The Complete Guide To
NEON GENESIS EVAGEL EV AGELION ION (and some irrelevant thoughts of my own) by Roriconfan (last update: 2/08) Special thanks to www.Wikipedia.com for the source material
WARNING! MAJOR SPOILER ALERT! Do not read this text unless you have seen the series. Half the fun lies in trying to figure out the meaning on your own. You have been warned.
Deeper meanings Boy! This text is huge! Why you may ask is Neon Genesis Evangelion so appealing to write about so much? Here are some reasons:
Evangelion is brimming with allusions to biological, military, religious, and psychological psychological concepts. There is a bit of every theme you can think of. The characters are compared with psychological, philosophical, religious and even historical terms. Rei, Asuka, Shinji and Misato represent the different methods people use to validate their own existence and individuality, and to separate themselves from their fellow human beings (the concept of AT-Fields). The big theme in Evangelion is the "heart of people". The relationship with others, the t he meaning of the existence of self, what is the self. The series is partly mecha anime. Huge robots wrecking havoc! Cool! Evangelion started as a realistic SF mecha action anime. At first, the "people's heart" issue of the main characters is just some add-on to the drama. However, as the plot moved forward, the issue i ssue of "people's heart" grew much bigger than the other elements and the mecha action became an undertone. The series focuses to flashbacks and analyses of the primary characters. All characters in the anime display a variety of mood disorders, problems with emotional health, depression, trauma, and separation anxiety disorder. They are struggling with their positions in their environment, as individuals and as a part of a whole. The creator/director, Hideaki Anno, suffered from a long period of depression prior to creating Evangelion; much of the show is based on his own experiences in dealing with depression through psychotherapy.
The character designs contributed to the popularity of Evangelion. The attractive female leads, Asuka, Rei, and Misato have been immortalized as anime sex idols. The series was indeed a “Neon Genesis” for many fans, since it rekindled many adults' interest in anime. The series also made an “Impact” of its own as it i t introduced a new wave of fans who are far less interested in the technical aspects of science fiction anime and more interested in analyzing the metaphysical symbolism that they perceived, in contrast contr ast to Gundam and many previous anime of the hard science fiction genre.
The series started to broadcast after the Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway on March 20, 1995. Evangelion can be seen as a reflection of the constant anxiety The feeling of constant anxiety in Evangelion can Japan felt after the attacks destroyed the image of Japan as a clean, violence-free society. According to Hideaki Anno, Evangelion was an attempt to make all perspectives into one, creating characters that represent different things to different viewers to make it impossible for everyone to arrive at a single theory. So, there are no solid aswers to what exacly happens in the story. Not even my text is 100% accurate, since there never meant to be spesific spesifi c anwers.
Title The Japanese title for the series, Shin Seiki Evangelion, is composed of two parts.
Shin Seiki means "New Century" in Japanese.
Evangelion means "Gospel" in Greek.
The decision to change the name in Neon Genesis Evangelion in English was intentionally made by Gainax. The English title for the series, seri es, Neon Genesis Evangelion Evangelion is wholly Greek (Νέον Γένεσις Ευαγγέλιον). Ευαγγέλιον). It It literally translates to "New Beginning Gospel".
Neon, is the neuter form of the Greek word "New". Genesis means "origin, source" or "birth, race" and is also the Greek title for the first fir st book of the Bible, describing the creation of the universe and early Hebrew history. Evangelion is an Anglicized version of the Greek word for "good news" (the prefix pr efix "eu" meaning "good" and "angelion" meaning "message" from the same word that means "angel"), and is typically translated "gospel" in the Bible. It was a word originally used to describe the runners who brought news in ancient Greece. It only came to mean "good message" or "good news" over time and eventually became most commonly associated with the Christian gospels. This dual meaning is the reason both the series itself and the "mecha" " mecha" are called Evangelion. Evangelion.
Additionally, the term "Eva", a frequent abbreviation of Evangelion used in the anime, is the name of the biblical Eve in Greek, coming from the Hebrew name "Chavva" meaning "breath" or "life". "li fe". 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. There has been a mistake in the correct pronunciation of "Evangelion". The original Japanese use the pronunciation with a soft 'j' sound instead of a hard har d 'g'. Japanese simply don't know anything about correct Greek pronunciation. The word has been taken directly from Ancient Greek to Japanese so misimpertations were anavoidable.
Religious and Historical Roots This chapter describes the religious reli gious and historical events Hideaki Anno based his ideas i deas on, while making Neon Genesis Evagelion. They are rather boring if you don’t care about the fine details and I do get to blabber a lot. So you might want to skip this part and go straight to the next Chapter. Text Color Index Black Color: The text refers to real historical events or commonly accepted religious facts. Red Color: The text refers only to the Christian Testament. Blue Color: The text refers only to the Jewish Torah or the teachings of the Jewish Cabbala. Grey Color: The text refers to scientific finds. They are completing and not contradicting religious beliefs. Purple Color: The text refers to notes Hideaki Anno made exclusively and applies only for the series. Green Color: My personal side notes. They have nothing to do with religion or history. Genesis In the beginning of time, God created the Heaven, the Angels, the plants and the animals. Last of all, He crated The First Man Adam, the best of His creations and the only being that was made after His image. He then placed Adam to live in The Garden Of Eden. WARNING! This is not what we see in the t he series. In Genesis, God creates everything on His own. In the series, it is Adam who creates the Angels, not God. In Evangelion, God creates everything inanimate and Adam with Lilith create all living beings. In Genesis, Man is the last creation of God. In Cabbala, Adam is created first and then do the Angels and all living beings. That is also why Humans in NERV call Adam their God, not the Almighty. Poetic License people! Hideaki Anno is an artist, not a historian histo rian neither a priest. He can freely shift reality as he sees fit. Just don’t take for granted everything you see in the series. Call it entertainment, call it philosophical quest, but don’t call it truth or religion. Because God didn’t want Adam to be alone, He created a mate and helper for him. He made The First Woman Lilith, from the same earth eart h that He made Adam. Although they were different beings, they were united in one body. Here we see the first major difference between Christianity and Judaism. Lilith is according to Judaism, the Mother Of All Evils. Christianity doesn’t accept the idea that humans and monsters have the same roots, so Lilith was banned from the Bible. Bib le. I personally found fascinating the whole Lilith concept. Christians show off as purists in i n this manner and that is very irritating. irritat ing. Cabbalists called the pair of the first two Human Beings as Adam-Kadamon, meaning meaning the perfect Man before his Original Sin and fall. Cabbalists in general present Man to be a very powerful being. Christianity and Judaism describe Adam as a normal looking, ageless and naked human, living in a garden. Cabbala describes Adam-Kadamon as a radiant giant of immerse power, living in a dimension of light and perfect positive energy. The Original Sin Problems started to arose when Lilith wanted more independence. She became disobedient to Adam and stopped obeying him. God created Eve from Adam’s rib, as a substitute for Lilith. Because Eve was flesh of Adam’s flesh, she was loyal to him, unlike Lilith who was a whole different being with a mind of its i ts own. The most powerful of all Archangels, Lucifer (later known as The Devil) envied Man for being the only creature made after God’s image. He rebelled against God, calling Him cruel and uncaring, not suited to rule over all creation. He was a very unsatisfied bastard. He was number two in Heaven and that was still not enough? For God’s sake!
God didn’t give the concept of Evil to Man. He gave Man the choice never to learn about it by giving him a simple order. He told Adam and Eve that they could eat anything they liked besides the Fruit from The Tree Of Good And Evil. If they did, they would die. Lucifer wanted to make Man to sin before God, in order to lose His favour. He took the form for m of a snake and tricked Eve by saying that the fruit would make them Gods themselves. Eve seduced Adam and both ate the Forbidden Fruit. Curiosity was enough for them to fall for f or it. God banned Lucifer from Heaven for his pettiness, along with the other Angels who chose to follow him in his rebellion. He also banned Adam and Eve and Lilith from The Garden Of Eden for not accepting responsibilities for their actions (they were blaming each other instead of accepting their mistake). Beware people! God doesn’t hate nor punishes. It is a mistake mist ake to think that they were banned by God. It is more correct to say they “banned themselves” out of guilt. They moved away from God because they felt guilty before their kind creator. The First Impact 15 billion years ago, God created the physical universe (that would be the Big Bang theory). theory). It was a cruel and highly imperfect creation, nothing like His perfect Heaven. Scientists believe that our universe is clockwork, with the t he cosmic powers (gravity, magnetism, electromagnetism, nuclear) to be its cogs. So, they believe it is controlled by perfect order and it is not imperfect at all. And so do I. God deliberately created such a pathetic creation just as to act as a place of atonement for His sinful creatures. It was something like a reformer school, not a prison. God doesn’t hate nor punishes. Man was taken to a planet he simply named Earth. It was something like his individual room or cell. cel l. 5 billion years ago, planet Earth was created. 4 billion years ago, the First Impact occurred. Yes, it took eleven billion years for Man’s reformer school to be prepared! Time is insignificant and lapses fast when you are immortal and without any needs. Adam-Kadamon (Eve was part of Adam) was banned from The Garden Of Eden. More scientifically, he transcended to a lower plane of existence, that t hat of Earth, from a higher plane of existence, that of Heaven. While Adam-Kadamon was transcending to Earth, God decided to strip him of all his divine powers (he had immerse powers, as Cabbala describes him). Earth wouldn’t be much of a problem if Adam could freely perform miracles on his own. He was split into two entities entit ies (Adam and Lilith) with a strike by The Lance of Longinus, which effectively made him lose all his divine di vine powers. Adam, Eve, Lilith and the Fallen Angels crashlanded on Earth and became organic beings (they acquired physical forms where before they t hey were only bodiless spirits). And if you want to believe b elieve it, the Muslim Koran says that the Fallen Angels became Genies trapped in lamps, bottles and other objects. The Fallen Angels became Arch Devils and formed a world of their own, called Hell. WARNING! RELIGIOUS DISTORTION! Religion presents Heaven, Hell and the physical universe to be three individual and very different worlds or dimensions. di mensions. In the series, there is no difference between them. They are considered to be the same thing. Man and the Angels never left some far off place and ended up here.
Heaven is presented as a happy state of mind where you always obey God’s will, therefore you are considered to be “close to God”. In this state st ate you have no reason to hide something or judge someone, meaning you don’t need an AT Field to separate yourself from others and to consider yourself different or individual. Hell is presented as a negative state of mind where you disobey God’s will and separate yourself from Him out of guilt (not because He punishes you). In this state you blame someone else other than yourself for your mistakes and fool yourself to think you are innocent, like a spoiled child who doesn’t admit its mischief. God has all the t he good will to see Humanity and the Fallen Angels to come back to Him. But they close their eyes and hearts and say it is His fault. Physical forms and the AT Field are ways to hide something or judge someone, meaning you need need them to separate yourself from others and to consider yourself different or individual. i ndividual. The physical universe is presented as a neutral state of mind. The T he Fallen Angels roam the Earth in physical forms and with AT Fields and don’t fly f ly around as spirits in some weird dimension filled with fire and sulphur (Hell). Man roams the Earth in physical forms and with wit h AT Fields and thinks Heaven is some far off dimension of happiness. As long as people think God banned them from a perfect world for being unfaithful, they suffer and believe they are not in Heaven and going to end up in Hell. When they realise God never banned or abandoned them and that He is always around them; when they realise that the worl d around them is beautiful as it is, i s, then they find happiness, or better say, they come close to God. WARNING! RELIGIOUS DISTORTION! This leads to the next matter, what happens when someone dies. His soul doesn’t go to Heaven or Hell (since (si nce they practically don’t exist). It goes to The T he Dirac Sea where it reincarnates later on. So, the dead remain in Earth, no matter what their actions act ions in life were. There is no reward for the righteous and no punishment for the wicked. That is the animalistic view of the t he Afterlife. The only reason someone has to be righteous during his life, is only so to t o be remembered as a good person by the living. Having good legacy is like making people believe you went to t o Heaven. Having bad legacy is like making people believe you went to Hell. The explosion from the falling of Adam, Eve, Lilith L ilith and the Angels, incinerated the surface of the entire planet (like all Impacts are supposed to do). But no living beings were hurt from the incineration, since there was no life on Earth yet. In I n the contrary, The First Impact signalled the beginning of life on our planet. The explosion also caused a great portion of Earth to be blasted to the sky and formed its moon. Since Hideaki Anno takes ideas from the Babylonian myth of Nibiru, the following f ollowing events happened 1,5 billion years ago. If you believe the scripts, the following events happened 13.000 years ago. Lilim and Humanity On Earth, Adam and Eve bore Abel and Cain. Cain killed Abel out of envy and left in the wilderness. There, he met Lilith and became her mate. Later, Adam and Eve bore Seth and many other daughters. From the union of Seth and his sisters (yes, through incest) and from the union of Lilith and Cain (again through incest), all Mankind came to be. Lilith also became mate with Lucifer himself, turned into a demon who attacked the new-born babies, and seduced men who are sleeping so that they ejaculated in their sleep. She gave birth to many demons and monsters that plagued the Earth. These demon-spawns were known as Lilim. WARNING! RELIGIOUS DISTORTION! In the series, there is no difference between Humans Humans and Lilim. They are considered to be the t he same species. Seth’s lineage didn’t survive and at some point Humans thought they were too civilised to decent from Cain (they ( they didn’t consider themselves to be monsters, like the Lilim). So they thought they decent from Seth and not by Cain. A very good anti-racist message given by Hideaki Anno. We are not better than t han the monsters we fear. We kill, lie and cheat all the time, as all the monsters we give anathema do.
WARNING! RELIGIOUS DISTORTION! In the series, Humans are presented like one being with many bodies. All people essentially share only one soul, the one that Lilith bestowed b estowed upon them (there is not a different soul for each individual). The AT-Field keeps each person as an individual personality but not as a different being. We are all one big family. In a very buddhistic way of thought. Adam fell in slumber under the icecap of Antarctica, inside the huge egg from where all Angels were born, known as White Moon. Lilith fell in slumber in a cave in a place that t hat today lays Japan, inside the huge egg from where humanity was born, known as Black Moon. They were waiting for the coming of time when one of their offsprings (Humanity or the Angels) would be mature and moral enough to please God with their actions (or better say, to have no reason to hide something or judge someone, meaning they no longer need an AT Field Fi eld to separate themselves from others and to consider themselves different or individual). Adam would then t hen awake, unite with them (or more simply, take t ake them with him), and return to The Garden Of Eden. Or more scientifically, he would transient to the t he higher plane of existence whence he came, before God banned him from there to the t he lower plane of that of Earth. The Angels were in deep trouble. Angels couldn’t learn. They had pure thoughts that did n’t involve strategy or long term planning. They couldn’t even create offsprings (like li ving beings). The Angels were deprived of any purpose in their existence. Effectively, they reached a “Darwinian dead-end”. They couldn’t evolve or adjust in their environments. Unlike Humans, Angels couldn’t do something to be forgiven by God. They realised that they needed to return to their origin origi n (inside Adam), be purified and start over, making a fresh start. So they also fell in slumber in various locations locat ions and waited for the awakening of Adam. And the time of his awakening would be the time when Humanity would be mature enough. T he Angels simply wanted to merge with Adam and transcend to Heaven. The process would create an explosion that would kill everyone else, but they didn’t care. Salvation was meant only for them or only for us.
Christ and The Wandering Jew Moving a lot forward. 2.000 years ago, Mankind crucified Jesus Christ, the Son of God. While W hile still on the cross, a half-blind roman soldier by the name of Longinus or a godless Jew pierced Christ’s rib to make sure he is dead, so some of the blood from Christ’s body fell on him. The man miraculously found his sight again and became a Christian preacher or was cursed by God for hurting His son. He became immortal and was known as The Wandering Jew, cursed to roam the world wo rld in suffering until the End Of Times (the series take on to the Jewish version of the story). Essene Around the same time, there was a sect of Jews known as the Essene who, like the first Christians, believed in the coming of Christ (although they never met the Christ). Christ) . They wrote a very different version of the New Testament, in the form that later l ater was known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Essene were nothing but rebels in the eyes of the Roman Empire. Roman soldiers butchered them and they were totally forgotten… until a century ago. Cabbala Moving forward again. In the 16th century, another sect of Jews known as Cabbalists also wrote a different version of the Apocalypse. Their teachings refer to The Tree Of Life and the aspects of God’s creations. They were considered to be blasphemers and the Catholic Church never accepted their teachings. But their teachings were not forgotten either. Koumran Forward once again. 100 years ago, the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in a cave in Koumran. Their contents were kept secret by the Vatican, in fear of uproar from the retelling of the Apocalypse. Actually, there are dozens of scripts that retell the Bible altogether, named the Apocripha or Lost Gospels. But many narrow-minded priests have either hid them or destroyed them.
The events before the series WARNING! The following text is total fiction. f iction. Do not start looking around for SEELE or NERV. The Wandering Jew was a very rich and powerful man by the beginning of the 20 th century, and was going by the name of Keel Lorenz. He was not content with his life and was doing anything possible to end his misery. Because of God’s curse, this could only happen with the destruction of the world. With his money and connections, he took his hands on the Dead Sea Scrolls. He was able to easily decipher them (being from the same era) and found out how man's next and final fi nal evolution was to come about. It was an existence devoid of pain (which is all he seemed to care about) but also devoid of pleasure. This sacrifice of losing pleasure to defeat pain and suffering leaves nothing but a vague existence (but Keel didn’t care). He did his best to force mankind down the path toward the highest point of existence without many people knowing it except for those in his secret organization known only as SEELE (German for "soul"). With the aid of the scrolls, he found the location where the Lance of Longinus was. He also found Adam and Lilith (who were still sleeping) and captured them. He began experimenting on them with human DNA to create a premature and artificial Impact and lead man by force back to Heaven (although God wanted it to happen in a more democratic way). He based his plan on the teachings of the Cabbalists and named it Instrumentality Project. He put Lilith inside a laboratory l aboratory named named Terminal Dogma. Atop the laboratory, he built his Japanese Headquarters and named it Gehirn (German for “brain”). He gathered brilliant scientists from around the world to take t ake part in Project E (the creation of Eva, weapons made of angelic DNA to be used against the Angels).
Some point before the turn of the millennium, the brilliant young female scientist Ikari Yui joined the ranks of SEELE. She soon learned of Keel's plans by reading the Dead Sea Scrolls herself. She quickly got her boyfriend Gendo, and her moral and intelligent teacher Kozo Fuyutsuki involved in order to stop the madman from destroying the world. Fuyutsuki and Gendo joined the secret organization Gehirn. The only chance that they had to fight his ultimate design was to continue working for him in the hope that they might be able to stop his plans from inside the agency.
In the year 2000, a Gehirn expedition was sent to Antarctica, in order to perform tests in the GeoFront where Adam was kept in slumber. The leading scientists were doctor Katsuragi and Ikari Gendo. In September of the year 2000, the Second Impact occurred in Antarctica. Adam awoke by testing an artificial form of an Angel's immortality organ (the S2 engine) while impaling the Lance of Longinus. The energy released melt the Antarctic Ice Cap and caused a Great Flood that wiped out most of life lif e on the south hemisphere. The polar axis shifted and the climate worldwide changed dramatically. dramatically. Wars, W ars, famine and plagues spread across the Earth in the Flood's aftermath helping to expand the damage done. By the time stability returned to the world, half of mankind had perished. The 17 Angels sensed the awakening of Adam. They awoke in Larva Form and began to evolve. They were preparing to find him and unite with him. The Second Impact signalled the drying of the Room of Gauf, the home for souls not yet born, according to Jewish mythology. All children born afterwards were literally soulless, beings without free will of their own that were just responding with their instinct rather rat her than their divine soul (like animals do). Because Adam was still confined, he was shrunk down to embryo size and didn’t kill all Mankind. Thus, Keel Lorenz changed the fate of humanity, as it was prophesised in the Dead Sea Scrolls (wrong time, wrong amount of damage) by speeding up the turn of events by millennia. Fortunately for Ikari Gendo, he wasn’t in Antarctica during the Second Impact. The only survivor of the expedition of the Gehirn team in Antarctica was a little li ttle girl, Misato (doctor Katsuragi’s daughter). Misato hated her father for loving his work more than his hi s own daughter. But in the end, he gave his life to save her. She had a mental breakdown and was hospitalised in a mental clinic for 5 years.
The media, controlled by SEELE, made a cover up and only told to the world that the catastrophe was caused by a meteor collision on Antarctica. Soon after, Yui and Gendo married and their son Shinji was brought into the world. Around the same time, Asuka and all of Shinji’s Shi nji’s classmates were born. In 2004, an accident occurred when Yui, Asuka’s mother and Naoko Akagi were attempting to synchronize with the EVAs. Yui was completely absorbed into the faux Angel's consciousness consciousness and never came out. Gendo’s world was shattered and his goal changed from saving Man to personally leading him to the Final Impact so that he could be reunited with his wife. It was at this point that Gendo personally went to SEELE and asked to head the Human Compliment Project along with Project E. His Hi s beloved Yui was secretly cloned with a mixture of Lilith's DNA to form for m Ayanami Rei (as a separate part of his own Human Instrumentality Project). He continued to have an affair with Naoko in order to get her to complete the Magi Systems. Then, the day they were completed she found out from Rei I, that Gendo was only using her. She killed the clone and then herself. Her death didn't matter to t o Gendo. He made a copy of Rei (Rei II) and gained control of the Magi Systems. Soon after, Gehirn was given to him and renamed it NERV (German for “nerve”). He was officially put in charge of two t wo important projects: the Human Instrumentality Instrumentality Project and Project Project E. Around the same time, Asuka’s mother went crazy when her husband abandoned her for another woman. She loved a rug doll instead of Asuka and then hanged herself in front of her. Shinji grew up without his parents, feeling deserted and unwanted. His father never cared for him and was only looking after Rei II. Gendo replaced Shinji with Rei II and Yui with Ritsuko (Ritsuko became his new lover, whom by the way was Naoko’s daughter. Sick!). In Germany, Asuka grew alone and tried to act as if she was perfect and didn’t need anyone’s aid. In Japan, Misato finally came to her senses and left the mental clinic. She wearing her father’s cross as memento of how much she hated him and the angels for all the mess they did. Full of hunger to make for all the years she lost, she met Ryoji Kaji. He reminded her of her hateful father and in a very Freudian way, they quickly became passionate lovers. After a long time of non-stop sexual intercourse, the two of them regrettably had to split up and follow their separate careers. Kaji became a spy for SEELE and Misato the main tactician of NERV. A few years later, the Angels reach maturity and attack...
Angels Angels are supernatural beings that possess a variety of forms (giants, (gi ants, microscopic computer viruses, pure energy, humans). They are immortals and indestructible, with their core to be their only weakness. As long as their core is intact, their S2 organ allows them to regenerate extremely fast any damage they are dealt. Also, they produce an AT Field that makes them immune to all weapons Man possesses. possesses. Every Angel was awoken on the day of the Second Impact and hadn't come to maturity until recently. Originally, Angels are presented by NERV like alien invaders who want to destroy mankind (a typical description, found in countless B-movies). But that is just a cover up. Angels are incapable of evolving. Angels got the "Fruit of Life" whereas Man got the "Fruit of Intelligence". It can be said that Angels are just another form of Man, with the t he same probability of appearance as Man. Man possesses the knowledge of both Good and Evil and he is capable of learning from his mistakes. Angels were not created after God’s Image and can never hope to improve further on their own. Angels needed Adam to evolve. Angels don’t have any purpose in existence. They don’t serve God anymore, they don’t learn, evolve, and create offsprings or co work. Life and death were the same for them. That is why most of them are willing to self-destroy if that helps them to unite with Adam. Their only objective is to find and become one with Adam, the second Angel who is in NERV's possession, in order to evolve and be forgiven by God. They are also sent by God to test the human spirit and will to survive and "evolve". Their "returning" to Adam is prophesied as being the beginning of the end, or the Third Impact, which would effectively kill all of mankind and free the winning Angel from its static boundaries. Angels can’t attack in numbers. They are selfish beings that don’t want to cooperate not even amongst their own kind (that is why God banned them in the first place); so only one Angel could advance against NERV at a time. Their selfishness is also the reason they have the all-powerful AT Field. It is their way of keeping everything separate from themselves. Also, Angels had to prove that they deserved the reunification of their own being too, so their t heir test must be a one to one confrontation with mankind. Mankind was supposed to be prepared for the coming of the Angels thanks to the Dead Sea Scrolls. Unfortunately, SEELE kept the truth only to itself and left l eft the rest of humanity in the dark, so that it could manipulate anyone it wanted for its selfish reasons. A notice must be made about HOW the Angels or Humanity could unite with Adam. Only a complete complete individual can come in contact with Adam. The Angels were individuals and could do it from the start. That is why they were going after Adam and didn’t care about killing the humans (the Third Impact would have done that, anyway). But since humans were separate bodies of the same being, they couldn’t do it if at least one Angel is still alive. That is why humans couldn’t unite with Adam even when he was in their possession and were killing the Angels. Technically, the word "Angels" used in i n Evangelion is a bad translation. tr anslation. The Japanese word used is Shito, which is closer to the English word "Apostle" or "Disciple". " Disciple". Gainax translated it to English as "Angel" (just as they translated "Shinseiki" to "Neon Genesis" and not "New Century" or any of a hundred others). Nothing we can do about that since something is always altered when it is translated tr anslated from one language to another. The Angels in the series don’t look like beautiful white humans with wings and halos, nor like li ke red monsters with bat wings, as they are described in the Old Testament. Hideaki Anno didn’t base their forms by reading the current Bible. The book of Enoch is an early scripture that was originally in the Bible but later was banned for being filled with superstitions. The book describes the children born of Angels who mated with Human women. They were called Nephilim and had many bizarre forms and shapes, which match those of the Angels in the series (Fallen Angels with Nephilim shapes! Hideaki Anno really loves to mix things). All the Angels in the series are named after renown Angels and Fallen Angel. Look into it yourselves. There were 17 Angels, each with with a different physical appearance from the other. Their pictures and fates are as follows:
Initially she was one being with Adam, until they were forcedly split in the First Impact. They originally had the form of the almost God-like creature known as Adam-Kadamon, which united again and collected humanity in End Of Evangelion. She is the first Angel that mankind encounters, and NOT the first Angel created by God. In Jewish mythology, she was the first wife of Adam. She was made from the same earth that created Adam, but she was not composed of any part of him (like Eve), so she was not loyal to her mate. Lilith Lili th left her husband and wandered the land First Angel where she eventually met Cain (Adam and Eve's son who slew Abel) and they became the parents of all humanity (aka Lilim). Lilith is i s the one from which mankind Lilith AT-Field Power: 999 has come, and to which he must return (in the form of the Third Impact, according to the series). She was waiting for Adam to reunite with her, start the Third Impact, merge with Humanity and return to Heaven. But her own offspring (Humanity) imprisoned her and stole her soul. The Seven Eyes of God and the triangle tri angle symbol that decorates Lilith's mask became the SEELE logo. Her body was used to produce LCL. Her "blood" is the LCL that is used in the Eva Plugs that allows the pilots to better communicate with the Evangelion (it is like amniotic fluid, which protects babies in the womb and allows them to breathe). Her soul was given to Rei. Lilith is not really an Angel. She was made to serve Adam as a human and not to serve God as an Angel. NERV only categorized her because she had a strong AT Field, like the rest of the t he Angels. Her presence was enough to fool the other Angels to think that she was Adam and allow NERV to move the real Adam to safety (who was on Gendo’s hand, who was always fleeing NERV during the attacks). Fate: She
was merged with and freed by Rei III clone and helped collect the souls of all of mankind.
Created in God's image and the being that all Angels are from and must return to, Adam was a harbinger of doom for mankind. He came as "The Giant of Light" in Antarctica (where the White W hite Moon had lain dormant since the First Impact when he originally split with Lilith) when testing of the S2 engine (the manmade version of Angels' immortality) began. Mankind was attempting to play God, and God was not happy. Adam awoke to retrieve his wife Lilith (the ( the other half of the God-like creature), whom which other experiments were being performed on (i.e. attempting to stimulate artificial Impacts through cloning). But he was also captured and was shrunk to embryo size so that from him could a new Eve be created. cr eated. Gendo kept his powers low so that it would be a lot more difficult for the Heavenly messengers to find him, by tracing his AT Field. This way, he was passing unnoticed and the Angels were mostly going after Lilith. When he was shrunk, the energy released from Adam was enormous, and the Second Impact occurred. Antarctica melt, the Earth flooded and billions of people died. A great price to pay for a little bit of Heaven. Adam’s soul was given by SEELE to Tabris, the 17th Angel. When Tabris was killed, his soul floated aimlessly until it merged with Lilith-Rei after the Third Impact. EVAs are clones of Adam. They were named like that because they came from Adam, just like Eve did. They have the same shape as Adam, they have cores in the same place, pl ace, and they have yellow wings. Like Lilith, Adam is not really an Angel. He is far beyond an average Angel
Second Angel
Adam AT-Field Power: 1000!!!
(since he was made after God’s image and even created all other Angels). He has only been categorized as one because of his omnipotent AT Field. Kabalists say that before Adam fell from grace by disobeying God's command, he was of enormous size and radiance, like the Angels. As a result of his sin, however, he was diminished in stature and glory. That explains his original form and separation we see in the series. Kaji stole Adam from SEELE HQ and then merged him on Gendo’s hand. He was freed by Rei III and melded with Lilith during the Third Impact.
Fate:
The first Angel who attacked NERV and one of the most humanoid in appearance. He easily made his way to Tokyo-3 with little resistance from the UN Forces due to his impenetrable AT Field. Eva-01 was only able to win when its first time pilot (Shinji Ikari) allowed his mind to go savage therefore allowing the Eva Unit to turn tur n into a "Berserker". Third Angel
Sachiel AT-Field Power: 2
Sachiel's weapons were some sort of particle beam, a hammer-punch forearm device, and the ability to amass muscle strength in its limbs. Sachiel self-destructed to try and destroy Eva-01 when it was clear that it had lost the First Battle of Tokyo-3. T okyo-3. He failed.
Fate:
The Second Angel to attack Tokyo-3 was the Insectoid Shamshel. It attacked with energy whips that could be used to slice any object in two. It was able to sever Eva-01's power cord thereby severely limiting the Test Type's time to defend itself and attack. It was able to destroy many Armament Buildings and cause some damage to Eva-01's armour and body, but it was not an equal match for the Evangelion when its human pilot went crazy with rage. Shamshel was killed when Eva-01 damaged its core with a knife, but remained intact and was carefully studied by NERV scientists.
Fate:
Fourth Angel
Shamshel AT-Field Power: 3
One of the best-designed Angels in terms of defence is Ramiel. Described as a "Floating Fortress", the Fifth Angel glided to t o a spot directly over Geofront with hardly any resistance from the EVAs and NERV. When there, it began drilling straight down to NERV HQ. Fifth Angel
Ramiel AT-Field Power: 10
He would attack any object that came within several miles of it that might cause the slightest threat. He attacked Unit 01 and caused major damage to the Eva and its pilot when it appeared up from the ground. Only by using the combined electrical power of all of Japan to power a giant sniper canon fired by Shinji in Eva-01 while using Eva-00 with Rei as a shield, was this powerful Angel finally defeated. Its body remained intact for the NERV scientists to study. Fate:
The first and only aquatic Angel, Gaghiel attacked the UN Pacific fleet in search of the Adam embryo that Ryoji Kaji was carrying with him from fro m Germany to NERV HQ in Tokyo-3. It was able to t o destroy more than half of the fleet. In the first under-water sortie, it i t was proven that EVAs have little defence when submersed in water. The combined synchrony rates of its two pilots (Shinji Ikari and Soryu Asuka Langley) helped the Eva-02 to overcome its situation. Blown up when Eva-02 dissolved its AT Field and opened its mouth long enough for two explosive laden UN ships to enter and self-destruct.
Fate:
Sixth Angel
Gaghiel AT-Field Power: 3
The Seventh Angel turned out to be a double threat. He could split himself into int o two separate Angels with two different cores. Any damage done to him was instantly repairing by harmonic waves the one core was sending to the other, making him impossible to kill. When he first appeared off of Japan's coast, he made short work of Eva-02 and Eva-01, causing great shame to the pilots. Seventh Angel(s)
Israfel AT-Field Power: 4
Only after a synchronized combined combined attack performed by the two EVAs against its two cores, was Israfel able to be destroyed. The Seventh Angel's defence and attack demonstrated how man had to start thinking in new modes of strategy and assault if he hoped to survive. The "dance" of the two EVAs forcibly recombined him and defeated him with a powerful set of kicks. He exploded in a cross-shaped pillar of fire.
Fate:
What was NERV's biggest break in the battle against the Angels turned into one of its worst catastrophes. Sandalphon was originally found in a live volcano still in its pupa form. NERV ordered its acquisition in order to study him alive before he became active and dangerous. It awoke and grew to its adult size in i n the middle of Eva-02's capture operation. It almost destroyed Unit 02 by striking it inside the volcano. Eva-02 was only saved when Shinji (in Eva-01) jumped into the lava and pulled it out. out .
Eighth Angel
Sandalphon AT-Field Power: 2
The Eighth Angel was disintegrated by Eva-02's coolant system being force-fed into it in the middle m iddle of the lava lake. It was only an adult for 2.5 minutes.
Fate:
Matarael attacked when NERV and all of Tokyo-3 were in the middle of a blackout (deliberately caused by SEELE so that the Geofront could be mapped while it was defenceless). The spider-like Angel appeared and began burning an acid hole directly through to Geofront from the surface. Ninth Angel
Matarael AT-Field Power: 1
With only five minutes of energy apiece, the EVAs 00, 01, and 02 attacked the Angel from below and killed it with little effort. The Ninth Angel was easily subdued with only a large machine gun (which proved useless on previous Angels). It died without exploding and was therefore another perfect specimen for the scientists at NERV.
Fate:
The Tenth Angel was a very unique aggressor. In its high Earth orbit, it would actually drop pieces of itself to bombard the surface with. When W hen it got used to its aim, it dropped its entire body on top of Tokyo-3. Sahaquiel was stopped by the combined AT Fields of the three Eva Units and blew up in a large cross-shaped explosion when Eva-02 drove its psyonic knife into its core. Fate:
Tenth Angel
Sahaquiel AT-Field Power: 4
In an attempt to avoid Eva combat, the Eleventh Angel (in the form of billions of microscopic nanomachines) attacked NERV in a soft spot - the Three Magi Computers.
Eleventh Angel
Ireul AT-Field Power: 4
After taking over the body of a Dummy Plug Test Eva, Ireul quickly adapted to any attack that NERV threw at it. It soon began infiltrating the Three Magi, starting with Melchior, in an attempt to override overri de them, rewrite them, and selfdestruct them. With its AT Field Fi eld in place to deflect any physical attack, Ireul's only weakness was the Super Computers themselves. With Ritsuko Akagi's quick thinking and typing skills, NERV was able to stop the attack and purge the Magi of Ireul Ir eul completely by simply erasing him like a common virus. Fate:
The Twelfth Angel appeared like a giant "shadow ball". It seemed that it could disappear and reappear at will to easily avoid the firepower thrown at it. it . It was only when the Eva-01 pilot got too cocky and stepped on to its actual form. (The shadow on the ground that was less than a tenth of a centimetre thick) and was sucked into a Dirac Sea where it remained immobile. With no obvious weakness and Shinji Ikari still trapped inside the Angel's self, NERV was ready to drop all the world's remaining r emaining Non-Nuclear (N2) bombs bombs into its center in a desperate attempt to free fr ee the child and destroy the threat. In the final seconds before the drop, the Eva-01 went Berserker when its restrains where left dry of power and burst free fr ee of its intended tomb in a bloody explosion of rage and fear that killed Leliel.
Fate:
Twelfth Angel
Leliel AT-Field Power: 10
Originally the Eva-03, the airborne Bardiel infested the Unit while it was transferred by air, on its voyage to the synchro test site in i n Japan.
Thirteenth Angel
Bardiel (Also EVA-03) AT-Field Power: 8
He was powerful like an EVA and carried a human hostage in its entry plug (the Fourth Child, Toji Suzuhara). Bardiel made short work of Eva-00 and Eva-02 and attacked Eva-01 as a Berserker. With elongated arms as weapons, it started to crush Eva-01's and Shinji Ikari's throat. The Third Child refused to defend himself in fear of hurting the 14-year-old pilot in i n the Thirteenth Angel. Ikari Gendo ordered his son to be taken off line and have the Dummy Plug initiated to attack the Angel. Eva-01 killed Bardiel in a heartbeat and proceeded to rip its corpse apart, severely damaging the trapped pilot in the process. Fate:
thr ough EVAs 00 and 02 and Zeruel was a walking wrecking ball. He marched right through right to Central Dogma's front door (Eva-01 stopped him before he could reach Terminal Dogma). For weapons, the fourteenth Angel had ultra sharp, whip-like blades for arms and a photon discharge from its "mouth". With its whip-blades, it was able to slice up EvaFourteenth Angel 02’s head and arms. Its armoured skin was also strong enough to withstand Eva-00's attack with an N2 bomb. Zeruel AT-Field Power: 8 It had even mutilated and defeated Eva-01, but it did not finish it off before it went
Berserker (again with no power). Fate: Shinji
and Eva-01 ripped Zeruel apart. In its Berserker mode, Unit-01 finished the fourteenth Angel off by eating it and its S2 Organ (which made the Eva fully operational without any outside electrical energy source and it allowed the Unit to grow to its fullest potential as a weapon and part Angel). One of Zeruel's whip blades was ripped off and attached as Eva-01's left arm.
The fifteenth Angel to appear was a being of pure pur e light. It remained high above Earth's orbit and only attacked when Asuka and Unit-02 showed up. It mind-raped Soryu Asuka Langley and forced her to relive her most painful memories that she chose to lock away years ago. It was unrelenting. The pilot of Eva-02 couldn't stop the flow of emotions that Arael was forcing her to feel and she cracked. The Angel's attack could only be focussed on one mind at a time, and Asuka was only saved when Eva-00 and its pilot showed up. After a failed attempt to shoot the target down, Ayanami Rei was given orders to retrieve the Lance of Longinus from Terminal Dogma, with which she launched a physical attack at the Angel. The Lance of Longinus cut through Arael's AT Field and destroyed the Angel of Light. The Lance landed on the moon and remained there until the Third Impact was about to begin.
Fate:
Fifteenth Angel
Arael AT-Field Power: 20
Armisael had the form of a double helix (like the Lance of Longinus) closed up in a circle. Its main means of attack was to merge with the EVAs and attack the minds of the pilots.
Sixteenth Angel
Armisael AT-Field Power: 20
When Armisael first attacked Eva-00 and its pilot, it made Rei to experience true emotions for the first time in her life. It made her realize that she was truly lonely in her existence and had never opened herself to anybody, not even those closest to her. Then Shinji appeared in Eva-01. The sixteenth Angel tried to attack him too, but the First Child self-destructed herself herself and her Eva in i n an attempt to destroy the Angel before it could hurt Shinji. Armisael was vaporized in the blast (as was most of Tokyo-3) caused by Eva-00's self-destruction.
Fate:
The seventeenth Angel was also the Fifth Child. His name means 'Kaworu of the Seashore'. Keel Lorenz knew that he was indeed the final messenger of man's fate and even gave him Adam’s soul. Lorenz cloned a human body for him and sent Tabris to NERV headquarters in order to hurry the prophecy of the Dead Sea Scrolls along. When Tabris arrived at Geofront, he quickly became Shinji Ikari's best friend and the best synchro-rated pilot of the children. Soon after his Seventeenth Angel coming, however, he began his attack. Because his synchro-rate with the Tabris (Kaworu Nagisa) EVAs was so high, he could pilot them without even getting into int o the entry th (Also the 5 Child) plug. With Eva-02 as his bodyguard he made his way to Heaven's Door and Terminal Dogma in the heart of NERV HQ. While W hile an enraged Shinji AT-Field Power: 30 and Eva-01 attacked Eva-02, Tabris realised that he had been duped by SEELE when he finally saw the white giant nailed to the cross above the lake of LCL. When Tabris realized that the Angel that he was face to face with was Lilith and not Adam (the one whom all Angels must return and who's soul was inside Tabris' human shell) he allowed Shinji to grab him with Eva-01. He explained that life and death were the same to him and that he would allow himself to die so that mankind could decide for itself the path that must be chosen. After 60 seconds of pause, Shinji squeezed and Tabris/Kaworu died. Fate:
At one point, Misato refers to humanity as if all people are an Angel of their own. Her exact words are: "We are the 18th Angel, born from the source of life, Lilith. Other angels are possibly a separate race of beings that threw away their physical forms. They were doomed to a sad existence of betrayal and pain because they rejected each other. We, people are the same" . It's just a comment at how destructive people can be to their fellow man (especially when they break into your base of operations and shoot at anything that moves!). The Dead Sea Scrolls in the series clearly state that 17 Heavenly Messengers will visit the Earth (that's what the members of SEELE say on a number of occasions) and not 18. Also, the Angel’s DNA match our own by 99,89%. It is i s pretty close but it still enough to separate us as species by them. By saying that t hat man is the final Angel, Misato is showing her utter distaste for all humanity (just as she loathed the Angels themselves). But if mankind truly were an Angel, a simple touch with Lilith would have begun the Third Impact . Or, when we came in contact with Adam we would have initiated the destructive Third Impact and the series would have been over before it began. Katsuragi was only being sarcastic. The Organic Angels were not 17 without reason, though. In demonology, the number 18 is considered unholy, since it is the sum of the three digits of the devil’s number 666 (6+6+6=18). Mankind may have defeated 17 perils but now faced the biggest threat of them all: its i ts own self. In End Of Evangelion man kills man for selfish reasons, proving how powerless humans are, even without huge monsters going after them. They are being destroyed by their ambitions alone. Even in the manga version of the series, where the Angels are decreased from 17 to 12, the number is is still not random. 13 is also a very unlucky number.
The Black And White Moons In the series, The White Moon is the place of rest for Adam and also the egg that gave birth to the Angels. It crashlanded during the First Impact and was buried somewhere in today Antarctica. The White Moon was destroyed when humans awoke Adam during the Second Impact and began the awakening of the Angels. In the series, The Black Moon is the place of rest for f or Lilith and also the egg that gave birth to Man. It crash-landed during the First Impact and was buried somewhere in today Japan. The Black Moon was destroyed when Rei liberated Lilith during the Third Impact I mpact and ended Humanity. Humanity. Earth was a barren planet. But after the Moons crash-landed; life began to evolve and was turned into a living planet. In a way, the Moons represent the Taoist symbol of Ying-Yang, the power of two opposites. In Taoism, the world was originally a huge homogenous egg. One day, two opposite forces were formed that cracked the eggshell. Since then, the world took countless forms that don’t have their original equilibrium. The same thing is described in the Book of Genesis, where the harmonic world became a dangerous place after Man sinned before God. And let’s not forget that astrophysics believe believe that the universe was originally a small homogenous sphere that expanded because of opposing forces and an explosion called Big Bang created the universe as we know it today. There is the scientific belief that life lif e on Earth began by bacteria, which were inside asteroids, which crash-landed on Earth. The same same can be said about the White and Black Moons, which crash-landed on Earth and began life. There is a Babylonian myth that describes a mysterious planet called Nibiru, home of a powerful alien race. The myth describes that this planet left the gravitational gr avitational force of its solar system and merged with our solar system 1,5 billion years ago. With a trajectory of 3.500 years, passed through our Earth and colonized it for its most needed minerals. It created humans with a mixture of their DNA and that of apes and used them as workers. During that time, Earth had two moons and our solar system had 12 planets. The powerful gravitational force of Nibiru, destroyed two planets (which formed today’s asteroid belt) and made one of its moons and one of Earth’s to collide with her. The destruction was enormous but in the same time gave birth to life as it is today. Maybe Hideaki Anno had the above in mind when he thought of the two moons. That may be also the reason the ending song is called “Fly Me To The Moon” (performed by different female voice actors of the series each time).
The Dirac Sea The Dirac Sea is practically a sea of LCL. It is a place where life begins to arise with birth birt h and returns to with death (if you have played Final Fantasy 7, you will know it as Life Stream). It is shown in the series when someone is about to die or to be born. It is also the last l ast thing we see in The End Of Evangelion. All living things on earth became a Dirac Sea.
LCL Also called Link Connection Liquid. It is the liquid that fills the Entry Plugs. When its molecular arrangement is changed by electricity, it can perform several functions, including a mental link between an EVA and its pilot, supplying oxygen oxygen and providing both physical and mental protection to the pilot. It allows the pilots to better communicate with the EVAs while operating them in the cockpit. It works like amniotic fluid, which protects babies in the womb and allows them to breathe. LCL is sticky and smells like blood. In reality, it is the blood of Lilith. The liquid li quid springs from her wounds and fills a lake, in the t he lowest floor of the Terminal Dogma where she is crucified. It is the essence, which turns inanimate matter into living beings; more commonly called "the soup of life". When the Third Impact occurs, humanity loses the AT Field that kept each person as an individual. The physical boundaries dissolved and everybody’s physical form turned to LCL and merged into one being. LCL can be seen like Anima, the life force for ce within all living creatures. Like the soul, it is incorporea i ncorporeal, l, imperishable and exists only within living matter. But unlike the soul, which departs from the body and transcends from the physical world to the afterlife, the Anima is something that disperses in the area around the dead body (it never leaves the physical world).
The Dead Sea scrolls The coming of the Angels was foretold in the Dead Sea Scrolls. These scrolls are never shown in the series (the picture in the left is from a real museum). They are existing parchments that were written from 200 B.C. to 100 A.D. These parchments were written by the Essene, a sect of Jews who, like the first Christians, believed that the coming of Christ shall change the world. They wrote a very different version of the New Testament, in the form of the Dead Sea Scrolls. They were all killed by Roman soldiers, in the desert surrounding Koumran and they were forgotten until a century ago. The scrolls were discovered in the 20th century, in a cave in Israel. Their contents were kept secret by the Vatican, in fear of uproar from fr om the retelling of the Apocalypse. Hideaki Anno uses the scrolls in a total fictional way. The scrolls (also (al so called Evangelions in the series) are originally written to prepare mankind for the t he coming of the Angels, but eventually they were used to initiate an artificial Impact. The scrolls described a time where mankind would stop improving, both in body and soul. Scientifically, this meant that Man would reach a “Darwinian dead-end”. He would stop evolving as a species and wouldn’t be able to adjust to the following f ollowing changes of the climate of Earth. Technically, he would extinct as species by “natural selection”. The scrolls foretold that Man and all other living beings would die, without exceptions. But life on Earth wouldn’t end, since a new world will begin and other species would be born in their place. These creatures would be the offsprings of the Angel who would manage to unite with Adam. By overcoming the Darwinian dead-end that he was faced with, Man wanted to "evolve" further by becoming a single being and return to one whole single entity (as it was before the First Impact). Meaning, he wanted to cheat fate and take the place of the Angel who was suppose to unite with Adam. Don’t forget that Angels themselves suffered from a “Darwinian dead-end”.
The First, Second and Third Impacts The Impacts refer to the major events (earth shattering) that mankind and Angels alike faced on this planet. The First Impact was actually the splitting of a God-like being (formed again in End Of Evangelion) into Adam and Lilith. Lilit h. It also caused the Black Moon and White W hite Moon to separate and be buried buri ed under Tokyo3's present location and Antarctica respectively around 4 billion years ago. This "Impact" set everything in motion as eventually all the Organic Angels came from the White Moon and mankind soon appeared thanks to the Egg of Lilith (the Black Bl ack Moon). All life in general began with The First Impact. The Second Impact occurred when Man succeeded in shrinking the Angel Adam to embryo size (after he was awakened by the testing of the artificial S2 engine by SEELE's people). people). The energy released was considerable enough to melt the Antarctic Ice Cap and cause a Great Flood (and supposedly destroyed the White Moon and separated/awakened the rest of the Angels from their slumber). Wars, famine and plagues spread across the Earth in the Flood's aftermath helping to expand the damage done. In the end, half of mankind was wiped out. The South Pole turned red by Adam’s blood and became toxic for humans. The Third Impact took place when mankind initiated the final phase of evolution. By overcoming the Darwinian dead-end that he was faced with, man took it in i n his own hands to "evolve" into a single being and return to one whole single entity (as it i t was before the First Impact). When the Third Impact was complete, man as a species no longer existed and therefore had become totally extinct (along with everything else, in that matter).
S2 Engine or Organ S2 stands for Super Solenoid. It is a codename for an Angel organ, positioned close to its core. All Angels are immortal because of this power generating system. EVAs are not Angels because they don’t have one. SEELE tried to artificially create one, based on the cores from the defeated Angels, but nothing good came out of it. When W hen they tested an S2 Engine on Adam, The Second Impact occurred. When they tried again by inserting an S2 Engine in EVA-04, the EVA merged with the Dirac Sea and annihilated everything in a wide radius. When EVA-01 ate the S2 organ from the 14th Angel, it became an Angel itself. An EVA loaded with this engine has infinite active time. That is why EVA-01 and EVAs 05-13, who possess this engine, do not need an Umbilical Cable any more.
N2 Bombs or Mines N2 stands for Non-Nuclear and it is Earth’s most powerful weapon. Works like an empowered empowered nuclear warhead but instead of Uranium, it uses Cold Fusion for ammo. It leaves no traces tr aces of radiation and doubles the destructive force of a typical nuclear explosion by using the matter of the target t arget as fuel. But, even such a weapon is useless against the AT Field of the Angels. The best effect they had was to scorch their surface and only slow them down.
The Lance Of Longinus In the series, The Lance Of Longinus is a huge weapon, which caused all three Impacts. It somehow resembles a DNA double helix and contains the information on how to separate and unite Adam-Kadamon. It caused the First Impact 4 billion years ago, when it impaled Adam-Kadamon and separated him into Adam and Lilith. It was found in the bottom of the Dead Sea by SEELE in the 20th century. It caused the Second Impact when the scientists in Antarctica performed experiments on the sleeping Adam and pierced him with the Lance. NERV recovered the Lance in 2015 and took it to their base. It was powerful enough to even kill an Angel. It killed the 15th Angel and got stuck on the moon until it was summoned summoned during the Third Impact. In Christian beliefs, The Lance Of Longinus is the spear that pierced pier ced Christ’s body, while He was on the cross. It became a miracle-healing tool because of Christ’s blood on it. It I t is even mentioned in the epic tale of King Arthur and The Knights Of The T he Round Table. In Jewish beliefs, The Lance Of Longinus is a cursed magical spear that pierced Christ’s body, while He was on the cross. It is said that Christ was immune to normal weapons and only an unholy weapon could kill him (something that even He wanted to, in i n order to save humanity). If you are looking for an answer to what the lance is doing in the series and why it became became so huge, this is a good one. The lance in the series is NOT really the historical Lance Of Longinus. Keel Lorenz named it like this because its use reminded him of the original spear he used himself to kill Christ (remember that he is the Wandering Jew). The spear in the series is an angelic tool that was used to split Adam and Lilith 4 billion years ago. And it’s it’ s also the only weapon on Earth that can bring them together again. There is a very known huge spear and it is found in the Genesis of another culture, that of Japan. In Shinto (the native religion of Japan) the First Man Izanami and the t he First Woman Izanagi (like Adam and Eve) created Japan with the aid of a huge magic spear. Hideaki Anno probably had this myth myth into account when he thought of the Lance Of Longinus.
The Fruit of Life In Genesis, it is the fruit f ruit Man ate while in the Garden of Eden from the Tree of Life, which was the source of immortality. After his banishment, he became became mortal but Angels still have its powers.
The Fruit of Wisdom In Genesis, it is the forbidden fruit Man ate in the Garden of Eden from the Tree Tr ee of Wisdom, which was the source of the Original Sin. Humans disobeyed the order of God and ate its fruit, gaining the knowledge of good and evil. As a result, God banished humans from the Garden of Eden and imposed many constraints of freedom on them. Wisdom was gained in expanse for freedom. The product of this wisdom is "Science", which is praised by Gendo as "the power of humans" but ridiculed by Fuyutsuki as what "caused the Second Impact". Both EVA and the Human Complementation Plan are all the products of this wisdom.
The Instrumentality Project and The Tree Of Life According to the teachings of the Jewish sect of Cabbala, there are 10 aspects and 32 paths that connect the soul with life and the universe. Man is made after God’s image; therefore he is also able to reach r each God if he acquires these 10 aspects. These aspects are described in the Book of Zohar, in a diagram known as Tree Of Life. Each aspect goes by the name of Sphere Of Sephiroth and describes how each man can use his inner divine light to form a huge community. The ten levels of cabbalist reality, figured as an arrangement of the ten Sephiroth, represent the glorious original human being, called AdamKadamon, Man before his Original Sin. If all men can simultaneously use all aspects, the imperfect world will be destroyed and humanity will reach God. In the series, the teachings of Cabbala are the main purpose of the Instrumentality Project. Keel Lorenz planned to unite all humanity into one being (by force and not by free will, as Cabbala teaches) during the Third Impact.
We see the symbol in Gendo’s office (as shapes on the ceiling and the floor), where he sits under the highest sphere, “The Crown Of God” (an egomaniac indeed!).
We also see it in the symbol that is created in the sky when the 9 unmanned Evas in the End Of Evangelion crucify EVA-01. The 9 unmanned EVAs represent the 9 aspects, with Eva-01 to be the 10th in the center, in the first sphere known as “God’s Manifestation”.
The shape Eva-01 takes after the crucifixion (a tall, red r ed cross with many eyes and roots in the bottom) is just another form of the Tree Of Life. A Tree of Life that has its roots and branches inverted appears on both Hindu scriptures and the Kabbalah. This was called "the Inverted Tree"
The science fiction author Dr. Paul Linebarger, during World War II, worked in psychological warfare warfare on behalf of the U.S. Army, including propaganda efforts by the U.S. against the Japanese. His work revolves around his own concept of the Instrumentality of Mankind. Anno Hideaki has acknowledged Linebarger's influence on Evangelion, and insisted that his own series' Human Instrumentality Project be translated into English in a way to pay homage to Linebarger, although the two authors' conceptions of "instrumentality" are extremely different.
The difference between getting killed and evolving with the Third Impact According to many religions, when humans die, their souls are judged. They either transcend to a joyous place (like Heaven) or to a terrible one (like Hell). The Third Impact merges Mankind into one being (as it originally was long ago) devoid of any pain. Keel and SEELE wanted to return to God (Adam), the single-form being in in which they came (in the Black Moon). For them, rejoining with Adam & Lilith was a more satisfying existence in comparison to the distressful one we currently know. The Angels came to the same conclusion, but unlike humanity, they were separate beings. Only one could achieve the goal, at the sacrifice of all others. other s. So the single form everyone wants to reach is their original state, the t he one before The Original Sin. The "Judgement of Humanity" as individuals would still occur even if an Angel returning to Adam started the Third Impact. Humanity would not evolve into one pure creature and instead it would die. The soul of Humanity would literally fade away. When the Third Impact occurs, all of humanity loses its physical forms (they turn tur n to LCL) and their souls unite (it was only one soul in the first place). When everyone comes to this state, they no longer feel the pain or loneliness that would typically precipitate from interaction between humans. It is comparable, comparable, but not equal, to death. So, anyone alive merges into one being (Adam-Kadamon). What about the ones who died before the Third Impact occurred? Well, the Third Impact wasn’t about physical bodies but instead, it was about souls. The souls (or better say, the pieces of the same soul) from all the dead of the past return from their afterlife (that ( that would be the Dirac Sea. There is no Heaven, Hell or anything else in the series) and also merge with Adam-Kadamon. That was the purpose of the Third Impact; to unite everyone into one.
Lilim and Humans Kaworu (the 17th Angel) is constantly referring to humanity as "Lilim". And that is i s not a good thing. "Lilim" were the demon-spawn children of Lilith and Lucifer. Practically, they were all the mythological monsters that plagued the world, such as Cyclops and Goblins. Humans are thought to be descendants of Adam and Eve, meaning good wiling beings and not evil monsters. In the series, it turned out that Humans also were descended from Lilith. Seth’s lineage didn’t survive. Hideaki Anno presented humanity as monsters themselves who had fooled themselves t hemselves to believe they were something superior to Lilim. That is why The Third Impact couldn’t occur if a human had touched Adam or a fooled Angel had touched Lilith in the Terminal Dogma. The Third Impact could only be initiated if a creature born of Adam touched him. And those creatures were only the Angels. Just as all Angels are from Adam, and to Adam they must return, all human beings are from Lilith, and to her they must return. The LCL that is her blood and helps the pilot breath, like amniotic fluid, proved she is our true creator and not Adam (boo!). As a side note, children born from the union of a human and an extra planar being are never considered good in Christianity. Lilim were half-demons and automatically evil (humanity included, according to the series). Nephilim were half-angels and were also evil. The Jewish mythology describes them as powerful giants who threatened to conquer the world in ancient times. In the Torah, God caused the Cataclysm (the flood which drowned the world and only those in Noah’s Arc were saved) in order to wipe out the Nephilim and not for to wipe out the sinners from the world.
Existentialism What the heck happens in the final episode, where Shinji is imagining an empty world and an alternative life in school without EVAs? Well, it all has to do with Existentialism. Existentialism is the philosophical theory which states that each human being creates a reality of each own. Because human beings are physically trapped within their own bodies, their thoughts and actions are trapped within their own realm of knowledge, never to be shared or understood in their most personal form with anyone else. Essentially, human beings are alone because every individual differs in appearance, behaviour, personality and way of thinking, making it impossible to be understood by anyone else. However, thanks to their isolation, they are uniquely free to choose their own interpretations of events, to create their own realities in i n their minds and most importantly, to own these realities as true expressions of their world and themselves. All the characters in the series had created a world of their own, usually as a way to escape their harsh reality. Shinji always listens to music, Misato always gets drunk, Ritsuko always pays attention only to her work and so on. The Human Instrumentality Project of Evangelion is an attempt to break down the barriers that separate mankind, and Shinji's ultimate decision is whether or not the limitations and inherent freedoms of the human condition as individual creatures are good things, or whether they should be denied. In the final televised episode, Shinji is shown a world in which there is absolute possibility and absolute freedom. It is depicted as a simple, empty white background. In this reality there are no limitations li mitations to hinder Shinji’s actions (such as physical boundaries to prevent his movement or other people to argue with him). But in the same matter, there is no purpose in this reality (no goals, no plans, no actions). Through Shinji's own free will, he is able abl e to create the rules and in fact the whole world around him as a way to create a purpose for his existanse. Although it is not clearly shown shown of what he is i s doing, this is what he does, more or less: l ess:
First, he gives himself a shape in order to define himself, thus intentionally deprives himself the freedom of not having a limited physical shape. But now he was floating about aimlesly in nothingness. He creates gravity and the ground in order to define space and the definition of movement, thus intentionally deprives himself the freedom of floating without the boundaries of weight. Now he he was moving aimlesly in an empty space. He needed something to define his movement in space and give his walking an evidense that is actually happening. He creates trees and lakes and myriads of objects in order to create a definition of movement, thus intentionally deprives himself the freedom of walking without the boundaries of matter. Still, he had nothing to do in i n this world. He needed a purpose and you can’t have a purpose if you don’t have a need. So, he creates needs that drive him to fulfill ful fill them (such as hunger and thirst), thus intentionally deprives himself the freedom of not having any needs. Yet, he had no one to compare himself with. So, he creates other individuals, who think and act independently from him, in order to define his actions through the impression he makes to others. Thus he intentionally deprives himself the freedom of doing anything he wants (since the others will be arguing with him or preventing him from fro m doing what he wants). Now, there are many people with individual thoughts and each one of them has a different differ ent image of Shinji in their minds (since ( since each one of them understands him in a different way). His “image of self” is now defined by the way others perceive him and not by freely f reely doing anything he wants. His “being” is granted not by his actions, but instead by the reactions of others around him. By constantly comparing, arguing and selecting, he has a non-stop need to define himself and a purpose to hold on to.
To view it another way, only by negating certain possibilities and freedoms does Shinji's reality form.
In other words, he is absolutely free to create the world as he wants, to negate only what he wishes, and leave only what he knows that will give him happiness. So, even pain and suffering are needed parts of a world in order to define happiness. In the final episode episode again, Shinji is having a normal life with his parents and friends. His father is still uncaring, Asuka is still pushy and Rei is still distant. But it is a reality Shinji likes for all its ups and downs.
This is a direct echoing of Jean Paul Sartre's assertion in i n his book Being and Nothingness, in which he views consciousness as the ultimate factor in determining reality - it is a power which can negate certain things, and create a new subjective reality in the process.
Only fourteen-year-old pilots In the series, only fourteen-year-olds can pilot the EVAs. No one older can synchronize with them. There are two reasons for that. First, each EVA requires a trapped woman’s soul inside them. A woman was needed to synch with an EVA first (giving it it a human soul) in order to give the pilot a synchronization rate high enough to communicate with the man made Angels. And then, the souls inside each EVA have to accept their pilot. EVAs 01 and 02 accepted Shinji and Asuka because they had their mother’s soul inside. Second, only a soulless human can pilot an EVA. In Jewish mythology, all souls are born in Heaven, in a place called the Room of Gauf or Hall of Harad. When the Apocalypse begins, the Room of Gauf will be dried up and all humans born afterwards will be born without a soul. The Second Impact occurred 15 years ago, so the oldest possible pilots would be 14 years old (after the Second Impact fewer and fewer children had been born). All of the prospective pilots were Shinji and his classmates (none of which appears to have a living mother while all of their t heir fathers work at NERV. Very fishy!). Since The Second Impact acts as the Beginning Of The End, everyone born afterwards was soulless. There were dozens of unfinished EVAs in i n the graveyard where Ritsuko showed the cloning tank to Shinji and Misato. In theory, anyone able to fulfil the above two requirements, could become become a pilot. But a pilot would be useless if he didn’t have major psychological problems (you heard right!). EVAs produce AT Fields that are empowered by their pilots’ negative feelings and need of separation from others in fear of emotional damage (the more solitude, the better!). This whole concept is probably the main message the series wanted to give to its viewers. The selfish adults are willing to immorally disobey di sobey God’s will, will, over and over (fabricated Third Impact), lie to each other (cover up about the Second Impact), make human sacrifices (trapping (t rapping women’s souls to EVAs), using their own children to fight in their unjust battles (Shinji who is forced to become a pilot by Gendo), deliberately damaging them emotionally so that would be ruthless killing machines (AT ( AT Fields empowered by the pilots’ parental abandonment) and then kill each other to get what they want (SEELE and NERV onslaught in The End Of Evangelion). The children are the real victims here, seen only as soulless weapons by their parents. They have to face the sins of their forefathers, to be hurt by events that happened before they were born. Indeed, none of the characters in the series loves his parents. The whole series is an outcry to the inhuman society we created and live in today.
Tokyo-3 It is originally presented as a normal Japanese city, under attack by alien invaders (the Angels), a very typical setting in many B-movies. In reality, the whole city is i s a camouflage for the GeoFront. It is actually a defence base built to look like a city, where the employees of NERV and the possible 14-year-old pilots of the EVA are housed and live in bliss. When the city is i s under attack, it takes its real shape by transforming into a battle fortress (wow!). The civilian buildings are transported tr ansported underground and ballistic towers lift in their place. The name Tokyo-3 is a pun, used in many anime as a way to show that the original ori ginal city was destroyed and its habitants rebuild a new city somewhere somewhere else. el se. In this case, names like Tokyo-2 and Neo-Tokyo were used a lot of times in various anime, so Hideaki Anno didn’t want people to think the city had any relation to the cities in these t hese other series. He named the city Tokyo-3 and called Tokyo-2 (the new capital of Japan) a different city, which we never see in the series.
The GeoFront The GeoFront is a huge underground city that lies underneath Tokyo-3. It was built using a pre-existing underground valley, ranging from 6 square kilometres in weight and 1 kilometre in height. Before the Second Impact it was originally at sea level l evel but then it submerged and made to house NERV Head Quarters. It is so vast, that even a large forest and a lake were made inside its spare space. It is connected with the city above, using mid-air trains tr ains and rolling platforms. It receives illumination by mirrors, which deflect the sunlight from the skyscrapers of the city, down to the valley. The many high-rising buildings that hang upside-down on the top part of Geo-Front are called "Ceiling City". It looks exactly the same as Neo-Tokyo-3 that sits above it, and is used to accommodate the submerged buildings of Neo-Tokyo-3 when an Angel comes comes to attack. att ack. It is heavily guarded from Angel attacks with numerous armour plating and the "defence city" itself, i tself, Tokyo-3 (whose main purpose was to protect GeoFront). Its main problem in terms of defence was that it had no real security against actual humans (i.e. Kaworu or the entire Japanese Strategic Self Defence Force). When the Third Impact began, it was clear that the GeoFront was not just a cave (another cover up!). The giant hollowed out cavity was in reality the Black Moon (aka the Egg of Lilith), Lil ith), which is where all human life began to live and began to end.
NERV The Head Quarters used to hide Adam and keep Lilith safe until the time of the Third Impact was at hand. It has the shape of a half buried pyramid, next to an upside down hollowed pyramid. It is the place where the t he EVAs are stationed and the strategic plans against the Angels are organized. The shape of NERV is actually a deformed Jewish Star Of David. The half buried pyramid is the “male” “ male” part of God’s symbol and the upside down hollowed pyramid is the “female” part. They are not in balance though, like the world itself. it self. NERV’s shape is not original. The glass pyramid in front of the Louvre museum in Paris has actually a hollowed pyramid near it, in exactly the same position.
Central Dogma The first Central Dogma was the Head Quarters for the Gehirn operations. It was destroyed along with the whole Gehirn Antarctica expedition team, during the t he Second Impact. The second Central Dogma was the Head Quarters for the NERV operations. This is where the Magi computers and NERV tacticians are stationed and monitor the Angels from afar. It was supposed to be the most protected place in all NERV, but this was just another cover up. In biological terms, "Central Dogma" means the irreversible information flow that occurs in the transformation DNA RNA protein. Its name comes from the Greek words “κεντρικό δόγμα”, which means “main religious belief”. Of course, it is i s wrong as a dogma, since it is only “central” (what ( what all people believe to be true). The truth lies li es within the Terminal Dogma (see below).
Magi Super computers They are the fastest and smartest artificial intelligence on the planet. They have actual human brains integrated into their system for easier interface inter face and faster cogitating. The Magi Bio-Super Computers are the brainchildren (literally) of Dr. Akagi Naoko. She was a brilliant scientist who was "enticed" into creating the ultimate computer, back when NERV was known as Gehirn. The Three Magi were named after the Three Wise Men that visited Jesus Christ when he was first born in Bethlehem (Melchior-1, Balthasar-2 and Casper-3). They brought their King of Kings gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. myrrh. The Magi System brings power, security and brilliant strategies in combating Angels and SEELE. Each one of them is programmed and able to work independently of each other and together, not as one mind, but as three separate minds in one body (just like the t he Triad God). Each Magi has a separate personality programmed into it that reflects that of their t heir creator. Melchior is Naoko as a scientist, Balthasar is her motherly mind, and Casper is Naoko as a woman. The Magi Supercomputers have also been seen as representing the Freudian psyche, namely Mother/Balthasar Ego, Scientist/Melchior Superego, and Woman/Caspar Id. This is i s furthered with them representing these respective aspects and the creator of the Magi Supercomputers.Casper is the Magi that t hat halted Akagi Ritsuko's countdown when she tried to self-destruct the Super Computers, and therefore NERV in order to prevent Gendo from initiating his own version of the Third Impact. Naoko always loved Gendo (This was yet another reason for him to carry on his affair with Naoko). She programmed her own feelings into the Magi. That’s why the Magi helped Gendo instead of Ritsuko, Naoko’s daughter in End of Evangelion. The Three Magi were also used to destroy an Angel by themselves (Ireul, the 11 th Angel) and to keep SEELE from taking over NERV HQ for awhile (with a program called 666!) in End of Evangelion.
Terminal Dogma The GeoFront may be beneath Tokyo-3 and the Central Dogma may be in the lowest parts of the GeoFront… but the Terminal Dogma is beneath even that! The most heavily protected place in all NERV and for a good reason. All the major secrets of NERV are in it.
It is the place where the Black Moon rests. Lilith is kept inside, imprisoned by being crucified on a red cross. From her wounds, blood is continually flowing and filling a lake around her. Her blood is is used as LCL in the EVAs and in the tubes t ubes that withhold the Rei clones.
Around Terminal Dogma lies a graveyard filled with unfinished EVAs (which looks like a huge Coptic cross)…
…the place where Rei was first cloned (which looks like her regular room)…
…and the core of the Dummy Plug System (Rei’s clones).
The Angels are targeting this place because they believe that Adam is held captive there (but they are mistaken, since only Lilith is there). Its name comes from the Greek words “τερματικό δόγμα”, which means “final religious belief”. It is the true dogma, since it is “terminal” (the ultimate truth).
Gauf Doors The name of the doors that seal the entrance to the t he Terminal Dogma. Also called Heaven’s Door. Their name derives from the Room of Gauf, the place from where all souls are born, according to the Jewish mythology. Hideaki Anno named them like this because when they were first opened during the Second Impact, all humans born afterwards were soulless because of them. In Jewish mythology, when the Apocalypse begins, the Room of Gauf will be dried up and all humans born afterwards will be without a soul.
NERV logo NERV’s logo is a half fig leaf l eaf with the quote “God in His Heaven, all is right with the world”. The fig has nerves and represents the name of the organization. It also represents the Original Sin, Man made to God (Adam and Eve wore fig leaves to cover their genitalia when they confronted God after their sin). The quote is from a Christian poem from a 19th century poet, Robert Browning. The original poem meant that as long as God is i s in His Heaven, he is looking after us and therefore all will be well in the world, no matter how cruel it becomes. In NERV’s version, the poem means that God has left Man to act in i n his own free will and leaves in bliss, up in His Heaven. All is right in the world, since Man can freely do anything he wants without fear of God’s punishment if he sins again.
SEELE logo SEELE’s logo is an upside down triangle, covered by seven eyes. Seven is considered a holy number, so Jews believe that even God has seven eyes. The upside down triangle is the symbol of water in pagan black magic tradition. Water symbolizes life, which began in water (Lilith created Humanity with LCL) The upside down triangle also symbolises the “female”. It refers to Lilith, as being the first woman. It also came to be the symbol of evil. God used to be symbolised with the Jewish Star Of David. In the beginning, God was considered to be hermaphrodite (both male and female). The face up triangle in the symbol is the “male” part of God and the upside down triangle is the “female” part. But in time, God came to be considered only to be male. He is now symbolized only as a face-up triangle (depicting the Holy Triad). The devil is symbolized as an upside down triangle as an antithesis to God (as does everything else in demonology). Lilith and all EVAs have an upside down triangle and seven eyes under their masks. It proves their common lineage as divine, female and (only in Phallocracy) evil, a false God.
Shifted Axis When the Second Impact occurred, the polar axis shifted and the climates worldwide mixed up big time. Japan for instance, became a permanently tropic country. And the facts that prove that are:
The country has always summer and it is constantly going through a heat wave all year long.
Everyone has air conditioners in their homes.
Summer crickets constantly make irritating noises (a constant “kric, kric” we hear in i n open spaces).
Dolls Dolls play a major part in the series, even if they are rarely mentioned. The deep meanings behind a simple rag doll are the following:
Dolls are toys, made for children to practice their social roles through mimicking of the adults. 1. Girls play with baby-like baby-like dolls to practice their future roles as mothers, mothers, or with girl-like dolls to practice their t heir etiquette with fashion and cosmetics. 2. Boys play with with soldier-like dolls dolls to practice their future roles as possible soldiers in war, or with monster-and-robot-like dolls to become accustomed with taking part in dangerous, heavy labour occupations.
In Asuka’s case, she saw her mother love a doll instead of her. Her mother preferred to commit suicide with the doll instead of her daughter. Asuka was scarred from this event and the only thing she “learned” from dolls was to hate hat e the idea of becoming a mother herself. That explains her hatred with all the boys who circle her.
Dolls are made after man’s image. They are tools made by humans to resemble their ideal personalities. That is why they all dolls look like beautiful children or muscular warriors. They are used to create a form of an illusory, i llusory, ideal reality. Asuka’s mother preferred to love a doll instead of her real r eal daughter. She was scarred by the divorce with her husband and her mind got mixed up and made her create an illusionary world. She loved l oved a doll, which represented an ideal reality of her image, where she has everything she lacked from her previous reality. Practically, all the characters in the series have the need to escape reality and use “something “something like a doll” as an excuse to create a world of their own. Shinji is always listening to music, Misato always gets drunk, Ritsuko always pays attention only to her work and so on.
If God exists, humans will be like dolls to him, made after His image. Gendo played God and created Rei as his ideal image: his own dead wife, Yui. Rei was like an obedient puppet most of the time. She obeyed Gendo without ever question his actions, exactly like a doll which does anything we like and never complains.
On the other hand, if God doesn’t exist, humans simply made Him after their image. 1. He would would be like a doll, which which represents their ideals. ideals. 2. He would be a simple simple excuse to everything humans humans can’t explain (Only God knows). knows). 3. He would be a simple excuse to justify justify all actions humans humans consider unreasonable unreasonable (Its God’s will. So don’t question His perfect wisdom; just shut up and do it).
AT Field All Angels and EVAs can create an aura, the light of the soul, an energy barrier called AT Field, which makes them immune to all weapons Man possesses. If two AT Fields come together, they neutralize each other. That is why an EVA is the only thing that can beat an Angel. The AT Field is an actual term in psychology, where where Sigmud Freud calls it “Absolute Terror Field”. It I t refers to mental barriers that someone produces to protect himself hi mself from emotional damage by keeping other people at an emotional distance. Although the series use this term only for naming the Angels’ barrier, they do refer to Shinji’s fear of approaching others as “the hedgehog dilemma”, which is pretty much the same thing. In the series, God banned the Angels for selfishly disobeying Him (for trying to become almighty by overthrowing Him). The Angels are so egomaniacs that produce AT Fields to keep themselves separate from everyone else. In their case, they are so powerful that t hat their AT Fields are not only mental but also physical barriers. Back in psychology, traumatized children set up AT Fields as mental barriers to keep human contact to a minimum, because of parental abandonment. And the main dramas in the series are its teenage pilots who grew up without strong parental support.
Shinji’s father abandoned him and his mother died when he was little. Asuka’s father also abandoned her. Her mother went crazy, loved a rug doll instead of her and then she hung herself. Rei didn’t even have parents. She was created in a test tub and was used as a tool. She had feelings towards Shinji and Gendo but in a very twisted way (lover – mother and daughter – wife).
Their personal AT Fields as mental barriers should be enormous. While piloting the EVAs, their barriers would turn in physical barriers and fight against the AT Fields of the Angels. Meaning, the more distasteful the pilot is with his hi s parents, the stronger the AT Field his EVA can produce is, and the more powerful it gets! Sick! As it is proven in End Of Evangelion, all humans have AT Fields (not just those traumatized) in a lot smaller capacity than the Angels. AT Fields are all that keeps us as separate and individual entities (like walls for our unique souls) since we are technically one being in many different shells. When the Third Impact occurs, all of humanity loses its physical forms. Because their AT Fields dissolved, their bodies couldn’t keep their forms and turned to what they originally were: LCL.
EVA The origin of the name "EVA" was thought to derive deri ve from EVA, the wife of Adam, from fro m the "Old Testament" of Bible, and "Evangel", the English word for the gospel. EVAs are bioorganic weapons that Man made with the DNA of the second angel (Adam) to fight the 17 Angels. The formal name is "General-purpose Humanoid Humanoid Decisive Combat Weapon - Artificial Human (Adroid) Evangelion". In order to implement the Human Complementation Project, 14 years of time and astronomical amount of money were used to build Evangelion. Being able to deploy A.T.Field as well as neutralize it, it is the only weapon that human have to counter the Angels. All Angels are protected with an AT Field, which makes them immune to all weapons Man possesses. Every Eva unit is made with Angel DNA and therefore can create an AT Field of its i ts own. This way, the two AT Fields are neutralizing each other and the Angel becomes vulnerable.
EVAs are mindless. They cannot be trained to follow orders but they can be controlled remotely. If left lef t alone, they behave like crazy beasts that don’t recognize friend from foe (meaning they behave like the other Angels). In early tests, NERV tried to t o control the EVAs by synchronizing the mind of a human with the core of the EVA. This proved to be catastrophic, since the minds of the humans were destroyed and their souls were absorbed in the core. Later, NERV found pilots that the t he souls of those within the EVAs accepted. They turned the inside of them like a typical cockpit we see in every mecha series. Although the EVAs were tools, they were no longer soulless. Each unit now has the soul of a female trapped in it.
EVA-01 has Ikari Yui trapped in it (that is how she disappeared in 2004). It accepted only Shinji for a pilot because he was Yui’s son.
EVA-02 has Asuka's biological mother's soul in it (which caused her to go crazy and commit suicide). It accepted only Asuka for a pilot because she was her daughter.
EVA-00 has Akagi Naoko in it (which made her demented, killed Rei I and committed suicide). The EVA-00 never accepted Rei or anyone else as a pilot. It went Berserker when Rei and Shinji were piloting it (both spawned from the hated Yui Ikari) and took swipes at Ritsuko (her daughter who tried to separate herself as far as possible from her mother). It only synchronized with Rei because she is half Angel (Kaworu could fully synch with any EVA despite whose "being" was in the Unit). It was only Rei's strong ability that allowed her to pilot the Beast. The other units we see in the series (numbers 03 to 13) didn’t have a soul inside them and therefore never accepted anyone for a pilot. That is why they made more damage than good.
EVA-03 was infested by an Angel and fought to death with the other EVAs.
EVA-04 blew up in a failed experiment, killing thousands of people.
EVA-05 to EVA-13 were mass-produced and were used in the Third Impact to annihilate humanity.
A pilot is always needed to navigate the EVA from within. withi n. In the beginning, we are let to know that the pilot is needed to control the EVA. In reality, the pilot is only needed to empower empower the AT Field Fi eld of the EVA with his negative feelings and need of separation from others in fear of emotional damage (the more solitude, the better!). The pilots are entering the EVA through an opening called Entry Plug. It is a capsule-shaped cockpit inside which the EVA pilot sits. EVA is started by the insertion of such plug into its i ts back neck (the same applies to the virtual entry plug -- dummy plug). In emergency the plug can be ejected and becomes an evacuation capsule. The plug is equipped with parachute and ejection rocket for this purpose.
They are then covered in a liquid called Link Connection Liquid (LCL). LCL is practically the blood of Lilith Lilit h and allows the pilots to better communicate with the EVAs (it is like li ke amniotic fluid, which protects babies in the womb and allows them to breathe).
For extra aid, they wear a special suit that increases synchronizing, synchronizing, called Plug Suit. With it, it , they control the EVA as if it is their own body. There will still be space between the suit and the body after it i t is put on, but by clicking on a switch on the wrist the suit then sticks to the body.
Then they synchronize their minds with the EVA with a procedure called Apotheosis (which in Greek means “becoming “becoming one with God”). As a side effect, they also feel any pain the EVA feels when it gets hurt.
Not everyone can pilot an EVA. It doesn’t take only for the pilot to be accepted by the EVA. It also takes for him to be soulless. Only 14 year-olds, pilot the EVAs because they were born after the Second Impact and therefore they were the oldest, soulless candidates, with major psychological problems with their parents, NERV could find by the time the Angels begin to attack.
EVAs use energy to move. Because of their huge size, they consume enormous amounts of energy. Therefore, they have a huge umbilical cable in their backs, which connects with a huge power plant that constantly supplies them with electricity. It is the weak point of all the EVAs. EVAs have a very short autonomous active time-limit. If the cable is severed, they can still move for only 5 minutes with internal batteries. The Umbillical Cable is actually the blood vessel, which extends from a baby's navel to the placenta of its mother's womb. Like babies who get their nutrients through this blood vessel, EVAs get their electric power through the Umbilical Cable. EVAs are covered with several layers of metallic armor. It was first thought that this armor was used to protect the EVAs but in reality realit y it was only confining their true form and powers (something like a leash that keeps them at bay). It’s only this armor that forces the EVAs to take orders. In case of emergency, if the pilot is i s no longer able to fight, the Dummy System can still control the EVA Units. These are virtual Entry Plugs, which were developed for starting and using EVA without the pilot. They are computers that simulate the brainwaves of the normal pilot and the angelic powers of Rei (in NERV) and Kaworu (for SEELE) in order to fool the EVA to believe its favoured pilot is still inside i nside and in synchronization.
EVAs are not pure clones of Adam. They were created using his blueprints, but the final design became something else entirely. The fact that they have seven eyes and a triangle under their masks (like (li ke Lilith) and that their blood is LCL, proves pr oves that. EVAs are practically Angels themselves. The only thing that separates EVAs from Angels is their lack of an S2 organ (something like an Angel’s heart). Ironically, humans hate the Angels, but they still use them to try to save themselves (pretty lame!). Symbolically, EVAs were created by Adam, just like the Biblical Eva was created by Adam.
Marduk The agency formed to find possible pilots for the EVAs. It had 108 branches worldwide and its actions were totally kept in secret. But all these were just hot air. Kanji discovered that there never was such an organization. It was just another cover up made by SEELE to make NERV believe that pilots were hard to find and that saving the world is an important thing to do. Bull! All the pilots it needed where Shinji’s schoolmates. Marduk was the name of the ruler of the Gods in Babylonian mythology. He was the one who killed Tiamat, an enormous dragon and formed Earth by its head. This is told in the myth of Nibiru, a planet that made two moons to collide with planet Earth, 1.5 billion years ago. The collision of the t he moons matches with the events of the First Impact. Marduk matches with AdamKadamon, who gave life to the planet. Tiamat matches with Earth, as it was lifeless before The First Impact. The number 108 is considered holy in Buddhism. It refers to the 108 desires and sins one must surpass in order to find enlightenment. This number is used to express holiness. The fact that SEELE had 108 fake branches shows how unholy their goals are.
Stigmata The name of the bloody wounds that appeared at both the hands of EVA-01. Originally, it means the burn marks applied on cattle or slaves. In Christian teachings, it is the wounds suffered by crucified Christ on both hands, both feet, side of abdomen and forehead. They sometimes appear on humans with no external reason and are considered to be a miracle.
Ark In Genesis, it is a rectangular r ectangular shaped boat that Noah built and put all animals, pair by pair onto it, thus saving all species from a world-scale flood. In the series, it i t is said that EVA-01 became an Ark after it gained its Stigmata, which saved humanity’s soul from the nothingness of the Third Impact.
Destrado Ikari Shinji’s Destrado became physical (or un-metaphysical, material) during the Third Impact. Destrado is a psychology term, meaning the energy of someone’s self-destructive impulse. It I t is the antonym of Libido. It’s also the active form of the t he passive Thanatos, the energy of "Instinct of Death".
Name Origins The characters’ names were not given gi ven at random. Rei and Asuka's last names come from Japanese and American ships from the Second World War, and Asuka is the name of a mother-ship in Japan's modern Self-Defense Force. Additionally, Ikari and Kaji mean "anchor" and "helm" in Japanese. Director Anno was also influenced by Ryu Murakami's Murakami's novel called call ed “Fascism of Love and Illusion”, and names such as Aida, Suzuhara, Ryoji, etc, are from this work of fiction about war based on Toji Ishihara, a military officer in Imperial Japan.
Numbers The chronologies in the series have an apocalyptic meaning on their own.
The series started to broadcast after the Sarin gas attack on the t he Tokyo subway on 1995. The feeling Evangelion can be seen as a reflection of the constant anxiety Japan felt after of constant anxiety in Evangelion can the attacks destroyed the image of Japan as a clean, violence-free society. The series ended broadcasting on 1996, the year many believed to be the beginning of the Apocalypse, as Nostradamus had prophesised. The second Impact occurred in the series in 1999, in the turn of the Millennium, where many feared to be the End of Times. The first Angels reached maturity around 2013, the year were the Aztec calendar ends and many fear it will mean the End of Times.
Triads The protagonists represent many different kinds of triads, depending on their behaviour. Hideaki Anno based their personalities on the following: 1. In Shinto, Japan’s native religion, their behaviours match those of the three most known Gods. Shinji is grumpy and a crybaby, like Susanoo, the always-furious God of Storms. Asuka is sexual and sassy like Uzume, the immoral Goddess of Love. Asuka also became Shinji’s sexual phantasy and the new first mother of mankind. Rei is kind and passive, like Amaterasu, the brilliant Goddess of The Sun. Amaterasu is also the Goddess who gave birth to the first humans Izanami and Izanagi (like Lilith who gave birth to Man and whose soul is now inside Rei).
2. In christianism: A. Shinji behaves like a tormented Christian. Inside his soul wages a war between an Angel (the timid Rei, dressed in white) and a Devil (the (t he selfish Asuka, dressed in red). B. Kaworu, Yui, and Rei represent the three parts of the Christian Trinity, although the same can be said of the Gendo, Shinji, and Rei trio. t rio. 3. In psychology: A. Their behaviours match the distinct parts of the conscious mind, mind, as Sigmund Freud describes them.
Asuka is selfish and an egoist, like the Id, the selfish desire for self-gratification and acknowledgement by others. Rei has cold unemotional demeanor, like the Super Ego, the analytical, rational thought of pure logic. Shinji is always in disarray, trying to figure out what he is supposed to do to be liked by others, like the Ego, the main personality that controls behaviour and takes the final decisions.
B. Their behaviours match the distinct drives of the unconscious unconscious mind, as Sigmund Freud describes them.
Asuka is presented like an erotic Lolita, like the Libido, the sexual drive that we all feel when we see something beautiful. Rei is presented like an emotionless puppet without will to act or live on its own, like the Thanatos, the drive of despair that we all feel when we feel awful and thoughts of murder and suicide cross our minds. Shinji is always in disarray, like the Destudo, the violent drive that we all feel when we are emotionally damaged and want to break something or hurt someone as a way to outburst our anger.
C. Their behaviours match three personality disorders.
Asuka is selfish and an egoist, affected by Narcism.
Rei has cold unemotional demeanor, affected by Avoidance.
Shinji is always in disarray, affected by Schizofrenia. Episode 16's title was The Sickness Unto Death, the same as a book written by Søren Kierkegaard, one of the first, and most religiously-oriented Existentialists. To him, Despair comes in three forms: Despair at not being conscious of having a self; Despair at not willing to be oneself; and even Despair at willing to be oneself. Viewers will note that Rei, Shinji, and Asuka can each be seen to resemble a different kind of Despair. Rei has no soul of her own, and loses her "self" " self" in each reincarnation; Shinji is desperately trying to overcome a lack of self confidence; and Asuka covers up her own despair and inner turmoil by acting overconfident and giving the appearance that she is self-assured. self- assured.
D. The five children (Rei, Shinji, Asuka, Toji, and Kaworu) represent the Kobler Ross model of five stages of mortality acceptance: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
4. The Magi Supercomputers: Supercomputers: are programmed to work independently of each other and together, not as one mind, but as three separate minds in one body (just like the Triad God).
are representing the Freudian psyche, namely Mother/Balthasar Ego, Scientist/Melchior Superego, and Woman/Caspar Id.
5. Even Pen Pen has his own triple significance. And it is i s no less the Meaning Of Life!
He is a hot-water penguin. Normal penguins died out when the poles of Antarctica melt. By adapting to the new climate, Pen Pen can in theory survive and create a new breed of penguines that can survive the climate change. He resembles the basic rule of life: Adjust to the changes around you or perish! He was created as an experiment in a research lab. When he had nothing else to t o offer to the schientists that created him, they wanted to get rid of him. hi m. Misato felt sorry for him and took him at her home. He resembles another metaphor for one’s children. Our children are not tools we make just to aid us and then throw away when the are no longer needed. They deserve to live no matter how useful or harmful they may be to us. All living creatures in that matter deserve to live, even if we don’t see any purpose for them to accomplish. He was taken care by Misato. Misato didn’t go well with men and never managed to marry. Pen Pen was to her like a substitute for a family she never had. Of course, a substitute is only an excuse to hide from the truth. No animal can replace the warmth of a real husband or child. Get real Misato!
Different Endings There are two very different endings to the series. One is the last two episodes and one is the movie End Of Evangelion. Although they seem out of place, in reality they connect perfectly. The episodes show what thoughts pass through Shinji’s and the other characters mind, during the Third Impact. It is an esoteric and irrelevant to time or space ending. The movie shows in real time what happens in the world, during the Third Impact. I mpact. It is an external and relevant to time or space ending. In the end of the episodes, Shinji accepts all the others and decides to merge with the t he Instrumentality. In the end of the movie, he prefers to keep his individuality, even if that still makes him suffer. But in real time, the televised episodes end before the movie. The events in the episodes last (in thought only) up to the point where Rei is i s half-united with Shinji (in a very sexual pose).
F.A.Q. Does Rei love Shinji? Yes, Rei does love Shinji, even though it is not a romantic love (it is a mother-son or a sister-brother love). Rei has some of the same genes as Shinji too, which must also make her feel pretty close to him. But in the end she is just as confused as to who she really is, as Shinji seems to be.
Does Rei love Gendo? At first, Rei does love l ove Gendo as a wife (when she was still Yui). Then she loves him as a father (he ( he did raised her). After the loosening of her emotions and past memories by the Sixteenth Angel, Armisael, she began to be able to think for herself and she started to question her feelings for Gendo and his feelings for her. This revelation passed on to Rei III, which is why she was a lot colder to him and trashed tr ashed the glasses that Rei II treasured so deeply. She began to realize r ealize that it was Yui he loved, and not Rei. Rei was just a thing that Gendo used to initiate initi ate his plans to be reunited with Yui. Rei was an object he needed to merge with Lilith and attempt to free fr ee his tormented soul. This is also why she betrayed him in End of Evangelion.
Why does Rei betray Gendo at the end of the story? Out of spite for Gendo, and love for Shinji. She wanted Shinji to have the final say as to what mankind's destiny would be.
Does Gendo love Shinji? After Yui disappeared di sappeared Gendo virtually disowned Shinji. His plans for humanity's Complementation consumed him as he tried to somehow resurrect his wife through his own way of the Third Thir d Impact. Impact. He focused on the goals of Project E and the Human Instrumentality Project, instead of his son. Shinji was just one player out of many involved in his plans (not to mention the fact that Shinji is a total t otal wuss!). wuss!). The passion and love for Gendo’s wife grew into a dark obsession that turned him into a cold and unfeeling creature when she originally vanished.
Doesn’t Asuka die when the 9 Angels destroy her EVA? Is she resurrected in the end or something? No, she doesn’t die. She is heavily injured but she manages to survive somehow. It is unknown (and hard to believe) how she got out of the EVA and how her injuries were treated. It’s a scenario hole, just bear with it.
What was Gendo planning to do in The Third Impact? What does Rei allow Shinji to do, in place of Gendo? Gendo planned to create a reality of his own, where he would be living happy, along with Yui and Shinji (see the Existentialism section for more details). But Rei got sick of his ways and deprived him the pleasure. She let Shinji to create this reality. r eality. But Shinji refused.
What the HELL finally happened in the End? The Instrumentality Project worked. Everyone’s soul united with Adam-Kadamon and left the physical universe while their bodies reverted to LCL and united with the Dirac Dir ac Sea. Shinji and Asuka DIDN’T have a soul because they were born after the Second Impact. So they never had souls to be taken and their bodies had no reason to revert to LCL. Although it is not shown at all, the same can be said for anyone else who was of age 14 or younger. It is doubtful though if anyone else besides Shinji and Asuka survived. Shinji and Asuka became like the new Adam and Eve, whose purpose was once again to create a new world. Off course, anyone born by them would still be soulless. And by the way, God would have no reason to consider the new humanity to be still under the burden of the Original Sin.
Why does Shinji try to kill Asuka, in the final sequence? Why does he stop? Shinji once again was left alone and abandoned, with only company in the whole world the girl he sexually likes but could never… well… sleep with. Call it momentary regret; he didn’t like the aftermath of his choice. As psychological reaction, he tried to “let some steam” instead of feeling sorry for himself again (it feels good breaking something when you are angry, right?). But soon he came to his formal state, that of the coward, passive, pitiful wimp he always was and started crying again (he is an anti-hero indeed!).
Why does Asuka say that she feels sick? Hey! She was shred to pieces, the world around her ended and she suddenly became the new Eve of a whole new humanity. How do you think she should be feeling? Beyond that, Asuka’s statement for herself is also her statement for the modern society. All this mess happened because those bastard adults selfishly used their children like li ke tools, blew everything up, called lies and murder as righteousness, and when everything fell apart, they had the nerve to ask for forgiveness. That is how today’s society looks through Hideaki Anno’s eyes.
Why does Asuka have bandages in the same places as Rei did, in the final sequence? Asuka is the only woman left and the source of future life. li fe. So, she was “like” Rei (without a soul of her own and with the purpose of creating a new beginning). The bandages are just a way of showing that what Rei symbolizes is now in Asuka. Yes, it’s pretty deep.
Officially Sanctioned Spin-Offs A large deal of the merchandise has an amusingly amusingly detached or hilarious non-relation to the dark nature of the series, which is why Hideaki Anno is so opposed to them. t hem.
The manga version of the series, written and illustrated by series character designer Yoshiyuki Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, exists as a separate entity from the anime, and features a number of distinct disti nct differences. Drawing from the original story, as well as his own artistic freedom, Sadamoto has portrayed an account of the story that has both distinct convergence and divergence with the anime version. Girlfriend of Steel (or Iron Maiden) is a video game game based on the series. Some fans consider it an additional episode of the series because it principally played out like a segment of the anime's story, fitting in just before befor e the mood of the series started to get darker (probably just before the t he 12th Angel, Leliel). In the story, a new female character, Mana Kirishima, starts start s at Shinji Ikari's school and immediately admits to finding him cute. Gradually, a relationship unfolds and they end up going on a date where they kiss. It turns out, however, that she is the pilot of a new competitor to the Evangelions, similar to Jet Alone, thus the name Girlfriend Girlfr iend of Steel. Eventually, the other robot goes berserk and the Evas have to destroy it. Throughout the game, Asuka Langley Soryu is constantly jealous of Shinji and Mana, M ana, consistent with her widely-speculated romantic feelings for Shinji. Rei Ayanami is present but plays a rather background role in the story. In the Mana ending, Mana is discovered not to have been killed in the battle. Shinji rescues her and brings her back to his apartment. She showers, emerges wearing only a towel, and teasingly asks Shinji if he'd like her to remove it (this is similar to a scene involving Shinji and Asuka in Yoshiyuki Sadamoto's Evangelion manga, in which Asuka actually does remove the towel - revealing that she has on a sleeveless, strapless top and short shorts underneath). In discussion with Misato, however, it is agreed that Mana has to leave Tokyo-3, and she says a teary goodbye to Shinji who had won her heart. In the Asuka ending, Asuka helps Shinji to get over Mana and the two children grow closer as a result. This ending contains the most romantic images of Asuka and Shinji together that have been officially produced by Gainax, including a moving scene where Asuka hugs Shinji emotionally. The third ending with Kaji does not focus on any one character as much as the other endings do. Mana is also discovered not to be killed, and says goodbye, with Shinji replying "I'll be waiting for you".
Neon Genesis Evangelion: Angelic Days is a manga based on the Dating sim Girlfriend of Steel 2 which was, in turn, based on the Anime. While W hile Girlfriend of Steel was shoehorned into the original plot, the sequel to the game, Girlfriend Girlfri end of Steel 2, takes place in a complete alternate universe. It uses most of the Evangelion characters in a "normal" schoolyard drama series.
The Characters and their fate NAME & AGE
Characteristics and Accomplishments Accomplishments
A child who feared to care for or be cared by anyone. Afraid to live but even
Shinji Ikari Age 14 (also The Third Child)
more afraid to die, as he couldn't even take his own life. He used to run away from any and all problems that came his way. He lost l ost his mother when he was still young and spent his life until 14 living under an acquaintance of his father. He was forced by his father Ikari I kari Gendo, the chief commander commander of secret agency NERV, to become an EVA pilot, operating the Evangelion (Bio-Mecha) 01. He lived in the apartment of his superior Katsuragi Misato because of a deep communication gap between him and his father, who had been separated from him for a long time. Having an introvert character, he often minds how others look him at. And since si nce he is weak at self-expression and communication with others, he frequently engages in repetition of avoiding problems and disobeying orders. When the Strategic Self-Defence Force attacked NERV, he was trapped in a state of lost self. This is why his counter-attack was procrastinated. With the help of Misato Mi sato Katsuragi, he had learned to open himself up to the world and to others. His choice to become his own self and not merge with the rest of the world in the Third Impact was a drastic and major act showing how far he had come in such a short time ti me (this presumably happens when he realizes that even though there is no "pain" in the final fi nal form, there is no “pleasure” either. This makes existence vague and pointless). He chose to remain on Earth after the t he Third Impact. Along with Soryu Asuka Langley, they became the new humanity. l et others into her life while relying Another emotional shut-in, Misato refused to let heavily on drinking and her revenge on the Angels to get her though life. She was as scarred outside (from the Second Impact) as she was inside (after losing her father and Kaji).
Misato Katsuragi Age 29 (NERV Tactician)
Although she was a very able officer when she had to be, she preferred to live li ve in disorder and dirt. The sole survivor of the Katsuragi Expedition and the Second Impact, she knows the truth behind what really happened in Antarctica in the year 2000, and this left her in a catatonic state for five years. Even though she never really loved her father, she dedicated her life to destroying the angels who took him from her (the (t he cross pendant around her neck being her only keepsake of him). She loved Kaji because he reminded her of her father. It was a psychological attempt of hers to surpass her parental hatred by embracing it (something that rarely works). While living with Shinji, she also learned how to open her heart to others, and greatest hurdle any character had to face in the she also gave up beer. The greatest hurdle series! After her lover Kaji was gone, she took up his quest to find the ultimate truth behind NERV and SEELE. In the end she did, but the truth came a little too late. She was blown to pieces by an anti-personnel rocket while protecting pr otecting Shinji from the Japanese Strategic Self Defence Force, in End Of Evangelion.
An albino with a personality as bland as her skin. She is the result of an experiment that combined Angel DNA with that of a human. When Yui Ikari (Shinji's mother) died, Gendo Ikari decided to use her DNA in the cloning of Rei. She was named Rei because that was the name Yui chose to give her child (Shinji) if i f it was a girl. Rei Ayanami Age 14 (also The First Child)
She is also quite literally the t he backbone of the NERV Dummy Plug System. System. Rei was the guinea pig in most of NERV's experiments experi ments having to do with Project E and the Human Instrumentality Project. She was a good little doll. While there are many clones of Rei, there is but only one soul (that of Lilith). Somehow when the Rei with the soul dies, it passes into another body (it must be tough knowing that even if you die there will be a replacement). When Ritsuko killed her many clones in the Dummy Plug basement of NERV, she didn’t kill anyone, because they had no essence, no souls. Some of Yui Ikari's original memory still exists in Rei's Rei' s mind and the memories pass on from one clone to the other with the t he soul. By the end of the story, three "Rei's" had been released into the world. Naoko Akagi killed the first in 2010, the second killed herself to save Shinji's life in 2015, and the third merged with Lilith to t o complete the Third Impact and evolve to a higher existence. The first two clones showed showed signs of affection toward Gendo Ikari, but the third one disobeyed him and completed the Third Impact against his orders and his plans that he carefully constructed from the very beginning of NERV creation. Her soul is actually derived from Lilith. This T his would help to explain her necessity and ease for which she was able to merge with Lilith. But Rei is not the Second Angel. She was just a clone with Angel DNA. All her synchro tests indicated she was more human that Angel (at least not 100% Angel). And given that she had such trouble synchronizing and piloting with an EVA (granted, the screwed up Unit00) it is assumed that she had only a little Lilith in her (especially ( especially when it is seen what a real Angel like Kaworu can do with an EVA). If she were an Angel, she would be able to control them like a part of her (like Tabris). When Rei finally merges with Lilith in End of Evangelion Lilith says, "Welcome "Welcome home." Remember that all humans are from Lilith. She wouldn't say that to an Angel (who cannot and do not even want to unite with her). And, all Angels have to return to Adam (the second Angel), and don't try to merge with Rei (even the sixteenth Angel, Armisael, didn't sense that she was the one that it had to return to after it had bio-fused with her a little). It's also been theorized that both Rei and Kaworu are both the 17th Angel: One sent to destroy man (with Adam's soul implanted in him), and one to save him (with Lilith's soul implanted in her). Rei III was supposed to become one with Shinji in i n Adam-Kadamon. Adam-Kadamon. But because of Shinji’s refusal, she departed with Yui’s soul to Heaven.
An emotionally overcharged powerhouse, Asuka Asuka never learned to channel her
Soryu Asuka Langley Age 14 (also The (Second Child)
energies properly. This was brought on by the abandoning by her father and the suicide of her mother early on in her life. Her mother, Soryu Kyouko Zeppelin, fell into mental breakdown after going crazy from a failed fail ed Eva Synchronization test. Afterwards, she became a person who lived in her own world, so much so that she committed suicide. Her soul was used as the core of EVA-02. While the t he same things happened to Shinji (lost mother and a run-away father), Asuka chose a far different way of coping. Her nationality is American, despite being one fourth Japanese and one fourth German. Having a high degree of intelligence, she graduated from university at 14. At the early stage of real battles, she boasted the highest Synch-rate. The suicide of her mother led her to grow into a character of extreme aggressiveness. She hated Rei for acting like a doll because of the fact that as her mother slowly slipped into insanity she gave all her maternal attention to her daughter's doll believing she was loving her own flesh and blood. She then destroyed the doll in order to 'take ' take her Asuka with her' before she hanged herself. Asuka could only keep her mental balance by making outward out ward noises about her own excellence. Asuka was a child genius that only learned what she was missing and needed in life (human love and compassion) almost too late. She was shred to pieces while protecting NERV HQ and everybody that she cared for at the hands of the Eva series 5-13 in End of Evangelion. She somehow survived and along with Shinji Ikari, they became the new humanity.
A complex man. He loved his wife, neglected his son, loved Rei like his wife, hated his lovers (Naoko and Ritsuko Akagi), and loved/hated his job.
Gendo Ikari Age 48 (NERV Commander)
His old surname was Rokubungi (it means sextant). He changed his name after he married Ikari Yui, whom he knew since student years. He became became the president of the Research Institue for Artificial Artifi cial Evolution, which was actually a front cover for the works of "E Project". After Yui died, he busied himself with "Adam Project" and "Human Complementation Project". He got the support from SEELE, and managed to realise things like the construction of EVA. However, his "honeymoon" with SEELE lasted only until the elimination of the last l ast Angel. Afterwards, their differences in objectives became apparent and it developed into violent military clashes. He used people throughout his life to get what he wanted and never thought twice about it. He only cared about "the goal", and never about humanity as a whole or as individuals. His only care after his beloved Yui vanished was to stop the Angels and complete his own form of the Third Impact, which would reunite him with the only being that ever truly loved him. Only when the world was ending did he feel any regret, when he whispered that he was sorry to his son. He was eaten alive by the berserker EVA-01, in front of Shinji’s eyes, in End Of Evangelion.
Almost as unfeeling as Rei, Ritsuko based her life on logic and not on emotions. She did not love her parents, but she fell into the same trap that her mother did. She was responsible for the Evangelion Project and was enticed along by Gendo's faux love. Ritsuko Akagi Age 30 (NERV Technical Expert)
This fake blonde (to show how different she was from her mother) killed kill ed all of the Rei clones to take out her revenge r evenge against Ikari Gendo for betraying her feelings - just like li ke her mother. Instead of killing herself (like her mother) she tried to kill Gendo and the rest of NERV by self destructing the MAGI. Gendo shot her in the head when the "woman" part of the t he Magi (Casper) stopped the destruction.
Gendo's beloved wife and Shiji's mother (and world), Yui disappeared while trying to synchronize with Eva-01 (her spirit was trapped inside). She protected her son numerous times as the man made angel, and as the albino clone-girl Rei (who also contains some faded memories of her life as Yui Ikari). As Rei, she was confused as to her own identity and individuality. She loved Gendo but also hated him for what he did to her. As Eva-01 she was one of NERV's most prized possessions, only slightly behind Lilith and Adam. She helped Shinji to start the Third Impact by bringing Longinus' Lance back from the moon (as Eva-01), and by merging with him hi m (as Rei) in order to help her son find the happiness that he desired. She was a SEELE scientist. She was married to Gendo, whom she knew since Yui Ikari the Kyoto University years, and gave birth to Shinji. After marriage, she worked 1977-2004 ef fort towards the success of "E Project". She was (Mother and Wife) with Gendo and spent a lot of effort the one who introduced Gendo to Gehirn and SEELE when she read the Dead Sea Scrolls and found out what Keel Lorenz was planning. She was the reason for Gendo's mad rush to beat Lorenz to the Third Impact. She died in an accident during an experiment in 2004. Her soul stayed on within EVA-01. It seems that this accident was actually intended by her will. She was freed from EVA-01 and Rei’s body after the Third Thir d Impact and returned to Heaven.
He started out as a simple professor at Kyoto University until he met Yui Ikari and her boyfriend Gendo Rokubungi. He was fond of Yui (he had a crush on her) and originally could not stand Gendo. He joined the Ikaris in Gehirn in order to find the truth behind the secret SEELE collective that was somehow responsible for the Second Impact. He soon became Gendo's number one man, and only friend.
Kozo Fuyutsuki Age 58 When Yui vanished, he took it just as hard as Gendo. (Sub-Commander He was absorbed in the Instrumentality and returned to Heaven. of NERV)
This laid-back, cool guy was a double agent of SEELE. When he was still a
Ryoji Kaji Age 30 (Spy working for SEELE Main Branch, Japanese Internal Affairs, and for Gendo's NERV)
child he had to steal in order or der to survive the aftermath of the Second Impact. He was forced to betray his own friends and brother in order to escape. Thus, he survived by sending all he loved to their deaths. He realized that the official of ficial explanation behind the Second Impact was a lie and vowed to make the ones responsible for his suffering pay. He became Misato's lover in college and again when he was transferred to NERV's main branch as a way to use her in gaining information about Gehirn, since she was the sole survivor of the Antarctica Expedition. But, slowly he started to really love her. Although he was in love with her and vice versa, they often fought like li ke tigers when they were together. He was somewhat of Shinji's only father figure and the t he main focus of Asuka's affections. He went too far in i n search of "the truth" when he betrayed first NERV and then SEELE. He was shot and killed for his actions. He left all of his previous pr evious findings and all of his still unanswered questions for his old lover to find out.
A ruthless and dangerous man to cross, Keel Lorenz made it his business to decide the fate of mankind. He started the mysterious world organization, SEELE, in order to proceed with his Human Compliment Compliment Project and lead mankind down its final path to the perfect unified form, whether mankind was ready or not. Keel Lorenz Age 2.050 (Head of SEELE)
He was the oldest human being, known as the "Wandering Jew" of Jewish legend (the soldier who injured Christ’s body at the Crucifixion and as punishment was made to walk the earth until the Apocalypse). He was the chairman of the Committee of Human Complementation, also the director of SEELE. His body was totally machine from backbone down. He gave instructions of direct occupation of the secret agency NERV, so as to start complementation with EVA-01. He finally got his wish when the End of the World came and man was artificially evolved into one being. He was then able to rest.
This mysterious child was sent to NERV directly from SEELE to replace the then catatonic Second Child (after her mind was attacked by the 15th Angel). Nothing was known about him except he was born on Sept. 13, 2000 (the exact day of the Second Impact). Kaworu Nagisa Age 15 (also The Fifth Child & The 17th Angel)
He became fast friends with Shinji and soon excelled at the synchro-tests with the Eva-02. When it became clear that he could synchronize synchronize with any Eva just by wishing it, Misato found out that he was the last Angel. He was the same as Rei in substance and in his existence (whose only purpose was to be a tool for those in search of the ultimate power (becoming a god within the Third Impact). During his attack on Terminal Dogma he discovered that the Angel hanging on a cross above the lake of LCL was not Adam, but Lilith. Lilit h. Life and death were the same for him. He allowed Shinji to t o kill him and give humanity a chance for survival. In the end it became clear why his eyes were always filled with pity. pi ty. It was the pity for man. He housed Adam's soul (just as Rei housed Lilith's). He was squashed to death by EVA-01. His head popped and fell in Lilith’s LCL lake. Even after his death, he was still exploited. SEELE used his synchro-rate as the backbone of their Dummy Plug System in the EVA Production Models 05-13. His image was used by Rei to calm down Shinji during the Third Impact
Ritsuko's mother was the genius scientist who created the Three Magi computers that ran Gehirn and then later NERV. She was proud and full of herself as she gave the three systems her personalities as a scientist, a mother, and a woman (this proved to be Ritsuko's undoing). She had a long-term affair with Gendo even before Yui disappeared, and may may have even been responsible for Yui's disappearance. But when she found out Naoko Akagi that she was only being used to finish the Magi systems, systems, she killed the 1964-2010 (Technical Expert) messenger (a mocking Rei clone number one). She then committed suicide by jumping off of the balcony at Gehirn HQ, to try and erase her shame. The daughter that she left was destined to repeat her same mistakes almost verbatim.
Maya was a very intelligent and sincere computer operator with very high morals. She became Dr. Ritsuko Akagi's assistant and a crush cr ush soon developed on her sempai (but nothing happened between them for all we see). She was a Second Lieutenant in charge of monitoring the EVA Synchro Rates of the children and gathering and analysing most EVA related data. Maya Ibuki Age 24 (NERV Computer Operator)
She worked harder than almost everyone at NERV, but she was too modest and reserved to gain any notice from her superiors. She was absorbed in the Instrumentality by a Ritsuko image.
This calm and quiet young man liked to keep to himself a lot. He was a Lieutenant in NERV in charge of communication and data analysis. He fell in love with his fellow NERV employee, Maya Ibuki (but nothing happened between them for all we see). He instead focused all him time and energy on his music. Shigeru Aoba Age 25 (NERV Communications Officer)
He followed orders to the letter and never questioned authority. A good soldier and officer 'til the end. He was absorbed in the Instrumentality by a Rei image.
A very demure and proficient soldier who never left anything to chance. He never stressed out under pressure as he strived to make himself noticed to Misato Katsuragi, the object of his affection. He helped her spy on the other operations of NERV, and he was even known to do her laundry when she asked him too (but nothing happened between them for all we see). Makoto Hyuga Age 25 (Assistant to Misato as a NERV Tactician)
Makoto was a Lieutenant belonging to the first section of the Bureau of Combat Operation of the Central Combat Department in NERV. He served Katsuragi who was in command of Combat Operations. He let his feelings be known to Misato, but stepped aside when it became clear that she and Ryoji Kaji were an item i tem once more. A complete gentleman. He was absorbed in the Instrumentality by a Misato image.
Like all potential Eva pilots, he was a motherless Junior High student. He was quick to anger and easy to rouse, but he was a fierce fier ce friend to those who earned his trust.
Toji Suzuhara Suzuhara Age 14 (also The Fourth Child)
He loved his sister and hated Angels and Eva's (for hurting her in i n the fight between EVA-01 and Sachiel). The only reason that he became the Fourth Child was so that his little sister could be transferred to NERV's special hospital within Geofront. He lost his left arm and left leg when his EVA-03 was infected with Bardiel, the 13th Angel and fought with EVA-01. In the manga version, he doesn’t survive his injuries. In the anime version, he soon discovered Hikari Horaki's crush on him and learned to reciprocate in turn (but nothing happened between them for all we see). Although it is not shown, he was killed in i n the explosion of the N2 bomb that vaporized Tokyo-3.
The mother figure in her family, Asuka's sole friend, and the bearer of a deep crush on Toji, Hikari was a strong woman inside of a fourteen year-old's body.
Hikari Horaki Age 14 (Class Representative)
She took her responsibilities as Class Rep and "mother" very seriously and did her best to get everyone to like her. She was stubborn and never took "No" for an answer (especially when it came to Toji Suzuhara). She gained his love (but nothing happened between them for all we see). Although it is not shown, she was killed in i n the explosion of the N2 bomb that vaporized Tokyo-3.
A very strange young boy indeed. Kensuke liked to spend every waking moment wishing that he were in the military. milit ary. He became friends with Shinji when he found out that he piloted the Eva-01.
Kensuke Aida Age 14 (Military Fan)
He liked to talk and he loved to lose himself in his imagination and on selfimposed survival-training exercises. He wanted to pilot an Eva very badly, and was disappointed when all of his friends seemed to get the "chance". " chance". Although it is not shown, he was killed in i n the explosion of the N2 bomb that vaporized Tokyo-3. Pen^2 (or Pen Pen) is i s the coolest A new breed of Hot Spring Penguin, Pen^2 character of the story. Saved by Misato when he was no longer useful as a guinea pig and became her best friend. He lived inside her fridge fri dge and occasionally mingled with Shinji and Asuka.
Pen^2 Age 3 (Lovely Penguin) The Rest of Humanity
He kept to himself most of the time preferring the TV or the icebox to human contact. Misato sacrificed a lot for him to keep him safe and happy. Although it is not shown, he was killed in i n the explosion of the N2 bomb that vaporized Tokyo-3. Anyone older than 14 years was absorbed in the Instrumentality. Their souls united with Adam-Kadamon Adam-Kadamon and transcended tr anscended to Heaven. Their bodies dissolved into LCL and returned to the Dirac Sea. Anyone younger than 14 years, who survived the Apocalypse, remained on Earth. Unknown if even one of these children survived.
Hideaki Anno’s Letter: The worldview of SHINSEIKI EVANGELION is colored with a pessimistic vision. Actually, I started the story with a setting from fr om which I had purged all feelings of optimism. A fourteen-year-old boy (Ikari Shinji) is afraid of getting close to other people. He tries to live li ve in a closed world, making attempts to get to know him useless, and ruining efforts made to try t ry and understand him. Convinced that, since he feels abandoned by his father, he is an unwanted person, he is yet a coward, unable even to commit suicide. A 29 year-old woman (Katsuragi Misato) also keeps her contacts with others as light as possible. She protects herself by running away into relationships that are strictly on the surface. They are both afraid of being hurt. They might both be thought of as being unsuited to be heroes, lacking the strength of self that marks such a person. And yet I made them the heroes. It is said, "To live is to change". I started this production with the desire that they and the world change by the time the story reaches its conclusion. That is my genuine sense of things. I am able to put all of myself into SHINSEIKI EVANGELION - a self who for four years was a wreck, unable to do anything. I began this thinking just one thing: "I mustn't run away"- after having done just that, run away, for four years - where all I was doing was simply not dying. I thought of this production with the feeling that "I want to see if I can put these feelings on film." I know that this is a senseless, arrogant, and difficult diffi cult course of action - but it is my objective. I don't know what the result will be... because the story has not yet ended in my mind. I don't know what will become of Shinji or Misato, or where they will go. This is because I don't know what the staff will be thinking as we go on. I feel that this is i s irresponsible... But it is also natural, given that we are striving for a synchronization of ourselves and the world of the story. At present this is the only theory I can use to create, despite the risk of being 'derivative'. That is i s the only place where our 'original' exists, after all...
Aftermath Many sources of the past contributed to the atmosphere of Evangelion. But in the same time, Evangelion had a large influence on a variety of later l ater anime shows.
The psychological nature of the show and the constant use of religious symbols influenced later works such as Revolutionary Girl Utena, Serial Experiments Lain and RahXephon. All of which, like Evangelion, center around an ambiguous world-changing event to come. The show His and Her Circumstances which was also directed by Hideaki Anno shares many of the techniques (the experimental 'ripping-apart' of the animation and use of real photographs) and portrayed psychological conflicts in much the same way. The Xenosaga and Xenogears videogames also have many religious referances, although their directors claim not to have been affected by the show. Moreover, many parodies are constantly made with puns from Evangelion in anime and other related fields. Evangelion also dramatically changed the design of giant robots in many animated works. Previously, almost all mecha or giant robot shows took their "mechanical suit" designs from Gundam, Mazinger, and other similar shows from the 70s. Evangelion however changed this with its fast and sleek Evas, making a noticeable contrast to the arguably bulky and cumbersome looking Patlabors and Transformers of the past. Indeed, the style set and created by Evangelion has become become the standard for most mecha shows since the late 90s. Evangelion also introduced a new wave of fans who are far less interested in the technical aspects of science fiction anime and more interested in analyzing the metaphysical metaphysical symbolism that they t hey perceived, in contrast to Gundam and many previous anime of the hard science fiction genre.
