Neon Genesis Evangelion

Neon Genesis Evangelion is set in 2015, fifteen years after a global catastrophe known as the Second Impact wiped out half of humanity.

The story follows fourteen-year-old Ikari Shinji, who is summoned by his estranged father, Gendo Ikari, to pilot a giant bio-mechanical weapon called an Evangelion.

These machines, often called Evas, are humanity’s only effective defense against mysterious beings known as Angels.

Although the series begins as a tense robot-action drama, it gradually shifts into psychological drama, religious symbolism, existential anxiety, and experimental storytelling.

The work became one of the most influential anime of the 1990s.

It helped spark Japan’s third major anime boom, reshaped the late-night anime market, and became a landmark in media-mix production.

The world of Evangelion is still recovering from the Second Impact, a disaster officially explained as a meteor strike but secretly tied to experiments involving a primordial being called Adam.

Humanity’s surviving powers prepare for the arrival of Angels, strange lifeforms that attack the fortress-city of Tokyo-3.

Ikari Shinji is brought to Tokyo-3 by his father, Gendo Ikari, commander of the secret organization NERV.

There, Shinji is ordered to pilot Evangelion Unit-01, despite having no training and almost no emotional connection to his father.

At first, Shinji pilots only because he feels cornered.

Over time, his relationships with Misato Katsuragi, Rei Ayanami, Asuka Langley Soryu, and his classmates push him to keep fighting.

The battles grow increasingly harsh.

Shinji faces not only Angels, but also fear, guilt, rejection, and the terrifying possibility that the adults around him are hiding the true purpose of the Evas.

As the series progresses, the Angels become more abstract and psychological.

The conflict shifts from external warfare to inner collapse, especially as Shinji, Rei, and Asuka confront trauma, loneliness, and identity.

The television series ends with episodes 25 and 26, which largely abandon conventional plot resolution.

Instead, they present the inner world of Shinji and other characters during the activation of the Human Instrumentality Project.

In this ending, Shinji confronts his self-hatred and fear of others.

He eventually accepts the possibility that he may exist in the world, leading to the famous final scene in which the cast congratulates him.

The 1997 film The End of Evangelion offers an alternate or parallel ending.

It shows the physical events surrounding NERV’s destruction, the invasion by SEELE forces, and the catastrophic unfolding of Human Instrumentality.

The film is darker, more violent, and more explicit in depicting the collapse of the world.

It ends with Shinji rejecting a world without boundaries between individuals, choosing instead a painful reality where separate people may hurt one another but can also meet again.

Ikari Shinji

Ikari Shinji is the protagonist and pilot of Evangelion Unit-01.

He is sensitive, withdrawn, and painfully afraid of rejection, making him one of anime’s most discussed main characters.

Shinji’s famous inner refrain, “I mustn’t run away,” reflects both his courage and his inability to escape emotional pressure.

His journey is less about becoming a heroic warrior and more about learning whether he has the right to exist.

Rei Ayanami

Rei Ayanami is the pilot of Evangelion Unit-00.

Quiet, pale, and emotionally distant, she initially appears almost doll-like.

Her identity is one of the series’ central mysteries.

Rei’s connection to Gendo Ikari, Yui Ikari, and Lilith gives her a crucial role in the story’s mythology and ending.

Asuka Langley Soryu

Asuka Langley Soryu is the pilot of Evangelion Unit-02.

She is brilliant, proud, aggressive, and desperate to prove her worth.

Her confidence hides deep trauma and fear of being unwanted.

As the series grows darker, Asuka’s psychological collapse becomes one of its most devastating arcs.

Misato Katsuragi

Misato Katsuragi is NERV’s operations director and Shinji’s guardian.

She is lively, messy, brave, and often funny, but she also carries scars from the Second Impact.

Misato’s warmth makes her a major emotional anchor for Shinji.

At the same time, her unresolved grief and complicated relationships reveal the adult side of Evangelion’s broken world.

Gendo Ikari

Gendo Ikari is Shinji’s father and commander of NERV.

Cold, manipulative, and intimidating, he drives much of the story’s hidden agenda.

His ultimate motivations are tied to Yui Ikari, his dead wife.

Gendo’s distance from Shinji is one of the emotional wounds at the center of the series.

Kaworu Nagisa

Kaworu Nagisa appears late in the television series as the Fifth Children.

Calm, gentle, and strangely open, he quickly forms a deep bond with Shinji.

His true identity as the final Angel forces Shinji into one of the series’ most painful decisions.

Kaworu’s brief appearance had an outsized impact on the franchise’s legacy.

NERV

NERV is the secret military organization responsible for fighting the Angels.

Its headquarters lies beneath Tokyo-3 inside a vast underground space known as the Geofront.

NERV publicly exists to protect humanity.

Privately, it is entangled with the much larger and more secretive Human Instrumentality Project.

SEELE

SEELE is a shadowy organization that oversees NERV and manipulates global events.

Its leaders seek to guide humanity’s evolution according to prophecies connected to the Secret Dead Sea Scrolls.

SEELE’s goals overlap with Gendo’s plans only temporarily.

By the end of the story, the conflict between NERV and SEELE becomes open warfare.

Evangelions

Evangelions look like giant robots, but they are actually armored artificial humans.

They are grown from mysterious biological sources and restrained by mechanical armor.

Each Eva requires a compatible pilot, usually a fourteen-year-old child.

The machines synchronize with their pilots through neural links, meaning physical and emotional damage can be shared.

Angels

Angels are powerful beings that attack Tokyo-3 and NERV headquarters.

They vary wildly in form, from humanoid giants to geometric shapes, microscopic organisms, and psychologically invasive entities.

Each Angel possesses an A.T. Field, a powerful barrier that ordinary weapons cannot easily penetrate.

The Evas can generate similar fields, which makes them humanity’s only practical countermeasure.

Human Instrumentality Project

The Human Instrumentality Project is the secret plan to merge all human souls into a single existence.

Its goal is to eliminate loneliness, fear, misunderstanding, and the pain caused by separate selves.

Evangelion treats this idea with deep ambiguity.

A world without emotional walls may sound comforting, but it also threatens individuality, choice, and genuine connection.

Evangelion is famous for combining mecha action with intense psychological exploration.

Its central concerns include loneliness, depression, parent-child conflict, identity, sexuality, trauma, and the difficulty of communicating with others.

A major recurring idea is the A.T. Field, which functions both as a literal defensive barrier and as a metaphor for the boundary between self and others.

The series asks whether people can truly connect without hurting each other.

Religious imagery from Christianity, Judaism, and Kabbalah appears throughout the work.

Crosses, Angels, Adam, Lilith, the Lance of Longinus, and the Tree of Life are used less as formal theology and more as symbolic, visual, and mythic material.

The series also reflects Hideaki Anno’s own creative and emotional struggles.

Many staff members and critics have noted that the characters seem to contain fragments of Anno’s personality and anxieties.

The project emerged after Gainax’s planned film Aoki Uru was suspended due to financial problems.

Hideaki Anno then moved toward creating an original television anime, eventually developing Evangelion with producer Toshimichi Otsuki.

Early versions of the concept were different from the final series.

The protagonist was initially considered as a girl, and the number and role of the Angels changed during development.

The title evolved from ideas such as “Artificial Human Evangelion.”

The word “Evangelion” was chosen partly because its sound felt strong and memorable.

The production team drew on many influences.

These included Mobile Suit Gundam, Space Battleship Yamato, Devilman, Mazinger Z, Ultraman, tokusatsu staging, psychological literature, and science-fiction novels.

Anno’s earlier work on Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water also left traces.

Some early ideas even suggested a connection between Nadia and Evangelion, although this was not used in the finished setting.

The production schedule became extremely difficult.

By the time the series was airing, later episodes were still being completed under intense pressure.

This pressure contributed to the experimental style of the final episodes.

Still, staff members have also stated that the ending was not merely a collapse caused by lack of time.

It was also a deliberate attempt to push television animation into a more personal and abstract form.

Hideaki Anno served as creator, chief writer, and director.

Yoshiyuki Sadamoto designed the characters, while Ikuto Yamashita and Anno handled mechanical design.

Shiro Sagisu composed the music.

His score ranges from tense military rhythms to jazz, choral grandeur, and melancholy character themes.

The main voice cast included Megumi Ogata as Ikari Shinji, Megumi Hayashibara as Rei Ayanami, Yuuko Miyamura as Asuka Langley Soryu, and Kotono Mitsuishi as Misato Katsuragi.

Other major cast members included Yuriko Yamaguchi as Ritsuko Akagi, Fumihiko Tachiki as Gendo Ikari, Akira Ishida as Kaworu Nagisa, Motomu Kiyokawa as Kozo Fuyutsuki, and Kouichi Yamadera as Ryoji Kaji.

The opening theme, “A Cruel Angel’s Thesis,” was performed by Yoko Takahashi.

Its energetic melody, striking lyrics, and rapid-fire visual editing made it one of the most famous anime songs ever produced.

The ending theme was “Fly Me to the Moon.”

Different versions appeared across episodes, including vocal arrangements by CLAIRE, Yoko Takahashi, and Megumi Hayashibara.

Classical music is also used memorably.

Examples include Handel’s Messiah, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, and Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1.

The television series has 26 episodes.

Early episodes follow a more familiar monster-of-the-week structure, with each Angel battle introducing new tactics, new character dynamics, or new mysteries.

From the middle onward, the series becomes increasingly introspective.

Episodes focus more heavily on memory, fear, identity, and the mental states of the pilots.

The series is also known for visual experimentation.

It uses still images, repeated shots, text cards, unusual camera angles, abrupt edits, internal monologues, and silence to create tension.

The next-episode previews, narrated by Kotono Mitsuishi as Misato Katsuragi, became famous for the playful phrase “Service, service!”

As the story darkened, even that cheerful tone gradually disappeared.

Death & Rebirth

Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death & Rebirth was released in 1997.

It combined a recap of the television series with an incomplete preview of the new ending.

The recap section, Death, rearranged the story in a more reflective form.

The new material, Rebirth, led into what would become The End of Evangelion.

The End of Evangelion

The End of Evangelion was released in July 1997.

It presented episodes 25 and 26 in a more cinematic and plot-explicit form.

The film depicts the attack on NERV, Asuka’s final battle, the awakening of Unit-01, and the apocalyptic completion and rejection of Instrumentality.

It is considered one of the most intense and debated anime films of its era.

Revival of Evangelion

Revival of Evangelion was released in 1998.

It combined the revised recap Death (True)² with The End of Evangelion, offering a consolidated theatrical version of the original Evangelion ending.

In 2006, a new film project called Rebuild of Evangelion was announced.

It retold and transformed the original story with new animation, altered character arcs, new lore, and a different ending.

The four films are Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone, Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance, Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo, and Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time.

The final film was released in 2021 and brought the Rebuild series to a close.

It also served as a major farewell to Evangelion as Hideaki Anno’s long-running personal project.

The best-known manga adaptation was drawn by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto.

It began serialization before the anime aired and continued for many years, ending in 2013, with the final collected volume released in 2014.

The franchise also expanded into novels, video games, parody manga, school-setting spin-offs, pachinko and pachislot machines, stage productions, exhibitions, and merchandise.

One of the notable novels is Evangelion Anima, based on concepts by mechanical designer Ikuto Yamashita.

The alternate “school life” sequence from the television finale inspired later works.

These include games and manga that imagine Shinji, Rei, Asuka, and the others in a more comedic everyday setting.

Evangelion has appeared in many home-video formats, including VHS, LaserDisc, DVD, Blu-ray, and streaming versions.

Several versions of the television episodes exist.

Episodes 21 to 24 received expanded or revised versions for home video, adding scenes and altering pacing.

The television broadcast version, early home-video version, renewal DVD version, and Blu-ray releases each preserve slightly different forms of the work.

Some releases include both the on-air format and the expanded video format.

The series was later distributed internationally through streaming services.

In 2019, Netflix released the television series and the 1997 theatrical films globally, with a new English dub and some music-rights-related changes.

Neon Genesis Evangelion became a social phenomenon in Japan after its original broadcast.

Its popularity grew through reruns, home video, magazines, music releases, and public debate over its ending.

The final television episodes provoked strong reactions.

Some viewers praised their psychological boldness, while others criticized them for abandoning conventional narrative resolution.

The controversy only increased the series’ visibility.

Newspapers, general magazines, critics, sociologists, and television programs discussed Evangelion as more than just an anime.

It became a cultural object linked to youth anxiety, otaku culture, communication problems, and Japan’s post-bubble social mood.

Evangelion helped transform the anime industry.

It demonstrated that television anime could drive strong sales through video releases, music, books, figures, games, and other media.

Its success encouraged more late-night anime.

Reruns of Evangelion showed that adult and older-teen audiences could support anime outside traditional children’s broadcasting slots.

It also influenced storytelling.

Many later works borrowed or reacted against its combination of apocalyptic stakes, adolescent psychology, cryptic symbolism, and emotional isolation.

The term sekai-kei is often connected to post-Evangelion works.

These are stories where a young character’s inner emotional world appears directly tied to the fate of the world.

Neon Genesis Evangelion won the Japan SF Grand Prize, one of Japan’s major science-fiction awards.

It also received recognition at the Japan Media Arts Festival and was voted first in the animation category of the Agency for Cultural Affairs’ “Japan Media Arts 100 Selections.”

The franchise’s films received several honors, including Japan Academy Prize recognition for later Rebuild entries.

Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time won the Japan Academy Film Prize for Animation of the Year.

Music from the franchise also achieved major success.

“A Cruel Angel’s Thesis” became one of the most enduring anime songs in Japanese popular culture and has repeatedly ranked highly in karaoke and music-rights awards.

Neon Genesis Evangelion remains one of the defining anime works of the late twentieth century.

Its mixture of giant monsters, fragile teenagers, religious imagery, military spectacle, and raw psychological confession made it unlike almost anything else on television at the time.

It is remembered not only for its story, but for the way it made viewers argue, theorize, rewatch, and question what anime could express.

Even decades later, its characters, music, imagery, and unanswered questions continue to shape anime culture worldwide.