Evangelion: Housou 30-shuunen Kinen Tokubetsu Kougyou

That was actually amazing. I didn’t expect this from a 14-minute special episode.

First of all, when we rate something, we must take context into account; we’re currently looking at a 14-minute special episode, so our approach to it should reflect that. For this kind of content, it’s absolutely brilliant.

* * * SPOILERS AHEAD * * *

It all begins with Asuka Langley Soryu and Asuka Langley Shikinami standing on stage, apparently somewhere beyond the boundaries of reality, outside of time and space, discussing past events from their respective universes. At this point, I got the impression that the fourth wall was kinda broken, given the ... set design showing them standing on stage celebrating the franchise’s 30th anniversary. But I would interpret this to mean that, from the characters perspective, 30 years have passed since the beginning of the Evangelion story, given that Asuka says she hasn’t been on stage for "29 years", confirming that how many years have passed, while for us as viewers, the same amount of time has passed as for an outside observer. So, this is an objective reality: 30 years have passed since the beginning of their story.

What follows is that Asuka is trying to find a happy reality for herself, to get her own happy ending. And from that point on, we begin to understand certain things. Yes, Asuka loves Shinji. Any Asuka. From any universe. And she still loves him. Yet she rejects that ideal world where they are together, that world that seems so artificial, saying that she doesn’t want to depend on "fantasy," and that she wants to "find happiness in the real world". Indeed, this world wasn’t based on real experience, and it wasn’t the world she built for herself, so this happiness is truly artificial. Of course, I didn’t expect further revelation of this character’s reality in such a short special, so I’m really surprised we got this.

I want to point out that at the end, the song "Komm, süsser Tod" begins to play - the same melody that played during the third impact in "The End of Evangelion", the saddest composition associated with the loss of everything, and just as one is about to perform the lyrics, Asuka stops her, after which the music cuts off, and Asuka Langley Soryu’s motivating, self-inspiring speech begins. It is precisely the stopping of this music that strongly demonstrates and symbolically confirms that this is not the reality Asuka wants; she does not want to run away from reality and wants to build a real, happy world for herself.

The animation quality isn’t anything spectacular, but that’s easy to overlook when we’re talking about a 14-minute special episode. That said, I like the detail that when we see Asuka Langley Soryu’s world, we see it in the old 90s-style animation, which is a nice touch.

A truly wonderful special episode.

For Evangelion's 30th anniversary, they released a short animation that’s about 14 minutes long—and it was genuinely beautiful.
Story: It mostly features Asuka’s inner monologue/inner voice, with things like her wishing for a happy life with Shinji. Personally, I really liked it.
Ratings
Story: 8.5/10
Animation/Art: 9/10 (it could’ve been even better, but I still loved it)
Overall enjoyment: 9/10
Conclusion:
But seriously—watch the series, watch the final movie (End of Evangelion), and then watch this one last. The other extra contents aren’t really that connected to the main story. I’ve seen some of them already, and I’ll watch the rest soon too.

NGE does comedy????

It really isn't that deep of a piece, but it is honestly quite comedic, and includes plenty of story beats, references, and of course new memes, for our fanbase to enjoy. I like how it finally shows us what Auska's perfect world view is, and also shows how she better understands and accepts her role in reality than Shinji. For me, it would have been a 7 just for existing because of my love of Evangelion, but the fact it was entertaining, came from new perspectives, managed to stay truthful to characters, and still found some depth of emotion, shows just how timeless ... the story of Evangelion is, and will continue to be.