abusing a lot of Christian eschatology, and that it gets worse, ultimately ending in heavily mindfuck territory.
Is it worth watching even if you know how it will end up, roughly? Even if, like me, you haven't seen any of the works that this is a deconstruction of? (I haven't watched much anime, and no mecha shows.)
Unequivocally yes, in my experience. Evangelion is a series that does not require you to know your anime backward and forward to get the point, and the aspects of mecha anime it's deconstructing aren't very alien ideas, in the end; heroism, teenage soldiers, even the typical character types of such shows have their common Western equivalents. The parts of it that aren't really a giant robot show at all are even more approachable; Freudian psychology and its applicability to parent/child relationships and dynamics, sexuality in its disturbingly powerful ways, beliefs about the end of the world, about the relationship between the divine and the human, about the nature of madness and obsession.
The last two episodes of the original series are so low-budget as to hurt the endeavor, especially episode 25; in most ways, End of Evangelion is those episodes remade with a budget and real animation.
The early episodes will lull you into a false sense of security. Most of the mind-screw is later, and some of it is indeed nightmare fuel, even for the jaded. The first dozen episodes are good, but the real meat of the series is after that. The best parts are between about episode 12 and 24.
Some parts of it have dated in fifteen years, especially the millenarian fixation and some of the technology, but this is not hard sci-fi; it's about human nature with science-fantasy trappings.
Strongly recommended, even if you're not an anime nut, though a passing familiarity with its tropes certainly helps. If you can't stand Freudian psychology, it may not be for you.
Worth it even if you know it through osmosis already.
Anyone who's a long-time troper has already heard a lot about this series; I went into this knowing all the characters, that it's a deconstruction and a psychological study, that it's an end-of-the-world drama using and abusing a lot of Christian eschatology, and that it gets worse, ultimately ending in heavily mindfuck territory.
Is it worth watching even if you know how it will end up, roughly? Even if, like me, you haven't seen any of the works that this is a deconstruction of? (I haven't watched much anime, and no mecha shows.)
Unequivocally yes, in my experience. Evangelion is a series that does not require you to know your anime backward and forward to get the point, and the aspects of mecha anime it's deconstructing aren't very alien ideas, in the end; heroism, teenage soldiers, even the typical character types of such shows have their common Western equivalents. The parts of it that aren't really a giant robot show at all are even more approachable; Freudian psychology and its applicability to parent/child relationships and dynamics, sexuality in its disturbingly powerful ways, beliefs about the end of the world, about the relationship between the divine and the human, about the nature of madness and obsession.
The last two episodes of the original series are so low-budget as to hurt the endeavor, especially episode 25; in most ways, End of Evangelion is those episodes remade with a budget and real animation.
The early episodes will lull you into a false sense of security. Most of the mind-screw is later, and some of it is indeed nightmare fuel, even for the jaded. The first dozen episodes are good, but the real meat of the series is after that. The best parts are between about episode 12 and 24.
Some parts of it have dated in fifteen years, especially the millenarian fixation and some of the technology, but this is not hard sci-fi; it's about human nature with science-fantasy trappings.
Strongly recommended, even if you're not an anime nut, though a passing familiarity with its tropes certainly helps. If you can't stand Freudian psychology, it may not be for you.