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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NERV Facilities & Systems

Subterranean Infrastructure

The GeoFront & Black Moon Cavity

NERV Headquarters · Subterranean Space
The GeoFront is the enormous subterranean space beneath Tokyo-3 that contains NERV Headquarters and much of the city's defensive infrastructure.

The original television series establishes the GeoFront clearly but does not fully explain its ancient origin. The "Black Moon" cosmology is made much more explicit in later material and the theatrical ending.
Why it matters
The deeper characters travel beneath Tokyo-3, the more the setting stops looking like something NERV built and starts looking like something NERV occupied.

Tokyo-3 (Fortress City)

Surface City · NERV Defense System
Tokyo-3 is a functioning city built directly above the GeoFront and designed around Angel defense. Buildings retract, weapons rise from protected storage and evacuation systems treat catastrophe as routine.
Why it matters
The city makes the impossible feel administrative. Shinji goes to school in a place where an Angel alarm can turn the entire landscape into military infrastructure.

Central & Terminal Dogma

SPOILER! NERV Depths · Restricted Layers
NERV Headquarters is divided into increasingly restricted layers. Central Dogma contains the command and technical spaces most staff work within; Terminal Dogma lies far below and is accessible only to a small part of the organization.

The crucified being in Terminal Dogma is eventually revealed to be Lilith, not Adam.
Why it matters
Physical depth maps onto secrecy. Characters can work for NERV every day and still have no idea what the organization is protecting beneath them.

Computing & Neural Interface

The MAGI Supercomputer System

Melchior · Balthasar · Casper
The MAGI are three biological supercomputers created by Naoko Akagi and used to operate Tokyo-3 and NERV's decision systems. Each embodies a different aspect of Naoko as Ritsuko understood her: scientist, mother and woman.

Because the three can disagree, the system turns Naoko's internal contradictions into institutional machinery.
Why it matters
Episode 13 is not just a hacking episode. Ritsuko defeats an Angel by understanding her mother well enough to predict which part of Naoko would resist self-destruction.

LCL (Link Connect Liquid)

Entry Plug Medium · Identity Motif
LCL is the liquid that fills an Eva entry plug during synchronization. Pilots can breathe while immersed in it, and NERV treats it as part of the interface between pilot and Eva.

The series later connects LCL to Lilith and to the question of what happens when the boundaries maintaining an individual body disappear.
Why it matters
Something introduced as strange cockpit technology gradually becomes part of Evangelion's larger language about bodies, souls and the loss of individual form.

A.T. Field (Absolute Terror Field)

SPOILER! Barrier · Boundary of the Self
Angels and Evangelions deploy A.T. Fields as powerful barriers that can block weapons and oppose another A.T. Field. That is the tactical meaning NERV works with during the battles.

By Instrumentality, the term also carries a psychological meaning: the boundary that separates one self from another.
Why it matters
Evangelion takes a piece of monster-fighting jargon and reveals that it has been naming the show's central human problem all along.

Tactical Pilot Equipment

Progressive Knife (Prog Knife)

Eva Close-Combat Weapon
The Progressive Knife is an Evangelion close-combat weapon carried in the shoulder equipment. Its vibrating blade is used when conventional gunfire is ineffective or when an Eva has to attack an Angel at extremely close range.
How you can tell
It is the compact knife the Evas deploy from their shoulder pylons, especially in early hand-to-hand battles.

Pallet Rifle & Positron Ordnance

Conventional Firepower · Operation Yashima
NERV equips Evangelions with oversized conventional weapons such as the Pallet Rifle, but Angel A.T. Fields often make ordinary firepower insufficient.

Ramiel forces a different solution: Operation Yashima uses a positron rifle powered by Japan's electrical grid for a long-range shot strong enough to penetrate the Angel's defense.
Why it matters
Evangelion's weapons matter less as a catalogue than as evidence of how quickly NERV has to improvise around enemies that do not obey one stable set of combat rules.