Categories: anime

“Rebuild of Evangelion” Goodbye, Shinji What the “Evaloss” nerd thinks of an adult Shinji

■ So many refugees! Evaloss phenomenon
A phenomenon called “Evaloss” is occurring around me. It has been 9 years since the release of “Evangelion: 1.0 You Are [Not] Alone” in 2012. I finally saw the long-awaited “Evangelion: 3.0+1.0: Thrice Upon a Time”! Shinji has returned to reality, and he finally has a happy ending! This is how it should be, but some people like me are still Evaloss.

“I watched ‘Eva’ twice, including the stage greetings, but the ending made me feel uncomfortable.
I don’t want to end up, but probably I just want to soak in a tingling-hot hot spring, don’t I ?”
I cannot believe why I got 135 likes on this tweet like mumbling..
You guys were also Evaloss! (Geek who is happy to find friends)

So I looked around and on the internet again, and I found many people who are “Evaloss” and who are sort of “refugees” because they had nowhere to go.
Evalos related to characters range from coupling refugees whose favorite character got together with another character, and goods refugees who cannot exchange trading can badges and coasters with Kaoru (there are almost no goods exchange habits in the Eva).

Also, as for the works, everyone has their own opinions like “My own Eva image”, so it is difficult to find someone with the same thoughts, and there is even an old Evoloss who says, “Director Anno used to be on the same otaku stage as me. Only the director became happy now.” (I would call this symptom Anno Director Loss.)

For me, the biggest Evalos’s feeling was that “Shinji-kun has grown up.”
Shinji must have always wandered in search of his place in the story, but he finally found his place. It’s a happy ending in the story but feels lonely and heartbreaking. I don’t want him to go back to reality alone…!
For me, it was always Eva=Shinji.

■ Evaloss for the old movies
For me, in the latest movie adaptation “Rebuild of Evangelion” it felt like, “Director Anno himself is about to grow up.”

In the first place, in the 1997 movie “Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion”, the essence of the story was the same as in “Rebuild of Evangelion”, but it was hard to be called a happy ending, as Shinji was a strangle on Asuka’s neck and was called “Disgusting”.

And in the movie, a live-action video of “Audience watching Eva in the theater” was projected, and it seemed to send a message to us anime fans, “Go back to reality.”
At that time, Eva was said to be a “social phenomenon,” and cool goods began to appear, and when I finally thought that otaku had gained citizenship, the message “Go back to reality” was displayed on the screen.
I don’t know what the director is saying…!

■ I want Shinji to be happy, but I want him to be stressed too
We were thrown out like that, but after the new movie series started.
Misato and his adults surrounding Shinji-kun are not the ones who are crushed by their own worries like Shinji but are the adults who guide their children. I was also impressed by the difference between Shinji from the old work, as Shinji became a boy with a will.
When I felt that it was milder than old works, Shinji once again told Misato and his friends, “It was your fault that the third impact occurred” in “1.0 You Are (Not) Alone”. I was pushed out. I was very shocked by Shinji’s emotions, but on the other hand, I felt like “OK! That’s Eva!”

“I want Shinji to be happy!”
“I want to see Shinji-kun depressed because of his inability to communicate with others!”
It seems to be inconsistent, but there is no contradiction.
I want him to be happy because I “watch the story”.
And when I’m depressed I want to see someone similar to myself, “I sympathize with someone who has the same problems.”
“I want to see a good story” and “empathy for a person” are separate things, and there is no contradiction.

For me, Shinji-kun is more than just someone to communicate with people, and I think he is a person who is close to me, who is sometimes depressed and worried, so I can say, “I am the same” (imagination).

I think it is unavoidable that Shinji-kun, wearing a suit and becoming an adult, rushed out of the home with Kamiki (Ryunosuke) voice, and felt like “No, I want you to wait.”

■ Empathy for Gendou and Moe points

For me, Shinji is a character with who I deeply sympathize because he has troubles, but in this “Rebuild of Evangelion”, there was another person with who I sympathized very much.
Yes, this is Gendou.
Gendou carried out the Human Complementation Plan because he wanted to meet his wife, Yui, who had died in Eva’s experiment. Gendou talks to Shinji for the first time and talks about his lonely boyhood and Yui’s existence.

The feeling of Gendou’s loneliness as a boy and the story production that expresses it was the best.
What he liked when he was a boy was “knowledge” and “music”. Both functioned to block troubles in communication with others.
Shinji’s cassette player was originally Gendou’s, and Gendou boy used that earphone as a “tool to block noise with others” like Shinji.

For the Gendou boy, the cassette player was not the only one that functioned as a “tool to block the outside world.” The “glasses” worn by Gendou also worked really well as props to block the outside world.
The reflection of glasses is a barrier to the mind! I preside over the “Nanchatte Society” called “Glasses Men’s Moe (slang refers to feelings of affection, adoration, devotion, and excitement felt towards characters) Society”, and Gendou’s depiction of glasses ignited my glasses boys’ Moe heart. At the root of my “Men’s Glasses Moe” is the desire to “see the weaknesses and fragility of men!”
I feel that the fact that Gendou’s eyes are in such a scooped state also means that he has completely shut out others and cut off the means of seeing others.

Gendou and Shinji’s first parent-child fights through Eva were also really good, and those scenes were full of exhilaration.
That weak and unable to communicate father and son were finally able to “punch each other” by borrowing the body of giant Eva robots. The place over the robot seems to be that father and son who have an AT field!

Gendou was able to have a dialogue with himself as a kid by hitting his son.
Gendou also rides on the same train that Shinji used to ride on every time he shuts himself up in his shell, saying to young Shinji, “I think it’s because you don’t recognize your weakness.” Finally, Gendou was able to get out this off his heart. I think it was the best way to settle the story that began with the conflict between father and son.
It was really good!

Eva is sort of a diary of Anno’s heart out into a boy named Shinji.
In the NHK program “Professional Work Style” directed by Anno Hideaki, Anno talked about his childhood and his relationship with his father in his own words, but there was a point where it overlapped with Shinji who did not go well with his father.

And as a person who expresses his feelings in “Rebuild of Evangelion”, Gendou has more weight than Shinji. As it is written in the autobiography “Rebirth (provisional)” by Ogata Megumi, who voiced Shinji, “The psychology of Anno making Eva was coming to Gendou from Shinji.” I think it is true.

The person who tentatively entrusts his heart to Anno moved from Shinji to Gendou, and when Gendou played parent-child conflict with Shinji (on Eva) in the films, and it became a growth story in which the child overcame his father. Also, from the perspective of Anno’s private novel, it seems that he will settle his childhood when he had an indivisible feeling about his father.
“I appreciate the story” made me feel really good and happy.

■ From Evaloss, “I can stay here.”
And “I who want to be sympathized with” against “That’s not nice!” was left behind.
Gendou got off the train after convincing himself, and in the last scene, there was an adult Shinji running up the stairs of the home with a beaming face.

I wanted Shinji to stay with us, who are always worried, forever…!
Every time I rewatched “Rebuild of Evangelion”, I felt like I was left behind, saying, “Well, did Shinji and Gendou all move on? You’re back in reality!?”

There are two reasons for my Evaloss.

★ Shinji moved on from Moratorium with “Eva”
★ The work called “Evangelion” that had been in my life for a long time, has been ended

At the bottom right of the white screen, “End of the movie” was displayed, a guest train was turned on, and “Go back to reality” (second time) was prompted, and although it was okay to leave the Moratorium Theater, Evaloss had nowhere to go. There are people likeme.

The worries of our lives will never go away as long as we live. It happens as long as you live, if you don’t get along with others, or if you don’t get approval. That’s why I needed Shinji-kun to be with me in order to live with the worries of my life.

There was good news for me who had become such an Evaloss.
Ogata Megumi told us this story during the nationwide broadcast of the “Rebuild of Evangelion” cast stage greetings.
“This time Shinji plays the role of sending out everyone (other characters), and it feels like he alone in this world. “Rebuild of Evangelion” has a repeat mark of musical symbols, so if you want to meet again, please come back to the world of Eva anytime.”

After all, Shinji was in this Eva Moratorium Theater!
The movie is still open to the public, and I regained my desire to keep going around.
If you become Evaloss, please go around at the theater with me!

Watanabe Yumiko

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