Notably, Megumi Hayashibara voices Rei, Yui, and Unit-01 (...and Pen-Pen, Asuka's adoptive mother, and a couple of minor background characters). The trope is employed very deliberately in the case of the first three, seeing how they all share a connection.
Besides voicing Asuka, Yuko Miyamura also voices a couple of background characters throughout the show.
In the Netflix Latin American Spanish dub, Asuka's mother and grandmother are both played by Mildred Barrera.
In the Girlfriend of Steel game series, Megumi Hayashibara voices both Mana Kirishima and Rei.
Alternative Foreign Theme Song: When the show was added to Netflix in 2019, the streams outside of Japan replaced the various variations of "Fly Me To The Moon" that plays over the end credits with "Rei I".
Anime First: An odd example. The manga ran for almost a year before the series began, but it was made specifically for promoting the anime. And then it ran for almost two decades because of Schedule Slip. Its status as an original anime is notable since it would pave the way for more ambitious original anime projects in years to come, as anime that wasn't based on existing properties was (and still is) considered a very risky endeavour.
Bad Export for You: None of the post-ADV releases of the show on both streaming platforms and physical media outside of Japan have contained the iconic "Fly Me to the Moon" song over the credits, and its use as a background instrumental on the soundtrack in a couple of episodes have even been edited out. No official reason has been given, but rumors suggest that it is presumably due to some kind of music rights and licensing problems.
Better Export for You: The series has a strange mix of this and Bad Export for You for the Blu-ray release. The Japanese releases had DNR that destroyed some detail and 16-bit audio. The American Blu-ray release from GKIDS upgraded the audio to 24-bit (resulting in slightly crisper audio) and had a more detailed and grainy new transfer with no DNR. On the other hand, the American release infamously removed "Fly Me to the Moon" from the end credits and background music, and was missing (among other things) the original theatrical cut of Death and Rebirth, and a handful of extras (such as an animatic for Rebirth, music videos for "Fly Me to the Moon", and a 5.1 surround music selection.
Even with the removal of "Fly Me to the Moon", Episodes 21 to 24 are the Director's Cut versions on international Netflix. While Netflix Japan has "Fly Me to the Moon" intact, the versions of the episodes are the original TV broadcast.
Bury Your Art: When the series was picked up by Netflix in 2018, Studio Khara (founded by series creator and director Hideaki Anno) pulled the original English dub by ADV Films from circulation and instead retranslated and redubbed the show with a new cast. In 2021, Amanda Winn-Lee, who voiced Rei Ayanami in the ADV dub, revealed that the redub was the result of Khara seeking greater creative control over the series' English releases, with the Netflix dub's script being identical to the one that Studio Gainax attempted to use before Matt Greenfield forced them to go ahead with a less literal translation.
ADV Films and Manga Entertainment respectively handled the English home media releases of the TV series and first two films. Then, in October 2020, GKIDS picked the rights up for a 2021 release.
Evangelion has been streaming exclusively on Netflix since June 21, 2019.
For the Brazilian Portuguese dub, Fábio Lucindo (Shinji) and Priscilla Concepción (Rei) were 15 years old by the time the series first premiered on Locomotion. Fernanda Bullara (Asuka) was also one year younger than Lucindo and Concepción.
In the original French dub, Donald Reignoux was 14 years old when he first voiced Shinji.
Converted Fangirl: After ADV Films released the series in North America, Tiffany Grant (Asuka's English VA) became a professional fangirl.
Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: The Netflix description for the first episode states that an angel "returns to attack Tokyo-3." Except this angel has never been seen before. Gendo does state that the angels have returned after 15 years, but this is the first appearance of this particular angel.
After the release of The End of Evangelion, Kazuya Tsurumaki said that producing the film was unnecessary, since he thought the original Series Finale was fine.
Tiffany Grant, who famously voiced Asuka in the English dub of the original TV series and has reprised the role in all other Evangelion-related projects, was understandably disappointed with the 2019 Netflix release for quite a few reasons. Besides having to tone down her performance during her first and only audition for Asuka, Grant was also appalled by the re-translated scripts (including Asuka's limited German dialogue) as well as Khara's involvement. Grant didn't reprise the role again until the Prime Video release of the Rebuild tetralogy.
Allison Keith, who voiced Misato in the English dubs of the original TV series and all later Evangelion-related works, was dismayed that she wasn't asked to return in the Netflix release. Like Grant, Keith eventually returned to voice the character for the last time in the Prime Video release of the Rebuild tetralogy.
Donald Reignoux, the French voice for Shinji, disliked his work on the first French dub of the original TV series and refused to work for Chinkel (VSI's French studio) for years. He admitted he had a terrible time during the dub's recording sessions and refused to work at Chinkel for decades. He has since come to accept the role, and finally returned as Shinji in 2.0 and 3.0.
Conversely, Carrie Keranen and the actors from the Netflix English dub said they enjoyed working with Khara and VSI for its release.
Fabrizio Mazzotta and Netflix felt that their first Italian dub was an unmitigated disaster. While VSI Rome's dubbing manager wanted to maintain the original translations, longtime writer Gualtiero Cannarsi instead rewrote the script from scratch and Mazzotta didn't react to the news well. Even the new voice actors threatened to walk out because of it. In the end, Netflix redubbed it yet again, this time with a more accurate script but keeping the same cast.
Joe Fria, who voiced Hyuga in the Prime Video release of Rebuild of Evangelion, said he understood the divisiveness of the Netflix release amongst fans.
Sue Ulu, who voiced Ritsuko in the original dubs of the TV series, Death/Rebirth, and End of Eva, has said that she was turned off by the show's violence and dark tone, although she enjoyed the character and was disappointed at not being asked back for further projects in the franchise.
Creator Breakdown: The anime's increasingly more serious and depressing plot was a result of Anno's struggles with depression born of the stress from Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water'sTroubled Production and disillusionment with the Otaku lifestyle at the time. Some parts of the manga suggest Sadamoto isn't too happy either, though not as "broken" as Anno.
Anno commented during an Anime Expo Q&A panel that he considers Asuka his favorite character because "she's cute".
Tiffany Grant has frequently cited Asuka as one of her favorite characters.
Crossdressing Voices: Shinji is voiced by a woman (Megumi Ogata) in the original Japanese version. Averted with the old English dub where he is voiced by a man (Spike Spencer). His English dub actor for the Netflix release (Casey Mongillo) is non-binary.
Cross-Regional Voice Acting: The original ADV dub of the TV series was entirely recorded in Houston. However, the Manga Entertainment dub of Death and Rebirth and End of Eva was produced by Los Angeles-based Gaijin Productions, and was mainly recorded there (including Spike Spencer as Shinji, Amanda Winn-Lee as Rei, and Sue Ulu as Ritsuko, all of whom had relocated), but some recording was also done in Houston for actors that were still living there (including Tiffany Grant as Asuka and Tristan MacAvery as Gendo). Allison Keith (Misato) was living in New York at the time, but flew out to LA to record the films.
Darkhorse Casting: A few of the lead voice actors in the Netflix English dub were unknowns in the anime industry compared to the other roles; Daniel MK Cohen had major roles in short films and the same goes for Stephanie McKeon in musicals, TV series and films as well as John Paul "JP" Karliak in various TV series.
Dawson Casting: In most languages, Shinji, Rei and Asuka are not voiced by middle school-aged students. However, in the original Brazilian dub produced by Locomotion, they were actually voiced by real-life middle school-aged children.
The English dub of the TV series was directed by Matt Greenfield, who voiced Makoto Hyuga and the Evangelion units in the original series. Amanda Winn-Lee directed the dubs of the first two films and the Director's Cut episodes.
In Locomotion's Latin American Spanish dub, Enrique Cervantes is Ryoji's voice actor as well as its ADR director. Meanwhile, Gerardo García, in addition to directing the Renewal dub, also replaced Cervantes as Ryoji.
As for the Netflix release:
In the English dub, Carrie Keranen is the main ADR director as well as Misato's voice actress.
América Torres not only voiced Ritsuko Akagi in the Latin American Spanish dub but was also its ADR director.
Jorge Saudinós directed the European Spanish dub and was also Toji Suzuhara's voice actor.
The Brazilian Portuguese dub included Shinji's voice actor, Fábio Lucindo, directing both the TV series and films. Oddly enough, the very first dub of the series in that language was directed by none other than the voice of Shinji's father, Fábio Moura.
Two English dubs of the TV series were produced as of 2019. The first was dubbed at what was then ADV Films in Houston back in 1996. The second was dubbed at VSI Media's Los Angeles studio for its re-release on Netflix, this time featuring newer actors.
The series was also redubbed into Spanish (Latin and European), French, German, Italian and Brazilian Portuguese for the Netflix release. The European Spanish cast is completely different like the English ones. There was only one reprise in German and Italian, and two in French. Latin America (Mexico/Brazil) had the most reprises, mostly from the Animax dub of Renewal.
The Movies feature commentaries by Amanda Winn-Lee, her husband and Taliesin Jaffe, which are generally beloved/despised (some have even nicknamed it "Commentary of Evil") for being mostly riffing, with a lot of conjecture about the possible meanings behind the films' abstract symbolism, and details on the process of dubbing the films and remastering the audio. They admit at the beginning of their commentary that it will be light-hearted, as the film itself is very tense and performing characters going through such turmoil a tense experience.
The Platinum Edition of the TV series featured commentaries on several episodes as well, albeit less memorable ones.
Development Hell: It's largely forgotten by now, but The End of Evangelion was in this for a brief period, which is why so many Japanese viewers who went to see Death and Rebirth were pissed off at the sudden cut-off of an ending. There's also the live-action movie (a co-production between Studio Gainax, ADV Films and WETA), which has allegedly been "in pre-production" since 2003; unfortunately the negotiations fell through due to the lawsuit between ADV and Gainax. Rebuild of Evangelion also counts; 2.0 was delayed a full year after its original release date, and 3.0s is around eight years after 2.0s. Keep in mind that the tetralogy was supposed to be finished by now.
Doing It for the Art: Tiffany Grant has said that she has spent much more money on Asuka merchandise than she made actually voicing Asuka.
Early Draft Tie-In: As the manga started out as promotional material for the anime series, its early chapters contains a scene from the first draft proposal, that ultimately didn't make it into the show, namely introducing the Evangelion (and, by extension, Rei) by having it engage battle with the Angel, before being forced to retreat from the field after being outmatched in combat.
Enforced Method Acting: During one of the recording sessions for The End of Evangelion, Yuko Miyamura allowed herself to be strangled by Megumi Ogata for Shinji's vision of strangling Asuka. That particular take, however, was never used.
One of many theories regarding how the final episodes came to be as notoriously bizarre as they are is that the original scripts for the last two episodes were rejected by TV Tokyo due to their graphic content; thus the current ending was made due to last-minute budget cuts and/or as a way of giving the network the finger, and the rejected scripts eventually became The End of Evangelion.
Also, Anno's original intent was to use a piece of the Polovtsian Dances for the opening theme. The studio, concerned that viewers would be confused by such an opening, requested that it be replaced with a catchy J-pop number, and thus "A Cruel Angel's Thesis" was born.
The rather controversial more literal re-translation of the anime for the 2019 Netflix release was the result of Khara gaining creative control of the translation process, just like they were for Funimation's release of the third Rebuild film due to the negative reception of the dub's theatrical run in North America. Not only that, but Carrie Keranen confirmed in a now-deleted tweet that the studio also had to personally approve the new voice cast in order for the project to get the final greenlight.
Later in 2021, it turned out that not only did Gainax attempt the same thing for the ADV dub as what Khara pulled off on Netflix, but that they used the exact same script as Khara. In a pair oftweets by Amanda Winn-Lee (who voiced Rei in the ADV dub), she revealed that Khara's script was completely unchanged from Gainax's, and it took Matt Greenfield putting his foot down to Gainax's face to let the team go ahead with the more Woolseyism-heavy script that audiences heard back in the day.
Fountain of Expies: Because of the series' influence on other anime and its impact on the anime industry itself, several of the characters would become inspirations for many other characters that came after them.
Rei is easily the most influential character of the series in terms of appearance and characterization, to the point that she inspired a whole trope by herself.
Shinji inspired a staggering number of plain-looking Classical Anti Heroes with low self-esteem in fantastical settings. They remain very popular more than two decades after Evangelion, and in many genres they have completely displaced the more classically Japanese tropes of Idiot Hero and Hot-Blooded.
Kaworu has managed to inspire quite a few similar characters like him; if a series has a white or grey-haired Bishōnen who's Ambiguously Gay or bisexual and has Foe Romance Subtext with the male (likely dark-haired but not always) lead, chances are he had some influence from Kaworu. Also applies if these expies die before anything can become of their relationship with the lead, more often than not by beheading as a reference to one of the ways Kaworu dies depending on the timeline. This also frequently serves as a catalyst for said leads character development after a period of trauma.
Franchise Ownership Acquisition: The TV series and first two films were originally owned by Gainax, but when Anno formed Khara, the studios jointly owned the rights to the series. That was until 2014 when Khara eventually bought out Gainax's rights after a legal battle between the two entities.
Genre Relaunch: Evangelion was the work which arguably saved the anime industry, which was in dire straits because of a couple of high profile box office failures, most prominently Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise. Don't forget that Honneamise was also a Gainax production...
George Lucas Altered Version: After their initial broadcast on Japanese television, Anno went back and re-cut episodes 21 to 24 of the series, removing and/or restaging some scenes and adding others, ostensibly to tie the series more closely to the End of Evangelion films. It's been widely speculated that the last episodes were strongly impacted by Gainax running out of funding; by the time of the recuts, the series had been a giant success and so Anno could better afford to do those episodes the way he wanted. The original versions of those episodes have only ever been released on DVD outside of Japan (in the original ADV dub in the US, as well as in two special edition "director's cut" volumes that contain both the original and recut versions of those episodes).
God Never Said That: Anno has never actually said that he wanted the series to be a Deconstruction or a backlash to any trends in anime. In fact, Anno has stated quite the opposite many times: Evangelion is a celebration of the mecha genre (he specifically mentions Space Runaway Ideon and Ultraman as his prime influences while working on Eva) rather than a hate-letter many make it out to be. He also never stated that the show's ending or End of Evangelion was meant to be a reaction to the backlash about the end of the original series. A lot of old myths about the series are likewise untrue, such as Rei being intended to be creepy: Anno's exact words was that Rei represented the "most inexpressible" part of him; Megumi Hayashibara backed this up in a later interview. That said, see the below entry about Lying Creator.
The original 16mm camera negative for episode 16 no longer exists for some reason (unlike the rest of the series), so an inferior internegative had to be used for the Renewal (AKA Platinum) restoration, giving it a more washed out look compared to the other episodes.
The series has been out of print in North America for some time, with only Rebuild of Evangelion continuing to be released; the Blu-Ray release of the show hasn't been released there at all. Additionally, ADV Films' original DVD release of the series contained French and Spanish dub tracks, making it the only instance of the French dub being released in North America.note Said dubs weren't included with the Director's Cut or Platinum Edition, and the show never aired on French-Canadian TV. However, Latin Americans are a bit luckier in this regard, since the show aired on TV there and had its own home video releases. That was until 2021, when GKIDS announced that they would be releasing both the ADV and Netflix dubs of the series, with Anime Limited handling the British release. However, the ADV dub was made exclusive to the Ultimate and Collector's editions.
ADV's English dub ran on [adult swim] from October 2005 to April 2006 and has never been rebroadcast on American television since then.
At present, the ADV DVDs are the only way to see the series with "Fly Me To The Moon" as the ending theme, since the Netflix release (and the upcoming disc releases) outside of Japan replaces it with "Rei I".
Late Export for You: For Latin American Spanish and Brazilian viewers, the Netflix release of the End of Evangelion films will be the first time those films will be translated to Spanish and Portuguese respectively, as they didn't got those films as neither Locomotion (the previous Latin American licensor) not it successor Animax were able to do so before. Spaniards were luckier in this regard.
The mass-market Collector's Edition which includes the ADV 1997 English dub and the Japanese subtitle translations commissioned for that release of the series, Evangelion: Death (True)2 and The End of Evangelion, as well as art cards and a condensed version of a companion book.
The 5,000 copy per region Ultimate Edition, which also includes full-size art boards from the original Japanese Laserdisc releases, the ADV dub, a resin paperweight of Sachiel, the full version of the companion book, and a NERV ID card with lanyard.
Lying Creator: The amplitude of self-contradictory and at times seemingly absurd statements about the series from Hideaki Anno has led many to accuse him of this.
Missing Episode: Fortunately, it is not a full-on example, but following the original broadcast, Episode 16 was hit with a variation of this, when the episode's original 16mm negatives master reel went missing, and was never recovered. Though the episode is still available, all subsequent versions of it, including the DVD, Blu-ray, and digital release, have been made and scaled up from a lower-quality 35mm internegative copy, leading to the incarnation of the episode most viewers have probably been exposed to having an unintentional washed-out look with a color saturation that is somewhat off.
Newbie Boom: Netflix made the show accessible for the first time in over 10 years (it was last released on home media in 2008), which created a wealth of interest in the franchise as well as people discovering it for the first time.
On the American market the series saw its last release on DVD under ADV Films in 2008, after which the series went out of print due to ADV's financial problems, and while the show saw occasional re-releases in Japan, the opportunities for Western viewers to get their hands on a legitimate copy of the series was steady dwindling, and the outlook became worse when ADV later lost the right to license the series entirely. Subsequently, the complete series was released in a HD version on a Blu-ray boxset in 2016 in Japan, but despite large interest in North America, the boxset never saw a release there. It was first with Netflix announcing in November 2018 that they had gained the streaming rights to the HD version of the series on the Western (and by western, we mean the American continent, the U.K., Spain, France, Italy and Germany, see more details above) and market that the situation was somewhat rectified, and the event also renewed the American fanbase's hopes that the Blu-ray boxset might also see a release in their part of the world some day. Finally, in 2020, GKIDS announced that they had obtained the rights to distribute an English version of the Blu-ray boxset, which they expect to be released in 2021.
On the other hand, this is still played straight in some regions, as the Netflix version is not available (or not dubbed) in neither Polish, Dutch, Danish, Russian and above all, all Middle Eastern feeds (Turkish, Hebrew and Arabic, for obvious reasons) and even in other Asian feeds like the Chinese (Hong Kong and Taiwan), Thai, Indian, and Korean ones. Oddly enough, it is available in the Japanese feed and also in the Greek one, through sub-only in this last one.
Despite the fact that the original TV broadcasts of Episodes 21 to 24 were released on VHS and DVD internationally, all future international releases starting with the Netflix release only have the Director's Cut versions, leaving Japan as the only country where the original airing versions of these episodes are still actively circulating.
Literally none of the video games have ever left Japan.
No Dub for You: Latin America got most of the series of course, but didn't get an official dub of The End of Evangelion until 2019 with the re-dubbing on Netflix a good twenty years after the fact (mainly due to rights issues).
With regards to Netflix's Latin American Spanish dub:
Georgina Sánchez, Asuka's second voice actressnote Sánchez having taken over for Asuka's previous actress, Norma Echevarría, in Renewal resumes her role here after she was replaced by Nallely Solís for episodes 21-24 of Renewal and Azucena Martínez for the second Rebuild filmnote Who herself was replaced by Sánchez for the third film.
Circe Luna, the regular voice for Rei, also returns to reprise her role after she was replaced by Gaby Ugarte for Renewal and Ana Lobo for the third Rebuild film.
Likewise, Rodrigo Carralero, having taken over for Ricardo Tejedo as Aoba in the Renewal remaster, returns here after being replaced by Héctor Moreno for the Rebuild films.
When the Animax version was being recorded, Roberto Mendiola replaced Enzo Fortuny as the voice of Hyuga. Mendiola himself was replaced by Manuel Campuzano for the first two Rebuild films. When the third Renewal film premiered in Latin America, Fortuny was finally brought back to reprise his role. As a bonus, Fortuny stayed on to retroactively voice Hyuga in the Netflix version.
Marisol Romero, Misato's second voice actress,note Romero having replaced her previous actress, Toni Rodríguez, in Renewal also returns here after being replaced by Yanelly Sandoval for the first two Rebuild films and Vivian Magos for the third one.
Gaby Willer also returns as Asuka's stepmother from the Locomotion dub.
As for Netflix's German dub, Horst Lampe reprises his role as Keel Lorenz after being replaced by Bernd Kuschmann for the first two films and Erich Räuker for the third Rebuild film.
While the Japanese cast has remained remarkably consistent over the years, the English dub is notorious for at least changing part of the cast throughout the franchise:
The only recast in the original 1996-1997 TV series dub was Toji, who was voiced by Joe Pisano for episodes 3-18 before he left to join a circus act, then Michael O'Connor briefly took over for episodes 19-20 before he was offered a stage opportunity in the UK, and finally Brett Weaver took over for episode 26 and the Death and Rebirth recap movie.
For the original Death and Rebirth and The End of Evangelion dubs from 2002, Kaworu (Kyle Sturdivant to Aaron Krohn), Fuyutsuki (Guil Lunde to Michael Ross), Hyoga (Matt Greenfield to Keith Burgess), Ibuki (Kendra Benham to Amy Seeley), Yui Ikari (Kim Sevier to Amanda Winn-Lee), Keel (Rick Peeples to Tom Booker), and Hikari (Carol Amerson to Kimberly Yates) were also recast.
When ADV dubbed the director's cut versions of episodes 21-24 in 2004, several voices changed for those episodes where the original TV actors were unavailable to record the new footage. This included Gendo (Tristan MacAvery to John Swasey), Kaworu (Kyle Sturdivant to Greg Ayres), Aoba (Jason C. Lee to Vic Mignogna), Ibuki (Kendra Benham to Monica Rial), and Pen-Pen (Amanda Winn-Lee to Mandy Clark). The replacement actors also redubbed the originals' lines in episodes 25-26 for consistency.
It's even worse in the European Spanish dub. Only Shinji retains a single voice actor through the franchise (Albert Trifol Segarra) while the rest of characters have at least two or three, and often very different sounding among them. Asuka and Kaworu, who have a different VA in almost every medium of the franchise, are the worst examples.
The French dub does not fare much better. Only Shinji and Misato retain their voice actors through the majority of the franchise, with End shuffling up most of the cast and 1.0 recasting everyone. Fortunately a decent chunk of the original cast (including the aforementioned two) return for the later films.
In the Latin American Spanish dub that aired on Animax, quite a few actors were replaced, including Asuka and Rei, who were respectively voiced by Georgina Sánchez and Gaby Ugarte. Sánchez herself would later be replaced by Nallely Solís for the Director's Cut of episodes 21 through 24 due to the former living outside of Mexico City at the time of recording the episodes.
Likewise for the German dub, everyone besides Horst Lampe (Keel Lorenz) was recast. For example, Shinji, Rei and Asuka, who are respectively voiced in the original by Hannes Maurer, Marie Bierstedt and Julia Ziffer, are now voiced by Christian Zeiger, Franziska Lather and Johanna Dost.
In the Italian dub, everyone else suffered the same fate as the other dubs, except forOliviero Dinelli, who voiced Kozo Fuyutsuki in every incarnation of the Evangelion series. Interestingly enough, a couple other actors from the original series returned for this dub as different characters. For example, Domitilla D'Amico, the original voice for the younger Asuka, returned here as Misato. However, most of the original cast returned for the Prime Video release of Rebuild.
In the Latin American Spanish dub, some side characters and some main characters, including Tojinote who is now voiced by Carlos Hernández and Keelnote who is now voiced by Pedro D'Aguillón Jr.., were recast either due to their voice actors having passed awaynote such as Enrique Mederos, Esteban Siller, Alejandro Illescas and Norma Echevarría or were living out of town at the time of the dub's productionnote such as Carlos Becerril. Interestingly enough, some of the Rebuild actors return as different charactersnote such as Ana Lobo, the second voice for Rei in 3.0, who now voices Hikari or as additional voicesnote such as Vivian Magos, the second voice for Misato in 3.0. Oddly enough, Mildred Barrera, who voiced Kyoko (Asuka's mother) in the Netflix and Renewal versions, is replaced with Patricia Acevedo in the dub of End.
The Latin American Spanish dub pulls this out, albeit in lesser degree: Víctor Ugarte (Shinji's Mexican VA) was previously associated with voicing hotblooded kids like young Zenki or jerkasses like Dilandau, and after EVA, he's sometimes typecasted with voicing wimps like Raj, Oxnard and others. Circe Luna (Rei's Mexican VA) is normallly typecasted with voicing hyperactive or sweet girls like Pan or Belldandy.
The Production Curse: The original European Spanish dub of The End seemed to be touched by this. Firstly, the distribution company changed from Manga Films, who had licensed the series, to Selecta Visión, which brought a change of studio with its consequent mess. Then, members of the series's cast started to fall off due to the most varied reasons: Ana Pallejà was replaced by Iris Lago as Asuka when the former actress went on maternity leave, Juan Carlos Gustems was unable to reprise Gendo due to scheduling conflicts and was replaced by John Massotkleiner, María Moscardó claimed she was retiring from voicing animation (only for her to do it again a mere year later) and was thus replaced by Carmen Calvell, Eduardo Díaz replaced Josep María Zamora as Lorentz due to the latter's retirement, and José Luis Mediavella was apparently not even contacted. Most of those characters would receive very controversial replacements in a clear attempt to reduce the budget that didn't sit very well with the fans. Then, if all of this was not enough, the new studio would later be accused of legal malpractice. It is safe to say few people in both sides ended up satisfied with this work.
Promoted Fanboy: Ray Chase, the English voice of Gendo Ikari in the Netflix re-release, is an Evangelion fan.
Queer Character, Queer Actor: At least three of Kaworu's six English voice actors, Kyle Sturdivant (ADV TV series dub), Greg Ayres (ADV director's cut dub), and Daman Mills (Prime Video Rebuild dubs) are queer in real life.
In the Latin American Spanish dub of the TV series, both of Shinji's younger voices in flashbacks has been done by Víctor Ugarte's sisters. Gaby in the Locomotion dub and Xóchitl in the Animax dub... due to the former being The Other Darrin for Rei in the second dub.
The Netflix European Spanish dub features ADR director Jorge Saudinós as Toji and his younger brother Alex Saudinós as Kensuke.
In the Netflix Latin Spanish dub, América Torres not only voices Ritsuko Akagi and is the ADR director, but her son Ethien Desco provides additional voices. Her husband (and Ethien's father), Esteban Desco, also provides additional voices, most notably the ship's captain in the eighth episode.
Real Song Theme Tune: "Fly Me to the Moon", written by Bart Howard and made famous by Frank Sinatra, serves as the TV series' ending song.
The Manga dub of Death and Rebirth and The End of Evangelion managed to bring back the voice actors for Shinji (Spike Spencer), Rei (Amanda Winn-Lee), Asuka (Tiffany Grant), Kaji (Aaron Krohn), Misato (Allison Keith), Ritsuko (Sue Ulu), Kensuke (Kurt Stoll), Toji (Brett Weaver), Aoba (Jason C. Lee) and Gendo (Tristan MacAvery in his final role before he moved to Syracuse, New York).
As for the Netflix version:
In addition to Víctor Ugarte returning as Shinji for the Latin American Spanish dub, most of the primary characters have their actors from both the Locomotionnote Circe Luna (Rei), Jesse Conde (Fuyutsuki), Enzo Fortuny (Hyuga) and Gaby Willer (Asuka's stepmother) and the Animax Renewalnote Georgina Sánchez (Asuka), Marisol Romero (Misato), Gerardo García (Kaji), Rodrigo Carralero (Aoba), Yolanda Vidal (Naoko), Adriana Casas (Yui), Gabriel Ortiz (Kensuke), Mildred Barrera (Kyouko), Óscar Gómez (Asuka's father) and Moisés Iván Mora (Shiro) dubs.
The French dub brings back Donald Reignoux and Laurence Bréheret as Shinji and Misato, respectively. They are notably the only surviving original cast members to make a return.
The Italian dub has Oliviero Dinelli once again returning as Kozo Fuyutsuki.
Horst Lampe reprises his role as Keel Lorenz for the German dub.
In the Brazilian Portuguese dub, Fábio Lucindo (Shinji), Priscilla Concepción (Rei), Fernanda Bullara (Asuka), Fábio Moura (Gendo), Vágner Fagundes (Toji), Rafael Meira (Kensuke), Yuri Chesman (Kaworu), Wellington Lima (Aoba) and Fátima Noya (Miki) once again reprise their roles from the Locomotion and Animax releases. In addition, Silvia Suzy (Ritsuko), Tatiane Keplmair (Hikari), Alfredo Rollo (Hyuga), Alessandra Araújo (Naoko) and Élcio Sodré (Shiro) also reprise their roles from the Animax version.
By sheer coincidence, the voices for the three Eva pilots in the ADV dub married the voices for three Nerv technicians. Amanda Winn (Rei) married Jason C. Lee (Shigeru), Spike Spencer (Shinji) married Kendra Benham (Maya), and Tiffany Grant (Asuka) married Matt Greenfield (Makoto). Of those however, only Winn and Lee are still together.
Amy Seeley and Michael Ross, who respectively voiced Maya Ibuki and Kozo Fuyutsuki in Manga Entertainment's dub of the films. would eventually marry two years after the films were released on DVD. As of 2022, they're still together.
On the actual Japanese cast, actor Yuko Miyamura, the voice actor for Asuka, actually developed a crush on Megumi Ogata, the voice actor for Shinji, but kept it a secret as she wanted to be professional.
There's also the manga. We have several Does This Remind You of Anything? moments, Kaworu killing a kitten, Shinji saying emphatically "Guys don't like guys!", Shinji and Kaworu's relationship downgraded to an unrequited Stupid Sexy Flanders, Kaworu calling Rei a fool and saying "I figured you'd be a heftier girl.", Shinji and Kaworu in the ladies' room with Asuka... yeah.
Schedule Slip: The manga, and how. The first chapter was released months before the anime started (December 1994), but thanks to a somewhat sporadic release schedule and a couple of long hiatuses (understandable since the manga was a side-project for Sadamoto), the last chapter was published in June 2013. That's over 18 years for 14 volumes of material! The English translation took 11 years for its production run, from February 2004 to February 2015.
The Netflix release outside of Japan replaces the ending theme song, "Fly Me to the Moon", with one of Shiro Sagisu's cues, "Rei I", presumably due to the music rights issues.
The lawsuits between Khara and Gainax over the income from projects that Anno contributed to switched the original story credit from Gainax to Anno himself from the Blu-ray re-releases onwards.
Gainax, ADV and Weta began arranging plans to produce a live-action film adaptation of Evangelion back in the early 2000s, but it got stuck in Development Hell. The film was further delayed thanks to a lawsuit made by ADV Films over Gainax refusing an option to produce that film in 2011 as well as Khara gaining the franchise's copyrights from Gainax in 2014.
Screwed by the Network: Khara had the VSI Group redub the entire series from scratch for its Netflix release with a new Los Angeles-based cast, likely thanks to Khara gaining total control of the Evangelion rights from Gainax as well as their involvement in the 3.0 dub following the negative reception of the theatrical release.
Shrug of God: After fans were upset with the ambiguity of the series, Hideaki Anno declared that it was up to viewers to determine their own meaning and reprimanded them for expecting all the answers on a silver platter. Over the years he has offered, at best, several vague and contradictory statements as to the meaning(s) and intentions of the series. He has, however, occasionally spoken out on a couple of details, such as disproving the fan theory that Misato was the one who shot Kaji stating that it was a unknown assassin who carried out the deed either on SEELE or NERV's behalf.
Anno's design of plugsuits was meant to dissuade otaku from cosplaying those, as their skin-tight features, he thought, were too outrageous and showy for them to dare to dress like that. Oh, how wrong he was...
Anno's concept of Rei was meant to serve as a deconstruction of fanservice, as she's a character who is unemotional, nigh-unresponsive and almost completely devoid of a personality, basically a cold fish incarnate. Ironically none of this reduced her appeal to the audience, as her being a blank slate opened a world of possibilities.
Technology Marches On: The series is set in a fictional vision of 2015. Notice the lack of smartphones. Shinji using a Digital Audio Tape player also sticks out, given that today the format exists as a footnote in audio tech history, noted only for the severe legal issues with the recording industry that plagued it upon release. It could be slightly justified by the fact that the In-Universe backstory is that the Second Impact, which occurred in 2000 and killed off a large portion of humanity in addition to causing severe damage all around led to an Alternate History. This was addressed rather creatively in the ending of the manga adaptation where Shinji is seen using a smartphone to talk to his aunt. In this version, Shinji stops "Instrumentality" and retroactively prevents The Second Impact from ever happening in the first place, creating an alternate reality where human technology developed as it did in the real world. The nearly two-decade production that plagued the manga actually ended up helping it in this regard. Nowadays, with the sporadic manga releases, it's been replaced by a Mini iPod. Rebuild of Evangelion has him keep the S-DAT player despite being released in 2007.
While Apple still makes very small MP3 players, the product officially named "iPod Mini" has been retired.
Throw It In!: Tiffany Grant improvised and wrote much of the German dialogue for Asuka in the first English dub.
Trend Killer: Evangelion firmly killed the notion that anime appealing to a wide teenager and adult audience were viable only in OVA form. It also ended the "kodomo" era of the mecha genre (as there was declining interest in mecha from the tween and younger teen audiences who overwhelmingly switched to battle shounen series by the late 1990s) and ushered in a second otaku era, with a noticeably more "anything goes" era, a looser definition of what exactly can be mecha and more serious themes being explored once again, to an extent not seen in the genre since the peak of the real robot boom in the early 1980s.
Tiffany Grant, Carrie Keranen and Amanda Winn-Lee all confirmed that Khara had to personally approve the new voice cast in order for the Netflix release to get the final greenlight.
Grant also noted that the rights to the ADV dub have long since reverted to Khara.
Ray Chase, the voice of Gendo in the English Netflix release, confirmed Khara's involvement in the dub as well.
Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: A downplayed case. The series does by and large follow the plot as it was outlined in the original first draft proposal, with the first half or so sticking more or less beat-for-beat to that outline. But a case of Real Life Writes the Plot with the Aum Shinrikyo cult's terrorist attack on the Tokyo subway leading to much of the script having to be scrapped and rewritten, as well as Anno being in treatment for his clinical depression and taking up an interest in psychology as a result, meant that the show starts seriously deviating from said proposal around Episode 16 and forwards. The abstractness of Episode 25 and 26 is pretty much the ultimate culmination of this, as Anno and the team were running seriously short on time at this point, and therefore could not make their originally planned ending, and so instead had to go for something that was more easily achievable in the time left to them.
Matt Greenfield, Makoto Hyuga's voice actor and the ADR director, wrote the scripts for the original ADV dub. His future wife, Tiffany Grant, helped write the German dialogue for Asuka.
Carrie Keranen, the Netflix English dub's ADR director and voice actress for Misato Katsuragi, co-wrote the scripts with Oscar Garcia.
Looks like everyone has an interesting Meaningful Name. Makinami, the Meganekko in Rebuild, has two variants:
When the kanji for nami (波) is placed behind maki (真希), this will literally mean "wave winding", which can reference "momentum" and/or "velocity". In turn, this relates over to the speed of light mentioned earlier, in which light is found to have both mass and velocity in the form of an electron/photon. For comparison to this "speed of light", her personality (as it is on the Characters page) is most often described as a hard-hitter who normally presses Berserk Buttons on the battlefield.
The second variant is when the kanji for unusual(!) (which is 希) is removed from the above. This new term (波真, which is now nami shin) now has an entirely new meaning: True Wave. This would be best represented by how, near the ending of Rebuild 2.0, Makinami unleashes an entirely new form of the EVA. She explains this as a pilot "rids itself of its humanity", and she uses a code word to unlock this new form: The Beast. Note that the Angels are, as per NERV's research, supposed to bear a 99.89 percent similarity to humanity. That research, along with the above information, makes this "Beast" form not a coincidence.
On another note, the interconnecting theme to the pilots here is how they have some usage of the equation for momentum of light used in Chemistry(!) and other sciences. Applying Fridge Logic based on the above given information, we have (in SI Units): Makinami (representing momentum, in kg*m/s) = Ayanami (representing frequency, in "1/s") x Shikinami (representing wavelength, in "m") x Shinji (representing mass, in "kg"; remember his name literally means anchor).
The Evangelions were based visually on Go Nagai creations Devilman and Mazinger Z. Anno cites the terrifying face, slender build, hunched back and chest plate as coming from Devilman, while its glowing eyes with the red markings were derived from Mazinger Z. The first shot of Evangelion, with its large head, was a direct homage to the first episode of Mazinger Z.
The opening shot of The End of Evangelion is a mirror image of the closing shot of Evangelion: Death. The opening shot of Rebuild of Evangelion 1.0 is a reflection of the closing shot of The End of Evangelion, with a few... scenery details removed.
The US voice actors for the three main Children all married the original voice actors for the Bridge Bunnies: Amanda Winn-Lee (Rei) is married to Jason C. Lee (Aoba); Spike Spencer (Shinji) was formerly married to Kendra Benham (Ibuki); and Tiffany Grant (Asuka) was formerly married to Matt Greenfield (Hyûga).
Gnoll, a cross between a gnome and a troll. "Groll" (German for "resentment") is also accurate.
Menarche, which is female puberty (specifically, a girl's first menstrual cycle).
Schema, which is a pattern of thought-behaviors. In other words, automation of the human mind.
The kanji for "baka!", or "idiot!"
A series of German lines that, when combined, mention that Asuka was actually saddened when her mother died.
The repeated use of "nein" (no) and "tod" (death).
Slightly censored characters that read "sex", which could allude to a number of things, to do with Asuka wanting to be "mature", a metaphor of what the angel is doing to her, etc.
As an interesting note for both Latin American and Spaniard viewers, Evangelion is, to this date, the only Studio Gainax series dubbed to Spanish and Portuguese respectively, at least for Latin American viewers. Spaniards are a bit luckier, as they got Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water and Otaku no Video first, through only Nadia got a dub there. Also, for both Latin Americans and Spaniards alike, this is also the first Studio Khara work (not including Rebuild of Evangelion) dubbed in that language, now that they own the rights of the franchise.
In February 2022, during escalating tensions that ultimately culminated in a Russian invasion of Ukraine, someone played the song "Komm Susser Tod" live over Kiev, where it was caught on a livestream. See here.
. He even congratulated Casey Mongillo and Stephanie McKeon for respectively taking up the mantles of Shinji and Asuka.