>>44230
>It's contrived and pretentious
I always felt it the opposite way, that it was almost overly without care and didn't bother doing anything other than whichever lead animator was working at the time thought looked good. I can't really point fingers and claim something as pretentious along with direct cuts into South Park animation. There's a fine line between something intended as looking weird or cool and something looking pretentious. I think the years haven't been kind to it, and I don't mean that it's dated, but that it's gone through a decade of hype, analysis and "critical review" for a series that makes its few messages painfully obvious and mocked the people who tried too hard to find further meaning in Eva.
The manga is a whole different ballgame though. That's something that actually could use some breakdown, which is impressive considering it's effectively just the same story.