This story revolves around Shinji Ikari / Hideaki Anno as we journey with him as he evolves FROM A miserable, angry emo creep who wants to see all life forms obliterated TO A miserable, angry emo creep who wants to see all life forms obliterated.
Oh.My.God. The fate of humanity's survival is in DANGER!!! What should we do? Should we a) place it in the hands of a team of well trained and experienced teenagers or b) place ALL of our faith in a spineless pessimist with no form of training what so ever? Well, the choice is OBVIOUS!?!
The only correct answer is B because.....LOGIC
On a more serious note, I consider the weak and cowardly character to be far more superior to the overly perfect at everything character. I found myself looking forward to Shinji's character when I first began TLOHA. That is until I came to realize that the world "EVOLVUTION" to Shinj actually means "REGRESSION". Shinji's primary function is to piss the audience off in any way this little sh*t can think of. People tend to hail Shinji as an excellently written character but he just comes off as an exact reflection of the writer himself, someone who's ideals or opinions remain the exact same throughout the show is not REALISM it's the exact opposite.
Now you'd think that with such an unrelatable protagonist carrying the story, the supporting characters would be much more likeable and varied right? NOPE. The writers magically defy common sense and make ALL the supporting characters INHUMAN. Hell, the f*ckin angels are more relatable.
We've got Asuka who's here to raise the awareness for male victims of domestic abuse, Rei who makes sandpaper look like Jesus Christ and a bunch of scientists who have as much importance as Pen Pen......Great Job, you guys *reluctantly claps*
All that stuff you heard about robots fighting aliens is nothing but a poorly done facade. In reality, Anno uses this story as a coping mechanism for his ongoing depression. Oh you heard correctly, the creator is in PERFECT CONDITION SO HE WILL DEFINITELY NOT INSERT HIMSELF INTO HIS OWN WRITING.
The show's sense of morality is instantly handicapped because of Anno's state of mind at the time. He fails to understand that even the DARKEST stories have a flicker of light in them as do the LIGHTEST stories have a flicker of dark in them. They both go hand in hand and by choosing to ignore one of them it will create a sense of unrealism. Even the darkest animes, Berserk, still manage to include a sense of optimism, while The Life of Hadeaki Anno prefers to rely solely on acts of self hatred which are then used to manipulate the viewer.By doing this, the trust between the writer and the viewer is completely destroyed. Anno dangles thoughts of hope right under the viewer's nose before quickly snatching it back. It is used to get the audience hooked on a sense of hopelessness and despair.
Anno also likes to make his story near impossible to understand because that will instantly mean it is a masterpiece. This works if it suits the anime it is used in, not because the writer simply wants it to be this way. You will find yourself watching episode after episode in the hopes of uncovering all the answers. When you reach this point in the anime, two things will occur. You will uncover SOME of the answers towards the very end of the show. They will however, end up as a TOTAL DISAPPOINTMENT. Characters motivations will turn out EXACTLY as they are presented, Angels are just evil etc.
The MAJORITY of the answers are instead left up to OUR interpretation. This is were the hundreds of essays trying to understand Evangelion come from. I a quite fond of this method, so I had such high hopes for it. Sigh. The reason this method of writing can't function well in Evangelion is due to Haneaki Anno and no one else. A writer who is heavily biased or opinionated will make the fatal error of inserting their own views into their writing.
PRO TIP: Unfortunately, all essays on Evangelion are very limited as the writer restricts hope and faith in favour of hatred and depression. This forces all conclusions to be BIASED instead of being IMPARTIAL.
When you take away Eva's overuse of pessimism and complexity, it really is just an average show about teens in robots fighting aliens. Anno still needs one more tactic to grasp our attention. That tactic being: CONTROVERSY.
The show is always demonstrating it's MEANINGFULNESS at every chance they can get but this is completely ruined when it swaps this in favour of controversy. While we could have had some form of self growth for Shinji, we are thankfully treated to jaw dropping moments like masturbating over comatose teenagers and awe inspiring pedophilic moments with Misato. Why are these here? To keep people TALKING ABOUT the show no matter how f*cked up it is, they don't care whether you love or hate it.
CONCLUSION:
At the end of the day, NGE is an anime that showcases what an anime will do to become FAMOUS. It ironically betrays what it represents in order to stand out from the crowd. Despite constant arguments, Neon Genesis Evangelion is an anime that never set out to be one of the best animes of all time. Nor did it set out to be one of the worst animes of all time. Neon Genesis Evangelion set out for the sole purpose of being the MOST TALKED ABOUT ANIME OF ALL TIME. And guess what? It worked because we're still talking about it nineteen f*ckin' years later.
* Although I am quite pompous, this is ultimately MY OPINION. Feel free to share your thoughts and opinions whether they are positive or negative*
