The world of Neon Genesis Evangelion is already wild and convoluted on its own. The manga, anime, films, and Rebuild series give us plenty to puzzle over, with hints of time loops and alternate universes. But what if we told you there were actually 37 separate timelines across the Eva multiverse?
Crunchyroll’s own Tim Lyu took on the monumental task of tracing the connections between Evangelion‘s many timelines… but he doesn’t stop with the anime and films. In an hour-long video, Tim breaks down more than three dozen eventualities for our protagonists, from “school life” variants to every possible post-Third Impact reset. For example, did you know there are two separate but connected universes where Shinji is a detective?
We’re not sure what’s more impressive: the fact that he’s identified a “Food Impact” timeline in the multiverse, or the fact that he actually has a pretty decent explanation for the whole thing.
So as you continue your watch (or rewatch) of Evangelion on Netflix, don’t forget: somewhere out there is an alternate timeline created by Shinji because he just really wanted to play strip mahjong.