How many episodes comprise the story?
The story unfolds over 26 TV episodes, each roughly 20 to 25 minutes in length.
Episodes 25 and 26 were remade and expanded into 2 original videos (OVAs). These 2 OVAs further explain and expand on the mysterious events in the series.
The ending of the story takes place in a full-length feature film, "End of Evangelion." The quiet unrest of unanswered questions and the feeling of impending doom that builds up during the episodes finally find release in a breathtaking and mind-numbing climax in the movie.
What is the genre of the story?
On one level, NGE is an escapist and "kiddy" Japanese "mecha anime," an enjoyable cartoon with robots and cute guys and girls who must do battle against mighty enemies.
On another level, there is always another story that slowly develops behind the scenes. It is this second story that suddenly bursts forth from time to time, catches the viewer unawares, and leaves the viewer staggering under the philosophical, scientific, and spiritual implications of what just happened. This regularly becomes the case about a third of the way into the series.
On another level, NGE is full of allusions to Judeo-Christian apocrypha and legends. The enemies are taken from Judeo-Christian and Islamic lore. Symbols and structures from mysticism, Gnosticism, and the occult abound, as well as from the Qabbalah (Kabbala) and the Sephiroth.
On another level, Jungian, Freudian, and psychoanalytic pre-symbolics and symbolics make the anime a playground for psychologists and poststructuralist philosophers.
What is the general background of the story?
On September 13, A.D. 2000, a large explosion in Antarctica melts the polar ice cap. Ocean levels rise dramatically and the Earth's axis tilts. Climate patterns change. Ecosystems collapse. Famine ensues. Roughly 2 billion people die in the immediate aftermath. In the chaos and political upheaval that follows this near-apocalypse, civil unrest and warfare result.
In A.D. 2015, an unknown object approaches New Tokyo 3. Shinji, long separated from his father, Gendo, is called to New Tokyo 3 by NERV, the agency his father operates under the auspices of the United Nations.
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