Neon Genesis Evangelionwas a revolutionary series when it first debuted in the 1990s, changing the way that people think about mecha anime forever. The reasons for its originator, Hideaki Anno, creating the series were numerous, but one early interview has him give a reason that’s become incredibly ironic in hindsight.
WhenNeon Genesis Evangelionhit the airwavesin 1995, there really hadn’t been anything like it. With damaged characters, a seemingly hopeless battle, and evil machinations in the background,Evangelionspun up a terrifying world that was utterly unique at the time. It exploded in popularity surprisingly fast, blowing all expectations out of the water. As revolutionary asEvangelionwas, it’s now considered a classic, and many other series have attempted to emulate its success by copying the formula. That, however, seems to have been the one thing that Hideaki Anno didn’t want to happen.
Evangelion Became What It Set Out to Destroy
Evangelion Wanted to Upset the Anime Industry
In an interview from the January 1997 issue of Aerial Magazine,as maintained by fansite Evamonkey, Anno comments on the state of the anime industry, saying, “The people who make anime and the people who watch it always want the same things.The creators have been making the same story for about 10 years; the viewers seem to be satisfied and there’s no sense of urgency.There’s no future in that.” It’s clear from the context that Anno is saying that he wantedEvangelionto be something that wasn’t exactly what anime fans wanted; he was looking to create something new, something that hadn’t been seen a dozen times before.
Ironically, 10 years after this interview, Anno would be in the process of giving fans exactly what they wanted: the same thing again, by remakingNeon Genesis EvangelionasRebuild of Evangelion. The firstRebuildmovie is nearly a shot-for-shot, line-for-line recreation of the first few episodes of the original series, only with updated animation.Evangelionhad simply gone on to become so popular that what the people who watch anime wanted was moreEvangelion, so it was no longer as subversive or revolutionary as it had once been. Many series had tried to copy its success in the intervening years, including their own broken characters and horrific worlds.
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Of course, that may be why theRebuildfilms took such a long time to be released; Anno was determined to take the story in a new direction that wasn’t exactly what fans were asking for. And to be fair, the laterRebuildmovies do diverge substantially from the story of the original series, to the point where the third and fourth movies are almost completely unrelated to the original ending. Still, none of this can change the fact thatEvangelion’s success turned its unique aspects into a formula for other mecha anime to follow, and its subversive elements became the norm, creating a future that’s no different than the one Anno derided.
Anno’s comments may carry some irony today, givenNeon GenesisEvangelion’s enduring success and impact on the genre, but they reflectedEvangelion’s status as an outsider series at the time, and give a little insight into just how he thought about his own creation.
