When/how did you first find out about Eva?

[GAP]

I first came across the DVD at my library four years ago, researched on wikipedia and later watched on Adult Swim. I thought it was just a typical action show until I actually found out it was just a powerful psychodrama, I began to wonder why this show was so popular considering that it was sick but it appealed to me and I was hooked. I actually came across these forums as a lurker back it was evamonkey forums long before the change and now I am ended up as a regular user.

[Guyver Spawn]

I think I was five or six that my Aunt got me a Eva unit 01 action figure. I love playing with it that I got Vol. 1 and 2 on VHS. as a gift back in 1998 or 1999 (I don't remember when really). I enjoy watching the series on VHS back then that I wanted to see more of the series but I forgot about watching the rest of the series.

I didn't pick it up again until I was 14 in 2005, and I appreciated the series more then I did before. Now after getting platinum collection, I am picking up so much more than I did the first time.

Edit: I hated the typos in this post.

[Another Asuka]

Six years ago a friend loaned me the end of eva and I was hooked after watching it. I'm not even that big into anime but NGE is amazing.

[VoidEater]

Six years ago a friend loaned me the end of eva and I was hooked after watching it. I'm not even that big into anime but NGE is amazing.

Yes, the only other anime I've watched (as an adult - as a kid I watched 008 Man, Amazing 3, Kimba, Astroboy, Gigantor - if any of these count) is the Akira movie.

I was surprised that I was fascinated by the NGE wallpaper images wnough to find the series and watch it. None of the other anime I'd casually seen made an impression. I guess I need to start a thread to ask what else I should be watching.

[Guyver Spawn]

I argee with the post above. NGE and Fullmetal Alchemist are the very few animes that I give a perfect 10 (I have not seen too many anime series though).

[DavidSeth2]

I think it was 2001-ish? not sure. I know around this time i was first getting into anime. My friend had lent me Ghost in the Shell (what a great first anime), Akira, Perfect Blue and Ninja Scroll... and i watched them all in a week. I was really getting into this "Japanese animtion", but I mostly just wanted to watch anime movies. I still thought of anime tv shows to be "dumb/kids stuff" (since DBZ and Sailor Moon had been my only exposure to televised shows. no offense to any fans). My friend then brought me his last VHS tape that i hadnt seen (lol his collection wasnt that great). I looked at it:



I remember being veeery confused by the title and art cover. LOL I even asked him "Is this about stuff from the Bible?"
"F*** no, its giant robots and creatures." he replied.

Now, if you thought I was confused by just the title/cover art, how do you think I felt watching the LAST two episodes of this series first? I realize now I could have just stopped after that and never watched Eva again (or any other anime for that matter). But for some reason I was friggin hooked! It was unlike any animated show (or movie for that matter) that i had ever seen. the next day I asked my friend about the show and he told me that it was airing on our local PBS station on sundays! So I started watching it which at that time was around ep 12, and continues to watch onto the last two eps (agian). After that I went out and bought the first DVD (since that was all that was out at that time) and slowly collected all of them.

I remember the same friend getting an unsubbed Death and Rebirth vhs. I borrowed it, found a script online, and watched it while reading the script. lol good times.

[IrkenEvangelion]

I would imagine watching the last 2 episodes first would be pretty confusing. One more thing, it was airing on PBS?

[DavidSeth2]

heck yes on PBS! and thats where i watched my first anime comedy: Urusei Yatsura. Now mind you I live in the SF bay area, so its not a real stretch of the imagination that the PBS out here would be showing that kind of entertainment. I also saw eps here and there of Serial Experiments Lain, Sakura Wars, Bubble Gum Crisis and Key the Metal Idol. the best part was that it was all subbed, sadly I still watched these shows dubbd when I got them on DVD. what was I thinking?!

[IrkenEvangelion]

Lucky, the only thing they air in Western New York on PBS is politics, nature shows, and Mr Roger's Neighborhood.

[Annihilationscape]

Shockingly enough, the VERY first exposure to Eva I had was the first episode which was being played on a wall of TVs at a local TARGET.

Yes, I could scarcely believe it myself. It was promotion for the series, giving a brief synopsis (well, of like the first three episodes, really) followed by airing the first episode. I was browsing for some video games and was distantly aware of it; then I started paying some attention and thought, "That looks pretty sweet!" In partiular, I remember the JSDF jets going to bomb Sachiel and I was like, "Wow, if that can't stop it what's gonna stop it...?"

Then I bought the series like three and a half years later.

[asukafan11]

i was in the fourth grade, and decided to watch inuyasha. NGE was on, i heard people talking about how good it was, and decided to tune in. I actually wound up watching episode 24 or 25. :/ i was seriously freaked out by the pictures of Rei's trippy face, and couldn't sleep for weeks.

in the seventh grade, i was reading megatokyo and the author talked about shitty things happening to people in eva. therefore, i read angelic days so that i could sleep. i worked myself up to the original. hooray!

[LowerDefinition17]

sometime last year i was torrenting a bunch of metal bands and came across this one band from australia called parkway drive. on their debut ep, the intro to the cd was asukas "i dont wanna die" chant. i was immediately freaked out by this and demanded to know where it was from. so from there i went to wiki, where i found a synopsis of the events in EoE. i was so amazed about the plot of EoE and what i found that i proceeded to tell my friend about it, and surprising, he happened to know all about NGE, and told me to definitely check it out, and the rest is history.

[xtr00kvltcorex]

my first exposure was an advertisement in a movie magazine in 1998 (i think it was a promo for "Godzilla" movie). it intrigued me as it featured Shinji fighting Zeruel and of Eva 01 roaring. i was 11 so i didn't really pay it much attention afterwards.

i didn't really remember it until adult swim started airing it. i watched it when i could, then my friend at work sparked up a conversation about it and lent me EoE. i was hooked after that.

[Oedipusfoot]

I wish I had some sort of great initial exposure story. Frankly, I knew Evangelion was legendary but I didn't do anything about it until later. And then there's that ADV preview.

[backseatjesus]

Is it bad that I don't remember? It was like 2 years ago. I remember watching it on Veoh, but I never remember what brought me to them. I only watched 2 anime series before it and they were Death Note and Paranoia Agent. I don't see how they would have led me to it. Ah, I must be an Angel, it all makes sense!

[winder487]

Well, it was about 5 years ago. I was 11, and I saw an advertisement on the back of a Pokemon manga. I noticed that the chick on the back... (Asuka) was hot. So I google'd it, and only found one way I could become familiar with the series. (Because I was a stupid 11-year-old.)

And that was the painful process of reading the episode scripts... all text.
Every episode, and EoE, EoE was mind-fucky to my 11-year-old mind, but somehow I understood everything else. The thing that rattled my brain was I couldn't find a reason why Shinji would strangle Asuka at the end. Then I read EVA-R once when I was eleven, and once again when I was 13. I had no idea what was going on the first time, I sorta understood it the second time.

Fast-forward to 1 week ago. I watched the series through YouTube, and Death and Rebirth as well as EoE. And I still didn't understand EoE, so I read an explanation here: http://www.evaotaku.com/html/evafaq.html

And then I learned things, and understood EoE. And then understood EVA-R when I read it again.

[PuppetChaos]

A long time ago, Riotgear and I were regulars at a different forum (we both had different names there, long time ago) ... he was a big Eva fan, and so were some other people on that site; and they naturally talked about it a lot. I, being the little dork who hated anything anime back then, was all: "no it sux" ...ha ha, the irony.

A little later, I ran into a few people in my high school who liked it. I distinctly remember one guy trying to get me to watch it, and then getting all flustered and stammering (in much the same way you'd ask the hot chick if she wants to go to prom with you) when talking about Rei. I couldn't help but be amused by that.

Fast-forwards to about a two years ago. Gurren Lagann was on air, and I loved it (still do), and the latest episode was the one with Arc Gurren Lagann. My parents were away, my brother and friends at college... so I was bored, and I needed a mecha fix while waiting for the next episode of Gurren Lagann. And I had already watched quite a few series already, so my choices were getting slim. So I looked around, and found some rapidshares of Eva. I was all: "Okay, fine, I'll give it a chance."

I pushed my preconceptions out of my head, and just decided to sit down and watch it. I marathoned the entire series in a week. (It's probably a good thing I watched it in college as opposed to high school, because in HS, I was in a major depressive episode, plus... it's high school... I doubt Eva would've helped me.)

I found, to my surprise, that I enjoyed the series. The plot was interesting, Shinji wasn't as annoying as I was expecting him to be, and I thought I would hate Rei but I actually liked her because she was probably the only Eva pilot who did their duty consistently, even sacrificing her own life.

Instead of reacting with rage to the last two episodes, I instead thought they were comedy gold. I think I made a blog entry after watching them with a screencap of the floating Rei-head talking to Rei, with the caption: "Anno = Comedy God" Because, man, not only was it absurd and an obvious "...um, we broke the budget and this is totally now how the series was supposed to end", it was an epic troll of the original viewing audience.

I watched part of EoE a bit later, and it just made me want to bash my skull against something... so yeah. Rebuild was pretty badass, though.

Basically, I liked the series, despite thinking I wasn't going to.

Plus, Misato = sexalicious.

[Joseph the PRPD]

I stumbled upon it on youtube in May of 2008.

[Guyver Spawn]

I still remember when the series cameout in the 90's. Great times and I still miss the old 90's days back in 1993-1999.

[pablumatic]

I honestly don't know when and where I first found out about Evangelion, but right now I assume I read about it in a video game magazine in 1995. Most likely Diehard Gamefan. I had the internet back in the mid-90s, but I was using it through an absolutely horrible text-only VAX system using the Lynx browser. Having such limited access to the internet kept me from really using it for anything other than email.

The moment the series debuted on DVD in 2000 in the USA I picked it up, but for the longest time I had only read about it. I stayed away from the 1997 VHS releases after knowing the DVD version was on the way since I didn't want to re-buy the series later in another format.