Sightlines · reception
How Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion was received
1997 · Kazuya Tsurumaki · Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion on Sightlines
The arc
In 1997 it landed as a shockwave — a brutal, confrontational 'real ending' delivered to a fanbase already at war over the TV finale, and plenty walked out baffled or furious. Today it's near-universally canonized, routinely called one of the greatest animated films ever made and the definitive way the story ends.
What’s debated
The forever-debate: is it Anno's sincere, cathartic conclusion or a magnificent middle finger to the fans who demanded it — and is the ending hopeful or despairing?
Its footprint
'Komm, süsser Tod' has become internet shorthand for cheerfully-scored apocalypse, and the film's imagery is endlessly referenced, memed, and imitated across anime and beyond. Its influence on how pop culture depicts the end of the world is hard to overstate.
Where it stands
A Letterboxd titan — it sits among the highest-rated films on the entire platform, the rare anime film treated as untouchable canon by cinephiles who watch nothing else animated.
Did you know? During the film's live-action interlude, real letters sent to Gainax — including actual hate mail and death threats Anno received over the TV ending — appear onscreen.
Named by the director
- Space Runaway Ideon: Be Invoked (1982) — Anno has repeatedly cited Yoshiyuki Tomino's Ideon — and its cataclysmic film finale in particular — as a formative influence on Evangelion's apocalyptic ending.
A Deleuzian reading of Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion →