True, but One Piece Film Z outsold all of em, so..
But yeah, Evangelion has done wonders for animation as a whole in Japan I think. Anime used to be treated like how cartoons are treated here, but Evangelion opened it up to adults (and forced people to take it more seriously) and allowed people to feel free and comfortable expressing their love for anime. Unfortunately, this led to where the current state of anime is today… (it's not the only reason of course, but it was noteworthy.).
It's like a japanese equivalent of Star Wars I think, in terms of its ubitquity. I don't know though, I'm still learning.
I don't think so, I don't think you're right in the least!
Anime was always a big thing in Japan, and not just for kids. Contrary to America history "cartoons" never got outplayed as something only for children in Japan, just like in France and Belgium that never happened as well.
Let's see!
You have Evangelion that aired in 1995, but you have Space Battleship Yamato in 1974, Gundam in 1979, Space Runaway Ideon in 1980.
Anno, the creator of Evangelion, is a big otaku that made Evangelion taking inspiration in the titles that he liked, a lot of those titles were really mature and complex, and that is the reason why he made Evangelion in that way.
Here you can see the list of anime titles aired in each year since 1961 the first anime of all time.
The first mature anime that I found is Sabu to Ichi Torimono Hikae in 1968, this is the first seinen manga adapted to anime!
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You can't compare OnePiece and Ghibli movies to anything else. Those are the all time high-grossers in Japanese theaters.
You can't think of them as a success threshold, but you can see them as Mega success staples and by look how close a title is to them and in that way see how popular the title is.