Neon Genesis Evangelion has been a revelation for people suffering from depression

The Washington Post

Gene Park, 37, says the acclaimed Japanese anime series, which joined Netflix last week, opened his eyes to depression when he was a teenager. "In 1997, when I first saw the show, there was no national conversation about depression," says Park. "The Internet was still in its infancy, so finding other like-minded people was a challenge. I grew up as an Asian American in the Pacific islands, where these conversations were even less likely." Park points out that Evangelion creator Hideaki Anno made the series to his own crippling depression. "His growing awareness spilled into the writing," says Park. "His mental illness became inseparable from his art. Shinji’s lines below were echoes of the voices in my head...Listening to this fictional character’s frustrations, I felt — to quote the vernacular — seen."

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