Evangelion is one of the most successful anime franchises in history, and following its initial, groundbreaking TV run, the series has survived through films and some of the strangest partnerships in anime. For the better part of the past three decades, Evangelion has been widely regarded as one of the greatest stories told in the medium, but its creator hasn't always felt that way. Hideaki Anno has always expressed conflicting feelings towards his magnum opus, and in a recently surfaced interview, he claimed the series was pretentious.