g-money wrote...
@The Jesus - You tell me a person who's actually understood NGE, then I'll say that such quasi-mecha shows are complex. For the average viewer, NGE proabably blew their minds away. It certainly almost blew mine away. Now, a better example would be several of the Gundam series. The earliest Gundam series and Gundam 00 were complex, but it didn't have to deal with religion or anything of that sort, but rather racial issues and politics, which are complex. NGE has religious symbology and connotations all over that it isn't easy to understand the significance of such symbols. Sure, NGE stepped away from the normal mecha norm, but seriously, NGE could have done without the mecha. It would have made the series more understandable.
One definition of complex is: "so complicated or intricate as to be hard to understand or deal with." The other definitions aren't very far off from that, but I decided to use that one in order to directly challenge what you said. The mecha aren't what make Evangelion so difficult to understand, it is the intricacies of how psychology and philosophy are interwoven with Judeo-Christian influences. There's a shitload of references to everything from religion to otaku subculture. They could have made due without the mecha, but it would have taken away from the overall effect that Anno was aiming for.
I understood NGE quite well actually. I missed some things the first time around, but that's to be expected with anything that has so many layers.