The Evangelion thread

[Deleted member 14030]

Is 3.0+1.01 the final film?

Yes 3.0+1.0 is the final film in the rebuild series. The third film was 3.33.

 

[DragoStark]

Spoiler: Quick thoughts

I gotta say, the ending has made me appreciate the anime and EoE endings a whole lot more. The whole journey for Shinji has been wild but despite going to hell and back, taking multiple tries and being the lowest of the low, he got there eventually.

I think I'm done with Evangelion for a while now tho. This show makes my mind spin.

 

[Wicker]

Spoiler: Spoilers

Just a quick note on the final "ship" of the series.

I think the final scene of the film has been said is supposed to be Shinji representing Anno and Mari his wife, not neccesarily a "Canon" epilogue.

(Mari is supposedly based on Anno's wife and this has been pointed out before in films and interviews, the epilogue is essentially Anno's wife finally pulling him out of his evangelion work.)

It being the definitive "ship" of the series would be a bit dissaponting because Mari is definitely the weakest part of the rebuilds, however to me its left very open ended. The actual only exchange of a love confession still takes place between Asuka and Shinji.

 

[Geriatric hedgehog]

Almost two decades on, Thrice Upon A Time was the balm to the gash that The End of Evangelion dealt on the psyche. Absolutely beautiful. Thank you for that final pat on the head Anno Sensei.

 

[Unit-99999999]

I want to read as little about this film as possible so sorry if this has been mentioned elsewhere

Is 3.0+1.01 the final film? I've not seen the third yet

Yes. But you should definitely watch 3.33 before starting the new one. Have you seen the original series? It’s kind of crucial for understanding 3.0+1.01 (well, “for understanding it as much as possible”, let’s say)

 

[Unit-99999999]

Spoiler: 3.0+1.0 spoilers

I have really mixed feelings about this movie. It managed to be both more straightforward than I hoped and more incomprehensible than I feared.

Positives first. The first act was great, and provided an interesting counterpoint to the first act of EoE. Both open with Shinji paralytic with grief from Kaworu's death. EoE throws him right back into the meat-grinder without a chance to process his grief, and the bitter madness that followed was almost inevitable as a result. 3.0+1.0 surrounds him with people who care about him, and that humane behaviour likewise informs Shinji's attitude going forward.

This film also filled in the gaping hole at the heart of both of Eva's two previous endings by giving Shinji a definitive confrontation with his father. The strained dynamic between those characters is integral to the whole Eva saga, and while the TV ending and EoE acknowledged it, I always felt that they side-stepped its importance, while this time the story confronts it head-on. For that alone, this movie carves out an important place for itself in the overall Eva canon.

Negatives. I feel like Anno has lost track of the importance of context to action scenes. Look all the way back to Gunbuster: every action had a clear cause, clear stakes, and enough connection to the characters for the viewer to care about the outcome. The Rebuild movies have increasingly slid towards action scenes that either have no context until after they're finished, or where the pretense of context is just an incomprehensible jumble of pseudotechoreligious jargon. Sure, they're an impressive fireworks display, but it's hard to get invested in the outcome of a scene when you don't know why it's happening.

For such a long movie, the editing became surprisingly clipped during some important scenes towards the end. Gendo and Shinji growing to understand each other and themselves took centre stage, as it should, but ended a bit too abruptly. This problem carried over to the subsequent scenes that closed out Asuka, Kaworu, and Rei's arcs, which needed more attention. Rei's in particular was too rushed, carrying forth no sense of impact from what Rei 6.0 learnt and lost in the opening act, since this was a different Rei.

Then there's Mari. As I feared, Anno never came up with a viable reason for her to exist. As with so much of the other new jargon thrown at us in this movie, her true name comes with no explanation of why it matters, aside from it being a Bible reference that doesn't seem to track to her actual role in the story. Was the idea meant to be that she was a Judas to the Seele cause? Who knows. Also, it was bizarre that Shinji ends up becoming soul mates with a girl he's spoken to maybe twice beforehand.

Overall, I can't decide how I feel about this movie. It managed to blend the catharsis of the TV ending with the action and exposition of EoE, and was an effective conclusion in broad terms, since it gave an ending to most of its major narrative arcs. But it was so messy in some ways. Maybe I should just accept that confusion is par for the course when watching Evangelion. The previous two endings were both total mindf***s that took years to unpack, so why should this be any different? At this point, after a single viewing, while the experience is still raw and unprocessed in my mind, all I can say is that I'm glad it exists, but it isn't all that I hoped for.

Glad to see that I’m not the only one in this thread who isnt happy about the final movie

 

[Unit-99999999]

Spoiler: Spoilers

Just a quick note on the final "ship" of the series.

I think the final scene of the film has been said is supposed to be Shinji representing Anno and Mari his wife, not neccesarily a "Canon" epilogue.

(Mari is supposedly based on Anno's wife and this has been pointed out before in films and interviews, the epilogue is essentially Anno's wife finally pulling him out of his evangelion work.)

It being the definitive "ship" of the series would be a bit dissaponting because Mari is definitely the weakest part of the rebuilds, however to me its left very open ended. The actual only exchange of a love confession still takes place between Asuka and Shinji.

Cute.

But stupid. I’m guessing fans knew this stuff - but what about people who watched the movies without reading interviews or scrolling through Eva forums?

Spoiler: SPOILERS FOR THE ENDING

It makes ZERO sense in the Evangelion continuity. Not only Mari always felt as underdeveloped character, her interactions with Shinji we’re extremely limited (A rooftop scene in 2.22 where he didn’t even learn her name and one dialogue scene in 3.0+1.01). The final scene isn’t just confusing, it’s outright dumb.

But at least now I can somewhat understand what Anno was thinking when he came up with this ending. Thanks for sharing

 

[Dai]

Spoiler: Spoilers

Just a quick note on the final "ship" of the series.

I think the final scene of the film has been said is supposed to be Shinji representing Anno and Mari his wife, not neccesarily a "Canon" epilogue.

(Mari is supposedly based on Anno's wife and this has been pointed out before in films and interviews, the epilogue is essentially Anno's wife finally pulling him out of his evangelion work.)

It being the definitive "ship" of the series would be a bit dissaponting because Mari is definitely the weakest part of the rebuilds, however to me its left very open ended. The actual only exchange of a love confession still takes place between Asuka and Shinji.

Spoiler: Spoilers for 3.0+1.0 and RahXephon

Okay, that would kind of make sense...sort of. There has always been a semi-autobiographical element to Eva, usually manifested in Shinji, but it might have been strongest in this movie where the entire Gendo backstory felt like Anno was talking about himself. Still, it doesn't change that Mari was poorly integrated into the story for the role she ended up playing.

I noticed one thing about the ending that I can't decide if I find more amusing or annoying. RahXephon was notorious for stealing elements from Eva, and now here we are a couple of decades later and Eva steals RahXephon's ending. In both cases the protagonist chooses to create a world where the reality-altering robots don't exist, in the process undoing a situation that had caused him to remain half the age he should be.

So what did people think of the dubs? I watched the new 3.33 one before 3.0+1.01 yesterday, and I find them a bit troubling. Some characters, especially Misato, have stiff, excessively polysyllabic diction that feels out of character, but I haven't watched that movie enough times to remember if she was always like that. The performances are fine, but they're often undermined by...awkward sentence structure that...doesn't account...for the pauses in the original...Japanese dialogue, making it feel like...a dub from the...90s. 3.33 was definitely worse for this; I didn't notice it as often in 3.0+1.01.

 

[Suzu]

Since Anime Ltd was listed on the credits of EVANGELION: 3.0+1.01, I am wondering if they have licensed the final movie and the previous Rebuild movies as well. I noticed that Manga UK's releases of Rebuild movies are out of print and I sadly wasn't able to buy them when they were released by Manga UK. So, how likely do you think it is for Anime Limited to have licensed ALL the Rebuild movies? I would love a complete collection release with all the four movies together.

 

[RaeDra]

So what did people think of the dubs? I watched the new 3.33 one before 3.0+1.01 yesterday, and I find them a bit troubling. Some characters, especially Misato, have stiff, excessively polysyllabic diction that feels out of character, but I haven't watched that movie enough times to remember if she was always like that. The performances are fine, but they're often undermined by...awkward sentence structure that...doesn't account...for the pauses in the original...Japanese dialogue, making it feel like...a dub from the...90s. 3.33 was definitely worse for this; I didn't notice it as often in 3.0+1.01.

When I started watching the final film, I was immediately concerned due to the vocal performance in the opening. That did improve but something never really felt right about it. Sure it varied by actor and scene but I feel the script is very concerned about matching the translation as close as possible and made for some very odd delivery. It's interesting, some have accused the subtitles as being "dubtitles" (they aren't as they don't match the dub script, that's what the Closed Captions are for), particularly in the final film, but to me it seems to make more sense that the translation used for the subtitles was very lightly adapted for the English dub (which makes even more sense once you consider the translator and the script adaptation supervisor is the same person) to make for better timing and to fit the lip flaps of the characters. The thing is, the matching of the lip flaps is really all over the place and is, perhaps, too dedicated to matching the translation. Without being too critical, some of the returning actors are little stiff compared to Funi's cast though whether that script and the direction doesn't help with that is another question. Had things been better, Daman Mills may have given the best Kaworu related performance there has been in English (haven't seen 3.33 yet though on Amazon).

I can't really say i'm a fan of these redubs as it feels worse than Funimation's output of the rebuild movies and with that I really don't understand why this all happened (except I probably do). If and when these are released on physical media and the highly probably situation these Amazon dubs are the ones on them, I will keep the blu-rays I already have just in case.

 

[Unit-99999999]

Rei sounded very different from both Netflix and Funimation dubs. But I got used to it very quickly.

Other than that, I don’t remember noticing any differences with Funimation dubs that came before that - it’s great that majority of voice actors returned to reprise their roles.

Hkwever I did point out earlier in the thread some weird stuff with translation. It’s not big but it can be distracting for those who watched the movies before in Funimation dub

 

[Robin91]

Spoiler

Watched all of the movies today including 3 + 1. Not planning to write a long story here but I seem to agree with most people that the first part was the stro gest part of the movie. From there it kind of did go downhills but I still really enjoyed it and I feel a bit empty knowing that this was the last movie in the series.

 

[Geriatric hedgehog]

So my plan to watch the last rebuild right after the UK release was completely scuppered thanks to somnolence, but hey what's waiting an extra 24 hours when one has waited almost a decade heh. So after getting some sleep, time to add some of my thoughts on the grand finale.

Spoiler

Let me just start that I dislike End of Evangelion. I think it’s too dark; the scene in the hospital is outright disgusting, the Asuka battle is sadistic, the Misato kiss is weird at best, the second half is too bizare, and the ending is quite pessimistic.

I felt exactly the same on my first watch of EoE but have had a loooong time to digest it and clearly have developed a very different perspective since. I always view it in the context of Anno's revenge on the backlash to the NGE ending and I can't say I'm surprised at such negativity when one is getting death threats - it's all good to critique without descending to those levels and if one is really that bothered either throw it away and move on, or try making something better yourself. Anyhoo, Anno gave what was asked of him, with the truly brilliant action that still hasn't been excelled for me, but in the most negative and destructive fashion possible.

the scientific nonsense becomes even more complicated (those theories you built - well, turns out there is many other elements you weren’t told about). I was like, “what the heck, why is it so bad suddenly”. The thing is, I REALLY wanted to like this movie. And this second part of the movie made it near impossible for me to do that.

Yeah I was suspecting you were heading towards disappointment with your focus on the exposition and lore. I did not think there was any intention for these holes to be filled given that only a huge array more of them were introduced in the penultimate 3.33. I've always felt that as intriguing, though intentionally hole-filled, as the plot and lore have always been in Eva, they are somewhat a distraction from what the show really is about which is the solitude and human need to connect. In terms of the latter, Eva has always excelled for me, as did this movie, though not flawlessly of course, which in itself is only human after all. If anything all the pseudo-scientific/mythical gobbledegook seems purposely exaggerated and excessive to better frame the emotional core. Well, that's my take anyway.

Wow. The film was was totally worth the almost 8-year wait

I second that brother, a most satisfying conclusion to the wait.

Having Rei even use the term "Neon Genesis" was as bold as brass.

That was quite something eh? I love a good bit of fourth wall clobbering and this was probably my, very biased, but no-less-objectively-deserving favourite.

I'm already looking forward to seeing it again.

Likewise, I'm all set to view again tonight despite the temptation of the related Anno documentary. I shall save the latter for the next week.

Seeing returning characters was a weird but welcoming experience, and while you could argue they weren't angry with Shinji over how everything went, I preferred their stance as they likely knew how much pressure it can being an Eva pilot and having to save the entire world on your shoulders. This whole act takes up roughly 55 minutes of the runtime but it's like the calm before the storm where things will get super serious.

Seeing the children all grown up and living the Eva version of SoL was a beautiful, beautiful touch, I completely agree with what I believe is the unanimous admiration for this segment. And this Rei (number 3 is she??) surely grew & developed the most of any anime character in history in her short but hopefully sweet for her run. Though it definitely had a very calm before the storm feel and I was still dreading the possibility of an EoE-like disembowelment!

In the end I liked that Shinji wasn't so depressed too much and got back on his feet so seeing him accepting his resolve and going back to WILLE was a surprise but it's nice to see him having the motivation at the end of the film to confront his father and figure out why he's doing what he's doing.

Yeah this was the growth and development that was needed after the EoE end and I'm glad Anno allowed us this, and hopefully it did reflect his own progression in his personal life.

Speaking of the final act, I think the best part of the film was Gendoh's backstory which was really interesting and wraps up his arc pretty well.

Gendo's development was excellent, and in hindsight a very needed albeit unexpected addition. I always saw a lot of Shinji in Gendo and used to sometimes think they're the bloody same(and not just in looks, like the younger Gendo is in the flashbacks), and that Shinji just doesn't know it yet. His desire to save Rei in 2.22 at the expense of everyone else (even though to be fair he doesn't really know the ramifications of his actions) doesn't feel that different from Gendo's to be united with Yui again whilst not giving a damn what the rest of humanity thinks.

And a bonus trivia:

The Anime Ltd. mention is very promising indeed, though since having read some of your other posts on the possibility of a complete rebuild set being unlikely, I am saddened. I could imagine they would do justice with a beautiful set.

It does “fix” Misato from 3.33 but I always could tell she was still Misato

I agree with you here, I never paid too much heed to her attitude to him (though the very frustrating lack of communication does go nicely with the themes of the franchise). 3.33 on the whole was an exercise in bafflement for the viewers, to place us in Shinji's shoes as everyone's said, and her portrayal was no different. If she had truly turned completely cold to him there would have been no reservations in detonating that choker.

"The movie set" thing is an interesting idea for a final battle - but it doesn't make much sense either - it's supposed to be negative universe forcing to relieve memories (or something like that), but the battles take place exclusively in the areas familiar to Shinji

Unsurprisingly I'm with @NormanicGrav on this one in that for me it was very well done. Again, not to get bogged down in the pseudoscience or whatever, I thought they mentioned that existence in that universe was not possible to perceive with human faculties and therefore the brain made up the imagery with whatever memories it had, with us getting Shinji's perspective only with the assumption that it wouldn't be the same as Gendo's.

Overall I am surprised that fans of Evangelion liked 3.0+1.01 THAT much

I think this is merely a difference in perspective and as I implied, a lot of us older fans have had a very long time to digest the madness of Eva, resulting in differing opinions and ultimately a different perceived impact of this work. But then again, for all I know it will all probably be just stupid to some other older fans, which is perfectly fine as well and to paraphrase the Aesop fable I just read to my daughter: to each their own.

The first act was great, and provided an interesting counterpoint to the first act of EoE. Both open with Shinji paralytic with grief from Kaworu's death. EoE throws him right back into the meat-grinder without a chance to process his grief, and the bitter madness that followed was almost inevitable as a result. 3.0+1.0 surrounds him with people who care about him, and that humane behaviour likewise informs Shinji's attitude going forward.

Perfectly summarised as always @Dai and spot on comparison, with the causality of the two very different endings beautifully & succinctly put down.

This film also filled in the gaping hole at the heart of both of Eva's two previous endings by giving Shinji a definitive confrontation with his father

Indeed but thinking on this now I will come back to a point @WMD made earlier on Yui's relative absence. It's like the previous iterations had a fair bit of focus on Yui, which is now swapped over to Gendo. Though I wish there was still some more overt focus on Yui, her relatively very subtle inclusion I think was still done beautifully well in how she was always within Shinji, not just Unit-01, and how she yet again pushed him back towards existence yet again sacrificing herself in his place (if I read that correctly).

I feel like Anno has lost track of the importance of context to action scenes.

Interesting points here and I'm no expert on this but I suspect in a very layman level I would likely agree. Don't get me wrong, I certainly enjoyed them throughout Rebuild but they certainly for me didn't have the same level of pathos as the original & EoE and I did also feel that there was a very strong desire to use the Rebuilds for promoting the polish and action animation the original didn't have funding for (just look at the starry sky scene in the TV series when the lights go out in Japan and then the gorgeous ones shown in 3.33).

Maybe I should just accept that confusion is par for the course when watching Evangelion. The previous two endings were both total mindf***s that took years to unpack, so why should this be any different?

Exactly!!

That ed music always gets to me!

I loved the Utada song and it's use in the trailers was as good as in the end credits themselves. But the real cherry on the top was the remix of Beautiful World, bringing the whole of Rebuild to a nice full circle in terms of theme song.

Mari is supposedly based on Anno's wife and this has been pointed out before in films and interviews, the epilogue is essentially Anno's wife finally pulling him out of his evangelion work.

That is very interesting and thanks for sharing, I had no idea. It does fit the goal of the final scene nicely but as you said in a very non-canon way. I think it could still have been done in canon but maybe just by using Rei 2 or Asuka perhaps but then I don't know, I have no creative skills in such matters whatsoever heh.

Cute.

But stupid. I’m guessing fans knew this stuff - but what about people who watched the movies without reading interviews or scrolling through Eva forums?

Yeah but to play devil's advocate Eva has always done that, and to me it's a positive, as per the replayability I previously mentioned, to prompt endless investigation and discussion into its intricacies. Also, aren't you doing just that in investigating all this on a forum now? As unimpressed as you feel about it, it has affected you enough to do so heh.


So I clearly don't need to ramble on about everything I loved about this movie (this post will become unbearably long otherwise, oh wait, it already is...nevermind) and so will come to the odd bits I didn't like as much heh:
1. I really wish there was more of Rei 2, for me it was a real shame that she was shown having performed all her years of labour and given a relatively unceremonious, albeit affectionate, send off
2. Mari - as nice as the sentiment of her representing Anno's wife is, in fact all the more reason therefore for, she really should have been developed more or at least then not used in the context I believe she was used in for the anime Shinji character
3. The Lilith-Rei live-action/CGI animation whatever it was, was horrible to look at for me, regardless of it being a reflection of the real-life parable, and I really wish they had just stuck to the animation format from EoE.

And that's enough rubbish from me folks (for now) though I look forward to spending some more decades, if I can, unraveling this and the franchise as a whole. Wonderful stuff.

 

[NormanicGrav]

2. Mari - as nice as the sentiment of her representing Anno's wife is, in fact all the more reason therefore for, she really should have been developed more or at least then not used in the context I believe she was used in for the anime Shinji character

I think what was supposed to happen was that her backstory and character was going to be explored much further in the original version of 3.0 as seen in the Next Film Preview of 2.22, but Anno being Anno likely scraped the idea in favour of what we got with 3.0.

 

[Dai]

All this talk about how underdeveloped Mari was made me realise something funny. When a character gets thrown in for no other reason than the writer wants them there, and they serve no real narrative purpose, we say that the character has been "parachuted into the story." In 2.22, Mari literally parachuted into the story. I can only think this was Anno giving a knowing wink to the fact that she didn't belong. In that sense, there was an air of metatextuality about her from the beginning.

I feel a bit empty knowing that this was the last movie in the series.

Feeling dead inside is all part of the Evangelion experience.

 

[Wicker]

I think I recall reading somewhere that this was just going to be Anno's final film, but the franchise would potentially be opened up to other people? ( I suppose spin-offs with different characters and not direct sequels) - Maybe I am just making this up, or I don't know if anyone else recalls hearing this?

 

[Neil.T]

I think I recall reading somewhere that this was just going to be Anno's final film, but the franchise would potentially be opened up to other people? ( I suppose spin-offs with different characters and not direct sequels) - Maybe I am just making this up, or I don't know if anyone else recalls hearing this?

I do. I read some discussion about it on the Evageeks forum:

Possible Spinoffs After 3.0+1.0 - EvaGeeks.org Forum - an Evangelion Fan Community

Discussion of the new series of Evangelion movies ( "Evangelion Shin Gekijōban", meaning "Evangelion: New Theatrical Edition"). <strong>The final instalment made its debut in Japan on March 8, 2021.</strong>,Possible Spinoffs After 3.0+1.0, discussion of neon genesis evangelion

forum.evageeks.org

All this talk about how underdeveloped Mari was made me realise something funny. When a character gets thrown in for no other reason than the writer wants them there, and they serve no real narrative purpose, we say that the character has been "parachuted into the story." In 2.22, Mari literally parachuted into the story. I can only think this was Anno giving a knowing wink to the fact that she didn't belong. In that sense, there was an air of metatextuality about her from the beginning.

I think the wordplay element to that is most likely just an incredible coincidence, but your assessment of Mari's role in the story is absolutely correct.

For both of the first two Rebuild films, Khara released books called Complete Records Collection:

Evangelion 1.0 Complete Records Collection - EvaWiki - An Evangelion Wiki - EvaGeeks.org

wiki.evageeks.org

Evangelion 2.0 Complete Records Collection - EvaWiki - An Evangelion Wiki - EvaGeeks.org

wiki.evageeks.org

They contain interviews with staff, concept art and a look through the movies cut by cut, as well as their complete storyboards. A translation of the interviews for 2.0 exists online...

<em>Evangelion 2.0 Complete Records Collection</em>

Translated interviews about making <em>Evangelion 2.0</em> w/Anno, Higuchi, Enokido, & Tsurumaki

www.gwern.net

... and we learn the rationale for introducing Mari into the story. Her purpose was to "destroy" the established structure of Evangelion. The Japanese word used by Khara staff when discussing this is hakai (破壊), which is a pun on 破, the kanji used in 2.0's Japanese title, Evangelion New Theatrical Edition: Ha. This is the middle part of the structure jo-ha-kyū ("beginning"-"break"-"rapid"), a mode of performance found in classical Japanese arts.

Jo-ha-kyū - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

In Evangelion Rebuild terms, it's referring to the part of the story that literally breaks away from the original.

Also regarding Mari's express purpose within the franchise, she was first introduced to fans through the Nintendo DS spin-off Petite Eva: Evangelion@Game. This Fandom page shows a screenshot of her profile screen under "Trivia":

Petit Eva: Evangelion @ Game

Petit Eva: EVANGELION@GAME (ぷちえゔぁ〜EVANGELION@GAME〜, "Puchi Eva 〜EVANGELION@GAME〜"?) is a video game based on the Petit Eva: Evangelion@School manga series. It was released for Nintendo DS systems on 20 March 2008, and published by Bandai Namco Games.[1] In Petit Eva, players take control of...

evangelion.fandom.com

The first line of her description translates as "mysterious girl". That's just Mari in a nutshell.

I'd describe her as a rogue element or a wildcard within the story.

 

[Donut]

So I finally started devouring my way through the Rebuilds in an actual wonderful accident where I forgot to stop Prime renewing and it has been a blessing in disguise. I've been meaning to for a while and it's great to have them on here!

I've really enjoyed 1.1 and how cinematic it is, the animation is beautiful and I say this as someone who liked the original series and the EoE a lot. I swear they've really upped the ante with scenic compositions and everything is so smooth. I love how they've injected new life into the original series and I'm excited to see the rest and finally meet that one other EVA pilot who isn't in the original. I'll work my way to the final movie but I feel that rewatching or watching more of EVA every few years feels more and more likeable for me? When I first watched it as a teen I saw parts and it was good, and I saw maybe half the TV series in uni but had to drop it for deadlines and then around 2018 when I binged the entire show it resonated with me far more, and now the rebuilds are winning me over I have to say. Very interested.

That animation for EVA unit 001 going beserk too, my gosh. Oh, and I don't mind being bitten for this, but I'm finding Misato's dub voice kind of endearing.

 

[NormanicGrav]

Well Evangelion's final film has done enough to get re-invested in the franchise once again after a 9 year gap lol.

Fortunately there's other properties that may interest folks:

Neon Genesis Evangelion (Manga)
Viz Media's released all 14 volumes into 5 omnibus books. It's a really solid coverage of the original TV's story that offers a slightly different outcome to End of Evangelion. It's worth a read.

Neon Genesis Evangelion: ANIMA (Light Novel)
Seven Seas have released all 5 novel books in this scenario that takes place a few years after the events of the original TV series. I've not read it but I'm very interested to see how it is.

Neon Genesis Evangelion: Shinji Ikari Raising Project (Manga)
Dark Horse have released all 18 volumes and is probably out of print at this point. It's apparently set in a what-if scenario during the events of the TV show's final episode. It also has a 2004 life simulation game for PC in Japan.

Neon Genesis Evangelion: Eva and Good Friends (Video Game)
Released in Japan in 1998 for PlayStation, it's an import only game but if you want to experience Shinji playing Mahjong with the cast of Nadia and Gunbuster, then this is for you!

Neon Genesis Evangelion 2 (Video Game)
Released in Japan in 2003 for PlayStation 2, this is an RPG that allows you to control various characters from the TV series and follow the events of the story.

Neon Genesis Evangelion 64 (Video Game)
Released in Japan in 1999 for Nintendo 64, this is the most well-known video game adaptation of the franchise and chances are you have heard of this already. Basically you go through the story of the TV series and each level is essentially an Eva battle against the Angels. Apparently pretty challenging also.

Hisshou Pachinko ★ Pachislot Kouryaku Series Vol. 1: CR Neon Genesis Evangelion (Video Game)
Released in Japan in 2005 for PlayStation 2, this is a pachinko game. That's all that needs to be said.

Kyoei Toshi - City Shrouded in Shadow (Video Game)
Released in Japan in 2017 for PlayStation 4, designed similarly to the Disaster Report games your character is in the middle of a disaster event where giant beings are attacking each other. It's a cross over that features Godzilla, Ultraman, Gamera and even Evangelion and Mobile Police Patlabor.

Super Robot Wars (Video Game)
Bandai Namco's cross-over tactical RPG franchise has featured Evangelion many times but it's also got a ton of other Gainax & Sunrise titles that do interact with the Evangelion cast if you are a fan of sci-fi, mecha and want something different for a change. For English translated releases they're included on Super Robot Wars V.

 

[Dai]

Neon Genesis Evangelion (Manga)
Viz Media's released all 14 volumes into 5 omnibus books. It's a really solid coverage of the original TV's story that offers a slightly different outcome to End of Evangelion. It's worth a read.

Neon Genesis Evangelion: ANIMA (Light Novel)
Seven Seas have released all 5 novel books in this scenario that takes place a few years after the events of the original TV series. I've not read it but I'm very interested to see how it is.

Neon Genesis Evangelion: Shinji Ikari Raising Project (Manga)
Dark Horse have released all 18 volumes and is probably out of print at this point. It's apparently set in a what-if scenario during the events of the TV show's final episode. It also has a 2004 life simulation game for PC in Japan.

Thanks for that breakdown of spin-offs. I hadn't heard of the Anima LN series. It looks interesting.

Does the main manga series diverge from the TV series much or go more in depth with additional scenes?

The Kindle editions of Shinji Ikari Raising Project are crazy cheap on Amazon at the moment. Most of the volumes are less than £2 each.