The Imitation of Evangelion
NOTE: This essay is an abridged consolidation of three separate ones that I had previously written about the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion. I wanted to synthesize my thoughts on the series into something more readable and concise.
SPOILER ALERT: Plot details for all of Evangelion follow, you have been warned.
“Evangelion is like a puzzle, you know. Any person can see it and give his/her own answer. In other words, we’re offering viewers to think by themselves, so that each person can imagine his/her own world. We will never offer the answers, even in the theatrical version. As for many Evangelion viewers, they may expect us to provide the ‘all-about Eva’ manuals, but there is no such thing. Don’t expect to get answers by someone. Don’t expect to be catered to all the time. We all have to find our own answers.”
- Hideaki Anno
Neon Genesis Evangelion is a debated with much passion by all who have seen it. It’s an interpretive piece, which allows everyone to draw from their own experiences and knowledge to find their own meaning in it. Everyone has their own theory about what it is or what it isn’t. This is mine.
Evangelion is about humans, and how to form relationships with other humans, despite cruelty and misunderstanding. Its trio of pilots, a wimp, a loudmouth, and a wallflower, who are equal parts unlikable and sympathetic. Like Mobile Suit Gundam before it, Evangelion places the burden of saving humanity of adolescents who are still trying to understand themselves. I would argue, however, that Evangelion goes deeper into the psychology of what are essentially child soldiers, and the long-term trauma of placing so great a burden on those most vulnerable.
Nowhere is this better demonstrated than with the protagonist, Shinji Ikari, who feels pressured by everyone around him to take courage and pilot the Eva robot. Shinji is very disliked, even by Evangelion fans, and it’s not hard to see why. Perhaps due to being abandoned by his own father, Gendo, Shinji is impulsively needy and he’ll grovel to get the even the smallest pat on the head. Shinji’s character is best exhibited by a scene where Asuka finds him playing the cello. She asks him why he continues to play, and he answers that no one ever told him to stop. Shinji suffers from what in the show is referred to as the “Hedgehog’s Dilemma”, in which the hedgehog desires to be close to others, but fears to come near due to his sharp quills. This is Shinji’s struggle, to develop close relationships with others without harming them. He has sexual feelings for the three women in his life: Misato, Rei, and Asuka, but is much too fearful to act upon them. The great irony of Evangelion is that all the other characters are a lot more like Shinji than they would want to admit. They are all just better at hiding it.
Then there’s Shinji’s guardian and surrogate mother, Misato Katsuragi. She’s the first adult figure in his life to encourage him. A great scene that sets the stage for their bond is when the skyscrapers slowly rise up from the ground at sunset. This offers Shinji a palpable image of what he’s accomplished. She tells Shinji that her father was more involved in his work than with her, so she resented him for it. Then he died to save her from the Second Impact. Misato resolved to defeat the Angels to free herself of this debt to him. She wants to be a proper parent to Shinji, but herself is still very childlike. She clings to men who can be father figures, and escapes her personal problems through booze and sex. This brings to mind Anno’s own remarks about adults in modern Japanese society,
“I don’t see any adults here in Japan. The fact that you see salarymen reading manga and pornography on the trains and being unafraid, unashamed or anything, is something you wouldn’t have seen 30 years ago, with people who grew up under a different system of government. They would have been far too embarrassed to open a book of cartoons or dirty pictures on a train. But that’s what we have now in Japan. We are a country of children.”
This view is reflected in Evangelion, but it is also taken one step further. While the adults behave like children, it is the children who must become the adults. Placing the burden of saving all mankind on three maladjusted teenagers proves to be a greater problem than anticipated. The young heroes of Gundam and Macross were eventually able to overcome their struggles, but the protagonists of Evangelion succumb to them.
For all of her fame, Rei Ayanami doesn’t receive a great deal of character growth in the original anime. She is largely defined by silence and mystery. Anno has said that she is motivated by Thanatos, or the death-drive, “Rei is someone who is aware of the fact that even if she dies, there’ll be another to replace her, so she doesn’t value her life very highly. Her presence, her existence-ostensible existence-is ephemeral. She’s a very sad girl. She only has the barest minimum of what she needs to have. She’s damaged in some way; she hurts herself. She doesn’t need friends.” From the very start, Rei never seemed completely human. Take note of the scene where Shinji encounters her in the nude. She expresses no embarrassment like a normal girl would. Rei is a more perfect version of Shinji, obedient to the letter of Gendo’s every whim, a true instrument for his dark purposes. It is only when Shinji starts to develop a friendship with her that she starts to question this. The first change in her comes when he gets her to smile after their battle with Ramiel, and she eventually returns the favor by sacrificing herself to save him. And in tears no less.
Asuka Langley Soryu portrays herself as the complete opposite of Rei and Shinji: narcissistic, aggressive, and confident. Unlike Rei, who often grabs her own arm for protection, Asuka keeps her hands boldly on her hips. This is, of course, a facade. Careful viewers will note that Asuka’s actual abilities fail to match her boasts. Asuka also has romantic feelings for Shinji, but like him, is much too afraid to express them. She also, like him, pilots the Eva for praise from others. She is haunted by the memory of her mother, who tried to strangle Asuka before killing herself. Since then, Asuka has sought to prove that she can stand on her own two feet, without a mother, or anyone else, either. She wants to be an uber-adult, which is why she flirts around with Kaji so often. When her mind is violated by the Angel Arael, she is forced to confront the fact that she is still just a child, and that she can’t succeed on her own. Asuka needs to rely on others in order to achieve any real to success, and that disgusts her more than anything.
Just like Shinji, they all live under the shadow of their parents. Rei devotes herself entirely to her parental figure, Gendo. Asuka tries to free herself from the terror of her mother. Misato wants to free herself from the debt of her father’s sacrifice. Ristuko wants to best her mother in love an intelligence. They are all also hedgehogs, trying to figure out how to properly communicate with others. Rei knows nothing of human communication and is learning from scratch. Asuka hides her insecurity behind her anger but is afraid to be honest about her feelings for Shinji. Misato drinks all her problems away and wants to be a better parent to Shinji than her father ever was to her. These characters think they are alone in these struggles, but were they more open with one another, they’d find that this isn’t the case.
The “Human Instrumentality Project” is at the heart of Evangelion’s major themes of personal relationships. The idea is that all human beings would return to the primordial soup as a single, Jungian collective. No one is alone and everyone exists in their own, comforting reality. It represents an escape from the trials of building connections with others you don’t know. Sex is the clearest metaphor for this idea, as it represents two separate humans conjoining into one being. Shinji fantasizes about Misato, Rei, and Asuka embracing him sexually, because he subconsciously sees this as a means of connecting to them. Misato attempts to make this fantasy real by trying to seduce Shinji after Rei’s death. This is her way of showing affection towards him in a time of great despair, but he immediately rejects her, not wanting to cross that line with his surrogate mother. This line is, of course, quite blurry, with the Evas themselves being a return to the womb; the cockpits filled to the brim with breathable fluid.
The introduction of Kaworu Nagisa occurs at the perfect moment. At this point, Shinji is at his lowest moment, detached from all of his friends. Toji has lost a leg due to his Eva. Kaji has been killed. The Rei that he came to know is gone. Asuka has attempted suicide. Misato tried to seduce him out of a misguided attempt to comfort him. Shinji is desperate for any semblance of love to bring him out of this pit. This is where Kaworu comes in. He is Shinji’s first true friend, the first person to tell him that he loves him. Some have interpreted their relationship to have romantic elements, though I think that it is meant to be ambiguous. The point of all of this is that Kaworu offers Shinji hope, a way of out hell.
It is here that Anno reveals the final twist: Kaworu is the last Angel, Tabris. He sees his mission as joining with Adam to cause Third Impact. Shinji has been betrayed by the one he loved the most. Kaworu realizes that he cannot join with Adam, because the crucified monster is actually Lilith. He was brought here by SEELE to die and move forward the “Human Instrumentality Project,” which apparently requires the deaths of all twelve Angels. Knowing that his death is inevitable, Kaworu lies to Shinji, telling him that humanity will die if he isn’t slain. By being with Shinji, Kaworu has seen the good of the human race. He looks to Rei, knowing that she will be put into a similar position. He wants her to see the fate of all puppets. He wants her to do the right thing for humanity. His death scene is among the most heart-wrenching in all of anime.
Despite budget constraints, the animation, design, and music for the series has held up quite well. Gainax’s explosive style, from Daicon IV, Gunbuster, and Nadia: Secret of Blue Water, has come to full fruition in Evangelion. Anno surely utilized his work on the Nausicaa’s Ancient Warrior to craft the monstrous Angels. The sleek and humanoid designs of the Evangelions, particularly Shinji’s make them feel more organic than most other mechs. The best fight scene in the series might be when Asuka first arrives, as we see her Unit-03 leap from ship to ship. The use of music is also expert, from the use of modern classics like “Fly Me To The Moon”, to express the desires of the female protagonists, to using Handel’s “Hallejulah” or Beethoven’s Ninth to heighten the excitement. Shiro Sagisu has also complements the score with such pieces as “Thanatos”, “Hedgehog’s Dillemma” and “Mother Is The First Other.” Not to mention theme songs “A Cruel Angel’s Thesis”, “The Soul’s Refrain”, and “Premonition.” For many viewers, these qualities took a dive when it came to the final two episodes.
Due to budget constraints, these last two episodes take place completely within Shinji’s head. He has hit his lowest low and tries to find closure with his depression. As a result, the viewers never received a proper resolution to the plot, as otaku studies scholar Lawrence Eng has written, “Not only was it visually bizarre and jarring, it offered no clear answers to the show’s innumerable mysteries, no clear conclusion to the storyline that had been set up, and no sense of closure for most of the characters.” This resulted in the episodes being quite reviled by some fans, as Kenneth Lee wrote in the Anime News Network, “it’s not ‘Art-house,’ it’s ‘out-house.’ ” I felt similarly when I first saw these episodes, but after having seen the series many times, I’ve grown to appreciate them. In fact, I find them essential. Even now, I am struck by some of the clever imagery throughout: a torn photograph of Misato patched together with tape or Rei’s dismembered clones floating like backwash in red LCL
The first half is about perception, and how it feeds into our illusions about others. It makes clear that Shinji, Misato, Rei, and Asuka all crave affection and suffer from loneliness. Shinji and Asuka both pilot the Eva to get praise and feel better about themselves. Rei wants such appreciation from Gendo but fears his abandonment. Take down the barriers they create for themselves, and at their core, they all have the same fears and desires. The Human Instrumentality Project is about dissolving these barriers and forcing all beings into this understanding.
The second half focuses solely on Shinji. He hates himself and believes that others hate him. This is expressed through the scene that reverses an earlier one. In that scene, Shinji heard encouragement through the phone, but now hears insults. This perception feeds into his self-pity. Self-pity can be a very comfortable state of mind. It is a state where sympathy is given freely, without work or risk. Human Instrumentality is self-pity writ large. Throughout much of the series, Shinji constantly groans about his own problems, but doesn’t say much for the problems of others. It’s easier for him to think that no one else suffers, but if Shinji acknowledges the suffering of others, then he’d have to acknowledge that he can overcome it like they have. Shinji comes to recognize that living alone is living a lie. Only by interacting with others can you better see yourself. He rejects Human Instrumentality as decides to continue life as an individual. Mike Crandol of the Anime News Network interprets this to say, “Our world is what we make of it, truth is subjective, and one must learn to love oneself before they can love another.”
The whole cast congratulates Shinji for making this step, and with that, Neon Genesis Evangelion ended. Perhaps, this is what helped Anno overcome his depression, and this is the message he took from it: We can see whatever we want to see, and like Shinji, we can also be whatever we want to.
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