Neon Genesis Evangelion

   

Neon Genesis Evangelion (Japanese: 新世紀エヴァンゲリオン, Shinseiki Evangelion) is an anime series directed and written by Hideaki Anno and produced by Gainax. It is generally regarded as one of the modern classics of anime. It is generally concerned with the pilots of mechas called Evangelions who are charged with defending Tokyo-3 against monsters called Angels. Although it starts as a regular mecha anime, the focus tends to shift from action to flashbacks and analyses of the main characters, in particular the main character Shinji Ikari.

Anno suffered from a long depression previous to creating Eva; much of the show is based on his own experiences dealing with depression and psychological theory he learned from psychotherapy. Characters in the anime display show a variety of mood disorders and problems with emotional health, especially depression, trauma and separation anxiety disorder.

Composition

Evangelion consists of 26 television episodes which were first aired in 1995, followed by a pair of movies: Death and Rebirth, and End of Evangelion, first screened in 1997. Death and Rebirth is essentially a highly condensed re-edit of the series plus the first half of End of Evangelion. The two movies were subsequently rereleased as a single movie called Revival of Evangelion. It also spawned a manga, written by series character designer Yoshiyuki Sadamoto and published by Kadokawa Shoten, though its first volume was actually released prior to the airing of Evangelion's first episode. The manga is currently still in production.

Production of a live action version was announced on May of 2003 by the American company ADV Films (who holds world-wide rights to the series outside of Asia and Australia), and will be made by ADV, Gainax and Weta Workshop Ltd.. It is estimated to be released from as early as 2006 to as late as 2010. Hideaki Anno will not be directing this live action movie.

Merchandise for this series still comes out fairly regularly despite the series' being almost a decade old. A large deal of the merchandise has an amusingly detached or hilarious non-relation to the dark nature of the series. It has also spawned various computer games, including Girlfriend Of Steel. While shoehorned into the original plot, the sequel to the game, Girlfriend Of Steel 2, takes place in a complete alternate universe. This later inspired a manga, which uses most of the Evangelion characters in a 'normal' schoolyard drama series.

Plot summary

Evangelion takes place in the near future (2015 AD), fourteen years after the catastrophic Second Impact. Caused by a meteorite strike, this explosion was massive enough to tilt the Earth's axis and melt the Antarctica. During the aftermath, Earth lost its seasonal cycle and most of the mankind was wiped out by the resulting flood.

Just as the humanity had recovered and the life had returned to normal, a new threat emerged: the Angels. Conventional weapons are useless against these monsters, and the only known defense against them is the biomechanical robot created by NERV, the Evangelion 0:1.

Further details

Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow.

In 2001, a group of scientists conducted an expedition to Antarctica where a large being of light, deemed by them as the first Angel Adam was discovered. After they made contact with the angel, it self-destructed. The true nature of the second impact was concealed from the general public, who was led to believe that the devastation was caused by an asteroid impact.

In this conflict, mankind is represented by the mysterious organizations called NERV, GEHIRN (which started out as the investigation team for the Second Impact but became NERV later on), SEELE, and Marduk. NERV is in theory under the control of SEELE, but NERV has its own agenda, driven by its commander Gendo Ikari (father of Shinji Ikari: main character, and pilot of Evangelion Unit 0:1).

NERV carries out two tasks: to defend the Earth from Angel attack with a small number of Evangelions and the Human Instrumentality Project.

The Evangelions have the outward appearance of massive humanoid biomechanical robots and can be piloted only by 14 year old children (i.e. those born at around the time of the Second Impact). Pilots are selected by the Marduk Agency which is later discovered to be composed of about 108 ghost companies; pilots must have lost a mother or a very close loved one, which is then used as the soul of the Eva (the Eva also behaves like the soul inside it, often lashing out at old enemies). Only the designated pilot of an Eva can pilot it, due to the bond of the pilot's soul and the soul of the Eva; otherwise, any other person who tries to synchronize (simply put, to technically work as one mind) with the Eva will be refused. It is later apparent that the Evangelions are not really "robots" but rather living organisms, even though, in the very first episode, it had been once described as a "synthetic lifeform" by Ritsuko Akagi.

The secret second task, the Human Instrumentality Project, intends to start an artificial evolution of mankind. Considering the religious implications of the term "evangelion", this event was said to bring about the salvation of mankind in the context of a newly created Earth.


Response

When first aired in Japan at a time slot intended for teenagers, it was not especially popular. However, when aired again in a time slot more suitable for adults, its popularity exploded and rekindled many adults' interest in anime. Evangelion was, and continues to be, a strong influence on anime in general. Despite being generally highly regarded, the series has numerous detractors, who find it self-important and see the many religious and psychological references as superficial rather than meaningful. One reason for this schism in reception is that the series was originally intended as a strictly commercial venture; the primary backers were toy companies Bandai and Sega, and staff of the project has said that they originally used the symbolism of Christianity (an uncommon religion in Japan) only to give the project a unique edge against other giant robot shows. Despite creative conflicts between the sponsors and its director, the series was not perceived as being the work of an auteur such as Hayao Miyazaki.

After the ending of the TV series, Gainax and Anno received numerous letters and emails from fans, both congratulating and criticizing his last two episodes. Among these were death threats and letters of disappointment from fans who thought Hideaki Anno had ruined the series for them. Due to those, Gainax launched the project to create a movie with a 'proper' ending for the series in 1997. Due to scheduling difficulties, they released Death and Rebirth, consisting of a character-based recap of the entire series (Death) and half of the 'proper' ending to Evangelion (Rebirth). The project was completed later in the year, and contained the complete section of Rebirth, i.e. End of Evangelion. The film made around $12 million at the Japanese box office. (Blockbusters in Japan usually make $40-60 million).

Despite the success of End of Evangelion, the ending was considered controversial by many fans, or just confusing. Some believe that it was a manifestation of Anno's frustrations with the fan culture that attacked his original ending, and used End of Evangelion as revenge against those. Many others believed that the story in End of Evangelion had always been planned by Anno, but was unable to be done due to budget and censorship restraints in the original series.

Translation Notes

The Japanese title for the series translates literally as "Gospel of the New Century". Evangelion is Greek for "good news", and is typically translated "gospel" in the Bible.

The term "Gehirn" is German for "brain". "Seele" is the German term for "soul". "Nerv" is the German term for "nerve".

"Children", the plural of "Child", is used to refer to each of the Eva pilots in the singular (i.e. Shinji is the "Third Children", not the "Third Child".) This is intentional, and not a translation error. The ADV dubbings, however, uses the word "Child" instead of "Children".

The manga was translated into English by Viz Communications.

Sub-topics

External links



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