A giant robot show that changed anime

Teenagers piloting colossal biomechanical giants to defend a fortified city from mysterious beings, in a story that slowly turns into something stranger and more personal: Neon Genesis Evangelion is one of the most influential and debated anime ever made. Its style is unmistakable, from the purple and green giant to the stark white-on-black title cards and the glowing orange hexagons of its barrier fields. An Evangelion-inspired rug brings that bold, graphic look into a room. Every design is printed into soft velvet and goes in the washing machine.

Evangelion-inspired designs

Design	The look	Best in
Purple and green	Bold mecha color blocks in violet and neon green	Gaming setups, anime rooms
Hexagon field	Glowing orange hexagons on black	Round rugs, game rooms
Title card	Stark white serif text of your own on black	Studios, dorms
Future city	A skyline of towers at dusk	Bedrooms, hallways
Warning stripes	Industrial hazard panels and numbers	Gaming setups, garages
Pilot colors	Red, white and blue color blocks	Teen rooms, dorms

Purple and green is the palette every fan recognizes from the first unit, so it's the strongest choice for a gaming setup; the warning stripes are subtler and look graphic even to people who have never seen the show.

The series

Neon Genesis Evangelion was created by the director Hideaki Anno and aired in Japan in 1995 and 1996. In the year 2015, fourteen-year-old Shinji Ikari is summoned by his distant father to pilot a giant humanoid weapon called an Evangelion against enormous beings known as Angels, alongside two other young pilots. What begins as an action series becomes a deep, often painful exploration of loneliness, trauma and connection. It was followed by the film The End of Evangelion in 1997 and a series of four Rebuild films, completed in 2021. Its influence on anime, from mecha design to storytelling, is enormous.

Purple and green

The most famous Evangelion is painted deep purple with neon green accents, a color combination now instantly associated with the series. A rug of bold purple and neon green color blocks, with angular shapes like armor plates, is a dramatic design for a gaming setup or an anime room, especially with green RGB lighting. Under a gaming chair, choose Standard, 5 mm crushed velvet on a non-slip faux leather back, about 500 g/m², which stays put and lets the wheels roll. For more, see our gaming rugs.

Hexagon fields

When the Angels defend themselves, glowing walls of orange hexagons ripple into view. A rug of glowing orange hexagons on black is a striking, geometric design that works beautifully on a round rug, and it reads as a sleek sci-fi pattern to anyone who doesn't know the show. Our round rugs come from 2.6 to 5.9 ft (80 to 180 cm) across. For more geometric designs, see our geometric rugs.

Title cards

Each episode's title appears in stark white serif letters on a black screen, stretched, stacked and squeezed into dramatic compositions. A title-card rug with your own words, a name, a quote of your own or a room label, set in that bold, condensed serif style on black, is a striking, minimalist design for a studio or a dorm. Our custom rugs can print it in any size up to 5′11″ × 10′.

A fortified city

The story takes place in a futuristic fortress city whose skyscrapers can retract underground when an attack comes. A city skyline at dusk, with towers, power lines and a glowing sky, is a moody, cinematic design for a bedroom, a home theater or a hallway runner. A custom runner up to 10 ft long fits most hallways.

Warning stripes

The series is full of industrial detail: hazard stripes, numbered panels, cables and launch bays. A rug of hazard stripes and stenciled numbers in orange, black and white is a bold design for a gaming setup, a garage, a workshop or a model-building corner.

Pilot colors

The young pilots wear sleek suits in signature colors: white and blue, fiery red, and white and purple. A color-block rug in red, white and blue is a subtle, stylish nod for a teen's room or a dorm, recognizable only to true fans.

A real town near Mount Fuji

The series' fortress city is placed near Hakone, a real hot-spring resort town in the mountains near Mount Fuji. When the year 2015 actually arrived, the year the story is set, fans celebrated there, and the town has hosted Evangelion-themed shops and events. A misty mountain-and-lake rug in the style of the region is a quieter way to nod to the series.

A portable tape player

The lonely young pilot spends much of the series listening to music on an old portable tape player, earbuds in, shutting out the world. A rug of a retro tape player and a pair of tangled earbuds is a subtle, poignant design for a teen's room or a music corner. For more, see our vinyl record rugs.

The director's other giants

Hideaki Anno went on to co-direct Shin Godzilla in 2016, bringing the same eye for bureaucracy, destruction and scale to Japan's most famous monster. For more, see our Godzilla rugs.

Entryways

Just inside the front door, a hexagon-field or warning-stripe rug is a bold, graphic welcome. Keep it indoors, out of the weather, and choose Standard for its grip on tile and wood.

Pairing with furniture

These rugs suit sleek, slightly industrial rooms: black metal shelving, a gaming chair, LED strips in green or orange, a display of model kits and a few framed prints of your own. Keep the walls dark gray or white so the neon colors stand out.

A show about feelings

Beneath the giant robots, the series is about people struggling to connect with each other, and many fans say it helped them understand their own feelings. It deals with heavy themes, so these designs suit teens and adults best. For calmer designs, the city skyline and hexagon field are the gentlest choices.

Mecha fans

For fans of giant robots, from vintage model kits to modern mecha games, an Evangelion-inspired rug is a natural centerpiece beside a shelf of figures and models. For more robots, see our Transformers rugs.

Anime bedrooms and dorms

A purple-and-green or title-card rug brings bold personality to an anime bedroom or a dorm. Pair it with black or purple bedding and a few framed prints of your own. For a softer bedroom rug, choose Premium, 7 mm plush velvet on a bamboo and cotton back, about 700 g/m². Our bedroom rugs page has more layouts.

Its influence

The series changed what anime could be, proving that a show about giant robots could also be a serious, personal work of art. Its imagery, from the angular mecha to the title cards and the empty, quiet trains, has been referenced in countless later anime, music videos and fashion collections, and its soundtrack and opening song remain hugely popular decades later.

Gaming and model-kit corners

For fans who build mecha model kits, a purple-and-green or warning-stripe rug under the workbench catches dropped parts and adds color. It goes in the washing machine when paint and dust build up. Choose Standard for its grip.

Colors

Evangelion-inspired designs look best in deep purple and neon green, glowing orange on black, stark black and white and the red, white and blue of the pilots.

Other anime

For more classic anime, see our Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell, Akira and Gurren Lagann rugs, and all our anime and manga rugs.

Gifts

An Evangelion-inspired rug makes a great gift for a longtime anime fan or a mecha collector. A custom title-card rug with their name is the most personal; a hexagon field is the most versatile and the easiest to style.

Your own design

Want a title card with your own words, hexagons in your favorite colors or a mecha color scheme of your own design? Our custom rugs can print it in any size up to 5′11″ × 10′, or cut it to shape with our shaped rugs. Please only send artwork you're allowed to use; official logos, mecha designs and stills belong to their owners. Custom rugs are made just for you and can't be returned.

Sizes, shipping and returns

Rectangles come in 2×3, 2.6×3.9, 3.3×5, 4×6 and 5×7 ft. Round rugs come from 2.6 to 5.9 ft (80 to 180 cm) across, and shaped rugs from 2.6×2.6 up to 5.2×5.9 ft (80×80 to 160×180 cm). Custom sizes go up to 5′11″ × 10′, including long runners. Every rug is printed to order in 1–3 business days and ships from Turkey; US delivery usually takes 2–5 business days after that. Unused rugs can be returned within 30 days on US orders; custom rugs can't be returned.

Care

Machine wash on a gentle, cold cycle and let it air dry flat. Vacuum on a low setting between washes, and blot spills with cold water right away. The design is printed into the fibers, so the neon stays bright, wash after wash.

The Angels and the Rebuild films

Evangelion's enemies, the Angels, are some of the strangest designs in anime. Each one is different: Sachiel, the first to attack Tokyo-3 in the series, has a bone-white mask for a face; Ramiel is a floating blue octahedron that fires a devastating beam; Israfel splits into two identical halves; and Leliel appears as a black-and-white striped sphere whose true body is its shadow. They look less like monsters than like abstract sculptures.

That makes them unusually good subjects for rugs. A crystal-blue octahedron on a dark ground is Ramiel, a geometric design that reads as modern art to anyone who hasn't seen the show. A striped sphere hovering over a black pool of shadow is Leliel, an op-art piece that unsettles fans in the best way. A pair of mirrored figures in orange and white suggests Israfel's double attack.

Between 2007 and 2021, Hideaki Anno retold the story in four Rebuild of Evangelion films, ending with Thrice Upon a Time, which brought the saga to a close after more than twenty-five years. The films updated the colors and the battles, and gave many fans a more hopeful ending.

For a fan who has followed both the series and the films, a rug that pairs a classic Unit-01 purple-and-green palette with a geometric Angel design ties the old and new together, and it suits a model-kit corner, a gaming setup or an anime bedroom with a shelf of plastic Evas.

Collectors who build Eva model kits often display them alongside a rug in the Angels' colors, as if the giant robots were standing on a battlefield in Tokyo-3, waiting for the next attack, and it makes a striking setup.

Padrift is an independent studio. Evangelion is named to describe what our designs are inspired by; we are not affiliated with, sponsored or endorsed by Khara, Hideaki Anno or the series' rights holders.