ha, still my favourite character.

i remember avoiding the eva fandom as a teen, though, becuase oh my god the homophobia in it was staggering. every board i went to was awash with people going IM GLAD HE DIED, THE FAG.

Reply below -w-

"Thank you, Shinji. My life was meaningful, because of you."

Seriously. My eyes watered typing that. Let alone watching it.

Same when he comforts Shinji him in EoE. I really felt for Shinji, the only human character (not counting Rei or Kaworu when I say that) that I actually care about.

yeah a lot of people hate shinji because he's a whiny teen...but i feel like they're missing the point. he's not a whiny teen, he's ANY teen. any NORMAL teenager in his situation would react the exact same way he does. it's not a proud way to react, being afraid and wanting to run. but it's human. it's REAL. and that's part of what makes it so powerful, you know that you'd do the same thing if you were in shinji's place.

people who say they hate shinji, to me, are just in denial about themselves. probably a lot of other things, too. but a real hero has flaws. a hero is nothing without flaws to overcome.

I think it's also the whole wanting-a-static-protagonist that my generation really buys into. Someone that has no transformations or changes of heart that is always a badass.

Fun sometimes, but doesn't always tell a good story XD

Asuka's sorta that character in EVA, except when her brain gets scrambled by Arael TwT

yeah plus asuka's strength comes from the way she was raised/lives. her behavior is such a stark contrast to shinji's that it forces his character to advance and change because he sees what she goes through is really no different from his own life and in some ways worse. shinji deals with rejection from his father and has almost no memory of his mother. asuka's mother didn't just reject her, but prefered the company of a doll over her - and she hasn't even got a father to remember. the expectations put upon both of them were unrealistic, but asuka forces herself to rise up to them as opposed to shinji who openly admits his fear.

it also furthers the whole puberty realism storyline thing, that shinji would feel a teenage girl is more masculine than he is. that kind of stuff can really weigh on you as a teen. in actuality it seems like the primary reason he's drawn to rei is that she is utterly nonjudgemental. her lack of typical human behavior seems safe compared to the other people shinji interacts with. it's another reason why kaoru was such a devious move by the angels.

I look at that little disclaimer Hideaki Anno put in all the copies of 1.01:

"Many different desires are motivating us to create the new "Evangelion" film… The desire to fight the continuing trend of stagnation in anime."

Not just in Anime, but as a generation, the lack of realistic characters in an unrealistic scenario's is pretty sad. They even address this in Neon Genesis Evangelion back in 1997 with episodes 25 and 26, how Shinji's all like "I don't like my reality" and everybody else's all like "deal with it, Nancy Drew". XP

eva has always been an attempt at 'breaking out' of standard anime/geek culture. in fact it was originally created to be the one anime that oldschool otaku and non-otaku alike coudl openly enjoy. it was sort of meant to break down the barriers between the two cultures, as otaku were becoming more and more isolated.

in a way, it both succeeded and backfired. at this point prettymuch everyone in japan knows about eva and the majority are fans. however, they're not openly fans. they keep their otaku-ness as a double life, secreted away. i personally always found that terribly interesting :o

the only real qualm i have with the eva reboot is that one new girl character. she seems excessive and a self parody to me, and i felt that the whole fight between humans and angels was much more of a biblical analogy WITHOUT dragging satan symbology into it. because really there's very little mention of ZOMG SATAN LULZ in a lot of biblical paraballs. i dunno i feel like she was just out of line with the rest of the eva universe and eva characters. but i haven't seen the newer reboots, so maybe they kill her off rapidly. who knows.

Mari's an interloper. I don't mean that I don't like her, I mean that she's not meant to be involved in what SEELE considers "God's Logos". Though that's only if the whole theory about Rebuild being a sequel to NGE is correct. I mean, Kaworu speaking in the past-tense all the time's a giveaway.

And the whole Za Beasto thing? Well, if EVAs have AT Fields, why do they wear armor? Unit-01 proved it in the original Zeruel fight, and Mari in Unit-02 just showed it in a little more detail. Without restraints, EVA's are just giant gribbly monsters. A God created in Man's image XP