Evangelion is set 57 years after My Neighbour Totoro, with a surprisingly linked storyline.
(As far as I can tell based off my own personal viewing of the film and what the internet tells me) My Neighbour Totoro is set in 1958, with Satsuki Kusakabe aged 10 at the time. This would mean Satsuki was born in 1948. It's entirely reasonable that she would grow up to get married in the late sixties or early seventies and in 1977 bears a child, but here's the twist. The man she married's name was Ikari. Having taken that family name she named the child Yui, who, wait for it, would grow to marry Gendo and give birth to Shinji. This would explain why (when the differing animation styles of the film are taken into account) Yui and Shinji appear so similar to Satsuki.
Another twist comes with Mei (apparently born 1954). Say Mei marries at some point in the seventies, she may go on to have a family, and there's nothing to stop her doing that with a man named Ibuki. In 1991 (The year of Maya Ibukis birth) Mei would still only be 37, still a perfectly reasonable age to have children, and could well be Maya's mum. Although she may not have directly inherited the family appearance as dominant genes, she may still still carry the gene's recessively and pass them onto Maya, hence Maya looking so similar to Yui.
Also, Totoro is Kaworu's earliest form to appear on earth!
I'm so sorry that my avatar doesn't appear fully in the shot, but the cat was threatening the photographer.
Another twist comes with Mei (apparently born 1954). Say Mei marries at some point in the seventies, she may go on to have a family, and there's nothing to stop her doing that with a man named Ibuki. In 1991 (The year of Maya Ibukis birth) Mei would still only be 37, still a perfectly reasonable age to have children, and could well be Maya's mum. Although she may not have directly inherited the family appearance as dominant genes, she may still still carry the gene's recessively and pass them onto Maya, hence Maya looking so similar to Yui.
Also, Totoro is Kaworu's earliest form to appear on earth!
I'm so sorry that my avatar doesn't appear fully in the shot, but the cat was threatening the photographer.