Neon Genesis Evangelion: Pilots, Angels, and the Weight of Being Human
I watched Neon Genesis Evangelion half-convinced that the buzz around it was more noise than substance. But I found a work that dares to break the mecha mold and delivers a raw dissection of the human soul. This is not an easy show, nor a comfortable one. It doesn’t even try to be. More than telling a story, it exposes a series of existential fractures that play out both inside its characters and within anyone who dares to watch.
What looks like a show about teenagers piloting robots quickly reveals itself as a dense choreography of trauma, inherited guilt, and suffocating loneliness. Each angel is more than an enemy: it’s a metaphor, intricate and piercing. Shinji, Rei, Asuka, Gendo... they aren’t archetypes. They’re walking wounds, drifting in a Tokyo-3 haunted by its own past.
Psychology here isn’t a backdrop, it’s the core. Depression, abandonment, pathological need for validation—none of it is sugar-coated. Hideaki Anno isn’t giving me answers, he’s offering emotional x-rays. The show doesn't explain; it suggests. It doesn’t resolve; it interrogates. And in that uncomfortable ambiguity, I found truths I wish I hadn’t seen so clearly.
The social dimension creeps in through the cracks: a critique of hierarchies, of institutions that promise salvation but operate through coercion, of a masculinity stripped of tenderness. Evangelion forces me to confront how structure quietly manufactures suffering in those who refuse to conform. It’s a veiled indictment that hits harder because it whispers in apocalyptic tones.
Then there’s the religious layer—not dogma, but symbolic provocation. Crosses, names, the weaponization of the divine as justification for erasing the self. It’s not about faith; it’s about what humanity becomes when there’s no God left to answer us. Evangelion doesn’t debate God—it questions what we do in His silence.
I finished the series with more questions than answers, but with the certainty that I had witnessed a work that doesn’t want to please, but to confront. It’s not perfect, nor does it pretend to be. But in its imperfections lies an artistic honesty I rarely see in anime.
I haven't seen this anime, but being a classic I've come across it many times. It was even recommended to me. The events that occur there are attractive, but I think it would be difficult for me to watch because of the type of animation.
In my opinion, there's two kind of people who watch animes. Those whom has watched since the 80/90's anime, and those who don't. Therefore, a lot of New users haven't seen a few classic from Japan. You should definitely take a look
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I watched this anime a few years ago and I thought I didn't liked it because I didn't understand it, but as time passes by I understood that this series isn't meant to be understood. As you said, we end with more questions than answers when we finish watching it, but that's how it is meant to be.
Also, I read while ago that the end of the series felt so fast because it was meant to have more episodes but they had budget problems and they had to finish it in a rush and years later they released a movie called End of Evangelion where they explain the whole thing, but I haven't watched it yet.
Maybe I watch the series again and the movies to give it a closure.
Definitely it is time to go and watch it again, friend @okarun
I'll do it when I finish the second season of Fire Force.
Such a masterpiece anime!! One of my favourite absolutely in the top them for the plot, the drawing, the soundtrack 💕💕
About the drawing, you're absolutely right. It just awesone how well animated moción actually if for this. And colours. Palette itself is a masterpiece
I remember that as soon as I watched Evangelion, I started going through articles and forums about the context and final story of the anime. So many theories about evolution and the question of angels being something sent by God to advance the apocalypse; this is an incredible masterpiece.
That's exactly why it is an absolute masterfully piece of work. Decades ago it ended and here we are, having a discussion about meanings and symbolics
After watching the trailer for this anime and reading your opinion, I really liked this anime. I will try to watch this anime when I have time.
@infinitejourney please, just enjoy pure quality content (about the anime)
Yeah
I love Evangelion, it has the public commenting a lot that it's not for everyone, but in my opinion everyone should give it a chance despite the confusions and depths. Good post! 💗
Thank you, my friend! Super kind of yours @albdgreen
I find it amusing that people still claim Evangelion is something philosophical and deep to this day when all of that is just a façade and has nothing to do with it. You only need to look at the recent statements by the creator, Hideaki Anno, where he says as much. People mainly think that because of the anime’s ending, which is about as incomplete as it gets—they’d completely run out of budget by that point.
https://www.animesenpai.net/evangelion-creator-says-the-series-isnt-deep-just-looks-that-way-in-resurfaced-interview/
A big part of philosophy is to call upon or invoke questions or doubts; so, if the anime has that effect, it may be called philosophical even if that was not the intention of the author: unintentionally philosophical and deep
Great series: I sort of stumbled upon by whatching by chance some scenes of the final chapters (which I didn't know they were), and when I decided to give it a chance it happened to be the first chapter (this was in the now extinct channel animax) and the opening was just beautiful and soon I could not wait the one chapter per week and watched it all in 2 or 3 days by Internet 😅