It’s hard to believe, but it’s true: Hideaki Anno’s groundbreaking anime Neon Genesis Evangelion is now celebrating its 30th anniversary. For three decades—ever since its debut on Japanese TV in 1995—audiences have been captivated by Evangelion’s singular mix of mecha action, psychological introspection, and still-unresolved questions about what it all truly means. But perhaps the biggest mystery of all is how it happened in the first place. What allowed Evangelion to emerge in the mid-1990s—and could something like it ever happen again?