I'm a relatively new fan. My first exposure to NGE was in 2012. The thing that struck me the most is that NGE possesses some very dysfunctional characters. Hell, they even seem to be too human for fictional characters. Over this last year, I managed to obtain officially licensed North American copies of the complete NGE: Platinum Collection, Death & Rebirth and The End of Evangelion. I had spent the last couple years shopping around on Ebay for them. I finally managed to find them for the right price. I believe I spent nearly $200 for all three. I did not decide to watch the rebuilds until this last year. I'd heard a lot of mixed reviews from NGE fans so I was a little hesitant to watch them. I did finally decide to buy the Blu-rays for 1.11 and 2.22 before finding out whether or not I would enjoy them. It turned out that they were enjoyable. Now I'm just waiting on the delayed release of 3.33. I'm a bit torqued that Funimation screwed up on the North American release. Because I will be waiting for 3.33, I decided to start reading the manga adaptation. I'm on either volume 8 or 9 right now. I can't remember because I decided to take a break from it until I receive the next 3-in-1 book. It turns out that it is very easy to burn through manga when you are used to reading conventional novels. So far, the manga is very good. There are a few differences between the manga and the anime. One of them being that Eva Unit-01 makes a much earlier appearance.