Hey, a few months ago I watched all the Evangelions and enjoyed them immensly. However, the last to episodes confused me. I would really appriciate your takes on these. I understand the basic concept... sort of... I think its about the souls of people deciding wether they want ot return to life and all the pain involved with life, or remain in the colection of all humanities souls. Am I correct, if so, please elaborate, if im incorrect, please explain it thoroughly. Thanks very much =D

Well as far as what you got from it, that part of the ending had to do with the Human Instrumentality Project. It was basically when Seele commenced their project and had Shinji's Eva Unit project an anti-AT Field. Since the AT field keeps everyone's soul seperate, when it was removed everyone on earth's souls joined together and created a huge ocean of LCL liquid. Once everyone's souls were joined then we would all be 'complete', at least in Seele's view. At the end though Shinji rejects it and decides he will live as an individual, even if it does mean having negative emotions at times. That was what I took away from it :)

I agree with what you guys said really. I kinda hated the fact that people said the ending sucked, the last episodes were crap, and all that. You need to have watched and understanded the final movies and watched the final episodes to find out what's going on.

I think you have gotten the Neon Genesis episodes 25-26 confused with the End of Evangelion. End of Evangelion actually gave us an alternative ending to the series with all human souls combined into one. The original ending episodes for the TV series are depictions of what is going on in Shinji's mind, in the end Shinji found his purpose in life, in other words he finally sorted out his life and no longer cowers away in the dark.

I know what the movies are about. What I confused about is the tv series last 2 episodes.

Keiichi-Ki>Thankyou very much I think i get it now =D

I think you have gotten the Neon Genesis episodes 25-26 confused with the End of Evangelion. End of Evangelion actually gave us an alternative ending to the series with all human souls combined into one. The original ending episodes for the TV series are depictions of what is going on in Shinji's mind, in the end Shinji found his purpose in life, in other words he finally sorted out his life and no longer cowers away in the dark.

I read an article that interviewed one of the guys who help make the series and actually, you are right, yet wrong. I forgot the guy's name, but he said that it was supposed to be an alternate end, meaning that shinji decided this alternate reality rather than the one in the movies in the end, BUT the movie is not the end of the series, like most people think, and that the last two episodes finish off the series (the work of the human instrumentality project) . So basically, the last two episodes depicted an alternate reality for shinji to chose from, just to show that the one he picked in the movie wasn't a perfect choice, something like a "this is better than that" choice, according to what that guy said. I read this article a long time ago in an anime magazine so I dont remember much. That's according to that tho, but that's whut I've been going by and so far, it was correct. I maybe wrong though, so correct me if needed. I'm not perfect.

Pn0yvstyle> You wouldn't happe to remember the name of the magazine would you? Maybe I could find an online copy of the article and post a link to it ^.^

The ending is (imho) not about choosing reality's or finish this "overlay"story with Angels, HIP and such...maybe only that the two eps are meant as execution of the HIP.

The last two episodes are supposed to think about yourself. The characters think about their life, their problems (the "shadows of soul/psyche"), their wishes etc. ... and sum up the psychological background, which was build up in the episodes before. The whole series was about watching people dealing with serious personal and psychological problems... or more likely NOT dealing with them and running away, only to see that this will lead into even more problems. Slowly you can see behind the curtain of smiling and offensive Asuka, nimble-witted Misato, i-do-not-care Rei etc. covering many problems the viewer can identify with.

In the last two eps the characters slowly stop to run away. Thats the right moment you can think about yourself (if you havn't already while watching the series) and you own suppressed problems. At the end at least Shinji realises his own psychological barrier which was a social one (a.k.a. AT-field ^^) and begin to break down his social isolation.

This is a very personal experience depending on everyones own identification with the variety of personal attributes and problems. Since i'm a Shinji/Rei-personality, the ending with Shinji's realisation was even more impressive to me.

It's noticeable, that Hideaki Anno was dealing with a intense depression himself while making this one. Maybe this was his way to overcome the depression and show his development in the end.

A very deep anime ^x^

Thank you very much for that excellent breakdown, when i first watched those two episodes I thought they were kind of a lame ending but I think ill watch them again and look more closely at the revelations of the characters to see whom I identify with best. Moonstonedragon, do you agree with pn0yvstyle about 25-26 being alterate endings from the movies?

Yeah, they are alternate endings and EoE ist the bad one imho, 'cause Shinji is running away again (he is afraid of the feelings of others he is exposed to in the sea of LCL) even from the HIP choosing a empty world.

There are even more endingversions on the paper which are mainly differ in the last minutes of the film. The real world sequence was supposed to be waaay longer than in the film, too.

I guess i got a little confused there :P. Although I do agree that the movies are the ones that portray the actual events i had typed out, I would also say that both are neccessary in order to completely grasp the full ending. I dont think shinji is running away when he refuses to join everyone else in the LCL. I think that joining everyone and losing ones self, thus depriving ones self of negative emotions, would be running away. In the end Shinji decided to refuse to run away and live in the real world, regardless of what negative events might happen. The last two episodes are about the characters inner struggles though, but, i am one of many people that believe the two endings (tv endings and movie endings) coincide with one another (one an inner view and one an outer world view).

To be honest the endings never made much sense to me (the real ending then the alternate ending).
From what I've read here it's starting to make sense, so thanks everyone!

I just finished watching all of Evangelion and EoE this past week. I liked the last two episodes of the series even though they were completely mind blowing and bewildering but they were great in the sense that they made you think about yourself (at least I did). However, I have a question about EoE. In the end does everyone come back to the Earth or are Shinji and Asuka the only two people left? Cause when I saw that I was just o_O. If anyone could give me some feedback I'd appreciate it.

I could understand why many people didn't appreciate the final two episodes of the series. Most people watch anime for the enjoyment and relaxation rather for the psychological aspect. By this I mean that they do not like it when they have to think about what is going on. For many people it is probably difficult to relate to anything that's going on in those episodes or to even try to relate because it is so different from anything they are used to.