Evangelion was intended to end like it did. It was just that the creator of the show is a nut and was all about reviewing Shinji's "character development" as it "progressed" and wound up involved in complementation. But the movies fixed it...i.e., chopped of Eva's nuts in giving it a definitive ending
However, I liked the "happily ever after" of the series ending over the "everybody dies" scenario from End of Eva.
From the "Minuses" section of my Kare Kano review:
Secondly, the ending is horrible, suffering from "we caught up with the manga, let's wrap 'er up and GIT-R-DONE!" syndrome. I really hate this, since it kills everything that they'd been working up to at that point...there were new characters needing development, a new subplot going, etc, and it just plain sucks. However, the story wasn't really about those things: it was all about Arima and Miyazaki's relationship and its progression, so while there was no "happily ever after" ending (the last ep just goes on like business as usual and says, "The End" right after the credits roll) and there were lots of loose ends, it's not as if the most important thing was left unresolved. Plus, there's always the manga (the anime covered the first seven volumes...I found out there's five more after that one with six more on the way) and the potential for an OVA or second season for the show. But despite the shows success, given that it originally aired in 1998 it's looking doubtful to see a return to it.
The lame ending didn't kill the show, but having read the rest of the story in the manga, it's a real shame they didn't get to the play. Then again, it would have been drawn out to the point of being monotonous as the author effectively put the Miyazaki/Arima relationship on hiatus during the culture fest. But the trip to Kyoto (wherever it was they went on their school trip after the fest) would have been the perfect ending point for the series.
