Why is there an official cat version of the Evangelion theme?

Good morning! Here is an official version of the Neon Genesis Evangelion theme, “A Cruel Angel’s Thesis”, where all the lyrics have been replaced with “Nya”. It is performed by Yoko Takahashi, the vocalist of the original version, and accompanied by some… appropriate imagery.

Why does this exist? Well, it’s all because of a mobile game known as The Battle Cats, also known as Nyanko Daisensou (“Nyanko Great War”) in Japan. This has been an immensely popular game in Japan and Korea ever since its debut on the Japanese iOS App Store in November of 2011, and as a result has enjoyed numerous collaborations with some top-tier properties.

As you might have surmised, Neon Genesis Evangelion is the latest of these properties to collaborate with the game, offering a limited-time opportunity to draw a number of Evangelion-themed units in the game’s gacha system. There’s also a limited-time event stage where you can compete against an Evangelion as a foe, and potentially get a “Chibi Shinji” character to add to your collection as a rare drop.

Only one caveat: the event is exclusive to the Japanese version of the game at this time. (In the meantime, you could always check out the Evangelion collaboration in Honkai Impact!)

That’s not to say it’ll never come west, however. The Battle Cats is available here in the west on both Google Play and the App Store for Android and iOS devices respectively, and at the time of writing the English version is playing host to a collaboration event with Street Fighter V, so it looks as if the English version runs the same (or at least very similar) events to its Japanese counterpart.

According to the Battle Cats Wiki, the Evangelion event has run once before back in 2018, and it came to the English version about a month after the Japanese one ended, so you might not have to wait too long to get your hands on neko versions of the Evangelion characters.

If you’ve never come across The Battle Cats before, it’s essentially a take on the tower defence genre. Rather than simply defending your own base against incoming waves of enemies, however, you send out your own units that advance towards your opponent’s base as well as preventing their units from proceeding. Knock down your opponent’s base before they do the same to you, and you win.

As you progress through the game, more and more different types of cats will become available to you, beginning with high-health Tank Cats and continuing with a variety of other weird and wonderful units, be it the fearsome Axe Cat or the frankly terrifying long-legged Gross Cat. Each of these cats can be upgraded between missions, and you’ll also need to upgrade your Worker Cat to ensure your income keeps up with the units you have available to you.

The first few stages of the game are pretty straightforward; once you clear the seventh stage, Japan, you’ll unlock access to the gacha and special events. From here you can customise your strategy a lot more, as you’ll be able to obtain additional cats to add to your loadout, upgrade them to be more powerful, and power up the all-important Worker Cat to keep your coffers well-loaded.

Judging by the currently running Street Fighter V collaboration, you can expect a fairly stiff challenge from the special collaboration events even at their easiest difficulty, but they’re not impossible to complete for starting players — you’ll just need a bit of patience. By the time the western version of the Evangelion event rolls around, you might even have a solid army of cats to call your own! And haven’t you always wanted that?

The Battle Cats is available now for Android on Google Play, and iOS via the App Store. There’s also a Switch version on the Japanese eShop, though this is a standalone game rather than a port of the mobile title.

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Pete Davison

Pete is Rice Digital's editor, and a proud champion of any and all games involving pretty girls hanging out, saving the world or both. His first waifu was Rit from Rod Land.

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