Petit Eva: Evangelion@School
is yet another adaptation of Neon Genesis Evangelion. This time, it's a Super Deformed comedic parody which has most of the principal cast (including Unit 01 and three Reis at once) in silly hijinks around the high school. It features no spoken (intelligible) dialogue, and rather than using traditional animation, it is done in complete 3-D CGI, initially by Ombibus Japan (of Usavich fame later) until Episode 9, then by Xebec from Episode 10 onward.
There are also assorted Yonkoma comics (including a 3 volume manga series) and a Licensed Game for the Nintendo DS in the same setting. The DS game is notable for its inclusion of Rebuild of Evangelion's Mari; it was actually the first source to reveal her first name.
Compare SD Gundam Force, RWBY Chibi, Attack on Titan: Junior High, and the various shorts produced for Fire Emblem Heroes, which also have Super-Deformed parodic takes on their similarly moody, cerebral and/or dark franchises.
"Petit Eva" contains examples of the following tropes:
- Accidental Pervert: Shinji AND Unit-01, after accidentally digging a hole under Asuka's skirt.
- Adaptational Angst Downgrade: In the manga version, The End of the World as We Know It had never happened. In the anime version, well, something happened, but Kaworu apparently prevented the destruction.
- All-CGI Cartoon: The anime is presented this way.
- And Knowing Is Half the Battle: Don’t eat batteries, kids.
- Art Evolution: The characters become chunkier and stiffer looking after the studio changed.
- Art Shift/Medium Blending: Any and all uses of 2D animation in this series.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Gendo towards Shinji at the end of episode 15.
- Bedsheet Ghost: How Kaworu disguises himself.
- The Bully: How the Angels are represented.
- Butt-Monkey: Shinji... again.
- Cheerful Child: Rei 3... except when she doesn't get her cake.
- Chucking Chalk: Parodied. Shinji is sleeping in Misato’s class, prompting her to try this. He dodges the chalk. She tries again, and he dodges again. She starts throwing more and more chalks, and he dodges every single one of them. While asleep.
- Dirty Old Man: Gendou.
- Dodge the Bullet: Parodied when Misato throws pieces of chalk at Shinji for sleeping, and his involuntary movements cause him to dodge them all, even when fired from a Gatling gun.
- Duck Season, Rabbit Season: Gendou employs this in one short to get Shinji, Asuka, and Unit-01 to stay on task cleaning the floor. This is actually accidental; Gendou just keeps failing to muster up the courage to give Rei a bouquet of flowers for her birthday over and over, opening and closing the classroom door over and over in gradually shorter and shorter intervals, until Shinji, Asuka, and Unit-01 finally get confused and play baseball when he’s looking and clean up when he isn’t.
- Finger-Tenting: Gendou, naturally. And it is freaking adorable.
- Gainax Ending: An off-colored version of Leliel sucked everything and everyone up, but Kaworu defeated it.
- Gender Flip: While technically Eva-01 was an Ambiguous Robot, and, therefore, had no gender, (remembering it was inhabited by Yui's soul), in this version, Eva-01 is portrayed as being male. Also, Keel is apparently now a teen female.
- Genki Girl: Rei 2.
- Giant Eye of Doom: Creepily plastered everywhere, including on top of Tokyo-3's school.
- Lighter and Softer: It's a super-deformed EVA, what do you expect?
- Merchandise-Driven: Petit Eva is based on (or at least ties into) a line of Super-Deformed Evangelion merchandise, some of which is based on the original series or Rebuild and depicts things that don't exist in the shorts.
- Moe Anthropomorphism: Eva-00, Eva-02, AND Jet Alone get this. JA is now a potential love interest. Even the Mass-Produced EVAs are adorable!
- Mind Screw: Some of the episodes make NO LOGICAL SENSE AT ALL. Granted, it was made by Gainax, but still...
- Why some of the Funny Background Event s happen are this too.
- Mundane Made Awesome: Eva-01's super boogers.
- Mythology Gag: Shinji and Asuka defeating Israfel with perfectly synchronized moves is similar to how they did it in the original Evangelion.
- Nose Nuggets: Eva-01 accidentally shoots a booger into Sachiel's face, setting of a Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
- Perspective Flip: Episodes 22 to 24 are this for episodes 18, 19, and 21 respectively.
- Pervert Revenge Mode: Gendou and Kensuke get this from Misato for ogling Asuka and Rei.
- Pet the Dog: Kaworu pays for the cake Rei has been saving up for, only to find its price has been raised before she could show up with the (previous) sufficient amount.
- Running Gag: Quite a few:
- Defeated Angels becoming toys for Rei 3.
- A random, Angel-sized bird pooping mid-flight.
- Anything the mountain with an eye does. It’s some kind of retired local Doraemon-style anime hero that might also be an Angel.
- Misato throwing chalk at students that aren't paying attention.
- Apparently, Eva-01's greatest fear is any character's facial features individually spun around like a Wheel of Fortune and having them burst into the room with a Zombie Gait.
- Sigil Spam:
- The Nerv icon in everything, including toast.
- The Seele eye.
- Surreal Humor: Executed, as the premise of the show.
- Toilet Humour:
- The huge shitting bird above.
- Minor example. Shinji is shown to have had some trouble, erm, letting out the batteries he had to swallow.
- Twin Switch: Rei 3 decides to do this when Rei 2 falls sick. Of course, with their personalities being polar opposites, everyone in school is VERY confused.
- The Unintelligible: Everyone's dialogue is nonsensical babble, but later they used speech bubbles.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Mouthless pink bears in bakeries? Gigantic hairless one-eyed lumps? Who cares?
