# I watched Neon Genesis Evangelion during second semester

**URL:** <https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/t/i-watched-neon-genesis-evangelion-during-second-semester/686>\
**Category:** The Anime Forum\
**Created:** [May 18, 2003, 1:37am UTC](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/t/i-watched-neon-genesis-evangelion-during-second-semester/686 "2003-05-18T01:37:23Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Merlin](https://discourse-cdn.rpgclassics.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Merlin](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/u/Merlin)\
**Post date:** [May 18, 2003, 1:37am UTC](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/t/i-watched-neon-genesis-evangelion-during-second-semester/686/1 "2003-05-18T01:37:23Z")

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and I want to talk about it. NOW!!! It was the first real anime I had really watched btw.

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**Author:** ![Frameskip](https://discourse-cdn.rpgclassics.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/b3f665/32.png) [@Frameskip](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/u/Frameskip)\
**Post date:** [May 18, 2003, 2:04am UTC](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/t/i-watched-neon-genesis-evangelion-during-second-semester/686/2 "2003-05-18T02:04:33Z")

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Good huh, watch end of Eva and the end will be a bit more clear, but it’s still as dark and hard to see through as a bucket of tar.

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**Author:** ![Mabatsekker](https://discourse-cdn.rpgclassics.com/user_avatar/discourse.rpgclassics.com/mabatsekker/32/29_2.png) [@Mabatsekker](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/u/Mabatsekker)\
**Post date:** [May 18, 2003, 3:09am UTC](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/t/i-watched-neon-genesis-evangelion-during-second-semester/686/3 "2003-05-18T03:09:19Z")

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Merlin, first of all, I’ll have to ask you if you had that “Post-Evangelion trauma” (Term borrowed from Spoony in lack of others), like most have. Seriously, rest of my day was like, O\_O;??

And watching the movie may or may have a positive impact to the ending. Your call. I need to watch the series again, anyway.

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**Author:** ![Heaven\_s\_Soldier](https://discourse-cdn.rpgclassics.com/user_avatar/discourse.rpgclassics.com/heaven_s_soldier/32/65_2.png) [@Heaven\_s\_Soldier](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/u/Heaven_s_Soldier)\
**Post date:** [May 18, 2003, 5:31am UTC](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/t/i-watched-neon-genesis-evangelion-during-second-semester/686/4 "2003-05-18T05:31:43Z")

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I first swa it I often felt myslef more confussed than when it started, I never truly got what was going on, at many moments! But then I read a Episode guide, and everything made sense, wierd!

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**Author:** ![Ren](https://discourse-cdn.rpgclassics.com/user_avatar/discourse.rpgclassics.com/ren/32/58_2.png) [@Ren](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/u/Ren)\
**Post date:** [May 18, 2003, 7:47am UTC](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/t/i-watched-neon-genesis-evangelion-during-second-semester/686/5 "2003-05-18T07:47:56Z")

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It’s not hard to understand, it’s just that people want the anime to end in a way and it ends another way.

Why is it so hard for people to understand that the humanity was put in some sort of Matrix that didn’t depend on machinery and that got their minds connected directly, and that the old men only needed the destruction of the angels to making it so?

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**Author:** ![Ryuuhi](https://discourse-cdn.rpgclassics.com/user_avatar/discourse.rpgclassics.com/ryuuhi/32/16_2.png) [@Ryuuhi](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/u/Ryuuhi)\
**Post date:** [May 18, 2003, 7:57am UTC](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/t/i-watched-neon-genesis-evangelion-during-second-semester/686/6 "2003-05-18T07:57:23Z")

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Ren: Even if I somewhat agree with what you said about the ending, that’s your interpretation.

But let’s hear it from Merlin, whom once despised Anime so much (maybe not so much, but meh)… What was your impression about the ending and about the characters? The day that Merlin will become some mindless anime fanboy draws near. :PP

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**Author:** ![Seraphim\_Ephyon](https://discourse-cdn.rpgclassics.com/user_avatar/discourse.rpgclassics.com/seraphim_ephyon/32/66_2.png) [@Seraphim\_Ephyon](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/u/Seraphim_Ephyon)\
**Post date:** [May 18, 2003, 10:24am UTC](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/t/i-watched-neon-genesis-evangelion-during-second-semester/686/7 "2003-05-18T10:24:33Z")

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So you are one of us now… \* Insert mandatory laugh here \*

There are quite a few things in Eva that need some special knowledge like the Angels and stuff like the S2 Keikan and Dirac’s Sea.

I know all that so just ask.

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**Author:** ![Merlin](https://discourse-cdn.rpgclassics.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Merlin](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/u/Merlin)\
**Post date:** [May 18, 2003, 11:36am UTC](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/t/i-watched-neon-genesis-evangelion-during-second-semester/686/8 "2003-05-18T11:36:33Z")

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well when I say “watched Eva” I meant the movie too, because I consider it to be just a larger part of the ending; I watched that Death part too, which was a decent summary and showed some things not made obvious by the anime itself. Anyway, if you are planning on watching it some day, I strongly recommend that you watch episodes 1-24 first, then the movie, and then episodes 25-26, it helps you understand things better and also makes the ending more hopeful.

Anyway, I’ll comment on the ending later, I gotta go now, but Evangelion is simply phenomenal. I’ve never seen a tv show try so hard to be something else.

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**Author:** ![Heaven\_s\_Soldier](https://discourse-cdn.rpgclassics.com/user_avatar/discourse.rpgclassics.com/heaven_s_soldier/32/65_2.png) [@Heaven\_s\_Soldier](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/u/Heaven_s_Soldier)\
**Post date:** [May 18, 2003, 11:47am UTC](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/t/i-watched-neon-genesis-evangelion-during-second-semester/686/9 "2003-05-18T11:47:58Z")

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Maybe, that’s why I never truly understood the ending. For I have not seen the movie, maily because I don’t know of anyway to see, can’t find and it’s not on TV!☹

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**Author:** ![pokefreak\_85](https://discourse-cdn.rpgclassics.com/user_avatar/discourse.rpgclassics.com/pokefreak_85/32/35_2.png) [@pokefreak\_85](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/u/pokefreak_85)\
**Post date:** [May 18, 2003, 12:12pm UTC](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/t/i-watched-neon-genesis-evangelion-during-second-semester/686/10 "2003-05-18T12:12:46Z")

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I’ve only seen the anime series… And that was about a year ago or something…  
Gotta watch it again as soon as I find it (it disappeared somehow :()

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**Author:** ![Rinn](https://discourse-cdn.rpgclassics.com/user_avatar/discourse.rpgclassics.com/rinn/32/34_2.png) [@Rinn](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/u/Rinn)\
**Post date:** [May 18, 2003, 12:35pm UTC](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/t/i-watched-neon-genesis-evangelion-during-second-semester/686/11 "2003-05-18T12:35:32Z")

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![](http://www.rpgclassics.com/staff/epicgamer/sprites/walk/Right.gif) Good, you have no passed the point of no return Merlin. We won’t let you stop watching kickass anime series for the rest of time. But that’s not really too much of a bad thing, ne?

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**Author:** ![Evangelion](https://discourse-cdn.rpgclassics.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Evangelion](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/u/Evangelion)\
**Post date:** [May 18, 2003, 2:58pm UTC](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/t/i-watched-neon-genesis-evangelion-during-second-semester/686/12 "2003-05-18T14:58:14Z")

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Yeah that anime confused the hell out of me as well.I was a bit prepared for how disturbing it is, seeing as how I read the eo summaries a bit first, and found out who all the characters were.I saw End of Evangelion and Death and Rebirth only, so that probably explains why I didnt quite get it.It truely is one of those movies/series that will have you trying to figure it out still, long after you’ve watched it, and it is fustrating.This is where I got my screen name obviously, I’m not a diehard fan of Evangelion, I was just stuck for a screen name when I signed up…

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**Author:** ![Nulani](https://discourse-cdn.rpgclassics.com/user_avatar/discourse.rpgclassics.com/nulani/32/41_2.png) [@Nulani](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/u/Nulani)\
**Post date:** [May 18, 2003, 6:00pm UTC](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/t/i-watched-neon-genesis-evangelion-during-second-semester/686/13 "2003-05-18T18:00:50Z")

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Should you not find enough people to talk to about it here, you could always visit [animeboards.com](http://animeboards.com)

Anyway. I should probably get around to watching more of Evangelion. I’ve only wacthed a bit of the second last episode. _coff_

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**Author:** ![Gamer5389](https://discourse-cdn.rpgclassics.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/f08c70/32.png) [@Gamer5389](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/u/Gamer5389)\
**Post date:** [May 18, 2003, 7:25pm UTC](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/t/i-watched-neon-genesis-evangelion-during-second-semester/686/14 "2003-05-18T19:25:06Z")

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I’ve seen the entire series and Eva along with the movie. I thought the movie in the end just complicated things more than giving me a good ending.

It wasn’t one of my favorite animes because I thought it was a bit confusing but then again, the last time I saw it I was like 10-12 years old

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**Author:** ![Merlin](https://discourse-cdn.rpgclassics.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Merlin](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/u/Merlin)\
**Post date:** [May 18, 2003, 10:47pm UTC](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/t/i-watched-neon-genesis-evangelion-during-second-semester/686/15 "2003-05-18T22:47:15Z")

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ok, here’s my take on the ending. I think I understood it pretty well, and I’ve watched the tv/movie ending twice already and will probably watch the whole thing again next school year.

[spoiler]Ok, first things first. Second Impact was initiated by man when they saw that Adam was about to destroy everything (perhaps even initiate Instrumentality?), but in order to reduce him to a harmless embryonic state they had to launch the Second Impact. Anyway, later down the line the secret society SEELE got their hands on the Dead Sea Scroll translations or whatever, which fortold (most likely) how Man would begin and end and stuff. They decided that they wanted to initialize this Instrumentality on their own, basically the abrupt return to the beginning and ending of humanity. Thus the Evangelion projects were initiated, NERV formed, etc., on the surface to fight off the Angel attacks but really to help facilitate Instrumentality. Ikari obviously wanted Instrumentality and he and Futsyuski were in on it, but they wanted to start Instrumentality their own way, so that Ikari could see his wife again (and by consequence launch Instrumentality as well).

So then the Evas are created, pilots found, Angels slaughtered, basically episodes 1-24 come to pass. And Instrumentality is initiated as Rei foils Ikari’s plan and fuses herself with Adam and Lilith, thus forming a trinity of sorts. Anyway, so it hits, and all of humanity gets liquified and returned “to its beginnings,” as interiorized by Rei herself, the Egg of Creation, yadda yadda.

What is learned (according to what Rei says to Shinji), is that Instrumentality is the process by which everyone fuses with everyone else, all AT Fields (Absolute-Terror fields, ie, your personal space) are forcibly eradicated and everyone literally joins with one another in that gooey LCL liquid. Thus, you become everything and everyone at the same, but as a result you yourself also become nothing because there isn’t any individual _thing_ representing _your self_.

So, while on the one hand everyone’s feelings of sadness, loneliness, dejection, rejection, fear, etc. etc. are all wiped out and all the holes in our souls are filled in by our newfound forced fusing with everyone else; since these holes are the results of the insecurities inherent in each of us since we’re separated from everyone else yet all came from the same gooey Oneness at the time of Creation. But at the same time, since this fusing was foisted upon and forced by Instrumentality, it doesn’t have quite the same significance. It turns out that while you won’t be feeling anything bad in this forced Instrumentality, this is more because you won’t be feeling anything at _all_, your own emotional problems weren’t solved, they were just juryrigged. So humanity may be content in SEELE’s Instrumentality, but whether they’re truly happy is another question.

But everything turns out to hinge on Shinji, I think this is because Rei sparked Instrumentality rather than SEELE’s Eva Series or Ikari’s fusing, but I can’t be wholly sure. It is said to him that if he chooses to, he can reject Instrumentality and return to the real world, his former state. But, he will still have all the insecurities and fears and doubts that plagued him as a distinct entity, but he will be _himself_. It is unclear whether Shinji’s choice means it’s just his choice, some suggest that everyone has to make their own choice, but I think there is stronger evidence to say that his answer will affect the entirety of humanity and either keep them all in the Egg or release them all back on the world.

Shinji chooses release. He realizes that the problems he and everyone faces aren’t endemic of humanity and incurable, but that he _himself_ can live for _his self_ and thus take self-responsibility and reorganize his relations with his fellow man far better than he had been doing. As he said, he may hate himself, but he _can_ love himself. Thus Rei cracks open as does Shinji’s personal doubts and his own inner-wall, and humanity is released back into the world. This isn’t to say that Instrumentality is bad per se, I still see it as meritorious, but I think the point is that it has to be something voluntarily realized and accepted rather than forced in order for its positive benefits to be actually realized.

Now we get to the controversial movie ending, where Asuka, despite all the positive conclusions made, ends the movie with “how disgusting.” I refuse to believe that the ending message of the anime is a negative one, and that it isn’t even all that ambiguous if one analyzes it. I think Asuka’s comments demonstrate more than anything that just making the realizations Shinji did, about how he needs to treat himself and others better in order to heal the holes in his soul and reach his personal Instrumentality isn’t enough. You have to go out and _live_ that way and not just think that way. And that it is going to take an enormous amount of work.[/spoiler]

I don’t know how much that cleared up for any of you, but let’s keep talking. I strongly suspect this was the best anime ever, or at least the most aspirational one ever, and thus it deserves more discussion! 😛

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**Author:** ![Frameskip](https://discourse-cdn.rpgclassics.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/b3f665/32.png) [@Frameskip](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/u/Frameskip)\
**Post date:** [May 19, 2003, 2:27am UTC](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/t/i-watched-neon-genesis-evangelion-during-second-semester/686/16 "2003-05-19T02:27:48Z")

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Holy Shit, and you have only seen it once? I had to watch it 6 times and look up every internet recorce I could find to figure it out.

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**Author:** ![Merlin](https://discourse-cdn.rpgclassics.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Merlin](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/u/Merlin)\
**Post date:** [May 19, 2003, 6:38am UTC](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/t/i-watched-neon-genesis-evangelion-during-second-semester/686/17 "2003-05-19T06:38:54Z")

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well, I saw the ending (25+26+movie) twice. But the regular show only once.

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**Author:** ![Rinn](https://discourse-cdn.rpgclassics.com/user_avatar/discourse.rpgclassics.com/rinn/32/34_2.png) [@Rinn](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/u/Rinn)\
**Post date:** [May 19, 2003, 6:00pm UTC](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/t/i-watched-neon-genesis-evangelion-during-second-semester/686/18 "2003-05-19T18:00:44Z")

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![](http://www.rpgclassics.com/staff/epicgamer/sprites/walk/Right.gif) I’m not going to disagree with you saying Eva was the best anime ever, but I really think you would have to see more examples of good anime before you suspect that.

And your take on the ending seems pretty good, more then I got out of it after watching it once.

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**Author:** ![Merlin](https://discourse-cdn.rpgclassics.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Merlin](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/u/Merlin)\
**Post date:** [May 19, 2003, 6:28pm UTC](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/t/i-watched-neon-genesis-evangelion-during-second-semester/686/19 "2003-05-19T18:28:34Z")

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I said maybe the best, I’m willing to admit that I don’t know of much anime at all.

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**Author:** ![sun](https://discourse-cdn.rpgclassics.com/user_avatar/discourse.rpgclassics.com/sun/32/60_2.png) [@sun](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/u/sun)\
**Post date:** [May 19, 2003, 7:11pm UTC](https://discourse.rpgclassics.com/t/i-watched-neon-genesis-evangelion-during-second-semester/686/20 "2003-05-19T19:11:06Z")

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It’s the best, and it take you a long time to turely understand why it’s the best.

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