The real end of Evangelion

I feel like no film has given me the same sense of release and catharsis as Hideaki Anno's Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0: Thrice Upon A Time. Even more than a year after I saw it (apparently it was a year yesterday, according to my records), such that some of the film is starting to fade from my memory, I still so deeply feel the sense of release and relief that the film gave me. And it's slightly odd to me that I have maybe literally only one other friend who's seen it and has had a similar feeling from it. (shoutout to that one friend btw, you may be the only Truly Normal person)

I really shouldn't let this be another "Millie Needs Better Friends" post, TBH. Like, by this point I should be used to liking things nobody else knows about, but like, the original Evangelion series aired on SBS, as did End of Evangelion too I am pretty sure. And except for Thrice Upon A Time (likely due to pandemic reasons), the Rebuild movies all got theatrical releases! This is not an obscure series. How can it be the case that others I know have not followed the series to this level?

Here's also kinda the thing, I'm not sure it'd have the same effect if someone just watched it through all together. The release and the catharsis feels, at least to me, like it owes a lot to the length of time and the history of the series - like there'd already been two endings (hence the name "Thrice Upon A Time") and the Rebuild movies were many years apart. Part of why this film hit me so hard is I think because of how long I'd been waiting for it, needing to put closure onto this thing. And then the fact that it pulled it off... it's just so good! But would you care if you'd just watched a bunch of movies in the space of a few weeks? I don't know.

Anyway, look sorry you missed out on getting this feeling but I think it's too late now, oh well. If you do ever watch these films hey maybe you'll enjoy them but if you come and tell me it's not that good after seeing them I seriously don't care. Is this some pretentious "oh you just won't GET it" wankery? Probably but again I do not care, there is a reason I'm writing this on the website nobody reads and not like as a twitter thread that someone might see.

god now I'm thinking about how I was robbed of getting this same feeling from star wars both by the utter fucking disappointment that was rise of skywalker and then the fact that it won't ever die