Biography

January 12, 1965 · San Francisco, California, USA

Matthew Brian Greenfield

[on the Mythology of Evangelion special feature which is included on the Neon Genesis Evangelion Platinum Volume 5 DVD ] Neon Genesis Evangelion is Greek. And what it literately means, is 'New First Book Gospel'. So, 'First Book of New Gospel'. What that means, is not a religious text per say, although there are a lot of religious references in in there, but I think that what uh, Anno and Gainax were attempting to convey was the idea that this is serving the purpose of a gospel or to use the works of Joseph Campbell as a reference, it is a cultural myth that is designed to guide us down a specific path in this case uh what we're looking at is, what Campbell defines as the classic hero myth in which, a protagonist is pulled from a safe, secure environment and forced to go through a series of tragedies and triumphs that forces him to develop, into a final being who is complete, who is whole and Eva follows that pattern almost exactly. We begin with a character, who is very incomplete and moves steadily in a, in a, orchestrated series of progressions towards finding his placement both as a personal being and in society and what Eva is really about is when you get right down to it, is finding that compliment that none of us actually have. It's about finding the rest of us that's out there.