Can an Evangelion fan please explain to me...

[kid aphex]

The Evangelion timeline/releases, their order, whether they're canon, etc.

I watched the series 10 years ago, and recently wanted to DL it again but couldn't make sense of what the new releases are, and how they fit in to everything.

Maybe it's not as complex as I'm making it out to be.
In any case, my brain refuses to quest out all this info when I know someone here can explain it to me human-to-human.

Thanks in advance

[drauch]

They've essentially remade/reenvisioned the franchise three damn times now because Gainax are money hungry scumbags.

[ACSeraph]

As far as I know the basic release order would be something like this:

The Original TV series

Death and Rebirth - Theatrical release

- The theatrical release contained extra scenes meant to flesh out the ending parts of the show, but these scenes were removed from the home release of Death. However the scenes were worked back into the original episodes in the directors cut version of the series.

End of Evangelion

Directors Cut TV Series

Rebuild of Evangelion


As far as the question of cannon, basically the best version would be the directors cut of the original show plus End of Eva. Death is just a glorified recap so it isn't terribly important though I personally enjoyed it.

As for the question of the last two episodes of the TV show, you can actually just work them somewhere into the Instrumentality section of End of Eva. They are important to the show and should be considered cannon imo. So the Order would be Eva Directors Cut 1-24, Death (optional), End of Eva up until Instrumentality, TV DC 25-26, The rest of End of Eva.

The rebuild is a completely seperate thing and just includes its own 3 movies.

The comics are also their own seperate continuity.

[kid aphex]

Woof... thanks for the reply and information.

[Edmond Dantes]

Personally... I have the original DVDs of Evangelion, before they started doing Platinum Editions and Directors Cuts and all this extra nonsense, and I've always been happy with that version.

[ACSeraph]

^

That's the version I've owned since it first came out stateside but I also saw the Directors Cut and it's definitely better. It looks cleaner and the extra scenes really do add to the series. If all you had access to was the original I'd say its more than good enough though.

I would reccomend though in the case of End of Eva (and Death if you care), you download a fansub. I have Manga's DVD and it looks like shit. Kinda blurry. Also the translation is garbage.