The 100 Percent Rated Hayao Miyazaki Anime He Couldn’t Wait to Finish Just Hit Netflix
When the most exacting director in animation says hurry, you’re making history. Neon Genesis Evangelion, the ’90s landmark with a perfect 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, even had Hayao Miyazaki urging its creator to speed up.
Every once in a while, a show hits so hard that even the most famously tough grader in anime tells the creator to hurry up. Neon Genesis Evangelion did that. It has a spotless 100% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, it still pulls in new viewers decades later, and yes, Hayao Miyazaki himself pushed Hideaki Anno to get it finished. That is not normal.
So what is Evangelion, really?
On the surface, it is the 1995 TV series where teenagers climb into giant, biomechanical suits to fight mysterious beings called Angels. Under the hood, it is about fear, depression, isolation, identity, and the way people shut down when things get too real. In the mid-90s, mainstream anime usually did not go there. Evangelion did, and it did not blink.
That is a big part of why critics have stuck with it — not because it is breezy to watch, but because it swings for the fences. The 100% on Rotten Tomatoes is not a flash-mob rating; it is the long view on a show that redefined what a mecha series (and frankly, a TV show) could be.
Miyazaki, of all people, said: finish it
Hayao Miyazaki is not exactly known for lavishing praise outside the Studio Ghibli bubble. He has spent years rolling his eyes at modern anime trends and otaku culture. Which makes his reaction to Evangelion stand out even more.
In the RetroCrush documentary 'Hideaki Anno: The Final Challenge of Evangelion', Miyazaki presses Anno to finish the series and bluntly asks why it is not done yet.
Coming from a director who almost never publicly boosts non-Ghibli work, that lands as genuine artistic respect, not polite small talk.
Anno and Miyazaki go way back
Their connection did not start with Evangelion. Studio Khara notes that before any of this, Hideaki Anno animated on Miyazaki's Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. You can feel that lineage in Evangelion: the doomsday imagery, the organic-meets-mechanical designs — clear echoes of Nausicaa's God Warriors, filtered through Anno's headspace.
Miyazaki has told stories about their early interactions (often poking fun at Anno as only he can), but the through-line is mutual respect. Different styles, same seriousness about the work.
Why it still matters
Evangelion is uncomfortable on purpose. It sits with paralysis, self-worth, and the messier corners of being a person. That approach cracked open a door a lot of later series have walked through — character psychology up front, moral gray zones everywhere, genre rules bent until they squeak. That is why the critical consensus has not budged.
Where to watch, and a quick score check
- Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995 TV series) — IMDb: 8.5/10 — Streaming on Netflix (the full original TV run)
- Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984) — IMDb: 8.0/10 — Streaming on HBO Max
The present, and the ripple effect
Evangelion is on Netflix right now, which means it is very easy to see why this thing rewired an entire corner of the medium. If you end up chasing more, there is also the End of Evangelion movie, but the Netflix package gets you the original TV story as it was aired.
The headline here is not nostalgia. Miyazaki pushing Anno to get to the finish line was not bandwagon PR; it was one heavy-hitter recognizing that another had more to say — and that it was worth saying. Decades later, the show still proves him right.