Neon Genesis Evangelion - The End of Evangelion

Despite being criticized a lot because of the ending and the 'deep' plot, I found both the movie and the original series simply amazing. I've watch anime for almost my entire life and this was one of the few I can empathize with.

I thought it was just some generic mecha anime that got praise a lot in the first place, and I was totally wrong.

I have no words to describe how jarring this outstanding film was. Ignore the critics, give this series a shot!

Never before has a movie put me through so many emotions. Anger, joy, fear, depression, hope, all flowed through me as the epic film unfolded before me. I was left emotionally wrung out the first time I watched it, and my view of life has been changed forever because of it. Just be warned, if you haven't seen all the TV episodes, you will be totally lost by this movie. Oh, and hope you haven't developed too much of an emotional attachment to the characters.

This film is effectively an alternative to the final two episodes of the TV series 'Neon Genesis Evangelion'; as such if you haven't watched the series it isn't likely to make much sense as no time is wasted in explaining what went before.

As the film opens Asuka is in a coma and Shinji is wracked with more self-loathing than ever. SEELE launches an attack on NERV headquarters and the unconscious Asuka is moved to Eva Unit Two while Misoto searches for Shinji. Shinji's father plans to use Rei Ayanami to initiate the 'Third Impact'.

Having watched the series I thought I knew what to expect but this film takes things to another level. It provides lots of impressive action but this is tempered by the feeling that ultimately our protagonists might not prevail or even survive. The film is made up of two episodes, with the 'end' credits positioned between them. The two halves are quite different; the first is where most of the action takes place. Here things are relatively conventional. In the second things are far more existential, not to mention a little confusing at times. Shinji is more irritating than ever but the other characters are great; Asuka was particularly pleasing as she battled nine other EVAs in Unit Two; Rei is as mysterious as ever and other main characters were well used. The animation is impressive, clearly there was more time and money spent on this than the series. Overall I'd say that this is a must see for all Evangelion fans.

These comments are based on watching the English dub of the film on Netflix.

This is an impressive ending to the excellent Evangelion saga. Everything that you thought should be in the last two episodes but were not there is here from massacre to evisceration. This film, however, is not totally different from the last two episodes. It basically shows what happened in real life before and while Shinji performs his self-assessment in episode 25 and 26. Many of the scenes that are shown vaguely in the two episodes are clarified in this film (for example, the Misato and Ritsuko scenes).

I am at a loss for words to describe this work. It does for anime what Beethoven's 9th or Wagner's Ring cycle did for classical music. End of Evangelion combines intense action with emotional drama superbly. A number of scenes depicting graphic violence and sexual content will probably bother some viewers. These scenes, however, serve to underscore the themes of the movie for the most part.

The animation is excellent and the music is great (and features a number of nice works by Bach) and the symbolism is truly rich and elaborate, involving many elements of Christianity and Judaism as the entire series is sort of a take on the Apocalypse. However, as many have already mentioned, watching the anime series before hand is necessary to even remotely understand what is going on.