• Lvxferre@mander.xyz
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    50
    ·
    6 months ago

    Shinji, from Evangelion.

    He’s 14. His mum is dead. His dad is a piece of shit and a manipulative bastard, who sees him as nothing but a pawn. “Emotionally traumatised” doesn’t even start to describe him. He’s pressured to pilot a mecha and if he fucks things up people will die, he knows that they will die, and that it’ll be his fault.

    And yet people expect him to be assertive or to not have meltdowns? Come the fucking on.

    • raldone01@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      16
      ·
      edit-2
      22 days ago

      Imagine if nerv had invested some of its money in the mental health of its employees. I like to think many issues could have been solved by hiring a few therapists.

      • argarath@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        6 months ago

        A few? There are so many traumatized people that would need entire teams of therapists, it would probably increase their employee numbers by at least 50%

    • Fribbtastic@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      edit-2
      6 months ago

      I think the biggest problem that people have with NGE is that it just isn’t your typical shounen anime. All of the characters behave in a way because of their past experiences. Shinji being abandoned by his father, witnessing his mother’s death without actually understanding or realising it, asuka being neglected by her mother and Rei being a clone. And all of them in their teens, in a broken world getting told to fight and probably die or humanity is doomed.

      With how saturated anime are with flawed main characters that then use that flaw to their advantage to overcome their enemy, NGE just doesn’t do that.

      I think that viewers just expect this hero story when they watch it.

      I mean. I had a similar impression when I first watched it a long long time ago and thought that shinji was a wuss. But that was after I watched the typical shounen, DB, DBZ, Naruto and bleach. Not to mention that I didn’t understand what the fuck was going on. Only later after watching it a second time and digging into the background a bit, shinjis Oedipus complex, asukas hedgehog dilemma and the general motivation of each of the characters it made a lot more sense. Including the context of their situation made me appreciate the storytelling a lot more because it put everything into perspective.

    • Donebrach@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      6 months ago

      Didn’t realize he was hated? He is a fucked up little weirdo but so is everyone in that show. Man, I might need to rewatch, been way too long.

      • Lvxferre@mander.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        6 months ago

        Plenty anime fans hate him. Because he’s weak, indecisive, broken. He craves affection but once people offer “here’s some affection”, he turns them down. That rubs plenty people the wrong way.