Netflix has gotten a ton of anime going in recent years, and 2018 is no exception. Stuff like Devil Crybaby and Death Note have been bringing anime fans to the service, and now, another major title is set to stream; the Japanese mecha anime television series, Neon Genesis Evangelion.
Produced by Gainax and Tatsunoko Production, directed by Hideaki Anno, the existential anime was originally broadcast on TV Tokyo from October 1995 to March 1996. The series is set in a futuristic city called Tokyo-3, fifteen years after a terrible worldwide "event" has ravaged humanity. The main protagonist is Shinji, a teenage boy who was recruited into a sketchy organization called Nerv, by his father. Once inducted, he becomes responsible for piloting a giant bio-machine mecha called an "Evangelion", taking the fight to the creatures who are responsible for sending humanity into a tailspin, a race of alien beings that humans call "Angels".
Heavy on the religious themes (the series heavily features imagery from Kabbalah, Christianity, and Judaism) and dealing with heavy ideas like loneliness, purpose and meaning, Neon Genesis is a major landmark in anime, with a cast that includes Hideaki Anno as the director, Megumi Ogata as Shinji Ikari, Megumi Hayashibara as Rei Ayanami, and Yūko Miyamura as Asuka Langley Soryu. The music is composed by Shirō Sagisu, and you can get down with the mech-brawl this spring on Netflix.
