is a Japanese media franchise created by Hideaki Anno, originally owned by Gainax and currently owned by Khara. Most of the franchise features an apocalyptic mecha action story, which revolves around the paramilitary organization NERV and their efforts in fighting hostile beings called Angels, using giant humanoids called Evangelions (or EVAs for short) that are piloted by select teenagers. Subsequent works deviate from this theme to varying degrees, focusing more on romantic interactions between the characters, plotlines not present in the original works, and reimaginings of the conflicts from the original works.
The Neon Genesis Evangelion manga debuted in Shōnen Ace in December 1994, to generate interest in the upcoming anime release. The Neon Genesis Evangelion anime was written and directed by Hideaki Anno, originally airing from October 1995 until March 1996. The anime is widely considered to have been groundbreaking in its exploration of religious, psychological, and philosophical themes, while initially appearing to be a standard mecha series. The ending of the series was controversial; in response to this controversy, two films offered an alternate ending for the show: Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death & Rebirth, released in March 1997, and The End of Evangelion released in July 1997. Death is a 60-minute compilation of parts from the first 24 episodes of the TV series, with some new footage added in order to prepare for Rebirth, which contains the last two episodes and the first 30 minutes of End of Evangelion.
The popularity of the show spawned numerous additional media, including video games, radio dramas, audio books, a light novel series, pachinko machines, and a tetralogy of films titled Rebuild of Evangelion. Other derivative works include Angelic Days, Petit Eva: Evangelion@School and Shinji Ikari Raising Project.
Setting Works within the Neon Genesis Evangelion franchise typically have the same setting, characters, and themes, but can vary in their portrayal of the different storylines with alternate re-tellings of the original anime. Many later works, such as Death & Rebirth and The Rebuild of Evangelion, diverge greatly from the original anime. Evangelions fictional setting takes place after the Second Impact, a cataclysmic explosion in Antarctica in the year 2000, which killed billions of people and threw the Earth off its axis. Fifteen years after the Second Impact, a group of mysterious beings referred to as "Angels" begin appearing and pose a worldwide and existential threat to what remains of mankind. The NERV organization, a paramilitary special agency recruited and controlled by the UN, is tasked with defeating the Angels, with the use of giant mechanical warriors known as "Evangelions". A select group of children pilot the Evangelions, with focus put on Shinji Ikari, Rei Ayanami and Asuka Langley Soryu. As the story progresses, it delves into philosophical and psychological themes such as identity, trauma, and the nature of existence. The relationships between the characters are also explored, particularly between Shinji, Asuka, and Rei, as they navigate their complex and sometimes contentious dynamics. The backdrop of Neon Genesis Evangelion slowly reveals the true nature of Rei Ayanami, the Evangelions, the Angels, the NERV organization and a group known as SEELE. The series incorporates religious themes, including Christianity and Kabbalah and Adam, Lilith and the Dead Sea Scrolls. The series is well known for its psychoanalysis of the characters and features the theories of famous psychologists like Jung and Freud. This is most heavily covered in the implementation of the Human Instrumentality Project, the secret goal of NERV and SEELE, whose result varies across different media, including the original anime, films, manga and video games.
Anime Neon Genesis Evangelion
Neon Genesis Evangelion, also known simply as Evangelion or Eva, is a Japanese mecha anime television series animated by Tatsunoko, produced by Gainax, directed by Hideaki Anno and broadcast on TV Tokyo from October 1995 to March 1996. It was the first installation in the franchise, and also the second of Gainax's works to reach such acclaim, the earlier being Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water. Evangelion is set fifteen years after a worldwide cataclysm named Second Impact, particularly in the futuristic fortified city of Tokyo-3. The protagonist is Shinji Ikari, a teenage boy who is recruited by his father Gendo to the shadowy organization NERV to pilot a giant bio-machine mecha named Evangelion into combat against beings known as Angels.
The series explores the experiences and emotions of Evangelion pilots and members of Nerv as they try to prevent Angels from causing more cataclysms. In the process, they are called upon to understand the ultimate causes of events and the motives for human action. The series has been described as a deconstruction of the mecha genre and it features archetypal imagery derived from Shinto cosmology as well as Jewish and Christian mystical traditions, including Midrashic tales and Kabbalah. The psychoanalytic accounts of human behavior put forward by Freud and Jung are also prominently featured. Neon Genesis Evangelion was awarded The Excellence Award at the Japan Media Arts-festival in 1997. The word "controversial" shows up almost continuously in reviews of the series, together with "complex". Critics saw Evangelion very positively, with its stylised and thematic characteristics.
Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death & Rebirth
Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death & Rebirth, is a 1997 Japanese animated science fiction psychological drama film and the first installment of the Neon Genesis Evangelion feature film project and consists of two parts. The project, whose overarching title translates literally to New Century Gospel: The Movie, was released in response to the success of the TV series and a strong demand by fans for an alternate ending. Its components have since been re-edited and re-released several times. Death is a sixty-minute summary of the first twenty-four parts of Neon Genesis Evangelion. New scenes were added, which were later added to the series itself in its "Director's Cut". The purpose of Death is to set the stage for Rebirth, which is a re-made version of the series' last two parts. Death was reworked twice: once as Death(true), in which the new scenes were removed after they had been added to the series and shown without Rebirth, then another version was released, Death(true)2, in which Adam's embryo was added to Gendo's hand (later incorporated into The End of Evangelion) and various cuts were made to the film. Death(true)2 is the version included in Revival of Evangelion, the final version of the films. and the first half of an unfinished new ending, titled Rebirth, a retelling of episodes 25 and 26 of the television series as the events of the Human Instrumentality Project unfold from an external point of view.
The End of Evangelion
The End of Evangelion, released on July 19, 1997, is the completed version of Rebirth, an alternate version of the final episodes of the television series. SEELE attacks NERV, using their Mass Production Evangelion units, all in an attempt to complete the Human Instrumentality Project and initiate the Third Impact. It was written by Hideaki Anno, directed by Anno and Kazuya Tsurumaki, and animated by Gainax and Production I.G. It serves as an alternate ending to the television series, as the earlier mentioned episodes were quite controversial.
The story follows Shinji Ikari, Rei Ayanami and Asuka Langley Soryu, the pilots of the Evangelions during the beginning of the Third Impact. Shinji is subjected to the Human Instrumentality Project, a process in which human souls are merged into a single divine entity. The film features the voice actors of the original series, including Megumi Ogata as Shinji, Yuko Miyamura as Asuka, and Megumi Hayashibara as Rei. The End of Evangelion was a box-office success, grossing ¥2.47 billion. It was honored with "Most Popular Film" at the Awards of the Japanese Academy, the Animation Kobe, and it also won the 1997 Animage Anime Grand Prix, and was praised for its violence, direction, editing, emotional power, and script, though some reviewers criticized its oblique religious symbolism and abstraction.
Petit Eva: Evangelion@School Petit Eva: Evangelion@School is a chibi-style ONA series that ran for 24 broadcasts from March 20, 2007, to March 11, 2009. It was adapted from the Petit Eva and Petit Eva Bokura Tanken Dōkōkai spin-off manga illustrated by Ryusuke Hamamoto and Maki Ozora. It is a parody of the original series, where the original cast are now students at a junior high school in Tokyo-3. There are other minor differences to Neon Genesis Evangelion as well, such as the fact that the three Rei clones are now sisters and that Evangelion Unit-01 is now a human-sized student.
Episodes
Rebuild of Evangelion
Rebuild of Evangelion, known in Japan and on Amazon Prime Video as Evangelion: New Theatrical Edition (ヱヴァンゲリヲン新劇場版, Evangerion Shin Gekijōban), is a Japanese animated film series and a retelling of the original Neon Genesis Evangelion anime television series, produced by Studio Khara. Hideaki Anno served as the writer and general manager of the project, with Kazuya Tsurumaki and Masayuki directing the films themselves. Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, Ikuto Yamashita and Shirō Sagisu returned to provide character designs, mechanical designs and music respectively.
The film tetralogy uses digital ink and paint, some CG animation, and provides new scenes, settings and characters, with a completely new conclusion in the fourth and final film. Another stated intention of the series is for it to be more accessible to non-fans than the original TV series and films were. It was made to present an alternate retelling of episodes 1-19 of the TV series (including new scenes, settings, and characters) and a completely new conclusion to the story. The first film Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone was released in Japan on September 1, 2007, with Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance and Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo released on June 27, 2009, and November 17, 2012, respectively. The final film, Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time, was released on March 8, 2021. Upon its home media release on March 8, 2023, two new original video animations, Evangelion: 3.0 (-46h) and Evangelion: 3.0 (-120min) were included.
Untitled anime series An anime series was announced following the "Evangelion:30+; 30th Anniversary of Evangelion" festival in February 2026. It is set to be produced by CloverWorks and Khara and directed by Kazuya Tsurumaki and Tōko Yatabe, with scripts written by Yoko Taro and music composed by Keiichi Okabe.
Manga and light novel A number of manga series based on the anime have been released, most notably the official series by series character designer Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, which was first serialized in February 1995 (eight months before the series' official premiere, in order to promote interest), and ended in November 2014, 19 years later. Seven other manga have been created: the shoujo romance story Neon Genesis Evangelion: Angelic Days by Fumino Hayashi, shonen comedy Shinji Ikari Raising Project by Takahashi Osamu, self-parody It's A Miraculous Win by Koume Yoshida, mystery series Neon Genesis Evangelion: Campus Apocalypse by Min Min, chibi comedic parody Petit Eva: Evangelion@School, detective story Neon Genesis Evangelion: The Shinji Ikari Detective Diary and gamer-themed parody Neon Genesis Evangelion: Legend of the Piko-Piko Middle School Students.