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Neon genesis evangelion poll:

He was exactly what a 14 year old boy with daddy and abandonment issues should be. He was alright, and necessary to make the series what it is today.

Moved to the series discussion board.

He's alright

At least he's not the tipical perfect protagonist that everyone worships...

Fantastic character and the backbone of the series psychological side. Shows a level of realism absent from most anime.

He completely ruined the series for me. I watch only 4 episodes and drop the anime because i could not stand him... and i usually like the "reluctant hero" kind of protagonist...

But i decide to come back, and the anime get a lot better when he star to get less screen time. He is also a little less annoying as the episodes go.

Just understand shinji..If you are the one in his place...I think you will do the same..

This

I think people are too blinded by heroes in anime to realize what they tried to achieve with Shinji. His father abandoned him at a young age and left him with nothing, then his father decides to use him to kill stuff. I'd be pretty damn pissed off/angry/upset too if I was a 14 year old whose only purpose is to kill living things.

He was alright at first but towards the later half of the series (esp the last few eps), his emo-ness was just abundant to the point where it pissed me off greatly. Plus, he's always so desperate to gain people's approvals and pilots the EVA just to "be liked". WTF.

Shinji Ikari is probably analogue to hidiaki anno's depression when he came up with the series. Hedgehog's syndrome, instrumentality, all of these things were probably things he pondered as was experiencing what you could describe as the human condition.

All of the characters in this show are emotionally damaged from past events that continue to haunt them. However, everyone's problem centers around the theme of being lonely (and the series implies that people are doomed to be lonely because they have individual conscience, and therefore, can never really be together with anyone else, hence instrumentality, this is explained in the series as what the AT field is).

Shinji's character changes because of asuka. Their relationship is significant because at the end of the series they are the "adam and eve." As much as they don't get along in the series its not because they don't like each other, its more like they are mad at themselves. Its also important to note that the last thing asuka said was meant to have double meaning, the one that most people missed is that the japanese doesn't translate perfectly into english and thusly the english translation varies in a few different sources, but one of the double meanings was that asuka implies that she feels sick (says disgusted) and this was supposed to imply morning sickness.... now I will let you all chew on that for a while :P

EDIT: Oh forgot to mention also that they don't really talk much about it but the EVA's also have a habit of mentally contaminating the pilots with certain memories... You could argue that being an EVA pilot would give a well adjusted person mental problems because of the "secret ingredient" LOL, but I suppose its difficult to be a well adjusted motherless 14 year old without having them amplified by a synthetic cyborg that syncs with your brain and (sort of ) has a mind of its own. Talk about an Oedipus complex :P

Best character in the cast. Those who hate them are blinded by typical anime heroes that love to fight and don't have "psychological struggle" in their dictionary, cuz they're always positive and have strong sense of justice or power of love crap and whatnot.

Okay, try imagining this series without Shinji. Wouldn't have worked. People bash his character too much for being written in the way to make the show even to have a point, really, but I am not trying to say I would cite him among my favorite characters in anime.

Let's say Shinji is a boring character but the one who ruined the show for me is Asuka, She is the most annoying character in this series, why did they even create her. This bitch should have died sooner :-)

Best character there, he likes seeing his country getting destroyed and his friends getting killed, just because he fancies having a little emo time to himself.
A reason I hated NGE: him.
Though to be fair, the show ruined itself for me, it was boring, and the fanbase too, oh the fanbase.

worst lead character ever,really he couldnt be less anoyying i kind of was liking him when he ,manned up,but then rei dies and everything goes down the shitter again

I think people are being WAY to hard on shinji, well granted though we did seemed whiny and such, but i felt he was like that to prove a point. seriously, his dad left him at such a small age after his mom died, now years later he comes out at him and forces him to kill angels and, of course, he was against it at first.

wouldn't you of felt the same way if you were in his shoes? because of this, i found him relatable and understandable as a character and he's one of my favorite anime characters because of this.



glad to know someone feels the same way i do about that rotten bitch :)

Part of the reason I liked the show was because I could relate to Shinji kinda... idk what that says about be.

Exactly what I think!

asuka was far worse.