Does Evangelion ever make you depressed?

[Nuclear Lunchbox]

My wife suggested we have an Evangelion viewing day from start to finish.

This woman is too good for any of us. Be proud, man! Proud!

[Gob Hobblin]

Oh, I am. She was an old hand at Evangelion long before I was. I was always interested in it, but never really sat down to watch it. Watched an episode one day while she was gone...finished on End of Evangelion that evening. She was out of town. I called her and begged her to explain what the hell I had just seen.

Her response to me watching it, alone, in the dark, was "You idiot. Why'd you do that?" I kid you not, I was in a funk for a week. Writing the fanfiction is what helped me cope. I was a foolish man....I grasped for the sun, and only found soul-burning, hope destroying flame.

(Seriously, though, my wife is crazy awesome )

[CatGirl]

^ Your wife sounds amazing xD

Eva affects me in different ways. I've rarely felt depressed after watching or thinking about it, but more introspective. It makes me think about people's connections with each other and how (almost) all of us want to be loved. If anything, it makes me feel more hopeful a lot of the time because it makes me remember that we're all the same deep down and have the same wants/needs :3

[Mr. Tines]

I kid you not, I was in a funk for a week. Writing the fanfiction is what helped me cope. I was a foolish man....I grasped for the sun, and only found soul-burning, hope destroying flame.

I kniow that feel (and I suspect a lot of us here do as well). It's that mood whiplash between EoTV and EoE that does it.

[Madonna]

It didn't make me depressed but hopeful, this is why I really enjoy the ending to the main series and not EoE, I have always interpreted the ending as a hopeful one, through self evaluation and questioning you can find meaning in your life and learn to be content with yourself.

[Atropos]

I had the good sense to watch EoE before EoTV, so rather than seeing EoE as 'ruining' the happy ending of the series I saw EoTV fixing the depressing movie.

[Katana]

I had the good sense to watch EoE before EoTV, so rather than seeing EoE as 'ruining' the happy ending of the series I saw EoTV fixing the depressing movie.

That's what I did too. Still didn't fix the depression.

[Gob Hobblin]

There is no fixing the depression. There's cramming it into a little black box in your soul, cursing it, until the day it forces you to write fanfiction. And then...then you know...

Instrumentality has got you!

....pass the Tang, it's the only thing that brings me joy in life anymore.

[ElMariachi]

So basically, metaphorical cannibalism became you coping mechanism alongside writing fanfiction?

Interesting...

I always wanted to use this emote.

[GAP]

Evangelion didn't make me depressed but rather I was depressed when I watched it and Evangelion became my therapy session. I do wonder about End of Evangelion, it isone of the most depressing mindf**ks in existence.

[Nyanlathotep]

I mean I can't tell if it makes me depressed per se, because I'm already kind of a catatonic emotionless blob, but sometimes I wonder if I beat myself up so much because it's just a neurotic thing or because I want to be more like Shinji Ikari.

That usually just ends up with me beating myself up over thinking I want to be more like Shinji Ikari.

[Dream]

Not generally, and the overarching themes presented (plus Anno's personal conclusion in EoE) don't really leave much of an option for anything other than a hopeful disposition.

That said, there are certain moments in the series that managed to deeply depress me, make me tear up, or otherwise emotionally touch/move me to an incredible degree. They're generally either heavily emotional events of the series (the conclusion of episodes 21, 22 or 7 for example), or touch upon an aspect of my own personality or the human condition i still haven't worked out personal feelings about.

[Black Swordsman]

It gets me thinking about everything in the show, which is why I like it. I love researching everything and seeing how deeply the plot goes ^^
It doesn't make me depressed at all, I love the story and characters too much for something like that.
Although, it also renders me unable to watch anything else if I really get into it. Especially since I'm on holiday right now so I have no school work or people to distract my thoughts. I've watched 2.22 so many times that I can 'watch' it in my head by listening to the OST. I haven't even had the film for a year yet I think Eva must be my fastest obsession...just under a year that I've been into the series and I just can't get enough of it.

[LovelyFangirl]

Everytime I'm watching episode 21 (Kaji's death) and all episodes after xD But I like it.

[jetlagger]

I don't actually remember what I felt when I first watched Evangelion. I was living in Latin America at the time ('99-2000) and had to follow the series on this Latin cartoon channel called Locomotion. Whenever I missed an episode, I had to trudge the streets looking for badly pirated VHS tapes. Those were always in Spanish, so I obviously struggled to understand what was being said. I remember the series blew my mind but I don't recall being particularly depressed.

Anyway, I still believe EVA was GAINAX's finest hour and watching it nowadays fills me with nostalgia - I find everything they've done since, like NTE, to be juvenile and foolish. The many parallels between Japan in the '90s and the West today also keep the series as a whole relevant. I disagree with those here who construe the ending (EOE) as "hopeful". Eva is a tragedy (in the old Greek sense of the word) and EOE is bittersweet at most.

[Tribblepoo]

I saw the series in full for the first time a few years ago (about 2005) and I did watch it alone, with no guidance and no input from other sources. I jumped right into EoE after that. I crammed this into two or three days.

I must say that even at this, I wasn't depressed. I was actually impressed that someone had the guts to make a story where you can watch the proverbial train wreck happen in slow motion. I was more impressed when it simply just got worse and worse and worse.

Then again, I love stories like this, where the situation is so painfully obvious that it shouldn't end well and surprise, it doesn't end in sunshine and roses.

Short answer; no, Evangelion has never made me depressed. In a fucked-up sadistic way, it makes me happy on the inside.

[PanzerEVA]

Episode 21 made me depressed. I made a thread about it.

Sure, I was expecting something dark, but not THAT dark. I guess I should have watched my Girls und Panzer marathon afterwards, cheer me up...

[Dataprime]

Well, yes but at the same time it gives me hope for the future.
As someone that been thru a lot of things in my life including
depression & social anxiety I can relate to the characters in the show.
So, In a way I kinda formed a bond with the series because sometimes when
I'm watching eva it's like looking into a mirror and seeing my own flaws.

[KingXanaduu]

It's obvious that the content of Eva can be depressing, especially to a guy like me. While there is a bit of a silver lining in the story, it's still hard to filter through it sometimes and see it. Then again, if Eva wasn't as depressing and complex as it is now, would a lot of us have payed much attention to it?

Then again, that depressing bit can be taken to another level, especially with the fans. My biggest gripe with Eva is sometimes in the fandom (yes, some even here on Evageeks) who sometimes gripe about the characters, calling the main characters (guess who?) weak, spineless, and deserving of whatever hell they got, and wishing that it would be better off if those said characters didn't exist.
Call me crazy for defending a fictional character, but that's a bit cold and harsh. People bitch and spill hate on the main character just because he reacts REALISTICALLY to situations out of his can? And this is supposed to be the audience's surrogate to the world of Eva. What does THAT tell you about the audience?

That's why I like this image that I have saved. It sums up on how we should feel about these characters nicely. :)

SPOILER: Show

Maybe that's why Eva is so compelling to the rest of us fans, it DRIVES us to want to create a better world for these characters, like in "The Second Try", "Eva: Genocide", RE-TAKE, and many, many others. Maybe that's what some of the success is in Eva, to reach and discover something within ourselves that makes us want to reach out to these characters and say, "I want to help give you a better world." :)

[ElMariachi]

... sorry but I still don't have any idea who the black guy is!