Neon Genesis Evangelion

5The letters of this title total 104, a 5 — the number of freedom, disruption, and restless movement.

What it is

Yoshiyuki Sadamoto's manga of Neon Genesis Evangelion began in Kadokawa's Monthly Shōnen Ace in 1994, shortly before the anime series it accompanies first aired, moved to Young Ace and finished in 2013, collected in 14 volumes. Sadamoto was the anime's character designer. In 2015, fifteen years after a catastrophe that killed half of humanity, fourteen-year-old Shinji Ikari is summoned by his estranged father to Tokyo-3 and ordered to pilot the giant Evangelion Unit-01 against beings called Angels.

How it works

The manga follows the anime's story, but not always its scenes. Sadamoto gives more space to the characters' inner lives and rewrites some relationships: his Shinji is more sullen and angry, and the mysterious Kaworu Nagisa is introduced differently. The giant robot battles are there, but the centre is a boy who does not want to fight and adults who use him.

Its pace

Because Sadamoto worked on the anime and its later films at the same time, the manga appeared slowly, with long breaks, across nearly two decades. Readers who began it as teenagers finished it as adults.

Why it matters

The anime transformed the mecha genre into psychological drama, and Sadamoto's manga is its most personal retelling, by the artist who gave its characters their faces. It is often recommended as a different way into the story for viewers who know the series.

The title by its numbers

Neon21Genesis33Evangelion50total104 → 5

総画 strokes51 → 6volumes14 → 5years serialised20 → 2debut year1994 → 5

Set against the Pythagorean table, the title totals 104. Reduced, that is 5. The weight sits in “Evangelion”, which carries 50 on its own and reduces to 5.

The 5 governs freedom, disruption, and restless movement. The reference files it as a turn. It is a lens rather than a verdict, but it is a consistent one: the 5's restlessness and hunger for change is the pressure under this entry.

Beneath the 5 sit two smaller figures: 11 in the vowels, 3 in the consonants. Vision underneath, expression on the surface. The gap between them is where the subject is most interesting.

総画 strokes is 51, a 6, volumes is 14, a 5, years serialised is 20, a 2 and debut year is 1994, a 5. That the 5 turns up in volumes and debut year as well as in the letters is the sort of coincidence this reference collects rather than explains.

The Turn asks one thing of everything on it: ask what was abandoned, and whether it deserved to be. The 5 moves for the sake of moving. Not every break documented here led anywhere, and the reference says so where it did not. The other entries that reduce to 5 are collected on The Turn.