Neon Genesis Evangelion

Not pictured: Sanity.
"This is a giant robot saga the same way Twin Peaks was a cop show."
—Comic Buyer's Guide

Neon Genesis Evangelion (Shin Seiki Evangelion "New Age/Era Evangelion", often mistranslated as "New Century Evangelion") is a 26-episode science fiction/action/drama Anime series which aired on Japanese television in 1995-96. In 1997, Gainax followed the series with the film Death & Rebirth, a Clip Show revision of the series which condensed many of the series' episodes into an hour-and-a-half timespan (while also expanding a few scenes). Death and Rebirth also featured the first half-hour of The End of Evangelion, a full-length movie that brought the story to a much more definitive (but by no means less controversial) conclusion than the television series did.

In the year 2000, a global cataclysm known as Second Impact changed the entire world. The event annihilated Antarctica (which caused global flooding), shifted the planet's axis (which caused global climate change), led to half Earth's human population dying, and resulted in geopolitical unrest. Fifteen years later, fourteen-year-old Shinji Ikari finds himself summoned to the fortress city of Tokyo-3 by his estranged father Gendo for a single purpose: to pilot for a Humongous Mecha called an Evangelion and battle physics-defying beings known as Angels, which threaten to destroy what remains of humanity (though the show does not explain exactly how they plan to do so, and for what reason, until much later). This relatively standard Humongous Mecha premise gradually transforms into a dramatic character study rife with psychological analysis, religious references, genre Deconstruction, social commentary and exploration of themes such as societal alienation, depression and the repressive pain of human subjectivity. Prior to Evangelion, people considered this approach unprecedented and revolutionary—and after Evangelion's runaway success, numerous other anime producers created shows with a similar approach (with varying degrees of success).

Netflix released the series for their platform on June 21, 2019, with a different translation and re-recorded English dub.

As a final note before getting into the tropes: Evangelion defined the career of Hideaki Anno, whose personal battles with depression at the time of its creation directly inspired many of the show's themes. Anno has since come to fully own it, even as it's spun off into numerous extra adaptations which either play on the themes of the anime or ignore them to varying degrees (see the following folder):

Other Adaptations

The most prominent Evangelion adaptations released between its airing and today are:

Compare: Argento Soma, Bokurano, Brain Powerd, Bubblegum Crisis, Fafner in the Azure: Dead Aggressor, Gasaraki, Genesis of Aquarion, Mobile Suit Victory Gundam (though this show does predate Neon Genesis Evangelion) and RahXephon.

Contrast: FLCL, Gao Gai Gar, Mobile Fighter G Gundam and Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (each pretty much the polar opposite of Evangelion, the first and last of which are made by the same studio).

For similar anime in general, compare: Boogiepop Phantom, Digimon Tamers, Paranoia Agent, Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Serial Experiments Lain.

For similar settings and stories outside of Anime, see: Cthulhu Tech and Sin and Punishment.

NOTE: Tropes specifically found in Rebuild of Evangelion should go on that page, not this one.

Neon Genesis Evangelion is the Trope Namer for:
Tropes used in Neon Genesis Evangelion include:

Characters

See the Character Sheet for more spoilerific details, particularly with the main characters.

  • Action Girl: Asuka, Misato, Rei and Mari from the Rebuild of Evangelion movies. Asuka, in particular.
  • Alas, Poor Villain: Ritsuko and Gendo's deaths in The End of Evangelion may be interpreted as such. And Shinji feels this way for Kaworu in-universe.
  • Big Bad: SEELE. All the catastrophic events that take place in the series are all by products of their plan to bring about Human Instrumentality.
  • Child Soldiers: The pilots, who are even called "Children" both individually and collectively.
  • Common Eye Colors:
    • Shinji has Blue Eyes in the anime presumably to play off the sense of innocence or purity that provides, but he has brown eyes in the manga for more of an everyman look.
    • In the first volume of Raising Project, his eyes are brown on the cover and blue in the first chapter artwork.
    • Yui has light green eyes in the manga.
  • Cosmopolitan Council: The members of SEELE.
  • Cyber Cyclops: Unit 00.
  • Double Standard: Some people consider Shinji and Asuka to both be annoying characters due to the former not being assertive enoughand the latter being too brash. When you look at their backstories, it becomes clear that they were both essentially exposed to the same things as kids, but they dealt with them in two entirely different ways. Thus, Shinji becomes extremely quiet, self-deprecating and more passionate while Asuka hid it by becoming loud, prideful and aggressive. Both of them do this because they don't want to be hurt. Were their personalities swapped, there would likely be less complaining due to gender role stereotypes.
    • There's also all the flak Shinji gets for being "whiny" (especially in the West), when throughout the course of the show, it's probably Asuka who spends the most time angsting (not that she doesn't have cause to), particularly when you consider she's a) not quite as major a character as Shinji, and b) only arrived on the show several episodes in anyway.[2]
    • Maya spends most of The End of Evangelion vomiting under a desk and refusing to fight, but she's not called whiny or wimpy like Shinji.
      • That's likely because Maya is rear-echelon noncombat support while Shinji is supposed to be a frontline combatant. Of course, this overlooks that Shinji was conscripted for that role...
  • Dysfunction Junction: One of the defining examples of this trope in anime. The psychological issues of virtually every single member of the main cast could fill a sizable portion of the DSM-IV.
  • Everyone Went to School Together:
    • There are a lot of trios in Evangelion. One of these trios is Ritsuko, Misato and Kaji, who went to college together. There's also Gendo, Yui and Fuyutsuki: Yui was Fuyutsuki's favorite student at university, and Gendo was his advisee and Yui's boyfriend. And then there's obviously Shinji, Asuka and Rei, who are all in the same homeroom.
      • And don't forget Kensuke, Toji and Shinji, complete with an endearing label from Asuka.
      • Subverted in the case of the Children: Shinji, Asuka and Rei's class ("Class 2-A") is made up entirely of "4th level pilot candidates" or actual pilots, and was formed by the Marduk Institute specifically for this purpose.
  • Guilt Complex:
    • Shinji, in spades. It's his fault Touji's sister got hurt because he should've been more careful when fighting the Angel that almost killed him in a giant mecha he'd never been given so much as two minutes' worth of instruction on how to operate. It's his fault Asuka hates him because he can't do anything right in her eyes because her expectations are not only entirely unreasonable, but rapidly change without notice. It's his fault he had to kill Kaworu because he could've chosen to Take a Third Option despite Kaworu's determined attempts not to allow for any. It's his fault Asuka died because he couldn't get his Eva out of its restraints in order to save her...
      • This behavior is so ingrained in him that some fans think it was a minor breakthrough for him when he was angry at his father during the Unit 03 incident. But then he goes back to kicking himself in the head again.
    • Misato also blames herself often for things she had no control over.
  • Heterosexual Life Partners: Touji and Kensuke, eventually extended to Shinji until Unit 03 Incident.
  • Hot-Blooded: Deconstructed in more ways than one. First, Asuka, who at first seems to be the typical Hot-Blooded Ace Pilot. It becomes apparent, however, that her sense of self worth is possibly even worse than Shinji's, and that her brash attitude covers up the fact that she requires the praise of others for validation. The trope is further deconstructed when characters in combat fly into berserker rages which prove either to be completely ineffectual or come at great cost to the characters.
  • Hot Scientist: Several.
  • Humongous Mecha:
    • Jet Alone.
    • The Evas are a subversion.
  • Mama Bear:
    • All the EVAs, but particularly Unit 01 to Shinji.
    • Misato definitely deserves a mention for her very protective attitude towards Shinji and even the other pilots, whenever their safety was an issue. She even goes as far as to slap Ritsuko when she felt Shinji's life was being threatened.
    • And if you wanted to be creepy, Rei to Shinji, especially when Shinji is in danger.
  • Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Gender role subversion runs rampant in Evangelion, especially with Shinji and Asuka. Played for drama in that Shinji wants Asuka to be more feminine, and Asuka wants Shinji to be more masculine, but they just end up clashing against each other due to wanting the other to change first and neither knowing how to effectively express their feelings.
  • The Masochism Tango:
    • Shinji and Asuka's "relationship".
    • This can be the case with Touji and Hikari in the background, but it never gets developed because of the Unit 03 incident. Amusingly enough, Asuka is quick to put two and two together in this case.
  • The Men in Black: NERV's Intelligence Division Mooks.
  • Running on All Fours: EVAs when Berserk.
  • Sempai-Kohai:
    • Ritsuko and Maya
    • Surprisingly absent from Shinji's school, where all pupils seem to be the same age and in the same grade. This is a deliberate subversion, as all of the students in Shinji's class are potential EVA pilots.
  • Shell-Shocked Veteran: Kaji may actually be the most damaged of Neon Genesis Evangelion's cast, just the best at hiding it, says Sadamoto. Misato is also one, and Shinji and Asuka too by the end.
  • Solar and Lunar: Rei is frequently associated with the moon, initially as a visual motif, but later it turns out to be foreshadowing. Asuka is occasionally visually paired with the sun, but this doesn't have much plot significance except to contrast her with Rei.
  • Sunglasses at Night: With the exception of flashbacks, Gendo is never seen without his scary shades, even when NERV suffers a station-wide blackout in Episode 11.
  • Theme Naming: More stylistic naming instead of thematic, but characters all have their last names in kanji and their first in katakana.
  • Twinmaker: Rei Ayanami appears as three clones over the course of the series, each replacing the last.
  • Urban Legend Love Life: Misato and Kaji are both perceived (possibly even by each other) as far more flirty and promiscuous than they actually are.
  • Weakness Turns Her On: Arguably one of the causes of Asuka's attraction to Shinji.
  • With Friends Like These...:
    • Despite being friends since college, Ritsuko keeps Misato in the dark about all of NERV's most important secrets until near the end of the series. She also gets into frequent (and sometimes physically violent) arguments with Misato about how to handle situations which could endanger the pilots, and while she never misses an opportunity to poke fun at Misato, her jibes become very cruel after things really blow up between Misato, Shinji and Asuka. It may be argued with some justification that Ritsuko never really considered Misato or Shinji "friends", and was just manipulating them the entire time.
      • Misato and Ritsuko have been friends since well before either one was employed at NERV, so that relationship was at least genuine in the past. In the present-day, that's certainly less doubtful.
    • Asuka probably deserves mention as well, though in her case, the trope is Deconstructed since her hostile behavior ends up driving most potential friends away.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds:
    • Gendo, arguably in the anime and definitely in the manga.
    • Shinji also fits this trope in The End of Evangelion and then subverts it by rejecting instrumentality.
  • The World Mocks Your Loss: Rei embodies this trope for Shinji due to her kind of being a clone of his mother... sort of.
  • Yamato Nadeshiko:
    • Rei Ayanami is basically a walking satire of Yamato Nadeshiko. Not a subversion, but Yamato Nadeshiko taken to a ridiculous, logical extreme. Yamato Nadeshikos are supposed to be stoic and selfless: Rei is so stoic she has difficulty conceptually grasping emotions, and she's so selfless that she's willing to needlessly sacrifice herself on suicide missions.
    • Subverted with Yui, whom Shinji remembered as this (especially in the manga) but who was actually the architect of Project E (and is implied to wear the pants in her marriage, or at the very least be the source of stability in Gendo's life). She somehow becomes quite a bit of a powerless Yamato Nadeshiko in some AlternateContinuities such as Girlfriend of Steel 2/Angelic Days... but she's a powerful, fearsome Tsundere wife in Shinji Ikari Instrumentality Project, believe it or not, while Gendo exists pretty much to do all the petty paperwork so that she can concentrate on the real work.
  • Yandere: The Akagis. Like mother, like daughter.

Narrative

  • 108: The number of dummy corporations set up by SEELE and NERV to fund the Marduk Institute.
  • Adam and or Eve:
    • The names humanity gave to the Seeds of Life: Adam and Lilith, Lilith being Eve's predecessor as the first woman.
    • For more fun: the short-hand term for Evangelion is "EVA", very close to Eve. The parallel is easier to see when you consider Evangelions are made from Adam's flesh, as Eve was made from Adam's rib.
  • After-School Cleaning Duty: Shown in one scene where Shinji and Rei stay behind to clean the school, and Shinji causes Rei to blush by remarking on how she has very motherly mannerisms.
  • Alien Geometries: Leliel. That cool marble looking thing that can disappear and reappear at random? That's its shadow, its four-dimensional shadow made of anti-matter.
  • All According to Plan: Used by Gendo and SEELE to indicate that current events have not upset "the plan". Considering that they ultimately have different motives, by the end of the series, it becomes clear that this is just lampshading that with a few exceptions, most of the individual fights against Angels have little bearing on the larger plot.
  • Ambiguous Situation: Numerous instances, most notably Gendo's silent line and the final scene of The End of Evangelion.
  • Apocalypse Day Planner
  • Apocalypse Wow: The brief scenes of Second Impact in the series, and Third Impact in The End of Evangelion.
  • Appendage Assimilation: Unit 01 tears off one of Zeruel's "arms", and reshapes it to replace the arm that was torn off earlier in the battle.
  • Arc Symbol: SEELE's logo, and possibly NERV's as well. The former is Lilith's face, and has a similar portayal to Big Brother Is Watching You, which is what the corportation really is. The latter looks like a nod to The World Tree and the tree that bore the fruit of knowledge in the Bible, which takes a new meaning during the final moments of The End of Evangelion.
  • Arc Words:
    • "I mustn't run away."
    • "Hedgehog's Dilemma".
    • "Unfamiliar ceiling".
    • "I'm home." "Welcome home."
  • Ascended Fridge Horror: Neon Genesis Evangelion takes the idea of a child as the pilot of a Humongous Mecha and strips it down to spotlight the fact that these shows are basically about Child Soldiers. We think.
  • Assimilation Plot: Neon Genesis Evangelion was the former Trope Namer, but Instrumentality was deemed too spoileriffic.
  • Awesome but Impractical:
    • This applies to pretty much every bit of technology NERV owns.
    • In universe: the Jet Alone, a gigantic nuclear-powered mecha that lacks the Eva's AT field, making it pointless for Angel defense.
  • A.I. Is a Crapshoot:
    • Mostly averted: the MAGI computers never turn evil, but the most human of them betrays Ritsuko at the worst possible moment.
    • Subverted with the EVAs when you find out they aren't actually robots.
  • Baka: Part of Asuka's catchphrase. According to her, Shinji, Kensuke and Toji are also the "stupid trio": this is rendered as "the Three Stooges" in the dub.
  • Because Destiny Says So: According to the Dead Sea Scrolls. There is, however, an interesting interplay between destiny and human will.
  • Berserk Button: Actually fairly consistent in the original series and across multiple continuities, including Rebuild of Evangelion, and even extending into fanfiction often. Which is to say: there is one surefire way to get Shinji pissed as hell, to get him mad enough to turn into a raging demon who will wreck anything and everything in his way. That way? Attempt to harm Rei Ayanami. Go on. Try it.
  • BFG: Any EVA gun, but especially the Positron Rifle, which is the size of a train and utilizes the entire power output of an industrialized country.
  • Big No: Asuka, at the end of her Mind Rape.
  • Big "Shut Up!": In a funny scene in Episode 16.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Episode 24. The Angels are gone and mankind is safe... but Tokyo-3 has been ruined; Kaji is dead; Toji is a cripple; Kensuke, Hikari, and their families have moved away, taking Pen-Pen with them; Asuka is catatonic; Ritsuko is in prison; Misato is a nervous wreck; Rei is "the third one"; and Shinji is utterly broken psychologically after having to kill the only person who has offered him unconditional love in the course of the whole series. And hey, don't worry! It Gets Worse!
  • Black Box: The Angels are described this way by the scientists "not in the know": they also complain about how dangerous using the S2 organ is, since they know nothing about it.
  • Blame Game: When the Jet Alone goes rogue, the various officials related to the project are preemptively doing this by trying to avoid the direct responsibility of giving the self-destruct code.
  • Blue with Shock: Several instances.
  • Body Horror:
    • Arguably evoked by Bardiel and Armisael's infectious attacks, and by Gendo having the embryonic Adam grafted to his hand.
    • Also, arguably the situation for the human souls attached to the EVAs. This might even qualify as And I Must Scream.
    • The fate of Unit 02.
  • Break the Cutie: Every last character you found the faintest bit sympathetic, in The End of Evangelion, and several other instances that begin much earlier. Shinji and Asuka (especially Shinji) embody this trope.
  • Bright Is Not Good: The last two episodes are a complete psychological breakdown (and recovery!) which feature the most desaturated, brightest colors in the series at many parts.
  • Broken Bird: All the female characters, by the time it's all said and done. Of course, more than one were very broken already...
  • Bug Buzz: Cicada chirps frequently accompany outdoor scenes. The reason given for this is that Japan has been in a perpetual summer since Second Impact, and since the ecosystem is returning to its former state, cicadas are coming back to Tokyo-3. They're also used to dramatic effect in Episode 4, where Shinji is overwhelmed by the din of cicada sounds at one point.
  • Bury Your Gays: Of course, all the relationships end badly, so Shinji and Kaworu's relationship is not unique here. It is unique in that Shinji has to kill him.
  • Butt Monkey: NERV itself, including the people who work there, are constantly hit time and time again. In the earlier episodes, this can be rather funny, as in Episode 12 where NERV undergoes a blackout resulting in huge problems with maintaining functionality, widespread problems in accessibility, everyone's jobs being disrupted... cue the following:

Fuyutsuki: Regardless of the cause, it would be disastrous if an Angel were to attack right now.
Voice over speaker: Radar has detected an unidentified object.

  • Cataclysm Backstory: The Second Impact.
  • Charge Into Combat Cut: This happens with the first Angel in Episode 1. We only find out how the first battle went through flashbacks in Episode 2.
  • Chekhov's Classroom: Early on in the episode "Magma Diver", Shinji is doing homework on thermal expansion. That episode's Angel, Sandalphon, which is able to somehow withstand the heat and pressure of swimming in magma, is defeated by pumping its body full of coolant.
  • Chekhov's Gun: Rei says she was born to be an EVA pilot, and when she stops being that, she will cease to exist. Neither is metaphorical. Also, the Jet Alone foreshadows a much greater conspiracy. And the AT Field? Everyone has one.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: In the manga, Toji's sister is his motivation for getting in Unit-03. SEELE's also a bit of a Chekhov's Gunman.
  • Clip Show:
    • About half of Episode 14 is a clip summary of the first half of the series, packaged as an internal SEELE report about Gendo's activities.
    • Episodes 25 and 26 of the original TV-broadcast re-uses old footage all over the place.
    • The Death sequence of Death & Rebirth is a clip show version of the entire series... 26 episodes packed into 70 minutes. But then again, it also contained some new scenes that would later be used in the Director's Cut episodes.
  • The Comically Serious: Some of the bumbling, useless UN officers.
  • Cooldown Hug: In The End of Evangelion, when Asuka touches Shinji's face in the same way that Yui had done earlier, which stops him from strangling her.
  • Creepy Cool Crosses: The Angels' energy blasts, and the shot of Misato's pendant in the final sequence of The End of Evangelion, among many others.
  • Creepy Doll: Asuka's mother Kyoko kept one around during her confinement in a mental hospital, talking to the doll as if it were Asuka. The creepiness of this skyrockets when Kyoko asks the doll to "die with [her]", and later when Asuka discovers her mother hanged both herself and the doll.
  • Cross-Popping Veins: Asuka, continuously; also Misato, whenever she finds Kaji flirting with and/or groping another woman.
  • Cryptic Conversation: Gendo and Fuyutski's interactions are made almost entirely of this trope. Any scene involving SEELE also qualifies.
  • Curb Stomp Battle:
    • Happens every time the EVAs go berserk, and the first time the Dummy Plug is activated.
    • In The End of Evangelion, Asuka's fight against the JSSDF and the MP EVAs... at first.
  • Darkest Hour: Taken Up to Eleven in The End of Evangelion.
    • One might argue that they already go here in the battle between EVA-01 and EVA-03. And again in EVA-01 vs. the last Angel.
  • A Date with Rosie Palms: Notoriously.
  • Defeat Equals Explosion: When the Angel's cores are destroyed, they explode and leave a lake of red gunk.
  • Description Cut/Ironic Echo Cut: Episode 11 sets up long chains of both. After all, the whole point of the episode is how the characters, while isolated by a power outage, still manage to think the same. The Death segment of Death & Rebirth is practically nothing but these.
  • Determinator: Deconstructed by Asuka, since playing it straight leads to her breakdown when she is no longer able to keep up.
  • Downer Ending:
    • Episode 26, depending on interpretation, especially seeing as, whatever the hell happened, at least Shinji ends it finally happy. Played very straight by The End of Evangelion though: although a brighter future is possible, the film ends with Shinji weeping.
    • An even darker ending was in planning for The End of Evangelion at some point. It starts with Shinji lying on the beach while holding hands with someone. He notices that he will probably never see his friends again, but that he also will keep on living anyways. He then squeezes the hand he is holding and sees a short flash of Rei. It is then revealed that nobody is lying next to him, and the hand he is holding belongs to that arm Rei lost earlier in the film.
  • Do You Want to Copulate?: Rei has no visible reaction whatsoever to Shinji seeing her naked, then falling on her and accidentally groping her. In the manga, she actually looks surprised, but doesn't say anything.
  • Dropped a Bridge on Him: Ritsuko Akagi in The End of Evangelion.
  • Dude, She's Like, in a Coma: First subverted when Shinji tries to kiss Asuka in her sleep, but ultimately decides against it. Then in The End of Evangelion, Shinji pleases himself over a scantily clad and comatose Asuka.
  • Dying for Symbolism: Really, all of these are up to anybody's guess, but in The End of Evangelion, Kaworu's death possibly represents the death of Shinji's sanity, Asuka's death could mean the death of Shinji's hope, Misato's death could represent the death of Shinji's love (Gendou might count), and the god-like Rei's death at the end could mean the death of Shinji's fear and return to peace. This movie is virtually the definition of Mind Screw, so you may have a different interpretation.
  • Eldritch Abomination: Strongly evoked by the Angels and even more by Adam and Lilith.
  • Empathic Weapon: Due to synchronization, the pain an EVA feels when it is damaged is felt by the pilot, and at a high enough synch level, the pilot actually suffers the same wounds. Asuka's fight with the MP EVAs in The End of Evangelion graphically demonstrates this, as she appears to lose an eye and have her guts ripped open inside her plugsuit, and actually has her right arm split in two as a result of the MP EVAs' fake Lances damaging Unit 02. Thankfully, we don't see what happens when the EVA is Impaled with Extreme Prejudice at the end of the fight. The trope is also deconstructed in that Shinji's empathy with his EVA is psychologically dysfunctional. For example, Shinji describes Unit 01's destruction of the possessed Unit 03 along the lines of "Father used my own hands to hurt Toji" despite the fact that (a) it was the EVA's hands, not his own hands, and (b) he was not in control of the EVA at the time, the dummy plug was. Also, Shinji's apology to Asuka when he fights the Kaworu-controlled Unit 02 can be seen as Shinji seeing the EVA as an extension of Asuka, so that attacking it is at some level equivalent to attacking Asuka.
  • Empty Piles of Clothing: After a certain event, the only thing left of people are their clothes and pools of orange fluid.
  • Epiphanic Prison: The End of Evangelion thrust Shinji into one. His solution? Destroy the world.
  • Exploding Calendar: The Episode 9 montage.
  • Eye Scream: A few times.
    • Sachiel pierces Unit 01's right eye all the way to the other side of the skull.
    • The End of Evangelion scene where Unit 01 bursts through Lilith/Rei's eye has come to symbolize for many how much of a Mind Screw The End of Evangelion is.
    • Also from The End of Evangelion: the scene where the MP EVA's Lance of Longinus hits Unit 02 in the face, and the resultant injury to Asuka.
  • Eyes Do Not Belong There:
    • In the manga, as a result of swallowing Adam, Gendo has a large eyeball in the middle of his left palm.
    • In The End of Evangelion, Rei/Lilith manifests a huge eye in her forehead that the Unit 01/Tree of Life is absorbed into.
  • Famous Last Words:
    • "What took you so long?" - Kaji.
    • "You liar." - Ritsuko.
    • "I'm sorry, Shinji." - Gendo.
  • Fearful Symmetry: The Angel Israfel in the episode "Both of You, Dance Like You Want to Win!".
  • Fighter Launching Sequence: With mecha instead of fighters.
  • First Church of Mecha: EVAs were made as a substitute for God, apparently.
  • Five Rounds Rapid: Conventional military efforts tend to do precisely jack against the Angels, with one notable exception when the UN Pacific Fleet defeats Gaghiel by getting two battleships inside it and firing their cannons by remote, then self-destructing the ships and killing it. They did have Unit 02's help though.
  • Flash Back: Especially in Episode 21.
  • Freudian Excuse: Oh boy, where to begin? Every single main character is mentally unstable to some degree as are most of the secondary characters. Given the crap they have been going through for the last 15 years, everyone has very good reasons for it.
  • Furo Scene: Numerous instances, but most memorably Asuka's in Episode 22... which, typically for the series, is not so much titillating as it is disturbing, what with it showcasing her mental breakdown and all,
  • Future Spandex: Female plugsuits. Remember, Clothes Make Teh Rei.
  • Gainax Ending: What The Prisoner was for the UK, Evangelion was for Japan. After 24 episodes of mecha action and conspiracy plotting, the show ends with a look into Shinji's psyche, where he ultimately finds peace of mind. Some fans consider The End of Evangelion (the allegedly planned ending that is also concurrent with the TV show's last episodes) to be this, but ultimately, it provides a more of a conclusion than the TV series, not least because it follows up on a lot of the Foreshadowing from the series and quite effectively closes many of the running plotlines due to its blatant Kill'Em All nature.
  • Gambit Pileup: As the series goes on, it becomes increasingly difficult to know who knows what, who has what interests, and who's leading the game. It gets worse in The End of Evangelion.
  • Gambit Roulette: Arguably. Yui could have arranged her own "accidental" death in order to save humanity from being lost forever to Instrumentality. She would've been counting on Gendo's undying love for her to have him rescue her soul to inhabit Unit 01 where she could build up Shinji's confidence and ensure he was at the center of Instrumentality so that he could resist it and convince Lilith/Rei to let anyone come back who had the strength of will to rebuild their own AT Field.
  • Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!: Misato does this to Shinji in The End of Evangelion. Kaji does this to Misato in Episode 15: also notable as one of the few (only?) scenes in which he is completely sincere. Shinji also tries this to get Asuka out of her coma, but it doesn't work.
  • Giant Eye of Doom:
    • Shinji comes face to face with his EVA in Episode 2. Here's looking at you, kid.
    • In a way, Matarel because it has camouflage that looks like eyes, and its actual working eye cries tears of acid.
    • Sahaquiel definitely qualifies as a metroplex-sized eye with wings that bombs the planet from space, leaving giant craters that get ever closer to Tokyo-3. It's taken to an even greater extreme in Rebuild of Evangelion.
    • The explosion of Third Impact in The End of Evangelion is shaped like an enormous eye that literally brings widespread death and destruction in its wake... though it could be an artsy Shout-Out to Anno's previous anime Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water.
  • Good Morning, Crono: Spoofed in the final episode, when Shinji is shown what his life could have been like: a clichéd shounen series.
  • Gory Discretion Shot: All that is shown of Kaworu's death in the anime is the silhouette of his head falling into the LCL lake. The manga represents his death as Shinji strangling him in a field similar to where they first met.
  • Goth Spirals: The Lance of Longinus and Lance form of Unit 01 qualify.
  • Government Conspiracy: The coverup regarding Second Impact.
  • Grasp the Sun: Asuka plays this straight in the The End of Evangelion. Painfully straight.
  • Grilling the Newbie: Shortly after Shinji arrived in his class, there were already rumors he was the EVA pilot after his first fight. The moment he innocently confirmed it, everybody (save Hikari, Kensuke, and Toji) surrounded him to ask him questions related to the EVA.
  • Heart Drive: The Angel's cores. And the major weak point. And a source of limitless life energy and "immortality".
  • Heroic BSOD: Shinji and Asuka are the king and queen of this trope towards the end of the series, though it's debatable who's the king and who's the queen.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Multiple, and subverted in some cases.
  • He's Back: Played straight with Shinji; subverted with Asuka, who comes out of her coma, but simply dies fighting 5 minutes later.
  • Hidden Eyes: Shinji and Asuka on various occasions; Shinji's uncle, aunt and bullies in the manga. Yui does this a few times too.
  • High-Pressure Blood: The Angels, and Unit 01 in the first episode, spray enormous fountains of blood that can literally paint the town red. The Rei/Lilith hybrid actually paints a stripe of blood on the moon when she dies. Justified, perhaps, when you consider how much blood there is in something taller than office buildings and what's needed to move it around, and when you consider how much pressure is required to pump blood in an organism that size.
  • Hint Dropping: Asuka does this towards Shinji a couple of times. Since Shinji is too socially inept and unsure of himself to pick up on these attempts, this also fuels much of Asuka's anger towards him. Ironically, her anger towards him is also a big part of what keeps Shinji from realizing how she feels.
  • Hit Me Dammit: Toji tells Shinji to hit him back as a "macho" way of apologizing. The manga adaptation subverts the trope, with Shinji deciding it'd be more interesting to have Toji owe him one instead. In Rebuild of Evangelion, he actually hits Toji right away.
  • Hive Mind: This would be part and parcel of Instrumentality as envisioned by SEELE: the souls of all of humanity combined into a gestalt where individuality would be completely erased.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: The only reason Unit 01 wakes up when it runs out of power during the Zeruel battle is because Zeruel's merciless—and rhythmic—beating of Unit 01's core simulated a heartbeat in the entry plug.
  • Hope Spot: Most notably Asuka's very brief recovery in The End of Evangelion.
  • Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday: The events of The End of Evangelion, according to Word of God, occur ON NEW YEAR'S EVE. That's right, we never see Christmas as this is Japan, and everyone gets Tanged to death just before 2016 comes. Great.
  • Hot for Teacher:
  • Immune to Bullets: The Angels.
  • Incest Is Relative/Interspecies Romance: Shinji's attraction to Rei, and vice versa. They can even date or marry in some of the wacky schoolday video games and the mangas based on them.
  • Instant Expert: Triply subverted in the first two episodes. At first, everyone's really excited because it looks like Shinji just might save the day despite having absolutely no experience piloting the EVA unit. Then he trips, gets beaten up rather brutally by the Angel, and the next thing we see is him waking up in a hospital bed. However, it turns out that he really did turn around and beat the Angel... but this turns out to be due less to Shinji's own abilities and more to the fact that the EVA units are actually alive and intelligent. It's Unit 01 doing the fighting, not Shinji.
  • Internal Monologue: Lots of it, most notably in episodes 14, 16, 20 and 22, and encompassing the entirety of 25 and 26.
  • It Sucks to Be the Chosen One: Hoo boy. Just take a look at Episode 1 where Shinji is emotionally blackmailed into fighting a monster that shrugged off an N-2 mine.
  • It Got Worse: Boy howdy, does it ever.
  • Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: The reason the earlier episodes are easier to follow.
  • Kavorka Man: Gendo, hence the ReDeath meme "IT'S GENDO!". Shinji has quite the kavorka too, as he is fourteen, lacks self-confidence and social skills to a spectacular extent, isn't particularly handsome and still has at least Rei, Asuka and Kaworu expressing interest in him, with some continuities taking it up to a pretty huge Unwanted Harem.
  • Killed Off for Real: Kaji; Rei I and II; Naoko; Misato's father. Also, Toji in the manga.
  • Kill'Em All: The movie looks like it, though it depends on your interpretation whether what happened to them actually counts as death.
  • Last Episode Theme Reprise: Episode 26 features "THE HEADY FEELING OF FREEDOM" and "Good, or Don't Be.", both of which are instrumental versions of the opening.
  • Latex Space Suit: The plugsuits for both sexes have a button that once pressed automatically makes the suit shrink to conform to the pilot's body. However, it is shown in Episode 8 that they don't conform entirely to the pilot's body, with Shinji rather embarrassed to wear Asuka's shapely, feminine plugsuit, and Toju and Kensuke taking a humourous interest in Shinji's chest as a result. This is Subverted in Episode 10 "Magma Diver", where Asuka wears a special plugsuit that expands to a balloon-like shape and causes her no small amount of embarrassment.
  • Light Is Not Good: And comes with Mind Rape, in the case of Arael.
  • Literal Metaphor: Kaworu's Leitmotif. Notice that he's entering Heaven's Door as the choir sings "Und der Cherub steht vor Gott". Also, "Einen Freund geprüft im Tod" could describe his relationship to Shinji, other interpretations notwithstanding.
  • Living Relic: Revealed near the end of The End of Evangelion to be the ultimate fate of Unit 01, and by association Yui Ikari.
  • Living Shadow: Leliel, the 12th Angel.
  • Locked in a Room: Kaji and Misato in an elevator during the attack by the 9th Angel. Asuka and Shinji's training to fight the 7th Angel is a variant: they're not actually locked in a room, but they do have to spend almost every waking moment together.
  • Lotus Eater Machine: At some level, the EVAs. Some of the Angel's attacks (notably Leliel's, Arael's and Armisael's) and Instrumentality are this.
  • Lovecraftian Superpower: The EVAs are literally Powered by a Forsaken Child, and Leliel (Alien Geometries), Iruel (nanites), Sahaqiel (Cast from Hit Points), Arael (Mind Rape), Armisael (more Body Horror) and Giant Naked Rei (Assimilation Plot, Go Mad from the Revelation, and associated tropes, in addition to dissolving) all certainly qualify. Not to mention the And I Must Scream factor of the dummy plug: picture being unable to control your body, but you can still feel the bloodlust of the thing controlling your body, only to learn that it just killed one of your closest friends.
  • Lovecraft Lite: Despite the Cosmic Horror Story atmosphere, humanity manages to be competent in the technological sense with the Evangelions. The punching out doesn't negate the psychological sacrifices, however.
  • Luke, I Am Your Father: Or rather, Mother. Unit 01 is in reality Shinji's long lost mother inside a Giant Robot. Unit 02 actually holds whatever is left of Asuka's mother Kyoko. At least that helps explain the term "EVA", which was made from Adam. Sounds like Everybody is Mecha Jesus In Purgatory, huh? Foreshadowed by Shinji's reaction the first time he's inserted in the entry plug: "It smells like blood... But I feel comfortable in here." He's nestled in a fluid-filled chamber inside a being that has the soul of his mother embedded in it. Pregnancy metaphor, anyone?
  • Madness Mantra: A favorite of the series. To wit:
    • Shinji: "I mustn't run away, I mustn't run away, I mustn't run away..." (used as Arc Words, to the extent that they're practically his Catch Phrase)
    • Asuka: "I don't wanna die... I don't wanna die... I don't wanna die... I don't wanna die... I don't wanna die... [skip a few] I DON'T WANNA DIIIIIIIIIIIE!!"
    • Shinji: "I can't take it anymore... I can't take it anymore... I can't take it anymore... I can't take it anymore... Ican'ttakeitanymore... icanttakeitanymore..."
    • Asuka: "I'll kill you... I'll kill you... I'll kill you... I'll kill you..."
  • Marilyn Maneuver: Asuka's introduction.
  • Marshmallow Hell: Misato accidentally does this to Shinji when they, along with Asuka, Toji, Kensuke and Kaji, are stuck in a too-small elevator.
  • May–December Romance: At the very least, toyed with.
  • Million-to-One Chance: Ritsuko likes to predict that there's a 0.000000001% chance of Misato's plan succeeding, with lower probabilities as the series progress. There's also a subversion since the chances were actually 100% each time, as the happenings ride on a pretty accurate prophecy-based schedule.
  • Mind Screwdriver: Yes, this is what The End of Evangelion was meant to be, YMMV on how well it succeeds.
  • More Than Mind Control: Manga Gendo uses Shinji's insecurities and loneliness to try to convince him he's every bit as evil, desperate and vengeful as he is.
  • Murder-Suicide: Attempted by Asuka's mother, except the "Asuka" that was murdered was the rag doll that Kyoko thought to be Asuka. It's not clear whether Asuka's more angry that her mother committed suicide or that she didn't get to die along with her.
  • Murderer POV: Kaji's death.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: Shinji's reaction to his Dude, She's Like, in a Coma moment.
  • Myth Arc: The Angel war, NERV, the EVAs and the tangled web of secrets surrounding all three.
  • Never My Fault: Shinji is a universal target for people unfairly shifting blame.
  • Nightmare Fuel Coloring Book: Shown in The End of Evangelion and the Director's Cut version of Episode 22. The drawings are implied to be of Asuka's design.
  • No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: The instances of Unit 01 going berserk, and the activation of the Dummy Plug. Honorable mention, however, is the end of Episode 19, where we bear witness to a horribly vicious one.
  • Non-Indicative First Episode: Anno reportedly complained about the first episode being "a failure" and out of tune with the rest. It was supposed to create an atmosphere of total despair.
  • No Periods, Period:
    • Averted for Asuka in both the anime and the manga: her period causes her a realistic amount of discomfort, shame, anxiety, pain and mood swings. Her written-out thoughts show that "menarche" is as much a source of anxiety for her as "sex".
    • Implied to be the case with Rei by a cryptic piece of her dialogue in Episode 14.
  • No Sense of Personal Space: Asuka, to both Kaji (mostly) and Shinji (when she's not shunning him). Also, Kaworu in the manga, which is one of the reasons Shinji doesn't like him. This actually leads to a rather funny scene where Kaworu barges into Shinji's shower stall looking for soap, then wonders why Shinji's freaking out.
  • Nostalgia Heaven: The end of the last episode, if you get past the Mind Screw location.
  • Nuclear Weapons Taboo: Assuming that N2 mines really are "non-nuclear".
  • Obstructive Bureaucrat: During the Jet Alone incident, Misato has to deal with a five-person chain of command to force a deactivation command on the mech, who ultimately agree to grant her clearance... effective upon the arrival of the paperwork. Note that this is during an imminent nuclear disaster. After being given this message, she says "screw it", takes charge, and deploys Unit 01 to hold it steady so she can hang onto Jet Alone's back and manually input the shutdown command.
  • Omniscient Morality License:
  • One-Woman Wail: The track "INTROJECTION" from the album Neon Genesis Evangelion III.
  • Only Point Two Percent Different: The Angels because of panspermia. And it gets found out because a sequence in the Angel's Hard Light tissue is somehow comparable to a human genome.
  • Out-of-Clothes Experience: Especially Shinji and Rei, but it happens once or twice to Asuka too. And to manga Yui. Also, to humankind in The End of Evangelion.
  • Over the Shoulder Murder Shot: EVA 01 does this to an Angel in an incredibly disturbing scene.
  • Panty Shot: Played straight in Episode 8: Asuka + sun dress + breeze = "viewing fee". Subverted twice in the manga, first when Toji tries to teach Shinji how to turn cleaning the stairs into a peeping opportunity and gets caught by Hikari, and then when Shinji, Toji and Kensuke first meet Asuka in the arcade. Implied in the Alternate Universe sequence in Episode 26, when Rei thinks Shinji looked up her skirt, as well as in one of the Petit EVA shorts, when both Shinji and Unit 01 get a look up Asuka's skirt while tunneling under the school grounds (don't ask, just go watch the clip).
  • Pillar of Light: Lots of 'em, and cross-shaped, at that.
  • Possession Implies Mastery: Significantly averted: Unit 01 keeps going out of control and doing things that Ritsuko and her staff can hardly believe. This is presumably because NERV didn't so much "invent" the EVAs as copy them from the Angels that they possess.
  • Precision F-Strike: The English dub of the series uses moderate swearing throughout, but does not drop the F-bomb until the movie, at which point it does so in suitably memorable fashion... twice.
  • Quit Your Whining: Misato attempts this with Shinji. It fails.
  • Rage Against the Heavens: And the heavens rage back, apparently.
  • Raging Stiffie: Shinji in the Alternate Universe.
  • Readings Are Off the Scale
  • Redemption Equals Death: Subverted in gruesome ways.
  • Rescue Introduction: Shinji meets Misato when she rescues him during the First Angel's attack.
  • The Reveal: Quite a few later on, but like everything at that point in the show, there are times when it can get a little hard to figure what exactly is being revealed.
  • Riding Into the Sunset: Occurs in a very odd and somewhat disturbing fashion in The End of Evangelion as after Instrumentality is overturned, Unit 01, fossilized and still carrying Yui's soul, flies into space accompanied by the Lance of Longinus, beginning its "eternal reminder" journey.
  • Room Full of Crazy: Post-its all over the guts of the Magi; quantum physics graffiti in the room where Rei was born; random religious symbols and artifacts strewn about the place; graphs from a particle accelerator... heck, we're talking about a massive underground complex full of crazy here.
  • Sacred First Kiss: Subverted. Shinji and Asuka kiss, but it's painfully unromantic, it doesn't lead anywhere, and she never does stop bullying him, although she does later on seem to be pissed off that he wasn't more enthusiastic about it. A different subversion happens in the manga: Shinji and Asuka are just about to kiss, but are interrupted by Kaji and Misato.
  • Sanity Slippage: Oh so much...
    • Episode 22, in particular, pretty much revolved around Asuka's mental breakdown.
    • Shinji goes through a gradual one over the latter half of the series, and finally cracks in The End of Evangelion.
  • Scary Shiny Glasses: Gendo. Period.
  • Screamer Trailer: The show and, by extension, its director are very fond of this effect.
  • Sexy Discretion Shot:
    • At one point, Misato and Kaji are in bed together, nude. The "camera" turns away, and stays focused, unmoving, on a nearby table while you hear the two of them going at it.
    • The End of Evangelion features a couple. The "Shinji wanking" sequence is an Unsexy Discretion Shot: we hear what's going on, but only see the output. Later on, Shinji is treated to a trippy flashback of Misato and Kaji screwing around in college. We mostly just see their feet, but the movement (and Misato's squealing) during the scene makes it decidedly more graphic than any of the TV sex scenes.
  • Shape Shifter: Several Angels.
  • Shoo Out the Clowns: When Pen-Pen leaves, you know things are going downhill.
  • The Siege: Subverted
  • Sinister Geometry: Ramiel.
  • Sixth Ranger: Subverted twice.
  • Slap-On-The-Wrist Nuke: N2 Mines. Although they are devastatingly effective against unshielded targets (the Geofront in The End of Evangelion), their effectiveness against the Angels ranges from significant (Israfel takes six days to recover from one) to minimal (Sachiel is damaged but heals very quickly) to useless (Sahaquiel and Zeruel are completely unfazed).
    • They are also used against Asuka in The End of Evangelion, one of which hits EVA-02 in the head, and another that is stopped with a punch. In the manga, these are, however, left out during Asuka's seemingly final battle.
    • Slap-On-The-Wrist Nuke, you say? They're powerful enough to make it necessary to re-draw the map of the city and the area nearby... on three separate occasions, no less. They may prove ineffective against Angels, but they're not completely ineffective.
  • Smash Cut: Often, usually skipping from an EVA having its butt whooped to a replay of the damage.
  • Smoking Hot Sex: In Episode 20, Misato says she only smokes after "things like this".
  • Solemn Ending Theme: Several different versions of "Fly Me to the Moon".
  • Spirit Advisor: Yui Ikari to Shinji and Gendo... and also to Fuyutsuki in the videogame Evangelion: Another Cases; in The End of Evangelion, Rei and Kaworu become this. This raises questions about Omniscient Morality License though, as they all do some pretty questionable stuff.
  • Suggestive Collision: Shinji falls with Rei, causing him to land on top of her, with one hand on her breast. Being an Emotionless Girl, she doesn't react in any way.
  • Surreal Horror: The series periodically slips into this, particularly during encounters with the Angels and The End of Evangelion.
  • Suspiciously Specific Denial: "Non"-nuclear mines.
  • Takes One to Kill One: The EVAs are basically the only weapons humanity has which can go toe to toe with the Angels themselves, partially because they are derived from Angels.
  • Tanks for Nothing: In both the opening episode and the movies, tanks will fire massive barrages at the Angels, and do no damage at all.
  • Techno Babble: Reams of it.
    • "Pattern Sepia!" You've got to hand it to an organization that comes up with a code phrase for "The pilot's self-destructive impulses are taking on independent physical form."
  • Teen Genius: Asuka claims to have a college degree, but it's never addressed.
  • Tell Me About My Father:
    • Shinji asks both Rei and Kaji about Gendo at different points. Neither of them offer up much info.
    • He also asks about his mother at one point... to Gendo, of course, so it had much the same result.
  • Tempting Fate: In Episode 22, Asuka complains about how the Angel hasn't shown up... just before she gets hit by its Mind Rape beam.
  • Ten-Minute Retirement: Shinji does this frequently: when he runs away in Episode 4, when he leaves Nerv after the Unit 03 debacle, when he breaks down in the movie...
  • Through His Stomach: Hikari's method for getting close to Toji.
  • Through the Eyes of Madness: It's debatable whether the final two anime episodes really happened or were all taking place in Shinji and the other protagonist's heads.
  • Throw the Dog a Bone: Shinji's only moments of 'happiness' are so far and few they deserve their own drinking game. Let's see: when Gendo or Misato actually praise him overtly (drink the whole bottle!); when Rei reacts somewhat warmly to his presence; when he can hang around with Toji and Kensuke; when he thinks he's fusing with his mom; when Kaworu stands close to him looking handsome and saying ambiguous things. That's all. Every form of comfort has gotten out of his reach by the time The End of Evangelion happens. But congratulations, Shinji and all the children of the world!
  • Toilet Humor: In the first Petit EVA short, Unit 01 trades lunches with Shinji... but its lunch is nothing but batteries. Unit 01 expects Shinji to eat, so he does. The last scene shows Shinji coming out of a bathroom stall holding his butt and groaning.
  • Tomato in the Mirror: Humanity, being the ultimate result of the terraforming process started by Lilith, is the 18th Angel, and every single living thing on Earth is just protoplasmic ooze held bodily together by energy fields which are the physical manifestation of the ego. Conversely, Angels are just humans without egos.
  • Transformation Trauma:
    • Especially in The End of Evangelion where Rei merges with Lilith and embryonic Adam and becomes a giant... something... and subsequently ushers in the infamous "Everyone hugs and turns into Tang" sequence.
    • On the other hand, the trauma is noticeably absent in the case of Gendo merging his hand with Adam. Heck, he's so stone-faced about it that in the manga, he even eats Adam in a very insane and Squick-inducing scene.
  • Trauma Conga Line: The End of Evangelion.
  • Trauma Swing: During Asuka's Mind Rape and during a flashback to Shinji's childhood in The End of Evangelion. However, unlike other examples of this trope, neither one actually sits on a swing.
  • Tricksters: The Evangelions, Rei, Lilith and the Angels (with special mentions to Kaworu in all versions, Adam and Iruel) are noteworthy examples. Yui (especially as a Spirit Advisor) is a more debatable case, and let's say Gendo is very mysterious and manipulative.
  • Tsundere: Asuka is a glorious Type A; Misato has a few tsundere characteristics too. Some fans view manga Shinji as a tsundere character, mainly in his sarcastic treatment of Asuka and Kaworu. In Shinji Ikari Instrumentality Project, Yui is a Type B with violent approaches and Hilarity Ensues, whereas Rei tends to be a Type B who gives the cold shoulder to Shinji whenever she can't deal with her feelings towards him.
  • Twenty Minutes Into the Future: Despite the series being set 20 years after its production, technology seems to have developed fairly little, the only obvious exception being the ubiquitous use of laptops in classrooms. Justified, given the tremendous effort needed to rebuild the world after the Second Impact.
  • Two-Keyed Lock: In Episode 13, Hyuga and Aoba unsuccessfully try to do this to shut off the MAGI system before an Angel (which has taken the form of a computer virus) can infect it.
  • Two-Teacher School
  • The Un-Reveal: So many examples, but two very noteworthy [and memetic] examples are who killed Ryouji Kaji and "Ritsuko Akagi, the truth is..."
    • The former of those unreveals has been answered; according to Word of God, Kaji was killed by a random Mook.
    • The manga had this to offer out for the latter: "Ritsuko Akagi. Until now, your work was quite exemplary. I did love you."
  • Unwanted Harem: Shinji is quite pimpin', for a skinny teen with a crippling social phobia.
  • Utopia Justifies the Means: SEELE's ultimate plot.
  • Vibroweapon: The Progressive Knives.
  • Wall Slump: Misato's death in The End of Evangelion, where she leans against the wall to hide her mortal injuries after being shot from Shinji, then collapses against it when he leaves.
  • The Watson: Sometimes Maya, sometimes Misato, sometimes Shinji. Actually, so few characters know what's really going on that they all have their Watson moments.
  • We Have Been Researching Phlebotinum for Years: Shinji, a slightly disfunctional boy, witnesses an Eldritch Abomination attacking the city then is promptly thrown into the cockpit of a Humongous Mecha that's not really a mecha at all: it's alive and is VERY bloodthirsty. It takes a few episodes until he gets the explanation about what the hell is going on, but never gets told about what he's piloting until three episodes from the end. It's unclear which is worse: that he was told so late or that he was told at all. Regardless which one is true, Shinji got an all-expenses-paid visit to the Despair Event Horizon for his effort.
  • We Have Reserves: The Reiquarium. Also, all of Shinji's classmates are potential EVA pilots.
  • "Well Done, Son" Guy: Shinji is a textbook case. Asuka is arguably a closet "well done daughter girl".
  • What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Shinji angsts about this after the double whammy of learning Rei's secret and being ordered to terminate Kaworu. There's also the little thing about the Angels' nature.
  • "What the Hell?" Dad: You'll be saying this to Gendo quite a bit. Shinji does in the manga, but not in the anime. Asuka actually inverts this in The End Of Evangelion when she realizes her mom's soul is in Unit-2. She sees it as her mom protecting her in battle.
  • White Mask of Doom: Several of the Angels have what look like white masks with little more than eyeholes.
  • Working with the Ex: This applies to Kaji and Misato, who was none-too-pleased when she found out that Kaji would be staying with NERV after delivering Asuka and Unit 02, and lashed out at him at nearly every chance she got afterwards. The bickering led Ritsuko to comment that they sounded like an old married couple.
  • Yank the Dog's Chain: Shinji, over and over and over...


Themes

  • 108: The Marduk Institute, ostensibly an advisory group put together to select EVA pilots, is actually just a group of 108 dummy companies owned by NERV and SEELE.
  • Adult Fear: While the plot focuses mainly on adolescent characters, the themes of self-loathing, social phobia and the inevitability of hurting and being hurt by those close to us strike a nerve for many adult viewers, which is to say nothing of the conspiracy-related plot threads and the horrific portrayal of war (and the notion of being attacked by your own government and countrymen) in The End of Evangelion. It's also worth noting that the series contains what is probably one of the most thorough and realistic portrayals of manic depression in any medium.
  • Adults Are Useless: Zig Zagged Trope. Adults can't pilot the EVAs, but they made, maintain, prepair and otherwise function as integral team members around the titular constructs. Played more strangely by the quasi-military setting, as the adult characters can go from a supervisory body to the pilots, to genuine help, to active hinderences and back, some times within the same episode.
  • The Anti-Nihilist: Played in a straight but horrifyingly cynical way.
  • Cannot Spit It Out:
    • A central theme of the series is that characters can't admit their deeper feelings for one another, and/or can't find the right way to comfort those they care about. So many examples, it's almost easier to list the aversions, and even the aversions tend to have a tragic cast to them.
    • Asuka is a simultaneous example and subversion; she has no problem letting everyone know the "depths" of her feelings for Kaji, but this becomes a way of deflecting attention from her developing feelings for Shinji.
    • Another exception: Kaworu, the final angel, is the only character in the whole series (and possibly the only person in-universe since the death of Yui) who expresses love to Shinji in so many words. Though it is made clear to be extremely significant, this profession of love isn't necessarily genuine, and can be easily interpreted as a mind game Kaworu is playing on Shinji.
    • Misato finally comes to terms with just how deeply she cares for Kaji... after he's dead.
    • Even Gendo admits to his fear of bonding with his son once his vague apocalyptic plan has failed, and he realizes he's going to be killed.
  • Catch Phrase: In the anime, Shinji is constantly saying "I mustn't run away!"; also Asuka's repeated refrain of "What are you, stupid?". Let's also not forget all the times when Gendo tells Fuyutsuki to "handle the rest of this" "Scenario" and variants of "So", "Yes" and "I understand".
  • Contemplate Our Navels
  • Cosmic Horror Story: Whatever the apocalypse-inducing Angels are, coupled with all the Psychological Horror and the pessimistic atmosphere in general, provides a sense of this, but is also coupled with contemplations on existentialism.
  • Cyberpunk: Evangelion has quite a few transhumanist, cyberpunk and post-cyberpunk traits, such as The Singularity.
  • Family-Unfriendly Violence: So much, it is rumoured the series generated a reinforcement of censorship laws in Japan.
  • Fatal Flaw: Most of the characters have at least one.
  • Foot Focus: Many characters do go barefoot when they are out of their plugsuits, this being Japan, where it is a polite custom not to wear shoes in someone else's house, but there are a few notable instances. For example, in the scene where Shinji throttles Asuka, her feet are shown rising on to tip-toe as he holds on to her neck. Definitely not always played for Fan Service, as you can tell.
  • Four Is Death: Unit 04 explodes on its activation test. Unit 03, the actual fourth Evangelion, is infected by an Angel and eventually killed in a brutal manner by a dummy plug-controlled Unit 01. The pilot was, naturally, the Fourth Child, who just became the fourth person his girlfriend makes lunches for.
  • Grey and Gray Morality: Opponents NERV/SEELE and the Angels share a common goal: to defeat the opponent and initiate Third Impact for their own ends.
  • Humans Are Flawed/Humans Are the Real Monsters/Humans Are Special: NERV and SEELE's motivation is that humanity, as it exists, can't be happy. Kaworu despite having been raised (and perhaps created) by SEELE values the achievements of human culture and respects Shinji's ability to pick himself up and keep going after heartbreak instead of giving up on life the way Gendo and SEELE have. The belief that humans, not Angels, should have the future is the motive for his Heroic Sacrifice, and he later appears after Third Impact as a Spirit Advisor and the symbol that not all Humans Are Bastards: he's the one person to ever show pure, untainted kindness to Shinji, and if even an Angel can do that...
  • Irony:
    • The show was meant as a deconstruction of Merchandise-Driven Giant Robot series. It has become the most heavily marketed, publicized, referenced, and rereleased animated production ever.
    • Rei, who throughout the series is tormented by the knowledge that she is replaceable and struggles to establish an identity of her own, has become one of the most Expied anime characters in history, and most of her "clones" lack the Hidden Depths of her character.
    • Euangelion means good news in Greek. Considering how it "ends", it's not exactly good news.
  • Lonely Together: Basically subverted. The conditions are there, but the characters are ultimately too screwed up to really help each other, as demonstrated by scenes like Misato's failed attempt to console Shinji after Rei's death. Asuka in particular is very bitter that Shinji only wants to be with her because he doesn't have anyone else.
  • Love Dodecahedron: Played for angst rather than laughs. Here's a schematic diagram.
  • Love Makes You Evil: And that man's said evil—or at least, morally ambiguous Batman Gambit—makes the whole world suffer.
  • Messianic Archetype: Yui Ikari, the self-sacrificial Rei Ayanami and Kaworu "He Died For Your Sins" Nagisa. Shinji even has a few "temptation scenes" involving the choice of rejecting the world completely and being Tanged forever or, in the manga, of going ballistic on humanity with his Luciferian dad. Granted, he's a darkly ironic and/or pathetic kind of messiah. Then again, to quote the Sermon on the Mount, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."
  • Mix and Match: Humongous Mecha + dark psychological drama.
  • Number of the Beast:
    • The firewall Ritsuko uses to protect NERV's MAGI from hacking in The End of Evangelion is numbered 666.
    • In Rebirth of Evangelion, Misato is seen in (or in the bay next to) parking bay 667, which the English voice actors joked was the Neighbour of the Beast.
  • Oedipus Complex: The relationship of the Ikari family, and whenever a character's parent comes up.
  • Parental Abandonment: Evangelion deals with its consequences.
  • Poor Communication Kills: A major theme of the series. And they're not kidding about the "kill" part.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Asuka and Rei, who've taken up where Kei and Yuri left off and ran with it. 3-4 paired figure sets a year for more than a decade. Also notice that their hair and eye colors are inverted: Rei's red eyes and blue hair vs. Asuka's blue eyes and red hair. It even carries over to their EVAs once Asuka is introduced.
  • Sex Is Violence: Loosely implied throughout the series, then made Squick-inducingly obvious during The End of Evangelion.
  • Tragedy: The fatal flaws of the characters should tell you something.
  • War Is Hell: With everything involved in that Crapsack World, Child Soldiers have it even worse. The End of Evangelion is where it is at its highest point.


Meta

  • The Abridged Series:
    • Evangelion Abridged.
    • There's also another few, most notable out of them being Reborn Zombie's Evangelion Abridged and The Puerto Rican Pizza Dude's A Parody of Evangelion, although the majority of the latter seems to have been banned by Bandai Channel. The former is still active, the latter seems to have gone dormant.
  • Adaptation Distillation: The manga, to a degree. Some fans consider some changes in the Manga adaptation an improvement upon the original Anime. More attention is devoted to character relationships, several filler plots (including some of the less consequential Angels) are cut altogether, and a very controversial scene (you know the one) is changed to be more acceptable and arguably more appropriate. On the other hand, Asuka's screentime (so to speak) is cut down some since it was in many of those filler plots, although the core parts of her story are preserved, and others are added, expanded or alluded to. Ditto for other characters such as Misato and Kaji.
  • Adaptation Expansion: The manga details more of the odd relationship between Shinji and Rei (and Rei's character in general), gives Kaji a tragic backstory, and makes Kaworu much more prominent.
  • Adult Swim: Aired on the network during the mid-2000's, bringing about a Newbie Boom.
  • All There in the Manual: There are a few guidebooks that attempt to elucidate the series. Given that it's intentionally left up to the reader, they are less than helpful. There's also a PlayStation 2 game (Neon Genesis Evangelion 2) that contains a large amount of backstory for the series, including on the "First Ancestral Race". The in-game info is based on interviews with Hideaki Anno; however, since it's never been confirmed, the canonicity is technically up for debate. It's worth noting that the voice actress for Ritsuko, Yuriko Yamaguchi, practically spells out Gendo's silent line from The End of Evangelion in her essay in the film's theatrical pamphlet, but non-Japanese fans are still scratching their heads nearly fifteen years after its release since the essay was never made available to them. The manga version of events further complicates the mystery by offering a different version of events leading up to the line (which is actually "heard" in the manga), and some fans believe that the manga line could also apply to the original version events despite obvious differences in characterization and the line's incompatibility with Yamaguchi's essay.
  • Alternate Continuity: Especially noticeable in the video games and mangas Girlfriend of Steel 2 and Shinji Ikari Raising Project as well as in the new manga Neon Genesis Evangelion Gakuen Datenroku (Evangelion Academy) and the Hobby Japan-exclusive "sequel" Evangelion ANIMA.
  • Alternate Universe: In the Omake at the end of The End of Evangelion, and during the Third Impact sequence in Episode 26; the latter has of late become an official Elseworld with its own manga.
  • Anime Theme Song: "A Cruel Angel's Thesis" is definitive of the franchise.
  • Artistic License: Biology:
    • A fairly mild form of it: it is SF biology, after all. Though it might be argued it's meant as metabiology and actual science has very little to do with the show.
    • It's also not what a Hayflick limit is. The Hayflick limit is the number of times a (non-stem) cell can divide. Why is there a limit? Because cells that don't have it are cancerous.
  • Artistic License Physics:
    • That's not what a Dirac sea is... at all. The show also fails quantum physics forever by throwing it around as a metaphor combined with Rule of Cool.
    • An in-universe example for whoever came up with the "Second Impact" cover story. Regardless of speed, a meteor as small as they described would airburst from friction, not capable of surviving our atmosphere long enough to hit the ground. Also, regardless of speed or angle, it would take a gigantic (dozens or hundreds of kilometers) stellar body to knock the Earth's axis off enough to cause the changes in seasons shown (for that matter, how would Adam's self-destruct be forceful enough to cause that?). Not to mention that an impact that destructive would hurl a shitload of ejecta into the atmosphere, causing a global nuclear winter that would lead to far more negative long-term effects than shown in the show (maybe Adam's explosion was focused up and out, not down?).
      • Adam was in the process of terraforming the Earth to support Angelic life as opposed to Lilim life. That's what caused the climate changes, not his subsequent explosion when they did whatever it was they did to regress him into embryonic form. That Earth is still habitable at all is only because they shut him down before he could finish. That it was caused by the explosion itself is just part of the cover story.
  • Author Appeal: The Judeo-Christian overtones, giant Adams, etc. probably also count as Author Appeal, when you compare Evangelion to Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water and other Gainax/Khara series. So do the angsty characters, ethical debates about biotechnologies, DNA imagery, etc.
  • Author Tract: Having been inspired by Anno's own battle with depression, the series contains numerous in-depth discussions of the human condition and concludes with a lengthy expose on the thought process that leads Shinji to overcome his own depression, go on living and reject the Assimilation Plot he finds himself a part of.
  • Barbie Doll Anatomy: Played straight, averted and subverted, depending on which part or version of the story you're talking about.
  • Bilingual Bonus: Many. For example, the Japanese title for the last episode is "The Beast that Shouted "I" at the Heart of the World". The fact that "I" is pronounced the same way as "ai", the Japanese word for "love", triggers a second meaning. "The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World" is a classic science fiction story (and also the title of an anthology) by Harlan Ellison. There are also numerous songs in English, from the original compositions used in The End of Evangelion and Rebuild of Evangelion to "Fly Me To The Moon" and "Hallelujah" in the TV series. Additionally, there is a lot of English and German terminology, and some unsubtitled dialogue in German, especially in the English dub.
    • In particular, the legendary Lyrical Dissonance of "Komm, süßer Tod" is completely lost on The End of Evangelion's original audience, as the song wasn't even subtitled for the film's Japanese release.
  • Bishonen Line: Kaworu. If you're familiar with this trope, the revelation doesn't come as much of a surprise.
  • Book Ends:
    • The bookend Reis, one in the first episode and the other in The End of Evangelion.
    • Another easily-overlooked example, probably Fridge Brilliance: Shinji's first line inside Unit 01 is "Kimochi warui" (something akin to "I feel disgusted/unwell"). This is more famously Asuka's last line in The End of Evangelion.
    • Episodes 1 and 24 have an interesting case of bookends. In Episode 1, the Angel towers over Shinji. In Episode 24, however, Unit-01 towers over the Angel.
    • The boat Ritsuko is riding during her first appearance is visible in the foreground during her death scene.
  • Bragging Theme Tune: Played straight despite the lyrics being about Shinji.
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall: Both the original ending and Evangelion: Death & Rebirth include visual references to a theater stage. The End of Evangelion takes it even further. A young Shinji is shown building a sand castle of the GeoFront... and then the camera backs up and shows that he's under stage lighting. Later on, there is a live-action sequence, which includes equivalents of several of the characters. The latter is even described as being a "dream" and "not Shinji's reality", hence the postmodern overtones of the movie.
  • Cerebus Syndrome: As the series progresses to its final episodes, all attempts at making jokes are dropped.
  • Covers Always Lie: A mild example at the back cover of The End Of Evangelion's DVD: Toji and Kaworu are shown wearing plug suits, even though Toji does not appear at all, and Kaworu only at the very end of the series.
  • Cut Short: Not the series itself: controversial as it is, the TV ending does wrap things up pretty neatly, if only from a thematic standpoint. Rather, in the original cut of Death & Rebirth, the "Rebirth" episode just... ends. Right in the middle. This effectively pissed off a number of Japanese fans who saw the movie in theaters (and Western fans who bought the VHS/DVD) expecting the final conclusion to the series, only to find out that they had to wait for The End of Evangelion.
  • Deconstructor Fleet: The series took a lot of the nagging questions about Humongous Mecha series and anime in general - "Why are all the central protagonists the same age?" "Why would a vehicle care about its pilot's mental state?" "Why are the mecha's abilities so closely matched to their enemies?" "How did the main character suddenly become the best fighter with zero experience?", etc. - and returned pretty much the most depressing, terrifying answers possible.
  • Depending on the Artist: The show's artwork and animation quality varied a good bit from episode to episode. For example, Episode 19 has noticeably thicker lineart in close-ups, Episode 16's coloring is somewhat lighter and saturated, and Episode 9 brought us a very bishie Shinji. Episode 11, having been animated with help from Ghibli, has received some flak for the significant difference in art style. Also, due to the budget shrinkage that led to, well, you know, much of episodes 21-24 needed to be redrawn for DVD, leading to further variation in the styles. Also, see Off-Model below.
    • For some reason, whether Misato has lipstick on or not rotates, sometimes several times in the same scene.
  • Deranged Animation: Numerous examples, but especially episodes 25 and 26 and The End of Evangelion.
  • Diabolus Ex Machina: The double-bladed swords used by the M-P-Es suddenly turning into copies of the Lance of Longinus.
  • Did Not Do the Research: English dub-only example: in Episode 21, when Gendo is leading Fuyutsuki down into the Geo-Front, he refers to Fuyutsuki as "Montresor" in reference to Edgar Allan Poe's story "The Cask of Amontillado". In Poe's story, it was Fortunato who was led down into the catacombs.
    • The entire work as a whole though averts this trope most particularly. A lot of the science end of things are skewed and fantastic, but still fundamentally based fairly religiously in reality. This has the added effect of making a lot of the neurological disturbances the pilots go through all the more horrifying for anyone with a running knowledge of human physiology.
      • Furthermore, for as much scrutiny as the use of religious symbols in the show has come under, there's no denying that Anno did his homework, as the series manages to work in numerous allusions not only to mainstream Judaism and Christianity, but Kabbalah, Gnosticism and even more obscure Jewish and Christian apocrypha that many Jews and Christians themselves would not likely be familiar with (e.g. the Chamber of Gaf). It is the application, not the authenticity, of the symbolism that generates controversy.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: The less said about the points related to Freud Was Right, the better.
  • Dude Looks Like a Lady:
    • Shinji is essentially a Gender Flip of Nadia (see here for notes from Sadamoto himself). He was described by Sadamoto as looking like "a boyish young girl" (more evidence here), and was made as such to distinguish him from the mecha heroes at that time. Shinji's feminine facial features are brought up by Misato in the first episode, and during the eighth and ninth episodes, he's made to look like a girl from nothing more than a wardrobe change.
    • One of the official games that had its scripts designed from interviews with Anno also had Fuyutsuki say that Shinji looked just like Yui and then crossdress Shinji for the role all while saying how beautiful "she" looks; Fuyutsuki's actions soon become overtly sexual.
    • Shinji and Kaworu also make rather pretty girls with little more than a hair and eyelash change (and breasts); in the Gender Flip version of Episode 24, longer haired Shinjiko ends up looking like a young version of Yui.
  • Easter Egg:
    • Spike Spencer (Shinji's English dub actor)'s famous rant about the original ending from Shinji's POV, which includes gems such as "W-what's an EVA? Is that sort of a Freudian thing, or... um... am I real?" and "I mustn't run away, I mustn't run -- okay, I got that, good, okay, now if I were to run away, let's analyze that, where the fuck would I go!?". Take a listen. It's even better if you think about how much Spencer's Shinji voice sounds like Larry the Cucumber from Veggie Tales.
    • The End of Evangelion has an awesome one. Early in the movie, when Misato checks the computers, the screen with orange text has her saying "So that's what happened during Second Impact." However, the text is in fact a brief bio of Studio Gainax with IMPORTANT-LOOKING, ALL-CAPS phrases like SECOND IMPACT and ADAM inserted at random.
  • Expy:
    • Shinji, Ritsuko, Asuka and Kensuke are similar to Nadia, Electra, Grandis and Jean from Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, respectively. Also, Asuka may be viewed as a partial expy of Jung Freud of Gunbuster fame.
    • Additionally, the later Gainax productions FLCL and Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann seem to exist to represent how Shinji would have turned out if he was raised more successfully. Gainax staff have said that while creating the male protagonists for their recent major productions, they asked themselves how Shinji would have turned out if he had been brought up in different circumstances.
    • The EVAs themselves are loosely based on the God Warriors, giant radioactive cyborgs from Hayao Miyazaki's Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, which Anno worked on during his brief stint as an animator for Studio Ghibli.
  • Fan Disservice: Many instances, with Shinji masturbating over a comatose Asuka and the more bizarre aspects of the Rei/Lilith hybrid in The End of Evangelion being two of the most extreme, as well as the "naked Yui tempting Shinji" sequence in the manga.
  • Fandom Gank: Those fans who gave Anno and Gainax in general the benefit of the doubt will consider the ending of the series an example of this trope instead of a Gainax Ending.
  • Fan Fiction: Attempts to fix the story through massive fan rewrites, or crossovers with everything from Warhammer 40,000 to the Cthulhu Mythos to Star Trek have become so prevalent that they now deserve their own subgenre of the craft.
  • Fan Service: Every character below the age of 31. The anime actually lampshaded this in each of the "next episode" previews, as Misato always promised "more fanservice!". Ironically, episodes that Misato promised would have fanservice, always seemed to have less than episodes where no such promise was made in the previews.
  • Filk Song: Everything by Fight Star. Also "A Thousand Angels" and "With Me Now" by Rachel Macwhirter.
  • Gag Dub: Evangelion: ReDeath, which is notable not only for becoming one of the first highly popular and meme-spawning Gag Dubs in Western fandom, but for doing so years before the genesis of YouTube and the Abridged Series phenomenon.
  • Gainaxing: Especially Misato.
  • Gender Flip: Several fans have theorized that the three leads are examples; noting how few would speak ill of a sad little Moe Shinji, Hot-Blooded Jerkass Asuka and The Stoic Rei were they the opposite genders. This Video shows a nice example of that idea.
  • Genre Busting: It's simultaneously a Giant Robot, Real Robot and mecha Deconstruction, a sci-fi thriller, a psychological drama and a trippy Postmodernist diatribe.
  • Genre Relaunch: Evangelion was the work which arguably saved the anime industry, which was in dire straits because of a couple of high profile box office failures, most prominently Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise. Don't forget that Honneamise was also a Gainax production...
  • Genre Shift: Not much for actual changes in the manga's content, more due to its infamous schedule slips the series moved from a shonen magazine (Shonen Ace) to a seinen magazine (Young Ace).
  • Geodesic Cast:
    • The casting for the show pretty much revolves around the Power Trio, with a few characters even being part of more then one. In fact, the only two characters that don't fit into a trio are Pen-Pen, that Jet Alone guy and the students' teacher... Oh Crap, that's three!
    • A meta example also appears in the American dub of the series, the voice actors for the Bridge Bunnies and the voice actors for the pilots all got married after the production for the series was done. Tiffany Grant (Asuka) married Matt Greenfield (Hyuga), Amanda Winn (Rei) married Jason C Lee (Aoba), and Spike Spencer (Shinji) married Kendra Benham (Maya).
  • Gratuitous English: Frequently. Also, each child pilot is referred to as a "Children" in the Japanese soundtrack: Rei Ayanami is called the "First Children", Asuka Langley Soryu is called the "Second Children", Shinji Ikari is called the "Third Children", and so on.
  • Gratuitous Foreign Language: The title itself is gratuitous Greek which would translate into English as "New Beginning Gospel" or "Gospel of the New Genesis" which may be more appropriate considering the way Shinji and Asuka are left at the end of The End of Evangelion...
  • Gratuitous German: Gehirn = brain, Nerv = nerve, Seele = soul. Also, Asuka's dub dialogue features the occasional German word or phrase, and she has an entire conversation in German on the phone in one episode.
  • Heavy Mithril: kinda. British rock band Fightstar are fans of the series and titled several songs from it. Their song "Lost Like Tears In Rain" even ends with the line "It's Neon Genesis".
  • If You Can Read This...: The show's scripts are periodically used as dummy texts.
    • On the other hand, in one episode, freeze-framing the show during a particular scene will reveal a shockingly detailed account (written in Surprisingly Good English, no less) of the official cover story for Third Impact.
  • Inverted Portrait: A black body can be seen, reflected upside-down in water, spinning against the dark blue background of the Closing Credits.
  • Kudzu Plot: Invoked by, and at the same time resulting in the Mind Screw.
  • Leave the Camera Running: Appears frequently in the later episodes since the studio was getting increasingly short on money and time. This resulted in lots of still images, many scenes showing the characters from a great distance, and liberal use of Stock Footage; notable examples include the infamous "elevator scene" and the lead-up to Kaworu's death. On the other hand, if the creators were trying to save money for where it would matter most, it worked; there are several scenes that are gorgeously animated and absolutely stunning.
  • Lonely Piano Piece:
  • Lost in Translation: As a result of the varying translators and distributors, some nuances of the screenplay, particularly several instances of Arc Words and phrases, are lost or at least obscured by the English translations, especially in the dub. This is acknowledged in the DVD commentary of The End of Evangelion.
  • Lyrical Dissonance: "Komm, süsser Tod", legendarily so (it's right at the top of that trope's page).
  • Meaningful Name: Quite a few:
    • "Shinji" ironically evokes the words for "truth" or "to believe" and can also mean "divine child". Shinji's name is even punned on in Rebuild 1.0; Misato exhorts Gendo to "believe in his own son", invoking of course the word shinji.
    • "Rei" can mean, among other things, "zero", "ghost" and "cold."
    • "Yui" puns on the word "yui" meaning "the only one".
    • "Gendo" is "limit" or "boundary".
    • "Ikari" uses the character for "anchor" (part of the nautical theme), but with a different character would be "wrath" or "anger".
    • "Nagisa" contains the characters for "messenger" and, with different kanji, can mean "shore".
    • The Japanese word given to the Angels, "shito", actually means "apostle" or "messenger" (which is the meaning of the original Greek word that became "angel" in English). It also sounds very close to the Japanese word for "person" or "human being", "hito", hinting at one of the deep secrets of the series.
    • The Angels' appearances and attacks are based on their names: for example, Sandalphon, the angel of embryos, starts off as an embryo in a volcano; Arael is the angel of birds; Israfel, who's beaten with music, is the angel of music; Kaworu a.k.a. Tabris is the angel of free will, and chooses to die rather than kill humanity (i.e. kill Shinji).
    • "Evangelion" comes from "eüangélion", the Anglicanized version of the Greek word meaning "gospel" or "good news", which has led the series' title to sometimes be interpreted as "New Century Gospel" or "New Beginning Gospel".
    • "Seele" is German for "soul"; "Nerv" for, well, "nerve"; and "Gehirn" for "brain".
  • Medium Blending: The real-life photographs scattered throughout the series, particularly in the last two episodes, and an entire live-action sequence in The End of Evangelion.
  • Mood Whiplash: Toji's just been nearly mortally wounded and is scarred for life? Cue cheery rendition of "Fly Me to the Moon".
  • Our Angels Are Different: And how! Ironically, these are a lot closer to the actual, very trippy angel descriptions in The Bible, such as "beryl-coloured wheel within a wheel, each rim covered with eyes" and the like. Of course, they're not really angels though. They're aliens. Kind of.
  • Post Modernism: Oodles of it, especially in The Movie. The show is so postmodern the leaders of the superflat movement claim it as one of its precursors. Now that's some homage...
  • POV Sequel: The End of Evangelion is generally considered to show the the series' ending in a relatively objective light, whereas the last two episodes of the series show Shinji's personal experience.
  • Product Placement: Asuka plays a Sega Saturn in Episode 22. Also, Yebisu/Yebichu beer. The manga has UCC Coffee and Coca-Cola vending machines, and also an iPod in recent chapters.
  • Psycho Strings: Unit 00's Leitmotif and its derivative "The Beast". The End of Evangelion also has the track "The End of Midsummer".
  • Public Domain Soundtrack: The series uses various pieces of classical music for half or more of its soundtrack. The frequency of classical music appearing goes up as things get worse. Also when they started to run out of money.
  • The Renaissance Age of Animation: Released around the same time as Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z's dubs to start the North American Anime craze of the mid-late 90's.
  • Rewatch Bonus: This series has a very dense plot. If you only watched it once, you probably missed something. Watch it again, and you'll notice a lot of foreshadowing.
  • Rousseau Was Right: Hidden so carefully under a thick veil of cynicism that you'd be forgiven for missing it entirely. But at the end of the day, all of the characters — even Gendo and SEELE — want nothing more than to be loved and accepted, and their actions, however twisted, all stem from their fear and misunderstanding of themselves and others. See the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism entry below for more details.
  • Same Content, Different Rating: The Evangelion manga moving from Shonen Ace to Young Ace, thus cementing its Seinen demography since 2009. The actual reason for moving was Sadamoto's infamous slips and the fact that Young Ace‍'‍s editorial puts less pressure on their mangaka because the magazine is less mainstream than Shonen Ace, but still is just as popular. With that said, the actual contents in the series did not change at all to justify its newfound mature demography. If it wasn't for Sadamoto's tight schedule Kadokawa Shoten surely would have transfered Evangelion to just another Shonen magazine.
  • Scenery Gorn: The End of Evangelion is unprecedentedly, lovingly meticulous in its depictions of violence and destruction on a massive scale.
  • Scenery Porn: Especially notable whenever Shinji runs away.
  • Shadow Archetype: A good example is Gendo-Shinji: Gendo gives a pretty good idea of an embittered, corrupt and still antisocial adult Shinji. The Evangelions are also pretty good shadows for the pilots' mothers and possibly the pilots themselves. The Angels may also represent humankind's basest instincts.
  • Ship Tease: Shinji/Asuka. Shinji/Misato. Shinji/Kaworu. Shinji/Rei. Kaji/Ritsuko. Gendo/Ritsuko. Maya/Ritsuko. Toji/Hikari. Plenty of others.
  • Shout-Out: See here.
  • Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism:
    • Far on the cynical side, though arguably not as it has often been represented. Evangelion characters do long for love and harmony... they're just existentially completely out of their reach, especially since all the characters are struggling with crippling mental illnesses and PTSD. Oh, feel the tragedy.
    • Among the fundamental themes of the series -- yes, even The End of Evangelion -- are that everyone just wants to be loved and accepted, that no matter how bad things get, happiness is always attainable as long as we are alive, and that the hope that people might someday learn to understand each other is in and of itself a reason to go on living and have faith in the human race. While the tone is undeniably grim, and these conclusions are brought about through an exceptionally cynical (or, some might say, brutally honest) line of reasoning, the fact remains that the series is a LOT more idealistic than it's given credit for.
  • Soaperizing: ...to the point where the last two episodes abandon the rest of the plot.
  • Soundtrack Dissonance: Evangelion loves this trope. Examples include:
    • At the beginning of Asuka's Mind Rape, the freaking Hallelujah Chorus starts playing while we see them go through a traumatic Freak-Out.
    • The battle with the Seventeenth Angel in Episode 24, accompanied by a rousing rendition of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy".
    • The ending credits of Death & Rebirth, a visage of an apocalyptic landscape with an overwhelming sense of foreboding, set to Pachelbel's "Canon in D".
    • The brutal fight with the Mass Production EVAs and confrontation between Ritsuko and Gendo in The End of Evangelion, set to the soothing strains of Bach's "Air on the G String".
    • And of course, Instrumentality itself, mind-melting psychological trauma of epic proportions, accompanied by "Komm, süsser Tod", an original composition featuring upbeat, jazzy soft rock with lyrics about suicide.
    • This series exemplifies this trope so much that examples alone could fill an entire page.
  • Spell My Name with an "S":
    • Somewhat justified with Ka(w)oru. The Japanese spelling would correctly be transcribed Kaworu, but the "w", depending on speaker, can become near silent to totally none existent. More generally, the "o" particle in the language is in fact "wo", but with the same issue, typically being transcribed without the "w" in romaji.
      • The synch tests a few minutes into Episode 24 show that the official romanization of his name is "Kaworu".
    • Asuka's last name as well. Is it Soryu, or perhaps Souryu or Sohryu?
  • Spoiler Opening: Played straight and subverted. The opening is loaded with information from all over the series, including prominent shots of all major characters and EVAs, thus spoiling their introduction up until nearly a third of the way through the series. On the other hand, the opening also contains Foreshadowing of events right up to The Movie that viewers will not appreciate as such except in retrospect.
  • Squat's in a Name: The angels' names and some terminology may be biblical, but the series itself has nothing to do with Christianity.
  • Stealth Pun: When Sachiel shanks Unit-01 through the eye in the second episode, it went berserk and jumped several city blocks at the Angel. Well, what do you expect from a one-eyed, one-horned flying purple people eater?
  • Stock Footage:
    • Note how much time the characters spend on elevators and escalators in most episodes; also, EVA launch sequences. The end of the Unit 01 vs. Kaworu scene was also the longest still shot in anime history back then and might still be (but the end of the "Ode to Joy" sounded good!). Let's also not forget the original episodes 25 and 26, which consist almost entirely of reused footage, as the studio had run out of budget by that point.
    • The same clip of Shinji eating breakfast is reused several times, as is a clip of Misato drinking beer.
    • And one scene of a forest being destroyed was actually recycled from Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water.
    • The clip of Shinji waking up with a start in the hospital is used numerous times.
  • Super Robot Wars:
  • Surprisingly Good English:
    • The American pilots who fly Unit 03 to Japan and NERV employees heard during its activation test speak perfect, unaccented English accompanied by Japanese subtitles. This is because Gainax actually had an American in-house translator Michael House working for them at the time of the show's production, and used him to voice the roles, along with two of his friends.
    • Several vocal pieces in The End of Evangelion soundtrack, namely "Thanatos ~ If I Can't Be Yours", "Escape to the Beginning", "Komm, Susser Tod" and the unused "Everything You've Ever Dreamed" are performed in English, by British and American singers, with natural-sounding lyrics. Rebuild of Evangelion does this for numerous tracks, as well.
    • Averted, however, in the case of German. Asuka, who is German by birth, sounds even to a native English speaker distinctly not German when speaking in that language. This in itself is a bit of a meta-inversion of the trope in question: native English speakers tend to be, for obvious historical reasons, much more familiar with German phonetics than native Japanese speakers, making it more obvious to English viewers when a speaker is failing to approximate fluent German speech, whether or not the English viewer could themself fluently speak any dialect or extraction of German.[4]
  • Suspiciously Apropos Music: Not just music. Sometimes the characters will be watching a movie or TV show, or listening to the radio, or, hell, really any indirect dialogue, and what is being said always relates to their mindsets, their situations, their world at large, or philosophic inquiries that appear later in the series. For example, in Episode 4 "Hedgehog's Dilemma", after Shinj slips out of his Ten-Minute Retirement, he and Misato stare at each other at the train station right after his train leaves. The woman at the intercom then says:

Woman: If you are accompanied by small children, please keep them close.

  • Theme Music Power-Up: Whenever "The Beast II" plays, something's going to die.
  • Theme Naming:
    • More stylistic naming instead of thematic, but characters all have their last names in kanji and their first in katakana.
    • The characters' last names are those of Japanese ships that were sunk during World War II. Asuka's second name "Langley" complements this scheme too: Langley was an American ship sunk in World War II.
Maya Ibuki is both an example of the theme and an exception: while the HIJMS Maya was sunk at Leyte Gulf, the Ibuki would have led the
    • Imperial Japanese Navy's "next generation" cruiser class, but the keel was never laid and the class was canceled.

The few important human characters that don't fall into this category are named after ship parts, and Nagisa (shore) is close as well.

    • Hikari and her two sisters Kodama and Nozomi are named after Shinkansen lines.
  • There Are No Therapists: The world would fare better with them. Using The Other Wiki as source, one could easily diagnose:
  • This Loser Is You:
    • Shinji gets this treatment a few times. It's been theorized that Shinji, and even the whole show, were meant as Take Thats against otakus. What makes it funnier is that Shinji might be an Author Avatar of Anno himself, so he'd be including himself as a target with that giant middle finger.
      • Funnier, or possibly sadder, since Anno genuinely doesn't have a very high opinion of himself.
    • Kensuke also falls under this, to an extent. He's essentially a pathetic otaku who wants nothing more than to pilot an eva, which he never does.
  • Title Scream: The eyecatches originally had this during the show's development. These versions can be heard on the S2 Works CD soundtrack set, where they are marked "F-0" and "F-1".
  • Training Montage: Shinji and Asuka training for the second battle with the Seventh Angel.
  • Trope Overdosed: Need we say more?
  • Troperiffic: Deconstructing them, playing them straight, codifying them, and subverting them among other things. Just look at the length of these pages.
  • Unbuilt Trope: Many examples (leading to its Seinfeld Is Unfunny status among some modern viewers).
    • The most obvious is Rei, who would appear to be a brilliant Deconstruction of the Emotionless Girl archetype if not for the fact that she more or less created it.
    • Many tropes that Evangelion deconstructs have actually been deconstructed in older Super Robot Genre shows, notably the ones that come from the 1970's; in fact, the stream of Lighter and Softer shows that defines the Super Robot Genre as a whole isn't so apparent in the 1970's era of Super Robots.
  • Unfamiliar Ceiling: Played with. Shinji is peeved because the NERV sickbay's ceiling is becoming too familiar to him.
  • United Nations Is a Super Power: It having undergone heavy reforms following the Second Impact and the Valentine Treaty of February 2001. To illustrate, all of the world's national militaries are explicitly under direct control of the UN... and are effectively subordinate to UN Special Agency NERV.
  • Unrobotic Reveal: Twice, first with the Evas and then with the dummy plugs.
  • Video Phone: A variation is used, featuring full sized holograms when SEELE is talking to Gendou.
  • Viewers Are Geniuses: The series makes substantially more sense if you're familiar with the theory behind Lacanian psychoanalysis[5] and hermeneutics.[6] Hideaki Anno isn't known as one of the major inspirations behind Post Modernism in anime for nothing.
  • Vocal Evolution: The voice actors' performances become more nuanced and multidimensional as the series does. This is more obvious in the English version, but it is true for the Japanese original as well.
  • The Walrus Was Paul: A possible interpretation.
  • Weirdness Magnet: Primarily Shinji, as the plot mainly revolves around the Mind Screw that happens to him (and let's face it, how often do you accidentally fall on a naked blue-haired clone of your dead mother?); Misato, due to her wacky angel-beating schemes and zany alcohol problem; Gendo has psychosis-induced plot-distorting abilities and lacks a sense of ridicule, especially in the manga and (on 'shrooms!) in Shinji Ikari Instrumentality Project; the rest of the cast, to various degrees.
  • Wham! Episode:
    • Episodes 18 to 24, each to varying degrees.
    • To a lesser degree, Episode 14. Even though half of it is a clip show and nothing particularly dramatic happens, it's the point at which the show begins to switch tracks from a by-the-numbers mecha show to a bizarre Mind Screw with existentialist undertones. Notably, this is the first episode with a mind trip sequence, as well as hints about the connection between the pilots and their EVAs and the first appearance of the Lance of Longinus.
  • Writer on Board: The End of Evangelion apparently subverts this: Anno has made several statements (supported by hints in the TV series) to the effect that it was the planned ending, but there are still fans who say otherwise. A lot of people believe that the hospital scene is nothing but this.
  • You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Misato and Kaji (dark purple and sorta greenish respectively): both can be argued to be stylized blacks. Rei and Kaworu are subversions: her blue hair and his gray hair are side effects of her being partly cloned from Lilith and him being the 17th Angel.
  • Your Size May Vary: The EVAs are exactly as tall as they need to be to look cool/imposing/sinister in whatever shot they're in.

Congratulations!

  1. ↑ That's what Anno says, anyway; some fans suspect it might actually be a sequel.
  2. ↑ Well, this does exclude the final two episodes, but by that point, everyone was evidently suffering from some existential angst (end of the world and all); Episode 25 makes this fairly clear. It's just that Shinji happens to be our main protagonist, so we get his point of view for the most part.
  3. ↑ This happens right about the same time everyone starts having their respective mental breakdowns,
  4. ↑ Think about how recognizably obvious it is for a series or film to contain bad fake German, even if it was produced by English speakers who presumably could tell the difference but didn't care. Ditto here, it's even got its own trope!
  5. ↑ Which is basically an abstruse, literary methodology for analysing the structures of alienation underlying human reality... Yeah.
  6. ↑ Which is basically an abstruse, literary methodology for studying the practice of interpretation under conditions of ineradicable uncertainty... Yeah.
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