Evangelion

Jason, you hit the nail right on the head. Thank you!
[quote]The main mistake made in the last two eps of the TV show is straight out of Screenwriting 101. Essentially, exposition spoken directly at the camera is painfully boring. Don't tell us, show us.[/quote]
I feel a little better seeing it put into the words I couldn't find, if that makes any sense.
For the record, Evangelion has earned a permanent spot in our collection.
We'll probably end up checking out "End of Evangelion" at some point... once our minds stop reeling :P

Don't forget to watch "Death" and "Re-birth" as well (with an emphasis on "Death"). These 2 plus "EoE" really helped close the Evangelion chapter in my life. Between eps. 25-26 and Berserk's eps. 24-26 I thought I was literally going insane wondering what the f--- I was missing. Like you guys, I don't feel I'm all that dense when it comes to analyzing the psychological end of what the writer and director are trying to say by using some sort of metaphor. But when they either break down the "fourth wall" to try to explain their way out of the corner they've painted themselves into, or use disturbingly intense graphic imagery where there was none before to shock and depress the viewer -- well, that whole scene where you talked about throwing the discs off the highest building comes to mind. But then you sorta calm down and realize that "EoE" and "D&R" do help bring a conclusion for Evangelion and that the anime was only the beginning to Berserk's storyline in order to suck the viewer into buying the (albeit wonderfully written) manga.

Here is a Japanese guy [Manabu Tsuribe] that wrote an essay on Eva:

http://www001.upp.so-net.ne.jp/tsuribe/anime/critique/evae.html