For a series whose “final” movie’s tagline read: “Bye-bye, all of Evangelion,” we sure seem to be getting a whole lot more Neon Genesis Evangelion. There are the kabuki show adaptations, themed hotels, streetwear-inspired fashion lines, concerts, the recent Evangelion:30+; 30th Anniversary of Evangelion event that featured an exclusive 13-minute short starring Asuka, and the announcement that Drakengard and Nier creator Yoko Taro and composer Keiiche Okabe will oversee the production scripts and music of a new Neon Genesis Evangelion series.
Even though the series’ creator, Hideaki Anno, has some (for lack of a better way of putting it) “complicated feelings” about his multimillion dollar franchise, the fandom that’s grown up with it and refuses to outgrow it, and his role as its steward… yeah, I’m thinking Evangelion is back, and here to stay.
Yet as someone who loves critical analysis, I can’t help but feel a little complicit in being a part of the fandom that inspired Anno to end his final film by basically telling us all to grow up. At least, that’s my read on the ending. Surely I can recognize that and still like or even love a thing? And so can you. That’s why Evangelion is so special; it forces us to hold a mirror up to the ugly truth of fandom, but also its joys. It allows us the comforting warmth of nostalgia amid the cold passage of time.
Some of you have been with the series from day one, while others such as myself may have discovered the show via that one cool friend who decided to let you borrow the Platinum DVD collection. Even newer fans have joined the community via the series rerelease on Netflix. Part of Evangelion’s charm is how frequently it’s popped up over the last 30 years, spanning decades and inspiring generations to revisit the series and kick up the dust on theories and arguments that have long laid dormant. They’re conversations that fans of every age can’t help but rejoin just for the hell of it, which is why I believe: You Can (Not) Outgrow Neon Genesis Evangelion.
Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995-1996)
For those of you who started reading this article in an attempt to try to understand why Evangelion is so special, here’s the elevator pitch: Following a cataclysmic event known as Second Impact that wipes out just about half of humanity, the United Nations establishes an experimental organization headquartered in Tokyo known as NERV. Their sole responsibility is to prevent kaiju-like aliens known as Angels from causing an apocalyptic Third Impact via the use of giant mecha referred to as EVA units, which you no doubt have seen before (or seen things inspired by their design).
The only problem with these EVA units is that for some reason, they’re not compatible with just anyone who sits in the cockpit. These mechs run best with teenagers with big emotions, so enter our protagonist – Shinji Ikari. He’s a 14-year-old with daddy issues who’s enlisted by his father, Gendo Ikari (Commander of NERV), to pilot EVA Unit-01… hence the daddy issues. Shinji is among one of a handful of pilot candidates that include Rei, the emotionless enigmatic pilot of Unit-00; Asuka, the fiery pilot of Unit-02 with abandonment issues; and a few more I won’t detail here. Their operations leader is Misato Katsuragi, the only adult in the group. She’s a rising star at NERV who’s dealing with the responsibility of potentially leading children to their deaths in service of saving humanity, corporate espionage, and romance in the workplace. Everyone is fighting some sort of battle; some are more literal than others.
The original series starts like your usual monster-of-the-week show, with each episode introducing a new Angel that needs to be handled in outlandish fashion. But as the series developed, production schedules strained, and budgets tightened, Anno and the team at Gainax were forced to “get creative” with the series. Most anime end with some sort of action-packed finale full of stunning animation and triumphant highs… but not Evangelion. The series’ two-part finale eschewed tradition, and instead of tying everything together with a nice, neat bow, it abandoned all storylines in a bold (and economic) wrap-up that favored abstract, minimalist storytelling, all from within protagonist Shinji’s mind.
If you think this all sounds great, my job is done! You have great taste, and you’re in for a wild roller-coaster of a ride. But in the present, we can take comfort in knowing that the story continues, which was not the case for audiences back in the late ’90s. Their beloved characters were ripped away from them with little to no satisfying conclusion; some enjoyed the series ending, while others were understandably upset – so upset, in fact, that they might’ve gone overboard with sending Gainax and Hideaki Anno death threats.
Not cool.
Anno struck back with the 1997 film, The End of Evangelion. If fans wanted a conclusion, they were going to get one… whether they liked it or not.
The End of Evangelion (1997)
The End of Evangelion is bleak. This psycho-sexual action-packed finale opens with a deeply uncomfortable scene of Shinji masturbating to an unconscious Asuka. Not quite how you imagined we’d be revisiting these beloved characters, is it?
A sense of hopelessness and shame is present throughout the entirety of The End of Evangelion. We watch helplessly as beloved characters die brutally on screen with the budget to see it animated beautifully. Not only are our characters doomed, but humanity as we know it is coming to an end, and we are witnessing the last, horrible moments of it. As The End of Evangelion reaches its climax, Anno rips us from the confines of the animated world and plunges us into live-action footage of the inside of a movie theater; we are the movie theater screen watching audiences watch The End of Evangelion.
And the audience is angry.
There’s a great shot of a dude flipping off the camera, a serendipitous shot Anno no doubt included to complement the loads of hate mail he and the rest of Gainax received because of the series’ ending. And yet, the film ends following what I believe to be the true through line of Neon Genesis Evangelion – a logical follow-up to the series’ metaphor of the Hedgehog’s dilemma. Despite everything we’ve witnessed – all the horrible and painful sights – I can’t help but leave The End of Evangelion with a sense of hope.
Rebuild of Evangelion (2007-2021)
There are plenty of stories online that talk about the manic depressive state of Hideaki Anno during the series production of Evangelion. I don’t intend on reading into that, because that gets into territory I don’t think I’m qualified to explore. Yet, when I watch The End of Evangelion, I feel that it is one of the purest distillations of artists wrestling with their creation, the good and the bad.
For a while, The End of Evangelion really was the end. Then, roughly a decade later, Rebuild of Evangelion was announced – a series of theatrical remakes of the original series that would unfold in four parts. The official poster for the project was a statement of intent from Anno, discussing his desire to share “sincere feelings” and appeal to “middle and high school-aged men, who quickly grow away from anime.” Anno concludes by saying:
“Eva is a story that repeats. It is a story where the main character witnesses many horrors with his own eyes, but still tries to stand up again. It is a story of will; a story of moving forward, if only just a little. It is a story of fear, where someone who must face indefinite solitude fears reaching out to others, but still wants to try.”
As you might expect, fans felt all sorts of ways about it. I’m a huge fan of artists and auteurs reiterating and remaking their life’s work until they feel they’ve gotten it right. Look at George Miller and his Mad Max saga, or Hideo Kojima and his Metal Gear Solid and even Death Stranding series. Some creators, whether it’s as an exercise in love and/or self-loathing, feel compelled to return to their defining works; I dig that.
If we imagine Evangelion as a living, breathing entity, it’s grown alongside its creator and audience. The original series represented the scrappy preteen years; The End of Evangelion, the edgy teenage years; and the Rebuild films, a sort of crossing from adolescence to adulthood. By the end of the “final” Rebuild film, Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time, it feels like Anno recognized that nostalgia is something of value and worth cherishing, but it’s important not to let it hold you back, for fear of never growing up. If you let it, nostalgia will suffocate you.
Bye-bye, All of Evangelion + Welcome Back, Evangelion
For a time, there were a lot of online forum discussions and Reddit threads picking apart The End of Evangelion and the Rebuild films, with some fans claiming that Anno hated Evangelion and its fans.
I don’t think that’s the case at all; in fact, he’s probably the ultimate fan or “otaku”-turned-creator with his work on Shin Godzilla, Shin Ultraman, and Shin Kamen Rider. All of those projects clearly showcase his love of iconic tentpoles of Japanese media while adding his Evangelion-eque flourishes throughout, like the use of Evangelion’s “Decisive Battle” theme to Shin Godzilla. His fandom runs so deep, his wife Moyoco Anno – an established mangaka (manga artist) in her own right – has a comic about being married to the ultimate otaku and all the eccentricities that entails, called Insufficient Direction. In the foreword to that manga, Hideaki Anno writes:
“We have such an overabundance of information and our material civilization is full to the brim, but at the same time our spirits are impoverished, we lack imagination, and our social base is weakening. That’s why I think we need manga like my wife’s. […] Her manga accomplished what I couldn’t do in Eva to the end. It was a big shock to me, really. […] After Eva, there was a time when I wanted to stop being an otaku. I was sick of the stagnation of the anime industry and fans. I was filled with self-hatred back then. I was desperate.”
That level of self-awareness and self-criticism rings true to me. Evangelion is a means to uncover what it means to be human – the ugliness, but also the beauty and grace that come with it. Evangelion’s time has come and gone… with even more on the way. As Anno stated in those aforementioned Rebuild posters: “Eva” is a story that repeats, and much like Evangelion, I’m starting to repeat myself.
So, congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations on 30 years of Evangelion. I look forward to seeing the reins passed over to Yoko Taro, and figuring out just how deep the rabbit hole goes. This silly show about giant robots fighting aliens has us asking much deeper questions; it really must be one-of-a-kind. Thank you to everyone responsible for the creation of the show, and especially to Hideaki Anno for everything.
