Is Evangelion your FAVORITE anime?

[Ranaeil]

Here? --
http://forum.evageeks.org/thread/6105/I-liked-Evangelion-a-lot-so-I-should-also-see/
http://forum.evageeks.org/thread/1139/Anime-Recommendations-Thread-READ-RULES-BEFORE-POSTING/

Erm, thank you. Now I feel kind of silly for not seeing those links at first.

[Madonna]

There is a certain impenetrability about my love for Evangelion, even as I grow older I appreciate the story and it's complexities more than I did when I first watched it. That being said, I do see it's flaws, but I wouldn't want to change it, it is Anno's artistic vision.

I do think there is a clear distinction between 'best' and 'personal favorite', Evangelion is my personal favorite but I wouldn't classify it as the best I have seen, in the technical sense that is.

[user-02]

Evangelion is my favorite anime, perhaps because it seems to be the most complex. It really does lend itself to as much dissection, intellectual masturbation, quasi-scholarly debate, and competing interpretation as it receives on this forum and elsewhere. Few other anime series inspire the same.

Especially the characters. Man, the characters. They are so complex and realistically rendered, and one doesn't really realize as much until he's seen the series a couple times or more. The genius of the show is that it appears fairly straightforward on the first viewing: a mecha show that eventually goes off the rails and becomes impenetrably weird. But on subsequent viewings, it reveals its true nature, and the parts one had dismissed as irreducibly "weird" become fair game for analysis.

[movieartman]

NGE is Absolutely #1, black lagoon is currently my 2nd favorite

[ChaddyManPrime]

No Evangelion is not my favorite anime but it is a close second, first place belongs to Pokemon (When Misty was still around) or Tenchi Muyo.

[Chuckman]

It's the only one I've watched more than once.

[Princess Asuka]

It's my second favorite.

First place belongs to Sailor Moon.

[Ray]

Evangelion and Cowboy Bebop divide the world between them. There is no third.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

Evangelion is my favorite TV show, and it just so happens to be an anime. I’ve yet to find such a dense collection of various film techniques in any other sort of show. Usually they just stick to one or two genre techniques and leave it at that, whether they be German Expressionistic, French New Wave, or just plain old action pacing. NGE does all that and then some.

[Justacrazyguy]

Favorite anime? Nah, I´ve got many that I like more, but EoE is one of my favorite anime movies.

[Chuckman]

I need to rewatch BeBop. Last time I saw it, it was in SD on a tube television and for some reason I couldn't hear anything anyone was saying no matter how loud I turned it up.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

^ Funimation is releasing the DVD and Blu-ray combo packs this december.

[robersora]

This is now strictly about series, isn't it?

There are some series, which entertain me, I thus really love, and never ever would want to miss. Samurai Champloo, Baccano!, Diebuster, Gankutsuou belong, among others into that category.
I could rewatch them until I puke and talk along every line and would probably still ♥ them.

Some series stay with me for a while and I think about them or the concepts they present and they resonate with me for a certain amount of time. But they have some flaws that kinda makes it hard for me to put it into the third category. Among them are Gatchaman Crowds (overall too uneven), Mawaru Penguindrum (I have the feeling that it kind of crumbles under it's own ambition), Ghost in the Shell SAC (too cold to really resonate on the deepest level with me)...

But very rarely a series manages not only to entertain me in every rewatch, but happens to be considered in higher and higher regard by me as time marches on.
Evangelion is definitely up there... Utena and FLCL too... Serial Experiments Lain... (and Love Exposure, lol)

[StarShaper7]

Evangelion is my favorite anime.

If we're talking just the TV series, then no. If you're including EoE, then yes.

I love Cowboy Bebop, Utena and Book of Bantorra.

Usually, the other three are in this order: Bebop then Utena then Bantorra

I can't really decide if I like Bebop or Utena more, so they switch places from time to time.

The one closest to being "perfect" is Bebop. Sure, not all the episodes were awesome. But there isn't an episode that I don't like, except for, perhaps, Boogie Woogie Feng Shui. The movie was pretty much an extended episode with a higher budget, which isn't a bad thing at all.

I need to watch Utena again. It's kind of like Evangelion, except that Evangelion is more "male" whereas Utena is more "female." They both deal with adolescence, but from different angles and with different approaches. I loved the series and the movie.

Bantorra might have gotten the number 2 spot if the ending had been as great as the rest of the series. Also, the animation really sucked at times. If something along the lines of Rebuild (Rewrite?) of Bantorra gets made, on top of having quality animation, I just hope they don't make the ending so undeservedly, inappropriately happy. It just didn't fit well with the rest of the series. Was the ending to the LN series different? If so, it's probably better.

NGE alone isn't enough for me to like Eva more than these three spectacular anime. But EoE makes Evangelion a transcendent work that I don't see getting dethroned anytime soon. So, yeah, Evangelion is tops.

[Compiling_Autumn]

Yeah, it's definitely my favorite. Maybe FLCL could be a contender, as it's had a more positive impact on my life overall. The monogatari series might be a contender soon, but I probably won't know until it's finished.

Eva is just too damn raw and fascinating to be beat.

[Giji Shinka]

Yes, NGE is my favorite Tv-show/anime.

My favorite film is also Eva related. (3.0)

[Bagheera]

Bantorra might have gotten the number 2 spot if the ending had been as great as the rest of the series. Also, the animation really sucked at times. If something along the lines of Rebuild (Rewrite?) of Bantorra gets made, on top of having quality animation, I just hope they don't make the ending so undeservedly, inappropriately happy. It just didn't fit well with the rest of the series. Was the ending to the LN series different? If so, it's probably better.

How was Bantorra's ending happy? I remember a hell of a lot of death in it. I mean, yes, it was great to see some old faces once again, but even so . . .

Also, I kinda like the fact that the ending is so bizarrely complex that I can't even think of a way to summarize it. People call Eva a mindfuck, but it's got nothing on Bantorra as far as complexity of the plot goes.

[Nuuskamuikkunen]

Yes.

I don't know how to describe it in words here but Evangelion has something that distinguishes itself from a lot of other anime or live action media. I think that Evangelion depicts its characters in a very honest way and it respects and cares about the viewer watching it. That empathic and human aspect is something that I can very much appreciate.

Texhnolyze and Revolutionary Girl Utena are pretty good too.

[heavytread]

No. It's my second favorite. It's actually one of only two series I've watched the entirety of more than once

[Mr. Tines]

Like I said 7 years ago, I always have difficulty choosing a favourite X for whatever X.

NGE is the anime which I've spent most time with, and which (in the form of EoE in particular) had most emotional impact; but I've watched more comfy titles like Aria the Animation, Nanoha and Nanoha A's more times, and NGE about the same number of times as series as diverse as Marimite (all 4 seasons), Kasimasi, Sora no Woto, Akagi or Hyakko (of the ones that I can recall multiple rewatches off the top of my head).