I'm seriously tempted to write "the ending is terrible" here and nothing else. I won't, but the temptation is definately there.

It's the future, and the human race is doomed. About half of humanity has been wiped out, and the rest is being tormented by giant biological creatures called angles. Thus, an organization called NERV has created giant bio-mechanical mobile suits (Eva units) with which to combat the rampaging angels.

Here's what the story does right: it creates a lot of interesting ways for the angels to attack. This forces the Eva pilots to engage the invaders in ways more interesting than "drive the mech over and punch it." The fights are suspenseful (partially because the pilot's mechs have a time limit before they run out of energy), interesting, complex, and have a lot of variety.

Here's what it does wrong: it creates a whole bunch of suspense and intrigue, and then never does anything with it. There is an entire subplot about where the angels come from, what they truly are, why NERV keeps one angel in its basement, weather or not Shinji's dad is secretly evil, and what the relationship between Rei, Shinji's dad, and the angels truly is. None of these questions will be answered. Ever.

The show devotes a lot of time to setting up these mysterious and making the viewer anxious for answers. Then, during the last few episodes, Shinji's dad does something (or maybe Shinji dreams that part, I don't know), Shinji has a long and confusing introspective hallucination that lasts for several episodes, and the show ends. No questions are answered and nothing is wrapped-up. Yay.

We can all learn something from this: don't start sub-plots you can't finish, and especially don't start sub-plots you have no intention of finishing.

The mysteries of NERV, Shinji's dad, Rei, and the angels kept me on the edge of my seat for a long time. The anime would have been much less interesting without them. So you can imagine how annoying it is that the writers just drop it at the end. This is a clear case of: "my infant son could have written a better ending than that."

The characters do come across as interesting, and are easy to empathize with. Shinji's sadness, Rei's introversion, Asuko's boisterousness, and Misato's playfulness are all well-expressed. There are also some interesting shifts in certain characters; scenes where Rei tries to be more emotional, an arc where Asuko slides into depression, and parts where Misato is forced to put aside her playfulness and face unfortunate circumstances.

Shinji's development, however, is mostly done through trippy introspective nightmares that he has (and it is a little wierd that he keeps running into situations that make him have those), wherein he has visions and explores the depths of his own psyche. This is an interesting idea, but it never goes anywhere. The writers seem to think that they can develop Shinji but spewing out bits of his innermost thoughts, but it doesn't work like that. I actually identified more with Asuko's slide into depression and Rei's desire to be less introverted than I did with Shinji's psychobabble. I understood why Rei wanted to be more human. I understood why Asuko became depressed. By the end of the series, I actually understood less about Shinji than I did at the beginning.

At first, I thought I understood why Shinji was depressed. "He lives a post-apocalyptic nightmare and has to pilot a mec against things that want to kill him," I said, "he's going to be a little depressed." Then his first introspective nightmare seemed to suggest another reason, but never said what that reason is. "Fantastic," I said, "the one thing I understood about Shinji has been taken away and replaced with nothing."

This might have been tolerable if the psychobabble eventually culminated in something meaningful, but it doesn't. It just get's more and more confusing and unapproachable until the final two episodes when the series decides to end with it. Shinji does make an interesting decision during his last hallucination (I think, it was confusing), but his motives for doing so are hidden behind a wall of confused symbolism and freaky nightmares. After a while I found myself wishing that these scenes would just end, and get back to the parts I could actually understand: "me big mech, punch creepy monster thing."

If you're going to put symbolism in anime, you have to make sure it doesn't mess up the characters or the story. .Hack's writers understood this, they made sure Tsucasa would still be an interesting character even if viewers ignored all the escapist philosophy. NGE's writers could learn a thing or two from those guys. Shinji isn't interesting at all unless you understand the symbolism that revolves around him, and the series has no intention of helping you do that.

The story also hints that some members of the NERV organization (particularly Shinji's dad) are secretly evil. But none of these supposed antagonists get any character development, so it's hard to be afraid of them. Shinji's dad is supposed to be evil (I think, it was confusing), but he's also an emotionless drone with no character development. No one is going to be afraid of him.

In the end, all the characters do a bunch of things you won't understand, and you'll be left with the feeling that maybe you didn't know them after all.

Ah, and one more thing: what is with all the perverted stuff? Sure, perverted jokes can sometimes make characters more endearing (movies like Euro Trip taught us that), but that's only if they're well-timed and/or have a place in the story. Sex-crazed characters (like Kooper in Euro Trip) are funny because their perverted stunts fit their over-the-top personalities. In NGE, characters do perverted things (which is arguably supposed to be funny) seemingly at random and then go back to being normal. That's not endearing, that's just one more thing that makes the characters less relatable.

When I watched the series for the first time, I was entranced by the interesting fight scenes as well as the mystery and intrigue going on in the background. I even put up with the weird introspective moments Shinji has, naively believing that they would eventually amount to something. If I'd known those introspective moments were going nowhere, however, I probably would have skipped them and gotten back to the fights. As a general rule, it's not a good sign when an anime's viewer wishes he'd skipped certain episodes.

Unfortunately, the intrigue and mystery are all rendered useless by the ending. None of the series questions get answered, and I felt completely ripped off. Now that I think of it, I pretty much lost interest halfway through the second-to-last episode, but I kept watching out of some desperate hope that the series would have a conclusion.

Now, there are definitely some fight scenes that I wouldn't mind seeing again, but I lost all interest in the story after the final two episodes, and I imagine most other people will too.

The animation has aged surprisingly well. I love how the Eva units flow; almost overly-fluid, like living things rather than mecs.

I watched the series in Japanese, which I don't speak, so I'm not really in a position to judge how well-delivered the dialogue was. But, I will say the music and sound effects are good, none of the characters voices sound annoying, and the voice work syncs up well with the mouth animations.

I'd add that the subtitles are good, but that would prove nothing. They can vary a lot from distributor to distributor.