The nymphs are departed. For instance, Nerv can be regarded the similar as the Solo Ship fighting a lonely struggle against each humankind and the Buff Clan, and then there are the incomprehensible robots that can only communicate with small children and are likely to go berserk, etc. It could possibly not be an exaggeration to say that if you include "Ideon" and "Devilman" together and divide by two, you get "Evangelion".