A lot of people assume that the name of Central Dogma, where Lilith and the Lance of Longinus are kept is a reference to the idea of dogma, or the text of a religion. But after studying molecular biology, I learned that Central Dogma is the name for the theory that genetic information is copied from DNA by RNA. When you consider that the EVAs are copies of either Adam or Lilith, piloted by the genetic descendants of Lilith , this makes a great deal of sense. Or, to put it in biologist terms, Lilith and Adam are the original DNA. The EVAs are the RNA, or copies, of the original DNA. Depending on how you want to look at it, either NERV or the pilots are the mRNA (NERV arrange for the EVAs to be made, but the pilots tell the EVAs what to do) . I guess not all of NGE's symbolism is religious!

The Evangelion units are wearing restraints that obviously restrict movement right? Then they must be extremely tight and constricting. Its no wonder then, that when an Evangelion gets wounded, High-Pressure Blood comes spurting out. The tight restraints are increasing blood pressure!

Watching the series and movies multiple times can reveal certain details and make confusing scenes more understandable. An easily missed one is the final line in End Of Evangelion: "I feel sick." These are the first words that Shinji says inside EVA-01. Though the original line was actually very different, and that they had the voice actor change the line because they had trouble with its execution.

In the foreground during Ritsuko's death scene is the boat she was riding in her first appearance.

death scene is the was riding in her first appearance. Episode 22: Asuka is pissed at Rei, but doesn't snap until Rei states that she would kill herself if commanded to. Well, that's pretty much what Kyoko did...

If we accept that young Shinji inside Leliel is a representation of Leliel itself, then the last shot we see after Yui inside Unit-01 'saves' Shinji is of Leliel holding out its core to Shinji.

Viewers Are Geniuses plot points: In Jewish tradition, the number 18 signifies life. Mankind, the eighteenth Angel, is the one that lives in the end. Shinji is the epitome of meek. He inherits the earth or what is left of it

SEELE (which is German for "soul") is a word prominently mentioned in a certain significant musical work: Ode to Joy . Also in the lyrics: "Your magic binds together again/what custom strictly parted/All men become brothers/where your gentle wing rests." Hmmmmm. "Be embraced, millions! This kiss for the whole world!" ...This is disturbingly apropos.

I swear to you, this managed to escape me until the third runthrough of the series: All AT Fields (barring Iruel's), are octagonal. They also happen to be used to halt an attack against them. Now...what else do we know of that is octagonal and calls for an approaching object to arrest its movement?...Or "stop", if you will? Not in Japan. Theyre triangular there. When using the mortar to test Ramiel's defenses, if you watch the scene where Misato, Ritsuko, et al are analyzing the results of testing, they freeze-frame footage showing that Ramiel's AT field is hexagonal. This is commonly attributed to animation error. Episode 6 is one of those episodes, along with Episode 4 and others, that are animated by the "B" team.



During the sequence where Arael conjures multiple Asukas while probing Asuka's memories, each Asuka is voiced by a different actress, to show that what Arael's conjurations are saying are both bizarre and unsettlingly wrong. What brings this into fridge brilliance is that each successive voice actress is actually trying to imitate Asuka's VA's style of speech, almost as if Arael is trying to make his conjurations as close to the real thing as he can. Unfortuantely, the English dub completely ruined this scene by only using Asuka's VA for this scene. So instead of Asuka being assaulted by imitations of herself, it's just her repeating the same few lines over and over and breaking down because... she doesn't like the sound of her own voice? A lot of people hate hearing recorded playback of their own voice. It wouldn't sound strange to us as the audience, but imagine you're hearing multiple recordings of your voice playing at once. That would be utterly maddening.



A number of people have suggested that if NERV fulfilled its stated function rather than its actual one, whoever controlled the EVA units could conquer the world. This is even used as a justification for the UN invasion. This seems to be pitching it more than a little high: without a power cable connection the EVA can't operate long enough to be relevant. For that matter, who didn't demand at a least a 15-minute operational period on the basic EVA units without a cable? The moment somebody starts tossing around explosions the cable is going to go. Any military person worth their salt would have realized the danger of stray shrapnel ending the world.

This might be Fridge Brilliance: The EVAs are essentially gods. Which means if they are allowed to run rampant they would be capable of killing EVERYONE. Hence, the power stops them being allowed to go free for too long. This is demonstrated in the episode where we see the first Contact Experiment in which Rei was injured.

This idea's kinda subverted by the fact that EVAs are shown going out of control even AFTER their batteries are out. The battery limit is basically to make people feel safe. If the pilot's will is strong enough, they are no longer bound by it. Now take a look at Shinji's fight with Zeruel in Evangelion 2.0 More to the point, it becomes fairly clear later in the series that only the control systems of the Evangelion require external power. It's just that the entry plug is placed in such a way as to replace most of the Evangelion nervous system. If it loses power, the Evangelion is essentially paralyzed. An awakened Evangelion, however, seems to be able to get around this by either powering the entry plug itself, or brute-forcing the nerve connections through the dead space somehow.



The original ending is about how Shinji STOPS being a wimp. It gets better when you realize that Shinji's wimpiness is a common complaint about this show.

NERV's motto is a quote from the poem 'Pippa Passes': "God's in His heaven, all's right with the world". Consider this: when its core is pierced by the Lance of Longinus, Evangelion-01 apparently becomes a god. This is moments before the initiation of the Third Impact, which wipes out all of humanity. How right is the world now? Ah, but in the original poem, this phrase was used ironically. All is not right in the world in the poem. It's the same for NERV, mainly because everyone is living in a Crapsack World.

This one works for the Rebuild movies as well, but think about this: when Shinji sees (and then falls on) Rei while she's naked, she isn't fazed at all. But then, later in the series, you see that Gendo talks with her while she's in the LCL tube, naked and floating. Presumably she's been doing this since she was young, so she grew up without a sense of shame. Just like Adam and Eve before they ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. And if we remember that Rei possesses Lilith's soul , this only makes it more symbolic, being as Lilith did not eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and thus also had no sense of shame. Fridge Brilliance at its finest.

Now for the allegations about Shamshel and Leliel: note their shapes and manner of death. Shamshel is, let's be honest here, a giant penis, and dies when Shinji, another male, stabs him in the Core (i.e. castrates him). Leliel is somewhat more subtle in shape, more blatant in death: she is a black hole in the ground, ending at a mostly zebra-striped ball in the sky, i.e. a womb. She dies when Shinji, here a child, rips his way out of her in a horrifying parody of c-section. Again, he is the Angel of Day, she is the Angel of Night. Their forms and manner of death are complementary, something most people miss because of the episode gap, which only exists because Israfel couldn't resist the Shout-Out. Another thing to keep in mind is that, in Judeo-Christian mythology, after Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden of Eden God sent down an angel to guard the entrance to the garden and to kill anyone who tried to enter. That angel was named Shamshel and took the form of a flaming sword. Of course, this means that Shamshel is a weapon and you all have dirty minds... Sickos. //end:sarcasam

Kaworu calls the humans "Lilim", which are considered to be the daughters of Lilith , a demon. Do the math. For those of you (such as myself) who take a while to grasp the above, the daughters of Lilith in regular mythology are the demon race. Now, in NGE, it's humans. Now the math is little clearer.

Furthermore, in the Alphabet of ben Sirach, the oldest known text dealing with marriage of Lilith and Adam, Lilith's punishment for disobeying God is that hundreds of her children would have to die every day. Now compare the mass births and deaths of Lilith's children in Evangelion to the children of Adam who appears to be unable to reproduce and could well be immortal until killed.

This may or may not have been intended by the writers but; regarding the failed unit 00 test that resulted in Rei's injuries from the first episode, more specifically the seemingly out of character reaction Gendo has, that amount of concern and near panic are so unlike anything you ever see from him any other time. At first you could think it's because he needs Rei to enact his version of Instrumentality, till you remember how easy it seems to be to replace her with a new clone when she does die. Then it hit me, Yui "died" during a test of unit 01, and more specifically while inside an entry plug, and Rei was more or less a clone of her. It was this near replication of the most tragic event of his life that broke Gendo out of normal stoicism and drove him to desperately try and rescue Rei. It's simpler than that, really. It's heavily implied throughout the series that he sees Rei as a surrogate daughter (NOT a wife, as so many bad fanfic writers like to suppose). Wouldn't YOU react that way if your daughter were in danger? He keeps his reactions mostly buttoned-down in public, but occasionally he can't hold it in. As for his treatment of Shinji...he says in End of Eva that he was trying to protect Shinji by keeping him at a distance. Hence the coldness.

While the theatrical poster ◊ for The End of Evangelion seems like nightmare fuel (bodies floating in a red sea, apparently dead), looking closely reveals the sight of Rei floating above the red sea. At the end of the film, Shinji sees an apparition of Rei floating above the sea of LCL in the exact same way as she does in the poster. Since Shinji allowed humanity to retain corporeal form by rejecting instrumentality, the film's poster actually depicts humanity's rebirth, rather than their death.

After reading the trope description for Scary Shiny Glasses for the umpteenth time, I suddenly realized a small piece of brilliance thanks to these statements: "Traditionally, one's eyes are an indicator of the soul... If you can't even see their eyes because of the Scary Shiny Glasses, beware  for these are individuals who deliberately wall themselves off from the people around them." Now on one obvious level, we know that describes Gendo. However, it becomes more brilliant when you take a look at the color of Gendo's glasses. The amber/orange tint to his eye-wear matches perfectly to the tinted light of an A.T. Field! In effect: both share the same color, both are used to hide or separate one's "soul" from the world, and, as stated on Gendo's entry in that page: In the manga version, the readers - and implicitly Shinji - began to see Gendo's eyes behind his glasses more often as we learned more about him. Interestingly enough, he only begins to wear his tinted glasses after his old ones break while rescuing Rei. In other words, the only time he's shown to let his emotional guard down (as mentioned above), is when Rei is in danger (his glasses break). Afterwards, he becomes even more closed off from the world. These are all perfect analogies to Gendo's personal A.T. Field. Therefore, it can't be coincidence that the mindscrew-filled scene involving Gendo's "death" in EOE show Gendo as the only one not being "tanged" (it's ambiguous whether he died or joined Instrumentality - use your own judgement there) and also gives one last focus to Gendo's glasses. In a way, this can be even used as a metaphor for additional Scary Shiny Glasses wearers in other series: They all close themselves off from other people emotionally by hiding their eyes - the windows to their souls. This is also often what many people do in Real Life: wearing sunglasses if they are shy, introverted, or Not Good with People to avoid having people make eye-contact. Keep in mind that Gendo's shades have been around since the first episode, as was the color of the A.T. Field. It only makes perfect sense upon understanding the whole "light of the soul" thing that Kaworu tells us, as well as knowing the ins-and-outs of the Scary Shiny Glasses trope, which is very popular in Japanese works. Anno, who developed Eva as a critique of social isolation, and as a deconstruction of anime tropes, undoubtedly knew all this...the clever bastard. Traditionally, one's eyes are an indicator of the soul... A hint as to how he sees SEELE.

In EOE Shinji sets off Instrumentality by strangling Asuka in his mind and at the end of the film he does it again with the real Asuka. most people assume he was just off rocker by then. But what if he was trying to bring everybody back by finishing Instrumentality the way it started?

And of course, the one everyone knows already. The last line in EOE (Asuka saying "I feel sick"): does it mean "I'm sickened by you, Shinji" or does it mean "I am pregnant"? It has been suggested by Asuka's voice actress, yes. However, I think things would precisely not have turned that bad if Shinji and Asuka had sex time ago.

Actually, Yuuko Miyamura, Asukas original VA, said that Anno asked her what her reaction would be if a man broke into her house at night, saw her lying defenseless, and just masturbated and left instead of raping her . She said she would find it strange, but feel disgusted. In other words, Asuka was very much aware of what Shinji had done at the beginning of the film .

Kaworu saying "I love you" to Shinji. Watched this one just after being explained by a catholic priest that "love" means "I want the best for you", while "I want to have you for me" is desire. Kaworu is the only one who can say "I love you" (Shinji told "I need you"), and he uses it perfectly. Actually, Kaworu's love for Shinji is exactly the kind of love you'd expect from a creature called an angel.

Before the final scene of End of Evangelion (and the series' episodes 25-26 that run concurrently with it), Shinji has sorted out all of his mental anguish. When he sees Asuka on the beach, he does the one thing he's been meaning to do to her for a long while. Since it's explicitly stated everyone went through their own Instrumentality inner dialogue, Asuka went through one too and finally does the one thing she's been meaning to do to him for a long while.

A very minor case; Asuka, upon being unable to start her EVA with Shinji on board, commands him to think in German, since German is the operating language at that point. Shinji, in a pathetic attempt to do so, thinks, "Baumkuchen" a kind of cake. Why food, and why this particular item? Easy: the cake, apparently, is available year round, but, more importantly - Shinji likes to cook. On a related note, it is possible that Shinji thinking in the wrong language was not the reason for malfunction. It probably had more to do with Asuka only speaking incomprehensible garbage.

Remember how Misato notes that the Angels were all what humanity would have been had things been different ? Well, taking that in mind, then remembering some of the attacks the Angels did (Arael is a good example) causes a sort of revelation: That's how we would have communicated if that Angel was the human race . Mixes in with Fridge Horror.

It is mostly assumed that the term "First Children" is used in the plural when refering to the pilot, not singular as it should have been, because of a translation error. It isn't. This is clearer in the manga, but taking into account that every single student in Shinji's class is a potential pilot, it isn't that there is a first child, but the chosen representative of the potential "First Children" since, if this pilot was to be fired or put out of action, he can be replaced by the other "First Children." The chosen pilot represents the available talent pool, hence is not just a single child. Mind? Blown.

The Angels are defended by Absolute Terror fields. What is their salute in the Bible, where they're not hostile? Fear me not.

In the first episode, the EVA activates and protects Shinji. No one has any idea why or how the EVA was able to protect Shinji without a pilot being inside it and are just as surprised as Shinji. This is foreshadowing the how and why of an EVA. Ritsuko's reaction has more shock and surprise, since she actually knows how an EVA works and reacted like how someone would react to a robot becoming self-aware and the foreshadowing comes in the fact that there's the reason for why the EVA saved Shinji. It shared a sort of bond with him

All the Mind Screw in the series, as well as any Fridge Logic (most notably Kaworu still appearing in the ending, despite being a dead angel ) is explained very neatly if you consider that the whole thing is Shinjis dream Shinji, Rei, Asuka, and Kaworu are all playing music together at school. Rei and Asuka chat among themselves, hinting theyre good friends ; this hints that the whole series was nothing like what was going on in the real world . A Deleted Scene from EoE shows a world without Shinji, appearing perfectly normal, in which Asuka is in a relationship with Touji and, more importantly, friends with Rei, like in Death , and, according to a brief piece of dialogue in ep. 26': Shinji: I dont understand. I dont understand reality very well. Rei: The gap between others reality and your truth is impossible for you to grasp, isnt it. Shinji: The thing is, I dont know where happiness is. Rei: You cannot find happiness anywhere but your dreams, can you. Shinji: So, this is not reality, this world where there is no-one. Rei: Thats right, its a dream. Shinji: So, Im not here. Rei: You took revenge against reality in your convenient fabrications. Shinji: Is that wrong? Rei: You ran off to your imaginations and fooled reality. Shinji: Cant I dream Im alone in the world? Rei: Thats not a dream, thats just compensating for reality.

It seems weird that Shinji is so freaked out by being asked to pilot Eva-01. Then you find out that when he was 4 (too young to remember but old enough to form impressions) he watched that thing kill/'absorb' his mother. He's afraid the same thing will happen to him.

The choice of Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus" as the soundtrack for Asuka's Mind Rape. The entire "Messiah" is about Christ's life, and that particular part is about the Second Coming...and Asuka's world is ending. Also, the choice of "Ode to Joy" as the soundtrack for the last Angel fight, since the poem is about the oneness of mankind, taken literally with the Instrumentality

The ending theme song Fly Me to the Moon may not seem to have any relevance to the plot at first glance, but if you analyze the lyrics closely, it does contain some subtle foreshadowing that doesn't become apparent until the very end. Of particular note are the following lines: Fly me to the moon/And let me play among the stars and Fill my heart with song/And let me sing forevermore. These lines more or less allude to the ultimate fate of Unit 01 in The End of Evangelion: It floats away from Earth, past the moon, and into outer space; where it will forever drift among the stars as an eternal testament to humanity's existence (in accordance with Yui Ikari's personal goal for the Evangelion project) . As someone who grew up listening to the Frank Sinatra version of the song (which was never used on the show, presumably because of the royalties being too expensive for an already strained budget), this troper also noticed the lyrics "You are all I long for/All I worship and adore/In other words, please be true/In other words, I love you." This could also allude to Yui's maternal love for Shinji, or vice versa. Or that line could be referring to Kaworu's love for Shinji. After all, in the trailer, guess whose face appeared when "In other words, I love you" comes to play. For a show about people who Cannot Spit It Out, the lyrics of the song are absurdly fitting. The song has to work its way from "In other words, hold my hand/In other words, darling kiss me" and takes the entire length of the ED before it finally gets to "In other words, please be true/In other words, I love you"

The "trailer" mentioned above is the Bonus from Evangelion 2.22 on Bluray.

When looking at the opening theme A Cruel Angel's Thesis, you'd think that the titular "Cruel Angel" could be any one of the Angels encountered by Shinji and the rest of Nerv, right? Funnily enough, the entire song is about the condition of the characters in the series and about humanity in general. In End of Evangelion, humanity is revealed as having been born from Lilith in the same way that the other Angels that were born from Adam. That means that the titular cruel Angel, in fact the cruelest of them all, is mankind itself. Speaking of Cruel Angel's Thesis, if you freezeframe through the latter half of the opening, you will clearly see an image of Kaworu. Yes, you can see this even in the first episode. The guy was in the anime since the beginning.

The name of the series at first glance seems to simply allude to the Evas, but when you look at its Greek translation, "Gospel of the New Genesis", it takes on more thematic relevance. Taking into account that things irrevocably changed for humanity after Second Impact, so much so that you could call it a new beginning, or new genesis, for humanity; and that the current state of humanity and its future are major themes of the show, the thematic relevance of the name becomes clear: The entire series is an account of the new state of humanity after Second Impact and its future from there. In other words, it's the Gospel of the New Genesis for humanity. This makes Keel's final words, "the beginning and the end are one in the same", very true (and almost fourth wall leaning) considering how the series ends: The film that ends the series is called The End of Evangelion, essentially The End of the Gospel; and it ends with Shinji and Asuka as the only two humans on Earth after Third Impact, a metaphorical Adam and Eve, with the possibility of the rest of humanity returning from the LCL sea. The Gospel of the New Genesis for humanity ends with another New Genesis for humanity. In other words, the beginning and the end ARE one in the same- just not in the way Keel and SEELE intended.

It dawned upon me just how pivotal Shinjis relationship with Misato really is.



Think about it: shes a captain (later major) in a major paramilitary group in a city where the rent is obviously very low, and she still has some trouble making ends meet taking care of him and Asuka (even a nice steak dinner, which Asuka and Shinji dismiss as nothing too extraordinary when shes not listening, is a financial strain on her). When she dies, Shinji starts to genuinely break down and crynot just be on the verge, not get teary eyed, not cry a bit out of joy, he breaks down and cries.



He doesnt cry when he finds out his father called him back just because he needed his skills or when he tells him to leave him be when theres a parent-teacher conference. He doesnt cry when Rei II dies. He doesnt cry when he finds out his lover betrayed him and he has to kill him. It takes Misato dying to defend him and putting on a brave face to hide it to really break him up.



Misato had been there for him for a prolonged period of time and done everything in her power to provide for him and push him forward. Shinji is more than aware of this. She was the closest person to him and the closest thing to normal human connection hed had since his mother. Obviously, he is devastated when all of his efforts to form a healthy, long-lasting relationship turn practically futile.

And after all that, when the Third Impact happens, he still chooses to reject Instrumentality and learn how to form healthy, long-lasting relationships, even if almost the entirety of the rest of humanity has given up.



Shinji is a paragon of mental fortitude.

In the final episode of the TV series, Shinji gets a glimpse of a world where he is not an Eva pilot. While that was just meant to illustrate that he can define himself however he wants, a world in which Shinji is not an Eva pilot technically becomes reality in The End of Evangelion: By the end of the film, Unit 01 has drifted off into space and the rest of the Evas have either been destroyed or rendered inert. In other words- Shinji now exists in a world where he is not an Eva pilot by virtue of there being no more Evas to pilot.

Shinjis problems stem first and foremost from having to put his own well-being aside for the sake of others, put up for the task by his father. His problems are representative of a major issue in Japanese society, where it is extremely rude to burden others with your complaints and problems: youre basically supposed to not make a fuss. Shinji epitomises this, piloting the Eva despite the huge toll it takes on his emotional well-being because everyone needs him to, but hes not the only one knuckling under the no fuss must, everyone is. And what better way to symbolise this but using the image of Jesus on the cross, who made the ultimate sacrifice for absolutely everyone? Yeah, the cross imagery might not have been Faux Symbolism after all.

Many of the trios formed (school-related or not) have their members reach the same fate by the end of the movie. The university trio (Misato, Ritsuko and Kaji) are shot dead, the Bridge Bunny trio (Maya, Makoto and Shigeru) are met by the people they admire (except for Shigeru) through Instrumentality, and the Children's friends' trio (Hikari, Kensuke and Toji) have disappeared off-screen by the time the TV series has come to a close (in this instance, episodes 25 and 26 wouldn't count, due the Mind Screw Gainax Ending nature of the TV finale). The Children (Asuka, Rei and Shinji) are an exception, although the girls' penultimate scenes involve the nature of the show (the Evangelions and the Angels).

Gendo had EVA-00's right arm blasted off while Rei still synchronized with it, so she felt all the pain. Fast forward to End, and the first thing Rei does when she betrays him is tear his right arm off with her new Angel powers.