Rebuild of Evangelion

Rebuild of Evangelion (ヱヴァンゲリヲン新劇場版) is a series of four movies by the creators of Neon Genesis Evangelion, which form an alternate retelling of the original TV series. "Rebuild of Evangelion" constitutes a separate continuity from the continuity of the original TV series and associated movies, Death and Rebirth and The End of Evangelion. The first film in the series was released in Japan on September 1, 2007; the second on June 27, 2009; and the third on November 17, 2012. The fourth and final film was released in Japan on March 8, 2021.

Production History
On February 17, 2007 series creator Hideaki Anno released an official statement in a form of a movie poster that was shown in 50 cinemas in Japan, providing an explanation for his motivations in creating a new version of the franchise, and stating that the release date for the first film in Japanese theaters was September 1, 2007. The english name of the movie series was Rebuild of Evangelion (Tentative name), which would be later dropped in favor of Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone and Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance.

Many who worked on the original Evangelion production team returned to work on Rebuild. Hideaki Anno has written the script for the first movie and has been the general director and manager for the entire project. Kazuya Tsurumaki and Masayuki have been working on directing the movies while Yoshiyuki Sadamoto provided character designs and Ikuto Yamashita provided mechanical designs. and provided storyboards for the first movie.

Films
There are four films in the Rebuild of Evangelion series. The first is titled "Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone", the second "Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance", the third is called "Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo". The last film is known as "Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon A Time".

Storyline
“Rebuild of Evangelion” was originally presented as an alternate retelling of the original Neon Genesis Evangelion: the first three movies were intended to be an “alternate retelling” of the series, while the fourth and final film is promised to be an entirely new, alternate ending to the series.

Major differences include that while Kaworu Nagisa was originally introduced very late in the series in Episode 24, in Rebuild of Evangelion he was present in the first film. In addition, a new girl named Mari appears starting from the second film.

The plot of the first Rebuild film ends with “Operation Yashima”, the battle against the Angel Ramiel in Episode 06 which concluded the introductory story arc. The plotline of the second film ends in the battle against Zeruel in Episode 19, but the story greatly differs from that of the original series.

Notes & Trivia

 * The titles of the first three movies don't use the normal spelling of Evangelion (エヴァンゲリオン) but rather use the we (ヱ) and wo (ヲ) characters in place of the e (エ) and o (オ) characters, respectively. There is no change in pronunciation though.
 * The final film reverts to the original katakana spelling, but adds Shin (シン) to the title; as it is written in katakana and not kanji, the meaning of shin is ambiguous and it can be alternatively translated as either "new" (新, Shin) (as in previous Rebuild films), "true" (真, Shin), or even something else entirely.
 * The 0 in the titles for the first three movies (1.0, 2.0 and 3.0) is stylized as ∅, which symbolizes the empty set in mathematics. It is also the symbol used by Ancient Romans to mark dead gladiators on mosaics.