How did you first get into Evangelion?

[Sorrow]

For me, it was at the insistence of my mother. I just wanted her to look at me, acknowledge I exist. Eventually though, it became a matter of self worth; of having a place and a way to define myself. I was lacking all direction. Desperate to be noticed, accepted or embraced by anyone.

So that's why I got into Eva.

Do I regret it? Only slightly less than I used to.

[C.A.P.]

How did your mom know about the show?

[Sorrow]

Who said anything about the show?

[Ieyasu]

Saw it in a video rental store. I was waiting for a friend to choose three or four of the most lame 80s and 90s horror movies so we could get monumentally drunk and sit in a dorm room pot haze laughing like nutjobs at everything in the videos, and I noticed the store had the entire set of the Eva TV show, which I'd never heard of. Which was also weird - it was like the only anime in there, and they had every episode taking up half the back wall. Guess the owner was a fan, or Eva was "big" and I didn't know it. But I'd never seen it in any other store.

I didn't get to rent the anime then but I did go look it up after. A year or so later I was hanging around a geek shop and noticed they had ONE of the VHS tapes - episode 17 and 18 on it, think it was. I was annoyed I hadn't got to rent it yet and forgotten about it so I just bought this random VHS out of the set and watched it. So I got to see all this leading drama culminating in a giant mech that apparently wasn't a mech at all getting its brains splashed into a truck. At that point you could say I had to see the rest of it. I had an interest in psychology at the time and this thing just so happened to be a psyche evaluation fest masquerading as a kids 'n' mecha show.

...Like a kid in a candy dispensary.

[Unfortunately_Shinji]

So my friend introduced me to this "show". It has become my favorite anime ii love the characters and the story is interesting and entertaining. I always liked the original series better then the rebuilds. just love the series in general.

[strawhatpatriot]

Hi!

New Member here!

I got into Evangelion during early-mid June. I looked it up simply because, well, I heard it was good! :) and very influential as well.

Now, I literally can't go a day without thinking about it. Whether it's the theme song, or certain themes/scenes. (Dat psychological analysis at episode 25-26.)

[Tumbling Down]

I watched Eva because it's supposed to be one of the animes to watch, and there weren't many very episodes.

[The Cruel]

So what about, how I got attention on Eva?

I busied myself with Evangelion since December last year.
I heard Evangelion every once in a while from some where else,
then I stumbled to some doujinshis from Izurumi, in wich he did
most of them about Asuka. Jeah, then I watched the main show and EoE
together with my mum and it banged our minds and gave us a new
view on things. I've also seen the recently released Rebuild-Films and the Manga.
Since then I watch some Videos about Evangelion, AMVs, Analysis and read a lot of fanfics, spin-offs and doujinshis. And of course I'll always have my
eyes and ears on the news. Even the theatrical film poster of EOE (the original Japanese one
with the bodies of the main characters floating in LCL) is my desktop picture:

SPOILER: Show

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ozkai/4099991036/

And as soon when FINAL is out then I start to watch the whole Rebuld-Films it with my mom together.

[ChamucaRobota]

The first time I saw NGE was when I was like 8 or 9 years old, and my brother was in one of those "Let's watch the whole series in a day!" thing with a friend. So I got hooked because it was animation and it had giant robots (you know, kid's things) and I remember being scared in a lot of scenes, specifically end of episode 18
About the final 2 episodes, of course, I didn't understand one single thing But somehow I really liked all of the feelings that the series take out of me and it was the very first anime that had this "realistic" and dark vibe, different from the things that I was used to, so yeah, pretty much a good reason to like it at least.

[Shamsiel-kun]

The first time I watched Evangelion was when Dybex brought out their R2 DVDs back in 2003 (weird, it seems longer ago...). I don't really remember what I thought of it, only that after watching eps 25-26 I wrote on somewhere that "all those dark thoughts of Shinji, I had similar ones and worse" - had some serious depressive issues back then (no wonder my therapist later told me they had considered giving me drugs...). So yeah, watched Evangelion while heavily depressed. I am also amazed at how much sexual subtext I completely missed out on (never been particularly brilliant with that kind of stuff )

IIRC, End of Eva went down a bit better, even though it has more gore and other disturbing stuff than the series. Violence can be cathartic at times.

One of these days I should watch the series again.

[IronEvangelion]

It was back in 2005 or 2006 when I was in college. CN was running it on Adult Swim. I watched the first episode and got hooked. I had just gotten Kingdom Hearts 2 at the time and was playing the hell out of it, but whenever Eva came on I would shut that game off immediately. Eva ended up being one of the most influential things I have ever watched.

[Gob Hobblin]

It's like the Hotel California: you can check out, put it down, and walk away, but it just...never...leaves!

Did the Adult Swim run cap it with EoE?

[IronEvangelion]

If I remember correctly, they ended that run after episode 24. I didn't even get to see the last 2 episodes or the movies until years later.

[Guy Nacks]

Did the Adult Swim run cap it with EoE?

To my knowledge, right around the time adult swim finished airing the series, Encore Action showed it a total of one time at midnight on October 10th, 2005.

[serveux]

To my knowledge, right around the time adult swim finished airing the series, Encore Action showed it a total of one time at midnight on October 10th, 2005.

Huh, funny you should mention that. That broadcast must have been my first exposure to Eva. The Encore channels were the only movie channels we had, and the synopsis on the guide sounded intriguing. I flipped to it, even though there was only about half an hour left in it.

Boy howdy, was I confused. I remember exclaiming "What in THE FUCK is even going on?" to my empty living room. But at the same time I was entranced by it. I already had a healthy appreciation for surrealist cinema (I was a really weird 13 year old), and I definitely appreciated it on that level. I watched it until the end, thought about it, and concluded yep, I have no idea what any of that was or what it meant. But I did enjoy it for the imagery.

And then I forgot about Eva for 8 years.

Cut to earlier this year. I'm at a buddy's house, getting down on some bong action. He has some sort of mecha anime movie on when I get there. Turns out it's Rebuild 3.0. So I am introduced to Eva once again by the absolute last entry in the franchise. Once again, I was a bit confused, but I thought it was a pretty sweet movie. Going back and watching it now in context I definitely have some problems with it. But at the time I though it was pretty awesome.

So that drove me to seek out NGE. And I fell in love with it. It was so thematically and psychologically rich and daring. I deeply connected with Shinji through my own struggles with depression and self-loathing. I can understand how people could be pissed at the last two episodes, but for me, it was probably the most cathartic piece of fiction I have ever experienced. It legitimately felt like I was in the most surreal group therapy session ever. I was in a particularly deep bout of depression at the time and thought about ending it all more than once. But those episodes (and EoE) helped me realize that life is worth living even with all the hurt it brings and that it is up to me to make the decisions to improve my life.

So in a very real sense, Eva just might have saved my life.

So yeah, that's how I got into Evangelion.

[StarShaper7]

A friend recommended watching Evangelion because it was one of her favorite anime. I watched the first two Rebuild movies instead of NGE because back then I had a stupid dislike of old school animation. This was when I was like 14. I watched NGE and EoE a year after this and I loved them, even more than the Rebuild movies. About two years have passed since then and it's still my favorite anime.

[eva14]

I heard the song as a kid and saw some footage (BIG ROBOTS BRAWLING! ARGH!) so from there on I loved the little I saw and now I've got the Platinum Collection as well as 2 OST CDs.

Granted, there's much more to Evangelion than just mecha fights.

[KatsuragiSansa]

The girl I had a HUGE crush on when I was 12 was sickly obsessed with "this amazing Asuka character" from a TV show I couldn't watch because my cable carrier didn't have that one channel... so I bitched until my mom switched providers (saving her some bucks in the process) and eventually knew all about not only Asuka but the rest of the characters.

Ironically, the one character I dislike more than Rei is Asuka herself (though I do pity her), but the rest of the cast is so wonderful they more than make up for that small disappointment.

[movieartman]

The girl I had a HUGE crush on when I was 12 was sickly obsessed with "this amazing Asuka character" from a TV show I couldn't watch because my cable carrier didn't have that one channel... so I bitched until my mom switched providers (saving her some bucks in the process) and eventually knew all about not only Asuka but the rest of the characters.

Ironically, the one character I dislike more than Rei is Asuka herself (though I do pity her), but the rest of the cast is so wonderful they more than make up for that small disappointment.

I'm with you on a Asuka but Why do you dislike Rei If I may ask?

[mechashiva]

I saw a video (I forget where) talking about the themes of Evangelion and End of Evangelion. Even though it went in-depth with the insanity of the last few episodes of EoE, I went on ahead anyway. I'm pretty spoiler proof, though: if I hear the spoiler for something, I forget about almost immediately until I see the thing for myself.

For some reason, Evangelion passed me by in a lot of ways. Some of the anime my younger brother would watch like Gundam I would half-watch but not really get and there some anime I'd heard of in passing. I don't remember hearing anything specific about Evangelion until I watched it and all the references I saw around the Internet made more sense.

But yeah, I liked it a lot. I related a lot to Shinji in my fear of disappointing those around me and wanting to run away and escape from my problems and Rei for my difficulty connecting and relating to others. (I'm only like Asuka at home ) I liked the design of Evangelion and the feel of the world, I liked the action and kind of wished there was more of it. I initially found the fanservice oddly jarring with the rest of the show but its grown on me and I do understand why its there, thematically and...well, y'know.