When I first started watching EVA I didn't have a ton of experience with anime and still have a relatively small amount of watch time. But I still feel that when watching this anime the entertainment value of it dropped tremendously. I must admit, even going in I didn't care for the mecha genre or narrative style. Now that my introduction is out of the way, if my opinion upsets you at least you'll be able to note me on my bias.

As for the anime itself, I took a very long pause after the first couple of episodes. I find the early pacing very slow and I feel suffocated by the drab-like environment and characters. When I picked up the anime again sometime in the next year I watched it with a friend that swore by the anime. Claiming it was their favorite of all time and saying that they extremely enjoyed every second of it. However, after a second viewing of the anime, their perspective switched entirely. The characters don't have a personality.

Shinji - This character literally feels like a skeleton with just a leather bag of a body. Emotion is just null and void. I do understand that that is supposed to reflect his character. However, he is not interesting in the slightest. I don't care how he is able to do anything and when the anime hypes up his ability or power. They might as well rename him to Superman and then I'd at least slightly care about his character.

Asuka - This red pimple is probably the biggest stain on the series. She is so loud and obnoxious to the point where when she speaks I wanted to cover my ears. I couldn't stand to listen to her whine and complain over things that didn't matter. When the anime would introduce a supposed problem she would just complain and the problem would magically go away.

Rei - She might be my favorite character. Her character brings the most to the table and leaves a lot of questions. I would love her so much more if I cared about what those questions were. When watching the anime she is partially the center of all these questions but not only do they never get answered but most of them are boring.

The Magi - There's not much to say about this, and that's the problem. There are so many moving elements in this anime that could make it an easy 90 or 100 but it falls short because of this. The Magi falls into this category and it's a massive shortcoming of the anime. The episodes where this mysterious system is mentioned are easily where I was most intrigued. Only for it to fall short nearly immediately and the episode just pads the runtime.

I have been told several times by plenty of people that these plot points are explained either in the movies or if you read the manga. My only problem with this statement is that I shouldn't have to read or watch several hours of more content just to find out what a very simple plot point is. That's the whole point of watching the anime, to discover what these items are and why they're important.

Probably the best example of this is the Spear of Longinus, which is easily the most interesting plot point. But as I mentioned above falls short because it requires me to have read or watched more of the EVA universe. I was genuinely eager to learn about this but the anime ripped it away from me only to have another anthological fight scene.

Now for the final episodes, this is where I lose all understanding of how you could praise this anime so highly. I've heard time and time again that these episodes make the entire anime worth it. I don't understand how they could, considering I never found the characters interesting in the first place. When they're suddenly undergoing the mental and emotional battle I showed no interest at all and considered breaking my rule of skipping an episode. Not only was it completely random, but it was pointless. NERV isn't gone, the angels still exist, why are we going the therapy? None of it added up for me and it left a very bitter taste in my mouth.

Which draws me to the end. After watching the anime's very bitter ending I wasn't satisfied. This anime had single-handedly made me upset and bitter. I did some research and found out that the entire anime is in its own canon. After learning about this I was genuinely ecstatic because I thought that I'd finally get the satisfaction I was craving. Leading to the present day, I have picked up EVA in its manga form and I'm currently reading through it. Still very early on and I can without a doubt confirm that I already enjoy the premise much more. Shinji is set up better and NERV feels real instead of a hollow organization. So, to close off, if you really want to get into EVA I'd read the manga first.