Key the Metal Idol already started coming out a year before Eva, Akira already came out years before and was a massive step forward in both Anime and Manga.
How did Eva represent a step forward at all and not just a product of its times that happened to be massively popular? What did it do that was actually unique to Eva? I guarantee you I can point to an immediate, influential predecessor for any part of Eva. Evangelion was so massively popular that, much like the Watchmen in comics, it became a signifier for what their respective mediums looked like at the time even though it did not create any of those trends, just created a codification of them.