Johnny Novgorod said:
I didn't hate the show, I just didn't fall for it either. I didn't care for any of the characters, Asuka's Helga Pataki shtick was getting on my nerves, and the whole monster-of-the-week kinda bored me. Would've liked it if an angel made it past its debut now and then. Also de designs never really topped the first guy, whose name I forget.
Apparently I left off where things were still "normal", because I never got the fucked up vibe everybody kept promising me.
If you have an interest in anime in general, I would strongly recommend you power through. Like it or hate it, the show was influential as all get-out and you'll start spotting references everywhere by the end.
Other than that, a few viewing tips:
1) Don't think of it as an "aliens fighting robots" show, think of it as a "psychological drama character piece which happens to take place in an aliens fighting robots world" show
2) Don't try to figure out what any of the religious jargon means, it doesn't mean anything. Anno confirmed in interviews that it serves basically the same purpose as a Chinese character tattooed on a bro's shoulder: looks/sounds kinda cool if you don't know anything about it, probably nonsense if you do. Supposedly he wasn't expecting the show to become popular and would have picked something different if he had known it would catch on in mostly Christian countries
3) The movie more-or-less replaces the last two episodes, but there is debate about how canon either one is. My preferred theory: the last two episodes are what's going on in Shinji's mind at a particular point during the movie.
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