Neon Genesis Evangelion

[w.i.p.]

About

Neon Genesis Evangelion (Japanese: 新世紀エヴァンゲリオン Shin Seiki Evangerion) Is a mecha anime series created by Gainax.
The show takes place in an alternate 2000, where a global cataclysm named the “Second Impact” destroys most of Antarctica and causes the deaths of half humanity. The show picks up fifteen years later, with the main character Shinji Ikari becoming the pilot of Evangelion Unit-01 at the behest of his father, Gendo Ikari, who is the Machiavellian commander of military unit NERV. Shinji then begins his mission to locate and destroy the beings known as Angels. The series has gained popularity both in Japan and in the west, and has received critical acclaim from critics.

History

Neon Genesis Evangelion was the first success of anime studio Gainax, and was first aired in Japan on October 4 1995 and later dubbed in English. The show was a huge success, leading onto the creation of 2 films, “Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death & Rebirth” and “The End of Evangelion”, both of which were released in 1997. A later film series, “Rebuild_of_Evangelion”, was also created, and was split into four individual films, “Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone”, “Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance”, “Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo” and “Evangelion: Final”. The first three films were released in 2007, 2009 and 2012 respectively, with the fourth film still in production. As well as films, the show also spawned a number of manga series, books and video games based off the series.

Online Relevance

Neon Genesis Evangelion has a large online following, spawning a fansite, named Eva Monkey^[1], as well as two wikis dedicated to the show^[2]^[3]. As well as these, Evangelion also has a large following on Tumblr^[4], DeviantArt^[5], 4chan’s /a/ anime and manga^[6] and /m/ mecha^[7] boards and Reddit^[8]. Also, sites such as Anime News Network^[9] and TV Tropes^[10] offer a variety of information regarding the series. Fanfiction.net^[11] also has over 7000 fanfictions in it’s archives.

Notable Sub-Memes

A Cruel Angel’s Thesis parodies

A Cruel Angel’s Thesis Parodies refers to a number of parodies revolving around the opening to the anime of Neon Genesis Evangelion. The opening became popular in MADs, both on Youtube and Nico Nico Douga.

The Gendo Pose

The Gendo Pose refers to a series of photoshop parodies revolving aroung the character of Gendo Ikari.

Gendowned

Gendowned refers to a video series in which the character Gendo Ikari is show shooting something down to AC/DC’s “For Those About to Rock”, followed by the words Gendowned. The meme was first shown during the video “AMV Hell 2: Son of AMV Hell”^[12].