Hey, y’all. I got a chance to write up a feature for IGN in honor of Evangelion having a legal release again! I took my best shot at explaining what the heck’s going on in the franchise’s main endings (not all of them; that would take reams of paper), both thematically and in terms of pure plot details. Truly, over a decade of fandom has led me here. Also, the new dub is pretty good. Shame about the script.

So, you finished watching Neon Genesis Evangelion on Netflix and you’re a little confused. That’s completely normal and entirely expected given, well, the entire ending. But don’t worry, we’re here to explain everything to you. Neon Genesis Evangelion essentially has two endings, both of which are now available on Netflix: the end of the TV series (specifically episodes 25 and 26), which originally aired in early 1996; and the film The End of Evangelion, which was released in 1997. (In between there was a movie called Death and Rebirth, which is on Netflix in a re-edited form as Death (True)², but you don’t need to worry about that: it’s basically just a recap of the TV series with a few minutes of new footage, which originally bridged the gap between the end of the TV series and the release of the movie.) If you’ve watched one or both of them, you’ve likely noticed the jarring pivot towards the story’s conclusion, but might not be familiar with the troubled production history of the acclaimed anime. Here’s everything you need to know about the infamously complicated ending of Evangelion.

Here are the topics we’ll be covering in this article:

• Evangelion’s Apocalypse Explained
• Differences between the ending of Evangelion TV series and the End of Evangelion movie
• The Real-World Reasons Behind Evangelion’s Ending
• Alternate Universes and the New Evangelion Films

Warning: full spoilers for Neon Genesis Evangelion and End of Evangelion, as well as some for Rebuild of Evangelion!

Read it at IGN!