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Neon Genesis Evangelion
alt title(s): Evangelion; Neon Genesis Evangelion Central Cast; Neon Genesis Evangelion Supporting Cast; End Of Evangelion; The End Of Evangelion
Raise your hand if you are mentally sound. Anyone?
Attempting to harness the engine of our own destruction... only humans are so foolish.
— Misato Katsuragi

Evangelion is the greatest invention of mankind! It's these really big robots with extension cords which run around and blow up evil Angels.
— Kensuke Aida, Cruel Lina's Thesis

Neon Genesis Evangelion (in Japanese, "Shin Seiki Evangelion", which translates as "New Century Evangelion") is an extremely popular, controversial, and critically acclaimed 26-episode science fiction / action / drama anime series from Studio Gainax, which aired on Japanese television in 1995-96. It was written by Hideaki Anno, already famous for Gunbuster, and character design was done by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, who authors and illustrates the ongoing Evangelion manga. There were also two movies made at the end, Evangelion: Death and Rebirth and End of Evangelion.

Evangelion tells a dark and apocalyptic story:

In the year 2000, Earth was devastated by the destruction of Antarctica during the "Second Impact", a disaster most believe was a meteor strike. Half of humanity died in the Impact and its aftermath, ocean levels rose, and global warming became a fact of life. Fifteen years later, Earth faces a series of attacks by bizarre, gigantic alien creatures called "Angels." The only defense against the Angels is the secret agency NERV and its Evangelions: armored biomechanical giants designed to defend from Angel attack. The only persons who can pilot the Evangelions are a small group of dysfunctional 14-year-olds.

A common thread running through the personalities of all these people is that they feel a great need for love and acceptance, without which they feel incomplete. About half of them are desperately, hopelessly in love with people they can never have, with whom there can be no hope of consummation. Others are attracted to people they're afraid to approach, because they're paralyzed by shyness, self-doubt, and fear of being hurt. Most have lost their parents. And so on. This seems to be part of the philosophical statement Hideaki Anno wanted to make — that people need one another yet fear being hurt, and therefore put up psychological barriers that cause them even more pain as often as not.

Prophecy intertwines with conspiracy as shadowy players on all sides manipulate events and individuals to change the ultimate secret outcome of the Angels' siege.

Although it superficially resembles a classic "giant robots" anime series, Evangelion is in fact a study of individual alienation, betrayal, wheels-within-wheels conspiracies, obsession and apocalyptic fervor. In some scenes it resembles a harem anime, insofar as the main protagonist is constantly surrounded by breathtakingly beautiful women and teenage girls (and his friends frequently comment on this), but whatever feelings these people have are confused and badly expressed. In many episodes, particularly early in the series, there are instances of rather broad physical comedy that make it look like a teen coming-of-age Sit Com (particularly the infamous toothpick holder scene), complete with giant sweat drops and characters face-faulting, but these moments only provide contrast for the terror and hopelessness to come. By the end of the series, no one is laughing.

Its final episodes are among the most controversial television ever broadcast in Japan, if only for an utter incomprehensibility that ranks up there with the ending of The Prisoner. Fan outcry and dissatisfaction resulted in the production of two "concluding" movies: Evangelion: Death and Rebirth, a film consisting of little more than two episodes end to end, Death being a clip show retelling of the series, and Rebirth being the first twenty minutes of the concluding film, End of Evangelion, which simply pushed the horror and despair of the setting to new heights. Despite repeated statements to the contrary, these films are believed by some to be petty revenge on the part of series creator Anno, who some claim reportedly felt so offended by the viewers' complaints that there was no satisfactory "happy ending" to the show that he deliberately turned it into a Wall Banger in which the entire human race is killed off in the most mean-spirited manner imaginable. Others point to evidence (particularly in the episode preview of episode 24) that this was going to be the ending from day one, but that budget deficits prevented it from being made during the show's TV run.

Despite the dark and gruesome ending (freeze-frame play during End of Evangelion can reveal a major character's body being visibly blown to pieces, for example), Evangelion is beautifully crafted, with exquisite attention to art, music and characterization; outstanding voice acting (critics differ sharply on whether the English dub is as good, with passionate proponents both for and against it); and some of the most technically impressive animation ever done. Strong themes of Qabbalistic mysticism and occult Christian eschatology adds an intriguing and different flavor as well.

A set of four new animated Evangelion movies retelling the story are in production; the first was released in Japanese cinemas in September 2007. A live-action adaptation is currently stuck in Development Hell.

Amazingly enough, it's rumored that NGE was intended as nothing more but a real-life Springtime For Hitler work; there wasn't a lot of hope for it, so it was planned to write off the losses in taxation.

Compare Bokurano and Rah Xephon. Contrast Gao Gai Gar, G Gundam and Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (pretty much the polar opposite of Evangelion). For similar anime in general, compare Revolutionary Girl Utena, Boogiepop Phantom, Paranoia Agent, and Serial Experiments Lain.

This show provides examples of:

  • Accidental Pervert (Shinji's first actual conversation with Rei starts with this)
  • Action Mom (Yui Ikari...sort of. Kyoko Zeppelin Sohryu...for about five minutes.)
  • Adaptation Distillation (Rebuild of Evangelion. Possibly.
    • So far, it's also hard to tell whether it's Lighter And Softer or Darker And Edgier. The first Rebuild movie does seem even more violent (both physically and psychologically) than the original, but Misato seems more overtly nice to Shinji and we don't know yet how far the school antics and Tsundere slapstick will go.
  • Adaptation Expansion (The manga details more of the odd relationship between Shinji and Rei, as well as giving Kaji a tragic backstory and making Kaworu much more prominent. Asuka's screentime, however, suffers a bit of a cutdown, although her introduction establishes her as more of a Bad Ass.)
  • A God Am I
  • AI Is A Crapshoot (Mostly averted; the MAGI computers never turn evil, but the most human of them betrays Ritsuko at the worst possible moment . Subverted with the Evas when you find out they aren't actually robots. They are pretty much all the monster tropes combined, too.)
  • The Alcoholic (Misato)
  • Alien Geometries (Leliel. The Rebuild version of Ramiel also pulls out some crazy impossible geometry while transforming.)
  • All Just A Dream (episodes 25 and 26, and large segments of the second half of Eo E)
  • Alternate Character Interpretation (Intentional on the creator's part, but especially noteworthy in some cases: is Gendo a manipulative monster, a misunderstood genius, a loving but misguided father who wants to make his son strong, the show's biggest Woobie, or a mix of the four? Is Yui a soft and idealized mother / Virgin Mary figure (close to being being the series' Canon Sue), the actual manipulative monster who's responsible for messing up Shinji, Gendo and the fate of the world, or just off her rocker? Is Shinji a neurotic, obnoxious "wimp", a normal person dealing with impossibly overwhelming odds, or actually a courageous young hero? Is he "pure" or a pervert with Yandere tendencies? Since we're at it, is Shinji similar to Gendou, his polar opposite (say what you want, but Shinji isn't mean and never hurts people on purpose), or a complex mix of the two?)
  • Alternate Continuity (especially noticeable in the video games and mangas Girlfriend of Steel 2 and Ikari Shinji Raising Project as well as in the new manga Neon Genesis Evangelion Gakuen Datenroku (Evangelion Academy).)
  • Alternate Universe (In the omake at the end of End of Evangelion, and during the Third Impact sequence in episode 26; the latter has of late become an official Elseworld with its own manga.)
  • All There In The Manual (There are a few guidebooks that attempt to elucidate the series. Given that it's intentionally left up to the reader, they are less than helpful.)
  • Ancient Conspiracy (SEELE.)
  • Anime Anatomy (Played straight, averted, and subverted, depending on which part or version of the story you're talking about)
  • Anyone Can Die
  • Apocalypse Of The Week
  • Applied Phlebotinum (...where do we start!?)
  • Author Appeal (you might notice that in most anime directed by Anno, people are in love / go out / have sex with someone either much younger or much older than them. Misato-Kaji is almost an anomaly here — but Misato has a crush on Shinji, of all people, and Kaji gets sexually harassed by Asuka. You have to wonder...)
    • The Judaeo-Christian overtones, giant Adams etc probably also count as Author Appeal, when you compare Eva to Nadia The Secret Of Blue Water. So do the angsty characters, ethical debates about biotechnologies, etc.
    • Not to mention all the hands.
  • Awesome But Impractical (applies to pretty much every bit of technology NERV owns. In universe: the Jet Alone. Powered by a nuclear reactor, but without the Eva's AT field.)
  • Badass Decay (Manga Gendou is quite overtly emo compared to his anime version. Might also count as Villain Decay. Asuka, for some, has suffered the same fate.)
  • Baka (part of Asuka's catchphrase. According to her, Shinji, Kensuke and Touji are also the "stupid trio.")
  • Bandage Babe (Rei)
  • Because Destiny Says So (According to the Dead Sea Scrolls. There is, however, an interesting interplay between destiny and human will.)
  • Beginners Luck (Shinji, subverted in several ways.)
  • Best Beer Ever (Misato.)
  • Berserk Button Shinji's button is pressed in Rebuild 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance when Rei is DEVOURED by Zeruel, and Shinji decides to take a page from Kamina and RIPS THE ANGEL TO PIECES with glowing eyes of rage to save her. A Crowning Moment of Awesome ensues.
  • Be Yourself
  • Big Damn Heroes (Shinji in episode 19 when the Angel Of The Week is trashing Central Dogma and suddenly Unit One crashes through the wall and Shinji kicks arse! Whatever else he does in the series, just this once he gets to be the hero.)
  • Bilingual Bonus (for example, the last episode is titled "The Beast That Shouted "I" at the Centre of the World." The fact that "I" is pronounced the same way as "ai," the Japanese word for "love," triggers a second meaning.)
  • Bishonen (multiple, most notably Kaworu. Shinji's level of bishie-ness (or non-bishie-ness) is very polarizing in the fandom.)
  • Bittersweet Ending (Episode 24. The Angels are gone and mankind is safe... but Tokyo-3 has been ruined, Kaji is dead; Touji is a cripple; Kensuke, Hikari, and their families have moved away, taking Pen-Pen with them; Asuka is catatonic; Ritsuko is in prison; Misato is a nervous wreck; Rei is no longer the person everyone knew; and Shinji is utterly psychologically broken after having to kill the only person who has offered him unconditional love in the whole series.)
  • Black Box (The Angels are described this way by the scientists "not in the know"; they also complain about how dangerous using the S2 organ is, since they know nothing about it.)
  • Blue With Shock (Several instances.)
  • Book Ends (The bookend Reis, one in the first episode and the other in the movie.)
  • Bottle Fairy (Misato.)
  • Brand X (See Shout Out entry below.)
  • Break The Cutie (Every last character you found the faintest bit sympathetic, in End of Evangelion, and several other instances that begin much earlier. Shinji and Asuka (especially Shinji) embody this trope.)
  • Breaking The Fourth Wall (Both the original ending and Evangelion: Death include visual references to a theatre stage. The End of Evangelion has a live-action sequence, which includes live-action equivalents of several of the characters. The latter is even described as being a "dream" and "not Shinji's reality," hence the postmodern overtones of the movie.)
    • Before the live-action sequence, Shinji is shown playing by himself...it appears to be a flashback to his childhood until the camera backs up and shows that he's under stage lighting.
  • Bridge Bunnies (Subverted; two of them are male)
  • But Not Too Foreign (Asuka.)
  • Butt Monkey (Shinji, subverted in that what happens to him is more horrific than funny)
  • Captain Ersatz (Evangelion 's characters have been used as the basis for many animes' casts:
  • Casanova / Leisure Suit Larry / Handsome Lech (Kaji, depending on how you interpret his behavior around the ladies.)
  • Cash Cow Franchise (God in Heaven, help us.)
  • Catch Phrase (Shinji is constantly saying "I mustn't run away!"; also Asuka's repeated refrain of "What are you, stupid?" Let's also not forget all the times when Gendo tells Fuyutsuki to "handle the rest of this")
  • Child Soldiers, who are even called "Children" both individually and collectively.
  • Christmas Cake (Misato and Ritsuko. They aren't happy about this.)
  • Clingy Jealous Girl (Asuka in the presence of Kaji. Also, Misato gets quite jealous whenever Kaji runs off to flirt with another woman.)
  • Complete Monster (Gendo Ikari. Dear god Gendo Ikari. SEELE, to an even greater extent.)
  • Conspicuous CG (Rebuild of Evangelion.)
  • Cooldown Hug (Shinji broke down and started crying in the movie only because Asuka caressed his face.)
    • Actually the whole "strangle to caress" is lifted from the Lawrence Fishburne movie of "Othello", Shinji just stops.
  • Cosmic Horror (Strongly evoked by the Angels.)
  • Cosmopolitan Council (The members of SEELE.)
  • Creator Breakdown (So much of it, it actually originated from Creator Breakdown.)
  • Creepy Cool Crosses
  • Cross Dressing Voices (Shinji Ikari is voiced by Megumi Ogata, and Pen-Pen by Megumi Hayashibara.)
  • Cross Popping Veins (Asuka, continuously; also Misato, whenever she finds Kaji flirting with and/or groping another woman.)
  • Cute Shotaro Boy (Child Shinji. Actually, teen Shinji, in some interpretations.)
  • Cyber Cyclops (Unit 00.)
  • Cyberpunk (Evangelion has quite a few cyberpunk and post-cyberpunk traits.)
  • Deconstruction (the show is so postmodern the leaders of the superflat movement claim it as one of its precursors. Now that's some homage...)
  • Defrosting Ice Queen (arguable interpretations for both Rei and Asuka, depending on how the trope itself is interpreted)
  • Deus Angst Machina
  • Disney Death (Rei Except she actually did die, it's just a clone)
  • Dissonant Serenity (Kaworu is a perfect example of this. Not only does he smile a lot despite the fact that he is introduced at a moment in which events have taken a turn for the tragic, he even manages to smile as he asks Shinji to kill him.)
  • Doctor Jekyll And Mister Jack Daniels (Misato, but it's hard to tell. Is she ever sober?)
  • Does This Remind You Of Anything (The less said about the points related to Freud Was Right, the better.)
  • Double Agent
  • Dont Look At The Camera
  • Dont You Dare Pity Me (Asuka)
  • Downer Ending - Maybe
    • An undeniable Downer Ending was in planning for End at some point. It starts with Shinji laying on the beach while holding hands with someone. He notices that he will probably never see his friends again, but that he also will keep on living anyways. He then squeezes the hand he is holding and sees a short flash of Rei. It is then revealed that nobody is lying next to him, and the hand he is holding belongs to that arm Rei lost ealier in the film.
  • Draco In Leather Pants (Gendo has a disturbing amount of female followers in Fan Fic; Kaworu is a more debatable example -at least the "Draco" part.)
    • Hey, at least let's call ourselves lucky for Kiel not to be a Draco... Oh noooo he must be, there is no God after all!
  • Driven To Suicide (Asuka. Asuka's mom. Ritsuko. Ritsuko's mom. Rei makes a heroic near-sacrifice that inflicts some pretty severe wounds, which heal quickly thanks to Angel super healing powers.)
  • Dropped A Bridge On Him (Just about everybody in End of Evangelion. Asuka deserves a special mention, though. Oh, the pain.)
  • Dude Shes Like In A Coma (First subverted in Asuka's second chapter, when Shinji tries to kiss her but stops when he hears her call for her mom in her dreams; however, she slaps him for trying to kiss her. Then, in End of Evangelion, Shinji wanks over a comatose Asuka).
    • The manga brutally subverts the latter instance: at first, Shinji is at Asuka's bedside, exhorting her to get up. He may try to do something more, wank or no, but then Asuka finally turns her head to him slightly, her first conscious action in weeks... and then she leaps out of bed and attempts to strangle him to death in the exact same manner her mother did to her a decade prior.
  • Dynamic Character (a few of the characters are dynamic and rounded)
  • Dysfunction Junction (...where do we START!?)
  • Early Bird Cameo (Kaworu already appears at the end of Rebuild 1.0. Also, in the manga, he first appeared in the last pages of volume 7.)
  • Easter Egg (Spike Spencer (Shinji's English dubber)'s famous comment about the original ending from Shinji's POV, which includes gems such as "W-what's an Eva? Is that sort of a Freudian thing, or... um... am I real?" and "I mustn't run away, I mustn't run — okay, I got that, good, okay, now if I were to run away, let's analyze that, where the fuck would I go!?".)
  • The Eeyore (Shinji.)
  • Empathic Weapon (Deconstructed; Shinji's empathy with his Eva is psychologically dysfunctional. For example, Shinji describes Unit 01's destruction of the possessed Unit 03 along the lines of "Father used my own hands to hurt Touji," despite the fact that (a) it was the Eva's hands, not his own hands, and (b) he was not in control of the Eva at the time; the dummy plug was. Apparently, piloting a mentally-controlled Humongous Mecha messes with your mind real good.)
    • When Shinji fights Unit 02 under the control of Kaworu, he says an apology to Asuka. In this case Shinji can't see Eva 02 as just a machine; he sees it as an extension of Asuka, so that attacking Eva 02 is at some level equivalent to attacking Asuka.
      • Prior to the last entry, this troper had originally thought that the apologies were simply because Shinji was having to damage Asuka's Eva.
  • Enforced Method Acting (Megumi Ogata was told by Anno to literally strangle Miyamura Yuko in the recording room when Shinji dreamed about strangling Asuka in End of Evangelion.)
  • The End Of The World As We Know It (Except it happens. Depending on which ending you watch.)
  • End Of The World Special (End.)
  • Epileptic Trees (if you thought that the show was disturbing and insane, you clearly haven't read the Fan Wank...)
  • Erotic Dream
  • Even The Guys Want Him (Shinji). He manages to attract quite a bit of attention from the angel Kaworu Nagisa. He even outright admits to Shinji that he loves him at one point, not to mention the bath they had together, the hand holding, and the sleepover. And that's without mentioning how much more aggressive and upfront his manga counterpart is about his feelings for Shinji. In addition to that, it's been made apparent in the series that even though Asuka is very hostile towards him, she actually desperately craves his attention. Also, Rei develops feelings for him, and Misato gives him an "adult kiss" in End Of Evangelion (the obvious intention is to bribe him into fighting with a promise of sex, but given the massive amounts of subtext the series built up between them...).
  • Everyone Is Jesus In Purgatory (Works particularly well. Shinji as a pathetic messiah/Jesus figure; Yui as Rei Ayanami's "virgin mother"; Gendou as Judas or Satan, or alternately as the tyrannical God of the Ancient Testament; angels/apostles; crosses... It's hard to tell whether the Eva verse is meant as a kind of Hell or as a purgatory, though...)
  • Everythings Better With Penguins (Pen-Pen, whose purpose is purely to lighten the mood.)
  • Exploding Calendar (episode 9 montage)
  • Expy (Ritsuko, Asuka, and Kensuke are similar to Electra, Grandis, and Jean from Nadia The Secret Of Blue Water, respectively. Shinji is Nadia with a haircut and much lighter skin◊. Also, Asuka may be viewed as a partial expy of Jung Freud of Bustgunner Gunbuster fame.)
    • Additionally, the later Gainax productions FLCL and Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann seem to exist to represent how Shinji would have turned out if he was raised more successfully. Gainax staff have said that while creating the male protagonists for their recent major productions they asked themselves how Shinji would have turned out if he had been brought up in different circumstances.
    • The Evas themselves are loosely based on the God Warriors, giant radioactive cyborgs from Hayao Miyazaki's Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind, which Anno worked on during his brief stint as an animator for Studio Ghibli.
      • It's interesting to note that Anno had even planned to do a side story focusing on Princess Kushana, but was refused permission by Miyazaki, who disagreed with the level of violence and militarism in Anno's vision. Elements of Kushana's character informed the creation of Asuka, however, and the infamous "doll scene" is taken almost verbatim from a similar incident that occured earlier in the manga version of Nausicaa.
  • Eyepatch Of Power This "upgrade" happens to Asuka after the events of Rebuild 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance. God save us from the tsundere that is to be unleashed.
  • Eye Scream (A few times. Sachiel pierces Unit 01's right eye all the way to the other side of the skull. The End Of Evangelion scene where Unit 01 bursts through a giant Rei eye has come to symbolize for many how much of a MindScrew End is. Also from End: the scene where the MP Eva's Lance of Longinus hits Unit 02 in the face, and the resultant injury to Asuka.)
  • Face Fault
  • Family Unfriendly Violence (So much it is rumoured the series generated a reinforcement of censorship laws in Japan.)
  • Fan Dumb (dear God, THE Fan Dumb!)
  • Fan Disservice (various scenes).
    • Shinji masturbating over a comatose Asuka is basically the epitome of this.
  • Fan Haters
  • Fan Service (Misato, Asuka, Rei)
    • The show lampshaded this in each of the "next episode" previews, as Misato always promised "more fanservice!".
  • Fan Nickname
    • "Tang" for LCL
    • Mindrape. Trope namer.
    • GNR, or Giant Naked Rei, for the skyscraper-sized [[glowing white naked Rei that Lilith transforms into]]
      • Also Mini Giant Naked Rei, Giant Giant Naked Rei, Regular Naked Rei, and Giant Naked Kaworu, all of which are unique and distinct entities. MGNR is what Unit 00 transforms into before blowing up in the Director's Cut of Episode 23. GGNR is the planetary-sized GNR that pops straight out of the Earth, grows wings of light, and collects all of humanity's souls. RNR is just Rei without clothing, like in episode 5. GNK is the large white Kaworu that sprouts out of GNR.
    • EMK, or Evil Manga Kaworu, for the Kaworu who kills a kitten in the manga
      • "every time you masturbate, Kaworu kills a kitten"
    • "Stay-Puft Marshmallow Woman" for Lilith
    • "Yui-sama" for Unit 01
    • "Uberpimp" for Gendo
    • "Harpies" for Evangelion units 05-13
  • Fanon (No, Gendou and Kouzou never actually have a drinking party in the series. And no, Shinji isn't some kind of sex master, thank you very much. Also, for heaven's sake, Shinji and Kaworu never really get into a relationship in Canon.)
  • Fan Wank (horrifying amounts of it)
  • Fatal Flaw (most of the characters have at least one)
  • Fearful Symmetry (The angel Israfel, in the episode "Both of You, Dance Like You Want to Win!")
  • Fear Leads To Anger (multiple characters)
  • Feed Me
  • Femme Fatale (Misato, Rei, Asuka)
  • First Church Of Mecha (Evas were made as a substitute for God, apparently.)
  • First Kiss (subverted; Shinji and Asuka kiss, but it's painfully unromantic, it doesn't lead anywhere, and she never does stop bullying him.)
  • Five Rounds Rapid
  • Flash Back (especially on Episode 21)
  • Flanderization (All the characters get this treatment in the Fan Fic community; some are more baseless than others.)
  • Foe Yay (Shinji and Kaworu.)
    • Except that they were friends for at least a day, and foes for about 3 minutes. Definitely more Ho Yay than Foe Yay.
  • Four Is Death (Eva Unit 04 explodes on its activiation test. Given that it's Evangelion we're talking about...).
  • Freudian Excuse (Oh boy, where to begin?)
    • Shinji, who as a 4 year old witnessed his mother's apparent death in an experiment with Unit 01 and was subsequently abandoned by his father.
    • Rei, who is at least somewhat aware that she is a clone. "I can be replaced", indeed.
    • Misato who hates her father who never was there for his family because of his work, but can't help but admire him at the same time because he used the last minutes of his life to save hers. This also factors into why she broke up with Kaji; he reminded her too much of her father.
    • And then there is Asuka, whose mother went insane after an experiment with Unit 02, started to talk to a doll like it was Asuka, at some point asked Asuka to die together with her, and in the end commited suicide together with the doll, leaving Asuka to find her. Oh yeah, and her father had an affair with her mother's doctor, to the point where they even had sex in the hospital within earshot of Asuka. And just to top it all of, he ended up marrying the doctor shortly after his wife's suicide. It's even worse in the manga.
    • Contrary to what some writers might lead a reader to believe, the other characters are mostly well-adjusted and stable, or at least don't go insane until well into adulthood (ruling out Freudian excuse).
      • Some of them are still fourteen.
  • Freud Was Right (arguably the crux of the plot.)
  • Gainax Ending (One of the defining examples.)
  • Gainaxing (Misato)
  • Gender Flip (Several fans have theorized that the three leads are examples; noting how few would speak ill of◊ a sad little Moe Shinji, Hot Blooded Jerk Ass Asuka, and The Stoic Rei were they the opposite genders. This Video shows a nice example of that idea. )
  • Genius Ditz (A possible interpretation for Misato.)
  • Giant Eye Of Doom (Shinji comes face to face with his Eva, in episode 2. Here's looking at you, kid.)
  • Girlish Pigtails (Asuka, Hikari)
  • Glomp (fascinating Asuka-on-Kaji assaults.)
  • Gonna Fly Now Montage (Shinji and Asuka training for the second battle with the Seventh Angel.)
  • Good Morning Crono (Spoofed in the final episode, when Shinji is shown what his life could have been like — a cliche shounen series.)
  • Gory Discretion Shot ( All that is shown of Kaworu's death in the anime is the silhouette of his head falling into the LCL lake. The manga represents his death as Shinji strangling him in a field similar to where they first met.)
  • Government Conspiracy
  • Grasp The Sun (Asuka plays this straight in the End of Evangelion. Painfully straight.)
  • Gratuitous Foreign Language ("Giant staroke Entary!" "You ah numbah one!" "Bohdahline cleah!")
  • Hair Colors (Misato, Rei, Kaworu)
  • Half Human Hybrid
  • Hermetic Magic
  • Heroic BSOD (Shinji and Asuka, towards the end of the series, are the king and queen of this trope, though it's debatable who's the king and who's the queen.)
  • Heroic Sacrifice (Multiple, and subverted in some cases.)
  • Hes Back (played straight with Shinji; subverted with Asuka, who comes out of her coma, but simply dies fighting 5 minutes later.)
  • Hidden Eyes (Shinji and Asuka on various occasions; Shinji's uncle, aunt, and bullies in the manga. Yui does this a few times, too.)
  • High Pressure Blood (Holy mother of God, the Angels bleed rivers. In the first episode alone, Unit 01 sprays for a good five seconds from both sides of a head wound. Apparently Evangelions have a very high blood pressure. It gets even worse in the new movie, where Ramiel, the octahedral, laser-firing, and now shape-shifting Angel, takes a shot fired from Unit 01 through what appears to be thin air, screams like hell, and sprays enough blood out to cover a two-story building and paint a countryside a nice shade of red. And that's just getting started.)
    • Justified, perhaps, when you consider how much blood there is in something taller than office buildings and what's needed to move it around.
      • And when you consider how much pressure is required to pump blood all the way up to the heads of those things...
  • Hit Me Dammit (Touji tells Shinji Ikari to hit him as a "macho" way of apologizing. The manga adaptation subverts the trope, with Shinji deciding it'd be more interesting to have Touji owe him one instead. In Rebuild, he actually hits Touji right away.)
  • Hive Mind (Instrumentality)
  • Hot Blooded (Asuka; Misato is a milder case.)
  • Hot Scientist
  • Ho Yay (Shinji and Kaworu. It's not a stretch at all to think Gainax deliberately played on [and cashed in on!] the fujyoshi fantasm.)
    • Some will also say the relationship between Gendou and Kouzou is loaded with subtext/vibes. Amusing as the idea may be, it's not canon, though you can really imagine what you want with Eva...
  • Humongous Mecha (The Evas)
  • The Idiot From Osaka (Shinji's friend Touji)
  • I Just Want To Be Special (Kensuke)
  • Immune To Bullets
  • Impaled With Extreme Prejudice ( [1]ed to Gorn levels with Asuka's death in End of Evangelion.)
  • Incest Is Relative (Shinji's attraction to Rei, and vice versa.)
  • Instrumentality (The Trope Namer.)
  • Internet Backdraft (Evangelion generates so much heated debate that some forums forbade launching threads about it.)
  • It Got Worse (Boy howdy, does it ever.)
  • It Has Been An Honor (Makoto Hyuuga to Misato.)
  • It Was His Sled (arguably, "everyone gets hugged and turns into Tang.")
    • Also: the Evas are their moms (though many long-time fans haven't figured this out yet).
  • Jerk Ass (Asuka, though she sometimes combines it with Jerkass Facade; Gendou; Toji at first.)
  • Karmic Death ( Gendou Ikari, if any, did deserve a good metaphorical smacking from the cosmos and his death [provided that it isn't just a remorse-fueled hallucination ] drips of poetic justice.)
  • Kavorka Man (Gendou; spoofed in ReDeath, where he actually uses UN-funded research to become the ultimate pimp. Shinji has quite the kavorka too, as he is fourteen, lacks self-confidence and social skills to a spectacular extent, isn't particularly handsome and still has a pretty huge Unwanted Harem. Let's see: Asuka, Misato, Rei, Mana in ''Evangelion: Second Impression," possibly Kaworu. And then he'll complain that nobody loves him...)
  • Kid Hero (Deconstructed. Shinji suffers a mental breakdown under the pressure of being the designated hero.)
  • Killed Off For Real ( Kaji. Later, everyone else.)
  • Kill Em All (in End of Evangelion, though possibly subverted — it looks like a Kill Em All at first, but is revealed to be a potential Everybody Lives instead.)
  • Kotono Mitsuishi (Misato)
  • Kuudere (Rei; Ritsuko.)
  • Last Stand
  • Les Yay (Maya seems to have a crush on Ritsuko. Also played with with Asuka and Rei in official art, even though they're far from being on friendly terms in the series.)
  • Lethal Chef (Borderline.)
  • The Libby (Asuka is basically this without the minions or blond hair, and with the bitchiness cranked Up To Eleven)
  • Living Shadow (Leliel, the 12th Angel.)
  • Locked In A Room (Kaji and Misato in an elevator during the attack by the Ninth Angel.)
  • Loser Guy (Shinji)
  • Lotus Eater Machine (At some level, the Evas. Some of the Angel's attacks (notably Leliel's, Arael's, and Armisael's) and Instrumentality are this.)
  • Love Dodecahedron (played for angst rather than laughs.)
  • Love It Or Hate It: There's probably some Hype Backlash in play for the latter.
  • Love Makes You Evil (...and that man's said evil makes the whole world suffer)
  • Lyrical Dissonance (Komm Susser motherfucking Todd in End of Evangelion.)
  • Magical Computer (appropriately, the MAGI.)
  • Magic From Technology
  • Mama Bear (All the Evas, but particularly Unit 01 to Shinji)
  • The Man Behind The Man
  • Manipulative Bastard (Gendo.)
  • Marshmallow Hell (Misato accidentally does this to Shinji when they, along with Asuka, Touji, Kensuke, and Kaji are stuck in a too-small elevator.)
  • Mask Power (Gendo and his little round eyeglasses.)
  • The Masochism Tango (Shinji and Asuka's "relationship.")
  • Meaningful Name (A few. "Shinji" ironically evokes the words for "truth" or "to believe;" "rei" can mean, among other things, "zero," "ghost" and "cold;" "yui" puns on Rei, of course and, by Word Of God, on the word "yui" meaning "the only one").) Shinji's name is even punned on in Rebuild 1.0; Misato exhorts Gendo to "believe in his own son", invoking of course the word shinji. Finally, the Japanese word given to the Angels, "shito," actually means "apostle" or "messenger"... and sounds very close to the Japanese word for "person" or "human being," "hito.") "Ikari" uses the character for "anchor" (part of the nautical theme), but with a different character would be "wrath" or "anger" and "Gendo" is "limit" or "boundary."
  • Medium Blending (The live action scenes in The End of Evangelion.)
  • Megumi Hayashibara (Rei, Yui and Pen-Pen; she also performs Mana Kirishima in the Evangelion videogame Girlfriend of Steel. In a rare case, she doesn't sing the opening theme, although she does sing a couple versions of the closing song. There also exist at least two versions of the opening theme sung by her, but neither were actually broadcast.)
  • Memetic Mutation (Everyone gets hugged and turns into Tang; Kaworu kills kittens; Robo-Shinji; Shinji sucks; who killed Ryouji Kaji; Kaworu died for your sins; Neon Gender Evangelion and other gender swap Fan Videos; "GENDOWNED" became both famous and copied to death after its 'debut' in AMV Hell 2; the spoof video Evangelion: Re Death gave us the incredibly popular "It's Gendo!" line. Then there's the unholy union of Evangelion and well-known memes from other fandoms, such as the Evangelion Caramelldansen videos, photoshopping Kamina's shades on Shinji and the "Just as planned" Gendou demotivator◊. Also, "[anime X] + the Evangelion opening, lulz" is already an old meme.)
  • Messianic Archetype (Shinji even has a few "temptation scenes" involving the choice of rejecting the world completely and being Tanged forever. Granted, he's a darkly ironic and/or pathetic kind of messiah.)
  • MIB
  • Million To One Chance: Ritsuko likes to predict that there's a 0.[long string of zeroes]1% chance of Misato's plan succeeding, with lower probabilities as the series progress.
  • Mind Rape (the Trope Namer, Asuka's Original Mind Rape).
  • Mind Screw (And how! It practically defines the Mindscrew "genre" for anime and manga and it's difficult to avoid mentioning it while talking about Mindscrew animes.)
  • Misaimed Fandom (though what part of the fandom is misaimed is up for tremendous debate).
  • Misaimed Marketing (Gainax makes George Lucas look like a marketing prude. Care to buy a Rei hentai statue, a "petit Eva" videogame or a Lilith-shaped plate with a Longinus spear-shaped fork? Or maybe a Nerv necktie and a Kaworu cushion?)
  • Mission Control (Straight down to spewing technobabble purely for the sake of the viewer.)
  • Mix And Match (Humongous Mecha + dark psychological drama)
  • Moe Moe (Quite a bit of what modern moe fetishists chase after was inspired by Rei. Also, Shinji can be quite Moe depending on your interpretation.)
  • The Momo (no relation)
  • Monster Of The Week (The Angels.)
  • Mood Whiplash
  • Moral Event Horizon (Gendo, episode 18.)
  • Most Common Superpower
  • Multinational Team (Sort of.)
  • Murderer POV ( Kaji's death.)
  • Myth Arc (A small one, at that.)
  • Narm (surprisingly little, but the fact that being reduced to LCL is accompanied by an audible "pop" is hilarious.
  • Nightmare Fuel/ High Octane Nightmare Fuel (Pick your poison. There's the bit where we learn rather vividly that the Evas are alive, there's Asuka's Mind Rape, there's The Reveal of Rei's secret and her Transformation Trauma, and there's pretty much everything in End of Evangelion.)
  • Non Indicative First Episode (Anno reportedly complained about the first episode being "a failure" and out of tune with the rest. It was supposed to create an atmosphere of total despair.)
  • No Periods Period (Painfully averted with Asuka in both the anime and the manga. Rei, on the other hand, is implied not to menstruate.)
  • Nuclear Weapons Taboo (assuming that N2 mines are non-nuclear; see Word Of Dante.)
  • Oedipus Rex (Shinji / Gendo.)
  • Omniscient Council Of Vagueness (SEELE is almost a caricature.)
  • Omniscient Morality License (The End Of Evangelion suggests that Yui Ikari has this; of course, also depends on where you rate the character on the 'innocent vs. manipulative' scale. Shinji's other two SpiritAdvisors, Rei Ayanami and Kaworu Nagisa, may have this too. In the original ending, Gendou Ikari may have this at a more metaphorical level, seeing as he obviously represents God and more generally, the father archetype.)
  • Only Six Faces (So much that almost all the young characters have the same face shape and Maya looks like Shinji...)
  • Only You Can Repopulate My Race (If Shinji and Asuka don't learn to at least like each other quick smart, humanity is doomed.)
    • If no one else comes back, humanity's doomed anyway since two people can't feasibly repopulate a world by themselves.
  • Oracular Urchin (borderline; Rei clearly knows more than she lets on, though she only rarely speaks.)
  • Ordinary High School Student (Shinji, at the beginning. On the other hand, his family past is such that he could never have had an ordinary life to begin with, which Kaji makes amply clear in the manga.)
  • Otaku (Shinji's friend Kensuke, who is a military otaku.)
  • Our Angels Are Different (And how! Ironically, these are a lot closer to the actual, very trippy angel descriptions in The Bible, such as "beryl-coloured wheel within a wheel, each rim covered with eyes" and the like.)
  • Out Of Clothes Experience
  • Panty Shot (Played straight in episode 8: Asuka + sun dress + breeze = "viewing fee". Implied in the Alternate Universe sequence in episode 26, when Rei thinks Shinji looked up her skirt. Played semi-straight in the manga, when Toji tries to teach Shinji how to turn cleaning the stairs into a peeping opportunity and gets caught by Hikari.)
  • Parental Abandonment (Both played straight and deconstructed.)
  • Peeka Boo (The toothpick holder scene.)
  • Pettanko (Asuka in most of the original artworks by Sadamoto and in much of the manga. Her chest seems to grow and shrink on demand...)
    • In episodes 9 and 10 of the anime, by contrast, she displays the Most Common Super Power. Same in adaptations such as Shinji Ikari Raisong Project.
  • Pillar Of Light (Lots of 'em, and cross-shaped, at that.)
  • Poirot Speak (Asuka in the Mexican dub.)
  • Possession Implies Mastery (significantly averted: Unit 01 keeps going out of control and doing things that Ritsuko and her staff can hardly believe. This is presumably because NERV didn't so much "invent" the Evas as copy them from the Angels that they possess.)
  • Precursors left Adam and Lilith on Earth, according to one video game that pretty much just exists to deliver supplemental material.
  • Product Placement (Evangelion: 1.0 contains a shot of a can of UCC coffee. Also, Yebisu/Yebichu beer. The manga has UCC Coffee and Coca-Cola vending machines.)
  • Rage Against The Heavens
  • Raging Stiffie (Shinji in the Alternate Universe.)
  • Raised By Wolves (Rei — who was actually raised by Gendo, which is almost the same thing.)
  • Readings Are Off The Scale
  • Redemption Equals Death (Subverted in gruesome ways.)
  • Red Oni Blue Oni (Asuka and Rei, who've taken up where Kei and Yuri left off and ran with it. 3-4 paired figure sets a year for more than a decade. Also notice that their hair and eye colors are inverted — Rei's red eyes and blue hair vs. Asuka's blue eyes and red hair — and even their Evas are blue and red)
  • Replacement Goldfish (one interpretation of Rei)
  • Riding Into The Sunset (Occurs in a very odd and somewhat disturbing fashion in EoE as after Instrumentality is overturned, Unit 01, fossilized and still carrying Yui's soul, flies into space accompanied by the Lance of Longinus, beginning its "eternal reminder" journey)
  • Room Full Of Crazy (post-its all over the guts of the Magi; quantum physics graffiti in the room where Rei was born; random religious symbols and artifacts strewn about the place; heck, we're talking about a whole building full of crazy here.)
  • Running The Asylum (Ikari Shinji Raising Project is quite obviously done by an Ascended Fanboy, is entirely powered by Mythology Gag and is incredibly Doujinshi-esque. The same could be said about the Angelic Days manga. Not that we complain, it's Eva characters so we'll buy it.)
  • Scary Shiny Glasses (lots of them.)
  • Science Fiction Versus Fantasy (At the very least very soft science fiction. Of course, those robots are revealed to be biological. CLONED FROM ANGELS! Who are aliens. Aliens with weaponized pseudo-Chrisitian Kabbalah and existentialism-based force fields. All predicted by the Dead Sea Scrolls. The bodies of wizards and scientists alike are strewn across the field.)
  • School Uniforms Are The New Black (Shinji Ikari will wear his school uniform even we he goes out at night to wander the streets of Tokyo-3. Rei Ayanami is also an example of the trope as well.)
  • The Scrappy (Shinji has a huge Hatedom; Asuka is a very polarizing character too, to say the least — actually close to an Ethnic Scrappy. Gendou also has a pretty fervent hatedom.)
  • Scenery Porn (Especially notable whenever Shinji runs away.)
    • Also, the Rebuild movies, in their entirety.
  • Sempai Kohai (Ritsuko and Maya; surprisingly absent from Shinji's school, where all pupils seem to be the same age and in the same grade. The latter point is a deliberate subversion, as all of the students in Shinji's class are potential Eva pilots
  • Shadow Archetype (a good example is Gendou-Shinji: Gendou gives a pretty good idea of an embittered, corrupt and still antisocial adult Shinji. The Evangelions are also pretty good shadows for the pilots' mothers and possibly the pilots themselves. The Angels may also represent humankind's basest instincts.)
  • Shapeshifter (Several Angels.)
  • Ship Tease (Shinji/Rei. Shinji/Misato. Shinji/Asuka. Kaji/Asuka. Kaji/Misato. Kaji/Ritsuko. Gendo/Ritsuko. Maya/Ritsuko. Toji/Hikari. Plenty of others.)
  • Shotacon (Misato towards Shinji.)
  • Shout Out (Misato's "Yebisu" beer is actually labeled with a parody of the real label which references the manga Oruchuban Ebichu, of which both Anno and seiyuu Kotono Mitsuishi were fans. Anno later developed it into an anime at Mitsuishi's recommendation.)
    • Later when Rebuild of Evangelion, uh, actually uses Yebisu.
    • By Word Of God, Rei's first name alludes to a Sailor Moon character.
    • The Human Instrumentality Project was named after Cordwainer Smith's Instrumentality of Mankind, though they are not otherwise related.
    • In turn, the Hedgehog's Dilemma is an allusion to Schoppenhauer. It's also been theorized among fans that the original ending alludes to and borrows from some of the existentialists, such as Sartre and Kierkegaard.
    • The title of the last episode, "The Beast That Shouted "I" at the Centre of the World," is a clear reference to Harlan Ellison's classic short story (and the anthology named for it) "The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World", especially given the "i"-"ai" ("love" in Japanese) pun.
    • Touji and Kensuke are allusions to characters from Ryu Murakami's Ai to Gensou no Fascism ("The Fascism of Love and Fantasy"), from which Anno borrowed much of the psychological material.
    • Kiel Lorenz is an allusion to the ethologist Konrad Lorenz. He was originally named Konrad, too.
    • Inversion: This series is the one most referenced by later Gainax works, and possibly anime in general. Yes, even Gurren Lagann.
  • The Siege (subverted)
  • Sinister Geometry (Ramiel.)
    • In Rebuild: Oooh, shiny!
  • Slap On The Wrist Nuke (N2 Mines. How are they any help, ever?)
    • They do stop Israfel temporarily, giving the heroes a week to regroup and plan.
    • They're actually quite effective, of the four that are seen in use, only one fails to actually do something useful. Sachiel and Israfel are both delayed by N2 devices; Zeruel is only unaffected because it shields its core before the detonation, and in End Of Evangelion, one is used to blow a hole in the geo-front.
      • Question: if a single N2 mine vaporized 28% of Israfel's mass, why not just nuke the bastard three more times?
      • Answer: It probably didn't manage to harm the pretty red ball located on the front of the Angel. It's heavily implied that, in order to make an Angel stay dead, that thing needs to be destroyed. The area around Israfel's engine was heavily burnt away, but it didn't have a single scratch.
  • Sliding Scale Of Anti Heroes (Shinji is a textbook Type I, "anti-hero as loser," with hints of Type IV ("What the hell, anti-hero?") as the plot advances. Most of the main characters share some of the Type I characteristics. Ritsuko is closer to a Type III (super-cynical / Good Is Not Nice) or Type IV depending on how likeable you find her. Gendou is closer to a Type V (villainous asshole) with hints of Type I and Type III.)
  • Sliding Scale Of Idealism Versus Cynicism (Far on the cynical side, though arguably not as it has often been represented. Evangelion characters do long for love and harmony... they're just existentially completely out of their reach, especially since all the characters are struggling with crippling mental illnesses and PTSD. Oh, feel the tragedy.)
  • Smoking Hot Sex (Misato says she only smokes after having sex.)
    • Ummm, when?
      • Episode 20, while smoking after having sex with Kaji. (Granted we only see her hand and the cigarette, and a glass of water.. Gotta love this show.)
      • She says "I only smoke after things like this," but they show the ashtrays with used cigarettes in it before she and Kaji have sex. Of course, they could've already done the deed (and it's sort of implied that they did).
  • Soaperizing (To the point where the last 2 episodes abandon the rest of the plot)
  • The So Called Coward (Subverted; Shinji saves the day again and again, but never does get any respect.)
  • Soundtrack Dissonance (ASUKA IS VIOLENTLY DISMEMBERED/ASUKA IS VIOLENTLY MIND RAPED/EVERYONE IS TURNED INTO TANG/KAWORU IS CRUSHED AND DECAPITATED WHILE I PLAY UNFITTING MUSIC)
  • Spell My Name With An S (Aside from the usual romanization problems... even Japanese given names are rendered in katakana; materials for Rebuild use the obsolete character we to spell Evangelion.)
    • And seen on this very page — canonically, his name is Keel Lorenz.
  • Spirit Advisor ( Yui Ikari to Shinji and Gendo -and also to Fuyutsuki in the videogame Evangelion: Another Cases; in The End Of Evangelion, Rei and Kaworu become this. This raises questions about Omniscient Morality License, though, as they all do some pretty questionable stuff.)
  • Springtime For Hitler (Rumor has it that after Nadia turned out to be something of a financial dissapointment, Gainax's executives planned to deliberately produce an even bigger flop to take advantage of a loophole in Japanese tax law. They thus put Anno, known to be mentally unstable, at the helm and allowed him and the rest of the creative team to throw in whatever insanity they could come up with. Needless to say the plan backfired spectacularly and several of the studio bigwigs served prison sentences for tax evasion.)
  • Squick (End of Evangelion pegs the Squickometer multiple times; heck, even Shinji has been touched (ahem) by the disease. There's also pretty much everything Gendo does, especially in The End Of Evangelion. The whole Shinji-Rei relationship is also some subtext for you. Finally (?), the manga goes extremely far in making all the Freud Was Right explicit when Shinji, trapped in the Eva, is 'tempted' by a seductive apparition of naked Yui, or rather Unit 01's Angelic side in her guise. Even for Evangelion, that scene was seriously disturbing.)
    • The manga's storyline has only just reached the JSSDF's invasion of NERV, so the Gendo/Rei/Ritsuko sequence hasn't been depicted yet. Given that Gendo swallows Adam in the manga, the resulting subtext and possible variations on that sequence leapfrog Squick and go straight into a High Octane Nightmare Fuel / Moral Event Horizon margarita.
  • Stepford Smiler: Lots. Misato, Kaji, and Asuka, to name a few.
  • Stock Footage (Note how much time the characters spend on elevators and escalators in most episodes; also, Eva launch sequences. The end of the Unit 01 vs. Kaworu scene was also the longest still shot in anime history back then and might still be (but the end of the "Ode to Joy" sounded good!). Let's also not forget the original episodes 25 and 26, which consist almost entirely of reused footage, as the studio had run out of budget by that point.)
  • Strange Girl (Rei)
  • Stuffed Into The Fridge Kaji.
  • Surprisingly Good English (The people in charge of bringing over Unit 03 from America speak perfect English, and are accompanied by subtitles in Japanese. English being the IACO's required language for flight operations, it isn't surprising that an aircrew would speak it well.)
    • What's also to say the plane's pilots weren't American themselves.
  • Take Off Every Zig (...but with mecha instead of fighters)
  • Techno Babble (reams of it)
    • "Pattern Sepia!" Got to hand it to an organization that comes up with a code phrase for "The pilot's self-destructive impulses are taking on independent physical form."
  • Ten Minute Retirement (Shinji keeps doing this: when he runs away in episode 04, when he leaves Nerv after the Unit 03 debacle, when he breaks down in the movie...)
  • Theme Music Power Up (Whenever "The Beast II" plays, something's going to die.)
  • Theme Naming (The characters' last names are those of Japanese ships that were sunk during World War II. Also, Hikari and her two sisters Kodama and Nozomi are named after Shinkansen lines.)
    • There is one exception to this: Maya Ibuki's surname-sake would have lead the Imperial Japanese Navy's "next generation" cruiser class, but the keel was never laid and the class was cancelled. The HIJMS Maya, however, keeps the theme intact, having been sunk at Leyte Gulf.
    • Even more blatant in Rebuild: First we have Rei Ayanami. Then we have Asuka, whose full name has been changed to Asuka Langley Shikinami. And we have the new female Eva pilot, Mari Illustrious Makinami. (For the record, "nami" means "wave". Whether this has any significance is not yet known.)
      • Shikinami is "Following Wave", the title of 2.0 is "You can (not) Advance". I'd say, yeah.
      • Ayanami, Shikinami and Makinami are all Ayanami-class warships. Langley and Illustrious are also ships; Langley was the first US aircraft carrier, while Illustrious could refer to one of several British ships including a battlecruiser and a carrier.
  • There Are No Therapists (The world would fare better with them.)
  • They Changed It Now It Sucks (Rebuild 2.0 changes Asukas surname from Soryu to Shikinami. Fan reaction to this have been generally negative so far.)
  • Thirty Xanatos Pile Up (As the series goes on, it becomes increasingly difficult to know who knows what, who has what interests and who's leading the game. It gets worse in The End Of Evangelion.)
  • Throw The Dog A Bone (Shinji's only moments of 'happiness' are so far and few they deserve their own drinking game. Let's see: when Gendou or Misato actually praise him overtly (drink the whole bottle!); when Rei reacts somewhat warmly to his presence; when he can hang around with Touji and Kensuke; when he thinks he's fusing with his mom; when Kaworu stands close to him looking handsome and saying ambiguous things. That's all. Every form of comfort has gotten out of his reach by the time The End Of Evangelion happens. But congratulations, Shinji and all the children of the world!)
  • Tokyo Is The Center Of The Universe (Why are the Angels attacking Tokyo-3? Turns out that the "Black Moon" from which all life on Earth emerged just happens to be right underneath Japan, and their ultimate goal is to get in there and reunite with Adam. Subverted when Adam wasn't there originally and they were completely heading the wrong direction.)
    • (And then played straight after episode 8 when Gendo has Adam brought there.)
  • Tragic Hero (The highly flawed and admirable Shinji oscillates back and forth during the series between terrified near-catatonia and insane superhuman courage, though by the end he's clearly heading for a nervous breakdown, and completely snaps in End of Evangelion.)
  • Transformation Trauma (Especially in End of Evangelion where Rei merges with Lilith and embryonic Adam and becomes a giant... something... And the infamous "Everyone hugs and turns into Tang" sequence.)
    • On the other hand, the trauma is noticeably absent in the case of Gendou merging his hand with Adam. Heck, he's so stone-faced about it that in the manga, he even eats Adam in a very insane and Squick-inducing scene.
  • Trauma Conga Line (End of Evangelion. 'nuff said.)
  • Troubled Fetal Position: Shinji does this a lot in The End Of Evangelion. Asuka, too, both during and after her Mind Rape.
  • True Art Is Angsty
  • True Art Is Incomprehensible ("Soooo, what is an Eva? Is it a Freudian thing?")
  • Tsundere (Asuka is a glorious Type A; Misato has a few tsundere characteristics too. In Ikari Shinji Instrumentality Project, Yui is a Type B with violent approaches and Hilarity Ensues, whereas Rei tends to be a Type B who gives the cold shoulder to Shinji whenever she can't deal with her feelings towards him.)
    • More generally, the Hedgehog's Dilemma could be nicknamed "the Universal Tsundere Theory": "everyone is a tsundere for everyone." Emotional ambivalence and various love-hate relationships are one of the main themes, after all.
  • Twenty Minutes Into The Future
  • Two Teacher School
  • Tykebomb (Rei)
  • Uncanny Valley (Rei was aimed to be in this by the creator. Apparently, he missed.)
    • Still, Rebuild of Evangelion managed in this troper's opinion to have Rei be further in the Uncanny Valley. The ominous BGM that always plays in her presence (at least in the beginning), added to his hallucinations implying her and probably aggravated by EVA-induced Mind Screw made it quite clear in this troper's mind that Shinji definitely senses something very unsettling in her.
  • Unlucky Every Dude (Shinji.)
  • The Unreveal (So many examples, but a very noteworthy [and memetic] one is who killed Ryouji Kaji.)
  • Unstoppable Rage (Note to alien monsters who may be reading this: Do not make Yui-sama take control of Unit 01, because she will kick your ass.)
  • Unusually Uninteresting Sight (Rei)
    • Anime Hair Syndrome. Enough said.
  • Unwanted Harem (Shinji is quite pimpin', for a skinny teen with a crippling social phobia.)
  • The Urkel (Kensuke.)
  • Utopia Justifies The Means (SEELE's ultimate plot.)
  • Vibroweapon (The Progressive Knives.)
  • Viewer Gender Confusion (Occasionally happens when Maya is mistaken for Shinji and the other way around. Happens a lot in the Alternate Continuity Gakuen Datenroku ("Records of Heaven's Descent"), where Shinji is at his most androgynous and really looks like Maya and where it's sometimes necessary to have a close look to realize that the cute short-haired girl is actually him. This troper suspects the gender confusion has happened with Kaworu, too.)
  • Warped Aesop
  • The War Room (Central Dogma's command center, with Mission Control, natch.)
  • The Watson (Sometimes Maya. Sometimes Misato. Sometimes Shinji. Actually, so few characters know what's really going on that they ALL have their Watson moments...)
  • Water Is Air (The ability to vanish when convenient is but one of LCL's many fantastic properties.)
    • Note: LCL is not water. Its properties, including coloration, density, viscosity, and the degree to which oxygen is soluble in it, change dramatically when it is electrolyzed.
  • Weapon Of Mass Destruction
  • We Have Reserves ( The Reiquarium. Also, all of Shinji's classmates are potential Eva pilots.}
  • Well Done Son Guy (Shinji is a textbook case. Asuka is arguably a closet "well done cutie girl.")
  • What An Idiot
  • What Do You Mean Its Not Didactic (The director actually researched some academic psychology, and when a man climbing out of a depression reads a psychology textbook you know he's paying attention. Consequently, its usage is fairly accurate in the show, although it suffers from All Psychology Is Freudian.)
    • One of the episodes is named after one of Freud's psychosexual development phases. It's called "Oral Stage". You know what the others are called? Anal, Genital, Phallic and Latency.
  • What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic (While a truly symbolic and deep series, undoubtedly, some of the myriad of religious symbols were thrown in for the hell of it. Word Of God says most of them were put in to add mystery and an exotic feel — the relevant quote can be found on the Jesus Taboo page).
  • What Measure Is A Nonbadass (The trope could easily be called The Shinji.)
  • What Measure Is A Nonhuman (Shinji angsts about this after the double whammy of learning Rei's secret and being ordered to terminate Kaworu.)
  • White Haired Pretty Boy (Kaworu.)
  • With Friends Like These (Despite being friends since college, Ritsuko keeps Misato in the dark about all of NERV's most important secrets until near the end of the series. She also gets into frequent (and sometimes physically violent) arguments with Misato about how to handle situations which could endanger the pilots, and takes cruel potshots at Misato after things really blow up between her, Shinji, and Asuka.)
  • The Woobie (Everyone. Except SEELE.)
  • Woobie Destroyer Of Worlds (Gendou, arguably. Shinji also fits this trope.)
  • Word Of God (Anno has issued a few surprising or controversial statements about Evangelion, for example his quip that Evangelion shouldn't be analysed because it was just "a scream" on his part.)
  • The Worf Effect (Asuka's performance against the Angels gets steadily worse as the series progresses.)
  • World Half Empty (and, of course, It Gets Worse)
  • Wrap It Up
  • Writer On Board (End of Evangelion.)
  • WWII Made Japan And Germany Joined At The Hip
  • Xanatos Gambit
  • Yamato Nadeshiko (Hikari, more of a "Yamato Nadeshiko in training." Subverted with Yui, whom Shinji remembered as this (especially in the manga) but who was actually the architect of Project E. She somehow becomes quite a bit of a powerless Yamato Nadeshiko in alternate continuities such as Girlfriend of Steel 2 / Angelic Days — and she's a Tsundere wife in Ikari Shinji Instrumentality Project, believe it or not. It takes some of the mystique out of her.)
  • Yandere (Asuka over Kaji; both Naoko and Ritsuko over Gendo; and later on, Shinji over Asuka to a disturbing degree).
  • Yank The Dogs Chain (No, Shinji's isn't yanked; it is tugged, thrown, lifted, strangled, and hung from a tree.)
  • YaoiFangirls (see Ho Yay.)
  • You Blockhead (Shinji is a universal target of this.)
  • You Fail Biology Forever (Arguably, a fairly mild form of it; it is SF biology, after all.)
    • The science in the show is actually Metabiology. Normal biology, failed or otherwise, has very little presence in the anime.
  • You Gotta Have Blue Hair
  • You Suck (Shinji gets this treatment a few times. It's been theorized Shinji and even the whole show were meant as Take Thats against otakus.)
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