Neon Genesis Evangelion (TV)

Most of the characters in Neon Genesis Evangelion were given the same birthdays as their seiyuu. Megumi Ogata and Shinji Ikari share a birthday on June 6. (Megumi was born in 1965; Shinji in 2001.)

Touji's birthday is on 26.XII, the day that is devoted to the first christian martyr.

The Marduk Institute is named after Marduk, an ancient deity. Sacrifices to Marduk included live children.

The SEELE Logo is the Seven Eyes of God and the Triangle symbol that decorates Lilith's mask.

In Jewish folklore Lilith was the first wife of Adam. She was not made 'from' Adam, but from the earth as he was. Thus, Lilith felt no reason to be submissive to Adam: she spoke the true name of God, sprouted wings and flew away. She becomes the mother of all demons.

Some people theorize that Keel, the leader of Seele and initiator of the Third Impact, might be based upon the Wandering Jew, who was cursed by Jesus to live an eternal life.

In Gendo Ikari's office, there are two identical symbols on the floor and ceiling. These are both the tree of life, which contains the Sephirot, or ten spheres of life. Gendo's desk lies at the sphere which is the symbol for God.

The AT in AT-field stands for "absolute terror".

In the original japanese version and dubbed videos (But not the DVDs) there is a different version of fly me to the moon in each episode. The ADV DVD version still has multiply versions of the song but not a different one each episode.

NERV's motto of sorts, "God's in his heaven; all's right with the world," comes from a poem by Robert Browning called "The Year's at the Spring." The full text: "The year's at the spring,/ And day's at the morn;/ Morning's at seven;/ The hill-side's dew-pearled;/ The lark's on the wing;/ The snail's on the thorn; /God's in his Heaven—/ All's right with the world!"

"Seele" is the German word for "soul". Also, "gehirn" means "brain," and "nerv" is the word for - you guessed it - "nerve."

The three MAGI Supercomputers, Melchior, Balthasar and Casper (Gaspar) are, of course, the names of the three wise men (also known as "magi") who, according to Christian legend, followed the guiding star to Bethlehem in order to give praise and gifts to the newborn Christ.

The story for "Evangelion" came from Yoshiyuki Tomino's classic series "Space Runaway Ideon." Anno has gone on record saying that Tomino-sensei and his stories (such as "Mobile Suit Gundam") were his biggest inspirations.

In the comics, it is shown that Touji Suzuhara has Brown hair. However, he has Black Hair with slight shades of green in the Animation and Games.

Many of the characters were named after various WWII-era Japanese naval vessels. 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 and Aoba are names of heavy cruisers; the Ibuki existed only on paper, it was never built.

The three children married the three Eva techs - as in the actors. Spike Spencer (Shinji Ikari) married Kendra Benham (Maya Ibuki), Amanda Winn (Rei Ayanami) married Jason Lee (Shigeru Aoba) (and thus Amanda Winn-Lee), and Tiffany Grant (Asuka Langley Sohryu) married Matt Greenfield (Makoto Hyuga).

Rei has several different meanings in Japanese. Those that closely pertain to NGE include "soul", "ghost", "zero", "cool" (detatched), and "companion".

Winner of the "Best TV Animation Award" at the 1st Animation Kobe (1996)

In the Director's Cut version of Episode 22, five doubles of Asuka, voiced by the actresses of other female characters in the show, appear to torment the real Asuka with images of her past behavior. In their order of appearance, these Asukas are played by Kotono Mitsuishi (Misato), Megumi Hayashibara (Rei and Yui), Miki Nagasawa (Maya), Yuriko Yamaguchi (Ritsuko), and Junko Iwao (Hikari), with each actress giving her own imitation of Yuko Miyamura's portrayal of the character. However, in the English dub, they are all played by Asuka's normal voice actress, Tiffany Grant, and her lines are simply looped five times.

The kanji used in Shinji and Gendou's last name (Ikari) means "Anchor".

The translation of the Japanese title "Shin Seiki Evangelion" is "New Century/Era Gospel" or, "Gospel of the New Century/Era." When coming to the US, Gainax made the decision to use the title "Neon Genesis Evangelion." Contrary to popular belief, this title is not a big departure from the original title. "Neon" is the neuter form of the Greek "Neos," which also has a meaning of "New." "Genesis" translates from Latin as "beginning." Evangelion translates from Latin (from the original Greek) as "good news," which is often translated as "Gospel." So the US version of the title translates as "New Beginning Gospel" or "Gospel of the New Beginning."

Often wondered is why the name "Evangelion" is given to the mecha when it translates as "Gospel." The word "Evangelion" actually has dual definitions, which Gainax may have used when naming the show and mecha. The original Greek "Euangelion" was composed of the prefix "Ev" meaning "good" and "angelion" (derived from "angelos" which means "angel/messenger") meaning "messenger." So, the word originally meant "good messenger." Over time, it evolved to simply mean "good news/good message" and later to mean "gospel."

The 'Hall of Gaf' (often 'Room of Gaf' or 'Chamber of Gaf' in literature [Spellings often appear as 'Gaffe' 'Guf' 'Guaf') is the mythical place where souls are kept before they are born. The Hall of Gaf referred to in Eva is located within the 'Black Moon' or 'Egg of Lillith.' Presumably there is also one located in the 'White Moon' or 'Egg of Adam' which houses the souls of Angels. Some faiths believe that the Hall of Gaf houses a finite number of souls. When, and only when it is completely empty (note Ristsuko mentions it is empty while she is dealing with Rei) can the messiah return.

The names of the ships in the UN fleet are all titles of various Shakespeare plays: the "Othello", the "Titus Andronicus", the "Cymbeline", and the "Tempest".

GAINAX did not publicly release the original animation cels used in the series causing an uproar among the fans. Only a few cels were leaked and these sell at staggering prices in auctions (Prices as high as US$3,800). Later the studio released a collection of machine duplicated cels called the Evangelion Cellu Club.

The letters in the background of the room with the tube Rei can be found floating in are actually DNA sequences. ACGT are all abbrieviations of nucleotides, Adenine, Cytosine, Guanine, and Thymine respectively.

In the director's commentary for episode 1 on the Platinum Edition DVD, Matt Greenfield revealed that the apparent mistranslation of the Japanese 'Shitou' as 'Angel' for the American dub was, in point of fact, a directive from Gainax, and not a translation error.

Rei Ayanami is named after Rei Hino/Sailor Mars from Sailor Moon. This is because Hideaki Anno wanted to get the director of Sailor Moon, Kunihiko Ikuhara, as part of the Eva staff. However, this was unachieved.

The Lance of Longinus (more generally called the Spear of Destiny) is the lance that supposedly pierced Christ's side during his crucifixion. The name "Longinus" is derived from its appearance in the Gospel of Nicodemus, in which the previously unidentified wielder is identified as the roman centurion, Longinus

Won in 1997 the Japan Media Arts Festival prize for excellence at the animation category

In Episode 4, you will see Kensuke alert Touji when Misato is watching the train depart. Touji turns around to the right to see Misato, and the scene cuts to Misato looking past them. The next scene change only a few seconds after suddenly has Touji watching the train departing with his hands crossed behind his head and Kensuke nowhere in sight.

In episode 6, Katsuragi names the attempt to use a high powered sniper gun to defeat the angel as "Operation Yashima". IJN Yashima was a pre-dreadnought battleship sunk by Russian mines in 1904. The Battle of Yashima of 1185 is famous, among other things, for the great archery marksmanship of Nasu no Yoichi who shot a fan placed atop the mast of an enemy warship.

In Episode 7, Misato's cans of Yebisu beer are labelled "Yebichu", with a picture of a hamster replacing the "beer god". This is a reference to the manga "Oruchuban Ebichu" by Lisa Itoh, which Hideaki Anno was a fan of. When Gainax later produced the anime version, "Oruchuban Ebichu", they carried the joke over.

There is a Star Wars reference in this series. In Episode 7: A Human Work, Misato is preparing to enter the radioactive robot, Jet Alone, to try and stop his ceaseless rampage. After almost losing her grip and falling 100' straight off the robot, Misato manages to cling on and crawl back towards the hatch. After opening the hatch and looking far down into the red-hot engine of the robot, Misato utters Luke Skywalker's phrase, "I have a bad feeling about this."

In episode 8, the camera looks up from below at Asuka in her yellow dress as she stands with her hands on the guard rail at the edge of the deck of a warship. We can see the sun above shining behind a large mast that is part of the superstructure of the ship. The silhouette of that superstructure is shaped like two Boeing B-29 bombers flying in very close formation. The American B-29 Superfortress was the model of high-altitude bomber that twice dropped the atomic bombs on Japan during the closing weeks of World War II. Asuka herself, while of German and Japanese heritage, is from America, and her middle name, Langley, is also the name of America's first aircraft carrier. (This is in keeping with the series' practice of naming major characters after their home nation's warships, as described elsewhere in these trivia.) The B-29 symbolism thus adds another dimension to this theme.

In episode 16, Shinji and EVA-01 are absorbed into a "Sea of Dirac." This comes from a theory by physicist Paul Dirac which states that the entire universe is filled with densely packed, negative energy electrons (in other words, antimatter). This became known as a Dirac Sea, though later studies by other physicists gave way to the similar, but slightly more accurate Stückelberg-Feynman theory.