#comatose shinji

[iowafashionweekbegins]

"all of us are like shinji ikari, people hate him because theyre reminded of themselves" speak for yourself 😭 personally i do not see myself in a 14 year old boy who sees girls his age as stand-ins for unmet social, emotional, and sexual needs, and who willingly commits physical and sexual violence against them as a punishment for feeling personally slighted by them, but you do you i guess??

[justanisabelakinnie]

THIS.

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Neon Genesis Evangelion (Anime, 1995)

Explain your reasoning in the tags!

[captn-lovelace]

End of Evangelion was playing in a theater near me so i went to see it (i’ve seen all of nge 2-3x so it’s not the first time ive seen it but it’s been a while) and jesus. that really is A Movie™

[robian]

End of Evangelion

Sorry for cursing, but what the actual fuck did I just watch. To understand this film, I basically had to read an entire essay about background information that can only be found in outside sources such as video games. I even watched a 5 minute YouTube video purely just to understand the infamous hospital scene. 

If you're confused like I was please read this:

and read:

https://imgur.com/2oRZv

Shinji at this point in the story is just absolutely fucked up in the head mentally. Both of his friends leave. Asuka is comatose. Rei is swimming in a juice bathtub. He even killed the guy that finally accepted him and even liked him. By the way apparently some people think Kawaru is a representation of Jesus who needed to be killed. Anyways, Shinji was just mentally not there. Shinji's in this shit mental state and knowing Shinji, he doesn't know how to properly express his emotions. So naturally what does he decide to do? Bust a load to Asuka's comatose body. Btw although the anime doesn't show any attraction for Asuka prior to this (except the kiss maybe and the childhood friend fantasy) apparently there's some side content that makes their relationship make a bit more sense.

I would explain the events of the story in more detail, but reddit can explain it better. Basically at the end Shinji decides he would rather live in the new destroyed world than a fantasy and the only person that we can see who also decided to stay is Asuka. Basically,Shinji chokes Asuka so he knows he's not living in some weird fantasy. Asuka caresses his cheek and calls him disgusting, letting him know that it isn't a fantasy. Basically Shinji has the craziest character development in all of anime history. Although it's hard to say if he's even alright at the end.

On one hand I think Evangelion is a masterpiece and on the other hand I think it's garbage. It's an anomaly within anime. As a story writer, if most people can't understand your story, then it's badly written. However, Evangelion reminded me of poetry. It was confusing but clearly had deeper meanings. I doubt anyone could ever COMPLETELY understand Evangelion by only watching the series&movie. It practically requires discussion between people to even grasp it. If the writers wanted to leave a lasting impression, they certainly achieved their goal.

[marcysdreamydays11]

Reminder - If any family member has given you trauma and has affected you negatively YOU ARE NOT OBLIGED TO FORGIVE THEM AND YOUR FAMILY AND PEOPLE WHO HAVE HURT YOU ARE NOT ENTITLED TO ASK FOR FORGIVENESS. {RANT POST/VENTING}

Mentions of CA/CSA you are valid everyone who says not can get buttfucked. dry.

say you're valid say good things about yourself in your mirror = Shinji smiles..and doesn't handle his business in a hospital room with a comatose girl

I fucking hate how family does this especially the fucking older generation it pisses me off how your family will pressure you to forgive and forget like what the fuck no. You forgot the time you fucking yelled at me and hit me with a fucking charger to get in the shower when my brother who fucking took advantage of me turned the sink on making the water cold so I got out and you beat me with a fucking charger saying I was a liar. But I REMEMBER every fucking thing you FUCKING said I remember the color of the charger I REMEMBER THE TYPE OF FUCKING CHARGER IT WAS. So why the fuck am I supposed to forgive and forget

People who are supposed to help children and help them cope and heal even say this.. basically to get over the trauma a family member gave you and practically deal with it and forgive and forget and that I'm fucking milking my trauma and they completely misinterpret what you fucking say.

Yeah I'm fucking petty bitch I'm not gonna forgive you for yelling at me for fucking hitting me for fucking telling me to stop being a damsel in distress to stop milking being a victim and you wonder why I have fucking outbursts and you whine to everyone about how your daughter yells at you. Like what the fuck my brain isn't fully developed yet. You're 40. there's a difference.

I hate how hypocritical and victimizing parents can be. You fuss at your kid for the shit they do. you do the same shit. get off your high horse. if you don't want me talking shit about you don't talk shit about me. If you don't want me yelling at you. Don't yell at me

"I'm doing fifty million things right now" "I'm in so much pain" "I can't do this anymore"

LMAO yeah did you fucking think that when you beat the shit out of me when I wasn't even a fucking teenager yet.

LMAO WHAT DO YOU MEAN MY MOM IS GUILTY FOR WHAT HAPPENED?? DID SHE FEEL GUILTY BACK THEN FUCK NO?

It is YOUR choice as VICTIM to forgive who you want to and to not forgive and if you don't forgive you are absolutely valid and fuck everyone who says otherwise cause they aren't you and they can suck dick.

People who's profession is helping kids heal should NOT be reinforcing that a child should forgive a abusive family member even a parent. Why the fuck am I being told "Oh you're 14 you should do this" ok I had my childhood and innocence taken away from me?? The way they misinterpret things the old generation pisses me the fuck off

anyway Bitch you're valid and don't let anyone else tell you otherwise CAUSE THEY NEED TO SHUT THE FUCK UP AND EAT A SNICKER BAR YOU ARE VALID YOU CAN HEAL AT YOUR OWN PACE ADULTS SHOULDNT BE TELLING YOU ANYONE IN GENERAL SHOULDNT BE TELLING YOU TO FORGIVE AND FORGET HEAL AT YOUR OWN PACE DONT RUSH FOR ANYONE

*takes out a non existent gun and shoots at you with hearts* YOU ARE VALID! POW POW POW POW POW POW YOU TOO! POW POW POW AND YOUUUUUUUU! POW POW POWWWWWWWWWWW

i wish I could do that..can I like get a t-shirt gun with t-shirts saying you are valid and shoot it at people.....

Oh!

[gainaxvel3o]

Genderswap!Shinji tends to have get a lot of jokes on the Eva subreddit about how audiences would be more forgiving of her actions in the hospital scene. Now, I know it's just a joke and I shouldn't be taking it literally, but if we're going to take a stab at seriously imagining that scenario, if Shinji were a girl from the get go I honestly don't think a scene like that would even exist.

Like. Even if it isn't specifically about Otaku, Shinji masturbating to a comatose Asuka and his Instrumentality sequence later on are clearly meant to represent something about the way men treat women. If Shinji were a girl, those scenes wouldn't mean much of anything and come across as shock value. Sure, women objectify men, but in the context of a giant robot fantasy it wouldn't make a lot of sense and be very confusing to be the subject of the movie.

Evangelion is about a lot of things. In relation to Shinji, it's a story about facing reality and the struggle with his muddled, often frankly misogynistic relationship with his sexuality. Just changing Shinji into a girl would alter the story considerably. Swapping the genders of the ENTIRE Evangelion cast... I don't think anyone has grappled with how much that would affect the way the series would be written.

I feel lot of situations with Shinji would be reversed. Male!Rei would fall on top of Fem!Shinji and grab her breast, Male!Asuka kissing Fem!Shinji while plugging her nose to prove himself a man, everything regarding Misato''s relationship to Shinji would be more immediately suspect under the genderswap. Would Fem!Shinji even be the main character here? What would a Male!Ritsuko and Female!Gendo even be like under this umbrella? Would they even have the same relationship in canon?

The ramifications of genderswapping the entire cast would lead to a series that might be recognizable, but still vastly different in story and character development that should be analyzed a lot further.

[canapotatoliteraryanalasys]

Something something… that Shinji post… something something…

I have seen many analysts and interpretations on Shinjis character but there is one aspect of his character that I have not seen anyone mention: his raging misogyny

Since the death of his mother Shinji has not had a close relationship with anyone and this shapes the way he views the people around him. He has a somewhat healthy relationship with his male friends but it is clear that he does not really understand his friends or how friendships even works.

Shinjis relationships with the three mane girls, Misato, Rei and Asuka, are very important to the show. These are the characters he most longs to be close with and pushes away the most. Because Shinji grew up without a mother or any other close female family member, he cannot se relationships with women as platonic, he can only se them as what society has conditioned him to se, sexual. It is clear Shinji desires something from these girls, the same thing he desires from everyone to be seen and loved, but his stupid 14 year old boy brain misinterpreted this as sexual desire, both because he doesn’t se women as entirely human but also because being horny is a lot less scary than wanting to be truly loved for who you are. Both Shinji and Asuka project their parental issues both onto each other and onto Misato, Asukas need to prove herself and Shinjis need to be accepted. During the show they do both often act as if romantically interested in each other but I believe they are simply convinced, as most young teens are, that romance is the height of validation. Shinji is also desperate for Reis validation because she reminds him of his mother and his deep jealousy of her for receiving his father’s validation, Shinji is desperate to be seen by his father and maybe if he is acknowledged by someone who is acknowledged by his father then he will be victoriously accepted in some way.

There are two scenes that I feel exemplify this diconance between Shinjis true desires and view of women. The first is when Shinji and eva 1 have been consumed by leliel, we see clips of Misato, Rei, Asuka and Shinjis mother trying to convince him to become one with them. Shinjis mother is obscured in shadow, motherly love is only a concept to him. And the three who Shinji actually knows are very much not like themselves they are all making the same face and saying the same thing in the same tone. This scene also implies that “becoming one” is somewhat sexual. The other is after death of Rei ii when Misato is trying to comfort Shinji. At first viewing I thought Misato was making a sexual advance on him, I believe the scene is purposefully framed for this interpretation, but I don’t believe that this is Misatos intention. This is how Shinji misinterprets this moment because he doesn’t understand human affection.

The dehumanizing of others that comes with oppression always comes with a dehumanization of the self, a threat that if you are not the oppressor you will be the oppressed. Shinji cannot grow as a person because he cannot accept that the woman in his life are just as human as himself. And because he cannot except that not treating them as such makes him a terrible person.

In the show ending of evangelion Shinji internally confronts his fears and weaknesses excepting himself and by extension those around him. In the movie ending of evangelion on the other hand Shinji is forced to confront that what he thinks he desires for Asuka, Misato and Rei is not actually what he desires. Shinji believes that what he desires is sexual gratification, romance and “becoming one”. When Shinji masterbates over Asukas comatosed body in the hospital he receives what he thinks he wants from her, looking at her boobs and beating his meat. And yet when he’s done, both Shinji and the audience are left with a feeling of dread and emptiness, this is not what Shinji wanted from Asuka. Misato kisses Shinji on the mouth in order to bribe him into piloting the eva one last time, i and many other eva fans dislike this because we dislike grown women kissing children. I personally do not believe that Misato would ever kiss Shinji in this way but Shinji cannot grow in the way he does in the movie unless he is confronted with the fact that he does not want this from Misato. But Shinji does also receive something else from Misato, her cross necklace, the one that her father gave her before he died, and just like then this represents a parental sacrifice as this is just before Misato dies. Shinji keeps the cross with him for the rest of the movie because it is what he actually wanted from Misato. And finally Rei causing human instrumentality offers Shinji to become one with her and all of humanity. Being one, without distends between people, without misunderstanding, without pain. This is what both Shinji and his father believed they desire most, and when Shinji finally receives it it is not what he wants. instead of becoming one with Rei he chooses to symbolically make a human connection, taking her hand as two separate beings.

And when Shinji has finally grown and accepted others and himself, he is confronted with Asuka. And for a moment all his growth washes away. He strangles her, maybe he cannot handle the guilt of seeing her after what he has done, maybe he is trying to prove that he knows Asuka, and that she will react the same as (maybe imagine Asuka) when they fought inside human instrumentality.

But instead of reaching like Shinji and the audience has come to expect from Asuka, she gently touches his face and tells him that he is disgusting. Confronting Shinji one final time with the humanity of others and himself.

I don’t believe this interpretation to be intentional at all considering the way this franchise treats its underage female characters

[mr-double-downer]

it is kinda funny in that watching this 3 hour video on end of Eva made me realize the movie is about the rampant, perverse misogyny of otakus and how the movie basically failed at its purpose because most of them identified with Shinji anywyss and still saw him as the most sympathetic character in the film, even if his continued existence only makes things worse for everyone else around him through various horrific acts he commits directly and indirectly.

The fact dudes could see the audience surrogate protagonist masturbate to the nude body of a comatose teenage girl and still go “he’s just like me fr” is equal parts funny and just flat out disgusting.

[madegeeky]

Thoughts on The End of Evangelion (from someone who had never seen the tv show and after watching a video essay about how the movie is a hate letter to uber fanboys):

Boy, this movie sure expects you to have seen the tv series because they explain nothing.

So much vaginal imagery and somethings just straight up vaginas in foreheads getting stabbed.

Watching a grown woman kiss a 14-year-old boy for 20 seconds sure was fun and not super gross. (Mr. Geeky and I discussed afterwards if it was supposed to be seen as a gross thing and we're both leaning toward, yes, it was.)

For the first part of the movie I was like "oh yeah, this is definitely a hate letter to fanboys'", then the second part I was like "hmmm, maybe not", and the then the last part I was like "holy fuck, yeah, this dude hated the uber fanboys, especially the way they treated the girls and women in this show".

I missed out on basically all the plot (since I knew almost nothing about the terms and such) but it was a very visually interesting movie so I think it was well worth watching on the big screen. I wish there were more mech fights, though, cause they only had one and it was *really* good.

This show was really quite mean to Shinji, fanboy stand-in, and I'm all here for it.

Going back to the movie's commentary on fanboys' treatment of the girls/women in the show: This movie has a *lot* of female nudity (almost all of them 14-year-old girls) but none of it really felt gratuitous to me, which I found really shocking. The nudity always felt like it served a purpose or a statement about the treatment of girls/women by fanboys. (This is extra fascinating as Mr. Geeky tells me the show could be very fanservicy.)

There's an entire scene where Shinji is basically hallucinating all the girls/women telling him he's just a fucking awful human being and it was amazing.

"But maybe you're seeing too much into the girls/women aspect." The literal first scene of the movie is Shinji masturbating over Asuka's comatose body. The literal last scene of the movie is him straddling Asuka and choking her and, after stopping, collapsing on her chest and begging her to help him. Like, the movie is not subtle about showing that Shinji is shitty to girls/women.

Overall both Mr. Geeky and I agree with Dan Olsen and the theory that this movie is basically a hate letter to uber fanboys. That's not all it is, but that's very much a huge part of what it is.

[duhragonball]

End of Evangelion: 26'

No, it doesn't.

All right, this is the second half of End of Evangelion, a movie that serves as the "alternative ending" to the Neon Genesis Evangelion TV series. The series was 26 episodes long and episodes 25 and 26 attempted to depict a finale where all of humanity was combined into a single merged being. This was the culmination of "Human Instrumentality", a goal of Gendo Ikari throughout the series.

Episodes 25 and 26 were not well-received, probably because they tried to show Shinji Ikari coming to grips with Human Instrumentality without actually filling in the audience on what it was or how it happened or why it was so important. Also, there were other non-Shinji characters that fans might have been interested in seeing. So in 1997 the studio produced End of Evangelion to show an ending set in the "outside world". This ending also sucks, but at least it connects the dots from Episode 24 to Human Instrumentality.

EoE's two halves are called 25' and 26', as a reference to their purpose as an alternate version of Episodes 25 and 26 of the TV series. 25' is better, because it actually sort of shows what was going on. SEELE attacks the NERV base, forcing Gendo to attempt to launch Human Instrumentality before it's too late. Asuka regains control of her Eva Unit 02, Ritsuko springs a trap to get revenge on Gendo, and Misato escorts Shinji to Eva Unit 01 and convinces him to meet his destiny. Then they all get brutally murdered. 25' also opens with Shinji jerking off over Asuka's comatose body, so... you know, it's a mixed bag.

26', on the other hand, is the drizzling shits, and that's what we're going to talk about now.

Gendo's plan is to do the exact same thing SEELE wants to do, only he wants to do it in some slightly different way. I went over most of this when I covered 25', so I don't really want to get into it again. Suffice to say, a merging of Adam and Lillith, the two cosmic beings who begat the Angels and humans, respectively, will somehow trigger Third Impact, which will then bring about Human Instrumentality. Gendo has Adam inside his own body, while Rei is some sort of receptacle of Lillith's soul? I don't know how that works.

Anyway, Rei's body begins to fall apart even as he talks to her, so they need to get started. I don't understand why he waited this long if this is all they needed to do.

Step One: Cop a feel. Seriously, he could have done this in Episode 1. To be clear, there is a little more going on here than Gendo fondling a minor. You see...

At some point after Episode... 8 I think, he had Adam grafted onto his own right hand. They don't show this in EoE, and I'm pretty sure you never see it in the TV series either. I could be wrong, but I only noticed this image during the clip-show segment of the first Evangelion film, Death and Rebirth.

The point I'm making here is that when Gendo puts his hand on Rei, he's pushing Adam inside her body. His hand actually phases inside her somehow. Of course, he could have put it somewhere other than her boob, but this franchise loooooves sexualizing teenagers.

Meanwhile, Shinji has arrived in Eva Unit 01 to repel SEELE's squadrong of bad guy Evas. He doesn't actually fight them, he just screams like a maniac when he sees Unit 02's dismembered corpse. Then the Lance of Longinus, which Rei had tossed into space weeks ago, suddenly flies right back to Earth. Why? Who the fuck knows?

This isn't even the first time it happens in this movie! In 25', Asuka was fighting these same evil Evas, when another Lance of Longinus suddenly flew in from out of nowhere and turned the tide against her. She saw it coming and even confirmed that it was "The" Lance of Longinus. Well this other one came from the moon, so it's definitely not the same lance, so I guess there's two of them now. I'm so sick of trying to make sense of any of this.

At SEELE's command, their Evas drag Shinji's up into the sky. I think he's pinned to this cross, except I'm pretty sure the cross is made from energy wings from Unit 01, so I don't know how that's supposed to work. The bad Evas then do some other mukity-muk, and this changes the cross into...

Whatever this is! I ain't got time to read all that.

This produces a field of destruction that tears up the ground and exposes the "Egg of Lilith", or the "Black Moon". The Wiki says that this is the vessel which brought Lilith to Earth, and Adam had a similar vessel called "The White Moon" which landed in Antarctica. But this movie doesn't bother filling us in on any of that. They're just like "Here's a purple ball, that's dramatic for some reason, trust us."

As all of this is going on, Rei suddenly separates from Gendo and rejects his procedure. He doesn't understand, but she informs him that she is not his puppet, and Shinji needs her. So instead of doing it the way Gendo had in mind, Rei floats up to merge with Lilith by herself. Also, I think the took Gendo's right hand with her, because he keeps clutching at his arm for the rest of the movie, and we never see his right hand again.

Now, you might have noticed I haven't had much to say about what Shinji is doing during all of this. That's because he can't do anything. The poor dope is stuck in Unit 01, completely helpless as the bad Evas do their ritual. All he's been doing this whole part of the movie is screaming in helpless terror. I had hoped Rei coming to save him would offer him some comfort, but she looks like this now...

So yeah, he's not exactly reassured. Rei/Lilith also assumes control over SEELE's Evas, and their heads change so they all have her face, which is pretty disturbing.

BE NOT AFRAID.

Finally, Rey/Lilith reshapes into a new form, that of Kaworu, the 17th Angel that Shinji had to kill in Episode 24. This seems to calm Shinji down. I think it's just Rey/Lilith in disguise, but maybe Shinji sees this as evidence that Kaworu isn't really dead, which would mean Shinji didn't murder him.

So a bunch of visual things happen and Clownshoes declares that Eva Unit 01 has now become God, because it possesses an S2 engine, the Fruit of Life, and a human mind, the Fruit of Knowledge. Didn't Eva Unit 01 already have those things before, though?

I suppose this could explain why there's more than one way to do this ritual. Gendo wanted to combine Adam and Lilith with himself, I think, which would have made him God, maybe. SEELE, on the other hand, wanted to do it all with just their Evas, Unit 01, and the Lance(s?) of Longinus. In the end, Rei sort of combined both of their approaches, though I don't know what difference it makes.

Well, no, I guess I do know. Rei/Lilith asks Shinji what his desire is, and he impulsively thinks of boobs. I assume Gendo would have thought of his dead wife, or the SEELE guys would have thought of worldly power.

From here, the movie goes off the rails with a bunch of fantasy visions. In other words, we're right back in the same bullshit that made the original Episodes 25 and 26 so esoteric and dumb. We start with Shinji as a small boy, farting around in a sandbox for like five minutes.

Then we see him watching Misato having casual sex with Kaji, just like in Episode 25 of the TV series. This is presented like it's some horrible thing Misato did, which is disillusioning to Shinji. I still don't understand this. Adults have sex. Why is this supposed to be a problem?

Then he's suddenly trying to figure out how to connect romantically with Asuka, except he doesn't really know her, or Rei, or Misato, or anyone else. He gets bitter and frustrated, accusing them of being unclear about their feelings towards him, but they say he hasn't tried to get to know them.

Then he's with Asuka at their apartment, and he begs for her to help him (with what?). Asuka is upset because she knows he just wants someone to be nice to him. He's only begging Asuka because he's too frightened of Misato, Rei, or his own parents, so he's come crawling to her. Well, she's not playing along.

So he strangles her. I doubt he could do this to the real Asuka, but this is some bullshit dream so it works.

He asks Lilith what went wrong, and she replies that he just assumed everyone had the same feelings as himself, so this isn't the harmonious world he wished for after all. I guess? This seems like a repudiation of the scenario from the TV finale, where Shinji could interact with other humans through the Human Instrumentality, but it took him a while to get comfortable with doing so. Here, he tries to live that way, but it isn't working.

So at this point, Shinji decides that if people don't like him, then to hell with it. This leads to Third Impact, with Lilith essentially dissolving the entire human population into LCL fluid. Each human is visited by an image of Rei, which sometimes takes the form of someone they love. For example, this girl at the command center is visited by an image of Ritsuko, who embraces her tenderly before she turns into orange Kool-Aid. Of course, the real Ritsuko is already dead, but a Rei shows up anyway to turn her body into orange goop.

The leader of SEELE is also gooped. Interestingly, you can't really tell how they feel about the way this has turned out. That's because everyone is visited by some pleasant fantasy before they dissolve, so I think it's reasonable to assume this is not what SEELE had in mind, and yet they probably think it's exactly what they wanted to happen.

Gendo Ikari's fate seems a bit different, though. He does get a visit from the image of his dead wife, and he admits that he'll probably receive retribution from Shinji over the way he treated him in life. He admits that he pushed Shinji away because he was convinced it would be less painful that way, so it looks like father and son are more alike than they ever wanted to admit. Anyway, an Eva picks Gendo up and bits off his upper body, though I doubt any of this was real.

As Lilit-- I got a phone call from my mom while I was typing this part. She's fine, but she's fed up with the weekly dominoes game she was attending. We talked for probably 45 minutes and after that I felt genuinely refreshed. I don't normally mention when I take breaks while writing long posts like these, but I needed that one more than I realized. So I want the record to reflect my gratitude.

Right, so as Lilith gathers up all the goop-ified humans, she has the bad guy Evas self-destruct. I don't think they explode, since we see some of their remains at the end of the movie, but they do stab their little core-dealies with their weapons.

Then she opens up a third eye in her forehead and sends the cross containing Eva Unit 01 to penetrate it. Okey dokey.

Then we get this rapid succession of images with voices saying typical breakup/brushoff lines. "I don't like you in 'that way'," "I don't want to know you", "I'm just not into you", all the classics. I think this is the sort of thing Lilith is removing from the human condition. Now everyone's just disembodied minds suspended in goop, so there are no boundaries.

This is where I got completely fed up. This is a photograph of an empty theater. That's cute how they worked the cross into the image, but it serves no purpose at all. Nothing's made much sense ever since Rei merged with Lilith, but now it's extra stupid. We're not even watching a cartoon anymore.

To be fair, there were photographs in Episode 26 of the TV series as well, but not to this extent. After this we get: a cat, a TV broadcast transmitter, a bunch of people walking through a busy street. More people milling about, people sitting in a theater, and then the empty theater again. Okay, I'll show you the cat.

Best part of the movie. RIP to this cool and good friend.

So when all is said and done, Shinji finds himself in this reality, where everyone is just floating in a big sea of LCL fluid. I like how his and Lilith's bodies are merged together to represent this condition. Mostly I'm just glad we're using animation to represent things instead of just random film of bystanders.

But Shinji decides that this doesn't feel right either, and he asks to be restored to his former state. Lilith grants this request, though she does make it clear to him that things will be like they were before, with everyone knowing feat and pain, and misunderstandings and such, but Shinji seems to have (re?) learned the same lesson he figured out in Episode 26 of the TV series: that this pain and the boundaries between people are necessary in order to grow.

So Lilith collapses into the sea of LCL fluid, and her entire head falls off. I guess this is the same AT field failure that led to the disintegration of Rei's body at the start of this episode. Anyway, when all is said and done, Shinji is back in a corporeal body, and Eva Unit 01 pops out of Lilith's eyeball. It's no longer God this way, so all the heavy stuff is over with.

Yui then appears before Shinji and they talk it over. He's fine living this way on Earth, and Yui is happy continuing to exist as part of Eva Unit 01. She plans to fly out into space and contemplate her existence, and she figures that, billions of years into the future, when the Earth no longer exists, she will still be there as evidence that humans lived in the universe. Okay... You know, I thought she was the normal one in the Ikari family but... no. Just, no way.

And that leads us to the epilogue, where we find the Earth after the Third Impact. Lilith's remains still lie in pieces over the surface of the planet, and all the LCL has pooled into the oceans or something.

I read the wiki about this scene, and it pointed out that there's evidence that some time has passed since the battle that started all of this. The moon is full in this scene, but it was a new moon earlier. So at least two weeks have passed. More importantly, these wooden stakes are set up in the area, and these are apparently markers Shinji set up to commemorate his dead friends from Tokyo-3. Before she died, Misato gave Shinji the cross necklace she wore, and he held onto it throughout Third Impact, but now he's hung it on a rusty nail in a piece of wood, and some rust has gotten onto the necklace, indicating that some time has passed.

The reason this matters is to add some context to this scene, where Shinji wakes up to find Asuka lying beside him. The movie gives the impression that he just got back to the real world, but the details suggest he's been living out here on his own for a while. It's unclear what happened to everyone else, but Lilith's words seemed to suggest that anyone who wanted to return to a corporeal body like Shinji could do so if they wished. So it's possible that lots of people have already done so, and Shinji just isn't around any of them. Or maybe Asuka's the first one to join him out here.

Maybe she's the only one, and they're the only two humans here. The point is that when he sees her, the first thing he does is strangle her, which seems completely ridiculous, unless you consider that he's been here a while, and he probably doesn't believe she's real. When he strangled the fantasy-Asuka earlier, she didn't put up a struggle, so he's trying to use that as a test this time.

But instead, Asuka raises her hand and caresses his cheek, and this surprises him so much that he stops what he's doing and starts to cry all over her face. Well, it could be worse, Asuka. She mutters how disgusted she is with him, and that's the last line of the movie.

Objectively speaking, this probably is better than the original TV series ending. It's more ambitious in scope, the visuals are more impressive, and the conclusion seems more ambiguous and grim. Everything seems to have turned out... okayish for humanity. The world looks unrecognizable, but nobody's suffering, and if I understand correctly, those markers Shinji put up may be premature. Asuka's return suggests that others might follow, and if they don't it'll be their choice.

I guess Gendo definitely will not be reunited with Yui, since she's buggered off into outer space, but at least he acknowledged his failures as a father, and I take that to mean he at least cared about his son, even if he couldn't express that to him.

The thing about TV Episode 26 is that it ended with the whole cast applauding for Shinji, which is either a fantasy he made up for himself, which is cheap, or the ending really is saying that they all lived happily ever after in a heaven of their own making. And that seems kind of chipper for a show like this. It made it hard to accept that this was really how they were ending things, even if it was the best possible scenario for the characters.

But like I said before, the big problem with both endings is that they're so damn confusing, relying on me to recall little details about the lore that might not have even been available to viewers in 1997. Huge chunks of the movie are just lavish images depicting vague events. Shinji barely does anything in the whole movie. First Misato has to drag him to the Eva, then the Eva puts him inside of it, then Rei/Lilith has to rescue him by turning him into God.

I think the biggest problem I have with the NGE mythos as a whole is that the lore is really fascinating stuff, but the show is never really about the lore. Everything always comes back to Shinji and his mental health issues. I keep wanting, for example, Ritsuko and Misato to have some in-depth discussion about Adam and Lilith and how the Second Impact went down and so on. But the show never wants to just sit down and go into all of that. It's always one character sort of getting the partial gist of it and trying to explain it all to another character. Like, Misato was telling Shinji a bunch of stuff while she was driving him to his Eva, but I seriously doubt he was paying any attention, and he probably wouldn't have been in any condition to understand what she was telling him.

Like... I don't hate Shinji as a character, but this whole premise just feels kind of wasted on him. Does that make any sense?

I still feel unsettled about this, like I'm on the brink of apologizing that I didn't enjoy this more than I did. I went in just assuming this would be a blast, and it was for a little while, but most of it just... isn't for me.

I don't know. I think I'm just gonna sign off here. I'll probably have more to say about it in the coming days, but I'll save it for replies to any asks you all want to send me. But otherwise, I think it's time I moved on...

[keyboard-meister]

The End of Evangelion (1997)

Get ready for a rant.

What the HELL did I just watch? If this is how Hideaki Anno wanted the anime to end, I really don't trust his judgement. This film somehow manages to ruin the MAIN CHARACTER of the series in 87 minutes. While the end of the Neon Genesis Evangelion series focused on Shinji's inner thoughts as he experienced Human Instrumentality, the film actually shows what happened to the world and the rest of humanity during this event. Weirdly enough, I prefer the events of the series. I preferred the focus on Shinji's character arc and the optimistic ending. The events of the film, however, kind of just made it feel like the creators were trying too hard to be mysterious and edgy.

In the case of Shinji, some of his actions in the film felt wildly out of character, especially that scene with Asuka (sidenote- why is he so obsessed with her all of the sudden? All she ever did was bully him). The film took a character who struggles with performing hegemonic masculinity, who doesn't really like expressing his sexuality, and made him into a horny creep who masturbates on a comatose girl. I feel like the film absolutely ruined Shinji and took away from his queer masculinity that is so heavily focused on in the series. The End of Evangelion just has him act like a typical, masculine teenager, which he so clearly was not in the series.

As for Asuka, I actually liked the direction the film took with her character, for the most part. I think her sexual attraction to Shinji felt completely wrong, as she literally hated his guts in the series, but I think the blind rage she entered as she fought to her death was a depressing, yet sensible ending to her character arc.

I was WILDLY surprised when looking at how good the reviews of this film are.

[beevean]

The virgin Sunny: kills his own sister, covers up the murder, doesn't feel bad about it and doesn't pay any consequences

The chad Shinji Ikari: Almost kisses a girl while asleep, jerks off to her comatose body, literally ends the world yet he's very sympathetic while suffering severe consequences

It's less that Sunny doesn't feel bad about it and more that his main concern is being forgiven by his friends no matter their feelings lol

The difference is that Shinji is genuinely relatable. Yes, well, maybe the hospital incident pushes it, but Shinji's tendency to run away from his fears is perfectly understandable. Shinji feels like a real depressed teen, even (especially) in his worst moments. Shinji has hobbies, his opinions, his philosophy on the world, he reaches out to people (and how!), he is a person - and that makes his flaws more digestible, even if not fully forgivable.

I can't relate to a guy who accidentally killed his sister, hid in his own head for four years leaving his friends grieving an apparent suicide, and then only tells the truth the day he's supposed to leave the town, leaving the brunt of the bombshell to his friend in the hospital. It doesn't help that the has all the depth of a wet tissue - the most memorable piece of narration I remember from him is calling lemons "oragnes". Sunny is not a character, he's an angst generator.

[crabmanmanda]

With how popular Evangelion is and how much I've seen about the show i can safely ask. What the fuck is going on Evangelion fans. The mecha are meat? The dad seems to be putting his son in war, everyone dies i think, they're fighting the biblical angels, there's a cougar there, shinji crank that solja boy, Jack black fan edits go hard, who allowed shinji near that comatose child, goo people are there, the blue one is the enemy?

[n4stasia]

End of Evangelion | pt.3

Yay, part 3 of the iceberg. Finally. I had to dive into an extensive web research in order to make at least some sense of it. I don't know if that made it better or worse, though. It's a rabbit hole.

the end vol. 1

So what about last two episodes? .. Shinji finds himself alone with his problems after a literal apocalypse. Gradually, he overcomes them and, like the protagonist of Trainspotting, decides to choose life. And this kinda restored the world around him to existence.

Hideaki Anno largely based Evangelion on his personal experiences and struggle with depression. Creating the series was difficult work for him, and there were many obstacles along the way, but Anno saw the light at the end of the tunnel and ended the series on a positive note. And the fans HATED this ending. They were not satisfied with the experimental style of the last two episodes. They didn't want these existential crises of Shinji. They wanted something else. They wanted more giant robot battles, they wanted sexy Asuka and Rei in their latex pilot suits. Overall, fans clearly wanted the first half of the show, not the second.

And Hideaki Anno climbed a mountain in front of all the fans and showed them all a big middle finger. This is the most accurate metaphor that can be thought of for the End of Evangelion.

the end vol. 2

End of Evangelion begins with Shinji masturbating over the comatose body of Asuka. And that's just the beginning. The movie starts somewhere after the events of the 24th episode. The NERV headquarters is attacked by the armed forces of SEELE (a secret organization that supposedly funds NERV and even rules the world, or something like that). And our heroes try to fight back.

That's... almost all that happens in the movie. Yes, there is very little plot here. NERV headquarters is under constant siege for half of its screen time, and the other half... something happens. We just watch as the characters we've grown to love are mercilessly and bloodily killed one by one. And if they're not killed, they turn out to be hellish bastards. Gendo, for example, grabs Asuka's bare chest. :/

Shinji doesn't overcome depression, but rather chooses to be crushed and smashed by it. He is miserable, useless, apathetic piece of his former self, who, alas, is needed by everyone for salvation. This is almost the complete opposite of what happened to him in the series finale.

my head hurts

Both movie and the series leave a very nasty feeling in your soul after its ending. One of the most unpleasant films I've ever seen in my life. I want to wash my brain inside out. Yes, it's unique and explores gender issues, depression, loneliness and whatever. But it triggered a migraine episode and mild existential crisis for me so there is that.

The End

[heyyallitsbeth]

I made a post not too long ago about there potentially being a parallel between Shinji Evangelion and Kirito SAO. But truthfully, the real parallel in those series are Shinji and Suguha.

We all know what they did in those hospital rooms above comatose loved ones.

[loathsomespider]

transfem shinji ikari be like (masturbates to completion to her object of desire's comatose body)