I highly recommend the 1996 interview with Toshio Okada for a perspective on Anno's mindset, the history of the medium, and the uniqueness of the work.

https://www.gwern.net/docs/eva/1996-animerica-conscience-ota...

Also read Azuma's interviews with Anno and especially with Krystian Wozniki--these are very illuminating and will recontextualize your views of Okada and the show as a whole.

If you can hold all of these views in mind, you'll start to understand how Evangelion absorbed so much cinematic power from its cultural moment and forebears. It's a culmination of the medium in some ways. That it did all this while remaining an intensely personal work with an auteur's sense of vision and originality makes it that much more impressive.