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What makes a manga great? What differentiates every work of fiction from the sea of other works of fiction? Is it a good story, good visuals, interesting characters? This question is highly debated and might never be even answered. However, one thing is certain. When a piece of fiction catches your interest and makes you completely engrossed in its world, in one way you become a part of it, and in another, that world from that point onward becomes a part of you.

Going into Nagatoro, I felt lost and was just looking for a piece of work to vent, something I could look at without ... getting invested, reading it without even using a single brain cell. But, oh, how I was wrong to think that. At the very start, yes, I did feel this was just another delinquent manga, but the more I read, the more I felt the characters were something more than that. They grew, they had their challenges, had their ups and downs, but ended up overcoming all of their hardships through sheer effort and will. Isn't this something everyone should strive for?

Through his work, through the words of the cast, the author clearly conveys his feelings. The characters are truly the epitome and the core of this piece of fiction, and there is great effort put into every individual. No single character here is one-dimensional, not even on the surface, because every character has a plethora of unique facial expressions, each conveying the magnitude of human emotions.

Only looking at things superficially is the crux of every problem of many individuals. Only when you cast away that superstition, when you strip yourself whole and let yourself be exposed to every experience, be it joy, anger, sadness, confusion, love, only then can you truly say you have lived. Reading this manga made me realize that, and if that is the case, can you truly say there is anything wrong about it?

A worthy retelling of the original story.

Getting into this movie I was expecting something drastically different from the original Evangelion, but to my surprise, I found it's basically a 1-1 retelling of the original first quarter of the story. As I think that this first part of the story is crucial for the world and character-building, I have no complaints in this regard.

The anime is visually stunning, it kept the old character designs but refurbished them and gave the world a new, fresh look, which in my opinion, fits really nicely with the Evangelion atmosphere. Almost perfectly I would say, if it weren't overly bright ... at some points.

The soundtrack is really good as well, although not on par with the original one, which I hoped they would use more of.

The story, as I said in the beginning, is the same, although with certain parts cut, specifically of Shinji's existential nihilism, and of still scenes with either no music or just background noise in the form of crickets. Now, I fully understand why they would cut this from the movie, as it would drag its runtime along by a significant margin, and I also understand that a large amount of fans found displeasure in these nuances. However, I think, and some people I'm sure will agree with me on this, is that these nuances gave the original an atmosphere that no other anime has. There is a deep philosophical backdrop in the anime and it's absolutely instrumental (heh, get it?) to the story, and also the main reason I fell in love with the original anime in the first place.

Overall, after some time has passed since last watching Evangelion, I enjoyed this movie, and am looking forward to seeing how they handled its sequels, and of course, how they will handle its fourth and final one.

One of the most magnificently crafted anime out there. Imagine the last two episodes of Evangelion spanning throughout a whole anime mini-series, just more thought out and meticulously pieced together.

It's a masterpiece that tells a lot about current society through breathtaking visuals and storytelling. People who say it's pretentious haven't seen the bigger picture of the story. This is a type of story where every single episode can be analyzed frame by frame and in the end there will still be a lot of unanswered questions but, do people really need to know the meaning behind everything?

Some things are just the way they are, and ... we have come this far knowing this, so I think we'll be fine.