" Evangelion is not so much an original as itself already a copy of popular anime elements, “an aggregate of information without a narrative” or a “grand non-narrative” (O38). This results in part from industrial changes. By the ’90s, any product can spawn all the others: a series of stickers or a company logo could bloom into a series of manga, TV or film anime, games and more. By now “the narrative is only a surplus item "

― McKenzie Wark , General Intellects: Twenty-Five Thinkers for the Twenty-First Century