Neon Genesis Evangelion (新世紀エヴァンゲリオン) is the most well-known of Hideaki Anno's works. It's both one of the most highly praised anime series of all time and one of the most polarizing. First released in 1995, Evangelion is a dark deconstruction of mecha anime and a sort of public self-therapy session for Anno, who was depressed at the time. Some consider Top o Nerae! Gunbuster to be a predecessor of Evangelion due to similarities between the two series.
Similarities to Gunbuster
- Both were directed by Hideaki Anno and produced by Gainax.
- Both are about young mecha pilots, more specifically focusing on three main pilots with brown, blue, and red hair.
- Both have a major shift in tone partway through.
- Both feature catastrophic events which happen in the year 2015.
- Noriko Takaya is similar in personality to Shinji Ikari.
- Both series feature a main character with daddy issues.
- Both series feature a main character who is chosen to pilot the series' main mecha because of their father.
- Both series feature an arrogant red-haired European girl.
- Both series feature an adult male character with glasses that obscure his eyes who convinces the main character to be a pilot.
- Both series feature a young male character who bonds with the protagonist before dying in the same episode in which he is introduced.
- Both series have the main characters using their mecha to fight an alien enemy which threatens to destroy humanity.
- In both series, the human race defends itself at the expense of the rest of the universe.
- Both series depict bare underaged anime titty.
- Both of the main characters are bullied at school.
- Neither of the main characters gets laid.
Differences from Gunbuster
- Hideaki Anno did not write Gunbuster.
- Gunbuster is much shorter, with only 6 episodes.
- Gunbuster is very distinctly an '80s anime.
- The pilots in Gunbuster are slightly older (Noriko is 16 at the start of the series) and, While Evangelion ends in 2015, Gunbuster starts in 2015.
- Gunbuster is not nihilistic and does not contain christian imagery.
- Gunbuster contains a higher concentration of bare nipples.
- Gunbuster has a much more straightforward and happy ending.
- Gunbuster is (probably) not made out of Noriko's mom.
- Gunbuster does not contain a masturbation scene.