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).

Translation notes

The translated dubbed versions of the series and movies of Evangelion by ADV Films and Manga Entertainment are regarded by, at least, a notable portion of fans to be inadequately translated, misleading, and even contradictary to the original, causing increased confusion towards the show, and increasing the likelihood of outrightly wrong interpretations for numerous English-speaking audiences.

Related Topics:
ADV Films - Manga Entertainment

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Title

The Japanese title for the series, Shin Seiki Evangelion, translates literally from a combination of Japanese and borrowed terms as "Gospel of the New Era/Century". The decision to call the series Neon Genesis Evangelion in English was originally made by Gainax, and not, as some fans have believed, by translators.

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The title Neon Genesis Evangelion is Greek. Neon, the neuter form of the word "Neos", literally means "new" or "recently born". Genesis literally translates from Latin (from the original Greek) as "beginning" and is the first book of the Bible, describing the creation and beginning of the universe. The Japanese term for the first book in the Bible is "Souseiki," perhaps a wordplay (with two different beginning and ending kanji) with the "Shin Seiki" in the Japanese title. Evangelion is an anglicised version of the Greek "??????????" (euangelion) for "good news", and is typically translated "gospel" in the Bible. Initially, the word meant "good messenger", the prefix "eu" meaning "good" and "angelion" meaning "messenger" (from the same word that means "angel"). It only came to mean "good message" or "good news" over time. This dual meaning may be the reason both the series itself and the "mecha" are called Evangelion.

Related Topics:
Greek - Neon - Genesis - Bible - Evangelion - Gospel

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Additionally, the term "Eva", a frequent abbreviation of Evangelion used in the anime, is the name of the biblical Eve in Greek and German, as well as many other languages, coming from the Hebrew name "Chavva" meaning "breath" or "life". There are frequent allusions to the biblical Adam and Eve throughout the series, as well as to the Evangelion's relationship with the Tree of Life.

Related Topics:
Eve - German - Hebrew - Tree of Life

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Other words

The term Gehirn is German for "brain". Seele is the German term for "soul". Nerv is the German term for "nerve".

Related Topics:
Gehirn - German - Brain - Seele - Soul - Nerv - Nerve

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"Children," the plural of "Child," is used to refer to each of the Eva pilots in the singular (i.e. Shinji is the "Third Children," not the "Third Child.") This is intentional, and not a translation error. The English language dub produced by ADV, however, uses the word "Child" instead of "Children."

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The Japanese word used to refer to the Angels is shito (使徒), which literally means "messenger" or "apostle." The usual Japanese word for "angel" is tenshi (天使). It should be noted, however, that the English angel is derived from the Greek for "messenger" as noted above. Unlike the translation of "Children" into "Child," which was altered by ADV, the use of "Angel" in the English dub was specified by Anno and Gainax. Furthermore, the word "Angel" can be seen appearing on video screens in NERV HQ during Angel attacks, and this was the case in the original version of the series as broadcast in Japan; it is not an alteration to the ADV release.

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