Watching Evangelion for the first time.

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Oh my god o_o

How was everyone else's first experiences with it?

If anyone doesn't know what I'm talking about...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neon_Genes ... 28anime%29

My first thought was "nothing in made in the USA will be this cool" and I was right.

You already know... xD

that's a good anime.
but love RahXephon more!

My first experience with it was back in '96 or '97, watching raw (no subtitles) VHS tapes of the show complete with Japanese commercials. I eventually bought all of the subtitled VHS tapes (2 episodes per videotape, $30 a tape, 13 tapes altogether) when they came out in the United States. I'm glad anime in the United States is a lot cheaper than that now.

I was blown away watching it without subtitles, although I remember everybody else in the local anime circles really disliked the last three episodes at the time.

This is probably going to sound really unusual, but I just couldn't get into it.
I'd already seen a lot of anime series by the time Evangelion first came out, and I only watched it subtitled, so it wasn't an issue of me just not being into anime or watching a crappy dub.
I think it has an interesting storyline, but the thing for me is that whether I like a series or not is really almost entirely dependant on its characters above all else, and I just wasn't really impressed by Evangelion's characters at all.

I got into Evangelion quite a bit later than most as I only really got into anime in my very late teens, so we're talking mid 2000s here (thank you Internet!) I didn't initially like the series because it was so jarringly different compared to other anime I was into at the time - downbeat, dystopic, anti-episodic (for the most part) with very limited animation and dodgy Texan dub-actors (I was exposed to a lot of Canadian and New York dubs of anime as a child, so hearing very strong Midwestern American accents was quite weird at first, Hikari especially).

I just liked it when the Evas fought and certain sections of music played (something I know now as Thanatos is a particular favourite) though I couldn't stand Asuka at first and for a while, I couldn't understand the fascination with Rei.

And yet Shinji immediately struck a chord with me - not over the father complex but his conflicting and confused views of people and the mystery of how to relate to them. I can understand why Shinji would be seen as a whiny navel-gazer but for me personally, he was the main reason why I stuck with the series, and I'm glad I did. It was nice seeing a main character struggle through things that would otherwise be written out or taken for granted if he were a more well-rounded individual. That's just how I saw it anyway.

It's pretty [EFF!]ed up. Good series, great characters (each, as I always say, with a story to tell, or a skeleton or ten in the closet), shame about the conclusion and the lack of explanation. The TV ending makes the finale of The Prisoner look comprehensible by comparison, and I was traumatised by The End of Evangelion.

I actually prefer the manga version. The story is a lot punchier, they actually bother to explain a few things, and from what I heard, it has a better ending.

Interesting bit of trivia - despite Yoshiyuki Sadamoto putting pen to paper with the Evangelion manga merely 11 months before the tv series was due to air in Japan in '95 (supervised the story and character designs), it veered off in its own direction and has taken almost 20 years to complete; the final chapter was out in Japan in June: http://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2 ... lion-manga

So naturally speaking, without the pressures of television budgets, Hideaki Anno's mental wellbeing (he fell into depression, hence the very very downbeat End of Evangelion) and Gainax being... well, Gainax, the manga Evangelion would be able to afford a lot more time in terms of character-development and explaining a lot of the backstory the anime series (and the rebuild movies it seems now I've seen the 3rd one) could only hint or gloss over. It's a good read, I bought the third volume back around Easter.