Shin Seiki Evangelion

Our featured anime is Neon Genesis Evangelion a.k.a. Shinseiki Evangelion. Our favorite anime. So what is this show about exactly? Well, first of all, it's one most well known anime out there. And considered to be one of the best. It was voted in by fans as the 3rd best anime of the century. The other two were released about ten years before EVA. Pretty cool that a 90's anime is way up there, huh? But I don't blame them because EVA is awesome. Otakus who are used to shoujo/romance anime should consider watching this because it's amazing and I believe different.

NGE was realeased in 1995 and only had 26 episodes but because of its characters and its dark story, it became a VERY big hit in Japan. When its fans weren't happy about the ending of NGE in the TV show, it became a very big deal. It became such a big deal that Gainax and creator and director of EVA Hideaki Anno, made 3 movies to satisfy the fans. These movies were basically the alternative ending to the TV show. Like what actually happened during all those character analysis that happened in the last two episodes. These movies, especially End Of Evangelion were a little disturbing and mind boggling. They were amazing. Although, I did like the ending of the TV show better. To put it differently, the ending of the TV show was a somewhat of a happy ending while the ending of the movies were the sad ones.

Evangelion is set in 2015. 15 years after the second impact that destroyed the continent of Antartica and killed most of the Earth's population (The first impact was the extinction of the Dinosaurs). The media explained that the second impact happened because of a meteorite, but in reality this oraganization named Seele and its head leader named Keel Lorentz hid the truth. And the "truth" was this... That this big giant Angel named Adam came in contact with humans therefore destroying half of the worlds population and turning Antartica in to something that resembled Hell. To slow down Adams' destruction, Gehrin which was an orginization that Seele heads, turned Adam into a size of an embryro. This was basically the beginning of NGE. Seele knew that there were more Angels to come because of the Dead Sea Scrolls. These Angels kind of resemble giant robots. There would be 16 of them that would come down one by one, each more powerful than the other to supposedly take "Adam" (The first Angel) which is hidden inside NERV HQ. So, in order to defeat these Angels, Gehrin (which later became NERV) created Evangelions. Evangelions are giant, electric powered robots the size of Angels. For most of the show, these EVAs are piloted by Ikari Shinji, Soryu Asuka Langely and Ayanami Rei.

One of the best things about Evangelion is its very dark, realistic and kind of depressing story. Don't let the bright happy layout fool you folks. This is not Sailor Moon where everything turns into a happily ever after. Every character in NGE is different but they all fear the same thing. The fear of being alone and being abandoned. All of them had very dark pasts especially Shinji. Shinji is the "unlikely hero" of Evangelion. He is described as a wimp and a coward but through all those things he goes through, I could not blame him for being like that. He was abandoned by his father, he has no mother, he grew up with no one to even say that they "care", so he doesn't even know how to feel when someone does care because he pushes them away. This is the same with everyone else also. But they all choose to "runaway" with their problems differently.

I would go into more detail but it's really hard to summarize a show like this. But all I can say is this, behind all the secrets of Adam and Lilith and Angels and Eva, behind all the great Mecha fighting and the bloody battles and the religious symblolism and Gendo's obsessions and all the Reis... Eva is all about one thing... And that is love, no matter how you can get it. We all want to be loved don't we? We all want to belong. We all want someone to care and to tell us that we have a purpose. We don't want to be alone. We want to be LOVED.

In the End, Shinji was given the option of living in a perfect world where he can be by himself and where he will never again get hurt by others, but he did not choose that world. He choose a world were there are people, where he can get hurt and feel pain. Because he said that even though he will be hurt he wants to be with everyone so he can be himself. Now isn't that a quality of someone strong and not someone that is weak?