How has Eva changed your life?

[robersora]

I think no other show influenced me as much in how I perceive other Anime or Movies.

[TehDonutKing]

@Xana
You said you watched the series because you wanted to see Rei nude. So, you liked naked chicks when you were 7?

[Dan The Cat]

i was about 19 when i first saw Evangelion, (i am 21 now) It has changed my life in different ways.

it changed my prospective on anime, no longer was it something like dragon ball or Pokemon, it was something that can more you and make you think, also make you cry in my case, 3rd impact in EoE was the most disturbing yet beautiful things i have ever seen

i changed that my friendship with my friend who introduced my to evangelion, i had something we could really relate to, and i don't know i think we became closer from it.

It changed my view on myself and the world around me. i could find aspects of Shinji's and Asuka that was akin to my own that i never thought i could ever see from an Anime or any TV show.

In short, it has changed my life dramatically

[Xana]

You said you watched the series because you wanted to see Rei nude.

Well yes but, you see....

So, you liked naked chicks when you were 7?

....no oh no, that's when my depression (which I for some reason called it "emo" phase) started, I didn't watch Evangelion until I was 15, and that's when things got a little better for me.

[Kendrix]

For me, I watched it when I was 12 in the darkest dephts of my life, and I must say that it has really changed my perspective of this world and made me more of an adult - along with the person who was my best friend at the time, and me discovering what an awesome hobby writing is, it might be one of the main factors that helped me get out there.

I really recognized scenes from my own life there/behavior partterns I had observed on myself and others in the real world, like saying "yes, yes" so the adults will leave you alone, saying stuff is your fault so you can deal with it yourself etc...Suddenly, all the scary girls who were bullying me had become people with inner mechanics. I consequently erased the words "You just don't understand me!" from my vocabulary because I noticed how childish it was.
I mostly emphasized with/recognized myself in Rei, tough some of the scenes about Misato's father complex also spoke to my heart.
I used to do that to, say that I have never been happy ... in retrospect, I can't really see why anymore, I guess it's just like the endings tell us, it's all about the viewpoint...
A lot of the philosophy from episodes 25 and 26 convinced me, and Kaworu in particular inspired me a lot, how he shined and sparkled in the dark world of the later episodes even tough he'd have all the reasons to be as emo as everyone else, how he looked at the world and found enjoyable things in it, even in Shinji. I wanted to be like that, at least a little, as far as it is humanly possible....
Probably, no other work of art has ever enriched me like that.

[merckx]

ahem.

well, i was failing in college because i'm stupid. but i have an excuse: i went to public school in America. i also didn't want to do anything. i just wanted to live at my parent's house and drink vodka and diet pepsi on their dark patio with my awful friends. but i did try school one more time and did relatively well, but i majored in journalism, so that doesn't mean anything. then i started learning russian and lived in moscow with my girlfriend for a few years. it was great. i learned a fair bit of the language and fell back in love with mid to late 90s dance music which was experiencing a revival in russian nightclubs at the time. my girlfriend's parents were relatively well-off and took frequent vacations to italy and turkey. i'm also obsessed with cycling and they bought me a vintage molteni jersey. they're the sweetest people in the world. at one point, the idea of taking a vacation to Japan came up and i didn't really know what to think, but i wanted to go. we went and i discovered evangelion. it seemed like a typical pedestrian type of narrative: robots saving humans from space invaders. base-line, neurotypical, juvenile science fiction.

but that girl on the poster was so cute. i wanted to watch it.

i found a version online with english subtitles and watched it with suspicion. i remember by the end of the film, my teeth were clenched and my eyes were wet. these bizarre characters had somehow brought out some type of emotion within me. while the credits were rolling and i heard that soft Japanese pop song, i started crying. just crying. it ended with such a sweet scene of Rei smiling at Shinji. i was enamored. i'm not the type of person who watches anime (or even films in general, i basically just watch documentaries and Hoarders on A&E). i also made my girlfriend's parents buy the entire dvd box-set for me while we were in Japan. i would have paid for it myself, but it was OUTRAGEOUSLY expensive. i also started studying Japanese seriously so that i can watch it without subtitles. this series, through some bizarre set of circumstances, gave me a new hobby and most importantly, something new to cry about. i love it when things unexpectedly make me cry, it's what i live for.

so now i'm back in school to learn a new language and i'm motivated and i'm different. in a good way.

i also now have a crush on Asuka.

[ReiAyanami25]

Before I saw NGE, I felt artificial. I did not like feeling that way.
I felt as if there as a hole inside of me. Then I saw Evangelion, and thinking of Rei filled that hole. Rei was the only thing that I understood fully then, and Evangelion changed my life in that way.

I feel happy that I appreciate and understand Rei, as many people do not.

[Aiko Heiwa]

Eva lifted me out of my first batch of depression, I think it's safe to say that I would be dead if it wasn't for Eva.

Hence why I get mad whenever somebody says Eva sucks or is boring.

[bobbyfischer's ghost]

before eva Never before had a show make me want to punch my own Father.

It also made me feel more sympathy towards people like Asuka.

[Sgt. Griff]

So, you liked naked chicks when you were 7?

I can relate. Seems like only six years ago...

Also Eva was my Second anime and really shoved me into it (More so than Azumanga Daioh?)

[Someone]

It didn't change much really.
Except that I now spent about 20 minutes of my week on this forum.

[Nerv002]

Yes. I was becoming something I hated, an anti-social shell afraid of trying to better myself because of fear of failure pretty much. Everyone I know finds it insane that a "cartoon" snapped me out of depression but it did, haven't been the same person since I watched and re-watched EVA.

[Radical Lanzar]

It hasn't. I did find it interesting though.

[Tribblepoo]

When I was first watching it, I was looking for something cathartic. My grandmother had died a couple of weeks before from an aggressive form of thyroid cancer much sooner than the doctors said she would. Her death was kind of a shock, especially to my mother and myself, as both of us were pretty close to her (among the closest of her family).

I was fairly detached while watching it (understandably), until the end of Episode 21. I absolutely fell apart. I had gotten the news that my grandmother had died the same way that Misato got the news that Kaji died; a phone message. After watching Misato act out how I felt, I began watching the series with new eyes.

I decided that I had to go back to the beginning and watch it again. What I realized is that for the first time that I had seen, someone had managed to capture emotional turmoil in a cartoon. It made me look at anime in a new way. Other than goofy fun (which I was fine with at the time), I began looking at it as just as compelling an art form as live-action television could be.

[MAGI_01]

I never got the opportunity to fully watch all of NGE and EoE as until I got the DVD box set as my 18th birthday gift. I started out watching it not knowing fully how it would effect me.... The deeper I got into the series the more I started to analyze myself, my relationships, and the world. But it was not until a few years later that NGE really started to effect me.

To make a very long story short. I identified myself as being just like Shinji in every way... being introverted, self loathing, shy, always feeling alone... and it was not until after many conversations with my best friend that also shares a lot of love for NGE like I do that I realized just like Shinji that I could learn to love myself and the world... no matter how hurtful the world is...

I still have my bad days though. But now me and said friend have an extremely strong relationship and I have helped him through similar things that I have gone through while he has been on deployment as he's in the Navy. Not only did I fall in love with NGE the first time I watched it all the way through, but I fell even more in love with it after I have made such an extremely strong connection to the characters... and it has turned me into someone that see's life as being much more than what most realize it is.

[Someone]

This isn't an Earthbound/Mother forum.

Now it is. HA!

[AR-99]

I think no other show influenced me as much in how I perceive other Anime or Movies.

Same here. Eva has been at the top of my list for the past decade +.

I admit that I have not explored the series as in depth as I could. I have however sunk a lot of time of money into collecting the series, so that has been and continues to be a major impact.

[ssguy]

I had severe depression for a while. I was able to get out of it on my own, and even reach out to other people, but Evangelion was able to help finish the jump from my old life to my new one.

I was already very, very sociable, but to an extreme degree. If I was with other people, talking and having fun then I was ok. As soon as we parted ways, depression and loneliness would creep in. Evangelion didn't really change my habits so much as made me feel ok with them. Yeah, I'm going to spend tonight alone on my computer, but that's ok. I don't feel like it's a death sentence anymore.

[PolarisX]

I had severe depression for a while. I was able to get out of it on my own, and even reach out to other people, but Evangelion was able to help finish the jump from my old life to my new one.

I was already very, very sociable, but to an extreme degree. If I was with other people, talking and having fun then I was ok. As soon as we parted ways, depression and loneliness would creep in. Evangelion didn't really change my habits so much as made me feel ok with them. Yeah, I'm going to spend tonight alone on my computer, but that's ok. I don't feel like it's a death sentence anymore.

I used to get the same way, and still do every once in awhile. As soon as your alone, you REALLY alone again.

[ssguy]

I used to get the same way, and still do every once in awhile. As soon as your alone, you REALLY alone again.

Yeah, it was terrible. It was worse if I overheard people making plans to do something. I felt left out, even when it would be odd for me to join in. I remember once I saw a house party and felt terrible that I wasn't invited until I realized that I didn't know a single person there anyways. Evangelion fixed that.

It also broke a few things in me. Looking at the rules I think it's ok for me to post this (fairly new hear and all, so I'm still learning about the board culture), but I'm still going to spoiler it and I'll remove it if a mod asks me to.

SPOILER: Show

I have not been able to maintain an erection since I finished End of Evangelion. That was 10 days ago.