Murakami's Kafka on the Shore vs the last few episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion FIGHT!

• At any rate, you -- and your theory -- are throwing a stone at a target that's very far away. Do you understand that?
• I know. But metaphors can reduce the distance.
• We're not metaphors.
• I know. But metaphors help eliminate what separates you and me.
• That's the oddest pickup line I've ever heard.

General indifference to narrative norms
Eva: In the end the action shifts entirely into the characters heads. And it's in still frames.
Kafka: At one stage the characters just start driving around town, literally looking for the next plot point.
Advantage: even

Existential whatchame
Kafka: Nakata kills a spirit in human form, because the spirit tells him to. And because the spirit is killing cats.
Eva: Shinji kills a spirit in human form, because the spirit tells him to. And because the spirit's going to destroy humanity.
Advantage: Eva

Potted Freud
Eva: Shinji hates his father, and longs for his mother, and has this weird sexual tension with Rei, who's sort of like his sister and his mother.
Kafka: Kafka kills his father and sleeps with his mother and his sister, although he might not have actually done any of these things, and the people in question might not be related to him at all.
Advantage: Kafka

Mystical forces
Eva: The puny humans fight against angels, and by extension, God.
Kafka: The puny humans are confused by talking cats, Johnnie Walker and Colonel Sanders.
Advantage: Kafka

Use of Beethoven
Kafka: Hoshino discovers classical music upon hearing the Million Dollar Trio's (Rubinstein/Heifetz/Feuermann) recording of Beethoven's Archduke Trio in B flat. (The more educated Oshima prefers the Suk Trio version.)
Eva: Flagrant use of Beethoven's Ninth. On the plus side, you can hear it.
Advantage: Kafka

Throwaway brand-new world ending
Kafka: A new world is created through symbolic questing and human will.
Eva: A new world is created through symbolic questing and human will, and it's sort of explained by pseudoscientific rambling so that makes it OK.
Advantage: Eva

Final round: Kafka is better written and more subtle and meaningful. But Eva has mecha fighting angels.

Winner: Evangelion. Eva will go on to fight the winner of Pokemon Red/Blue and the Misawa-Kawada series.