Neon Genesis Evangelion[4] (Japanese: 新世紀エヴァンゲリオン, Hepburn: Shinseiki Evangerion, literally "The Gospel of the New Century") is a Japanese mecha anime television series produced by Gainax and Tatsunoko Production, directed by Hideaki Anno and broadcast on TV Tokyo from October 1995 to March 1996. The cast included Megumi Ogata as Shinji Ikari, Megumi Hayashibara as Rei Ayanami, and Yūko Miyamura as Asuka Langley Soryu. The music was composed by Shirō Sagisu.

Evangelion is set fifteen years after a worldwide cataclysm, particularly in the futuristic fortified city of Tokyo-3. The protagonist is Shinji, a teenage boy who was recruited by his father to the shadowy organization Nerv to pilot a giant bio-machine mecha called an "Evangelion" into combat with alien beings called "Angels". The series explores the experiences and emotions of Evangelion pilots and members of Nerv as they try to prevent any and all of the Angels from causing another cataclysm, and as they deal with the quest of finding out the real truth behind events and organizational moves.[5] The series features imagery derived from Kabbalah, Christianity, and Judaism.

Neon Genesis Evangelion received critical acclaim, and garnered controversy.[6] Particularly controversial were the last two episodes of the show, leading the team behind the series to produce the original intended version of the ending in the 1997 film The End of Evangelion. Regarded as a deconstruction of the mecha genre, the original TV series led to a rebirth of the anime industry and has become a cultural icon. Film, manga, home video, and other products in the Evangelion franchise have achieved record sales in Japanese markets and strong sales in overseas markets, with related goods selling over ¥150 billion by 2007 and Evangelion pachinko machines selling ¥700 billion by 2015.

In 2015, fifteen years after a global cataclysm known as the Second Impact, teenager Shinji Ikari is summoned to the futuristic city of Tokyo-3 by his estranged father Gendo Ikari, director of the special paramilitary force Nerv. Shinji witnesses United Nations forces battling an Angel, one of a race of giant monstrous beings whose awakening was foretold by the Dead Sea Scrolls. Because of the Angels' near-impenetrable force-fields, Nerv's giant Evangelion bio-machines, synchronized to the nervous systems of their pilots and possessing their own force-fields, are the only weapons capable of keeping the Angels from annihilating humanity. Nerv officer Misato Katsuragi escorts Shinji into the Nerv complex beneath the city, where his father pressures him into piloting the Evangelion Unit-01 against the Angel. Without training, Shinji is quickly overwhelmed in the battle, causing the Evangelion to go berserk and savagely kill the Angel on its own.