Neon Genesis Evangelion
Produced by Gainax and directed by Hideaki Anno, who made the series as a working through of his own four-year clinical depression, Neon Genesis Evangelion aired on TV Tokyo from October 1995 to March 1996. It begins as a mecha action series and becomes, by its end, something else entirely: a deconstruction of heroism, identity, and the terror of human connection so thorough it broke the genre it was working in.
26 episodes. The last two will make you feel insane. Watch The End of Evangelion immediately after. Then sit quietly for a while.
Gainax went bankrupt in 2024. The series endures.
Guides and reference pages for this series. More coming.