Thread: What meaning did you get out of Neon Genesis Evangelion?

Originally Posted by dark_glaive

, but the Shinji in the movie still has a far way to go if he's going to still do childish/crazy things like choke Asuka.

I don't really think that in the TV series, Shinji remade reality into the Girlfriend of Steel world. I've always taken that to be Gainax being funny. But, I haven't seen that interpretation before, so I find your interpretation interesting Raven.

Actually, about the choking bit, a few people and I have discussed it in the past and have seemed to form the opinion that the entire objective of Shinji trying to choke Asuka was to break away from her, as in the past he had always seen her as a strong figure which he would turn to for sympathy and shelther. And Asuka's uncharacterstic touching of his face was more or less her way of saying that's it's over and she's no longer going to be such a strong figure. Something to that extent, one of the guys said it with a lot of technical psychological terms that I'm just not smart enough to remember.

And I'm glad you thought my interpretation was interesting, there's honestly so many different versions by different people by now it's hard to distinguish fact from made up lies by irritated irrational fans (god knows there's enough of 'em).

You tend to forget... there is a reason why Shinji chokes Asuka. It's not just completly random, and while Raven's theory as to why sounds quite valid, I've always believed it to be slightly different.

In the movie Shinji rejects completion (ie: staying merged with the rest of humanity) because it is nothing more than a world of fake paradise and fake happiness where no one really exists as an individual anymore, even he himself.
Getting back to the reason why Shinji strangles Asuka. He wished to go back to reality, where pain and rejection and people's AT fields (emotional barriers) still exist. He strangles her to see whether or not he is actually in the real world, where rejection still exists. In order words, he was hoping Asuka would reject him, hit him, do anything to stop him, which would prove that he was really in reality. I don't really think he was expecting such a placid reaction from Asuka through. Well.... that's the way I interpurt the ending of the movie.

But anyway, for me the series was about the defanition of self, what it is to be human, and learning to accept reality, and not run away from it. I've never really looked alot into the pyschological aspect of the show, since most of it confusses me... and beside I kind of agree with a bit of what Zui says, since after all, Anno was actually clinically depressed and off his medication when he wrote Eva. It's meant to be as confussing and as open ended as humanly possible.
Just look at us now.... the series ended 10 years ago and we are still talking about it.

I actually like Hikari Sakurai's ideas more than anyone else on this thread.

I just finished watching the series yestarday, and to tell you the truth I was getting rather disgusted with all of the characters, it just seemed like all of them were giving up. The end of the movie actually was more of what I was looking for, Shinji and Asuka were just laying there on the beach after everyone else was absorbed into one big goo. When I was watching the ending, I was thinking, had Shinji become god? When they were both lying on the beach the thought hit me that maybe he didn't want to go back to nothingness, and that he had decided that he would stay on earth and maybe start the human race over again, Asuke was there because he had chosen her to repopulate the planet with. I think he chose Asuke over Rei, because unlike Rei, Asuke was actualy human. Even so, Rei still appears, standing out in the water. When Shinji starts choking Asuke, I think its because he can't stand to be around her after she rejected him in his mind. When she reaches up and touches his face, it shows him that she has accepted him. I still haven't quite puzzled out why Rei was stating on the water, maybe it was just his last look into the past and of the one he did not chose.

To tell you the truth, I don't really like this theory of mine. That is becuase Shinji is my least favorite character of the series, and the fact that he might have become God, or at least become as powerfull, just makes me sick. By the way, does anyone have any thoughts as to why that was the last line said? "I feel sick"

Ive learned to watch anime more different than i did before.

Well, Ishamael, I don't think you can say that Misato gave up. She stuck it out till the bitter end, as far as the movie goes. Which is why she ended up as my favorite Eva character. Misato is quite the lady.

Just out of curiosity, does anyone else here consider the movie a seperate entity from the show and is capable of evaluating the show completely ignoring End of Eva? I had thought that was a fairly common thing in the anime community to do with Eva TV and End of Eva, but it seems that it isn't so.

Indeed, I try to think of the TV series and the movie as seprate from each other, but it's hard to make sense of movie without refering back to events from the TV series.
While the TV series can be understood without the movie. The movie can't really be understood without the TV series.
ie: the movie cannot be really interupted in a vacuum... because it's way too related to the original series to be totally stand alone. Well that's the way I interupt it all. I haven't seen this series in nearly two years now, and I stopped being a rabid fan three years ago, so my memory on everything is pretty rusty.

Anyway.....
Why Rei appears before Shinji in the very last scene is a mystery.
Remember, a scene exactly the same as this one appeared in the very first episode of the TV series, just before Shinji first encounters the 3rd angel.
I heard somewhere that these visions of Rei respent the begginning and the end.
The beginning and the end of what I'm no sure... but that's the best answer I can think of for that.

As for why Asuka says "Kimochi Warui" (a phrase that can't actually be fully translated)
I believed it to be an extension from when Asuka said this line before in the TV series.
*In the directors cut version of episode 22, Asuka says "Kimochi Warui" complaning how she has to share the same bath water, the same washing machine, the same toilet... and the same air as Shinji and Misato...*
So perhaps why she says it again, is because the throught of sharing the world with only Shinji, (who happens to be crying and lying on top of her when she says it) is very digusting to her.

Alternatively, I found an intersting interuptation of Asuka's "Kimochi Warui" online. I basically gave my own view above, and the one on this page is interesting as well.

Kimochi Warui

what i got from it was that shinji had seen that even though he might like for his world to be finished so that he could finally have peace and happiness that this wouldn't work, what he worked out in the end was that what made him happy was his freinds and the other people around him. (this is based on the movie if you hadn't already guessed) the reason he starts to throttle asuka in my oppinion is that for all the love she brings into his world it is partly because of her that he made the decision not to allow third impact and the possibility of perfect happiness, and when he does return from inside rei he finds asuka seemingly unhappy after all he had done.