Neon Genesis Evangelion

*Neon Genesis Evangelion* (新世紀エヴァンゲリオン *Shin Seiki Evangelion*) is an anime aired in 1995 produced by Gainax and written and directed by Hideaki Anno. It ran from December 4th, 1995 to March 27th, 1996, and consists of 26 episodes. The series also spawned the movie *End of Evangelion,* a manga by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, the *Rebuild of Evangelion: Theatrical Version* reboot, and several smaller spinoffs.

## Original Premise

*Evangelion* is set in the year 2015, 15 years after a cataclysmic event called the Second Impact, which turned Antarctica into a wasteland and killed half of the world's population. Following this, an organization called GEHIRN began the Adam Revival Project (commonly referred to as Project E), in which they developed large mecha that were called the Evangelions, or EVAs for short. Shortly after development was completed, GEHIRN was renamed NERV.

In 2015, for the first time since the Second Impact, humanity had a run-in with a mysterious creature called an Angel, which was completely immune to conventional military technology. In order to defeat it, control of the operation was transferred to Gendo Ikari and NERV, who proposed use of the Evangelions to defeat the Angel. Gendo's troubled son, Shinji Ikari, was summoned to NERV HQ and told to pilot Evangelion Unit-01 and fight the Angel, after being separated from his father for several years. Only after seeing injured fellow pilot Rei Ayanami would Shinji agree to pilot the Evangelion.

The show follows Shinji's time as Unit-01's designated pilot and the trials he faces in NERV's battle against the Angels. As the plot progresses, more is revealed about each character's psychological struggles and NERV's ulterior motives.

## Tie into SUMOverse

*Evangelion* began to play a part in SUMOverse around 2016, when Neg picked up Shinji Ikari as a character for roleplay on tumblr. She intended to give Shinji a *Pokémon* AU for some time, but it was not fully developed at the time she and Jay began to write interactions between Shinji and Hikari Toshiko. Shinji's story became heavily intertwined with Hikari's, and eventually turned into a *Black* and *White 2*-esque sequel to *Diamond, Pearl,* and *Platinum.* Consequently, the rest of the *Evangelion* cast's role in this storyline began to take shape in a way that would parallel the original storyline as closely as possible.

SUMOverse situates the *Evangelion* cast in Sinnoh due to the similarities between Sinnoh's lore and that of *Evangelion.* The organizations that parallel NERV and SEELE are the International Police and Team Galactic, respectively. Team Galactic's role in SUMOverse diverges somewhat from canon for the purposes of remaining more true to the morally gray *Evangelion* cast; rather than being a strictly malicious organization, Team Galactic actually begins as a research organization aiming to better the human race, before the emotionally distant and troubled Akagi uses his control of Galactic for criminal activity and to attain his goal of creating a world without strife. (See Team Galactic.)

## Characters

* Shinji Ikari
* Asuka Langley Soryu
* Rei Ayanami
* Kaworu Nagisa
* Yui Ikari
* Gendo Ikari
* Misato Katsuragi
* Makoto Hyuga
* Shigeru Aoba
* Ritsuko Akagi
* Maya Ibuki
* Naoko Akagi
* Ryoji Kaji
* Kozo Fuyutsuki
* Toji Suzuhara
* Kensuke Aida
* Hikari Horaki