Then I thank you. You are the ONLY Eva fan I have ever talked to that doesn't act like MMPR or any other number of fans if you even say one bad word about Eva.
It's a Sartre novel with giant robots, you'd have to be
incredibly naive to think most people would like that. Most people don't even like Sartre novels! Evangelion is on the whole too populist for Americans to take seriously as intellectual viewing, and far too morosely intellectual for someone who watches anime purely for entertainment.
I don't like the mecha designs.
I didn't either, myself, but there's a story justification for why the robots look so unusual that is quite interesting. In Japan, people liked the designs just because it was the first genuinely new aesthetic in mechanical design to appear in over a decade.
It's hard to appreciate their impact in retrospect, because right now anime is going through an incredible Renaissance period of creative and unique mechanical design. This was inspired in large part by Evangelion proving that you could get a big hit out of trying something different.
I will say that if you disliked Evangelion you may care to watch Vision of Escaflowne if you haven't before. It came out at around the same time and tackled remarkably similar themes, though in a less harsh and more optimistic fashion.
Its characters are also much more likable people. Evangelion protagonists are generally defined by how they fail and what makes them a terrible person. Escaflowne characters are defined by what they're trying to achieve, even if they don't quite reach their goal.
EDIT: Regarding Macross, the design work is still a triumphant achievement of originality and engineering. The Valkyrie is one of the most beautiful pieces of mechanical design ever created. Macross's character designs superbly blend basic principles of cartooning with the needs of storytelling. People look like their personalities, but not too much.
The actual animation... ahhh, it just wasn't a good-looking series, even given the time. Its budget was clearly poorer than what, say, Sunrise could've raised at that point. There are a lot of animation errors, off-model key frames, and unsightly coloring mistakes you wouldn't encounter in modern anime. Forgive that, though, and you will enjoy a caliber of writing that puts most modern mecha shows to shame.
