Explaining Evangelion—The Lore of Japan's Most Brilliant Sci-Fi

Neon Genesis Evangelion is one of the best anime ever created, but its story can be really hard to understand. So after spending like nine hours on the wiki, I explain it because I think it's rad.

#neongenesisevangelion #evangelion #anime

[zachargkna]

Keep in mind that not every piece is supposed to fit together cleanly or make complete sense. Evangelion is about the journey, and the viewer’s confusion is a part of that journey.

“Evangelion is like a puzzle, you know. Any person can see it and give their own answer. In other words, we're offering viewers to think by themselves, so that each person can imagine their own world. We will never offer the answers, even in the theatrical version. As for any Evangelion viewers, they may expect us to provide the 'all-about Eva' manuals, but there is no such thing. Don't expect to get answers by someone. Don't expect to be catered to all the time. We all have to find our own answers.”

-series creator Hideaki Anno

[longtyler]

The 3 parts of NGE
1)“I’m gonna watch this show, it has giant robots”
2) Watches
3) “What the absolute fuck is happening and when did I get an honorary PhD in theology?”

[sqwuibs]

This anime basically is just Everyone not asking how shinji is but asking where shinji is..

[stephenking]

Asuka’s mother didn’t just commit suicide, she did a “double suicide.” She hanged herself, and the doll she thought was her daughter. She tried to drag her own child down with her.

[oceanhell]

I really love the tongue-in-cheek play on popular anime. Eva just says "Why are you all making 14 year olds save the world? Do you know what would REALLY happen to a 14 year old if they were burdened with the world's demise? THIS!"

[TomVCunningham]

The crazy part about this is, you can watch this entire video and still not be spoiled for the show lol. The show is fundamentally unconcerned with its own lore and focuses more on the emotional journey of its characters and it's overarching themes.

[BLung-tqmm]

The amount you like Evangelion is inversely proportionate to the amount you like yourself at the time of watching it.

[darkalman]

As you watch the series it's fun to try to determine the exact moment the principal writer went off his medication...

[grimmlinn]

The director actually explains why Shinji chokes Asuka in the end. It was not out of anger, which he does not exhibit typical anger symptoms if you watch him. The reason given was that shinji did not know if he stopped instrumentality and to test that, he chokes Asuka, as there would be no suffering if instrumentality succeeded. Asuka strokes his cheek to tell him, it’s ok, don’t worry you succeeded and it’s over, which normally she would just slap him. Shinji slumps and cries in relief that it’s over and he did stop instrumentality. Asuka’s disgust at Shinji also confirms it because if everyone merged and there was complete acceptance and understanding, then there wouldn’t be this gulf between her and Shinji. Suffering is the proof that he wasn’t in the perfect world of instrumentality.

The director also states that he purposely didn’t explain it all because he wants people to think about it and debate it. I personally just suspect that he couldn’t explain it all and just left it open ended to let the audience make its own theories.

[RardTangler]

The reason why Yui chose to be absorbed into Unit 01 is to be the eternal proof that mankind existed. I’ve also read that she did this to act as a sort of guardian to Shinji during instrumentality. She knew, even back then, that the fate of humanity would rest on his shoulders.

[multivitamin]

Japanese: Hey this Christian book sounds savage

[hanksteel]

This is one of the best explanations I've seen of the main plot, it wasn't very long and really helped explain the series. Congratulations!

[Ortium]

Evangelion 1-13: that's a cool robots anime
Evangelion after episode 14: 💀

[Deuteromis]

I just love how it turns out the whole Judo-Christian theme of the show is only in there because the creators thought it looked cool.

[porkyV]

the souls of the dead mother's inside the eva's are heavily implied. everytime unit 01 moves on its own or goes into berserk mode, its shinji's mother protecting him. same when asuka's unit 02 went off scale synchronization when the unit 09's threatened her child. asuka even had a short exposition of how she felt her mother is protecting her via unit 02. it was also implied that they are placed there specifically for each assigned unit for the protective instinct of mothers to their child.

[Crainage]

the most terrifying part of EoE was where Asuka was dismembered and the nerves were not severed so she felt everything. That was the most horrifying thing in the entire Evangelion.

[nabieladrian]

This is absurdly the most detailed Evangelion lore walkthrough I've ever seen. Thank you!

[eyjay]

If only even 10% of this was actually explained in the series.

[Jayce_Alexander]

I'm watching Evangelion for the first time right now and I've been really enjoying it, but I became convinced I had just flat out missed 90 percent of the implicit lore and that's why I still didn't really know what was going on by episode 15. It's a relief to know it's not just me, and that's just kind of how Evangelion works.

[saldan]

Part of the reason I respect and love Eva so much is because they created this elaborate world with symbolics to world religions and then just REFUSED to give it screen time forcing us to just look at this depressed kid. And yet the story STILL works. It's insane.