Neon Genesis Evangelion Forum

I've heard two things about this anime.  It's great and it's super messed up.  I've seen individual episodes late at night when they use to air this on Adult Swim on Cartoon Network but that's all. 
I have seen Elfen Lied and School Days, so I've seen dark animes but i did watch them back to back  and doing so made me dread watching Evangelion.   I have this sense that if I watch Evangelion I'm going to just jump out a window or not be able to sleep for a while. 
I don't like dark animes but everyone seems to say that this is such a masterpiece that I feel I have to watch it.  So should I bite the bullet and watch Evangelion, or can I skip it??

When they say messed up I think they mean messed up like all of the religious symbolism in the art direction and the story, which gets crazy and goofy with it's explanations for a lot of things, or the film which always chooses weirdo pseudo-religious visual metaphor over story comprehension. 
 
Good series though.  If it counts for anything, I've seen and enjoyed School Days and Elfen Lied and really enjoyed Eva despite the stuff I listed earlier. 
 
PS, did you like School Days and Elfen?  You say you're trying to ween yourself away from those types of shows but if you ever get back into them and want something that's gonna leave you feeling blue when it ends or can be depressing along the way, I think you'd love shows like Saikano, Bokurano (I'd rec the manga>anime for somberness) or Myself, Yourself.

 Thanks for the reply.  I liked the story in Elfen but the level of cruelty and viscousness that some of the characters displayed really disturbed me.  As for School Days, I went into it blindly thinking it was more of your standard male protagonist, school themed anime, and it was in the beginning.  But the way the character acted in the end and ended itself kind of made me ill to think about it.  I felt School Days was a good opposition to the numerous happy ending school animes but not something I'd sit down to on a free weekend and watch again. 
 
I've always been a bit soft when it came to psychological animes but if I take it slowly, maybe I can get through it with the least amount of damage.    

has a wonderful art style and a good story it can sometimes be depressing but totally worth it