Evangelion watch order

The order, if you want it in one line

Watch the twenty-six episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion. Then watch The End of Evangelion. Then, if you want more, the four Rebuild films in numerical order.

That is it. Everything below is why.

• Neon Genesis Evangelion, 26 episodes (1995–96)
• The End of Evangelion (1997); an alternative to episodes 25 and 26
• Evangelion: 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, and 3.0+1.0, a separate retelling, 2007–2021

Which ending?

The series ends with two episodes that abandon the plot almost entirely and go inside Shinji's head. They were made under a collapsing budget and schedule, and they are either the bravest thing the show does or a cop-out, depending on who you ask.

The End of Evangelion covers the same period of story with the money and time the series did not have. It is not a correction and it is not a director's cut. It is a second answer to the same question, and a considerably harsher one.

Watch both, in that order. Episodes 25 and 26 first, then the film. Going the other way makes the episodes feel like an appendix, which is exactly what they are not.

Skip Death & Rebirth

It is the one entry here you can miss. Seventy-two minutes of it is a recap of the series you have just watched; the remaining twenty-eight became the opening of The End of Evangelion, so you will see them again immediately.

It existed because the second film was not finished in time. It is a curiosity now, not a chapter.

The Rebuild films are not a remake, exactly

1.0 retells the opening of the series almost shot for shot, which is what makes people assume the whole thing is a remake. It is establishing something in order to break it. 2.0 introduces a character who does not exist in the original and starts diverging hard. 3.0 opens fourteen years later and refuses to explain what happened in between. It is the most alienating film in either continuity, and deliberately so.

3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time arrived in 2021, runs 155 minutes, and answers the 1997 ending rather than repeating it. Whether the Rebuilds are a remake, a sequel or something stranger is the argument the series ends on, and the films are not interested in settling it for you.

Can you start with the Rebuild films?

You can. They are self-contained and much better looking, and 1.0 assumes nothing.

But the last two carry almost no weight without the original, because what they are doing is responding to it. Starting there is like reading a reply before the letter.