Neon Genesis Evangelion

"Mankind's greatest fear is mankind itself."

At the turn of the century, the Angels returned to Earth, seeking to wipe out humanity in an apocalyptic fury. Devastated, mankind's last remnants moved underground to wait for the day when the Angels would come back to finish the job. Fifteen years later, that day has come... but this time, humanity is ready to fight back with terrifying bio-mechanical weapons known as the Evangelions. Watch as Shinji, Rei, Asuka and the rest of the mysterious shadow agency Nerv battle to save earth from total annihilation.

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sirdorius@sirdorius

November 20, 2025

The series starts out with some usual anime tropes: a monomyth, insufferable high school protagonists, mechs vs. kaijus, and hypersexualized 14 year old girls. It tries to be "deep" by mixing some religious mythology and existential questions that keep teens up at night, like "Why am I here?" repeated a million times.

Towards the end, the main story is such unsalvageable nonsense that the writers just give up on it completely and try to turn it into some pseudo-intellectual freudian/jungian analysis of a depressed teen.

It's been quite a few years since I was a clinically depressed young adult, so I can't really relate now; but the theme is way too complex to fit in between shots of naked schoolgirls and incredibly poor dialogue. If you want a real exploration of the topic, check out Bojack Horseman instead.

Against my better judgement, I watched it to the end because a lot of anime reviewers seem to praise Evangelion's story. That doesn't speak favorably to the quality of the show, but more about the embarrassingly low bar for story writing in animes.