Neon Genesis Evangelion (Japanese: 新世紀エヴァンゲリオン, Hepburn: Shinseiki Evangerion, lit. 'New Century Evangelion' in Japanese and lit. 'New Beginning Gospel' in Greek), also known simply as Evangelion or Eva, is a Japanese mecha anime television series produced by Gainax, animated by Tatsunoko, and directed by Hideaki Anno. It was broadcast on TV Tokyo from October 1995 to March 1996. Evangelion is set fifteen years after a worldwide cataclysm called the Second Impact, particularly in the futuristic fortified city of Tokyo-3. The protagonist is Shinji Ikari, a teenage boy recruited by his father Gendo to the mysterious organization Nerv to pilot a giant biomechanical mecha called an Evangelion and fight against beings known as Angels.
The series explores the experiences and emotions of the Evangelion pilots and Nerv's members as they fight to prevent Angels from causing more cataclysms. In the process, they are called upon to understand the ultimate cause of events and the motives behind human action. The series has been described as a deconstruction of the mecha genre, and features archetypal imagery derived from Shinto cosmology as well as Jewish and Christian mystical traditions, including Midrashic tales and Kabbalah. The psychoanalytic accounts of human behavior put forward by Freud and Jung are also prominently featured.