Villain
Doctor BenQuillity
Focus said:@Villain: You even have Jin-Roh? You lucky *******.
Well, actually, it's my friend who has that excellent special edition Jin-Roh with the soundtrack on a separate CD - all I have is a poor quality (compared to the real thing) DVD-rip with Japanese audio and "hard" english subtitles; which is, of course, the real way to watch anime, since most english dubs are simply horrible - NOIR is the only exception that proves the rule (possibly alongside with some comedy-series, like Burn Up, or the like), having high-quality vocal acting on both japanese and english audio-tracks.
About Neon Genesis Evangelion, I believe it is my all-time favorite anime-series and I have spent quite a lot of time analysing both the individual episodes (especially the last six or so) and the movie End of Evangelion. However, I'm far too tired to go too deeply into that now - I'll concentrate on other anime tonight and will go back to Eva a bit later. Anyways, I will say that before you can "understand" (a loosely used word here, I don't claim to really understand all of it myself)Evangelion in all its grandeur, you definitely need to see all of the following (preferably in this order):
- the original 26 episodes (these are the backbone of the story, you shouldn't try to watch the End before watching all episodes)
- the so-called "director's cuts" of the episodes 21-24 (these are not necessary per se, as they are basically the same as the original episodes, but here are a couple of additional scenes that help "opening" the End)
- the movie End of Evangelion which "replaces" the episodes 25-26 (the final part of the story, a definite masterpiece, IMHO)
Also recommendable (to be watched before End of Eva) is the first movie Death and Rebirth, which recaps all the episodes up to 24 and starts End of Evangelion.
I'll go eat something now - if I'm still awake after that, I will get into the Studio Ghibli movies (Spirited Away, Totoro, Mononoke, Laputa, etc).
-Villain