i found Evangelion fascinating when i was a kid, i would say 5-8 years old. Now that im grown and understand underlying messages and hidden stuff and brings back nostalgia

Craftee wrote:i found Evangelion fascinating when i was a kid, i would say 5-8 years old. Now that im grown and understand underlying messages and hidden stuff and brings back nostalgia

You watched Eva at that young of a age? I'm curious of what you thought of it back then.

I just love the triple layer of a) evolutionary battle between Angels and Lilin, b) path to godhood and c) psychological coming of age. You have evolution/biology, mysticism/religion and personal drama/psychology layering off each other like some sort of threefold wave. I have never found anything else like that.
Add elements of archaeology, ideas about the origin and destiny of mankind, some cool robots and an "edgy", mature style and it's pretty much "shut up and take my money" for me.
In the longer term, I find that the replay and re-discussion value of the series (clearly helped by this forum) really pushes it beyond anything else I have ever seen. I got back into it just a few months ago and I am re-liking it like I did 14 years ago, maybe more...

Eva nearly killed anime for me, anything I watched after NGE felt flat and monodimensional.

It's harder to think something I don't like about Evangelion. It's my favourite anime, and with good reason.

-The psychological elements are very well done
-It's one of the few series to still give me the chill after repeat viewings
-The animation is great (for it's time and the budget constraints), especially in Rebuild.
-The characters are all 3 dimensional and unique
-Amazing soundtrack
-Awesome fight scenes
-Me heavily relating to Shinji's character as he struggles to find his place in the world

And last, but probably the most important of all: it was the first "mature" anime I got into.

For a long time, I associated anime with stuff like Bleach and One Piece. Granted I love those shows, but Evangelion opened my eyes to what anime can truly be. Because of that I've discovered some truly amazing anime like Cowboy Bebop, Steins;Gate, FMA, Welcome to the NHK and Serial Experiments Lain.

I can't honestly pin it down, so these reasons might not be perfect, but here it goes.

1.) Quite frankly Evangelion stumbles a lot with its presentation, which is something to laud in itself. It seems very much an auteur work that was Anno working to do what he wanted. And it shows. If Anno had wanted to make Evangelion when he started making Evangelion, it would have been terrible.
2.) Serious "character-art" or whatever it's called anime had been done before, but I think Evangelion really made that idea work by not trying to be it. I can't stand the self-congratulatory stuff that wins awards because they did it to win awards. Evangelion really succeeded in not trying to succeed.
3.) The character arcs. Odd due to them arcing in mostly one direction (read: down), but the development of its characters who would normally be one-dimensional mecha stereotypes is admirable.
4.) Art and visuals. Evangelion has an aesthetic that really captured me when I first watched it. It just screams to me as being the best of the 90s, and the angles used often create some really cool looking scenes.
5.) Music. Cruel Angel's thesis, Fly Me to The Moon, Ode to Joy, and the entire soundtrack all make Evangelion pretty effective in the sound department.

I'll sound like I'm heaping meaningless words of praise that don't amount to squat, but never mind that.

Eva is - beautiful, fragile

From an art design perspective, the animation style has always fascinated me. Yoshiyuki Sadamoto and Takeshi Honda's work in character design in particular impressed me as a teenager-I would spend hours daily copying the designs of my favorite characters. Once drawn on paper they seemed to me to be real people, beautiful people, staring back...

Personally, Eva's touch of poignancy and melancholy no longer resonate with me. But I can still remember the first moments after viewing EoE, when it all felt so raw. No film or story ever remained with me for so long. I must have felt a great empathy for Shinji, for better or worse.

Thank god I grew outta that phase! I was not fun to hang around in high school.

Well, to be honest I Don't really like Eva. No wait, I do but I think it might be for the wrong reason. Eva is a heavy psychological load, I remember after I finished watching it I felt really bad. I've seen a lot of weird things but few have really packed such a punch Eva did. I think thats awesome. I guess you can say I like it for its shock value buts not really true. its more than shock value it did more than just made feel disgusting for a few seconds, it felt like it hit me right it in the soul. and thats why I like it so much.

I do like Kaji though.

From what I've seen that experience is more common than what you might think.

Also yea Kaji is swag.

I’ve liked Eva since I was 12. Now I’m 35 and and watching the Netflix dub (which is surprisingly good). I still love the show.

And on a further note from page 5…. “Drugs are bad mmmmkay”

It would probably be for the psychological stuff. Introspective media is kind of my kryptonite in terms of media that I have a soft spot for.
It also came to me in a very strange time within my life--and even if it sounds a little corny, it made me re-evaluate my life a little. I went from being a nihilist with no care for my fellow person, to someone who learnt to enjoy life--especially with it being as short as it is.

That and also the fact that someone who I was in a relationship with for a while kept recommending it to me.

To be honest, I don't even know.
I mean I love the series a lot but for some reason, I can't really figure out a way why? I mean the same goes for why Shinji is my favorite character I just don't get why I like him I just do.

I think the reason why I love Evangelion so much is because of how much different it is from the anime I usually watch. I would watch stuff like One Piece, Lucky Star, Osomatsu-san, Yokai Watch, and Pokemon. One thing they all have in common is that they really aren't...psychological or dark. I mean One Piece gets dark just not, trigger levels of dark.

I mean Evagaleion is WAY different from the anime I just listed so I think because Evangelion stands out the most is why I love it so much. Plus I am a fan of psychological stuff, dark themes, and a little bit of horror.

Also, Evangelion gave me that "click" in my brain so...it makes my brain happy talking about it

robots are cool and i liked romcoms and had a *very* wrong idea of what this show was going in.