Does Neon Genesis Evangelion Have Any Fillers?

Neon Genesis Evangelion is a Japanese mecha-type anime that was produced by Gainax and was broadcast from 1995 to 1996. The series is set in the future, fifteen years after a worldwide cataclysm, in a world terrorized by beings known as Angels.

The protagonist of the story, Shinji Ikari, a teenage boy is called by his estranged father, Gendo Ikari, into Nerv, a United Nations special organization that uses Evangelions, giant bio-machine mechas to battle the angels and get rid of them.

Neon Genesis Evangelion is a Japanese mecha-type anime that was produced by Gainax and was broadcast from 1995 to 1996. The series is set in the future, fifteen years after a worldwide cataclysm, in a world terrorized by beings known as Angels.

The protagonist of the story, Shinji Ikari, a teenage boy is called by his estranged father, Gendo Ikari, into Nerv, a United Nations special organization that uses Evangelions, giant bio-machine mechas to battle the angels and get rid of them.

The series has been known to have a profound effect on the mecha genre and received critical acclaim as well as stirred up some controversy. It touches on religious symbols, and cosmology and ventures deep into the human psyche challenging life through the analysis of the problems of the series characters. It is believed to be based on the director, Hideaki Anno’s own psychiatric depression.

Neon Genesis Evangelion changed the anime industry, expanding the medium’s boundaries and widening the audience’s expectations, effectively changing the way anime was seen.

The collection released titles include the Neon Genesis Evangelion Series (1995-1996) and the movies; End of Evangelion (1997), Evangelion: 1.11 You Are (Not) Alone (2007), Evangelion: 2.22 You Can (Not) Advance (2009), Evangelion: 3.33 You Can (Not) Redo (2012), Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0 Thrice Upon a Time (2021).

With the exception of End of Evangelion, the other movies serve as a retelling of the original story, however in different ways and contain spoilers if the viewer has not seen the original series. Hence one should watch those as well as the End of Evangelion movie, before embarking on the other 4 movies.

The main series has a total of 26 episodes, with some episodes commonly considered fillers. However, these episodes still hold vital information to the series’ plot and as a result, should not be skipped. Below is the list of episodes and the ones considered as fillers:

EPISODE LIST

#	Title	Type
1	Angel Attack	Manga Canon
2	The Beast	Manga Canon
3	A Transfer	Manga Canon
4	Hedgehog’s Dilemma	Manga Canon
5	Rei I	Manga Canon
6	Rei II	Manga Canon
7	A Human Work	Filler
8	Asuka Strikes!	Manga Canon
9	Both of You, Dance Like You Want to Win!	Filler
10	Magmadiver	Filler
11	The Day Tokyo-3 Stood Still	Manga Canon
12	She Said “Don’t Make Others Suffer for Your Personal Hatred”	Manga Canon
13	Lilliputian Hitcher	Manga Canon
14	Weaving A Story	Manga Canon
15	Those Women Longed for the Touch of Others’ Lips and Thus invited Their Kisses	Manga Canon
16	Splitting of the Breast	Manga Canon
17	Fourth Children	Manga Canon
18	Ambivalence	Manga Canon
19	Introjection	Manga Canon
21	He Was Aware That He Was Still a Child	Manga Canon
22	Don’t Be	Manga Canon
23	Rei III	Manga Canon
24	The Beginning and the End, or “Knockin’ on the Heaven’s Door”	Manga Canon
25	Do You Love Me?	Filler
26	Take Care of Yourself	Filler