Yeah that totally maps with the show, but I would venture a guess and claim the writer was still very much on a downward spiral when he wrote this ****.
100% depressed stuff. Not "depressing", depressed. Heck, even Cowboy Bebop can be more depressing than this stuff. The characters are all pretty much ****ing pathetic from the get go and they don't improve one bit. If there's any real "arc" to the story is some sort of (Hitchhiker's) Marvin's idea of one (“The first ten million years were the worst," said Marvin, "and the second ten million years, they were the worst too. The third ten million years I didn't enjoy at all. After that I went into a bit of a decline.”).
Very interesting ideas in it and I enjoyed the Angels' designs. The last two episodes were unwatchable despite not being terribly written (the storyboards are probably to blame here, lacking completely in quality - and I've noticed the repeat animations, etc., it feels rushed a 1000%). No real closure to the bigger plot, but it doesn't even seem to matter, given how the focus is landed on Shinji's pathetic emotional self-motivational epiphany. Which I guess it's the point of the series? IDK, I feel I can't really care about it other than a little bit of rage against its angst and emo self pity trip.