The Life, Death & Rebirth of Evangelion in the USA

Recap

The video traces how Neon Genesis Evangelion made its way through American anime distribution—from VHS tapes and late-night TV to Netflix—and argues that each new release brought its own mix of devotion, confusion, and occasionally spectacularly bad decisions.

The narrator opens with the 2019 Netflix backlash, focusing on the missing “Fly Me to the Moon” and the changed wording of Kaworu’s confession to Shinji. This leads to a question: Was the old ADV dub really flawless by comparison?

ADV Brings Evangelion to America

The story begins with Houston-based ADV, founded by John Ledford and Matt Greenfield. They secured the Evangelion license before the series became a major phenomenon in Japan, then rushed out an English dub while episodes were still arriving. The narrator praises the cast—particularly Tiffany Grant as Asuka and Amanda Winn-Lee as Rei—but notes that the rushed process led to inconsistent performances and translation mistakes.

Two examples stand out: the English dub omits the layered voices in the series finale, and it loses a Japanese version of Asuka’s breakdown in which different voice actresses deliver repeated lines. The narrator admits to having cherished the latter scene as a child before realizing that what he remembered was partly a dub-specific quirk.

The video then catalogs ADV’s VHS and DVD editions, their prices, and their increasingly elaborate packaging. The narrator’s enthusiasm for the Platinum Collection is tempered by jokes about the many supposedly “complete” or “perfect” editions—“I sure hope someone got fired for that blunder”—and by the revelation that some rare LaserDiscs may have developed disc rot.

Evangelion on American Television

The series’ first U.S. television outing, the narrator says, was on San Jose PBS station KTEH—not Cartoon Network. The station aired the show unedited and subtitled, alongside other niche anime. The narrator also celebrates KTEH’s broadcast of Serial Experiments Lain, treating it as an even more surprising programming choice.

Cartoon Network’s 2003 “Giant Robot Week” showed only two episodes, heavily edited for younger viewers. Among the strangest changes were digitally removing an arrow pointing toward Misato’s chest, replacing her beer cans with generic ones, and putting a swimsuit on her in the bath. The narrator wonders why the network went to the trouble instead of simply cutting the scene.

The later Adult Swim run was more complete, though it still censored some material. The video also highlights the block’s stylish promotional bumpers and notes that ADV’s own Anime Network carried Evangelion as well.

The End of Evangelion—and a Very Bad DVD

When ADV passed on the films, Manga Entertainment acquired Death and Rebirth and The End of Evangelion. The narrator is especially scathing about the home-video releases: the picture is blurry, interlaced, and poorly framed, with a bootleg DVD sometimes looking better than the licensed version. He also objects to added sound effects and a new end-credit sequence in End of Evangelion, arguing that they interfere with the film’s original design.

The dub gets its own critique, including a major line that incorrectly suggests Lilith gave rise to Adam, and odd pronunciations such as “Kwaru.” The narrator’s anger over the DVD quality becomes a running gag: he jokes that his twelve-year-old self has finally been vindicated—and that his therapist will no longer need to hear about it.

Hollywood’s Unrealized Adaptation

ADV, Gainax, and Weta Workshop planned an American live-action Evangelion, with Peter Jackson’s effects company involved. The project reportedly attracted major interest. The video recounts plans for a trilogy, early concept art, and even Emma Watson as Hideaki Anno’s suggested choice for Asuka.

But the proposed designs and character changes alarm the narrator. The Evangelions looked too much like obvious monsters, which he argues undermined the original reveal that they were living beings beneath their armor. The characters’ names were also changed: Asuka became “Kate Rose,” Rei became “Ray,” and Misato became “Susan Whitnall.”

ADV’s financial collapse, a dispute with Gainax over the film rights, and the project’s stalled development ultimately left the movie unmade. The narrator is relieved, doubting that a Hollywood adaptation could preserve the series’ themes.

Rebuild, the Otakon Story, and Netflix

Funimation handled the Rebuild of Evangelion films, initially releasing them with familiar ADV cast members. The third film’s American release was delayed, and its dub was eventually redone under Studio Khara’s supervision.

The video discusses an online account claiming that a wild audience reaction at Otakon helped prompt Khara to intervene. The narrator stresses that the story is unverified—and that the dub actually premiered at New York Comic Con, not Otakon—but thinks it may reflect a real concern that the film was being treated as a comedy.

The final section returns to Netflix. The narrator criticizes the translation’s errors, its replacement of the original episode titles, and—above all—the removal of “Fly Me to the Moon.” He also objects to the wording of Kaworu’s line as “I like you,” but pushes back against claims that Netflix itself deliberately erased a gay relationship: the translation was made by Studio Khara’s in-house translator, Dan Kanemitsu. The narrator still considers the choice wrong and damaging, while distinguishing criticism of the translation from personal accusations against its translator.

The conclusion is more forgiving than the video’s rants about DVDs might suggest. ADV, Manga, Funimation, Khara, and Netflix all made mistakes, the narrator argues, but the people involved were not simply trying to ruin the series. The video ends by framing Evangelion’s American history as a long, messy process of trying—and sometimes failing—to bring the work to new audiences.

Personalities Featured or Discussed

• Zinnbuster (also rendered in the subtitles as “Zen Buster”), the narrator
• John Ledford and Matt Greenfield, ADV co-founders
• Hideaki Anno, Evangelion director
• Tiffany Grant, Amanda Winn-Lee, Spike Spencer, Allison Keith, and Trista MacAvery, among the ADV dub cast
• Dan Kanemitsu, Studio Khara translator
• Peter Jackson, whose Weta Workshop was involved in the proposed live-action film
• Robin Williams, mentioned as a fan who appeared in the film’s pitch material
• Gen Fukunaga, Funimation president, mentioned in the closing discussion