Neon Genesis Evangelion’s story is complicated, but luckily, the watch order is relatively straightforward. Be sure to come back for part 2, which will focus on the anime’s production history, Anno’s influences from Christian mythology and Freudian psychology, and optional spinoffs like the Rebuild movies, a manga adaptation, and a bizarre high school romance visual novel. Find Neon Genesis Evangelion Tv Series at Amazon.com Movies & TV, home of thousands of titles on DVD and Blu-ray.

There is a reason I had been hearing about for nearly 20 years.Originally broadcast from 1995 to 1996, it is considered one of the seminal works of Japanese animation. This reputation was earned not just for its perceived quality, but through many intangible factors as well. Some of those had to do with the show’s erratic production, often spurred by of creator Hideaki Anno (whose personal struggles with depression are written into the fabric of the narrative).But some of it also has to do with the fact that it spent many years being difficult to see in America,. This rarity was part of its legendary status. But now that it has arrived on Netflix, it has provided an opportunity for more casual outsiders to come see what the fuss is all about.

The more I sunk into what the series was trying to do, the more I felt that 2019 was a good time for it to become so accessible. And I dove in.Turns out the fuss is well-earned. Neon Genesis Evangelion is one of the most complex, harrowing, and altogether dense works of narrative art that I have ever seen. There was no reaction I could have except immediately jumping to heavy analysis. Thus, the following essay is a long-form deep dive into the complex themes and meanings behind the show. So if you have not seen it, please do so immediately.And if you have, let’s take a first step into the depths.

Just a quick heads up for this piece, though: There will be discussions of depression and suicide. De-powered fantasiesThe act of watching Neon Genesis Evangelion is a deeply visceral experience. Much like the 14-year-olds at the center of the story, you end up feeling so many different emotions as the narrative whiplashes in tone and intent.

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One moment you’ll feel paralyzed, then embarrassed, then angry, then lonely, and all to the point that you’re feeling like you’re being turned inside out by the strength of these very emotions (or sometimes the lack thereof). It places you deeply into the brainspace of its characters, and that’s rarely a comfortable place to be.Which means as a viewer, you both bear witness to atrocities and commit them. You perpetrate humiliation while being a victim of it. And, all the while, you creep along a path of dread, instinctively understanding that you are heading toward certain doom. The opening two episodes lay that apocalyptic path down quite clearly. We start with Shinji, a rejected child in the midst of a depression he cannot name.

He is thrust into a situation of great import because he must pilot one of the “EVAs,” which are massive robots built for the purpose of destroying “Angels,” which are giant monsters that have already wreaked havoc on a world trying to stave off the apocalypse.Yes, Evangelion rests firmly in the grand tradition of kaiju versus giant mechs that stretches through Japanese cinematic history. I made the mistake of joke-tweeting, “Oh so wait this is basically Pacific Rim!?!?!” while watching, and I learned my lesson: Never be sarcastic or count on people to read the other tweets in a thread. But these stories have endured for so long because they tap into a clear power fantasy. Oh so wait this is basically Pacific Rim!?!???????????!???????!!— Film Crit Hulk (@FilmCritHULK)That’s because they are designed to make the viewer feel larger than life. To make young people feel not just grown up, but also grand and invincible.But this is not actually the case for Shinji, nor for anything else in Evangelion. In fact, I’m hard-pressed to think of a show more interested in actually limiting the power of its fantastical machines than this one.

To wit, we often see the EVAs running around the city while connected to giant, cumbersome power cables, which inhibit their range. On top of that, the EVAs can only operate for a very short time once those same power lines are disengaged.This is important to the show for two reasons. The first is that these limitations make the battles much more dramatic. There is always a sort of metaphorical ticking clock in the background that counts down to a lack of power (this also gives a large advantage to the enemy, whose powers can often seem both unstoppable and unlimited).But even the nonsense tech-speak you hear from the control room works because the writers are so much more concerned with building tension and stacking obstacles in front of our heroes than in making the battles seem superficially “cool.” The second reason for the short battery life of the massive robots is that it so perfectly fits the larger metaphor. Evangelion isn’t a power fantasy. It’s a power nightmare.

And there are three specific kinds of nightmares in this story that center on the adolescent transitioning into adulthood.The first is what I will call “the nightmare of actualization.” That means the ability to step into an adult body (read: EVA) and suddenly realize your own capacity for power. Note the way the pilots actually control the EVAs with their brains, much less with actual controls. But it’s less about concentration and more about the purity of feeling, which is the reason the technicians keep referring to it as being in “sync.” This purity of feeling is precisely what makes children such ideal EVA pilots, for who else feels their emotions as deeply and purely as the young middle schooler?Note the way that all the adults around the kids have gotten so much better at putting up walls, lying, guarding their hearts, and staying stone-faced in the pursuit of what they believe they must do. But the children are far more primal. Especially when the machine-like EVAs start acting like beasts when the young pilots give in to their baser instincts.You can even see it in their posture; these sleek, graceful robots suddenly start to hunch over and howl as they rip, tear, and literally eat each other, all due to a connection that goes far beyond mere man and machine. As the second episode closes, everyone praises Shinji for his transcendental violence against the Angel because it kept everyone “safe,” but he doesn’t feel good about his actions at all. He feels like he has unleashed hell, and a monstrous demon eye follows him in his mind.This leads to the second adult issue, “the nightmare of responsibility.” For now that he has become empowered, Shinji comes face-to-face with the ethical quandaries that plague so many adults.

Yes, he learns that his violent actions can save people, but they also create collateral damage and more suffering for some in the way. Seeing the traumatizing cost of his actions, Shinji tries to quit the program and walk away from it all so many times.But in doing so, he constantly learns the even more traumatizing cost of inaction, as it creates more violence and loss than ever before. Faced with this Catch-22, Shinji realizes he must go on piloting an EVA, but he comes to an even more terrifying realization about what that actually means. When you are the one entrusted to act during great moments of violence, the only way through the nightmare is to become a nightmare. Neon Genesis Evangelion is about the limits, not just the power, of technology and warfare.

Image: GainaxIt’s a trope we’ve seen time and time again, but I can’t think of another series this good at dramatizing the pure anguish of it (let alone a “young adventurer” series). It doesn’t just sit back and comment on the “reflexivity” of the situation from afar.No, you’re placed right in the middle of it. You feel the weight of the decisions, as if the story brings us the terrifying impact of our own behavior. And the “become the nightmare” metaphor is even made literal when we learn that EVAs are actually made from Angels, the very “beasts” they are supposed to be fighting. The EVAs were built to be a means of salvation, but at their core, they are designed to kill and demolish just as they see the enemy do against them.It makes sense, then, when a character later calls piloting the EVAs a “cursed existence,” and so Shinji must barrel forth in his cursed masculine design to do what has to be done. Note that I do not reference masculinity by accident, because the journey toward adulthood means confronting the other, possibly more terrifying prospect that comes with puberty.

That would be the third adult issue, “the nightmare of sexuality.” 2. The two questionsOK. It is utterly impossible to talk about Evangelion without first talking about how it outright sexualizes 14-year-olds. And it does not play coy with this subject. It sexualizes these characters with a brazen attitude that may seem completely alien to a Western audience.Now, the most immediate way to react to this is with one big “YIKES!” because, as I said, the characters are 14 years old. But that “YIKES!” is also necessary because some viewers keep trying to find a way to reason around the problems of it.

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I see so many echoes of, “Oh, that’s just anime,” as if genre conventions can be brushed aside when talking about the text of a story and its social impact. I also see people try to justify the sexual nature of the story with the fact that teenagers sexualize and have relationships with each other.

While that’s obviously a factual statement, it doesn’t change the reality of how adults should view these situations when looking in on them. These are very young characters dealing with very adult issues. Image: GainaxAnd perhaps the most problematic justification for the sexuality in the story is how some adults trot out the excuse that the federal age of consent in Japan is technically 13.

Yes, you read that right. And even though local laws are more complex (and can stretch up to 18), there is no doubting the undercurrents of hebephilia and ephebophilia that are normalized.Look, there’s so much to unpack there, and Lord knows I’m not equipped to take on a country’s sexual legislation, nor the culture of an entire society that I won’t pretend to understand.

What I am going to say is that if you wave that age of consent law around as a justification for any of this, then “YIKES!” OK? OK.The truth is I have no real desire to debate this issue because the endless problems that come with sexualizing young people. And this comes with the acknowledgment that these same problems persist within the United States and play into the same troubling results of mixed messages being sent to young women, which gets them caught in the endless maze of male-controlled power structures that deal damage time and time again.But these are real problems worth exploring in storytelling. It just comes down to the specifics of how we portray these problems through art. Because intrinsic to our understanding is the understanding of our responsibilities in how we deal with them or improve them.Which leaves Neon Genesis Evangelion in the weirdest possible space when it comes to looking at it from a critical perspective.

Because it is at once so troublingly forthright in its depiction of sexualizing young people (because it believes it is operating in a “normal” range that is not our normal), and yet it also brings the problems of such sexualization to the forefront of the text in a way that’s more honest and more analytical than so many other existing depictions. Which means unpacking the whole mess is going to take a lot of discussion. But these are real problems worth exploring in storytellingNow, this is going to seem like a weird place to start, but if we want to understand baseline depictions of what I’ll call “young male horniness,” specifically in the way they regard female personhood, we actually want to compare this work to earlier forms of it. Specifically, ’80s sex comedies.You probably know the movies I’m talking about ( Porky’s, Meatballs, etc.). They all seem to be about a group of boys in for some wild night as they go on a quest to see a naked woman or lose their virginity or something.

I don’t like using the word “innocent” to describe these movies — they’re not, and they are often filled with varying levels of sexual assault — but they almost seem quaint when we look back at them in certain specific aspects.That’s because they all cater to the pre-internet idea of grown young men being so enamored with the prospect of seeing a boob that they’d run around all night just for the chance of doing so. The goal of these films was basic juvenile titillation, designed to provide a view of nudity in a world where being able to see nudity was still somewhat rare. They also made it “permissible” and “public.” But the quaintness of these films only exists as a contrast with the modern alternative.Because if you watch more recent comedies like 2012’s Project X, you see something far uglier in the depiction. The fact that nudity is widely available on the internet has produced a generation of boys that have no barrier in “obtaining” said nudity.

Sex and real-life connection, on the other hand, can often seem far more difficult in comparison. It results in an odd dichotomy where the women are resented if they don’t immediately give in to the sexual fantasies of the young men in the way they are used to.

Which results in a male aggression that is far angrier, more entitled, and less patient about getting what they want. Thus, in Project X, there is very little consideration of womanhood.

They make fun of women, then sex is achieved, and it’s “funny” when the women are quickly discarded.I point out the difference between these sex comedies because it reveals what we call the “intent of the male gaze.” In the earlier versions, the juvenile boys titter and laugh at the very idea of seeing boobs, meaning the very notion is something they put on a pedestal. And in the modern version, there is no pedestal, just the resentment and wish for obedience.Now, it would be easy to pit one kind of gaze over the other, but the point is there is still a power dynamic that is true for both. Whether a woman’s sexuality is prize or obstacle, these stories are all about whether or not the women are “obtained,” without any real analysis as to what’s really going on with their own personhood or the boys’ drives.All of this has a point.

Not just because Evangelion depicts both forms of “male horniness,” but because it also passes the real test of any examination of young sexuality, and that is whether or not the narratives even begin to engage with:. The question of how female characters feel about all this, and. How male characters grapple with the responsibilities that come with the nature of their attraction to others.With both questions, Evangelion luckily presents endless text to feed off. But the best way to examine that text is to go character by character. Children of a spectrumLet’s start with Asuka.

She is the plucky, red-haired “second child” from Germany who is brought in to help pilot the EVAs. She is also an immediate foil for Shinji because her character is at brazen, full of self-flattery and pride in her attractiveness. But she also has her walls up and guards her vulnerabilities intensely. Take her introductory scene where another character accidentally gets a quick look up her skirt. Her response is to immediately slap him, even commenting about how he deserves it for getting a good show (his response is a whole other problematic ball of wax).But the point is that Asuka is making her boundaries clearly defined. And it’s not that she’s completely closed off from her sexuality, because at the same time, she is very quick to position herself as an “adult” and pines after the much older character of Kaji. The narrative even makes this yearning literal as she physically tries to show off her body to him to prove she’s now an adult.

When you add all this together with her carefully orchestrated games of kissing with Shinji, you get a full sense of Asuka’s psychology. Because what she is really after is a complete sense of control and autonomy. And that’s because her personal nightmare is the complete lack of it (largely stemming from the deep trauma we will discuss later).

Both Rei (above) and Asuka are playing a rigged game in Evangelion. Image: GainaxRei is on the opposite end of the spectrum when it comes to such issues of control because she has precisely zero control over her life. There’s also much larger symbolism with her character that I’ll get into later, but in just discussing her sexuality at the moment, it is important to understand we are talking about a character who was artificially designed by the men around her as a literal puppet. Thus, she obeys any command. That’s because she wants to be “good” and to meet the expectations of the men around her.

And so she falls in line with the patriarchy around her at every step. This also means she drearily walks into every horror and injustice and simply “takes” and accepts it. Which is precisely why so much of her character’s journey ultimately becomes the quest for her own autonomy.Now, it would be typical of us to pit the two responses from Asuka and Rei against each other.

To say that Asuka is “right” and Rei is “wrong” ignores the deeply complicated nature of how each of those answers fails to work out, especially when pitted against the male responses that come to them. To wit, Asuka is criticized for being too prudish and outspoken, Rei for being too willing and not outspoken enough. The simpler truth is they’re both playing a rigged game. They will both be criticized for whatever they do, however they react, because in the end, the men of the show just want control over them.Which means the “rightness” of their behavior is technically irrelevant. They can want whatever and it won’t matter because ultimately, the patriarchal males want an impossibility: for every woman in the world to have sex with them and no one else. And it would be easy to paint this patriarchal system of sexuality as something masterminded in some enclave — and politically speaking, that is sometimes true both in the show and real life — but it’s also largely the vomited-up nature of collective psychological possessive instincts that are inherited by men and used against women again and again through history. All of this is hugely important, because young Shinji is at the heart of discovery when it comes to this abusive cycle between men and women.

They will both be criticized for whatever they do, however they reactFor instance, there are so many fans who would say Shinji’s story is the story of “otaku” (defined as “(in Japan) a young person who is obsessed with computers or particular aspects of popular culture to the detriment of their social skills”), but I’m more interested in the ways Otaku lines up with the broader systems of male sexuality. Because whether it is nerd culture, frat culture, or religious culture, there are systems of fear that perpetuate the same abuses again and again.

That’s because often in these systems, men aren’t allowed to be weak and vulnerable. And so they teach empowerment through fantasy, or debauchery, or purity. But all of this leads to a core psychological issue at the root of all of them.That would be the issue of repression. And I’m hard-pressed to think of a word more apt for Shinji’s sexuality. His puberty began with his mother dying and his father shuttering him away, left to be alone and wanting.

Mired in the depths of depression, Shinji seeks to break out and connect, but he simply has no idea how. And so his way of being “safe” is to constantly detach. But the problem with our brains is that we cannot truly do that. It is a hellish experience, and our wants will still be there just as much as ever. And the problem with our brains is that nothing can be truly suppressed because it will end up bubbling out in problematic pathological behavior.This is precisely why Shinji’s sexuality terrifies him to his core.

Much like his “nightmare of actualization” in the EVA, his sexuality makes him act outside of his normal shut-off self. With nowhere to go, the repression causes his feelings to bubble over without control. When he puts his sexuality out there in a way that tries to connect him, he’ll cross boundaries and stare too long or try to kiss Asuka when she’s sleeping, which means he often ends up just hurting himself and others. Which just perpetuates the ongoing shame.To be clear, the narrative is saying there is no shame in deeper human yearning and sexuality.

Wanting touch? Experiencing attraction? Wanting to feel safe and loved? These are the most natural and permissible feelings there are. But in a repressed existence (whether masculine, religious, etc.), we are taught those vulnerabilities are “wrong,” and thus it is so difficult to feel that safety because we are so filled with shame. Which often makes first forays into sexuality all the more important and psychologically dangerous.Most of Shinji’s first attempts at physical connection are filled with both embarrassment and confrontation. First he is seen naked by Miss Misato, his attractive caretaker/boss (the is inspired).

And then later, he feels suffocated in being around her, Rei, and Asuka, because suddenly his feelings of attraction are everywhere. And while he does make some small gains in confidence and comfort, ultimately he makes horrible mistakes. And so his shame cycle worsens. His sexuality mixes with depression, just as it mixes with the horror of being a child soldier.As it goes down the rabbit hole, it culminates in well OK. Let’s get into it. The nexus of brutalityThe entire series culminates in the film The End of Evangelion, which makes a very deliberate choice of how to start its story. For it opens with Shinji pleading for Asuka to wake up from her injuries she suffered at the end of the TV show.

But she does not. He begins to shake her back and forth, desperate for her to come back to life. She does not.But, as he shakes her, her gown unbuttons. Shinji suddenly sees her lying there naked, incapacitated. Our view begins randomly cutting around to shots of medical equipment in the hospital room.

We then hear noises and shuddering. “What the heck is going on?” we wonder. And then we see Shinji looking down at his wet hand to see that he has masturbated. Yes, he has masturbated to his friend in a coma. His self-judgment comes swiftly: “I’m the lowest of the low,” Shinji tells himself.This act of violation is the kind of thing one expects to see in a Lars von Trier film instead of an anime with a pet penguin named Pen Pen, but this is part of the brutal tonal whiplash that comes with Evangelion.

And we’ll come back to this moment later for several reasons, but for now, we must simply acknowledge that it is impossible to talk about the sexuality of this series without acknowledging that this brutal moment exists. And more importantly, that the show is actually going to use this egregious act to help unpack the entire thematic point of the show itself.When you look back at it, the arc of Evangelion almost feels cruel in retrospect, but from episode 6 to episode 14 or so, it almost seems like things are starting to get better. Shinji learns how to better socialize with others. He learns how to work with Asuka (their dancing episode is a joy). He even manages to build something that more or less feels like a family, a life rhythm, and an occupation. But the problem with gaining things in life is that we then suddenly have things to lose. And that’s when the real nightmares rear their heads and strike with renewed menace.I often think about the depictions of brutality in other media and what it says about each show and its creators.

In something like The Walking Dead, the brutality feels relentless but monotone, as if the violence is a constant, nihilistic drone. But in a show like Game of Thrones, the brutality feels cherry-picked, often like a cheap god snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. This act of violation is the kind of thing one expects to see in a Lars von Trier film instead of an anime with a pet penguin named Pen PenBut Neon Genesis Evangelion picks its moments of brutality with laser-like acumen. It builds to confrontations with careful, deliberate plotting, setting every choice in motion, giving time and rumination before they strike, even lulling you into split seconds of hope before the proverbial Sword of Damocles comes crashing down.I’ll say it plainly: The scene where Shinji’s father takes over his EVA and crushes Toji is one of the more haunting things I’ve ever seen. It’s so sudden and out of control and outright terrifying. Most of the violence in the show comes just as swiftly. But you never feel like there’s any kind of secret catharsis or relishing in the violence of this show.

It never lingers or indulges.It’s as plain-faced as it is phantasmic, often reminding us that our bodies are just sacks of meat and we are full of teeth and eyeballs and a capacity to be victims of gore. But what makes these depictions of brutality so interesting is the way the show is so quick to equate them with the fact that these same bodies are full of sexual urges and fluid and transgressions (without actually sexualizing or confusing them). Like the EVAs, our bodies can be serene or beast-like, and our violence can be fluid or animalistic. And Evangelion is always telling you something on a thematic level when it chooses which is what and why. The scene where Shinji’s father takes over his EVA and crushes Toji is one of the more haunting things I’ve ever seenSo I can’t help but compare this treatment of violence to the treatment of sexuality. Is the sexualization thoughtful?

Does the thoughtfulness of these depictions excuse it? The whole thing is that I don’t think Evangelion is interested in excusing itself at all.

Hell, the level of ownership on display is almost terrifying in its honesty. It wants to bring us to the ugly place because it knows we will find a deeper truth there. And it wants us to reflect on our own complicity as an audience. That’s because we inherit these problems through the very act of watching. And if there’s anything this show wants us to know It’s that the things we inherit are often the most damning. The sins of the fatherIf you were to ask me to pick a stock two-word theme to sum up the entirety of Neon Genesis Evangelion (an impossible task), my best answer would be that it’s an exploration of “original sin.” You’ve probably heard that term before and know what it’s all about: Adam and Eve are in the garden. God says, “Don’t eat that fucking apple!” But Eve listens to some snake instead and eats it anyway.

Bye-bye, paradise. Hello, a lifetime of toiling and suffering and men blaming women for everything!OK, I’m being flippant with that version of the story, but purposefully so. Because the argument of what “original sin” really even constitutes has raged on and on for thousands of years. That’s because there’s often so much misogyny laced into the interpretations. Heck, even the most genial readings still have the words “because you listened to your wife” written into the blame.But the varying degrees of disagreement also tie in to arguments of translation.

Was Adam actually there when it happened? Did he encourage it? Was he happy to partake?

More arguments over translation abound (and honestly, it’s quite similar to the way I’ve seen people arguing over dubs/subtitle choices in this particular series). But the discussion of original sin with regards to Evangelion hits an even deeper obstacle here, and it has to do with how we interpret authorship altogether.For instance, when I casually mentioned on Twitter that I had broken out the Bible to reread the Book of Genesis for this essay, I was confusingly met with a chorus of shouts as to why that was a mistake. People were like, “red herring! Red herring!” and I had to look around to be sure I wasn’t out of my damn mind. Then one person clarified, “Honestly, don’t bother.

The Bible symbolism in Evangelion is meaningless. Anno admitted that he didn’t actually know what most of the imagery meant and only used it because he thought it looked cool.”I squinted at this sentence because it didn’t feel right at all.

But before I could even respond, an argument ensued when someone chimed in that it wasn’t the creator who said that, but a different director, and that they were actually talking about the word “Evangelion” and not Christian imagery on the whole. Naturally, more fighting ensued, and the whole thing bubbled over to the point that I realized I’d have to take a hot minute to talk about semiotics and what is “OK” for us to interpret.First of all, y’all reeeeaally need to grasp when an artist is ducking a question.

Because when discussing what an artistic work “means,” especially when dealing with the highly charged atmosphere of religious themes, a good author will almost always step aside and try to avoid trouble. But more than that, there’s a reason why David Lynch and our most enigmatic artists tend to refrain from clarifying the symbolism in their work. It’s because answering doesn’t actually help the art. In fact, it renders the art didactic. It also cuts off the viewer from lending their voice. To that, Christopher Nolan actually said one of my favorite things: “If you get to that place where people are passionate about it and arguing about what the end of your film means, that’s great.

Who am I to put my opinion in the mix?” In other words, his interpretation is just as good as theirs.Now, there’s a nuanced fancy-pants argument around the finer points of this topic, which is often called “The Death of the Author,” and if you want a brilliant deep dive on that, go to. But the quickest way to sum up our responsibilities as viewers participating in a semiotic discussion is deceptively simple: The author’s outside-text words are not gospel; it is always OK to interpret things in the text; and the more those interpretations are reflected in the text itself, the better. Which just means there’s another, probably far more important reason not to listen to that offhand comment.And that’s because holy mother of god is this one of the most concrete and complete deconstructions of the Adam/Eve myth I’ve ever seen.

It’s literally impossible to look at this and say that biblical and religious allusions are misleading. I mean, there’s a reason “Genesis” is in the damn show title. There’s a reason they’re called Angels. There’s a reason the first proto-Angel is called Adam. There’s a reason the NERV logo is a fig leaf.

There’s a reason they are “EVAs,” like Eve. These details aren’t just cool iconography someone picked up without thinking. These details are the symbolic language of the show, which in turn allow us to make semiotic deductions about deeper meanings when looking at how their interaction is dramatized. Denying this would be denying the very text of the show.But to be clear, I don’t think the creators are interested in doing a deep-dive deconstruction of the Bible itself. This isn’t a work of religious scholasticism, nor is it meant to be.

They are taking the established baseline symbols — that is, the most common and well-known tropes — and reframing them. If only there were a word in the show’s title that was based on the Latin “neo,” meaning new, and a word that referred to the origin story of the Bible, and a word that meant gospel huh if only you could put three words together that did that!OK, I’m being flippant again, but that’s literally what Neon Genesis Evangelion means. And even if you take away the direct religious attachment to those words, it still becomes clear: The show wants to both embody and recreate the lies of creation.And yes, lies are absolutely at the center of all of it.Within the plot of Evangelion itself, we get lies on top of lies on top of lies, whether it’s the false origin story of the Angels, the real cause of the Second Impact, or the true purpose of the NERV facility. They’re nothing but a series of lies told to keep people “safe.”And what’s motivating these lies? The same things as always: individuals with their own motives, people full of secret pasts, and the walls and cavernous gulfs between them. It’s a show full of adults all hiding what they really want, hiding the urges behind the “logical” and “grown up” decisions they are making. And they leave the children to suffer in their wake.But this is true of so many existing myths.

Looking broadly, each story of religious origin makes its claim for objective truth, but from the secular outside, what can we really argue in terms of veracity between the Bible, the Torah, or the Quran?Instead, we see layers of similarities and dozens of changed details, each with their own consequences. We see iconographies telling the stories of men and women and behaviors, in turn revealing what we think matters and how we think people should really behave. This is grand myth-making, which is probably why so much of the biblical iconography of this show is actually steeped in the mysticism of Kabbalah.Take the central crux of the Third Impact, an event that the mysterious cabal known as SEELE says will bring about the end of the world. This will not be done by rejoining Adam and Eve (who, like the EVAs, was made from man’s rib), but by rejoining Adam with Lilith, a female mythological figure of endless variety.In some versions, she is the wife of Adam Qadmon, the avatar and god of the multiverse.

Or she is the “woman of whoredom.” Or she is Satan’s female counterpart. Or she is the seducer of fallen angels. Or she is the “real” Eve figure during the dawn of man.

And this is just within the variation of Kabbalistic interpretation. There are countless other Liliths in general myth and history.But she’s always marked by the same confusing layers of obfuscation. She’s called demon, or whore, or bitch, or lover, or child, or mother, or sinner, or saint (thanks Meredith Brooks). But these blurred lines of who “women” are get at the entire point the show is making. This isn’t a work of religious scholasticism, nor is it meant to beIt’s identifying how these blurred lines have always been there.

Is Eve the child, born from Adam’s rib? Likewise, we see how much pop art deals with the question of whether Mary Magdalene was Jesus’s wife or simply a “whore” he helped along his way.

The confusion over these terms has nothing to do with the behavior of women (who, like men, simply show a range of behavior) but men’s inability to reconcile their range of behavior.The Madonna and the Whore aren’t just two archetypes; they reflect the inability of men to unite the two and recognize the autonomy of women to be both. And it results in a system designed to make women feel wrong, no matter what they do (which brings us back to the aforementioned rigged game from chapter 3). And when men have the power?

When they have the ability to tell a person they are wrong in a given situation? Then they have the ability to control them.This confusion, overlapping roles, and desire for control of women is draped over the whole damn entirety of Evangelion.

Take Shinji’s father. He literally recreates his wife in his new child, Rei, and then both sexualizes and purifies his daughter to lurid, conflicting degrees. And his final secret goal? He wants to sacrifice to Lilith so that he may ultimately “be with her again.”But note that Shinji gets confused by the same overlaps of female archetypes in turn. Rei is literally his mother, sister, and object of sexual desire. So we see this metaphor made clear again and again as this show constantly portrays the blurriest lines that ever blurred, to the point that even Sophocles would echo a “YIKES!” But those blurred lines keep bringing us to the thematic crux.Behind all the portents of the EVA project being done for the good of “humanity,” it comes back to the selfish heart of Shinji’s father. He pretends he’s doing all this for our collective survival, but really he’s just trying to fulfill his own personal needs.

He is running from his demons and the loss of his wife (an action cloaked in his own responsibility for it). And in the end, he just wants to be with her forever and ever.But his selfish actions create more demons that will swallow the world whole, not save it. In truth, he has the same fears and repression as Shinji, but as an adult he is twice as cut off from his emotions. Twice as cold.

Twice as unfeeling. Thus, he makes horrific decisions that harm others, but unlike Shinji, he swears he does so “rationally.”So I ask, who is actually responsible for the end of the world? Is it really Li.

Neon Genesis Evangelion is one of the most popular and influential anime of all time, and for good reason. Its striking animation and storyline that deconstructed traditional shounen anime tropes made it the breakout hit for Hideaki Anno and his studio, Gainax. But, thanks to its famously troubled production and strange directorial decisions, the anime splits off into two separate endings and a number of spinoffs.So what’s the best way to navigate this media maze to get the optimum viewing experience? What’s necessary to watch and what’s safe to skip? Join us today as we guide you through our recommended watch order for Neon Genesis Evangelion. The best place to start is, predictably enough, with the original 1995 TV anime. We recommend A.D.

Vision’s Platinum Edition DVD set, since that includes the director’s cut versions of episodes 21 – 24 (which add a few more scenes that tie into The End of Evangelion). Both the Japanese and English dubs are solid, although the English version does have a touch of that charmingly amateurish voice acting you tend to get with ‘90s anime dubs.The original series takes place in post-apocalyptic Japan and tells the story of Shinji Ikari, an introverted kid who is suddenly plucked from his quiet life and forced to pilot a giant mecha to fight monsters called Angels that are attacking Earth. We urge you not to worry too much about understanding what exactly the Angels are or what Gendo’s master plan is or any of the other esoteric worldbuilding the series throws at you.At its core, Neon Genesis Evangelion is a character drama. It’s about how stress, abuse, and mental illness can shape someone’s entire outlook on life, and it explores what happens when people with radically different outlooks clash with one another. It all culminates in episode 24 with Kaworu’s short but impactful relationship with Shinji, and from there we move on to the more fleshed out and interesting of the story’s two endings: The End of Evangelion. In 1997, Gainax released the bombastic conclusion to its most popular series with The End of Evangelion.

There was a short recap movie released a few months earlier called Death & Rebirth, but it’s not worth watching unless you need a refresher on the series. The End of Evangelion is closer in concept to Anno’s original plan for episodes 25 and 26 of the anime before production issues and censorship got in the way, so it’s generally considered the canon ending for the story.Picking up where episode 24 left off, The End of Evangelion follows each of our main characters as they struggle with the world slowly collapsing around them.

The Third Impact sequences are notoriously artsy and incomprehensible, but again, we believe that it’s best not to get too caught up in the weeds here. Enjoy the gorgeously deranged animation and think about how these sequences represent the emotions Shinji and his friends are feeling at the end of the world. But if you’re interested in breaking them down further, there are countless articles and videos online that put forth theories as to what each individual moment means.

Either way, this movie is a depressing but suitably climactic ending to such a unique anime. Now that you’ve experienced the ending Anno intended, it’s time to go back to the original series.

By this point in the anime’s production, the animation team was flying by the seat of its pants and had no time or resources to craft a proper conclusion. So they decided to ditch the established plot and spend two episodes on a psychological analysis of Shinji’s mind instead.We still think these episodes are essential viewing since they spell out and resolve some of Shinji’s emotional issues. Plus, the high school dream sequence and the crazy “Congratulations!” closer are so iconic to this franchise’s identity that it would be criminal not to watch them. After you’re done, check out Shinji’s Rant on YouTube—it’s an in-character tirade from Shinji’s English voice actor that perfectly expresses the frustration fans felt at this out-of-left-field ending. Neon Genesis Evangelion’s story is complicated, but luckily, the watch order is relatively straightforward. Be sure to come back for part 2, which will focus on the anime’s production history, Anno’s influences from Christian mythology and Freudian psychology, and optional spinoffs like the Rebuild movies, a manga adaptation, and a bizarre high school romance visual novel.

We hope to see you then!What did you think of our watch order breakdown? What’s your preferred way to watch Neon Genesis Evangelion? Let us know in the comments, and thanks so much for reading!