Eva 02 - Interior And Exterior

There are spoilers in this one.

There seems to be some sort of controversy surrounding the final two episodes of the animation itself (Episodes 25 and 26) and the movie "End of Evangelion".

That is, aside of course, from the fact it isn't actually the end.

I'm referring to the public outcry surrounding the final episodes and the subsequent death threats to Hideaki Anno. All of this is of course, is completely done with and long past but I never quite "got" it.

I love (note the present tense) the last couple of episodes. So they were surreal and totally different in tone to the last few episodes prior. Did the production run out of funds? Did the production run out of time? Well yeah, it ran out of funds and it ran out of time. Anno wasn't happy with them sure, and it gave him a big knock but in the overall look-back-on-it-ten-years-later, I believe it added insurmountable good to the mythos.

Would you have understood where the hell "Angelic Days" came in otherwise? Would we have had the epic fan-fiction "Higher Learning" without them. Hell. And. No.

You're an fan of End of Evangelion over Episodes 25 and 26?

Hear (or read, if you will) me out.

Think of it this way and allow for the tension to build.

The episodes are what happens in Shinji Ikari's mind, whereas the movie is what happens in his reality. Watch the episodes again if you missed my little joke and, okay fine, this may have been examined before and yeah, most likely by people with a better grasp of the mythos and the English language, but whatever.

There is a small part of End of Evangelion where the entire last two episodes slot almost as a bookend. Our hero awakens at the end of the episodes to congratulations all round. Then he wakes up again and finds that yes, despite his happy dream sequence, the manure has hit the windmill.

Cue scream, cue Third Impact and cue The Instrumentality Of Mankind.

Cue end of this blog and whatever obscure purpose it had.

Six months later, I'm still not sure.  And again in December 2011, not sure of the purpose.  Watch the episodes and see.