Neon Genesis Evangelion

One of the most controversial anime series ever produced, Neon Genesis Evangelion explores the issues of biblical prophecy, human origins, and the existence of God. In 2015, fifteen years humanity is decimated by a meteoric collision in Antarctica, beings called the Angels are waging war on the remnants of humanity, who struggle to defend themselves against the Angels' awesome power. An organization known as NERV, with its bio-technological battlesuits called Evangelions helps confront the invaders. However, for some reason, only children conceived during the disaster of 2000 are capable of piloting of Evangelion, and finding and training these youths proves to be a difficult task indeed. One of them, Shinji Ikari, is the son of the president of NERV, although he appears calm and detached, he often suffers from panic attacks followed by a fit of berserk rage. His attempts to master his Evangelion, Unit 01, are symbolic of his attempts to learn the secrets behind the Evangelions, NERV, and the Angels.

Episode 1: Angel Attack Shinji comes to Tokyo-3 at the request of his father, Gendo, as the city is currently being attacked by an Angel. Shinji hesitantly agrees and links with the Evangelion, then prepares for battle.
Episode 2: The Beast Shinji, struggling to control his Evangelion, gets badly damaged by the Angel, and then blacks out, only to wake up in a hospital bed. With nowhere else to live, he moves into Misato Katsuragi's apartment and learns what happened while he was unconscious.
Episode 3: A Transfer Shinji is unenthusiastic about his training and no one at school notices him until they find out he's an Eva pilot, so another student, Suzuhara Touji blames Shinji for injuring his sister in the battle. That day another Angel attacks, and Shinji must defend the populace once again—even Suzuhara.
Episode 4: Hedgehog's Dilemma After a failed attempt at running away, Misato scolds Shinji for disobeying her. However, she soon has a change of heart and tells him that he can leave if he wants to. Shinji, unhappy with his new life as a pilot, decides to do just that.

Episode 5: Rei: Beyond Her Heart In a flashback of sorts, Rei begins testing Eva Unit 00, but something goes horribly wrong and she has to eject. The experts suggest that the Eva malfunctioned due to mental instability. After an embarassing incident with Rei, another Angel attacks the city and Shinji is sent out to fight it.
Episode 6: Showdown in Tokyo-3 Due to this Angel's extreme power, Misato plans to use NERV's positron cannon against it. The only problem is, it needs an Evangelion to fire it, and between firings, the Eva would be open to attacks from the Angel. So Rei, in her Eva, takes point for Shinji in his and the battle begins anew.
Episode 7: The Human Creation NERV spills the beans to Shinji that the disaster a decade and a half before was not a meteor collision, but a self-destructing Angel in an incident called the Second Impact, and explains that its purpose is to prevent at all costs another, similar incident. Shinji, Misato, and Ritsuko attend a demonstration by another company trying to battle the Angels, called Jet Alone, but the prototype goes haywire and both Misato and Shinji try to prevent a meltdown.
Episode 8: Asuka Strikes! At the United Nations South Pacific Fleet, Shinji meets Asuka Langely, the headstrong pilot of Evangelion Unit 02. When a sea-dwelling Angel attacks the fleet, both Shinji and Asuka pilot EVA-02 and try to bring the monster down before it destroys the fleet and its precious, but secret, cargo.

Episode 9: Both of You, Dance Like You Want to Win In order to defeat a new Angel that can split itself into two functional parts, Asuka and Shinji must become completely synchronized, and Misato insists that they not only train together, but practice choreographed dance steps in order to defeat the monster.
Episode 10: Magmadiver When an embryonic Angel is discovered within an active Volcano, Asuka is given a special suit for her and for her Eva, and for the first time, humans are attacking the Angels.
Episode 11: The Day Tokyo-3 Stood Still When a power failure strikes the city at the same time that another Angel does, all three Eva pilots are needed to fend it off, but the pilots have a bit of trouble getting to the Evas. Once they do, they still have to contend with the Angel, an acid-spitting creature that looks like a spider.
Episode 12: The Value of A Miracle... In a flashback to the Second Collision, we see Misato put into a capsule to protect her from the cataclysm, at the cost of his own life. With Misato promoted to Major, another Angel is detected orbiting the Earth, which could easily destroy Tokyo-3 if it dropped down and landed. Misato sends the 3 Evas out to stop it before it succeeds in doing so.

Episode 13: Lillipution Hitcher When a nanomachine Angel invades NERV's MAGI supercomputers in an attempt to make the system self-destruct, the Evangelions are actually powerless to help. Ritsuko, whose mother designed the mainframes, must reprogram the last computer and fend off the Angel before it can initiate the self-destruct mechanism.
Episode 14: Weaving a Story Reviewing all of the Angels which attacked NERV since the beginning, the Human Instrumentality Project Special Conference complains that Shinji's father, Commander Ikari, has been hiding information or lying to them about some of the details. As Shinji and Rei try cross-training in each other's Evangelions, Eva-00 goes insane and tries to kill Rei.
Episode 15: Those Women Invited the Touch of Other's Lips, and Thus Invited Their Kisses. Shinji visits his mother's grave with his father, but the whole situation ends up awkward since Shinji blames his father for his mother's death. After some romantices hijinxes between Misato & Kaji and Asuka & Shinji, Kaji shows ADAM, the first Angel and key to the Second Impact, to Misato.
Episode 16: Splitting of the Beast The latest Angel, a large ballon that is actually a flat creature distorted by its Absolute Terror Field, floats over Tokyo-3, and sucks objects into another dimension known as the "Sea of Dirac." The three Evas plan to attack the Angel, but Shinji impulsively attacks first and is drawn in; inside, he is forced to confront his inner demons before he can escape.

Episode 17: Fourth Children Another branch of NERV in the Nevada desert is working on a pilotless Evangelion unit, but something goes wrong and an explosion destroys the whole installation. However, a fourth child is found, but Misato does not yet tell Shinji who it is just yet.
Episode 18: Ambivalence While EVA-03 is undergoing testing with the Fourth Child and a remote-piloting system called the "dummy plug," an Angel possesses the Eva and Shinji's Eva is subverted by the dummy plug, against Shinji's wishes, to attack the Angel/EVA with its pilot still inside.
Episode 19: Introjection After his father upbraids him for refusing to do as he is told, Shinji plans on leaving again. Before he can do so, the latest Angel attacks, and when EVA-01 rejects both Rei and the dummy plug, Asuka in EVA-02 goes out alone, but is quickly defeated. Shinji reluctantly returns to pilot his Eva, but runs out of power during the battle against his deadly foe..
Episode 20: Oral Stage Because its headquarters have been damaged during the battle, NERV relocates to the top of its massive MAGI supercomputers. While Unit 01 has been restrained, if not deactivated, Shinji remains inside and has merged with the Evangelion and lost all desire to back to reality.
Episode 21: He was Aware That He Still a Child Through a series of flashbacks, much of the history of Gendo Ikari and NERV is established. Before the second impact, Professor Fuyutsuki is appointed as Gendo's advisor, and the Evangelion project is begun from Adam as a new genesis for mankind. Gendo's wife Yui dies, Gendo introduces a young girl named Rei Ayanami who is quite similar to Yui, and NERV is officially established by the Instrumentality Committee.

Episode 22: Don't Be In a flashback to Asuka's childhood, her mother, a doctor, neglected her and increasingly suffered from delusions. Asuka developed a strong psychological shell to deal with these problems, but in 2015 her suppressed problems are taking their toll on her performance with her Eva. As an Angel attacks her through her thoughts and memories, Asuka begins to go crazy, powerless to stop her enemy. Commander Ikari decides to use the Spear of Longinus, stuck into Adam's body in the depths of NERV headquarters, to defeat the invader, but Asuka seems bent on suicide instead.
Episode 23: Rei III The Sixteenth Angel arrives, a double-helix of light, and begins attacking Rei's mind. Asuka tries to rescue her in her own Eva, but due to her depression cannot control it. Shinji's Eva is removed from stasis and sent out to save Rei, but Rei inverts her Eva's Absolute Terror Field, destroying both the Angel and her Eva before the two merge. Afterwards, Ritsuko shows Misato and Shinji an underground graveyard for the remains of old Evas, explaining that the desire of humanity to create God resulting in Adam, which in turn resulted in the Evangelions. She then shows that Rei was in fact the product of genetic engineering, and demonstrates this with a whole tank full of Reis used to control the dummy plugs.
Episode 24: The Beginning and the End, or "Knocking on Heaven's Door" Asuka is taken into custody for her depression, and Kaworu Nagisa, the Fifth Child, is sent over. Kaworu is odd, although very friendly, but can arbitrarily set the synch level with his Eva at will, Secretly an Angel, Kaworu tells Shinji that since Unit 02's soul (Asuka) is separated, he can take complete control of it, so that he can return to Adam and destroy humanity. Shinji tries to stop his friend, but has great emotional difficulties in doing so.
Episode 25: Do You Love Me? When Shinji becomes overcome with guilt because of what happened to Kaworu, all of his suppressed emotions come boiling up to the fore and his motivations and desires are explored directly through thoughts and memories. The others are also treated the same way, but what is shown as their minds is in fact merely the perceptions of them within Shinji's mind.
Episode 26: Take Care of Yourself In 2016, Shinji is still attempting to deal with rejection, failure, neglect, and hatred, and begins to question his own identity, since his image of himself may be no more real than everyone's perception of him.

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