For those of you who have kept up with my MyAnimeList account, you might have noticed that I had watched the first episode of Evangelion and gave it the high, high score of a 6/10. This is for those wondering why the score based on the first episode alone, as well as what led me to give Evangelion this score, and some general comparisons will be made between Evangelion and two show like it: Rahxephon (often dubbed an Evangelion ripoff) and Martian Successor Nadesico (another tragic mecha story with some comparable characters).
As many of you might be aware, the Evangelion fanbase can be interesting, to say the least. Many of them consider Evangelion one of the best anime ever made, or at least the best mecha anime ever made. While this is an opinion, it has been propagated to the point that now it is a consensus where disagreement means death (alright, maybe not death, but you can expect somebody who dislikes your opinion in a less than respectful way). I dare to disagree, but instead of berating Evangelion fans with insults, I will instead point out the things that Evangelion fans get wrong.
Evangelion is not as original as most fans tell you. Quite simply, it is because outside of Evangelion, they only know post-Evangelion mecha, as well as Gundam, Macross and maybe Patlabor. What they are unaware of are shows like Dagram, Aura Battler Dunbine and Xabungle, not to mention psychological, like Warau Salesman.
First I will focus on Dunbine, which outside of Japan is virtually unknown. The mecha design of the EVA-01 is heavily inspired by Dunbine not only in the purple/green color scheme, but also in leg articulation and upper core design (which is Gundam inspired, to an extent). Additionally some sequences of the Dunbine using shields show some similarities to the EVA-01s shoulder guards. The mechs do differ with many key features, such as the feet, which are humanoid, as well as the lower core articulation and arm thickness.
Another mecha, Madou King Granzort may have inspired some of the ideas for the control system, by needing to be chosen by the mech in order to fully operate it. Evangelion differs by having a maternal connection.
Gundam takes some of its character centered and psychological themes from other anime too.
While, to my knowledge, Shinji is a unique character, from his age, gender and behavior (though not each component individually), when compared to like characters from shows before it, how the plot unfolds and how characters are put before everything else, is not. Character focused anime started with Space Battleship Yamato in 1974 and became increasingly more common during the 1970s and 1980s gaining favor over the previous action-driven storytelling from people like Go Nagai and the writers at Tatsunoko Production (Mach GoGoGo and Gatchaman), that said there is no more striking of a resemblance of this than in Macross, VOTOMS and Area 88.
Macross is quite a well-known series at this point and Evangelion does touch on some common subjects, things like goals and love get a deep look in both series. While I will say that Macross has a better concept of what love is and how it touches base on this, both series are parallel in how they cover goals. Both series have periods of realization and moments where the question of what are the characters in question wanting of becoming, and while these moments of realization are characteristic are typical of this sort of anime, the male-female romance exists between Shinji, Rei and Asuka, though this is subverted slightly.
VOTOMS and Area 88 both cover the psychological effects of war and how it affects someone in these situations. In both instances, war degrades the characters into unstable individuals, weakened by the act of killing, though in both cases the protagonists learn to live with their circumstances or try to become better. This is where Evangelion strays from the two, where Shinji only comes to terms with what he is doing near the end of the story and the mental degradation of a much more extreme extent.
Additionally, Evangelion does pull from Warau Salesman in its portrayal of humans, who lead relatively normal lives until something life-changing happens. It can start off as fine, but usually goes downhill from there. This may be a finer point as Warau Salesman pretty much created the psychological genre in manga during the 1960s, but the key points do remain in the pattern of character behaviors. (They are otherwise dissimilar).
Another note on Evangelion is the symbolism,