@redweasel  
Just saying that it was a parody isn’t really accurate. It’s not even particularly a subversion of the giant robot genre, since it really just builds on a lot of concepts that were already developed in other shows like Gao Gai Gar, and very heavily references preceding series of all kinds. Heck, Unit-01’s design is a reference to Devilman of all things.
 
If Gainax brought anything really new to the table, I’d have to argue that it’d be a completely novel approach to marketing and PR, a willingness to go wherever the story went, and Hideakki Anno.
 
Anno wasn’t the only writer or director involved with the project, I think it’s important to note. The production team was full of people with all sorts of ideas. That’s why some episodes of the show are almost scene-for-scene stock giant robot monster-of-the-week show and some episodes are half an hour of Shinji having an existential conversation with his own dead mother inside his own dead mother.

@Background Pony #71C3  
it’s funny because they were trying to parody giant robot anime  
but they were screwy luey cuckoopants so it didn’t come out right

@Ghouleh  
That’s kind of true, honestly. Evangelion is full of harsh reality and cynicism and trying to portray human beings as human beings.
 
It also suffers from a big heaping dose of “our director went cuckoopants”.

I feel like NGE and TTGL being the two sides of the same coin. TTGL takes the giant robot genre to it’s idealistic extreme, while NGE takes it to it’s cynical extreme.

If you take NGE at face value, it’s quite stupid. If you take NGE by it’s psychological value, it’s a masterpiece.

Evangelion is the best  
they all turned to goo, and it was awesome  
TTGL is pretty fucking sweet, in a totally different way
 
funnily enough, they both share a lot of themes

There was even a Law of conservation of Cool. Too much and the universe’s fucked.

…
 
WAT?!

TTGL didn’t HAVE laws of physics.
 
Actually, that’s not true. The Rule of Cool was the presiding law in that universe. You have an excellent point.

TTGL was better. It endeavored to make sense within the confines of it’s laws of physics. No, seriously, it did.

Having a giant fighting robot as a mom must be mind blowing.

NGE in a nutshell.
 
3deep5u casualfags!!1

Luna as Misato is my favorite part.

No, they turn into gak

i have no clue if it’s true or not but it’s from japan so i wouldn’t be suprised

Goo. It was definitely goo.
 
And it was stupid. I’m sorry if anyone else liked it, but I hated NGE.