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alt title(s): Evangelion; Neon Genesis Evangelion Central Cast; Neon Genesis Evangelion Supporting Cast; End Of Evangelion 
Attempting to harness the engine of our own destruction... only humans are so foolish.
Evangelion is the greatest invention of mankind! It's these really big robots with extension cords which run around and blow up evil Angels.
This review contains multiple spoilers. You Have Been Warned!
Neon Genesis Evangelion (in Japanese, "Shin Seiki Evangelion" literally translated as "New Century Gospel") 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 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, which was even more muddled than the last episodes of the series, and End of Evangelion, which simply pushed the horror and despair of the setting to new heights. This is believed by some to be petty revenge on the part of series creator Anno, who 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 most of the cast, and, indeed, most of the human race are killed off in the most mean-spirited manner imaginable (oddly enough, this effect was temporary). Others believe that this was going to be the ending fom day one, but that budget problems 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), Neon Genesis Evangelion is beautifully crafted, with exquisite attention to art, music and characterization, outstanding voice acting in the Japanese version (critics differ sharply on whether the English dub is as good) 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 . There's also a live-action adaptation 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.
For similar robot shows, compare Bokurano and contrast Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. For similar anime in general, compare Revolutionary Girl Utena, Boogiepop Phantom, Paranoia Agent, and Serial Experiments Lain.
This series has a Character Sheet.
This show provides examples of:
- Accidental Pervert (Shinji's first actual conversation with Rei starts with this)
- Action Mom (Yui Ikari...sort of.)
- Adaptation Distillation (Rebuild of Evangelion)
- A God Am I
- The Alcoholic (Misato)
- Alternate Character Interpretation (Especially noteworthy in Gendou's case: is he a manipulative monster, a misunderstood genius, a loving but mistaken father who wants to make his son strong or a mix of the three? Similarly, Yui can be viewed as a soft and idealized mother (actually close to a Canon Sue) or the actual manipulative monster who's responsible for messing up Shinji, Gendo and the fate of the world. Also, 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?)
- 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 are required to truly understand what's going on in the series.)
- Evangelion is also quite infamous for that.
- Ancient Conspiracy (SEELE)
- Anyone Can Die
- Applied Phlebotinum (...where do we start!?)
- Asexuality (Shigeru)
- Baka
- Because Destiny Says So (According to the Dead Sea Scrolls.)
- Beginners Luck (Shinji, subverted in several ways)
- Best Beer Ever (Misato)
- Big No
- 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)
- 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)
- 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.)
- Bridge Bunnies (Subverted; two of them are male, and are pretty important to the plot.)
- Butt Monkey (Shinji)
- Catch Phrase (Subverted; Shinji is constantly saying "I mustn't run away!"; also Asuka's repeated refrain of "What are you, stupid?")
- Character Derailment (End of Evangelion, for some)
- Charlie Dog (Asuka)
- Clingy Jealous Girl (Asuka in the presence of Kaji.)
- Conspicuous CG (Rebuild of Evangelion)
- 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.)
- Cross Popping Veins (Asuka, continuously; also Misato, whenever she finds Kaji flirting with and/or groping another woman.)
- Cyber Cyclops (Unit 00)
- Deconstruction (the show is so postmodern the leaders of the superflat movement claim it as one of its precursors. Now that's some homage...)
- Deus Angst Machina
- Disney Death (Subverted; oops, she really was dead after all.)
- 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 as he even manages to smile as he asks Shinji to kill him.)
- Doctor Jekyll And Mister Jack Daniels (Misato's coworkers wouldn't recognize her when she's hitting the beers...)
- Double Agent
- Dont Look At The Camera
- Downer Ending (End of Evangelion)
- Dramatic Wind (Subverted, as part of the "red herring" opening credits.)
- Dropped A Bridge On Him (Just about everybody in End of Evangelion.)
- 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 her mom in her dreams; however, she slaps him for trying to kiss her. Then, in End of Evangelion, Shinji wanks on a comatose Asuka).
- Dysfunction Junction (...Where do we START!?)
- The Eeyore (Shinji. He needs happy pills or something.)
- Empathic Weapon
- Enforced Method Acting (Ogata Megumi 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)
- Erotic Dream
- Everybody Lives (Or rather, according to one interpretation of the ending anyway.)
- Everyone Is Jesus In Purgatory (Shinji as a pathetic messiah figure; Yui as Rei Ayanami's "virgin mother;" Gendou as Judas or Satan; angels/apostles; crosses...)
- Everythings Better With Penguins (Pen-Pen, whose purpose is purely to lighten the mood)
- Evil Albino (Kaworu)
- Exploding Calendar (X'ed days, circled date variation, for the second battle with the Seventh Angel.)
- Expy (Ritsuko is a lot like Electra from Nadia The Secret Of Blue Water. Shinji is Nadia from Nadia The Secret Of Blue Water. With a haircut.)
- Face Fault
- Fan Dumb (dear God, THE Fan Dumb!)
- The Fan Haters deserve an honourable mention too. Evangelion is often a very polarizing show at several levels.
- Fan Disservice (When Shinji finds Rei naked in her room, it falls between mundane and slightly creepy).
- Fan Haters
- Fan Preferred Couple (so, so subverted)
- Fan Service (Misato, and to a lesser extent Asuka, Rei and Ritsuko.)
- Fatal Flaw (All the characters have at least one, and it does none of them any good.)
- Fearful Symmetry (The angel Israfel in the episode "Both of You, Dance Like You Want to Win!"
- FeedMe
- 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.)
- Gainax Ending (One of the defining examples.)
- Gainaxing (Misato, sometimes Rei and Asuka as well.)
- Genius Ditz (Misato)
- Gonna Fly Now Montage (Shinji and Asuka training for the second battle with the Seventh Angel.)
- Government Conspiracy (Conspiracies within conspiracies within conspiracies, in fact.)
- Grasp The Sun (Asuka plays this straight in the End of Evangelion)
- Gratuitous Foreign Language ("Kar... kartoffeln..." Also noteworthy: Kensuke's "OBAA ZA REINBOO!!" ("Over the rainbow") submarine.)
- Hand Wave (Subverted; see All There In The Manual.)
- Hair Colors (The "serious" variant, with the possible exception of Rei, who has blue hair, although it might be just because she is not entirely human.)
- Hermetic Magic
- Heroic Albino (Rei, although she's still kinda creepy and Emotionless)
- Heroic BSOD (Shinji and Asuka, towards the end of the series, are the king and queen of this trope, though I don't know who's the king and who's the queen.)
- Heroic Sacrifice (Multiple, and all subverted.)
- Hes Back (subverted; Asuka comes out of her coma, but simply dies fighting 5 minutes later.)
- Hidden Eyes (Shinji and Asuka on various occasions.)
- High Pressure Blood (Holy mother of God the Angels bleed rivers. In the first episode alone, Unit 01 sprays a bleeding head wound for a good five seconds from a wound caused by what appeared to be a beam weapon, from both sides of its head. Apparently Evangelions have a very high blood pressure. It gets worse in the new movie, where Ramiel, the octagonal and now shape-shifting, laser firing 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.)
- 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.)
- Hive Mind (One possible interpretation of Instrumentality.
- Hot Scientist (Ritsuko)
- Ho Yay (Shinji and Kaworu; Maya and Ritsuko.)
- Humongous Mecha (The EVAs. Except they aren't.)
- I Am Not Making This Up (And how. This editor has just finished the series and the fact that the description given for the ending is pretty darn dead-on is, in itself, an "I Am Not Making This Up" moment.)
- The worst I Am Not Making This Up comes from the goodies, though. Care to buy a Rei hentai statue, a "puchi Eva" videogame or a Lilith-shaped plate with a Longinus spear-shaped fork? Or maybe a Nerv necktie and a Kaworu cushion?
- The Idiot From Osaka (Shinji's friend Touji)
- I Just Want To Be Special (Kensuke)
- Immune To Bullets
- Impaled With Extreme Prejudice (spoilers)
- Improbable Aiming Skills (How easy is it to hit an earth-orbit satellite with a javelin?)
- Incest Is Relative (Shinji's attraction to Rei, and vice-versa)
- Instrumentality (The Trope Namer)
- It Has Been An Honor (One Bridge Bunny member to Misato)
- Jerk Ass - Asuka. Oh my fucking god, Asuka.
- Kavorka Man (Gendo)
- Killed Off For Real (Either Kaji and Kaworu, or them and every single person on the entire planet, save for Shinji, depending on the ending.
- Kill Em All (Later in the series, and especially in End of Evangelion.)
- Kotono Mitsuishi (Misato)
- Leisure Suit Larry (Kaji, at least some of the time)
- Lethal Chef (borderline)
- Living Shadow (Leliel, the 12th Angel.)
- Lolicon (Depending on interpretation.)
- Locked In A Room (Kaji and Misato in an elevator during the attack by the Ninth Angel.)
- Loser Guy (Several, but especially Shinji.)
- Love Dodecahedron (played for angst rather than laughs)
- Love Makes You Evil (and that man's said evil makes the whole world suffer)
- Magical Computer (Ironically, The MAGI.)
- Magic From Technology
- Mama Bear (All the EV As, but particularly Unit 01 to Shinji)
- The Man Behind The Man
- Manipulative Bastard (Gendo.)
- Mary Sue Exemption (Despite having almost all the characteristics of a Canon Sue (heck, she's even superpowered), Yui doesn't suffer from much hatedom. It might also be argued that it's because she's more of an archetype than really a character.)
- Mask Power (Gendo and his little round eyeglasses.)
- MacGuffin
- Meaningful Name (A few. "Shinji" ironically evokes the words for "truth" or "to believe;" "rei" can mean, among other things, "zero," "ghost" an "cold;" "yui" puns on rei, of course).)
- 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 exists a version of the opening theme sung by her, though.
- Messianic Archetype (Shinji, at the end. Might also be a Deconstruction. Actually, is certainly one.)
- MIB
- Million To One Chance (Ritsuko likes to predict that there's a 0.[long string of zeroes]1% chance of [X] happening)
- Mind Rape (the Trope Namer, Asuka's Original Mind Rape).
- Mind Screw (And how!)
- Misaimed Fandom (People who think Rei and/or Kaworu are cute rather than creepy. They're not supposed to be, damn it!)
- Mix And Match (Humongous Mecha + dark psychological drama)
- Monster Of The Week (The Angels)
- Multinational Team (sort of)
- Murderer POV (Kaji's death)
- Myth Arc (A small one, at that.)
- 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 "The End".)
- Non Indicative First Episode
- Nuclear Weapons Taboo (N2 missiles)
- Oedipus Rex (Shinji / Gendo)
- Only You Can Repopulate My Race (If Shinji and Asuka don't learn to at least like each other quick smart, humanity is doomed.)
- Actually, other humans can return so it may not come to that. And it takes about 400 humans for sufficient genetic variance to keep everything from falling into horrible inbreeding. Even if the image of Rei actually is Rei, that's still only three — and given her origins, Rei clearly shares a fair number of genes with Shinji. So the rest of the human race had better return quickly from the sea of LCL.
- Oracular Urchin (Borderline; Rei clearly knows more than she lets on, though she only rarely speaks.)
- Ordinary High School Student (Shinji, at the beginning.)
- Otaku (Shinji's friend Kensuke, who is a military otaku.)
- Our Angels Are Different (And how! Ironically, these is a lot closer to the actual biblical and very trippy angel description in Revelations, "beryl-coloured wheel within a wheel, each rim covered with eyes" and the like.)
- Out Of Clothes Experience
- Parental Abandonment (Both played straight and deconstructed.)
- Peeka Boo (The toothpick holder scene.)
- Pillar Of Light (Lots of 'em, and cross-shaped, at that.)
- Poirot Speak (Asuka in the Mexican dub)
- Precursors left Adam and Lilith on Earth, according to one video game that pretty much just exists to deliver supplemental material.
- Although only the original series itself and the Red Cross Book are considered Canon, as according to the director ALL additional material is an Alternate Retelling.
- 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.)
- Gendo himself. Yui is the only one who once thought of him as "cute" (sic).
- Readings Are Off The Scale
- 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 eyes colours reflect their opposites, which suggests that they are complementary characters.)
- Shinji vs. Asuka and vs. Misato is another case. Notice his plug suit is blue while Asuka and Misato are often dressed in red.
- Red Wire Blue Wire
- Replacement Goldfish (Rei replacing Gendo's dead wife Yui; this can induce severe squick if you think too hard about it.)
- Scary Shiny Glasses (lots of them)
- The Scrappy (Shinji has a huge Hatedom; Asuka is a very polarizing character too, to say the least -actually close to an Ethnic Scrappy.)
- Shadow Archetype
- Shipping (Subverted; sometimes it looks like characters are going somewhere, but by the end, nobody ends up romantically with anyone.)
- 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 subverted when Rebuild of Evangelion, uh, actually uses Yebisu.
- The Human Instrumentality Project was named after Cordwainer Smith's Instrumentality of Mankind, though they are not otherwise related.
- The Siege (subverted)
- Silent Bob (Rei)
- Sinister Geometry (Ramiel)
- 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.
- Smoking Hot Sex (Misato says she only smokes after having sex)
- The So Called Coward (Subverted; Shinji saves the day again and again, but never does get any respect.)
- Soylent Green
- Spell My Name With An S (Gendou/Gendo/Gendoh (some Francophones even pronounce "Jendo"!); Touji/Toji/Tohji; Ryouji/Ryoji; Kaoru/Kaworu; Rei/Lei (in the first two volumes of the French translation of the manga).)
- The Spock (Three of them, and all female.)
- Squick (End of Evangelion pegs the Squickometer multiple times.)
- Stepford Smiler (Misato; Kaji to a lesser extent.)
- Stock Footage (Note how much time the characters spend on elevators and escalators in most episodes; also, Eva launch sequences. 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.)
- Stripperiffic (Misato; Asuka, occasionally.)
- Techno Babble (Reams of it!)
- Theme Naming
- 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.)
- Touched By Vorlons
- 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" where Rei merges with Lilith and embryonic Adam and becomes a giant... something... And the infamous "Everyone hugs and turns into Tang" scene.)
- Trauma Conga Line (The entire darned End of Evangelion Movie series.)
- True Art Is Angsty
- Tsundere (Asuka; Misato has a few characteristics too.)
- Twenty Minutes Into The Future
- Two Teacher School
- Uncanny Valley (Rei was aimed to be in this by the creator. Apparently, he missed.)
- Unstoppable Rage (Note to alien monsters who may be reading this: Do not piss Shinji off while he's at the controls of Unit-01, because he will kick your ass.)
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight (Rei's albinism)
- She's actually only light skinned - albinos don't have hair pigmentation.
- The Urkel (Shinji's friend Kensuke)
- Utopia Justifies The Means (SEELE's ultimate plot)
- Vibroweapon (The Progressive Knives)
- Wall Banger (End of Evangelion)
- The Watson (Maya)
- Water Is Air (Whether the entry plugs are still full of LCL is a matter of artistic convenience.)
- Weapon Of Mass Destruction
- The Weird Al Effect
- Well Done Son Guy (Shinji is a textbook case.)
- 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.)
- 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 (Quote can be found on the Jesus Taboo page).
- What Measure Is A Nonhuman (Shinji angsts about this after the double whammy of learning Rei's secret and being ordered to terminate Kaworu.)
- The Woobie (Everyone.)
- Wrap It Up
- Writer On Board (End of Evangelion)
- WWII Made Japan And Germany Joined At The Hip
- Yamato Nadeshiko (Hikari, more of a "Yamato Nadeshiko in training")
- Yaoi Guys (Depending on interpretation.)
- Yandere (Shinji shows hints of this towards the end of the series and in The Movie. Yui Ikari might also be a case.)
- You Gotta Have Blue Hair (Of the plausible sort: Shinji and his classmates have black hair, Misato's hair is stylized black, Yui's might be too, Asuka is a German redhead, Ritsuko dyes her hair blond (she missed her eyebrows), and we can make exceptions for Rei and Kaworu for being absolutely not natural).
- Your Mileage May Vary (So very, very much.)
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