Why you can’t watch the Evangelion movies before the series

Nearly two years after Netflix brought the legendary anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion series to the platform, Amazon Prime Video has released Evangelion 3.0+1.0: Thrice Upon a Time, the final installment of creator Hideaki Anno’s four-movie “remake.” With a combined production time spanning nearly two decades, the Rebuild of Evangelion films were conceived to introduce the franchise to a whole new generation of audiences who had not seen the original 1995 anime. But as Evangelion 3.0+1.0 has shown, Anno failed in his mission to produce a condensed, standalone series.

Despite existing in a separate continuity and diverging heavily from the events of the original Neon Genesis Evangelion, the Rebuild films are inextricably bound to the original, making an experience separate and apart from it nearly impossible. And the movies are better for it… read more >