Explain NGE to a newb

So I caught the last 40 minutes or so of "Neon Genesis Evangelion Final" and am totally confused.

Why is Shinji strangling Asuka at the end?

Did anyone else think this was one big pretentious trying-to-be-art mindfuck rather than having some real underlying plot or message for the viewer to understand?

After reading about the creator of the series suffering from depression, the whole film really seemed like the expression of one crazy guy's screwed up mind. I'm sure it's meaningful to him, but to regular sane people it's meaningless.

Yeah, the film's just a slap in the face to fans who didn't feel satisfied with the series' ending, which is much happier, by the way.

It might make more sense if you start from the beginning.

I mean, it probably won't, but it might.

Shinji is strangling Asuka because he still hates her and is frustrated that she's the only other person around.

I personally feel that the re-animated final episodes is Hideki's way of saying "fuck you" to all those who pressured him to redo 25 and 26.

I loved end of eva.  It has a feel good vibe to it.

>>4

So if the movie-version with all the episodes joined together had the ending changed, what was the difference from the original final episodes that aired?

Also that's pretty interesting, as they seemed to have a much different style than the rest of the film. Now I know why.

>>6
They have the same plot, but the TV episodes were set inside Shinji's head. Or maybe they weren't. Eva sure is deep!

"Neon Genesis Evangelion Final"

GaoGaiGar Final

Neon Genesis Evangelion FINAL ~Grand Glorious Gathering~?

I've always felt that Shinji is Anno's avatar in NGE-TV, but Anno switches over to being Asuka in EoE. In NGE-TV, he works through his depression and has an enlightened self-realization that brings him out of it.

In EoE, dissapointed by fans who not only did not understand his work, but didn't care either, and only wanted a giant-robot show, he feels helpless (comatose Asuka in the hospital) while fans masturbate over his work for it's pretty pictures only (shinji jerking it over Asuka). He then proceeds to give everyone rather violent deaths, except for Shinji and Asuka - himself and the fans.

In EoE, Shinji can reshape the world as he sees fit using Eva, but quickly grows dissatisfied and wants it back to what it was. When he gets that, Anno feels choked by the fans who seem so unappreciative (Shinji chokes Asuka), but Asuka lovingly reaches up and carresses Shinji's cheek (Anno's way of saying - "yeah, I'll keep making what you want.")

As for the NGE-TV, read up on Karl Jung as well as George Berkeley's the sum of Human Knowledge. NGE will make more sense from these perspectives. They tend to mesch better with Japanese thought than say, Descartes' "I think, therefore I am"

>>6
I felt like that the movie renditions of the final two episode was pretty spelled out in what happened and what the human instrumentality project meant.  The original episodes, IIRC, didn't really deal with the details as much and was more about what was going on through Shinji's head: Shinji's fucked up perspective on life and with people around him.

>>10's interpretation is.... interesting.

>>1
Depression means someone is crazy? That's news to me. Then again, I have depression and I'm cool with EoE, even though I can't exactly explain it.

>>1
Depression means someone is crazy? That's news to me. Then again, I have depression and I'm cool with EoE, even though I can't exactly explain it.

>>12
>>13

You get a twinkie house award for double posting.

Excuse my ignorance about equating depression with being crazy. I knew someone who was severely depressed and had very irrational thoughts, but I realize depression isn't a 'black and white' issue, it comes in all forms and affects people in very different ways. My bad.

Maybe he just sick of her. Y'all are thinking too much on this.

Watch the damn series entirely. Then come back and ask again.

So, um, what happens after End of Evangelion?

>>17
The series ends and you have to start thinking for yourself.

>>15

I laughed.

"BITCH, I am SICK OF YOUR SHIT!"*chokeage*

That show needed more cunt punt.

Eva fails for mindfuck.

>>18
Signed. They pretty much say so explicitly in the live action bits.

Kopipe from another thread, because it's the same answer for the same question:

You can't really understand EoE unless you've seen the series.  It also helps if you know that Hideki Anno, writer of both the series and EoE, got a lot of hate mail for the way he ended the series, and most of the weird and depressing shit in EoE is Hideki Anno rubbing the fans' noses in it.

"Oh, did you like Shinji?  Did you respect him for struggling with his horrible and tragic life, his crippling clinical depression, then being able to fight heroically and save the day anyway?  POOF!  Now he fondles unconscious girls and masturbates on them, then tries to strangle them.

Oh, did you like Misato?  She dies horribly.  Did you hold out hope all this time that she and Shinji might have feelings for one another and be happy together?  POOF!  It's the world's most depressing kiss.

Oh, did you like Ritsuko?  POOF!  She loses her mind and goes insane, THEN dies horribly.

Asuka?  Torn apart by the Mass Production Evas.  Rei?  POOF!  She's the Angel of Death.  Maya?  POOF!  She's a puddle of orange goo.

Did you hold out hope for some kind of comprehensible hopeful ending, since Shinji has saved the world?  POOF!  The world is destroyed anyway.

Suck on THAT, fans.  I've got your happy ending right here."

NGE is one of the most impressive achievements in anime, one of the most impressive things I've ever seen.  But Gainax should have sent a few burly men to Anno's office after he finished writing episode 20, and given the project to someone else to finish.  It frustrates the hell out of me.  It could have been so much better than it was.

Honestly, I don't understand why people dislike EOE.  A lot of people say it's a slap in the face, but I see it as a fine way to end the series, rather than have everyone live happily ever after and make a sequel.  I like to imagine end of the world scenarios that are greater than any individual effort to try to stop it, and having one character be responsible for it is the ultimate weight of guilt and responsibility, far greater than any being should be able to handle.  Don't appreciate it for being about a couple characters, appreciate it for being about the end of the world.  I haven't seen any good armageddon movies that come close.    

>>23
And this is exactly why I love NGE. From eps. 14 into EoE onward Anno rips all your nice hopes&dreams for a happy ending in a beautiful world to pieces, stuffs them up the audiences' butt and finishes off with a nice kick in the ass with a spiked boot. "We have made this world a piece of shit, and if anything at all, we just trash it faster with anything we do. Dreams about utopia are just that: Empty dreams. Now get your damn minds out of your fucking dreams and start thinking for yourself."

>>24
Seconded. This movie is just plain beautiful.

One of the things I like about animu is that the ends are harder to predict sometimes than in the average Hollywood movie. Fuck that happy shit.