Neon Genesis Evangelion/Trivia: Difference between revisions

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* [[Acting for Two]]: Notably, [[Megumi Hayashibara]] voices Rei, Yui and Unit-01 (...and Pen-Pen). The trope is employed very deliberately in the case of the first three, seeing how they all share a connection.

* [[Anime First]]: An odd example. The [[Manga]] ran for almost a year before the series began, but it was made specifically for promoting the anime.

* [[Cross-Dressing Voices]]: For Shinji only in the original Japanese. [[Spike Spencer]] voices him in the English dub.

* [[Defictionalization]]: Operation Yashima, the plan to reroute all of Japan's electricity into a single sniper rifle to take down an Angel, was the name given to a [[Twitter]] campaign to support Tokyo Electric's plan [http://www.animenewsnetwork.cc//news/2011-03-12/evangelion-inspires-real-operation-yashima-after-quake to conserve electricity after the 2011 disasters].

* [[DVD Commentary]]: [[The Movie]]s feature commentaries by [[Amanda Winn-Lee]], her husband and Taliesin Jaffe, which are generally [[Love It or Hate It|beloved/despised]] (some have even nicknamed it "Commentary of Evil") for being mostly riffing, with a lot of conjecture about the possible meanings behind the films' abstract symbolism, and details on the process of dubbing the films and remastering the audio. The Platinum Edition of the TV series featured commentaries on several episodes as well, albeit less memorable ones.

* [[Enforced Method Acting]]: Yuko Miyamura allowed herself to be strangled by Megumi Ogata in the recording room during Shinji's vision of strangling Asuka in ''The End of Evangelion''.

** Rei in the English dub of ''Rebuild of Evangelion'': [[Baccano!|Ennis]], is that you? Naw, sounds more like a [[The Stoic|stoic]] [[Child Soldier]] [[Gunslinger Girl|abused by a callous, single-minded commander]]. Or maybe a certain extremely beautiful and cute... [[Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu|Boy?!]] Or a [[Disgaea|loli-cious demon]], and also a powerful, [[Paper Fan of Doom|fan-wielding]], [[Playing with Fire|fire-spell casting]] yet [[Yamato Nadeshiko|classy]] [[Persona 4|high school student]]. One of the two.

** Toji is [[G Gundam|DOMON KASSHU!]]

* [[Lying Creator]]: The amplitude of self-contradictory and at times seemingly absurd statements about the series from [[Hideaki Anno]] has led many to accuse him of this.

* [[No Export for You]]: On the Western market, the series saw its last release on DVD under [[ADV Films]] in 2008, after which the series went out of print due to ADV's financial problems, and while the show saw occasional re-releases in Japan, the opportunities for Western viewers to get their hands on a legitimate copy of the series was steady dwindling, and the outlook became worse when ADV later lost the right to license the series entirely. Subsequently, the complete series was released in a HD version on a Blu-ray boxset in 2016 on the Japanese marked, but despite large interest in the West, the boxset never saw a release there. It was first with [[Netflix]] announcing in November 2018 that they had gained the streaming rights to the HD version of the series on the Western market that the situation was somewhat rectified, and the event also renewed the Western fanbase's hopes that the Blu-ray boxset might also see a release in their part of the world some day.

* [[Old Shame]]: Shinji's French voice actor Donald Reignoux had a terrible time on the set, and for a long time, he refused to work at the Chinkel recording studio again.

** It's even worse in the Spanish dub. Only Shinji retains a single voice actor through the franchise, while the rest of characters have at least two or three, and often ''very'' different sounding among them. Asuka and Kaworu, who have a different VA in almost every medium of the franchise, are the worst examples.

** The French dub does not fare much better. Only Shinji and Misato retain their voice actors through the majority of the franchise, with ''The End of Evangelion'' shuffling up most of the cast and ''1.0'' recasting everyone. Fortunately, a decent chunk of the original cast (including the aforementiond two) return for the later films.

** There's also the manga. We have several [[Does This Remind You of Anything?]] moments, Kaworu killing a kitten, Shinji saying emphatically "Guys don't like guys!", Shinji and Kaworu's relationship downgraded to an unrequited [[Stupid Sexy Flanders]], Kaworu calling Rei a fool and saying "I figured you'd be a heftier girl.", Shinji and Kaworu in the ladies' room with Asuka... Yeah.

* [[Running the Asylum]]: ''[[Ikari Shinji Raising Project]]'', like most of the show's spinoff products, is quite obviously done by a [[Promoted Fanboy]], is entirely powered by [[Mythology Gag]] and [[Fan Service]], and is incredibly [[Doujinshi]]-esque. The same could be said about the ''Angelic Days'' manga. Not that we complain; [[Cash Cow Franchise|it's Eva characters, so we'll buy it]].

** This trope also extended to the American side of the Pacific with ADV Films. Commentary for the English dub will often make reference to it being made on budget that consisted of a metaphorical shoestring and paperclip, involved renting out space to do recordings with substandard equipment, and had a good portion of the cast played by members of the production team besides the voice actors, among other things. They weren't exactly in danger of going out of business, but it's still pretty amazing that the dub was as good as it was all things considered.

* [[Unintentional Period Piece]]:

** Plus, the series is set in a fictional vision of 2015. Notice the lack of smartphones.

* [[What Could Have Been]]: The [http://wiki.evageeks.org/Neon_Genesis_Evangelion_Proposal proposal] provides various examples.

** More generally, [http://wiki.evageeks.org/Resources:Neon_Genesis_Evangelion_Proposal_%28Translation%29 the original proposal for Evangelion] has been translated. Fans are particularly curious about the "Ruins of Arqa". Also, some have pointed to similarities with ''[[Rebuild of Evangelion]]''. Finally, the humanoid angel (likely a Kaworu prototype) was initially described as having a cat; this is [[Hilarious in Hindsight]] considering the manga, and was probably a [[Shout-Out]].

** The live-action movie (see [[Development Hell]] above).

* [[Word of God]]: Anno has issued a few surprising or controversial statements about ''Evangelion'', for example his quip that it [[Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory|shouldn't]] [[Wild Mass Guessing|be]] analyzed because it was just "a scream" on his part.

* [[Writing by the Seat of Your Pants]]: Downplayed. The series does by and large follow the plot as it was outlined in the original first draft proposal, with the first half or so being more or less beat-for-beat to the outline. But a case of [[Real Life Writes the Plot]] with the Aum Shinrikyo cult's terrorist attack on the Tokyo subway leading to much of the script having to be scrapped and Anno being in heavily treatment for his clinical depression, meant that the show starts seriously deviating from said proposal around Episode 16 and forwards.

* Many of the characters were named after various WWII-era naval vessels, most often aircraft carriers. ''Katsuragi'', ''Akagi'', and ''Soryu'' were all aircraft carriers; the ''Akagi'' led the attack on Pearl Harbor. ''Ayanami'' and ''Fuyutsuki'' were destroyers; ''Fuyutsuki'' rescued survivors from the great ''Yamato'' when she was sunk near Okinawa in 1945. ''Kirishima'' and ''Hyuga'' were battleships that were part of the fleet which attacked Pearl Harbor. ''Ibuki'', ''Maya'' and ''Aoba'' are names of heavy cruisers; the ''Ibuki'' existed only on paper, it was never built. The ''Hyuga'' is another warship. ''Langley'' is also the name of two American aircraft carriers, and the ''Graf Zeppelin'' is the name of an uncompleted Nazi-German aircraft carrier.

** Similarly, Ikari means "anchor."

** The second variant is when the kanji for ''unusual''(!) (which is 希) is removed from the above. This new term (波真, which is now ''nami shin'') now has an entirely new meaning: ''True Wave''. This would be best represented by how, near the ending of ''Rebuild 2.0'', Makinami unleashes an entirely new form of the EVA. She explains this as a pilot "rids itself of its humanity", and she uses code word to unlock this new form: ''The Beast''. Note that the Angels are, as per NERV's research, [[Does This Remind You of Anything?|supposed to bear a 99.89 percent similarity to humanity]]. That research, along with the above information, makes this "Beast" form not a coincidence.

* On another note, the interconnecting theme to the pilots here is how they have some usage of [[wikipedia:Momentum|the equation for momentum]] of light used in [[Visual Pun|Chemistry(!)]] and other sciences. Applying [[Fridge Logic]] based on the above given information, we have (in SI Units): Makinami (representing momentum, in kg*m/s) = Ayanami (representing frequency, in "1/s") x Shikinami (representing wavelength, in "m") x Shinji (representing mass, in "kg"; remember his name literally means ''anchor'').

* The Evangelions were based visually on [[Go Nagai]] creations ''[[Devilman]]'' and ''[[Mazinger Z]].'' Anno cites the terrifying face, slender build, hunched back and chest plate as coming from Devilman, while its glowing eyes with the red markings were derived from Mazinger Z. The first shot of Evangelion, with its large head, was a direct homage to the first episode of Mazinger Z.

* The opening shot of ''The End of Evangelion'' is a mirror image of the closing shot of ''Evangelion: Death''. The opening shot of ''Rebuild of Evangelion 1.0'' is a reflection of the closing shot of ''The End of Evangelion'', with a few... scenery details removed.

* Frame by frame on Episode 22, during the [[Mind Rape]] sequence, we get some...[[Incredibly Lame Pun|creepy analysis]] of what the Angel is doing. In order (apply [[Does This Remind You of Anything?]] throughout):

** [[wikipedia:Gnoll|Gnoll]] is a cross between a gnome and a troll. "Groll" (German for "resentment") is also accurate.

** And then repeated use of Nein (No) and Tod (Death).