"GET IN THE ROBOT. ALSO YOUR MOM IS IN THE ROBOT. ALSO YOU ARE THE ROBOT."
Evangelion is not about giant robots. It is about a 14-year-old boy with severe depression being asked to save the world, and the absolute cruelty of that ask. Hideaki Anno made his anxiety disorder into a mythology. It is the most honest thing in anime and it will ruin you for genre fiction.
Shinji Ikari is summoned by his absent father to pilot a giant biomechanical mech against Angels — beings trying to trigger the Third Impact. The fate of humanity rests on a child who desperately doesn't want to disappoint anyone and fundamentally believes he deserves nothing.