Ask John: Why Are There Evangelion Remakes Instead of a Sequel?

Question:
Neon Genesis Evangelion was a popular anime series not only in Japan but on an international scale. It boggles my mind that instead of producing a new series following the ending of “The End of Evangelion” that Gainax decided to retell the sory of Evangelion again with the “Rebuild of Evangelion” series of movies. Why hasn’t there ever been, in all this time, a 100% true sequal to the series? Why is retelling the story with new artwork and endings so popular compared to using the same resources to create a brand new series based on a post “End of Evangelion” world? Wouldn’t that serve a greater purpose than retelling a story that’s already been told in so many shades?

Answer:
I think that the primary difficulty in creating a literal sequel to End of Evangelion is the fact that there’s no story left to tell. “The End of Evangelion” was literally the “end of Evangelion” because the film is physically and psychologically apocalyptic. At the end of the film, Shinji and Asuka are the only two individual human beings left in the universe. Asuka hates Shinji and herself. Shinji has rejected his opportunity to literally join with the rest of humanity, and he unleashes his frustration by literally trying to kill Asuka. With such a bleak and apocalyptic setting, there’s simply no future left to depict in a sequel.

In a manner of speaking, the “Rebuild of Evangelion” series of movies are simultaneously a retelling and a sequel to the Evangelion animation that we’re familiar with. While the first of the four new films is a retelling of the first quarter of the original television series, the initial teaser footage of the second film promises at least one original character, new mecha, and an original direction for the story. The “Rebuild of Evangelion” film series may turn out to be less a retelling and much more of an original, self-contained alternate version of Evangelion.