10 Movie Openings You're Not Supposed To Understand

The End of Evangelion is both celebrated for its incredible animation and chided for its confusing, willfully abstract storytelling, yet there's perhaps nothing odder or more bemusing in the film than its icky opening scene.

The movie begins with protagonist Shinji visiting his comatose friend Asuka in the hospital, and while desperately trying to shake her awake, he accidentally rips open her shirt, revealing her breasts.

But rather than cover Asuka with a blanket and act like it never happened, like most any decent person might do, he decides to masturbate instead. The scene ends with a close-up shot of Shinji's discharge-covered hand as he tells himself, "I'm the lowest of the low." Yup.

Now, some fans believe that The End of Evangelion - which was created as an alternate finale to the series Neon Genesis Evangelion following a vitriolic fan response - was basically a "f**k you" from creator Hideaki Anno to fans who complained about the TV show's ending.

That would certainly explain the head-scratching inclusion of such a jarring, inexplicable opening scene, even accepting Shinji's deeply fragile mental state at the start of the movie.

Some see it as Anno thumbing his nose at the very notion of fan service - giving the fans the nudity they may have wanted to see, but with a hefty side-order of shame.

Even if you accept that Anno was effectively trolling his own fanbase, many no doubt watched the movie without any awareness of the surrounding drama and were simply left wondering why such a scene begged inclusion at all.