The Neon Genesis Evangelion timeline is anchored by two catastrophes separated by fifteen years. The first, the Second Impact, occurs on 13 September 2000 in Antarctica, when a contact experiment with an entity called Adam triggers an explosion that destroys the Antarctic continent and kills approximately half of humanity. Sea levels rise. The climate destabilises. Wars break out in the chaos that follows. The world that emerges from the Second Impact is recognisable but damaged, a near-future that bears the marks of a disaster that no government was prepared to explain honestly to its population.
The second catastrophe is the one the series is building toward from its first episode. In 2015, fifteen years after the Second Impact, the Angels begin to arrive. These are vast biological entities of unknown origin, each one unique, each one capable of destroying the fortified city of Tokyo-3 without the intervention of the only weapons capable of stopping them: the Evangelion units, biomechanical constructs of enormous size piloted by fourteen-year-old children selected for a specific neurological compatibility. NERV, the organisation responsible for the Evangelion project, operates from a facility beneath Tokyo-3 and answers to a shadowy committee called SEELE whose stated goals and actual intentions are not the same thing.
The original 1995 series covers the period from June 2015 through to early 2016. The 1997 film The End of Evangelion provides an alternate conclusion to the same timeline. The Rebuild of Evangelion film series, beginning in 2007, starts from the same June 2015 entry point but diverges progressively, with the third film jumping fourteen years into the future and the fourth and final film, released in 2021, bringing the Rebuild continuity to its own conclusion in approximately 2030.
The First Impact is a primordial event: the collision of a giant meteorite with Earth that wiped out the dinosaurs and seeded the planet with Angel DNA. It is referenced in the series as the origin point of the chain of events that will eventually lead to the Second Impact and the Angel attacks of 2015.
Open record →A contact experiment with the Angel Adam in Antarctica triggers a catastrophic explosion. The Antarctic continent is destroyed, global sea levels rise significantly, and approximately half of humanity dies in the immediate aftermath and the conflicts that follow. This date is now in our past.
Open record →In the years following the Second Impact, governments struggle to manage rising sea levels, climate instability and the geopolitical consequences of a disaster that has killed half the global population. The true cause of the event is suppressed and replaced with a cover story involving a meteorite strike.
Open record →Shinji Ikari is born one year after the Second Impact to Gendo and Yui Ikari, both researchers involved in the Evangelion project. His childhood is marked by the loss of his mother and his subsequent abandonment by his father, circumstances that shape his psychology throughout the series.
Open record →Asuka is born in Germany, the daughter of a NERV researcher. Selected as the pilot of Evangelion Unit-02 at an early age, she is defined by exceptional ability and a fierce drive to prove herself, qualities that the series traces to formative experiences in her early childhood.
Open record →Construction begins on Tokyo-3, a purpose-built city designed to retract its buildings underground during Angel attacks. Built above the Geofront, the vast subterranean cavity that houses NERV headquarters, Tokyo-3 is simultaneously a functioning city and a military installation.
Open record →Rei Ayanami is not born in the conventional sense. She is created from biological material connected to Yui Ikari and combined with Angel DNA, the first of what will become a series of identical bodies used as vessels for a consciousness that NERV maintains and replaces as needed.
Open record →During a contact experiment with Evangelion Unit-01, Yui Ikari is absorbed into the Eva's core and does not return. The incident is classified. Her son Shinji is three years old at the time. The question of what Yui's absorption means for the nature of Unit-01 runs through the entire series.
Open record →NERV is established as the organisation responsible for the Evangelion project and the defence of humanity against Angel attacks. It operates under the nominal authority of the United Nations but reports in practice to SEELE, a secret committee with its own interpretation of humanity's future.
Open record →The Angel Sachiel arrives at Tokyo-3, the third such entity to appear since the Second Impact. Conventional military weapons have no effect. NERV's only operational Evangelion unit requires a pilot, and the only compatible candidate available is a fourteen-year-old boy who has just arrived in the city.
Open record →Shinji Ikari enters Evangelion Unit-01 for the first time and engages Sachiel in combat. The sortie is not under control in any conventional sense. The outcome marks the beginning of NERV's active defence operations and Shinji's role within them.
Open record →Asuka Langley Soryu arrives in Japan aboard a naval carrier group transporting Evangelion Unit-02. Her arrival coincides with an Angel attack at sea, and she engages the Angel Gaghiel in her first combat operation in Japanese waters before even reaching Tokyo-3.
Open record →The Angel attacks on Tokyo-3 continue across the second half of 2015, with NERV deploying its Evangelion units in response to each new threat. Each battle reveals more about the nature of the Angels, the Evangelion project, and the agendas of the organisations directing the conflict.
Open record →SEELE moves to initiate the Human Instrumentality Project, the goal toward which the entire Evangelion programme has been directed. The project's purpose, the merging of all human consciousness into a single entity, has been concealed behind the stated mission of defending humanity from the Angels.
Open record →The Third Impact represents the collapse of individual human consciousness into a unified whole. The End of Evangelion presents this event in visual and symbolic terms that resist straightforward description. Whether it constitutes a catastrophe or a transformation depends entirely on the framework used to evaluate it.
Open record →The first Rebuild film begins from the same point as the original series, with Sachiel's attack on Tokyo-3 on 22 June 2015. The Rebuild continuity closely follows the original series through its first film before beginning to diverge significantly in the second.
Open record →The second Rebuild film continues into late 2015 and diverges sharply from the original series in its final act, when a Near Third Impact is triggered under circumstances that differ substantially from the original timeline. The Rebuild continuity establishes itself as a genuinely separate story from this point onward.
Open record →The third Rebuild film jumps fourteen years forward, to approximately 2029. The world has been transformed by the Near Third Impact, NERV and WILLE are in open conflict, and Shinji awakens to find that the consequences of his actions in 2015 have reshaped everything around him in ways he did not anticipate.
Open record →The final Rebuild film brings the alternate continuity to its conclusion in approximately 2030. It resolves the central conflicts of the Rebuild series and provides an ending to Shinji's story that differs significantly from both the original series and The End of Evangelion.
Open record →Q: What year is Neon Genesis Evangelion set in?
The main series is set in 2015, fifteen years after the Second Impact of 13 September 2000. The series begins on 22 June 2015. The End of Evangelion extends into early 2016. The Rebuild film series starts from the same 2015 point but diverges, with Evangelion 3.0 jumping to approximately 2029 and 3.0+1.0 concluding in approximately 2030.
Q: When does the Second Impact happen in Evangelion?
The Second Impact occurs on 13 September 2000 in Antarctica. It destroys the Antarctic continent, causes global sea levels to rise, destabilises the climate, and kills approximately half of humanity. This date has already passed in our own timeline.
Q: What is the Evangelion timeline in order?
Second Impact in Antarctica (13 September 2000) → Shinji born (6 June 2001) → Asuka born (4 December 2001) → Tokyo-3 construction begins (2003) → Rei created, Yui absorbed into Unit-01 (2004) → NERV established (approx. 2005) → Sachiel attacks Tokyo-3, Shinji pilots Unit-01 (22 June 2015) → Asuka arrives in Japan (July 2015) → Angel battles continue across 2015 → Human Instrumentality initiated (December 2015) → Third Impact (2016). Rebuild continuity: same start, Near Third Impact (late 2015), then 3.0 in 2029 and 3.0+1.0 in 2030.