The "Definitive" Westerner Watch Order for Neon Genesis Evangelion

It's time someone wasn't a coward about this It's Blaugust, which means it's August, which also means that I'm hearing cicadas in full force outside; while usually that causes me to make a post about our song of the same name (I'll do that later), instead this call of the summer insects caught me at a time where I was seeing a fair amount of discourse about the supposed “correct” order to watch seminal anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion going around online....and that means I feel...called to action, shall we say? There's so much misinformation around that a definitive watch order needs to be spelled out for non-Japanese speaking newcomers to the franchise and by god, I'll be the one if I must. Buckle in because this will be time-consuming and a lot of effort yet worth it for the sake of properly experiencing the work: It's vitally important you are not a Japanese speaker for this watch order to function. If you are a Japanese speaker you can try, but will probably have mixed…