Indeed. NGE makes my ass itch. Not because of the actual anime but because of its fanbase.

The original Star Wars trilogy is deeper and more interesting than NGE. Lucas actually had a message behind the films... simply based off thousands of years of mythology combined into a space opera.

I enjoy quite a bit of anime. My problem is with people who talk up anime simply because it's confusing. Most of the stories we re-tell over generations are actually quite simple. I view most complex anime as The X-Men (comics) for elitist pricks who want to play up their own "intelligence". Can it be fun? Sure. Is it deep? No, just convoluted. It doesn't mean it can't or shouldn't be enjoyed but let's not make it out for something it isn't.

PS. While I'm at it, everywhere you see me post "NGE", just go ahead and apply it to videogames by replacing it with "MGS".

I watched all 26 episodes in one gigantic marathon the first time I saw it. I couldn't sleep for a day, and I had the shits the next day because of it.

I <3 Eva, although as I get older I'm starting to notice how bad the voice acting is in spots(Shinji, I'm looking at you).

PS: I prefer the original ending to the movies. Yes, I said it.

NGE was a massive disappointment to me on every level. 

I expected something great and ended up with a truckload of pretentious bullshit and a cast of uninteresting emo's taking turns crying.

I've never seen it, but my roommate has been basically saying the same thing about that show, that it was trying to be deep just for the sake of, and coming off all wrong

Still don't know if i should put it on my watch list or not.

Shows that are confusing for confusings sake very raely have any actual substance. Hence why they hide by being confusing. Confused?

You pretentious ass hole, stop being confusing!!!!

I agree with this full heartedly...

But... it's okay to make really good art that's intentionally vague and open to multiple interpretations.  It's even okay to intentionally put in contradictory clues in opposite directions or to leave out major plot points to avoid having a single concrete explanation that everybody can agree on.  It doesn't always work, but I think NGE did it right.  I think I've watched the whole series 3 times through, including one 13 hour binge of every episode and movie.  And then I've watched The End of Evangelion 6 or 7 times.

I was joking when I brought up Eraserhead and 2001.  Those are 2 of my favorite movies.  Lynch has never explained Eraserhead, and never will.  He has stated that he didn't understand it when he made it, and didn't understand it for years.  Then one day, he was reading the Bible, found one random vague passage, and it hit him.  Now Lynch claims that there is a single passage in the Bible that explains the entire film of Eraserhead, but he will never ever let us know which passage it is.  Kubrick on the other hand, has never explained 2001, and never will, and disagrees with the author of the book on the meaning of the ending.  The author went on to explain everything about the aliens and the Starchild and even wrote a sequel explaining it more, and Kubrick just says the book has nothing to do with the movie.  It is what it is.  And Kubrick also says his favorite movie is Eraserhead, hahaha.  Anyway, they're both nuts.  But I loooooooooooove those films, and I loooooooooove NGE, for pretty much the same reasons.  I think if NGE was a live action film, people would consider it an avant-garde post-apocalyptic sci-fi masterpiece about kids losing their minds in the face of absolute terror and the responsibilty of saving a world you hate, but because it's a cartoon, people expect giant kung fu robots and not a bunch of philosophical mumbo jumbo about consciousness and identity and whatnot.

It's definitely too kiddy for adults and too mature for kids.  But that's part of why I love it.

It can be done right, and it can be done wrong.  Like Rocketpig said... MGS.

If people could tell whether the Mona Lisa was smiling or not, and knew why, the painting wouldn't be important at all.  It would just be some face.  It's all about the mystery.

@Rocketpig, the original Star Wars movie was a remake of Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress. He took a samurai movie about a small team from a rebel alliance rescuing a princess from an evil empire and escorting her to safety... turned the wacky comic relief characters into robots, and lifted the ending reward ceremony straight from Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will. Yes, the whole movie was stolen from samurais and Nazis.

George Lucas doesn't have original ideas. He stole all the Indiana Jones stuff (like the epic giant boulder scene) from Scrooge McDuck comic books. Then for Indiana Jones 4, he actually turned down a script by Frank Darabont (why anybody would do this, I have no idea, the guy fucking wrote/directed Shawshank for shit's sake, and doctors several of Spielberg's scripts for his other movies), so he could come up with great stuff like hiding in a fridge to survive a nuclear blast without a scratch.

George Lucas is a brilliant editor and marketer, who makes exciting lunch boxes, action figures, T-Shirts, video games, comics, and cartoons. But making movies with great messages... not so much.