With the third Angel through to the sixteenth destroyed, SEELE took it upon themselves to instigate the third impact using the seventeenth Angel, Kaoru, created in humanity's image by the secret organisation its self, thus allowing it to realise and manipulate the outcome of the instrumentality of man. With the death of Kaoru, crushed to death at the hands of Unit 01 piloted by Shinji, however, came the death of SEELE's attempt to bring about their goal.

Now that the seventeenth Angel has been eliminated, there's no longer anything to prevent Gendo form achieving his own secret agenda. When Yui died whilst attempting to synchronise with Unit 01, Gendo made use of NERV's resources to contain his wife's soul within a body created in part from an Angel. That body and soul became what is known as Rei. Rei was not created solely for the purpose of acting as a dummy plug for the Eva series, or indeed to fill the emptiness in Gendo's life after his wife's death, Rei was in fact created primarily for the sole purpose of instigating the third impact.

With both the key elements required to initiate the artificial instrumentality of man, that is both Lilith and Rei, and with all seventeen Angels destroyed, Gendo get set to bring about his own vision of the third impact, that is the creation of a single perfect entity formed from the unity of all human souls. In this way Gendo intends to be reunited with his wife, Yui, once more, a selfish act, yet an act blinded by love.

And thus the instrumentality of man begins...

Genesis 0:13/Episode 26 - The Beast That Shouted "I" At The Heart Of The World

To successfully summarise what goes on in this particular episode, and to a large extent the previous one as well, without writting an essay is almost impossible. Both episodes 25 and 26 comprise of a selection of brief animated sequences, static images and text which are mostly pulled from the other previous episodes.

GAINAX has managed to successfully take a firm grasp of its audience's attention from the very beginning of the series, subjecting them to the experiences of each of the series' characters in great detail, in particular those of Shinji, and ultimately promise an ending to end all endings. But is this what you get? Well...sort of.

Writer/director Hideaki Anno twists and turns the plot around completely in the series' final hour delivering a finale with a chronic difference to anything you or I have likely to have seen before. To quote part of an interpretation of the series' finale from an article written by Jonathan Clements in Manga Max ( formally known as Manga Mania to us Brits ) issue 3 on page 30, because I'm stuck for words on this one, And the evil, invading Angels? Oh, they've gone. This was never about them, it was about Shinji, the pilot sent to fight them. These episodes take place inside his head, as he thinks through his place in the universe.

and there you go. I can't really sum up the goings on in this final installment of such a fantastic series, you'll just have to take a risk and go out and buy/rent it and make up your own mind as to whether or not it was worth waiting/paying for. What I can say though, is that if you are expecting all the loose endings to be delt with and neatly tied up, along with a fight sequence to end all Anime giant robot genre fight sequences, a little romance, as well as the vital odd bit of death and destruction, then...you ain't gonna get it. That's what 'End of Evangelion' is for.