>>282081572
I think I read there was a misconception. there was always going to be 24 (or 26, I forget) episodes. they didn't "run out" like Evangelion did for their last 2 episodes. this was their budget and constrain and they used their budget accordingly and correctly.
their script and vision was, however, too big for that given amount of episodes, and that explains why all the plot holes are there.

that's me paraphrasing a reddit post which was remembering an obscure interview translated from japanese, so there has probably been some facts lost along the way though.