In order to gain access to Unit 01, SEELE sends a military strike force into NERV headquarters and kills most of its personnel. Still, let’s break it down what End of Evangelion depicts.
#EVANGELION SHINJI IKARI INTO LCL SERIES#
The TV series is far less interested overall in the “hows” of the apocalypse than the emotional stakes that event represents for the cast.
#EVANGELION SHINJI IKARI INTO LCL MOVIE#
However, because of the select images that are shown, like Misato’s body suffering the same gunshot wound and Asuka having been moved from the hospital to her EVA, it’s safe to assume that what happens explicitly on screen in the movie is also likely happening offscreen between the end of episode 24 and the beginning of episode 25. Instead, episode 25 begins with Shinji already undergoing the process of Instrumentality.
Very little of what we’re about to describe happens explicitly in the TV series, and visually the show begins to look dramatically different than the first 24 episodes. All of this is set up before the finale begins, though often in cryptic dialogue masked by references to Christian iconography. That is to say, the actual worst human being and father.
Gendo, implicitly in the series and explicitly in End of Evangelion, is the person Shinji is in danger of becoming if he can’t find a way to change. This is all kind of incidental to Gendo, whose driving desire is to see Yui again. Unlike SEELE’s plan, Yui’s would allow people to understand one another and then build a better future while retaining individuality. To that end, Yui sacrificed her life so that her soul would inhabit Shinji’s EVA. He wanted to use EVA Unit 01 as a sort of “arc” where everyone would experience the benefits of understanding one another and healing their own traumas, but also be able to resume individual shape afterward. Gendo, however, is carrying out his late wife Yui’s plan, at least coincidentally. Essentially, life is too hard, it’s beyond fixing, so let’s hit the reset button and start over. They’re a kind of death cult, believing that humanity isn’t fit to live as it is and must undergo a unification in order to become a new being. SEELE’s goal is to make the meld a permanent state, with everyone blending together and losing any sense of humanity. While both forces want Instrumentality to happen, what they want from it is wildly different. With all the Angels gone, SEELE and Shinji’s father Gendo Ikari both set the project known as “Human Instrumentality” into motion: a process that will meld all human beings into a single shared consciousness. Despite being made to reunite with Lilith, thus wiping out humanity and making Angels the new dominant lifeform, Kaworu is moved to give his own life so that humanity-or rather, Shinji-can go on. At the end of episode 24, Shinji is forced to kill Kaworu, who was revealed to be the final Angel. Here’s everything you need to know about the infamously complicated ending of Evangelion.Įvangelion’s Apocalypse ExplainedLet’s start with the anime series’ ending first.
(In between there was a movie called Death and Rebirth, which is on Netflix in a re-edited form as Death (True)², but you don’t need to worry about that: it’s basically just a recap of the TV series with a few minutes of new footage, which originally bridged the gap between the end of the TV series and the release of the movie.) If you’ve watched one or both of them, you’ve likely noticed the jarring pivot towards the story’s conclusion, but might not be familiar with the troubled production history of the acclaimed anime. Neon Genesis Evangelion essentially has two endings, both of which are now available on Netflix: the end of the TV series (specifically episodes 25 and 26), which originally aired in early 1996 and the film The End of Evangelion, which was released in 1997. But don’t worry, we’re here to explain everything to you. That’s completely normal and entirely expected given, well, the entire ending. So, you finished watching Neon Genesis Evangelion on Netflix and you’re a little confused.