Volume 1: "The human race nearly ended with the millennium: in 2000 A.D., a top-secret encounter between an Antarctic expedition and an entity code-named the 'Angel' triggered a global catastrophe. Now, in 2015, the Angels have returned, and Shinji Ikari, a fourteen-year-old child of the new Earth, is summoned to the super-technological city of Tokyo-3 by his long-estranged father, the supreme commander of the clandestine United Nations research organization NERV. To match the fearsome power of the Angels, NERV has constructed a biochemical weapon code-named 'Evangelion'--a monster to be piloted by the unwitting Shinji!"--Volume 1 cover