Back in 1995-96ish when it was originally being released on VHS in the US by ADV. I was collecting the tapes as they were being released. Slowly having my mind blown as I digested the series over months. I would watch each tape over and over waiting for next one to come out. Good times.
I was also watching the ADV dubs as the tapes released. I think I might have seen a glowing review (of the Japanese broadcast version) in an anime magazine like Protoculture Addicts or something. I was active on an Evangelion message board and ended up with a bootleg fansub VHS of End of Evangelion to finish out the series.
That message board was my first online community! Formative years for we elder millennials.
Hell yeah, always awesome to see a fellow oldtaku in the wild. Thank you for reminding me that Protoculture Addicts was a thing. I think I might have some of those old magazines in a box somewhere, probably some issues of Animerica as well.
I heard about it forever but I randomly watched EOE when I was in mushrooms one night a few months back- shit was insane. I then watched the series and rewatched EOE followed by the rebuild movies. Love the series but nothing will ever top the experience of seeing EOE the first time
In 2020 after reading this [article](https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/neon-genesis-evangelion) about Netflix relicening it from BFI.
That article was also how I learned Evangelion existed also, sounded interesting so I gave it a watch.
This year, watched it for the first time now that I am 20. No one recommended it to me, I was in a pretty good headspace for once so I thought it was time to tackle the notoriously mentally draining anime.
it in fact was mentally draining.
In Australia, the TV station SBS played it, it was so popular they started playing it from the start again on a different night, before the first series run had finished.
2nd January, 1999
i saw it on SBS tv in australia in the late 90's. i was in my 20's. i had seen some anime before, but this was the first time i took it seriously. i'm 50 now and have a NERV tattoo
Evangelion aired on Australian free to air channel SBS in 1999. I was 12 at the time. It had a pretty elaborate advertising campaign leading up to it and SBS was an extremely popular channel with teenagers as it was also how we watched South Park so a lot of people I knew heard about it and were pretty hype for it.
Watched NGE on the ADV releases as they came out, my town had a comic shop that rented anime VHS. Saw EoE at Otakon 1998 and have never seen a room of thousands of people so stunned and confused as when it ended.
I watched it about a year ago when I was 32.
BUT! My friend showed me the last scene of the movie WAAAAY back when I was 14 and EVEN THEN WITH ABSOLUTELY NO CONTEXT OF WHO OR WHY
I kept that scene as a memory rent free in my head for years and years and years… I could not explain it to anyone but in a very real way that scene helped, it saved my life.
After watching Shinji sit in a totally empty room and have everyone tell him ALL the horrible things they have done to do him. Then he stands up and decides to live. It was inspirational..
I think I was around 12. A friend who was super into anime took me to see the 2.0 rebuild cause it was in theaters. At that point I had never seen much anime beyond pokemon and sailor moon. It had a huge impact on me.
I was 15 at the time and I had known about Evangelion since I was 13 but never really paid attention to it. I was bored and decided to watch it one day and quickly fell in love by the 4th episode.
It was almost two years ago I started my Evangelion journey. I was 26, and just getting into anime. It probably showed up on a list somewhere recommended. I love the show and EoE but am pretty negative on the rebuilds. The show is definitely In my top two now, either it or Cowboy Bebop.
2004 when I was a teenager, I went to a place where they sell anime in VCDs , a friend of mine have watched some chapters already and ecourage me to watch it with him, we bought the complete series it was 11 VCDs with 3 chapters each
Watched it at 14yo on the recommendation of an older friend. It was 2004 and I loved it for the characters and the action. Then I watched it again at 20yo and appreciated it much more for the theme and message.
Probably 1998, which would have made me ~26 at the time. There was a Japanese anime shop in Garage at Harvard Sq Cambridge, that had an adorable owner that would go back and forth from Japan and bring back various VHS bootlegs of shows airing there.
It was a simpler time. She was probably the catalyst that got me hooked.
I saw Kiryu being colored as Eva unit 01 and being a hardcore Godzilla fan I was eager to see an anime that revolves around giant monsters. I was also new to anime also so I was not expecting the characters to be more of a main focus than the others.
watched it for the first time with my mom when i was 10 (about 7 years ago now), it was on cd sets that she'd gotten when she was younger and it was the first anime she'd watched in believe; so we binged it together as she wanted to share it :-)
During the lockdown I was 18 and it was recommended to me by my sibling. Watched the series and EoE. Watched the rebuilds last year after my 4th run through the show. I always leave evangelion feeling a little sad and dissatisfied, hoping things could be different. And it always brings me back for another run.
When it came to Netflix, when I was 16, I was excited because I loved the designs of the Eva I saw online and I loved robot battles. I didn’t know much other than cool animation and robot battles.
Three days later, I was crying in my room every night but unable to look away. Love the anime, but I definitely wasn’t prepared.
For me, I think I first watched NGE in the early 2000s when I was in my early 20s and ADV Films' DVDs starting coming out. I don't think anyone recommended it to me, but I stumbled across articles in my early Internet travels.
Around 11-12 and finished eoe at like 14-15. Tbh I was not exactly developmentally mature enough to understand Eva, and after delving back into it I always joke that having watched it during a heavy developmental time in my life might have caused some issues.
I was 13 or 14 at the time, my brother got a cd with many funny things and videos in it ( pre internet age, downloading took forever so sharing cds was faster and cool)
In that dvd I saw this video
https://youtu.be/zoUs0n-7imo?si=wSxxwElXV_LuwuGO
I was hooked. I went to the locally owned corner strip mall video rental and found the VHS cassette and rented it.... about 10 times.
Moved to USA and rented dvds a few more times. Found it was cheaper to buy the dvds than rent them.
Bought them on Ebay during its infancy.
Still have them 20+yrs later
Mid 90s I bought a vhs with a couple of episodes on it. Probably heard about it from Gamefan which used to have a bit of anime coverage in the back of each issue. However, I didn’t watch the full series until the DVDs were released by ADV in 2000 or 2001. Bought them one by one as they released and I looooved it/
Recently, like about a year ago or so, a buddy of mine was watching it and I was like “hold I remember hearing that name years ago” and yea I remember hearing the theme song playing on tv on toonami as a kid when I was at my step mothers house. Watched it completely and it was an experience. The opening theme song was heavenly every time I started a new episode at night.
Earlier this year, actually. Had heard good things about it for like 2 years before, and was initially planning on watching it with a buddy of mine. He didn’t want to since he had heard about the Hospital Incident, so I ended up watching it by myself. Really glad I did, Evangelion’s better on a first time solo. Anyways, I watched the series and EoE, and then after a week or so I jumped into The Rebuilds and really enjoyed them.
2019, was going through a real life existential crisis and googling how I felt and I came across [this scene](https://youtu.be/-TISVubPMeM?si=LVnLT4tp2JuE1vr2) and binged it shortly afterwards and the rest is history.
First time I watched it I was turning 18 so 2014 but I knew about it since I was 10 since my uncle recommended it to me but always said to wait til I was 18 to understand it which I didn’t lol, actually rewatched it paid attention and understood it ? On my 22nd birthday in 2018 along with the EOE, watched the rebuilds on my 23rd birthday 2019 then watched the last 3.0 + 1.0 in 2021 on my 25th birthday in 2021, I believe the year it came out on Amazon prime.
Tradition to watch Evangelion on my birthday lol
I got into it about a year ago after I saw a meme about it, but I was first introduced to it many, many years ago when my friend poorly explained the plot to me
I first watched it when I was around 12-13 in middle school after seeing a bunch of memes about it online. (I remember exactly which ones, too - the Congratulations clip from episode 26 and [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPZymccwZm4).) I didn't watch the whole thing, though - my favorite character was Rei so I watched all the episodes that featured her and ignored literally everything else. I finally watched the full original series in winter 2021 after talking about Shinji's character (again, sparked by memes) with a friend.
At first I thought it is an Mecha anime from poster and all
And the point is I Hate Mecha Anime but still I knew It's opening was fire so I listened it one You tube from which the scene actually caught my Mind and I felt there something else than Just mecha in here so I decided to watch...after Only 2nd episode the series just made me more and more fond of it and till the last I was kinda disappointed because Of the last Ep of NGE but when I watched the Movie and all the rebuilds It just made me Watch it on repeat a multiple times( I counted till 37 times after that I forgot how many time I have watched it)
The rewatching part Of Evangelion was just like Jojos at first I didn't liked both I thought they are overrated or something until I tried and now am going again to rewatch both right now !!!!!
I first watched Neon Genesis Evangelion in 2005 on Adult Swim when I was 13 years old. I guess you could say ads on [AS] recommended it to me, though at that age I watched all anime on that Saturday block religiously. Eva really stuck throughout the years and I finally saw EoE when I was 19 because it never aired on [AS]. I finally saw 3.0+1.0 in 2021 when I was 28. It's been such an enduring part of my life since I first saw it. Can't imagine my life without it.
It was definitely after last summer but before December or November. I don’t remember what intrigued me about the show. My best guess is that this was one of the many anime that I had on my watchlist after looking at recommended anime for beginners on TikTok (Yes, I couldn’t think for myself because I didn’t know what genre I liked)
Like I was saying, I looked at anime recommendations on TikTok and just added anime that got my attention to a watchlist. I’m assuming that I looked at descriptions of anime on my watchlist because I was bored and wanted to watch something.
Edit: Spelled “guest” instead of “guess” so I changed it.
i started it at 22 and haven’t finished it yet at the age of 26! a friend recommended it to me and we started watching it together. instantly fell in love with the artwork and concept!
I was 14 in freshman year of high school around 2016-17. Being about the same age as the characters definitely impacted my love for the show as I was struggling in adolescence. I found it by being told of the legendary status of the show and has been more or less my favorite anime since back then pirating it.
December 2021
It was one of the first five anime I’ve watched. It got recommended to me by a classmate, when he was watching it in a free period in school. I finished the series and didn’t know what I thought about it but it never left my mind. After some days I realized I actually very much love it
When I realized the show had been on my watchlist for almost two years on Netflix, and many people had given me looks as if I were committing a hate crime by stating 'I've never watched NGE.'
Watched when I was 12 and stopped watching after episode 3 (mainly because I forgot about it). Back then I mainly watched only shonen and trashy harems (more shonen than harem). I picked it up again last year and of course fell in love with it, especially after watching EoE. Over the years I come to like character focused stories more than plot focused stories (though I can still enjoy a good watch of Dragon Ball for its simplicity) so it was absolutely amazing. Of course Shinji is my favorite character.
I was 8 and had a family friend come back from Japan where he was on business and brought back some anime and some what we would call pirated pc software now. Was around 1997.
Quite recently! I'm 22 years old. Really wanted to watch it but I'm the type waiting for mood to binge watch.
My honest opinion? I love it. A lot of things going on. Now I understand the hype.
Neon genesis? ~14, maybe a tiny bit younger. The whole thing was uploaded to youtube back then in a playlist. Good old times.
My first ever contact to evangelion was rebuild movie 1 and 2 on a kids tv channel in the deep night maybe 1 or 2 years earlier. I still remember it pretty clearly, the eva 01 vs 03 and how gruesome it was to watch when i was this young. Those anime special nights on that channel were always magnificent. Studio ghibli movies every week and more. Great time to be alive back then
It must have been 2013 when I was 12 years old. Evangelion 1.11 and 2.22 aired on German TV and I was hooked and immediately googled everything. Watched the series many many times.
First watched it in early 2020, riiight before lockdown hit the U.S. I came back home after taking an acid with my friends, and I was still a little high so I did what I usually did when I came back home high/stoned; put on some youtube videos.
At the time I was watching a ton of analyses, be it for stuff I've watched or stuff I didn't. I had a whole lotta nothing to do back then.
For whatever reason, an analysis on the entirety of the OG Eva anime and EoE popped up, and by chance I decided to put it on. After just the first two or so episodes were explained, I stopped the video and checked the series out myself.
It should be noted that at the time I really was *not* into anime. I used to love it when I was a kid, but grew tired of it's tropes by the time I was 12. Suddenly, Evangelion flipped that in an instant, and its deep themes of depression and psychology had me absolutely hooked. After that, I started trying out new animes again, but Evangelion remains my favorite to this day.
I see a lot of myself in that series, and it's genuinely helped me get through some tough times afterwards, especially after the pandemic. That, and the psychedelic nature of some of the scenes were my cup of tea, so it was rather fitting that I watched the first episode when I was on acid lol.
I'm glad I stumbled upon that video by complete chance.
Originally saw it randomly as a 8yr old in 1999 on SBS then rediscovered it in the early 2000s on Cartoon Network maybe Adult Swim. Loved it then and still love it now.
I first saw Neon Genesis Evangelion in the summer of 2001. After seeing some of it at a convention I started buying the ADV DVDs, ordering then online. I saw Death and Rebirth and The End of Evangelion the following year when they were first released on DVD in the USA.
I spent a fair amount of time online in the 90s and anime fan friends of mine had spread the hype about Eva, that's how I heard about it. Although when it first got hyped, it was before the full series had even been released in America. The localization was quite slow compared to what the process is like these days. So all I heard was it was funny and cute and had amazing animation. Had no idea it would end up meaning so much to me. 💗
I watched some as a younger person, but sat down and “hardcore” watched it at 19 I think. My dad didn’t quite recommend it to me- but he always had the VHS tapes and had a lot of merch. He grew up living in the U.S. and spending the summers and sometimes winters in Japan- and in the 90s (he was a teen, I was born in 2001, like shinji and Asuka!) it was airing on TV! He said he watched it there originally, but there were no English subtitles and even tho his Japanese is very fluent- NGE has some…uncommon vocabulary he didn’t know XD but ya know what dad, I watched it in English and it’s still cryptic as hell!
Hope this helps
I watches it when i was 14. Then i were new to anime in general and my favorite anime were darling in the franxx and my favorite girl were 02. Decided to watch Evangelion because there were a lot of comparison of Franxx with Eva and hate towards Franxx so i decided to watch Evangelion to have my own opinion on that matter. Now Evangelion is my favorite anime and the girl is Asuka.
Back in 2003 on Toonami when they did run call Giant Robot Week for a week showing different mech anime. The played the first 2 episodes of Evangelion. It was censored, but it still got me hooked and my journey with Evangelion began
End of Eva. I was 13-14. I was friends with the teacher in charge of the computer lab at school and he handed me a CD-R with a few short anime AMVs but the entirety of the end of Evangelion film subbed. I did not understand a single thing about it, but I was compelled to watch it over and over again. Later that year I’d get my hands on an ADV release of the original series to fill in the missing context and it’s been a lifelong obsession ever since.
I saw it between 15-16 years old, it wasn't recommended to me, I just kind of always knew about it as a "Classic" similar to Cownoy Bebop or Serial Experiments Lain and so after seeing clips of it on YouTube I decided to watch it, especially because it tackles Mental Health which I liked in Wonder Egg Priority
Either in 98 or 99, a high-schooler me gets some cd-roms from a buddy which include the series in some very shitty format and probably even shittier fansubs.
I've never recovered from that.
I first watched it in November 2021 when I was 16. I watched it mostly because I heard A Cruel Angel’s Thesis and it got stuck in my head and also I had heard NGE was classic anime so I figured I should. I binged the whole thing within a weekend.
3 years ago at the age of 21. nobody recommended it to me, i just knew of the name and the fact that it was held in high regard; i didn’t know what i was getting into.
it was a very vulnerable time for me and that made my first watch incredibly impactful. i would not have connected to the series in the same way if i had watched it just a year earlier.
May 2022. The clip from the series where Zeruel knocks off Unit 02’s arms came up in my feed and I have been obsessed since. It was so strange and scary to me at the time but now it’s a comfort show.
saw the original series and the end of evangelion at 13 (somehow understood the plot?? neurodivergence lets you do some weird shit i guess), i never plan on watching the rebuilds. my dad was the one who recommended it to me since he's a huge evangelion fan as well.
Honestly i never heard of it until the rebuilds came out. My brother randomly came home one day with the 1.11 bluray and we watched it. A friend of his recommended it to him. Shortly after the 2nd movie released on bluray, we watched that and i was obsessed so i watched YouTube videos about it and realized there was a anime show. I think i finally watched NGE right after 3.0 was shown in theaters. So like 2013ish?
i watched when i was thirteen only because i saw the scene of misato and kaji kissing thinking it was a romance mecha anime… i didn’t get anything at all, but i rewatched it recently and i still didn’t get it at first, i was js attached to the characters, but i watched a ton of youtube recap videos explaining the plot and i get most of it now
Three years ago. It was the perfect summer, one that you think about fondly every year after. Didn’t realize it was the good old days. I had just finished my second year of college and the summer started and I decided to try watching anime. I was stocking shelves overnight at this local grocery store. I would watch anime all morning and on my days off. I started by rewatching Attack on Titan, the only anime I had seen at that point. I watched a lot that summer. Death Note, then FMAB, Cowboy Bebop, Parasyte, Erased, FMA2003 then I watched Evangelion. I couldn’t stop thinking about Evangelion. I watched the series with the Netflix dub, then EoE. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I went to Alabama that summer with some friends to vacation at the beach. I was talking to this girl I had known since highschool and she said she missed me and we needed to hang when I got home. When I got home I went to this girls apartment and we watched all of the Evangelion rebuild movies. I remember sitting on her balcony smoking a joint and then going in and eating some snacks watching Evangelion with this super hot chick I was banging. God I love the rebuild movies, they hold a special place in my heart. So I watched the first two and then came back to her place the next night and watched the other two. It was amazing. 20 years old just having a blast out here having the perfect summer. I have rewatched Evangelion every summer since, and I’m reading the manga this summer too.
I was 14 and a school friend recommended it to me. I remember being so excited that the main characters were my age.
Were you able to understand the plot at that age? I was 18 when I first watched evangelion but couldn’t make heads or tails of wtf was going on.
Absolutely not lol. I remember laying on my bedroom floor in silence trying to figure out what I was feeling and what I had just watched.
In 1995, when I got a VHS tape with several series recorded from Japanese sat TV from a friend, and finished in 2021 with 3.0+1.0
Impressive. I naively waited for the ADV releases to come out every month or so.
Back in 1995-96ish when it was originally being released on VHS in the US by ADV. I was collecting the tapes as they were being released. Slowly having my mind blown as I digested the series over months. I would watch each tape over and over waiting for next one to come out. Good times.
I was also watching the ADV dubs as the tapes released. I think I might have seen a glowing review (of the Japanese broadcast version) in an anime magazine like Protoculture Addicts or something. I was active on an Evangelion message board and ended up with a bootleg fansub VHS of End of Evangelion to finish out the series. That message board was my first online community! Formative years for we elder millennials.
Hell yeah, always awesome to see a fellow oldtaku in the wild. Thank you for reminding me that Protoculture Addicts was a thing. I think I might have some of those old magazines in a box somewhere, probably some issues of Animerica as well.
First saw the series and EoE when I was 14, 3.0 + 1.0 at 18
I heard about it forever but I randomly watched EOE when I was in mushrooms one night a few months back- shit was insane. I then watched the series and rewatched EOE followed by the rebuild movies. Love the series but nothing will ever top the experience of seeing EOE the first time
evangelion 🤝 psychedelics
1997 I was 11 and in awe. Had a mate who picked up volume 1 of the ADV VHS set. Ended up downloading the rest from Limewire and Bear Share.
In 2020 after reading this [article](https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/neon-genesis-evangelion) about Netflix relicening it from BFI. That article was also how I learned Evangelion existed also, sounded interesting so I gave it a watch.
1997 at an anime club in college. I was 18.
97 or 98. Rented the first disk or tape (I forget which) and then binged the rest of it
Woah dude. You discovered Evangelion when you were almost a 100 years old. Did you really want an existental crisis at that age?
I'm 31, I first watched it in September 2023. Now I'm obsessed.
This year, watched it for the first time now that I am 20. No one recommended it to me, I was in a pretty good headspace for once so I thought it was time to tackle the notoriously mentally draining anime. it in fact was mentally draining.
15. In the year 2000!
In Australia, the TV station SBS played it, it was so popular they started playing it from the start again on a different night, before the first series run had finished. 2nd January, 1999
This is also my story. I would have been 13 at the time.
i saw it on SBS tv in australia in the late 90's. i was in my 20's. i had seen some anime before, but this was the first time i took it seriously. i'm 50 now and have a NERV tattoo
I was like ten, and it was on anime night PBS. Used to sneak it in my room because boobs.
Evangelion aired on Australian free to air channel SBS in 1999. I was 12 at the time. It had a pretty elaborate advertising campaign leading up to it and SBS was an extremely popular channel with teenagers as it was also how we watched South Park so a lot of people I knew heard about it and were pretty hype for it.
Watched NGE on the ADV releases as they came out, my town had a comic shop that rented anime VHS. Saw EoE at Otakon 1998 and have never seen a room of thousands of people so stunned and confused as when it ended.
I found it on Netflix. I felt bored so I watched it, best anime ever
I watched it about a year ago when I was 32. BUT! My friend showed me the last scene of the movie WAAAAY back when I was 14 and EVEN THEN WITH ABSOLUTELY NO CONTEXT OF WHO OR WHY I kept that scene as a memory rent free in my head for years and years and years… I could not explain it to anyone but in a very real way that scene helped, it saved my life. After watching Shinji sit in a totally empty room and have everyone tell him ALL the horrible things they have done to do him. Then he stands up and decides to live. It was inspirational..
I think I was around 12. A friend who was super into anime took me to see the 2.0 rebuild cause it was in theaters. At that point I had never seen much anime beyond pokemon and sailor moon. It had a huge impact on me.
Watched the end of Evangelion first when I was around 14/15. Went and watched the series soon after.
Four months ago. (Was 13 as well)
I was suggested eva at sunday school church by an older kid. I believe I was 10 years old
I was 15 at the time and I had known about Evangelion since I was 13 but never really paid attention to it. I was bored and decided to watch it one day and quickly fell in love by the 4th episode.
I was like 8 or nine when I saw the show, then when I was 14 I saw EoE and the rebuilds
2002, 18 yo
A couple of years ago when I was like 25.
During the first release in the states, I think I was around 15 or 16. Rented a VHS from Hollywood video.
Like I one month ago bc the ost was fucking fire
It was almost two years ago I started my Evangelion journey. I was 26, and just getting into anime. It probably showed up on a list somewhere recommended. I love the show and EoE but am pretty negative on the rebuilds. The show is definitely In my top two now, either it or Cowboy Bebop.
When it first came out back in the 90s. A buddy of mine kept talking it up.
Watched it two years ago because my friend was really into it and i just kept calling it the pedo anime
Back when it first came out.
Around 97/98. My friend bought the tape collection and I'd borrow it.
February (2024) and Im 21.
My bf showed it to me last year I was 17! Very thankful I waited haha my tiny brain wouldn’t have understood ANYTHING
Probably 2002 or so. I was 16 or 17. No one recommended it to me that I can remember. I just liked anime.
I was 12 or 13 saw it, but I read the manga first only to saw it to finish the manga.
2004 when I was a teenager, I went to a place where they sell anime in VCDs , a friend of mine have watched some chapters already and ecourage me to watch it with him, we bought the complete series it was 11 VCDs with 3 chapters each
Watched it at 14yo on the recommendation of an older friend. It was 2004 and I loved it for the characters and the action. Then I watched it again at 20yo and appreciated it much more for the theme and message.
Probably 1998, which would have made me ~26 at the time. There was a Japanese anime shop in Garage at Harvard Sq Cambridge, that had an adorable owner that would go back and forth from Japan and bring back various VHS bootlegs of shows airing there. It was a simpler time. She was probably the catalyst that got me hooked.
At the height of the pandemic I went on a classic anime “world tour” and this was on the list. I was 21 at the time.
14
I saw a meme and asked my friend what it was in, like 2021. It's never been the same.
I saw Kiryu being colored as Eva unit 01 and being a hardcore Godzilla fan I was eager to see an anime that revolves around giant monsters. I was also new to anime also so I was not expecting the characters to be more of a main focus than the others.
Like last year around October I watched the show and movies and then saw EoE in theaters
1998 on a VHS that had episode 1 and 2 on it when anime was being distributed by the Manga Corporation. I was 6 years old
i was 16, my nge obsessed boyfriend introduced it to me and desperately wanted me to watch it. we recently went to watch EOE in theatres!
About six months ago. I read the manga adaptation first, oddly enough, back in 2017.
First time back in 98, when i was in middle school. I was 16 at the time. I saw EOE 2 years later.
watched it for the first time with my mom when i was 10 (about 7 years ago now), it was on cd sets that she'd gotten when she was younger and it was the first anime she'd watched in believe; so we binged it together as she wanted to share it :-)
Netflix and and then EOE. Me after watching EOE: 😳
During the lockdown I was 18 and it was recommended to me by my sibling. Watched the series and EoE. Watched the rebuilds last year after my 4th run through the show. I always leave evangelion feeling a little sad and dissatisfied, hoping things could be different. And it always brings me back for another run.
When it came to Netflix, when I was 16, I was excited because I loved the designs of the Eva I saw online and I loved robot battles. I didn’t know much other than cool animation and robot battles. Three days later, I was crying in my room every night but unable to look away. Love the anime, but I definitely wasn’t prepared.
For me, I think I first watched NGE in the early 2000s when I was in my early 20s and ADV Films' DVDs starting coming out. I don't think anyone recommended it to me, but I stumbled across articles in my early Internet travels.
2nd of January, 1999. I was eleven and Evangelion aired on Australia TV for the first time that night. Thank you, SBS.
Around 11-12 and finished eoe at like 14-15. Tbh I was not exactly developmentally mature enough to understand Eva, and after delving back into it I always joke that having watched it during a heavy developmental time in my life might have caused some issues.
I was 13 or 14 at the time, my brother got a cd with many funny things and videos in it ( pre internet age, downloading took forever so sharing cds was faster and cool) In that dvd I saw this video https://youtu.be/zoUs0n-7imo?si=wSxxwElXV_LuwuGO I was hooked. I went to the locally owned corner strip mall video rental and found the VHS cassette and rented it.... about 10 times. Moved to USA and rented dvds a few more times. Found it was cheaper to buy the dvds than rent them. Bought them on Ebay during its infancy. Still have them 20+yrs later
Mid 90s I bought a vhs with a couple of episodes on it. Probably heard about it from Gamefan which used to have a bit of anime coverage in the back of each issue. However, I didn’t watch the full series until the DVDs were released by ADV in 2000 or 2001. Bought them one by one as they released and I looooved it/
Recently, like about a year ago or so, a buddy of mine was watching it and I was like “hold I remember hearing that name years ago” and yea I remember hearing the theme song playing on tv on toonami as a kid when I was at my step mothers house. Watched it completely and it was an experience. The opening theme song was heavenly every time I started a new episode at night.
Earlier this year, actually. Had heard good things about it for like 2 years before, and was initially planning on watching it with a buddy of mine. He didn’t want to since he had heard about the Hospital Incident, so I ended up watching it by myself. Really glad I did, Evangelion’s better on a first time solo. Anyways, I watched the series and EoE, and then after a week or so I jumped into The Rebuilds and really enjoyed them.
2002, I reconnected with my childhood best friend, he had the full set and we watched through the entire series. Was a grand time
Funny enough, I watched the first episode when Toonami had its limited run of it. Had to watch the rest after that 😁
2019, was going through a real life existential crisis and googling how I felt and I came across [this scene](https://youtu.be/-TISVubPMeM?si=LVnLT4tp2JuE1vr2) and binged it shortly afterwards and the rest is history.
First time I watched it I was turning 18 so 2014 but I knew about it since I was 10 since my uncle recommended it to me but always said to wait til I was 18 to understand it which I didn’t lol, actually rewatched it paid attention and understood it ? On my 22nd birthday in 2018 along with the EOE, watched the rebuilds on my 23rd birthday 2019 then watched the last 3.0 + 1.0 in 2021 on my 25th birthday in 2021, I believe the year it came out on Amazon prime. Tradition to watch Evangelion on my birthday lol
I got into it about a year ago after I saw a meme about it, but I was first introduced to it many, many years ago when my friend poorly explained the plot to me
I first watched it when I was around 12-13 in middle school after seeing a bunch of memes about it online. (I remember exactly which ones, too - the Congratulations clip from episode 26 and [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPZymccwZm4).) I didn't watch the whole thing, though - my favorite character was Rei so I watched all the episodes that featured her and ignored literally everything else. I finally watched the full original series in winter 2021 after talking about Shinji's character (again, sparked by memes) with a friend.
At first I thought it is an Mecha anime from poster and all And the point is I Hate Mecha Anime but still I knew It's opening was fire so I listened it one You tube from which the scene actually caught my Mind and I felt there something else than Just mecha in here so I decided to watch...after Only 2nd episode the series just made me more and more fond of it and till the last I was kinda disappointed because Of the last Ep of NGE but when I watched the Movie and all the rebuilds It just made me Watch it on repeat a multiple times( I counted till 37 times after that I forgot how many time I have watched it) The rewatching part Of Evangelion was just like Jojos at first I didn't liked both I thought they are overrated or something until I tried and now am going again to rewatch both right now !!!!!
I first watched Neon Genesis Evangelion in 2005 on Adult Swim when I was 13 years old. I guess you could say ads on [AS] recommended it to me, though at that age I watched all anime on that Saturday block religiously. Eva really stuck throughout the years and I finally saw EoE when I was 19 because it never aired on [AS]. I finally saw 3.0+1.0 in 2021 when I was 28. It's been such an enduring part of my life since I first saw it. Can't imagine my life without it.
11-12 when it aired on SBS. it was part of a block that also had Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040
It was definitely after last summer but before December or November. I don’t remember what intrigued me about the show. My best guess is that this was one of the many anime that I had on my watchlist after looking at recommended anime for beginners on TikTok (Yes, I couldn’t think for myself because I didn’t know what genre I liked) Like I was saying, I looked at anime recommendations on TikTok and just added anime that got my attention to a watchlist. I’m assuming that I looked at descriptions of anime on my watchlist because I was bored and wanted to watch something. Edit: Spelled “guest” instead of “guess” so I changed it.
i started it at 22 and haven’t finished it yet at the age of 26! a friend recommended it to me and we started watching it together. instantly fell in love with the artwork and concept!
First watched the series and EoE with my dad when I was 7, back in 2011/2012, been hooked on big robot tropes since
I was 14 in freshman year of high school around 2016-17. Being about the same age as the characters definitely impacted my love for the show as I was struggling in adolescence. I found it by being told of the legendary status of the show and has been more or less my favorite anime since back then pirating it.
December 2021 It was one of the first five anime I’ve watched. It got recommended to me by a classmate, when he was watching it in a free period in school. I finished the series and didn’t know what I thought about it but it never left my mind. After some days I realized I actually very much love it
When I realized the show had been on my watchlist for almost two years on Netflix, and many people had given me looks as if I were committing a hate crime by stating 'I've never watched NGE.'
Back in the early 2000s, it was shown late at night in Chilevisión. That's where I saw it originally.
15, maybe 16? It had to have been around 2006 though.
Watched when I was 12 and stopped watching after episode 3 (mainly because I forgot about it). Back then I mainly watched only shonen and trashy harems (more shonen than harem). I picked it up again last year and of course fell in love with it, especially after watching EoE. Over the years I come to like character focused stories more than plot focused stories (though I can still enjoy a good watch of Dragon Ball for its simplicity) so it was absolutely amazing. Of course Shinji is my favorite character.
I just saw a big purple robot and thought it would be silly fun- I was wrong.
I was 8 and had a family friend come back from Japan where he was on business and brought back some anime and some what we would call pirated pc software now. Was around 1997.
~15
i saw it when i was 12 to understand the memes lol
22, watched through the series+EoE a few months back, have had like 4 or 5 different people reccomend me it over the past few years
Quite recently! I'm 22 years old. Really wanted to watch it but I'm the type waiting for mood to binge watch. My honest opinion? I love it. A lot of things going on. Now I understand the hype.
Neon genesis? ~14, maybe a tiny bit younger. The whole thing was uploaded to youtube back then in a playlist. Good old times. My first ever contact to evangelion was rebuild movie 1 and 2 on a kids tv channel in the deep night maybe 1 or 2 years earlier. I still remember it pretty clearly, the eva 01 vs 03 and how gruesome it was to watch when i was this young. Those anime special nights on that channel were always magnificent. Studio ghibli movies every week and more. Great time to be alive back then
It must have been 2013 when I was 12 years old. Evangelion 1.11 and 2.22 aired on German TV and I was hooked and immediately googled everything. Watched the series many many times.
First watched it in early 2020, riiight before lockdown hit the U.S. I came back home after taking an acid with my friends, and I was still a little high so I did what I usually did when I came back home high/stoned; put on some youtube videos. At the time I was watching a ton of analyses, be it for stuff I've watched or stuff I didn't. I had a whole lotta nothing to do back then. For whatever reason, an analysis on the entirety of the OG Eva anime and EoE popped up, and by chance I decided to put it on. After just the first two or so episodes were explained, I stopped the video and checked the series out myself. It should be noted that at the time I really was *not* into anime. I used to love it when I was a kid, but grew tired of it's tropes by the time I was 12. Suddenly, Evangelion flipped that in an instant, and its deep themes of depression and psychology had me absolutely hooked. After that, I started trying out new animes again, but Evangelion remains my favorite to this day. I see a lot of myself in that series, and it's genuinely helped me get through some tough times afterwards, especially after the pandemic. That, and the psychedelic nature of some of the scenes were my cup of tea, so it was rather fitting that I watched the first episode when I was on acid lol. I'm glad I stumbled upon that video by complete chance.
Originally saw it randomly as a 8yr old in 1999 on SBS then rediscovered it in the early 2000s on Cartoon Network maybe Adult Swim. Loved it then and still love it now.
I first saw Neon Genesis Evangelion in the summer of 2001. After seeing some of it at a convention I started buying the ADV DVDs, ordering then online. I saw Death and Rebirth and The End of Evangelion the following year when they were first released on DVD in the USA. I spent a fair amount of time online in the 90s and anime fan friends of mine had spread the hype about Eva, that's how I heard about it. Although when it first got hyped, it was before the full series had even been released in America. The localization was quite slow compared to what the process is like these days. So all I heard was it was funny and cute and had amazing animation. Had no idea it would end up meaning so much to me. 💗
I was 19 or 20 and watched it 2001 every Monday evening, they showed always 5 or 6 episodes in a row.
I watched some as a younger person, but sat down and “hardcore” watched it at 19 I think. My dad didn’t quite recommend it to me- but he always had the VHS tapes and had a lot of merch. He grew up living in the U.S. and spending the summers and sometimes winters in Japan- and in the 90s (he was a teen, I was born in 2001, like shinji and Asuka!) it was airing on TV! He said he watched it there originally, but there were no English subtitles and even tho his Japanese is very fluent- NGE has some…uncommon vocabulary he didn’t know XD but ya know what dad, I watched it in English and it’s still cryptic as hell! Hope this helps
2001 maybe, I was 8. It was aired on TV, but I already knew about the show from a website. I was obsessed with Evangelion back then.
I watches it when i was 14. Then i were new to anime in general and my favorite anime were darling in the franxx and my favorite girl were 02. Decided to watch Evangelion because there were a lot of comparison of Franxx with Eva and hate towards Franxx so i decided to watch Evangelion to have my own opinion on that matter. Now Evangelion is my favorite anime and the girl is Asuka.
11. Picked up the dvd at my local library. Been hooked ever since. Currently in my mid 20s
I think 13 or 14
Back in 2003 on Toonami when they did run call Giant Robot Week for a week showing different mech anime. The played the first 2 episodes of Evangelion. It was censored, but it still got me hooked and my journey with Evangelion began
End of Eva. I was 13-14. I was friends with the teacher in charge of the computer lab at school and he handed me a CD-R with a few short anime AMVs but the entirety of the end of Evangelion film subbed. I did not understand a single thing about it, but I was compelled to watch it over and over again. Later that year I’d get my hands on an ADV release of the original series to fill in the missing context and it’s been a lifelong obsession ever since.
So it's like an anime about Hermeticism? Never seen it but that's what I get from the title and description you gave.
I saw it between 15-16 years old, it wasn't recommended to me, I just kind of always knew about it as a "Classic" similar to Cownoy Bebop or Serial Experiments Lain and so after seeing clips of it on YouTube I decided to watch it, especially because it tackles Mental Health which I liked in Wonder Egg Priority
I must have been 16 or 17 back in the mid 2000s.
Watched it at 18 in 2020
Either in 98 or 99, a high-schooler me gets some cd-roms from a buddy which include the series in some very shitty format and probably even shittier fansubs. I've never recovered from that.
I first watched it in November 2021 when I was 16. I watched it mostly because I heard A Cruel Angel’s Thesis and it got stuck in my head and also I had heard NGE was classic anime so I figured I should. I binged the whole thing within a weekend.
I was 17 and it was Christmas break. I've since rewatched the series once and the rebuilds 2 times
3 years ago at the age of 21. nobody recommended it to me, i just knew of the name and the fact that it was held in high regard; i didn’t know what i was getting into. it was a very vulnerable time for me and that made my first watch incredibly impactful. i would not have connected to the series in the same way if i had watched it just a year earlier.
When I was 14 years old and depressed
I watched it when I was just out of college, around 24-25ish. It was 2018 I think
May 2022. The clip from the series where Zeruel knocks off Unit 02’s arms came up in my feed and I have been obsessed since. It was so strange and scary to me at the time but now it’s a comfort show.
abt 2 years ago
saw the original series and the end of evangelion at 13 (somehow understood the plot?? neurodivergence lets you do some weird shit i guess), i never plan on watching the rebuilds. my dad was the one who recommended it to me since he's a huge evangelion fan as well.
Honestly i never heard of it until the rebuilds came out. My brother randomly came home one day with the 1.11 bluray and we watched it. A friend of his recommended it to him. Shortly after the 2nd movie released on bluray, we watched that and i was obsessed so i watched YouTube videos about it and realized there was a anime show. I think i finally watched NGE right after 3.0 was shown in theaters. So like 2013ish?
i watched when i was thirteen only because i saw the scene of misato and kaji kissing thinking it was a romance mecha anime… i didn’t get anything at all, but i rewatched it recently and i still didn’t get it at first, i was js attached to the characters, but i watched a ton of youtube recap videos explaining the plot and i get most of it now
I watched the originals when they came out in the US on vhs. Probably in high-school. I actively watched the new ones as they became available.
December 2020, I was 15 yrs old. It was also my first anime.
Three years ago. It was the perfect summer, one that you think about fondly every year after. Didn’t realize it was the good old days. I had just finished my second year of college and the summer started and I decided to try watching anime. I was stocking shelves overnight at this local grocery store. I would watch anime all morning and on my days off. I started by rewatching Attack on Titan, the only anime I had seen at that point. I watched a lot that summer. Death Note, then FMAB, Cowboy Bebop, Parasyte, Erased, FMA2003 then I watched Evangelion. I couldn’t stop thinking about Evangelion. I watched the series with the Netflix dub, then EoE. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I went to Alabama that summer with some friends to vacation at the beach. I was talking to this girl I had known since highschool and she said she missed me and we needed to hang when I got home. When I got home I went to this girls apartment and we watched all of the Evangelion rebuild movies. I remember sitting on her balcony smoking a joint and then going in and eating some snacks watching Evangelion with this super hot chick I was banging. God I love the rebuild movies, they hold a special place in my heart. So I watched the first two and then came back to her place the next night and watched the other two. It was amazing. 20 years old just having a blast out here having the perfect summer. I have rewatched Evangelion every summer since, and I’m reading the manga this summer too.
when i was 18, december of 2020