Neon Genesis Evangelion

Neon Genesis Evangelion

新世紀エヴァンゲリオン
1995 -1996 Gainax / Tatsunoko Production TV Tokyo 26 episodes Completed
Action Mecha Psychological Drama
Details & Synopsis
The year is 2015. Fifteen years after a cataclysm that killed half the human race, the city of Tokyo-3 is under attack from beings called Angels, massive, incomprehensible, and apparently unkillable by conventional means. The only things that can stop them are the Evangelions: giant biomechanical units that can only be piloted by children born in the aftermath of the disaster. Shinji Ikari is fourteen years old. His father, commander of the paramilitary organization NERV, has not spoken to him in years. He is asked to climb inside the Eva and save the world. He does not want to.

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.
Alt Title 新世紀エヴァンゲリオン
Studio Gainax / Tatsunoko Production
Network TV Tokyo
Aired 1995 - 1996
Episodes 26
Genre Action, Mecha, Psychological, Drama
Status Completed
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Eva Directory & Mechanics

Prototype & Test Units

Evangelion Unit-00 (Zero)

Prototype · Rei's Eva
Unit-00 is NERV's prototype Evangelion and Rei Ayanami's assigned unit. Its activation tests are unstable, and on more than one occasion it moves violently in ways the staff cannot explain with ordinary mechanical failure.

The television series never gives a definitive on-screen answer for whose soul is inside Unit-00.
Why it matters
Unit-00 is where the temptation to turn Evangelion's clues into a solved engineering manual becomes strongest. The uncertainty is part of the text, not a missing database field we need to fill.

Evangelion Unit-01 (Test Type)

Shinji's Eva · Yui Ikari
Unit-01 is Shinji's Evangelion and the machine around which the series' deepest personal and institutional plans converge. It repeatedly moves without Shinji's conscious control, protects him when its external power should be exhausted and reacts with a violence NERV cannot fully command.

The series eventually identifies Yui Ikari as the soul within Unit-01. Its exact biological origin is not explained cleanly in episodes 1–26, even though later supplemental material supplies a more complete production history.
Why it matters
Unit-01 is not a robot with an occasional berserk mode. The story steadily reveals that NERV has armored, restrained and weaponized something with its own will.

Production Models

Evangelion Unit-02 (Production Model)

Asuka's Eva · Production Model
Unit-02 arrives with Asuka from Germany and is presented as the first production-model Evangelion built with combat deployment in mind. Asuka treats that status as part of her own identity: she is the trained pilot of the proper combat model, not an improvised child placed into a prototype.

Late in the series, Unit-02's connection to Asuka's mother becomes crucial to Asuka recovering the ability to synchronize.
Why it matters
Unit-02 is not just Asuka's red robot. Her sense of worth becomes inseparable from being able to make it move.

Evangelion Unit-03 & Unit-04

SPOILER! Fourth Child · American Branch Disaster
Unit-04 disappears along with NERV's second American branch during an S² Engine experiment, prompting Unit-03 to be transferred to Japan.

Unit-03 is contaminated by Bardiel and activates with Toji Suzuhara inside. Shinji refuses to attack while a human pilot may still be trapped in the entry plug, so Gendo hands Unit-01 over to the Dummy Plug.
Why it matters
The Unit-03 incident turns the Eva system against one of Shinji's friends and destroys Shinji's remaining belief that refusing an order means he can keep his hands clean.

Mass Production Evas (Units 05–13)

SPOILER! Film Continuation · SEELE's Eva Series
The Mass Production Evangelions do not appear in the original 26 television episodes. They belong to the later theatrical continuation, The End of Evangelion, where SEELE deploys nine autonomous Eva units against NERV.

They use Dummy Plug control and S² Engines, making them independent of ordinary pilot and battery limits.
Why it matters
Keep this entry mentally separated from the TV-series watch-along. Episodes 25–26 move into Instrumentality internally; the Mass Production Evas belong to the film's physical-world continuation of the endgame.

Bio-Mechanical Systems

The S² Engine (Super Solenoid)

SPOILER! Angel Power Source · Eva Autonomy
The S² Engine is the power source associated with Angels, allowing them to operate without the external electrical limits that constrain normal Evangelion deployments.

After Unit-01 devours Zeruel, NERV concludes that it has taken the Angel's S² Engine into itself. From that point forward, Unit-01 no longer fits comfortably inside the category of a weapon that NERV can simply power down.
Why it matters
The five-minute battery limit is one of the clearest signs that the Evas are controlled systems. The S² Engine removes that leash from Unit-01.

Maternal Soul Binding & Core Transfer

SPOILER! Eva Souls · What the Series Actually Establishes
Evangelion synchronization is not only a pilot-to-machine interface. The series reveals that at least some Eva cores contain human souls.

Unit-01 is explicitly tied to Yui Ikari. Unit-02 is tied to the maternal presence Asuka finally recognizes during her crisis. Unit-00 is deliberately less certain: the television series never gives the viewer a clean, explicit identification of the soul within it.
Why it matters
It is safer to treat "every Eva contains its pilot's mother" as a pattern with important evidence, not a universal rule the television series spells out. Unit-00 is the warning against making the pattern cleaner than the show does.