List of Neon Genesis Evangelion episodes

Neon Genesis Evangelion is a Japanese animated television series that aired from October 4, 1995 to March 27, 1996 on TV Tokyo. WOWOW aired the series again during 2003. It was written and directed by Hideaki Anno and produced by Gainax and Project Eva, which included TV Tokyo and Nihon Ad Systems (NAS). Evangelion is an apocalyptic mecha action series which centers around the efforts by the paramilitary organization Nerv to fight monstrous beings called Angels, primarily using giant mecha called Evangelions which are piloted by select teenagers, one of whom is the primary protagonist.

The series was first aired in North America on San Francisco-area PBS member station KTEH in 2000. Later, the first two episodes saw nationwide broadcast in edited format on Cartoon Network as part of Toonami's Giant Robot Week on February 24–25, 2003. Both episodes were edited for content. Later, the entire series then aired on Adult Swim from October 21, 2005 to April 21, 2006.

In 2004, A.D. Vision, the English language licenser, released a director's cut versions of episodes 21 through 24 with its Platinum Edition DVDs. The director's cuts included several new and reworked scenes to better explain the events that occurred in The End of Evangelion.

Airing history
After several episodes were produced, the first episode aired 4 October 1995, long after originally planned. Initially ignored (although received positively by those Gainax fans invited to early screenings), viewership grew slowly and largely by word of mouth.

Episode 16 marked a distinct shift that would characterize the second half of Evangelion as being more psychological than action or adventure. This change in emphasis was partly due to the development of the story, but also partly because by this point, production had begun running out of funding and failing to meet the schedule; this collapse has been identified by at least one Gainax employee as the impetus for Evangelion ' s turn into metafiction: "I didn't mind it. The schedule was an utter disaster and the number of cels plummeted, so there were some places where unfortunately the quality suffered. However, the tension of the staff as we all became more desperate and frenzied certainly showed up in the film … About the time that the production system was completely falling apart, there were some opinions to the effect that, 'If we can't do satisfactory work, then what's the point of continuing?' However, I didn't feel that way. My opinion was, 'Why don't we show them the entire process including our breakdown.'"

But nevertheless, by the 18th episode, it had become enough of a sensation that Eva-01's violent rampage "is criticized as being unsuitable on an anime show that is viewed by children", and episode 20 would be similarly criticized for the offscreen depiction of Misato and Ryoji having sex. With this popularity came the first merchandise, "Genesis 0:1" (containing the first two episodes). Beginning a trend, it sold out. As the series concluded on 27 March 1996 with "Take care of yourself.", the story apparently remained unresolved: Third Impact and the Human Instrumentality Project are implied to have begun or even finished, but the episodes focus largely on the psychology of the characters, leaving deeply unclear what actually happens.

Episodes
Each episode has 2 titles: one is the original Japanese title, and the second is an English title that was chosen by Japanese studio Gainax itself. Most often, the direct translation of the Japanese title is not the same as the official English title that was chosen. For example, the direct translation of the original Japanese title of episode 2 is "An Unfamiliar Ceiling", but the English title chosen was "The Beast". Sometimes, however, the two titles are either similar or exactly the same, as was the case with episode 10 "Magmadiver". Many tracks on the original soundtracks are named after the English episode names in which they are first used.

Reception
While the entire series has received wide attention, individual episodes have also earned praise and occasionally been recipients of awards.