Neon Genesis Evangelion, or "Shin Seiki Evangelion" as it is called in Japan, got its start in 1997 and ran until 1998, beginning with 26 TV series episodes and culminating in two finals movies, "Death and Rebirth" and "End of Evangelion". Evangelion is the brainchild of Japanese director Hideaki Anno, a man who has gone through much difficulty and hardship in order to achieve his goal of being an acclaimed anime director. Much of the result and expression of his pain is seen in Evangelion and its many multi-faceted characters.

The series is set in an apocalyptic world. It is the year 2015, 15 years after an accident, dubbed the "Second Impact", that killed 3/4ths of the world's population, turned the southern pole's waters red, and covered most of the rest of the earth with water. Almost no one knows what happened on that fateful day in the year 2000, but rumors abound of an encounter with a being of divine power - an "angel" - that cursed man for finding it by bringing on a global disaster. Mankind has rebuilt as best as it can in the past 15 years, but the day when the "Angels" will come back to finish what they have started is not far away.

Into this world comes 14 year-old Shinji Ikari, a lonely, introverted boy who keeps to himself. Having lost both his mother (by death) and his father (by abandonment) at a very young age, Shinji is twisted inward, unable to express himself or to interact with others around him. Having grown up without parents or guidance, save for his schoolteacher who he lives with, Shinji has no idea about the normal emotions or feelings of a teenage boy, and thus shuns contact with others of his age.

However, Shinji is forced to come out of the wall he has built around himself when his father sends for him suddenly after years of abandonment. The note he scrawls to Shinji has one word on it - "Come." Traveling to Tokyo-3, Japan's latest rebuilding of its capital city, Shinji is picked up by Captain Misato Katsuragi of NERV just in time to avoid the return of the destructive and mysterious "Angels" from 15 years ago. Once inside NERV's underground base, Shinji finds out the real reason for his father's summoning - he is to pilot mankind's last hope, the Evangelion, into battle against an Angel! Shinji narrowly survives his first battle with the creature, though what he sees in that first battle will be the beginning of what changes him, and mankind, forever. In the course of the series, Shinji will find out more about the Angels, the Evangelions, his father's nature, and most importantly, himself, as he and many others around him struggle to find meaning in an apocalyptic world.

Though the series at first centers on Shinji, it also expands out to focus on the lives, outlooks, and trauma of the characters around him, including Misato, Dr. Ritsuko Akagi, and fellow Evangelion pilots Rei Ayanami and Asuka Soryu Langley. Though it may be at first another "mecha" series featuring giant machines, Evangelion is much different, as shown from the very first episode. While the first half of the series explores the external conflicts that happen in NERV's fight to save mankind from the Angels, the second half, by contrast, begins to turn inward, exploring characters and mentalities that are worthy of a psychologist's study about an unstable serial killer. Conspiracy, drama, pain, and uneasy comedy are the traits that the Evangelion series uses in order to draw its fans in, and it has succeeded in this in many ways. It is definitely a series worth watching at least once - twice or more if you really want to understand what really happens.