The year: 2015

       A world where, fifteen years before, over half the human population perished.
       A world that has been miracuously revived: its economy, the production, circulation, consumption of material goods, so that even the shelves of convenience stores are filled.
       A world where the people have gotten used to the resurrection-yet still feel the end of the world is destined to come.
       A world where the number of children, the future leaders of the world, is few.
       A world where Japan saw the original Tokyo destroyed, discarded and forgotten, and built a new capital in Nagano Prefecture. They constructed a new capital, Tokyo-2, then left it to be a decoy-then constructed another new capital, Tokyo-3, and tried to make it safe from attack.
       A world where some completely unknown enemy called the "Angels" comes to ravage the cities.
       This is roughly the worldview for Neon Genesis Evangelion.
       This is a worldview drenched in a vision of pessimism.
       A worldview where the story starts only after any traces of optimism have been removed.
       And in that world, a 14-year-old boy shrinks from human contact.
       And he tries to live in a closed world where his behaviour dooms him, and he has abandoned the attempt to understand himself.
       A cowardly young man who feels that his father has abandoned him, and so he has convinced himself that he is a completely unnecessary person, so much so that he cannot even commit suicide.
       And there is a 29-year-old woman who lives life so lightly as to barely allow the possibility of a human touch.
       She protects herself by having only surface level relationships, and running away.
       Both are extremely afraid of being hurt.
       Both are unsuitable-lacking the possitive attitude-for what people call heroes of an adventure.
       But in any case, they are the heroes of this story.
       They say, "To live is to change."
       I started this production with the wish that once the production was complete, the world, the heroes, would change.
       That was my "true" desire.
       I tried to include everything of myself in Neon Genesis Evangelion-myself, a broken man who could do nothing for four years.
       A man who ran away for four years, one who was simply not dead.
       Then one thought:
             "You can't run away,"
       came to me, and I restarted this production.
       It is a production where my only thought was to burn my feelings into film.
       I know my behaviour was thoughtless, troublesome, and arrogant.
       But I tried.
       I don't know what the result will be.
       That is because within me, the story is not yet finished.
       I don't know what will happen to Shinji, Misato, or Rei. I don't know where life will take them.
       Because I don't know where life is taking the staff of the production.
       I feel I am being irresponsible.
       But...But it's only natural that we should synchronize ourselves with the world within the production.
       I've taken on a risk:
             "It's just an imitation."
       And for now I can only write this explanation.
       But perhaps our "original" lies somewhere within there.
      
      
       July 17, 1995,
       In the studio, a cloudy, rainy day.