Neon Genesis Evangelion has always been a deconstruction of something. It began 'simply' as a deconstruction of the mecha genre, with the first half of the original show telling the story of a young boy who must suffer through the surprisingly painful ordeal of piloting a beastly, world-saving robot, constantly being told to fight against unholy angels. Then, it became a deconstruction of the human ego and psyche, as it broke down every single character into despair, explored what lead to their downfall and, nevertheless, showed us what continued to give them, and us, hope for a better future. In a way, this was also a deconstruction of Hideaki Anno's horrible depression, especially with the follow-up movie/masterpiece "End of Evangelion". A decade later, after Evangelion was remade with some nice-looking updated visuals and not much else, it then began to deconstruct its own story, and by Rebuild 3.0 was exploring a whole different narrative about Shinji's fall into even deeper despair after failing, and almost completely destroying, the entire world. In each deconstruction, there was always a sense of some hopelessness in the face of crushing despair, yet with hope always remaining with the audience. Even with each character living unfulfilled lives, often related to parental roles or unresolved relationships, we could still accept Evangelion's hope, and look to an uncertain future with confidence.

Evangelion: 3.0+1.0, however, reconstructs what was once deconstructed, in order to finally put it to rest. There are still the classic tropes of Evangelion, such as a hellishly-confusing plot, socially broken characters, completely bizarre imagery, and dialogue that constantly refers to godly ideals and objects, and yet it feels more like these tropes are actually being put to rest. We still have previously-established characters, usually from the original series, dominating the plot and development, and a lot of cues are taken straight from End of Evangelion, but they are actually there to finally give resolution to each character. Almost everyone finds a way to be healed in this finale, from Rei learning how to live as a human being, to Shinji learning not only how to fully accept his own life and decisions, but others' too. While not everyone got a full conclusion, it's still quite unusual to see all this resolution in Evangelion of all places, especially something so unusual as Shinji having a meaningful conversation with his dad, and actually helping others instead of needing to constantly be helped. But, however alien these changes are, they feel necessary to giving a satisfying ending to what could, and probably should, have been ended a long time ago.

This isn't really the Evangelion we used to know. All this rebuilding has made a film that, while fitting and familiar in many places, feels completely different from what was 'concluded' in 1997 with End of Evangelion, from CG to Mari. But, as the blending of animation/fiction and reality in the final act showed, Evangelion needed to be freed from its old self, trapped in not only Shinji's tortured mind, but also the constant state of debate and discussion about both it and its creator. Sure, this movie is nowhere near perfect; the animation (while often superb) did falter occasionally during CG bits, no fights stood out nearly as much as most in the original series, and the mind-muddling sci-fi/religious elements didn't work as much for me now. I've seen many view this film as Hideaki Anno's last "fuck you" to Evangelion fans, many others seeing the character conclusions as fanfic-level quality, and I sort of understand where these perspectives come from. In fact, I much rather prefer End of Evangelion as a movie and experience, and I probably would have been happier if Hideaki Anno and Studio Gainax/Khara had just stopped there. However, this is probably the best way I could've said goodbye to this series after all the Rebuilds, no matter how different it was to my expectations. Then again, what is Evangelion without destroying some form of expectations? Maybe we all just needed to leave this franchise in the past forever, cherishing our memories and experiences, and move on. Not just the audience, but the creators too.

Goodbye, all of Evangelion. It was nice knowing you.