Hideaki Anno

Criterion Channel Adds Evangelion Series and Films Starting September 1

The Criterion Channel confirmed it will stream the original Neon Genesis Evangelion TV series alongside Evangelion: Death (True)² and The End of Evangelion starting September 1 — a streaming-availability update separate from the newly announced Evangelion anime series.

Shinji Ikari — Anime's Most Complex Protagonist and Why He's Not a Coward

Shinji Ikari is routinely dismissed as 'the worst anime protagonist' by viewers who miss what NGE is actually doing with him. Anno constructed Shinji as a character whose psychological realism — his genuine terror, his need for approval, his inability to escape his father's emotional abandonment — reflects the show's thesis about human isolation. His 'cowardice' is the series' most accurate psychological portrait.

The Angels — NGE's Monsters That Are Not What They Appear

Neon Genesis Evangelion's Angels — the entities NERV defends humanity against — are among anime's most disturbing and conceptually strange antagonists. Each Angel has a unique design philosophy and method of attack, and the series gradually reveals that their relationship to humanity (and to the Evas) is far more intimate and disturbing than the initial 'monsters attacking Tokyo' premise suggests.

Rei Ayanami and Asuka Langley — NGE's Influence on Anime Character Archetypes

Rei Ayanami (quiet, blue-haired, emotionally detached) and Asuka Langley Soryu (aggressive, competitive, emotionally armored) are the two archetypes from which thousands of subsequent anime characters derive. NGE is directly responsible for the prevalence of both 'kuudere' and 'tsundere' characters in the medium, and its treatment of both as psychologically specific individuals rather than types remains unsurpassed.

Instrumentality — NGE's Ending and What Anno Was Trying to Say

The Human Instrumentality Project — the plan to merge all human consciousness into one being, eliminating the boundaries (and pain) of individual existence — is one of anime's most philosophically ambitious plot constructions. Anno's original TV ending (episodes 25–26) explores Instrumentality from inside Shinji's psychology; The End of Evangelion shows what it looks like from the outside. Together they constitute one of the medium's most complete philosophical statements.