Review of Neon Genesis Evangelion

Look, there's about a million ways I could talk about why this show is excellent. It's a masterpiece, the animation, plot, action, characters, themes, choreography, music, voice acting, humor, everything is fantastic. BUT. There is one commonly held view about this show I don't understand in the slightest. It's the notion that Shinji is nothing but a whiny, spineless cretin. Yes, some of his most memorable moments are the ones where he's freaking out, screaming, crying, and moping. But have any of you actually watched the show...??? That is not at all his entire personality, he understandably does that usually in response to experiencing highly traumaticevents firsthand (not that anyone who rags on him has ever been through something comparable).

Throughout the show, he starts off as very shy and a bit snarky. While these two personality traits don't disappear magically (like they do in the rebuild), he does have plenty of character growth, growing more confident and friendly throughout the course of the series. Seen especially in his relationships with Toji, Kensuke, Rei, and sometimes Misato, Shinji is actually very regularly kind, caring, protective, and gentle- for example, the scene where he and Toji go to Rei's apartment to drop off schoolwork, and Shinji cleans up the trash for her, Toji even remarks "I didn't think you were the kind of guy who would go out of your way to help people." But honestly, that's exactly who Shinji is. Despite the fact that he's had a pretty shit life, was abandoned around the age of 4, had no friends, no role models, is depressed and suicidal, he still routinely chooses to fight for humanity, despite the fact that humanity has been so unkind to him.

I mean seriously yall. I'm pretty sure a big part of the show's founding concept was "hmm all these mecha anime are fun, but if we forced kids to get in giant war machines and save the world from horrifying enemy forces, wouldn't that actually be kind of fucked up and traumatizing?" People talk about Shinji like they would be so brave and fearless in his situation. Newsflash folks, you probably would not be!!

The more introspective scenes, esp the train hallucinations, are especially fantastic. How do we live with pain? Isn't it normal to want to run away from painful things? Yes, but you must not run away- you must face pain. An imperfect world is still worth living in. You must take responsibility for your choices. So that you can try to connect with others. Ugh!!! so fantastic