The story itself takes place in a post-apocalyptic world of eternal summer. It begins in 2010, 10 years after the Second Impact. The Second Impact is apparently what caused the harm on the world. It is believed by the public and almost every single character in the show to have been caused by a meteorite clashing into Antartica. This also provoked nuclear war and economic distress. As a result, we have the half-empty Neo Tokyo that the story begins in.
Later in the show, the main characters discover that the Second Impact was caused not by a meteorite, but a result of contact with and experimentation on a single angel that was dubbed "Adam." The picture above is of Adam.
Let me note right now that it should be pretty clear that the angels in Evangelion have little to no similarity to Biblical or traditional Western angels. It was pretty much just the name that was given to correlate them with the angels in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The story begins with the angels returning to earth. An organization called NERV is in charge of the resistance against the angels. Within the basement of the NERV building is another dormant angel. It is believed that the angel there is the original Adam that caused the Second Impact, and that if another angel were to make contact with it, the Third Impact would occur and the world would come to an utter end. Of course, the dormant angel is revealed to be not Adam, but an angel called Lilith.
This raises the question of why they didn't just destroy Lilith and end the troubles. There are several reasons:
1: SEELE, the organization supporting NERV, planned to use Lilith to cause the Third Impact in their own way, in a way that would result in Instrumentality.
2: Lilith seems to be the substance of marshmellow, and since angels seem to be fire-resistant, it would be pretty much impossible to destroy her.
I mean, look at her:
She's all white and freaky and marshmellowy.
Oh, and while a lot of religious symbolism in this show actually makes sense, not all of it does. Sometimes the writer just liked throwing crosses and crucifixions everywhere. But more on that later.
Anyways, so the angels themselves don't all have such an invulnerable consistency, but they're pretty much totally resistant to all machine weapons. So NERV and SEELE develop Evangelions, which are humanoid biotechnological giant mecha robots that can only be piloted by children, specifically teenagers around fourteen years old.
Why? Maybe they're just really mean and like to let kids experience traumatic events like risking their lives fighting abominations from some distant place in the galaxy.
Despite being made to protect humanity from the vicious threats of the otherworldly aliens, the Evangelions are designed to look pretty darn freaky, on purpose. To quote Anno:
"There's a monster in Japan called the Oni; it has two horns sticking out of its head and the overall image of the Eva is based on that. I also wanted to give the impression that beneath this 'robot monster' image is not so much a robot, but a giant human."
Okay, so, to be fair, the Evas themselves with the armor don't look that scary. Unless if they're having a hissy fit.
They just won't accept adults (maybe because a lot of the adults in the series are scheming jerks.) This may be because the Evas have human souls inside of them, which I presume, animate them. And these souls are directly connected to the pilot, at least in the examples of Eva 0, 1 and 2.
Going back on track, the series hits off with the main character, Ikari Shinji, traveling to Neo Tokyo and becoming (with great reluctance) a pilot of Eva 1 (seen above in both pictures.) He fights his first angel, winning when the Eva goes beserk and pretty much does all the work for him. But as more angels come to town and he gets more adjusted to life as a pilot, he proves to be pretty good at it and the Eva only goes beserk when he is utterly and totally overmatched or if the power for the Eva runs out and his life is in grave danger.
The other two pilots, Ayanami Rei and Soryu Langley Asuka who pilot Eva 0 and 2 are there to stay throughout most the series. Rei appears in the first episode, while Asuka does not appear until episode 8 (out of a 24 episode series.) Yet once introduced, they stay and pilot, defeating several angels together with Shinji.
At the arrival of Bardiel, the 9th angel, another pilot is briefly put on the scene. The character will be covered more indepth later, but he was seen as early as the second episode. In the episode with Bardiel, he is chosen as a pilot for Eva Unit 3, which is corrupted and controlled by Bardiel. It defeats both Eva 0 and 2, and when it attacks Shinji, he refuses to retaliate or hardly defend himself, fearing for the pilot (even though he has no idea who the pilot is, much less that it is his school friend.) Shinji's jerk of a father who is the leader of NERV has a dummy system, which was installed into Eva 1 earlier in the episode, take over. It takes away all of Shinji's control of the unit, and has it utterly destroy Eva 3, crushing the pod with the pilot in it to boot.
After this, Shinji leaves NERV, but returns, affirming his identity is connected to his Eva, when the 10th angel Zeruel attacks and utterly defeats Eva 2 and Asuka. Shinji fights the angel effectively, but his power runs out. The Eva 1 goes beserk worse than before, and eats the angel alive, taking some of it's power. The unit absorbs Shinji for months while the boy takes a introspective, odd journey into his own mind.
After this, Arael, 11th angel appears. It uses a light beam to probe into Asuka's mind. The angel, which had been staying high in orbit over the earth, was destroyed by Rei in the Eva 0 Unit by throwing a lance called The Lance of Longinus (for no good reason.) After this, Asuka's mental state spirals steadily downwards, and when the next angel attacks she is unable to use her Eva at all. It is destroyed by Rei, whose unit had been contaminated by the angel, by gathering the angel in her unit and self-destructing. Miraculously, she appears to survive...
The very last angel is Tabris, who came in human guise, sent by SEELE to replace Asuka. He is killed by Shinji at the angel's own request.
The series then ends with Instrumentality in full swing.
I've left out some pretty key terms that I need to cover and define. The main thing is the A.T. Field. By the way, I know there was a rumor going around that A.T. Field was some sorta medical term that had to do with autism and that's totally false, so just forget it.
The A.T. Field is at first only seen from angels. When they are attacked, the field appears around them, like a glowing force field. It is called the "shield of the soul that none can penetrate" and other such things. It's the absolute defense for the angels against most attacks, except for most Eva attacks. The strength of the shield varies with each angel. The only thing that can absolutely penetrate it without fail is the Lance of Longinus.
The Evas also have a field, though it seems to be used far less; at any rate, it's nowhere near as strong. Angels and Evas are supposed to be the only creatures that have A.T. Fields, but it is later revealed that every being has them, but just not in the same force-field form.
The A.T. Field for humans holds them together in a singular shape. When the A.T. Fields of all beings is destroyed in End of Evangelion, all life disintegrates into a primordial soup (frequently called tang or orange juice because it's very orange. If you see me refer to either beverage, that's what I'm referring to.) This soup is formally called LCL, which is also what fills the inside of the pods that the Eva pilots control the Evas in. Shinji says it smells like blood, which makes sense, since it comes from the side of the dormant Lilith...go back up to the picture. See that orange stuff rolling down like blood? Yep, that's it.
Another thing is Instrumentality itself. It basically refers to the loss of all A.T. Fields, but the two main bidders for it, SEELE and Shinji's jerk of a dad, seem to want to go about it in different ways. Why it would make any difference, we never really find out.
I think that covers it. For those of you who are like "Hey, you left out Adam's history with Lilith and the Angels and the Lilin and Gendo's name and blah blah blah" I'll get to it later.
From here on out, I'll do a rough but more precise introduction of all the characters. Then I plan to examine Misato, Asuka, Rei and Shinji, and include more specific info on the side characters/other main characters within these examinations. I was thinking of doing it in reverse order, but Misato's more directly connected to the main plot than the kids are, so it would suit to do her first before I get into the big indepth human experience that will be mainly examined in the kids and kinda deviates away from the plot.
I'll probably give End of Evangelion it's own examination, too....though it really doesn't deserve it. I'll probably just include it as part of the analysis on the main four characters.
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