Neon Genesis Evangelion

I watched a lot of Neon Genesis Evangelion when I was in college and the couple of years after that.  It’s an interesting anime that has a lot of action, humor, a penguin living in a fridge, psychologically traumatized characters, and an acid trip of an ending.  Supposedly, a person once asked the creator about the ending and his response was a ‘Fuck You’.  I will admit that some stuff annoyed me like the main character’s catchphrase ‘I will not run away’.  He did a few times and . . . well, I don’t think we were supposed to have much respect for him.

Anyway, watching that birthed the idea of the Charioteers because I wanted to have a book or series where the main characters were teenagers who could pilot big creatures.  I didn’t go for robots though.  The Chariots were unearthed monsters that had no souls of their own, but the ‘pilot’ could sit in a high-tech throne and transfer their consciousness into the beast.  They were needed to fight these rampaging monsters (Angels in Evangelion) that emerged when the world became too toxic.  Humans believe that destroying the monsters will revive the planet.  The truth was that the monsters were trying to remove humans and heal the Earth, so destroying them actually dooms everyone.  I threw in an ending where the surviving characters become various aspects of the world and the modern day Earth was born, which happens with no foreshadowing or sense.  Still, the Chariots were a nice idea.

Humans are living in bio-domes since most of the planet has gone toxic to them.  The characters were a shy twin, his popular brother, an odd girl found out in the pollution, a bookworm girl, and another girl that has no will of her own.  These characters were interesting and fun to play with.  Sadly, the transfer to Windemere has taken a toll on this one.

This is the one idea that I can’t figure out at all.  It feels like a perfect fit to a world of magic and I designated it to a distant island where this is happening.  Not the global scale of the original, but it holds up.  The issue is that the idea wasn’t really solid in Earth and even now it’s missing something.  I have it set up as a ‘Monster of the Chapter’ thing since they have to fight about 9-13 of these things.  I do need a few of these monsters in order to use the Chariots more than once, so maybe I simply need to drop them down a bit or find other reasons to use them.  Also, the structure is an issue.  Is there anything more than fighting the monsters?  Not really and I’m struggling to find reasons for them.  Honestly, I only like the shy boy and the strange girl out of the heroes.  I could try to rework the series with only them and maybe the popular twin.  It’s just a headache and I don’t know why this idea won’t fall in line.

So, does this idea sound like it sucks or has promise?