Neon Genesis Evangelion

Neon Genesis Evangelion (Japanese: 新世紀エヴァンゲリオン Shin Seiki Evangerion) is an anime television series, begun in 1995, directed and written by Hideaki Anno, and produced by Gainax. It takes place in 2015 AD, fifteen years after the catastrophic Second Impact, reportedly caused by a meteor strike, which wiped out half of Earth's population and tilted its axis. Just as humanity finished its recovery from this disaster, Tokyo-3 began suffering attacks by strange monsters referred to as Angels. Conventional weapons are useless against the Angels, and the only known defense against them are the biomechanical mechas created by the paramilitary organization NERV, the Evangelions (Evas).

Historical context

From the period from 1984 to the release of Evangelion, most highly acclaimed anime had a style somehow distanced from the usual styles of anime. For example, Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro (1988), and Kiki's Delivery Service (1989) were both low-key works, and Akira (1988) took most of its influence from American comic books. Mamoru Oshii had been quoted as saying that nobody wanted to watch "simple anime-like works" anymore. Evangelion, however, shows the reversal of this trend. It fully embraced the style of mecha anime, and in particular shows a large influence from Yoshiyuki Tomino's Space Runaway Ideon; particularly, there are scenes in End of Evangelion which are clear homages to the last movie for the Ideon series.

Related Topics:
1984 - My Neighbor Totoro - 1988 - Kiki's Delivery Service - 1989 - Akira - America - Comic books - Mamoru Oshii - Yoshiyuki Tomino - Space Runaway Ideon

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The series started broadcast after the Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway on March 20, 1995, and production occurred around the period of the attack. The feeling of constant anxiety in Evangelion can be seen as a reflection of the constant anxiety Japan felt after the attacks destroyed the image of Japan as a clean, violence-free society.

Related Topics:
Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway - March 20 - 1995

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Evangelion is thick with allusions to biological, military, religious, and psychological concepts. Though the religious and biological concepts are sometimes (perhaps intentionally) used in ways different from how contemporary Christianity or biology used them, Anno's use of Freudian jargon and psychoanalytical theory is fairly up to date with what was contemporary theory at the time. For example, we can see in a paragraph, circa 1990, from literary theorist Victor Burgen which might be described as "Eva in a nutshell":

Related Topics:
Christianity - Freudian - 1990 - Victor Burgen

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:In the terms of the thermodynamic model which informs Freud's concept of the death drive, what is feared is the "entropy" at work at the heart of all organization, all differentiation. ...By this same token, however, the woman also signifies precisely that desired "state where everything is the same": the pre-oedipal bliss of the fusion of bodies in which infant and mother are "inextricably mixed", that absence of the pain of differing, condition of identity and meaning, whose extinction is deferred until death.

Related Topics:
Thermodynamic - Death drive - All organization, all differentiation - State where everything is the same - Infant - Mother - Inextricably mixed

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