What Could Have Been / Neon Genesis Evangelion

Tropes for Rebuild of Evangelion have their own article.

Production

Concept Art of Rei Ayanami.^note Notice how she's smiling in one of them.

• First of all, the project that became Evangelion was originally conceived as a Stealth Sequel to Gainax's previous success Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water (which had been originally conceived by Hayao Miyazaki as a sequel to Future Boy Conan, itself an adaptation of a western novel), as revealed in interviews with the Gainax staff in Mitsunari Oizumi's book Anno Hideaki Squizo Evangelion. The extent of the connections are unknown, but a popular interpretation is that the Angels would be actually Atlantean Adams released by the Red Noah upon its destruction by Captain Nemo, as sixteen light spheres (the final number of the Angels sans Lilith and Lilim) can be spotted being ejected during the explosion in Nadia. However, as Nadia's rights were held by NHK, Anno and company were forced to develop it as an independent story. Traces of the relationship between the two still remain in the Good Luck Nadia CD drama, which was released the same year in which Evangelion entered production and contains the first mentions to Tokyo-2 and a character named Ritsuko.
• Anno originally considered to make the show at King Records, rather than it being a Gainax production, due to him having very good relations with the people in charge there (especially Toshimichi Otsuki, who was drinking pals with Anno during the latter's depression). In the end, he ended up sticking with Gainax out of loyality to the company, with King Records instead being a major sponsor for the show.
• At one point during development, Anno attempted to recruit Kunihiko Ikuhara for the series and even named Rei Ayanami after Sailor Mars in an attempt to lure him in. Had Ikuhara agreed, the show would likely have had even more surrealism thrown in (if you are interested, Rei's original name was going to be Yui Ichijo).
• Shinji was supposed to be a girl, but they changed her into being a boy because GunBuster and Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water both had female protagonists. His character design was still oficially based on Nadia, according to Sadamoto, and there were plans for him to have longer hair that would wave in the wind and that he could hide behind during dramatic scenes (they shot it down because he would have looked too feminine and too messy).
• Anno revealed in October 2014 that he intended to make a new Evangelion film following the completion of Death and Rebirth and End of Evangelion. The proposed project was to take place in an Alternate Continuity and have a overall Darker and Edgier and even bleaker tone than the original series, capitalizing on the film format to go all in. However, the project was scrapped when Death and Rebirth went over schedule and caused End of Evangelion to be delayed, and the intended director of the project was reluctant towards it. Quite a few elements of the story, however, were later reused in Rebuild of Evangelion.
  • Designer Ikuto Yamashita offered a first pitch for the project, which included rival NERV branches fighting each other with their Evangelion units, Shinji fusing with the Unit 01 as a result of a "Deep Stage Incident", an autonomous enemy Evangelion named Fortune, and a wave of mental contamination turning Asuka and a big part of humanity into a sort of "wolf-men", which a rogue Shinji would have taken control of at some point. This was rejected, although the animalistic themes might have influenced the Beast Mode shown by the Evas in Rebuild, as it would do the idea of Shinji going against NERV. Yamashita's later alternate continuity novel Evangelion Anima also reutilized concepts from here.
  • Anno's own pitch was equally bizarre and gory. The story took place after humanity had become almost extinct due to Angel attacks, with the few remaining survivors clinging to life in a Last Bastion city protected by an AT field, while Evangelions would have entailed much more Body Horror, taking more humanoid appearances and requiring the pilots to be surgically connected to them (Anno compared this premise to Attack on Titan). Again, some of these ideas ended up in the latter part of Rebuild, and it would be surprising that they didn't also find their way into DARLING in the FRANXX by way of its Gainax connection.
• In early 2020, Anno revealed that in the early 2000s, he was working on-and-off on some vague and tentative plans of one day putting together some sort of epilogue story to Evangelion. The project would instead eventually evolve into Rebuild of Evangelion.

Proposal

The Neon Genesis Evangelion Proposal, a rough outline of the series, was created in 1993 (two years before the show began airing on TV) for promotional purposes. Numerous changes would be made between the Proposal and the final product as shown below:

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• There are a total of 28 Angels, although only about half of them, the same number as in the final product, would be distinct; the extra twelve/thirteen were supposed to attack all at once during the finale, completely erasing America from the map. The document also uses the same Japanese word as in the series, shito, but also includes "Apostolo" in katakana.
• The Evas look slightly different. Units 05 and 06 are specifically mentioned; Unit 05 was to have been brought into Japan after Zeruel while Unit 06 would've perished during the finale. While not making it into the series, these Evas were recycled for the Rebuild movies as the personal Units of Mari and Kaworu respectively.
• Ritsuko is a fan of bonsai and punk rock, of all things.
• Hyuga, Ibuki and Aoba aren't present and SEELE isn't mentioned. There is however mention of a character named Conrad Lawrence; based on the description of him being an old man who set up NERV and put his later nemesis Gendo into position, he might've been the earliest draft of Keel Lorenz.
• Sketchy descriptions of the final episodes taking place differently: after Rei's secrets are revealed, the twelve strongest Angels descend from the Moon and completely annihilate America, destroying Unit 06 in the process and plunging humanity into mass panic. The UN decides they have nothing to lose and aborts the Human Instrumentality Project over Gendo's protests, resolving to go down fighting instead. A cryptic mention of "the ruins of Arka, the Promised Land" (located in the Geofront) being a key objective.
• Kaworu is mentioned without name as a child with a cat. To those who have read the manga, this sounds even weirder. According to interviews with Anno, the cat would have made it into the final product had it not been for budget-constrains. The same interviews also reveal that they had at one point considered introducing Kaworu earlier than they eventually did and that Shinji first would have found him playing an abandoned piano in some ruined house. Those ideas were incorporated into the manga (where Kaworu infamously mercy-kills a stray cat) and Rebuild (in which piano-playing would also be a key character trait).
• Arael was supposed to have engaged the Evas in close aerial combat instead of Mind Rape, using some sort of vibroweapon on its wingtips. The Evas themselves would've been equipped with flight harnesses in order to fight the Angel. Again, these plot elements both found their way into the third Rebuild movie.
• Shinji was supposed to have received the Mind Rape (from an Angel unrelated to Arael or Leliel), not Asuka. The poor boy was not going to catch a break.
• Shinji realized Asuka was in love with him rather than remaining oblivious to her hints.
• Kaworu was originally going to be a transfer student at the kids' school, rather than the newest Evangelion pilot. This was changed after Anno realized that the school setting had more or less been written out of the show by the time episode 24 came around.
• The plug suits would look closer to the classic space suit look, Rei was initially dubbed Yui Ichijo, had black hair, got along better with Asuka and was friendlier and less the Rei Ayanami Expy we know today.

Series and The End of Evangelion

• Several planned plot elements after episode 16 had to be cut because of their unforeseen similarities to the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway in March 1995.
• Hyûga was originally not meant to have a crush on Misato. In fact, an off-hand remark in one of the early scripts for episode 24 would have implied that he was gay.
• Published drafts for episode 24, 25 and 26 shows that there had been plans to include a minor sub-plot about different characters visiting Toji in the hospital that eventually was cut.
• The End of Evangelion is basically an expanded version of what was originally scripted for the final two episodes, hence the film being split into two parts. Had Gainax's budget not been shot, the finale would have just been a shorter version of the movie (albeit with less violent and sexual imagery).
• The leaked original script for episode 25 and 26, which was used for The End of Evangelion, featured two different proposed epilogues, neither of which corresponded completely with the one in film. They are both much bleaker than the final product.
  • The first one (Last A) was the closest to the final one, but lacks the Book Ends Lilith/Rei, has the cast's names on the graves Shinji raised, shows Asuka kicking down hers, and has her final line being her signature "idiot!". Some of this remains in the final film, as Asuka's grave is still shown to have been toppled after she returns from Instrumentality.
  • The second one (Last B), however, was a supreme Downer Ending. It starts with Shinji laying on the beach holding Rei's hand before Shinji turn his head to see the Book Ends Lilith/Rei. The camera then pans out to show that Shinji is only clutching the arm Rei lost earlier. His monologue then reveals that he was the only human self-reflective enough to ever return from Instrumentality, meaning he will be spending the rest of his life alone after finally finding the will to live with other people. After the credits start, they would have shown scenes revealing that Unit-01 had ended up on the moon, its/her helmet broken and revealing woman's hair.
• The live-action sequence was supposed to be much longer and more story driven, showing Shinji a more mundane alternate world, like in Episode 26, but with the further twist that he himself does not exist in that world. The sequence shows an older Asuka, Rei and Misato played by their voice actors going about their somewhat depressing everyday lives (the sequence was included in the Japan-only Renewal release as an extra).
• Initially the final line was going to be "I won't let you kill me", initially preceded by a trademark "baka!"/"idiot!" that was erased from the storyboard. (The original script for Episode 26 had the line be proceeded, but it was removed from EoE's storyboard). According to Yuko Miyamura (Asuka's voice actress), Anno couldn't make her say it how he wanted it to sound, so eventually he instead described Miyamura the masturbation scene to her from Asuka's perspective and asked her how she would react if it happened to her, which led to the current line: "Disgusting" (kimochi warui, literally "I feel sick").

Dubs

• According to the commentary, Amanda Winn-Lee originally wanted to try out for the role of Misato for the ADV dub, before Allison Keith's performance changed her mind. ADR director Matt Greenfield also thought casting her as Misato would be too much of a typecast.
• When ADV Films began producing their dub, Gainax wanted to use their translated scripts. However, according to Winn-Lee, ADR director/writer Matt Greenfield instead used his own scripts.
• ADV considered redubbing the entire series from scratch in 2004 for the Platinum remastered release, but instead settled on remixing their original 1996-1998 dub with minimal changes. Matt Greenfield believed that fans were too familiar and attached to the dub, and said redoing it from scratch would be too reminiscent of the Star Wars special editions.
• Spike Spencer, Amanda Winn-Lee and Tiffany Grant all auditioned to reprise the respective voices of Shinji, Rei and Asuka for the Netflix English dub, which was recorded at VSI Los Angeles. However, the roles instead went to Casey Mongillo (Shinji), Ryan Bartley (Rei) and Stephanie McKeon (Asuka).
  • In addition, Spencer revealed on Twitter in 2021 that he asked for, and was given, the opportunity to audition for Gendo in that same dub. Ultimately, the role went to Ray Chase.
• At one point during production of the Netflix release, Oscar Garcia, the co-writer for the English adaptation, wanted to use the original ADV scripts, but Khara overruled it.
• When VSI Rome produced the Italian dub for the Netflix release, their manager wanted to use the original translations, but longtime writer Gualtiero Cannarsi rewrote the script. Fabrizio Mazzotta, who directed the original dub as well as the first Netflix dub, and the Netflix cast objected to Cannarsi's changes, but they were initially overruled. The dub was re-recorded with a new script by Laura Cosenza after Cannarsi's script was widely mocked by fans and critics.
• Being in charge of the Brazillian Portuguese Vox redub for Netflix, Fábio Lucindo thought about giving up the role of Shinji in case he couldn't reach the desired high tone for his voice (he was 15 when he first voiced Shinji for the Locomotion dub and 35 when he directed the Netflix dub). As he commented in an interview with the website JBox, he was considering casting Lipe Volpato as his replacement. However, that didn't happen and Fábio ended up dubbing Shinji in this version too.