Evangelion Q / 3.33

Now *that's* the way to play it.

This is a review of the third Rebuild of Evangelion film, Evangelion 3.0, 3.33, Q, Quickening, or "You Can [Not] Redo".  There are spoilers, so hold off if you haven't seen it.

I've sort of been missing out on the Rebuild of Evangelion party these past few years, simply because, despite being a huge fan of Evangelion, the Rebuild movies didn't click with me. I didn't hate them or anything, but the spark wasn't there. They felt choppy, and like they skimmed the surface of a deeper story. And yes, I did get the vague feeling that they were trying to pander to certain anime stereotypes rather than create broken characters who might feel like anime stereotypes.

At the same time, I didn't view Rebuild 1.0 and Rebuild 2.0 was such a radical departure from the series.

But I really got into the groove with this film. It hit that sweet spot of being familar yet new, exciting yet comfortable (for a very strange definition of "comfortable", I'll admit), and seemed more imaginative and engaging.

Instead of the action-oriented fare of the first two Rebuild films, this was a slow build-up to a climax. There was plenty of action, but the real meat of the story procedeed slowly, as Shinji "adjusts" to the new world that he finds himself in.

Shinji's rescuing of Rei Ayanami from inside the Angel Zeruel caused a...proto-Third Impact that was halted by Kaworu literally falling from the sky in an new Evangelion. Shinji himself has been in a coma for the following fourteen years, drifting in space, entombed in EVA-01. The Children appear not to have aged, but everything else has changed. Misato, Ritsuko, and the bridge crew head up an independent organization called "Wille", which also employs Toji's sister Sakura. They all tell Shinji not to pilot the EVA, and he's also been outfitted with a collar that prevents synchronization and could kill him if activated. Shinji can't do much anyway, since Eva-01 now forms the core of the Wunder, Wille's flying fortress.

But Rei in Eva-00 breaks in and takes Shinji to NERV, run by a Gendo (sporting Khiel-like goggles) and a very weary and balding Fuyutski. Kaworu is there, and forms a bond with Shinji, while Shinji notices that the Rei who is also there is...not quite right. The world around them has been destroyed and distorted, though it is also still and quiet. There might be a chance to change the world back to the way it was, but it also might play into the hands of the still-scheming Gendo.

In terms of its plot and setting, Evangelion 3.33 is radically different from what has come before, which seems to have confused and upset a lot of people. I'm not bragging here, but I was genuinely excited by the new setting and content to watch it be explained further. Several of the series beats are repeated in different forms: a Shinji who has lost everything; a returning Rei who is now distant and confused; Shinji's bonding with Kaworu and the "breakup"; a journey underground; a battle between EVA-02 and Shinji. Some of the lines are even the same or similar, if you allow for differences in translation. It's an elegant way to do a remake, one that's satisfying.

And my god, the visuals. Granted, an expanded low-level digital video can't get me the crisp picture that would be best, but I saw a lot of shifting bodies, fluid things, grotesque monsters and grotesque ships. I lost it at the Wunder and reconfigurable design and the battle with the "grid angel"--just incredible. Except for the bright pink Evangelion piloted by Mari, I loved the new Eva unit designs, though the "beast mode" of EVA-02 is still hard to warm up to. I'm okay with the idea in theory, but the results are always a little goofy-looking, and the new panther-like shape is a bit too much. The new slick black NERV Plug Suits were also very cool.

I don't blame the actual movie for it, but Rebuild of Evangelion 2.0 started a flood of speculation about whether Evangelion was becoming...the series some people felt it always should have been. Some praised what they saw as a more positive direction for the remake, including an allegedly "badass" Shinji who provided the audience with a linear path to self-improvement--because of a single scene where he reached into the voind to try to rescue Rei. Some even went far enough to claim that this was representitive of Hideaki Anno's improved life and greater maturity as an artist, or to imply that a wrong has been corrected, that Evangelion was rightfully compensating for having never given the audience what it wanted.

Look, I'm all for people liking different things and changing their opinions. But I'm going to level: It's aggravating to suggest Evangelion "owed" the audience some kind of feel-good release, some kind of payment for suffering through a story and a protagonist they didn't have a taste for. Stories don't owe their audience a thing: they exist to be told, not to make the viewers feel good. You can't pre-manufature a story to please people anyway, so you might as well go ahead and tell what you like and sort the rest out later.

Me personally, I don't feel Shinji's actions were that far removed from his previous character. He's shown himself capable of fighting back, caring about people, and even going totally postal. I'm a huge fan of Shinji and found him bland in the first two films, was unable to feel that same emotional rapport with the character, but he was really pretty much the same.

It's more the fallout from 2.0 that I object to, the sense of entitlement from the fans, that Shinji would be capital-B better as a John Q. Hero, or that there is an ironclad way to write a Good Story and that Evangelion was correcting itself for failing to do that the first time. There is no formula for creating a perfect story, or a perfect protagonist, and if a story isn't what you want, you shouldn't expect to get anything different.

And yet, I couldn't help but enjoy that the action lauded as an example of Shinji's newfound "badassness" turns out to have had horrible destructive consequences. I don't believe that it's Gainax deliberately screwing with the audience, because I don't know how the actual Japanese audience reacted to these scenes, but it's awesome that things turned out this way. When I saw others get angry at this, I couldn't help but smile.

Shinji in this film is eager to fix things, but also lost in himself and torn with angst. His mannerisms are very similar to the closing bits of the TV series, which this film roughly corresponds to. And the actions he takes, get him into more trouble.

EVA 3.33 is pretty much Shinji's show: other characters get few scenes to themselves.

Misato's emotional abandonment of the returned Shinji is believable. Not nice, not the same, but believable. Even if Misato cheered him on fourteen years ago, Shinji almost caused Third Impact and did enough damage with that "almost" that it would transcend personal feelings...except that Misato had a chance to kill Shinji but hesitated, meaning she still cares for him.

Others later pointed out that not knowing it was actually the real Shinji they retrieved had also influenced the cold attitude of Misato and the rest of Wille, which also made sense. But what I've always loved about Evangelion is that, yes, it lets its characters make mistakes or do bad things.

Kaworu is pretty much the same character as before. He gets more screen time, and more emotive range (with some angry and determined facial expressions), but it doesn't add up to a fuller character. He's there to love Shinji, occassionally say sharply cryptic things, be revealed as an Angel, and die so Shinji can angst about his death. That's all fine, though only time will tell if Kaworu will serve the same thematic purpose that I believe he used to.

Asuka is angry and fights things and still has a crush on Shinji even when she's 28 and hasn't finished puberty yet. There's a sense of impotence to her, but I do miss Asuka's particular mental explosions. Perhaps we will see them later. Remember: Asuka is not a hero, and she is not strong.

Mari still doesn't feel like she serves any purpose, other than being a body to fill a cockpit in battle. Several new named and designed characters are introduced, but they just fill generic personel roles. I still expected a little bit more of Mari than I did of these characters, being how heavily she was marketed, but I'm no longer holding my breath for her to do anything more than act playful and casual regardless of the situation, with a few psychotic outbursts. Maybe she's an ironic take on some anime archetype or another, but she's dull.

Overall? It was a lot of fun. Despite the despair of the story, there was very much a sense of wonder to the entire film, and obvious things that kicked off a weird kind of joy in me. Many of the technical concepts were left mysterious, but I'm content to wait and see if they are further explained. If not all the answers come, I'll be satisfied with what we do have.

Animation Appreciation: Neon Genesis Evangelion/End of Evangelion

This series is still my number one anime, animated series, and television show. Even though it's been a decade since I finished the series, I'm always ready to wax eloquent about Neon Genesis Evangelion. Because I'm older and now swimming in notions of what makes good writing, I better understand the series's structural problems, but that doesn't change a thing.

Neon Genesis Evangelion is a 1995 anime series produced by Gainax and created by Hideaki Anno. In the year 2015, Shinji Ikari is summoned by his estranged father to pilot the creature known as Evangelion-01, defending Tokyo-3 and the rest of the post-apocalyptic Earth from bizarre beings known as "Angels".

Angels always come one at a time, while among the human cast, other shadowy western religion-themed conspiracies abound. End of Evangelion is the 1997 concluding movie, although the television series also has its own concluding episodes. No one knows quite how the two endings fit together.

Why is Evangelion so lovable? Not because it's a series that unfolds with the greatest care, sophistication and detail. Looked at in terms of plot it's a bit of a tangled mess, a story told with the most minimal of details, some filler, and a finale that never wraps up neatly. But in return, it is also a series that is both very bizarre and very "real", with a strange setting that is nonetheless steeped in powerful human emotion.

These things make up for Evangelion's arguable lack of quality. This arrangement makes the series distinct,  and is a major part of the reason I consider it my number one. Other works may be better written, but they don't offer that same strangeness.

Evangelion has suffered from hype backlash in recent years, as many newer anime fans have never seen it, and others act like they were the first to see the "truth" of Evangelion, that it was a calculated attempt to gain the minds and wallets of fans who would latch onto any phony "depth".

For me, the very opposite is true: Evangelion is characterized by its honestly, its showing the human psyche in all its loud messiness, while still retaining a handhold on a conventional plot structure…usually.

We all know the religious references in Evangelion were just because they looked cool, and that a show might have weird crap and frenzied thought because that's what the director enjoys, not because they wish to swindle the audience.

But back to emotional dysfunction. Evangelion allows its characters, especially Shinji Ikari, to "lose it", to grind the plot to a halt because they have emotionally self-destructed, or, alternatively, are having strange visions, exploring their own psyches.

Some hate the series for this, but I love it. These scenes never feel calculated, though those few small rambles about rain and mountains are definite hiccups. In the wrong hands, these moments could be tedious, but as they are, they cut deep.

This appeal is shown in the original TV series ending, in which the larger plot is discarded in favour of characters talking to each other, either in a black void or over still frames, with a few surreal bits of animation and one alternate reality sequence where Shinji experiences a conventional (if a little bawdy) alternate reality.

The end game is that Shinji realizes he needs other people around him to confirm his own existence, and that is better to have that than to have nothingness. It was controversial, but one of my favourite things ever.

It would be lying, however, to say all this is a merely clinical appeal, and there is no real affection involved. I count Shinji Ikari as one of my most favourite characters of all time, and find most of the fanboy rage over him to be silly, especially since most of the cast is equally damaged, though somehow not as fascinating. Shinji and the one-episode humanized Angel Kaworu/Tabris are the only characters I say I "like", but all are entertaining.

Fact is, no matter how much you like a character or series for their emotional screwiness, eventually there has to be some genuine fondness underneath it all, or you'll abandon the series. And Evangelion may be bleak, but it's still tremendous fun to watch. Part of the reason is that the series also has some cute comedy in the first half, but also because it's all just so interesting.

That is not to say Evangelion is flawless, just that, for me, its particular appeal overwhelms these flaws. It breaks so many rules of good writing, yet it all works. For example, the discarding of the conspiracy plots, or the vague description of the Angels' nature and goals serve to unbalance some viewers, but I just don't care.

Shinji's school friends, all comparatively normal and functional, do leave off-screen after a great disaster and nothing more is heard from them, but that does contribute to increasing darkness of later episodes, so I don't mind.

The largest flaw, some would claim, is the character of Shinji Ikari. Amateur writers are encouraged to create protagonists who, while not perfect or without trouble, nonetheless soldier on through their world. They can't stop and agonize too much, and their perils exist to demonstrate their resilience.

And Shinji, it goes without saying, is not that sort of character. He inspires outright anger from people, as if they feel cheated. And I don't give a damn. You don't have to follow these rules, so long as the story is compelling.

Some have argued that Evangelion is emotionally unrealistic, which is untrue. It's just that, for various and very good reasons, emotional expression in fiction is usually more restrained. To show a great and ugly breakdown is unusual, but while it is not pretty, it is not divorced from reality. The genuine expressions of certain people can indeed look over-the-top, but that doesn't mean they are.

In Evangelion characters do grow and change, but don't totally overcome their problems, do not give the audience that catharsis. For example, the power of Shinji Ikari choosing reality over Instrumentality is worth little to some viewers, since inEnd of Evangelion his only reward is a burnt-out world where he has not been cured.

In the TV series, Asuka faces her past and it undoes her. Rei Ayanami only trades loyalty to Gendo for loyalty to Shinji, and may not have had a chance to be an independent being at all. And so on. Nobody gets out unscathed.

This is only indefensible if one believes that the audience must get release, deserves a payoff for sitting through angst. And perhaps they do want it, but a story doesn't exist to make an audience feel good. It exists to be told. And Evangelion manages to succeed without offering a conventional release.

That is another reason why Evangelion stays memorable: its appeal can transcend all standard knowledge of how to handle emotion, plot, and character and still come out wonderful. Evangelion can serve as a reminder that nothing about writing is set in stone. That we all need to develop our own standards and formulas, but do not have to treat them as sacred, and that something good can be made while breaking rules.

Some say that Evangelion is only a series for a particular time in one's life, as it captures teenage angst and those nameless fears that exist regardless of actual social stability. However, the adult characters haven't overcome their problems either, and the suggestion is that age alone can't free people from the problems that haunt them. Again, it's part of Evangelion not restraining emotion and having it work out beautifully. It can still be a series for all seasons.

Neon Genesis Evangelion also just looks really good. The series is infamous for its limited animation, and I won't argue against that. There are many simple or flat moments in terms of expressions and movement. But the look of the series—the designs of characters, Angels, Evas, equipment, backgrounds, and surreal sequences—is so vibrant and eye-catching that I almost forget it. And sometimes, the limited animation manages to edge itself into a sort of elegant minimalism. Sometimes.

I'm only speaking of the original TV series and movies, not the new Rebuild of Evangelion series of films. While these have been praised for better plotting and more restrained emotion, even as signs of Anno's improved outlook on life (!), I find them choppy in construction, thin on emotional intensity, and embodying tropes I'd rather Evangelion didn't. Also, Shinji was worryingly annoying, which is the opposite of most viewer's reactions. I don't think he was as changed as much as others are claiming, but something just isn't there anymore.

I wish I could celebrate these movies along with the rest of the fandom, but I just can't. I can't get into them. It forced me to accept that sometimes, a work has such an intense impact on you, that no other version of it will do, no matter the objective improvements. There is no reason to apologize for these feelings, as long as you are reasonable about expressing them.

All of this, however, only applies to the first two movies. The third has only recently released in Japan at the time of this writing, and what I've heard of it makes it sound intriguing.

But whatever happens, the original Neon Genesis Evangelion is still great, something that stands above all others. It's weird, it's crazy, and it's poignant as all hell. Any flaws in its construction are overwhelmed by that truth.

Guilty Pleasures: Shinji Ikari

Shinji Ikari is one of the most hated anime characters of all time (in the west at least; I don't know about his country of origin), but he's been one of my favourite characters for a long while. I like him 'cause his portrayal doesn't shy away from what a scared, broken kid might do in this situation, and it creates a visceral emotional realism that's so far been unmatched. This is not to say I only like him for clinical reasons, though; I do have a genuine fondness for Shinji, considering him more than just an object to study. However, that doesn't mean Shinji is free of any moral issues, far from it.

I used to feel far more guilty about being a Shinji fan than I do now. I lost a lot of this guilt when I realized how dumb it was to fret over being a fan of a character. Sure, the fact that Shinji didn't always do what was right might have been deplorable in a real person, but he was just a character. And, now that I'm twice as old as he is, I have a lot more detachment from this actions, usually just looking at him and think "Sheesh, poor kid," instead of faking a hard-line moral stance. But even so, there are some things regarding Shinji that makes me question liking him, and they are questions I can't answer.

His behaviour in End of Evangelion is reprehensible. There is the worst: he masturbates over an unconscious person. It makes total sense given the point the character is at, and is effective, but it's also…just…augh. When reminded of the scene, I ask myself how I could rank him so highly with this happening.

What I will say is that the scene makes sense. At that point in the series, Shinji has hit rock bottom, but is still attracted to Asuka. The way I interpret it, he's bought into her hype about being heroic and strong, whom he desires even though she's hateful towards him—in fact perhaps because she's hateful towards him, since Shinji seems like the masochistic type.

In Shinji's self-destructive, self-hating state, the sexual impulse becomes twisted, and he gives it release in one of the worst ways he can. It is a disgusting scene, but it makes sense. That doesn't excuse it, but it didn't come out of the blue. I can understand why some fans rejected Shinji after the movie, but it wasn't out of character for him to do that.

In the same film, Shinji is so destroyed that he does nothing in the first half but let himself be dragged around like a sack of potatoes. While this reaction also makes sense, and I'll defend it on those grounds, it's also true that Shinji opened Asuka up to death, compounding the way he harms her. Some of the deaths at NERV in the raid should be on his head, too, for if Shinji had entered battle earlier, he might have saved more people. Yet even though Shinji has done worse on a larger scale, and I still hold that against him, the smaller, more personal crime is what makes stands out. That's not surprising; it might just be human nature, so that it's easier to get a strong reaction to a more intimate harm.

Knowledge of the scene just sits there, like a big immovable stone right in the middle of my headspace. I can't ignore, it, I can't move it, I can't wish it away. It doesn't destroy my interest in Shinji, but it's not forgotten. It's just…there. I don't try to excuse it, but it can't change anything.

This is an Evangelion Pencil Board

I own a lot of Evangelion junk, but this pencil board is particularly special, because the image on it is something that was there in my fandom from the very beginning.

Every store with some imported anime goods always has this stock of bootleg mini-posters, copying promotional images from whatever anime was popular that season. A friend of mine once had a bootleg poster with the same image that's on this pencil board. I passed by it multiple times when I came to visit her, but neither of us knew where it was from. Then, in 2002, I got into Evangelion and realized it was a picture of Kaworu and Shinji. I used the poster as a gateway to tell her about the show. We both loved it, and it was a huge favourite of ours for years. We've since gone our separate ways, but one of the last things I gave her was my old Evangelion VHS collection, back when she had problems with her DVD player.

Looking back at this picture, it's also interesting how it covers almost everything I like about Evangelion, in a single image. EVA-01 and her slick mecha design isn't there, but it has Shinji and Kaworu, my two favourite characters, but in a pose that is not sexualized, and the questioning text in the background shows the psychological aspects of the show. Out of all the pieces of Evangelion art I've seen, it's the one that gets me right here, you know?

Shinji in Rebuild: You Can't Improve on Imperfection

After experiencing nerd-rage for myself, I've figured out the obvious: it's no shame to feel it, just a shame to be obnoxious about it. Having an issue with changes made to media by the creators isn't petty by itself; you just don't have to overreact.

In one case, though, I've let fan reaction amplify what should otherwise be a very low-level issue. Unlike a lot of anime fans, I wasn't that impressed with the first two Rebuild of Evangelion movies, the proposed four-film retelling of the popular anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion. This came from a combination of finding them choppy, and, yes, my attachment to the previous anime. I don't expect a truncated movie adaptation to deliver absolutely everything that made me fall in love with the longer series, but I want to feel at least something of what I did for the original series. No dice.

Of particular interest was the portrayal of the protagonist, Shinji Ikari. Though at one time it seemed that nearly every anime fan hated him, he's become one of my favourite fictional characters ever, with the only thing still bothering me being that one incident in the beginning of End of Evangelion.

However, it was a wee bit disturbing that when the first Rebuild movie, You Are (Not) Alone came out in North America, I found Shinji to be very, very, annoying there, twitching my way through the film. I went back and watched the TV series, and all was right with the world. In this case, I didn't feel the urge to hunt down and kill the film just because it presented a different version of Shinji, especially since I couldn't understand what made him unlikable there. In the case of the second movie, I just found him dull. I could forget it, and move on.

However, a lot of people started saying that You Are (Not) Alone wrote Shinji better than the TV series, using that all-important phrasing, "more realistically". By the time of the second film, You Can (Not) Advance, others had added that Shinji was now a "manly" mecha warrior, because he had made an explicit effort to try to rescue another character. Shinji was taking control of his world, moving beyond his despair to achieve the payoff the audience wanted all along.

This managed to turn my opinion of Rebuild from neutral, to just kind of...having more knee-jerk negative feelings associated with it, because much of what they said was completely the opposite of what I felt.

Saying Rebuild Shinji is "more realistic" was totally baffling, because a great strength of Shinji's original character was his extreme realism, the raw portrayal of emotional breakdown.
The conflict, however, might come from differing views of "realism": In my case, "realism" meant Shinji's characterization showed an aspect of reality in a brutally accurate fashion: the ways that despair and loss can destroy a person inside, so that they don't act the way most believe a hero in popular fiction should.

On the other hand, "realism" can also mean restrained depictions, obedience to the conventional laws of fiction while keeping immersion. If we're going with the second definition, then, I suppose, Shinji in Rebuild is the more realistic version, but that's not what I think realism is. Shinji's portrayal in Rebuild just lacks the teeth.
But even if I wasn't impressed with Rebuild Shinji, calling him "manly", and treating it like he'd become "hot-blooded" is just too much. He's still just a soft-hearted, gangly, tiny teenager, and the simple fact that he fights back isn't that radical a change. Even though some of Shinji's fighting in the TV series was attributed to his mecha/mother's "berserker" mode, Shinji was the one who kept attacking in episode 4,  who opened Rei's pod in episode 6, who came back in episode 19. The original Shinji was indeed capable of fighting back, and it's not so much of a stretch that he would try to rescue Rei if the opportunity arose. That's what he went back to do, after all.

Rebuild just punches up such scenes with stronger visuals and higher stakes in order to create an effective climax: the idea of Shinji fighting back was not invented whole cloth, and it by itself doesn't change the character as much as others seem to claim.

So, what I'm thinking is that Shinji in Rebuild isn't radically altered like Neo-Exsedol from Macross, but there are still some things missing about him, some loss of quality. I can live with it, but seeing people with the extreme opposite opinion of Shinji, praising this new version as a great improvement, drives down my interest in Rebuild Shinji even more.

I also want to add that it's not bad writing for a character to lack a feel-good payoff for their despair. A story doesn't exist to make readers feel good—it exists to be told, and Shinji Ikari was fascinating enough on his own. His lack of such a payoff isn't a mistake that needs to be corrected, but just the way that Evangelion was.

It might still be possible for the next two Rebuild  movies to take down fanss goodwill and put Shinji back on his original crooked path, but I can't see that making a difference to me. My reasons have already been stated and cemented, the opinions of fans has already given me the blues. It's a little nerdy weakness of mine, but it happened because my interest in Rebuild Shinji wasn't that strong to begin with.

Other Rebuild bullshit:

I was actually really looking forward to the first movie, being completely open to enjoying it as it was, while appreciating the series regardless. Oh well; at least there were new merchandising opportunities, though I can't keep up with all of those.

However subjective it might be, I think Rei and Asuka in You Can (Not) Advance had their flaws toned down and made "cute". These days I'm aware that female characters may be flawed only for the purpose male audience infatuation, but I've always clung to the notion that Rei and Asuka, though sexualized, had genuine faults and deeply disturbing aspects, that it wasn't all there for the fanboys or meant to be endearing. Seeing them acting nicer/being more comical was a little bit disturbing, though without the emotional connection that I have to Shinji. Like the portrayal of Shinji, it means they are defanged, and greater apparent "positivity" doesn't mean the characters are more appealing or better written.

Some of the new Angels did look really cool, and were the things that excited me the most.

Saying that I hate Mari would be too strong. Rather, it's just that I don't like her. I don't see a need for her, and am disappointed that she's not screwed up in the way Evangelion characters usually are. Yeah, being a nut for fighting and sniffing Shinji like a dog might make her a fine candidate for insanity in any other series, but it's different from the emotional instability usually shown in Evangelion, and I can't help but feel the loss. And maybe, her not being a secret emotional powder keg is the point, but being a contrast to the other pilots doesn't make her interesting by herself. This all adds up to Mari not feeling like a "real" character at all, just someone tacked on.

Who is Kaworu Nagisa?

I decided to rewatch Neon Genesis Evangelion for the first time in two years. I enjoyed it as much as I ever did, and it gives me an excuse to talk about something important to my experience with the series: the reason I don't ship Kaworu x Shinji.

It might be a tough thing to justify, when it seems like everything should be in place for me to ship it. I like both characters, find their rapport convincing, and I'm not homophobic (though this might make me look like I am). But I believe Kaworu plays a symbolic, ironic role that makes shipping him with Shinji a contradiction of what the series is trying to convey. That, and I don't ship anyone in Evangelion because all relationships in the series are dysfunctional, so I don't see the appeal of exploring the couples.

Anyway, Kaworu is a character that "needs" to die because he represents an unreal idealism that contradicts the rest of the series and the lessons Shinji must learn. Shinji must reject Kaworu in order to accept the real world in all its flaws, rather than retreat into the company of an idealized companion. It parallels Shinji's ultimate fate in both the television series' final episodes, and the film End of Evangelion.

In both versions of the ending, which may or may not be concurrent, Shinji Ikari rejects the comfort of a closed-in world for the experience of real humanity, however the narrative defines it. In the TV version he is moving from a closed-in world that is part of his wishes, to...something. Perhaps it is acceptance of the world of Instrumentality, the merging of all souls into one being, perhaps not.

In End of Evangelion, it is slightly more clear-cut. The remnants of Rei Ayanami give Shinji Ikari the ability to determine the direction of Instrumentality. At first he wishes that everyone would simply die, because the hates the world after what's happened to him. In response to his wish, the fused Rei/Kaworu/Lilith/Adam being initiates Instrumentality.

Even though Instrumentality is designed to eliminate the fundamental loneliness of humanity, and Shinji might've been happy inside it, he eventually overcomes his hatred of humanity to declare that he wants to be in the real world, even though it can be painful to exist there. Thus, he breaks Instrumentality, the fused being falls apart, and he returns to earth, with everyone having the potential to also return.

Even though Shinji isn't conventionally rewarded for his conviction, ending up currently alone on a strange, red Earth and strangling the first person to appear beside him, the choice he made is still meant to be the moral one, since it was exactly what the story was building up towards. Choosing Kaworu would be the opposite of what the story was building towards.

Just like Instrumentality could represent a cocoon preferable to real existence, Kaworu also represents a love preferable to the real existence, both potentially free of fear and uncertainty. Asking if Shinji and/or Kaworu are "gay" isn't the important question. The relationship between Kaworu and Shinji is deliberately unnatural in its speed and depth, so it can't be considered part of the characters' "ordinary" sexuality.

Instead, the relationship is beyond ordinary, beyond the "norm" of Shinji's existence. And Shinji does not fall in love with Kaworu as a person, but as an ideal. Shinji is not capable of a healthy, ordinary relationship, accepting another being with all their faults and flaws. Instead, he is unsure of what he wants, but so trapped in his own mind that he can't open up to a real person. It is a prefect situation for an unreal person to appear, and make the outcome more effective.

When Kaworu appears, Shinji has lost everything, or it has been corrupted. His overtures to his father were crushed with Toji's entry plug. His school friends all have to go because his city has been destroyed, including the injured Toji. Asuka, whom he masochistically looked up to, has had a complete breakdown, no longer being the "hero" he thought she was. Rei and Misato are both distant, Rei being a new clone has lost the tentative bond between them. And both of them now represent a disturbing mix of maternity and sexuality, Rei because she is his mother's clone, Misato because she was Shinji's mother figure, but reached for him on that bed.

Under these conditions, Kaworu appears even more like a dream than he otherwise would. He asks for nothing and gives everything, compliments Shinji in ways that would seem absurd to all the jaded folks watching ("I think I may have been born to meet you, Shinji Ikari"), and is immediately interested in Shinji as a person, and always maintains a calm, stable air, asking for nothing. His gender might also serve to further distance Shinji from his real world of corrupted potential love interests.

To further emphasize that Kaworu is not meant to be taken at face value, he makes cryptic pronouncements about the nature of man, and Misato and Hyuga race to figure out just what Kaworu is. The audience knows something is up, as they are being primed to accept this swift attachment between the two characters as building to something greater and darker than just Shinji getting his wish.

The bonding between Kaworu and Shinji is, in short, aware of its unreality and works with it. Kaworu is not realistic. Kaworu is not human. He doesn't fit with the world of Evangelion, and not just because he is an Angel. In this series, a perfect companion, who asks nothing but your happiness, will not simply appear and solve everyone's problems.  He does not fit with what we know of humanity, both the real version and all the flawed example seen in Evangelion. And, so he must be killed. It's not about Kaworu being "too good" for that world, in the sense that we are all supposed to mourn for the death of an "angelic" innocent, but that he just doesn't fit in.

Kaworu's abrupt entrance and exit further underlie the way he cannot "exist" according to the rules of the story. If Kaworu were around for longer, perhaps the narrative would need to define him as an individual character, fleshing him out beyond his symbolic role. But as he exists in episode 24, Kaworu's small existence lets him be just a symbol, and it fits him because of the role he plays.

Kaworu's betrayal also doesn't mean he is not an idealized character. Even though Shinji is angry with him, the scene ends with Kaworu still being a kindly figure. He tells Shinji that he is the one who deserves to live, and sacrifices himself to save Shinji and, by implication, humanity. Shinji is in turn destroyed emotionally by having to kill Kaworu, proving that the bond between himself and Kaworu did not disappear. He still views Kaworu as an idealized figure, and one worthy of existence.

The moment of betrayal, however, raises a question: was Kaworu lying all along, and does it affect the interpretation of Kaworu as a symbol? SEELE apparently sent Kaworu to NERV to initiate Third Impact in the guise of a replacement EVA pilot. Some fans have inferred that Kaworu's overtures to Shinji were part of the infiltration. 

Yet since Kaworu can just use his powers to manipulate EVA-02 and open Terminal Dogma, a close relationship with Shinji is not required for infiltration.  And if Kaworu were lying, he would not have left his mission incomplete and declared he was giving his life up for Shinji. It's still possible for Kaworu to be a liar if one assumes Kaworu was part of a design to break Shinji's mind, but as with much of Evangelion, the exact details are open to interpretation.

In End of Evangelion, SEELE wishes to break Shinji's mind as part of the process of Instrumentality, but it is not clear if Kaworu's appearance and death was designed to further that breakage. It might be possible.

However, the interplay between Kaworu and Shinji, while not destroyed if Kaworu had ulterior motives, is the most effective if a viewer assumes Kaworu was being earnest. The reason why he would bother with Shinji would remain unexplained, but they aren't that important. What is important is what Kaworu represents, as outlined above.

There are other versions of Kaworu, namely the ones in Yoshiyuki Sadamoto's manga adaptation, and in the Rebuild movies. Rebuild Kaworu hasn't done much yet, and it is possible he may play a completely different role. He has once said he would like to make Shinji happy, but if that will lead to something similar to his television role is unknown.

Characters aren't obligated to be the same throughout each iteration, but no other version of Kaworu has been as effective and affecting, and it's no surprise the original Kaworu would be hard to follow up on. Personally, I'd like to see if a work could alter Kaworu's television role without removing what made it interesting, perhaps giving him more depth of character but still managing to be inhumanly idealized. But that, however, is coming from a viewpoint of someone who already considered TV Kaworu to be the ideal.

Sadamoto's version of Kaworu has been nicknamed "Evil Manga Kaworu" because he once snapped a stray kitten's neck out of ruthless pragmatism. But when he becomes part of the main cast, this time earlier than before, he's more obnoxious than sinister. He lacks a sense of appropriate social boundaries and is questioning of human emotions, but in a way that makes him seem like a run-of-the-mill creep or a sullen brat rather than a thoughtful "alien". Shinji is also actively hostile towards him, and a kissing scene is played for his disgust rather than confused titillation.

I can imagine someone cheering Sadamoto for removing the taint of romanticism and idealism and a "shallow" character from the storyline. However, like I said, the original Kaworu was not meant to be taken completely at face value; his alien nature and brief betrayal show that Evangelion did not suddenly lose its teeth when Kaworu appeared. We all know Gainax wouldn't be above creating a character to draw in fangirls/yaoi fangirls, and it'd be unsurprising if that was another purpose beyond Kaworu, but that doesn't make him this ill-fitting example of sugary romanticism, especially in light of the relentless marketing of the female cast. Kaworu was never a misstep into fantasy land, but a justifiable part of the series narrative.

Therefore, to be annoyed with "Evil Manga Kaworu" is not about pearl-clutching that such a "sweet" character became so nasty, but being annoyed at the simple act of change, and that what in its place is just plain boring.

Going back to the original Kaworu, he's a good example of a character that doesn't seem to fit with his environs, before you realize how well he actually does. Some of what Kaworu ended up representing could be accidental, but it's effective nonetheless. It questions the notion of the idealized companion without beating viewers over the head with it, and manages to justify a character that could be perceived as shallow. In the process, though, it also enforces the strict pragmatism at the end of Evangelion, and ensures that the idea of a romantic relationship between Kaworu and Shinji would be greatly missing the point. Sometimes "the point" isn't what shipping is really about, but it still makes me want to avoid supporting the pairing.

Gurren Lagann is Not the Anti-Evangelion

This post was delayed for a while as I struggled with the way to put my thoughts to paper regarding the reasons why I avoided Gurren Lagann, and my rebuttal to those who believe certain things about it. I can't avoid the fact that no matter how much I enjoyed Gurren Lagann, there was a time when I avoided the series because of the attitude of its fandom. It's embarrassing to have let myself be affected in that way, especially when I discovered that the series didn't embody the attitudes others thought it did.

Many, many other nerds viewed Gurren Lagann as, by turns: an attempt to bring manliness back to the mecha genre; an antidote to the angst that apparently pervaded the mecha genre; an antidote to Neon Genesis Evangelion; Simon as an antidote to Shinji Ikari. And so on.

Hence, a perfect storm: I am naturally suspicious of anyone who thinks "manliness" is under siege, I am against fans acting as though they are owed an antidote to anything they didn't like, and I damn love Evangelion and Shinji Ikari, both of which have become something of sacred cows for me over the years. Not enough for me to think they should be sacred to others, but enough so that they are deeply engraved into my brain, and anything that is purported to be an attack on them would give me pause in checking out.

And, after watching Gurren Lagann in full, my impression is Gainax was just making the series they wanted to make, something possessing no deeper agenda than to be crazy-fun. I can see how Gurren Lagann could have become those certain things to fans watching, but I don't think it was the intention of the creators for it to be these things, nor do certain interpretations stand up when you look at the series closely.

Kamina and several other characters may rant about "manliness", but it's not some kind of broader statement by the creators about the mecha genre or modern society. Instead, the writers are just echoing sentiments from other boys' adventure shows without really thinking about them, or about the contradiction when there are several female characters involved in combat, proving there's nothing exclusively male about perseverance in the face of adversity.

I'm really glad Gurren Lagann never went any deeper with that focus on "manliness" because, well, "manliness" is a bunch of bull. The first thing I think when I think "manliness" is posturing, loudness, and excessive concern with one's reputation. How else can you put it? I don't believe that "manliness" is just a way to describe the ½ of  positive human traits that belong only to men, because there's no set of values just good for one gender. Nor is it a set of rules for men to follow to be a decent human being, for that also needs no special name.

Actually, worrying over the "manliness" of current robot cartoons sounds just like code for worrying about manliness in culture, which is also ridiculous. There is a HUGE culture of pushing male insecurity about being "manly" enough, and pretending the opposite is willful blindness. I don't want that crap in my animu.

I also haven't watched every mecha show ever made, but I'd be hard-pressed to believe there is such a pall of angst on the genre that someone conceived a deliberate response to it. Like all media and genre, I'd imagine the popularity of certain motifs comes in cycles, with nothing dominating for any notable length of time. From my end, angst is hardly a cancer that is killing mecha anime.

Also, since Gurren Lagann is all about being in your face, if it wanted to be about reclaiming a "lost" manliness/be the killer of the mecha genre's chronic angst, it would tell viewers very loudly. But Gurren Lagann doesn't play that game. It just tells a fun story, and doesn't have an agenda.

It would also be very hard for a series to turn out this good if its genesis was showing up other cartoons rather than telling its own story. For this reason, Gurren Lagann is probably a series created out of sheer love of mecha action, not out of any hate for anything. It wants to create something for itself, not to look down on another thing. It's particularly ludicrous to think Gainax would want to create an "antidote" to Neon Genesis Evangelion, a work that put the studio on the map and continues to make them gobs of cash.

The argument is that the characters of Gurren Lagann push forward in the face of despair, while the characters of Evangelion freeze, or earn nothing when they try to fight. This is one of the more developed arguments I've seen. But the plot of Gurren Lagann is completely different from Evangelion's, and the characters are never placed in any similar situations. A very general difference in series-wide "character" between the two shows does not make their relationship oppositional. Gurren Lagann would have had to have a glut of very similar situations to Evangelion's that turn into their opposites in order to prove itself a rebuttal.

The truth instead is that Gurren Lagann derives several story elements from Evangelion, but these end up with similar outcomes. For example, the Anti-Spiral race is revealed to have shut itself away in a mindless collective to avoid gathering too much destructive energy, and this is positioned as the thematically wrong thing to do, standing in stark contrast to the heroes' individuality and life.

However, this shutting away is not analogous to the final actions of Evangelion's main characters, but instead to those of SEELE. The status of the Anti-Sprial sounds a lot like Evangelion's Instrumentality, and Instrumentality was also positioned as the "wrong" thing within its series, the product of the nominal antagonists, and what Shinji eventually breaks from. It might not be as clear or as glamorous as the way Simon breaks from the Anti-Spirals, but it is more similar than different. Hell, both sequences include a "Normal Life AU Interlude" that the characters escape from, reinforcing the similarity rather than opposition between the two series.

Evangelion also wasn't all 'bout despair to begin with, so when Team Gurren defies the Anti-Spiral, they are doing so in the name of Gurren Lagann's own themes, not to attack what would be a strawman version of Evangelion. Gurren Lagann echoes Evangelion, not to judge Evangelion, but because productions from the same studio would inevitably share motifs and elements in common.

Simon being intended as the anti-Shinji I don't buy, either, and for pretty much the same reasons I don't see Gurren Lagann as designed to be an antidote to Evangelion: both characters have far too little in common. They both come from the same "reluctant hero" wellspring, but if Simon was intended to be an anti-Shinji, there would be a lot more parallels than just timidity/insecurity and a vague physical resemblance.

For example, when we first meet Simon, he has already grown up with Kamina as a positive influence in his life, and is an orphan, while Shinji has initially no one at all, before his bastard of a father calls him back. Already the two characters start off in different situations which have a deep effect on how they already act. Starting from those different points, Simon and Shinji are just vaguely similar character types who happen to go in different directions. That Simon looks a bit like Shinji is just Gainax copying itself again, and copying without a value judgement involved.

This is all not to forget that the idea of series/characters needing an "antidote" is ridiculous. Since no one involved with Gurren Lagann has expressed disdain for Evangelion, the idea of an "antidote" for the series being needed seems to have sprung from fans' dislike. Not enjoying the original works are fine, but being arrogant enough to say that the creators must surely have hated things as much as they did, and so this later work must be a "rebuttal", is really petty. For the third time, why would Gainax even bother or care?

I don't know why I let the fandom effect me the way it did, when it's so obvious in hindsight that Gainax had no reason to attack its own. Gurren Lagann obviously won't surpass Neon Genesis Evangelion in my estimation, but it's still a good show. I haven't connected as deeply emotionally with Gurren Lagann as I have with Evangelion, and the flaws I mentioned before do bring the series down. But it was hellishly fun to watch

The Peculiar Olympians: Shinji Ikari

“The Peculiar Olympians” is a series of blog posts about my most favourite fictional characters. They are each here for some combination of sympathy, empathy, inspiration, humour, quality, staying power, and/or significance to my relationship with fandom. These are not all the characters that I like, but they are the ones that have stood out to me the most. The list is also alphabetical and nothing more.

Though I never rank my favourite things, for a while I considered making Shinji at least the number one character on the list, because his appeal was so different from that of the other characters’, though not entirely foreign, either.

In the year 2015, Earth was devastated by a global catastrophe known as Second Impact. Life has resumed a semblance of normalcy after the 2000 incident, but now the Angels have reappeared: strange creatures with bizarre and multifarious shapes, who cannot be successfully combated by ordinary human forces. Fourteen-year-old Shinji Ikari is summoned by his distant father, Gendo, to be the pilot of Evangelion-01, one of a series of humanoid fighting machines designed to combat the Angels. As each Angel comes, Shinji and other characters must deal with the pain of their own psyches in addition to the stresses of combat, while some try to understand exactly what circumstances created the world they find themselves in now.

Shinji Ikari has been a favourite of mine for a long time, and I’ve grown to find the widespread nerd hatred of Shinji to be stupid and overblown, instead of staying offended by it. Strangely enough, this came right on the heels of my urge actively ensure that my own writing contains stronger and active characters. Writers may not have to write just what they feel like doing, but diligently watch their characters’ movements to make sure the potential audience remains interested. It’s a sobering lesson to learn.

However, this is what makes Shinji so interesting—he manages to be compelling in spite of breaking the rule that a character in popular fiction, no matter their personality, must always be ready to act. In allowing his angst to sometimes paralyze him or fuel bad judgements, Shinji is sometimes misread as exaggerated and theatrical, when the opposite is true. His is a portrayal that shows exactly what happens to people in the depths of despair; such realism is often avoided because it doesn’t make for good storytelling, but there are always exceptions. There is a strange beauty to the raw portrayal of a mind trapped in its own pain, an aspect to life that popular fiction usually avoids.

Shinji is not entirely detached from the streamlining effect of fiction, however, which is fine with me. There is still a plot, after all, and there are times when Shinji proves himself able to take action for moral reasons, and to be humorous or endearing. He’s a character with multiple facets. There are times when he also takes highly immoral actions, including one that should have put him off my radar for good, yet it didn’t. In the end, Shinji does choose what may be right, although the series leaves viewers to decide if the abstract principle was as fulfilling as the actual outcome.

All of my interest in Shinji Ikari is for more than the sake of clinical dissection, however: I do have a genuine liking for the character. I enjoy the way he’s written, and I also find Shinji to be likable and good-natured when not under pressure. That doesn’t excuse him from any moral condemnation viewers care to make, of course, but it goes some way to being a fan of Shinji instead of a detached observer.

I have found that only Shinji in the original TV series, and the film End of Evangelion, to have that appeal. In the manga, and so far in the series of Evangelion remake movies, Shinji’s portrayal is toned down. He can be slightly more aggressive, and his scenes of surreal introspection may be glossed over. As a result, his character is made bland, if not entirely standardized.

(However, I do believe the original Shinji would have reached into the void to rescue Rei Ayanami as he did in the second Rebuild film, because Shinji is not entirely passive, and cares about other people. That’s why Shinji came back in the original episode 19, which the movie scene roughly aligns with.)

Nor do the characters that inspired Shinji, or that Shinji was inspired by, possess that same compelling quality. I did like Tsukasa from .hack a bit, but even had I not had problems with the series, he wouldn’t have been as striking as Shinji. Nor do I find any similar character alleged to be an improvement on Shinji to be an actual improvement—it’s always silly to think a character can be “improved” on by another different one.

I also don’t ship Shinji with anyone. Any fan pairing rising out of Evangelion seems inevitably dysfunctional, and there’s no fun in speculating about those. Asuka and Shinji hate each other as much as they love each other, and not in a cutesy way. Kaworu and Shinji had no substance, which was the point—Kaworu represents the ideal world that Shinji cannot have, and so he must be killed. And so on and so forth.

Overall, while I know very few can get a character like Shinji right, it’s this very feeling of rightness that draws me to the character. He is written how writers are discouraged to write characters, yet I find him compelling in a way that no other character quite is. It’s not the point that Shinji is realistic, for characters in popular fiction don’t have to be, but that he is fascinating.