That kinda reminds me of how I came up with a quick description of -End of Evangelion- to a friend of mine who was curious about it.

"Think of it like this. Remember how much of a mind trip the ending of 2001: A Space Oddysey was? Okay, now imagine 2001: A Space Oddysey, but instead of Stanley Kubrick directing, you have David Cronenburg. THAT'S how f__ked up End of Evangelion is, okay?"

-Logan

	Legolas - Obviously an Elvish word meaning "gatling gun".

-NeoRaven

Here's an interesting exercise:
1) Watch NGE

2) Watch FLCL

3) If you're not in a mental hospital by now, please tell me what kind of drugs the Gainax crew are on

"so, how does your brain work after being soaked in a vat of LSD, Mr. Anno?"

-NeoRaven

May I add a step?

2.5) Watch the "Kodomo no Evangelion" shorts.

-- Bob
-------------------
Was the Order to Slay given because of the Sign of the Goat found on the ancient Roman crypt beneath the cathedral, or because the Dark Man of the Haute Vienne Coven spoke the Three Words?

The last two eps were -cheap- <described by a friend as "The $5 episodes. Not $5 each, $5 for -both-".> Not that they would have made that much sense anyway, but cut them some minor slack, they were bankrupt at the time.

Oh, and I can do you one better, try watching the last two eps at... 7am after an all nighter, followed immediately by End...

	-={(Astynax)}=- "I had a mentally traumatic weekend... Still haven't decided if I ought to be thankful or sue..."

And how long did it take you to reconstitute your brain from that puddle of LCL anyway? O_o

-Logan

	I would enter your sleep if I could, and guard you there, and slay the thing that hounds you as I would if it had the courage to face me in fair daylight. But I cannot come in unless you dream of me. --Prince Lir, The Last Unicorn

Frighteningly enough, I think I groked most of it... not that I could explain it in a million years, but aside from a few "hey, wait, what'd I just miss" side questions to my guide into the madness, it actually made some odd sort of sense...

	-={(Astynax)}=- "Hey, wait, why are you all backing away from me now?"

If I'm not prying, were you drunk, stoned, or otherwise in a state of altered conciousness?

NGE is similar to Akira in that people who get drunk or stoned on a regular basis seem to understand it. Or at least think they do.

That said, at least NGE has something approximating a beginning and an ending....something FLCL completely lacks (Apparently by design. I hear the manga starts end ends nearly exactly how the OAVs did...that's rather annoying when one's mind is relatively linear and likes beginnings and endings. :)

Okay... now this begins to scare me. I'm not even going into NGE again, because we've heard that rant before, but neither Akira nor FLCL seemed particularly confusing, save in the pace that they introduced new elements. Further, Akira just didn't engage my interest, psis and existential angst bore me as a general rule. I never, ever, smoke so much as a normal cigarette, nor drink anything stronger than that carbonated apple juice sold nowadays so people like me can join in the toasts normally done with champaigne, but my rationale for this is that I'm already messed up in the head enough not to need it. Thing is, that's supposed to be a joke...

Oh well.

Spoiler warning.

As to the ending of FLCL, what's so cyclic about it? One of the main characters has gone back to wherever she came from, another that was there leaves, and everyone else grows up some. Yes, the opening and closing narration is similar, but in the beginning Naota is complaining that nothing exciting has ever happened to him, and in the end he's lamenting that nothing this exciting is ever likely to happen to him again, with an unspoken side order of feeling down because the first two girls he started developing feelings for both left to do their own thing. It's a bit of a downbeat after the rest of the series, but a reasonable one. Besides, I like to think that Naota caught hSpace Hottie Syndrome from his contact with aliens, and now is almost certain to bbe within sight of the landing point of any cute aliens, so despite his worries he'll have plenty of 'fun' adventures from now on.

- CD, who wouldn't mind catching that himself, at least inbetween the bits where he was terrified and running/fighting for his life. Remember the definition of 'adventure...'

Aside from partial sleep deprivation (ie up past the 16 standard hours of wakefulness), nope. I'm just not quite right in the head.

	-={(Astynax)}=- "Darkness beyond Twilight"

I'm not condemning the creators to hell for the last two episodes. I think I could have swallowed them better if I hadn't been so early in the morning. Maybe :)

>Oh, and I can do you one better, try watching the last two eps at...
>7am after an all nighter, followed immediately by End...

You're a braver soul than I. The last time I tried to pull an all nighter was at a con and I fell asleep in the movie room.
____________
I'm Dudditz!

I'm actually getting used to them. 'Tis the sort of thing that happens when you fall in love with a girl who suffers from raging insomnia... you tend not to get much sleep on weekends (or lots of weekdays for that matter). The trick is to take a day every week and set it aside for crashing hard.

	-={(Astynax)}=- "...and this is now waaaay offtopic. Been fun though."

-NeoRaven