Sadamoto, Yoshiyuki

As mankind hangs on the brink of the apocalyptic Third Impact, Shinji learns for the first time to care about people and to fight for them, only to realize that he cannot protect them.

Follows the adventures of Shinji Ikari, a child of the new Earth who piloted Evangelion, a colossal biomechanical weapon, to battle the fearsome Angels.

In 2015, Shinji is unknowingly assigned to task of deploying a secret weapon against the entities known as the Angels.

When Shinji hesitates to fight the Eva Unit-03, which is infected by the Eight Angel, because it is piloted by his friend Toji, Shinji's father activates a secret "Dummy Program" that overrides the human pilot and causes the Eva to savagely beat the Eighth Angel, and Toji, to death.

Shinji, a fourteen-year-old boy summoned to Tokyo-3 by his father to be a pilot and then rejected, struggles to win the affection of his live-in commanding officer, find harmony with a hostile classmate, and learn more about another Eva pilot, the beautiful but quiet Rei Ayanami.

In 2015, fourteen-year-old Shinji is summoned by his estranged father to the new Earth's Tokyo-3 to pilot an Eva Unit-01 against the Angels, the entity that brought on the destruction of the old Earth in 2000. When Shinji is again rejected by his father, he moves in with his commanding officer and begins school, attempting to get on with his life.