film "is certainly down there among some of the worst anime that I have seen". The website Screen Crush listed The End of Evangelion among the most disorienting films in film history. Newtype USA panned it, calling it the "saga of bamboozlement", criticizing its "biblical overtones, teen melodrama and bad parenting", eliciting protests from Manga Entertainment, The End of Evangelion North American distributor. The film's cultural references were praised by other critics, such as Mark Schilling and Chris Luedtke of Passport Cinema, and was defended by writer Brain Camp, who wrote; "Not all great anime is meant to be understood on first viewing ... You don't always have to understand something to enjoy it. A work of great art in a museum or gallery is not always easily understood but one can still be gripped by it." Ryan Atkinson of Cultured Vultures praised the power of the introspective scenes in the final segment, which he said "allow for a deeper understanding that other films have not tried to achieve". Chris Beveridge of Mania.com also judged the density of symbolism positively: "From trash to philosophical enlightenment, action extravaganza to a movie heavy in symbolism. Interpretations will vary greatly, and that to me is a sign of a very good movie." Awards The End of Evangelion was honored at the Awards of the Japanese Academy, the Animation Kobe and the 15th Golden Gloss Award. Legacy According to Dazed magazine, The End of Evangelion was an influence on Wes Anderson's film Isle of Dogs (2018), noting that Anderson was a fan of the original animated series. The fight sequence between Asuka's Eva-02 and the nine Eva Series was a source of inspiration for animators such as Yoshimichi Kameda and Yokota Takumi, character designer of Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club. The film inspired Tetsuya Ogawa of L'Arc~en~Ciel, who wrote a song titled taking cues from Asuka's character, hoping she would be able to express her emotions during the film. The band Parkway Drive used clips from the film for their album Don't Close Your Eyes. Mangaka Nobuhiro Watsuki lauded "the dramatization, the movement, and the editing" of the film and stated that, "As a writer, I was able to take home something from it". Quotations from and references to the film have been identified by critics in the American animated series Steven Universe, in One Hour Photo by Mark Romanek, in the