Neon Genesis Evangelion: what a powerful anime really means for 2020

There's a reason I've been hearing Neon Genesis Evangelion for nearly 20 years.

It was broadcast from the period 1995 to 1996, considered to be one of Japan's religious works. This name was not found because of its tangible quality, but with many unpleasant features. Some of these are about a different production, fueled by the glorious but vulnerable and mysterious nature of composer Hideaki Anno (his personal battles and oppression are documented in the narrative).

But something has to do with the fact that many years have passed since it's hard to see in America, from VHS to bootleg Blu-rays. This recapture was part of its popular culture. But now that it has come to Netflix, it has provided the opportunity for the most independent outsiders to come and see what the debate is about. The more I focused on what the series was trying to accomplish, the more I felt that the year 2019 was a great time to be more accessible. And I'm in.

Release that argument properly received. Neon Genesis Evangelion is one of the most complex, humorous, and universal works of narrative art I've ever seen. There was no reaction for me it is possible without jumping too fast to heavy analysis. So, the following article is deeply embedded into the complex parts and meanings behind the show. So if you haven't seen it yet, please do it right away.

And if you have one, then take the first step deeper. Just a quick heads up for the piece, though: There will be discussions of depression and suicide.

1. Weak thoughts

The act of watching Neon Genesis Evangelion a profound experience. Almost like 14-year-olds in the middle of the story, you end up feeling a lot of different emotions like a slap in word and purpose. One moment you feel paralyzed, then you are ashamed, then angry, then lonely, and you get to the point where you feel like you are being transformed internally by the power of these feelings (or sometimes the lack thereof). It puts you deeply into the character of its characters, and it's not a good place to be.

Which means that as an observer, you both give evidence of bad deeds and do them. You get humiliated when you are your victim. And, all the while, you're going through a panic, understanding in the sense that you're headed for some destruction.

The first two episodes put that apocalyptic approach down the line. We start with Shinji, a child who is rejected in the midst of pressure he can't name. He is in a state of deep submission because he must drive one of the “EVAs,” giant robots designed to destroy the “Angels,” the giant monsters that have already created garbage in the world in an effort to rescue the apocalypse.

Yes, The Gospel rests firmly on the beautiful kaiju culture and compares to the tall giamatic that enters the history of Japanese cinema. I made the mistake of making a mockery of, "Well then wait for this basic Pacific Rim!?!?!"! While looking, I also learned my lesson: Never look at or watch people read some gray hair with a thread. But these stories have endured so long because they affect the vague notion of power.

That's because they are designed to make the viewer feel larger than life. It makes young people feel not only old, but also big and defeated.

But this is not necessarily the case with Shinji, or something inside The Gospel. In fact, I'm hard pressed to think of a show you're really interested in to cut the power of its funniest machines. Personally, we often see EVAs running around the city while connected to a large, bizarre power cable, which limits their range. In addition, EVAs can work for a very short time if those same power muscles are disconnected.

This is important for the show for two reasons. The first is that these estimates make wars more significant. There is always a type of measuring device in the background that calculates a power shortage (this also gives a great opportunity to the enemy, whose power can often seem both unstoppable and unlimited).

But even the dumb tech you hear in the control room works because the writers are more concerned with creating conflicts and putting obstacles in front of our heroes than making battles seem overly "cool". The second short reason for the robots' battery life is that they are perfectly matched to a larger model. The Gospel not a power dream…

A powerful night. And there are three specific types of happy nights in the story that focus on the transition from childhood to adulthood.

The first is what I will call a "nightmare of realization." That means the ability to enter the adult body (read: EVA) and realize your own potential. Note how pilots control EVAs with their brains, much less with actual controls. But it's less about focusing more and more on the purity of feeling, which is why experts have always called it "synchronization." This purity of mind is what makes kids so effective for EVA pilots, because who else feels their feelings as deep and pure as the average middle schooler?

Notice how all the adults around the children have benefited from laying on the wall, lying, guarding their hearts, and constantly stoning when they believe what they believe they should do. But the kids are so much more. Especially when machine-like EVAs begin to function as monsters when young pilots are naturally in control.

You can even see its shape; these soft, gentle robots start to shake and as they break through as they tear, drain, and literally eat each other, all because of the over-the-top connection to man and machine. As the second episode opens, everyone thanks Shinji for his past violence to this angel because it keeps everyone "safe," but he doesn't feel good about his actions. He feels as if he has cast us out of hell, and the evil eye of demons is following him in his mind.

This leads to the second adult issue, “a night of responsibility.” Now empowered, Shinji faces face-to-face behaviors that plague so many adults. Yes, he learns that his violent actions can save people, but they also cause spiritual damage and more suffering to others in a way. Recognizing the brutal cost of his actions, Shinji tries to stop the program and get away with it over and over again.

But in doing so, he always learns the more devastating cost of unemployment, because it creates more violence and loss than ever before. Confronted with this Catch-22, Shinji realizes that he has to keep driving EVA, but he gets more and more nervous about what that actually means. There he is entrusted with acting during times of extreme violence, the only way for a good night is they were it is a difficult night.

Photo: Gainax

It's a trope that we've seen time and time again, but I don't think of the rest of the series mimicking the misery (let alone the "young teenager" series). It doesn't just sit back and comment on the "light" of the situation away.

No, you're in the middle of it. You feel the weight of the decisions, as if this story brings us a horrible effect on our behavior. And the metaphor “becomes the color of the night” is made real when we hear that the EVAs were actually made by the angels, the very "beasts" that should have been fought. EVAs are meant to be a means of salvation, but in their dark, they are designed to kill and destroy just as they see the enemy doing to them.

Thus, it is understandable that when a character later invokes EVAs as “a cursed person,” then Shinji must engage in his cursed masculine goal to do what needs to be done. Note that I am not saying that you were mistaken, because the journey to adulthood means coping with another, which is probably the dread of adolescence. That may be the third adult problem, the “worst night of sex.”

2. These two questions

OK. It is impossible to talk about it The Gospel without first talking about how clear 14-year-olds are. And it doesn't play coy with this story. It puts those characters in a non-symbolic form that may seem strange to Western audiences.

Now, the fastest way to respond to this is with one big YIKES, because, as I said, the characters are 14 years old. But that's "YIKES!" It is necessary because some viewers are constantly trying to find a way to discuss its problems. I see so many conversations of, "Oops, just anime," it would seem that genre meetings might be sidelined when talking about the subject matter and its impact on society. I also see people trying to explain the nature of sexuality and the fact that teenagers have sex and relationships. While that is a literal statement, it does not change the fact that adults should view these situations when they look at them.

Photo: Gainax

And perhaps the most problematic reason for sexism in the story is how some adults dismiss the excuse that the age of consent in Japan is technically 13. Yes, you learn that right. And although local laws are more complex (and not easy until 18), there is no doubt that the less prevalent hebephilia and ephebophilia are within the culture and should be monitored for a long time.

Look, there's a lot we can open up there, and the Lord knows I'm not equipped to take the law of the land, or the culture of the whole community that I shouldn't understand. What I'm going to say is that if you circulate that permit rule around as the reason for any of this, then "YIKES!" OK? OK.

The fact is that I have no real desire to debate this issue because the endless problems that come with young people are sex addicts. it is already well written. And this comes with the acknowledgment that these same issues continue within the United States and play with the same troubling effects of mixed messages sent to young women, causing them to become trapped in an endless cycle of male-dominated genes that are hurting time and time again.

But these are real problems that should be explored in storytelling. It just comes to the interpretation of How we present these problems creatively. Because the focus of our understanding is the understanding of our responsibilities in how we interact with or develop them.

What you leave Neon Genesis Evangelion in the most bizarre space when it comes to looking at critical views. Because it is very obvious in its portrayal of young people's sexuality (because it is believed to work in a "normal" range that is not our norm), but it also brings issues of sexuality forward to the Text in a more reliable and analytical way than most other artworks. Which means that revealing the entire list will take a lot of conversations.

Now, this will seem like a weird place to start, but if we want to understand the standard picture of what I would call "lack of young men," especially from the perspective of female masculinity, we actually want to compare this work to its earlier forms. Specifically, 80s sex comedies.

You probably know the movies I'm talking about (Porky & # 39; s, Meatballs, etc.). They all look like they belong to a bunch of guys one night as they go looking to see a naked woman or lose their virginity or something. I don't like to use the word “pure” to describe these films – they are not, and are often filled with various degrees of sexual abuse – but it almost seems interesting when we look at them in certain fields.

That's because they all cling to the pre-internet imagination of eagerly raised young men in the hope of seeing a boob run overnight because of opportunity in doing so. The purpose of these films was to establish a basic youth culture, designed to give a sense of nudity in a world where you can see nudity. They also made it "legitimate" and "public." But the popularity of these films only happens in a way that is different from what is available today.

Because if you watch many recent comedies like 2012 Project X, you see something very bad in the example. The fact that nudity is widely available on the Internet has produced a generation of boys who have no barrier to "getting" means nudity. Sexual relations with real life, on the other hand, can be very difficult in comparison. It leads to a strange disappointment in which women are annoyed if they do not immediately give in to the young men's sexual fantasies as they used to. That results in a much more aggressive, more privileged male, and less patient attitude toward getting what they want. Therefore, in Project X, there is very little consideration for a woman. They make fun of women, and then sex, and it's "funny" when women are quickly rejected.

I draw a distinction between these sexual organs because they express what we call “the purpose of dressing for men.” In previous versions, little boys took it out and laughed at the idea of ​​seeing boobs, which means the idea is just something they wear on the bases. And in today's version, there is no treadmill, irritation and the desire to listen.

Now, it would be easy to add one kind of focus to the other, but the point is that there is a dynamic force that is still true for both of them. Whether women's sexuality is a prize or a barrier, these stories are about whether women are available or not, with or without real analysis as to what's really going on with their personalities or boys' cars.

All of this has a point. Not because The Gospel it illustrates both types of "male separateness," but also because it goes through that assessment of any teenage sex experimentation, and that is whether the narrative can start to involve or the following:

1. It's a question of how female characters feel about all this, too
2. How do male characters struggle with the bonds that come with the type of attraction they have toward others.

For both questions, The Gospel fortunately introduces a never ending text to feed. But the best way to test that text is to make the character morally.

3. Children of the square

Let's start with Asuka. He is a born "second child" with hair, coming from Germany to help drive EVAs. She is also an instant Shinji enthusiast because her character is in the face, full of submission and proud of her attractiveness. But he also has his walls high and he protects his threats greatly. Take her place of introduction when the other character gets her skirt right away. His answer is to slap him at the weekend, even commenting on how good it is to get a good show (his answer is another rounded wax problem).

But the fact is that Asuka makes her boundaries well defined. Not that he is completely banned from his sexuality, because at the same time, he is too quick to establish himself as an "elder" and follow Kaji's oldest character. The narrative even made this longing a reality as she tried to show her body to him to show that she was old now. If you add all of this along with his carefully crafted game of kisses with Shinji, you get a complete sense of Asuka's mental performance. Because what he really does is a complete sense of control and independence. And that is because his personal nightmare is a complete lack of it (especially from the deeper abuse we will discuss later).

Photo: Gainax

Rey is at the opposite end of the screen when talking about such control issues because she has the ability to control exactly zero for her health. There is a lot more character about her character that I will get into later, but when we talk about her sexuality at the time, it is important to understand that we are talking about a character made by the men around her. like a real pig. Therefore, you obey any command. That is because he wants to be “good” and to meet the expectations of the men around him. And so he is keeping up with the ancestors around him in every step. This also means that you often go through all the misery and injustice and simply "take over" and accept it. Which is precisely why this character's journey eventually becomes a desire for his independence.

Now, it will be as usual for us to answer two responses from Asuka and Rei against each other. To say that Asuka is "right" and that Rey is "wrong" ignores the complexity of how those answers fail to come true, especially when confronted with the male answers that come to them. For us, Asuka is widely criticized for being eloquent and outspoken, Rei being very determined and not being able to talk enough. The simple fact is that they both play a game that has been won. They will both be criticized for whatever they do, however they respond, because in the end, the show's men just want to be ruled.

That is, the "righteousness" of their behavior is not important. They can demand anything and it doesn't matter because in the end, breeding men want the impossible: that every woman in the world has sex with them and nobody else. And it would be easy to paint this patriarchal sexual system as something well done in some scenes – and politically speaking, sometimes true both in the show and in real life – but also with a collective sense of purity. they are inherited by men and have used women against women many times in history. All of this is very important, because young Shinji is at the heart of the cycle of violence between men and women.

For example, there are many fans who would argue that Shinji's story is "otaku" (defined as "(in Japan) a young person hooked on computers or other popular culture objects to hone their social skills"), but I really like the way Otaku interacts with men's broader gender programs. Because whether it is a trivial culture, an artistic tradition, or a religious tradition, there are programs of fear that perpetuate the same abuse over and over again. That's because most of the time in these programs, men are not allowed to be weak and vulnerable. And so they teach power through art, or craft, or purity. But all of this leads to a fundamental psychological issue at the root of all.

That can be a matter of pressure. And I'm hard pressed to think of a name more appropriate for Shinji's sexuality. His childhood began with his mother dying and his father shut him out, leaving him alone and searching. Busy in the depths of confusion, Shinji wants to go out and connect, but has no way at all. And then his way of saying "safe" is always to find. Pressure. The reluctance. But the problem with our brain is that we can't do it in reality. It's a hellish job, and what we want is still going to be as it was before. And the problem with our brain is that nothing can really be prevented because it will eventually overflow into problematic behavior.

That is why Shinji's sexuality scares him so deeply in his heart. It's like & # 39; s the night of seeing the truth & # 39; on EVA, her sexuality makes her do things without her usual self-control. When out of nowhere, the pressure causes his emotions to appear out of control. When he puts his sexuality out there in an attempt to connect him, he will cross boundaries and watch for too long or try to kiss Asuka while he sleeps, which means he often ends up hurting himself and others. Which only fosters further shame.

To clarify this, this narrative means that it does not shy away from the deep longing of humanity and sex. Want to be touched? Kind? Do you get attracted? Want to feel safe and loved? These are the most natural and accepted feelings in their presence. But in an oppressed environment (whether male, religious, etc.), we are taught that these risks are “not good,” so it is very difficult to feel safe because we are full of shame. What often makes the first sexual encounter very important and mentally dangerous.

Many of Shinji's first attempts at physical contact are filled with shame and strife. First he is seen naked by Miss Misato, his attractive guardian / manager (the a double beer can squeeze it is inspired). And then later, she feels good enough to be around him, Rei and Asuka, because suddenly her feelings of attraction are everywhere. And while he made some small benefits with confidence and comfort, he ultimately made some bad mistakes. And so his cycle of shame increases. Her sexuality comes under pressure, as does the misery of being a child soldier.

As it descends into the rabbit hole, it reaches… well… All right. Let's get into it.

4. Brutal Nexus

The entire series is up to the movies The End of Evangelism, which makes a deliberate choice of how to start its story. Because it opens with Shinji's plea for Asuka to wake up from her injuries she faces at the end of the TV show. But he won't. He starts to rub her back into her, wishing he could come back to life. He doesn't.

But, as he shook her, her unbuttons. Shinji just sees him lying there naked, powerless. Our vision begins to randomly cut into machine gun firearms in the hospital room. Then we hear the sounds and they tremble. “What the heck?” We wonder. And then we see Shinji looking down at her wet hand to see that she was masturbated. … Yes, she masturbated to her worried friend. His judgment quickly comes: "I'm inferior to the lowly," Shinji tells himself.

This brutal act is the kind of thing one would expect to see in a Lars von Trier film instead of an anime with an animal penguin called Pen Pen, but this is part of a brutal whiplash that comes with The Gospel. And we'll be back to this moment soon for many reasons, but for now, we just have to admit that it's impossible to talk about the sex of this series without acknowledging that this sad moment is there. And most importantly, the show will use this excellent action to help elevate the whole thematic point of the game itself.

Looking back on it, the arc of The Gospel he almost feels cruel in retrospect, but from episode 6 to episode 14 or so, it seems like things are starting to get better. Shinji learns how to have better fun with others. You learn how they interact with Asuka (their dance piece is a joy). She is also able to create something that feels like family, a rhythm of life, and a job. But the problem with getting things in life is that, then all of a sudden, we have things to lose. And this is where dreams of a real night turn their heads and hit with a new disaster.

I often think about the brutal portrayal of other media and what it says about each show and its creators. It's something similar Walking Dead, cruelty feels unwelcome but intense, as if violence is the norm, the wrong. But with the same show Game of Thrones, brutality feels cherry-picked, often for us the cheap god who snatches victory in the jaws of defeat.

However Neon Genesis Evangelion it captures its moments of cruelty with an acumen-like laser. It creates tension in a good, deliberate, deliberate setting, sets all the choices as a departure, and gives you time and rumors before they hit, until it throws you into seconds of hope before the Word of Damocles goes down.

I say it frankly: The scene where Shinji's dad takes his EVA and beats Toji is one of the scariest things I've ever seen. Suddenly and it's out of control and it scares you straight. Most of the violence in the show arrives shortly. But you don't feel like there's any kind of secret catharsis or backlash from the show's violence. It does not last long or it is absorbed.

It looks like it is clearly phantasmic, sometimes reminding us that our bodies are just sackcloth and we are full of teeth and eyebrows and have reason to be warlike. But what makes this brutal depiction so exciting is the way the show is so quick to match the fact that these same bodies are full of sexual fantasies and liquids and crimes (without having sex or confusing them). Like EVAs, our bodies can be spherical or animal-like, and our violence can be fluid or animal-like. Also The Gospel it always tells you something at its best when choosing what and why.

So I can't help but compare this treatment to sexual violence. Is sex imaginary? Do you think that these pictures give you credit? The whole thing is that I don't think The Gospel you have the desire to apologize completely. Hell, the level of ownership on display is probably terrible for its credibility. He wants to bring us to a bad place because he knows we will find deep truth there. And it wants us to think about our unity as an audience. That's because we inherit these problems through the act of watching. And if there's something this show wants us to know…

It's just that the things we inherit tend to be the ones that pull the most.

5. The sins of the father

If you were to ask me to pick a two-word stock theme to sum it all up Neon Genesis Evangelion (impossible task), My best answer would be to check the "original sin." You've heard that name before and know what it's all about: Adam and Eve are in the garden. God says, "Don't eat that apple that removes it!" But Eve listens to a snake and eats it. Bye-bye, paradise. Hello, life of hard work and suffering and men blaming women for everything!

OK, I'm investigating that version of the story, but intentionally it is. Because the argument of "original sin" builds up for thousands of years. That is because it is often included in a bit of interpretation in translation. Heck, even the most genetic reading still contains the words "because you obeyed your wife" were written for her guilt.

However, various levels of disagreement are subject to interpretation issues. Was Adam present when it happened? Was he encouraging her? Did he enjoy the food? Many of the issues with interpretation are numerous (and, of course, similar to the way I have seen people debating selected / inferior decisions in this particular series). But the discussion of original sin in relation to The Gospel strikes a deep barrier here, and it has to do with how we fully interpret ownership.

For example, when I just mentioned on Twitter that I had violated the Bible to read the Book of Genesis on the subject, I was confused when I met with a team of advocates why that was a mistake. People were like, “red herring! red herring! ”And I had to look around to make sure I was not in my right mind. Then one person clarified, "In fact, don't bother. The biblical sign at The Gospel it doesn't make sense. Anno admitted that she actually doesn't know what most of the picture means and only uses it because she thinks it looks cool. ”

I sentenced this sentence because it does not make sense at all. But before I could respond, an argument arose when someone revealed that it was not the manufacturer who said that, though something different The director, and that they were actually referring to the word "Evangelion" and not to Christian images in general. Naturally, more fights continued, and the whole thing progressed until I realized I had to take a hot minute to talk about semiotic and what was "right" for us to translate.

First of all, you should always reallyeaally understand when the artist pulls the question. Because when you discuss what a work of art is "meaning," especially in the face of situations that are most preferred by religious bodies, a good writer will almost always sit aside and try to avoid trouble. But beyond this, there is a reason why David Lynch and our struggling artists often refuse to clarify the mark of their work. Because accountability doesn't actually help the arts.

In fact, it translates to didactic art. It also cuts the viewer from borrowing its voice. Kulokho, uChristopher Nolan uthe enye yezinto engizithandayo: “Uma ufika kuleyo ndawo lapho abantu beyithanda kakhulu futhi bephikisana ngokuthi kusho ukuthini ukuphela kwefilimu yakho, kuhle lokho. Ngingubani mina ukufaka umbono wami kule ngxubevange? ”Ngamanye amagama, ukutolika kwakhe kuhle nje okwabo.

Manje, kunokuphikisana ngamabhulukwe ajabulisayo emabhulokini azungeze amaphuzu alesi sihloko, avame ukubizwa ngokuthi "Ukufa Komlobi," futhi uma ufuna ukungena ngokujulile okucacile kulokho, iya ku le vidiyo enkulu yeLindsay Ellis.

Kepha indlela esheshayo yokwenza izibopho zethu njengababukeli ababamba iqhaza engxoxweni engenamqondo ilula ngokukhohlisa: Amagama womlobi wangaphandle awayona ivangeli; kuhlale kulungile ukutolika izinto kumbhalo; and the more those interpretations are reflected in the text itself, the better. Which just means there’s another, probably far more important reason not to listen to that offhand comment.

And that’s because holy mother of god is this one of the most concrete and complete deconstructions of the Adam/Eve myth I’ve ever seen. It’s literally impossible to look at this and say that biblical and religious allusions are misleading. I mean, there’s a reason “Genesis” is in the damn show title. There’s a reason they’re called Angels. There’s a reason the first proto-Angel is called Adam. There’s a reason the NERV logo is a fig leaf. There’s a reason they are “EVAs,” like Eve. These details aren’t just cool iconography someone picked up without thinking. These details are the symbolic language of the show, which in turn allow us to make semiotic deductions about deeper meanings when looking at how their interaction is dramatized. Denying this would be denying the very text of the show.

But to be clear, I don’t think the creators are interested in doing a deep-dive deconstruction of the Bible itself. This isn’t a work of religious scholasticism, nor is it meant to be. They are taking the established baseline symbols — that is, the most common and well-known tropes — and reframing them. If only there were a word in the show’s title that was based on the Latin “neo,” meaning new, and a word that referred to the origin story of the Bible, and a word that meant gospel … huh … if only you could put three words together that did that!

OK, I’m being flippant again, but that’s literally what Neon Genesis Evangelion means. And even if you take away the direct religious attachment to those words, it still becomes clear: The show wants to both embody and recreate the lies of creation.

And yes, lies are absolutely at the center of all of it.

Within the plot of Evangelion itself, we get lies on top of lies on top of lies, whether it’s the false origin story of the Angels, the real cause of the Second Impact, or the true purpose of the NERV facility. They’re nothing but a series of lies told to keep people “safe.”

And what’s motivating these lies? The same things as always: individuals with their own motives, people full of secret pasts, and the walls and cavernous gulfs between them. It’s a show full of adults all hiding what they really want, hiding the urges behind the “logical” and “grown up” decisions they are making. And they leave the children to suffer in their wake.

But this is true of so many existing myths. Looking broadly, each story of religious origin makes its claim for objective truth, but from the secular outside, what can we really argue in terms of veracity between the Bible, the Torah, or the Quran?

Instead, we see layers of similarities and dozens of changed details, each with their own consequences. We see iconographies telling the stories of men and women and behaviors, in turn revealing what we think matters and how we think people should really behave. This is grand myth-making, which is probably why so much of the biblical iconography of this show is actually steeped in the mysticism of Kabbalah.

Take the central crux of the Third Impact, an event that the mysterious cabal known as SEELE says will bring about the end of the world. This will not be done by rejoining Adam and Eve (who, like the EVAs, was made from man’s rib), but by rejoining Adam with Lilith, a female mythological figure of endless variety.

In some versions, she is the wife of Adam Qadmon, the avatar and god of the multiverse. Or she is the “woman of whoredom.” Or she is Satan’s female counterpart. Or she is the seducer of fallen angels. Or she is the “real” Eve figure during the dawn of man. And this is just within the variation of Kabbalistic interpretation. There are countless other Liliths in general myth and history.

But she’s always marked by the same confusing layers of obfuscation. She’s called demon, or whore, or bitch, or lover, or child, or mother, or sinner, or saint (thanks Meredith Brooks). But these blurred lines of who “women” are get at the entire point the show is making.

It’s identifying how these blurred lines have and so on been there. Is Eve the child, born from Adam’s rib? Or the wife? Likewise, we see how much pop art deals with the question of whether Mary Magdalene was Jesus’s wife or simply a “whore” he helped along his way. The confusion over these terms has nothing to do with the behavior of women (who, like men, simply show a range of behavior) but men’s inability to reconcile their range of behavior.

The Madonna and the Whore aren’t just two archetypes; they reflect the inability of men to unite the two and recognize the autonomy of women to be both. And it results in a system designed to make women feel wrong, no matter what they do (which brings us back to the aforementioned rigged game from chapter 3). And when men have the power? When they have the ability to tell a person they are wrong in a given situation? Then they have the ability to control them.

This confusion, overlapping roles, and desire for control of women is draped over the whole damn entirety of Evangelion. Take Shinji’s father. He literally recreates his wife in his new child, Rei, and then both sexualizes and purifies his daughter to lurid, conflicting degrees. And his final secret goal? He wants to sacrifice to Lilith so that he may ultimately “be with her again.”

But note that Shinji gets confused by the same overlaps of female archetypes in turn. Rei is literally his mother, sister, and object of sexual desire. So we see this metaphor made clear again and again as this show constantly portrays the blurriest lines that ever blurred, to the point that even Sophocles would echo a “YIKES!” But those blurred lines keep bringing us to the thematic crux.

Behind all the portents of the EVA project being done for the good of “humanity,” it comes back to the selfish heart of Shinji’s father. He pretends he’s doing all this for our collective survival, but really he’s just trying to fulfill his own personal needs. He is running from his demons and the loss of his wife (an action cloaked in his own responsibility for it). And in the end, he just wants to be with her forever and ever.

But his selfish actions create more demons that will swallow the world whole, not save it. In truth, he has the same fears and repression as Shinji, but as an adult he is twice as cut off from his emotions. Twice as cold. Twice as unfeeling. Thus, he makes horrific decisions that harm others, but unlike Shinji, he swears he does so “rationally.”

So I ask, who is actually responsible for the end of the world? Is it really Lilith and womankind, like the patriarchy of the show claims? Or is it the violent and controlling actions of men?

Those actions are best embodied by the cabal of males who embody the stone monoliths of SEELE — the same ones who let Shinji’s father stand clothed, but make professional women stand naked before them for no other reason than the fact that they can demand it.

But the corrective truth gets written in The End of Evangelion when Shinji’s father’s selfish aims are cast aside by Lilith herself. Once freed from her pinned cross, she slides out from her stigmata and lets her mask fall to the ground. Her monstrous form changes into the beautiful female specter hybrid of Rei and Shinji’s mother. She begins darting out toward the sky, passing through humans and scaring them to the very heart of their souls.

Once up in the sky, Lilith makes a decision. No, the fate of the world will not be decided in her joining with Shinji’s father. It will instead be decided in her joining with Shinji, a.k.a. the one who has inherited this broken system of masculinity. Together, they will join for the Third Impact and decide the fate of existence.

Thus, the end of the world comes together in a miasma of stark, vibrant, and haunting imagery. A vagina becomes a woman’s third eye, only to be penetrated by a crucifix. The AT fields of all personal boundaries break down. People explode into puddles of orgasmic goo.

The now familiar cross-shaped explosions come en masse, revealing they were actually images of graves the entire time. The empty, broken EVAs now stand on the horizon, left behind, arms outstretched like crucifixes. They are now just ruined testaments to male instinct to “prove that humanity lived!” as Shinji’s father says.

Which is part of the same quest for immortality we see from SEELE, as well. Note the way they only meet each other through their avatars that look like slabs of Stonehenge, as they all try to create eternity for their own consciousness. They exclaim that breaking down these walls of human bodies (read: killing everyone) is salvation. They say that “only then will peace return to our souls” (“Seele” itself is the German word for soul). But they’re dead wrong about that. Like the actions of Shinji’s father, it’s just another horrific action that takes away the other’s autonomy for their own needs. Ultimately, it is not salvation. It is an action that is as “courageous” as a murder-suicide.

Which tells us plainly: The real original sin is man’s inability to coexist with others and blame women for all of it. It’s the way we put walls up at all the wrong times and in all the wrong ways, often failing to recognize why those walls are there at all. Especially in the way we spend so much of our time on Earth trying to tear down the walls of others. It is the continual act of strife. The process of guarding and taking throughout all of time. Shinji inherits this entire disastrous cycle. And in order to break that cycle, he is going to have to find a way to stop causing this kind of damage. But that means he has to stop lying about his intentions. He is going to have to stop separating himself, not by tearing down the walls of others, but by learning to open up his own and let people in.

For salvation only comes from within.

6. Inside-out

At a deeply cynic al point in his final journey, Shinji muses, “I’m sure I’ll keep realizing the obvious, over and over, just so I can keep being who I am.” With these self-aware words, he evokes the devastating nature of cycles within our own minds. But it also hints that the real language of his salvation is not going to rest in some plot point or some archetypal symbol (for what else is an archetype but a problematic inherited belief?). It is going to be psychological.

And thus, Shinji can only transcend and grow through therapeutic means. In other words, things must come from the inside out. So like before, let us go character by character with our three young heroes and examine their personal journeys to the maturity they arrive at in the final film.

First, there is Asuka, the girl who ran from her demons.

The big reveal for Asuka is that she witnessed some horrific tragedies at her foundational moment. After her father’s death, her mother suffered a complete break from reality, to the point that she saw a doll as her daughter instead of the real Asuka (good god, that metaphor cuts deep).

Making matters worse, her mother then killed herself, and Asuka is the one who discovered her hanging. But Asuka didn’t let herself break. She had to survive this devastating loss the only way she knew how: with a certain kind of tough resilience and a certain kind of denial. This is quite common, psychologically speaking, because we all learn coping mechanisms to keep us safe.

Image: Gainax

For Asuka, so much of her safety came in the form of anger and independence. She pushed and stamped and flexed and demanded to get what she wanted and needed in life. She was so afraid to be vulnerable, so afraid to go back to the scary sense of helplessness, that she demanded others see her and treat her as an adult.

And for so long, it worked. At least in a certain way. Because that’s what happens with coping mechanisms from youth: We learn to get by with them. And when certain behaviors are successful in our lives, we mostly just learn to get better and better at them, which gets us more and more of what we want. But all the while, we are ignoring that which we have not faced. And so those other coping skills never develop. Thus, our systems will inevitably reach a point of collapse.

That’s because every human being ultimately has to face that which they are not good at. They will have to face true failure and loss when there is no immediate or obvious way to deal with it. They will have to face a moment when all their coping mechanisms are worthless. They will have to face the stark reality of the demons they have been running from. But we can’t run from demons, because they are always locked inside us. There’s nowhere to run. And so when Asuka begins truly failing in battle for the first time, she hates it. She lashes out and hates everyone around her, even acknowledging that the thing she hates most is herself.

So she finally breaks, much like her mother before her. She goes catatonic in a state of pure vulnerability. There, she yearns for the thing she always wanted: not to be independent, but to be loved, to be parented, to be taken care of and held. But she cannot find solace in the world she has created. And all outward sources of comfort in her life (praise, duty, etc.) now feel meaningless. Ultimately, her entire internal system has to be rewired and re-understood in order to be brought back online (which is made literal in the case of being able to pilot her EVA).

Asuka has always coped with anger, but let me ask a rhetorical question: What’s the real point of anger? So often it is unproductive. It maims. It hurts. It causes more strife. So what possible good could there be for it? In truth, the real point of anger is to fight for selfhood. It is the engine of our bodies. It is the thing that allows us to power our autonomy.

So Asuka’s journey is not understanding that “anger is wrong”; it is coming to simply understand that like all powerful things, anger must be aimed humanely, especially when aiming at ourselves. We cannot self-hate. No, our anger must be a passion that ignites and fights for justice. And there is a very powerful way this realization ties into Asuka’s understanding of her original demons.

Asuka knows logically that her mother wasn’t keeping her safe at all. But in Asuka’s moment of realization, she finds a sudden empathy for the idea that her mother was actually trying to take care of her via the doll, just in her own broken way. She’s not validating her mother’s neglect, but she finally understands why it happened like this.

This moment helps heal the wound of abandonment and prevent her from sending the ugly blame further inward. Here Asuka finds the incredible power of what we call “normalization,” where the charged nature of the traumas that truly torment us suddenly come back into a more normal emotional range. For when we understand our demons, we can finally stop running from them. They become surmountable. And Asuka charges back into action, thus breaking the cycle.

Second, there is Rei, the imposter of herself.

Rei’s character is an extreme sci-fi conceit, to say the least. She’s a clone of her mother (kinda) but also imbued with the spirit of the Angel Lilith and cursed to an endless cycle of rebirth every time she dies. You know, like we all are! But good thing it’s just a metaphor, and an apt one at that.

Because Rei is the ultimate example of the young woman saddled with a sense of feminine “duty.” She must be silent, do as she’s told, and obey her father/husband (again, the same guy). In essence, she’s the opposite of Asuka in that she strolls through life without her own agency. She lets people do whatever they want to her. She is a literal doll (note how this directly foils Asuka’s animosity toward dolls from childhood). She puts up no fight because this is the path of least resistance. And it is absolute hell.

Like Shinji, she craves her own death and escape. But she is forever cursed with this external cycle. Born again and again into the hopeless situation before her, she feels she must get through life as painlessly as possible, which often means not connecting to the pain she is feeling (note the way she barely reacts to her many injuries). But of course, Rei reaches her own point of collapse.

She stops seeing her husband/father as the one thing that provides positivity in her life and destroys his glasses in a fit of anger. Rei starts to find the seeds of self-worth and autonomy. She recognizes that she is not just a copy, but a unique being because her personal experiences with Asuka and Shinji have changed her in a way that makes her different from those Reis who came before.

So when everything finally hits the cosmic breaking point in The End of Evangelion, when her backup clones are destroyed and her husband/father commands her to take him to the next act of creation, she refuses. Rei realizes “I am not your doll,” and she joins with Lilith on her own volition.

Together, they become the full embodiment of her endless female roles. Finally, Rei finds her agency in her totality. Note that she is not actually there in the “after-world” that is rebuilt from Shinji’s mind, but she does not want to be. She has lived enough lives and simply seeks a sweet, powerful release where she can transcend into her own personal nirvana, thus breaking the cycle.

Lastly, there is Shinji, the boy who wasn’t there.

I’ve already cataloged so much of what plagues Shinji, from his abandonment, to his depression, to his inability to socialize, to his crippling depression. But his therapeutic path toward healing is equally clear. He has to recognize that his feelings and urges are completely human and thus stop shaming himself for feeling them. He has to stop pushing his fears deeper and respect the boundaries of others.

He has to recognize his father is a giant awful asshole, undeserving of his love, respect, or obedience. And while it is literal in his case, it is also true for the general notion of “father,” which is the system of toxic masculinity around him.

Because it is the same system that turns him into an unthinking soldier meant to play this dichotomous game of Angels versus Devils (read: black and white). Just as it is the same one that turns women into madonnas and whores. He has to recognize that Asuka and Rei are their own autonomous totalities and that their personalities are just human reactions to a rigged game. He knows all this (he is basically told as much by the characters around him), but ultimately, he actually has to do something about it.

Which brings us to Shinji’s sin of paralysis, or “Hamlet disease,” which is the thing that plagues him again and again. This absolutely ties into his ongoing psychological issues with depression. But this discussion is going to require a little conversation about how we view the subject with a modern lens.

First off, to those who have never suffered from depression, congrats. I spent many years living that way, and now that I know the alternative, I can assure you that I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. I can also assure you that depression is not “being sad all the time,” but something far more complex and punishing.

If you’re curious, here is a pretty good primer for describing it. But let’s just cherry-pick the sentence, “It is a level of psychic pain wholly incompatible with human life as we know it.” And because of this, it comes with a level of paralysis you cannot imagine. Especially when you are experiencing a suicidal level of depression, everything you have to do in life feels impossible.

Luckily, this better understanding of depression has slowly creeped into popular culture in the last 25 years, but it makes for a somewhat odd experience when looking back at Evangelion. To see how cruel and callous people are to Shinji, claiming he’s stuck in a selfish pattern, when really he’s just experiencing the throes of suicidal depression. But it’s worth noting that it’s mostly their tact that’s problematic. Because the things they are pointing to when it comes to his more deeply rooted psychological issues (and his need to break from them) are far more prescient. Because, yes, he does need to learn to embrace a larger notion of life.

Going back to the part when Shinji says, “I’m sure I’ll keep realizing the obvious, over and over, just so I can keep being who I am,” we have to realize he is saying this precisely because this particular depressed, hellish state of existence is the safest thing he knows. And it can’t truly change until he learns a better version of what “safe” really can mean. And ultimately, this new sense of safety comes from a seemingly odd place.

Image: Gainax

That would be Kaworu Nagisa, the Fifth Child. It may seem odd because the character turns out to be an embodiment of an enemy Angel, but that’s also why it makes perfect thematic sense. It allows Shinji to finally see the truth that “the enemy” is so human and empathetic. In fact, we even learn the Angels are just variations of what humans could have been and seek contact and understanding. So all Kaworu wants to do is understand Shinji and show him tenderness.

As a result, Kaworu ends up embodying the positive male flip-side of Lilith, because he is the kind, non-toxic counterpart (this definitely makes him a contrary example to the father, too). Shinji even remarks with amazement that Kaworu is the first person who ever told him that they loved him.

Online fandom has also been arguing for years about whether or not Shinji and Kaworu’s relationship has a sexual subtext. For whatever it’s worth, Shinji also has a clear and obvious attraction to women, so I think it’s fair to say that Shinji might be discovering and wrestling with bisexuality (believe me, been there).

And while I understand that many rigidly insist it’s all platonic, I don’t think it is much of a stretch to say their relationship is codified as gay or bisexual. But it’s also not limited to sexuality alone. There is so much power to that larger emotional broadness at play here because there’s so much power to breaking Shinji out of the rigid binary of “Adam and Eve” thinking which plagues mankind.

In this new space, Shinji suddenly finds vulnerability and openness and safety. He finally lets go of his repression, and in the film, he “consummates” with Lilith in giant angelic forms. But note the way Lilith’s spirit alternates back and forth with Kaworu’s. It is the clear erasure of gender norms, which are irrevocably tied to all the toxic masculinity that has plagued Shinji his entire life. And this is how he is finally able to release himself from his prison and feel truly vulnerable. But that release brings him to the crux of his ultimate problem.

Here in the moment of release and rebirth, Shinji is the one who will decide the future of masculine humanity. He will decide how this cycle propagates. Will he make the choice of SEELE and end it all in the murder-suicide of the world? A world freed from the prospect of pain simply by erasing it? Or will he make it all reborn in a better image of his choosing? Shinji comes to two simultaneous realizations, which are reflected by the two different endings of the show.

It’s worth mentioning that they actually aren’t different at all. The two depictions are absolutely part of the same finale. In the original episode 26, we see it all from inside Shinji’s mind. He learns the Instrumentality Project is about the breaking down of all AT fields and the unification of man (again: murder-suicide) or the choice to rebuild. We watch as he goes on a journey into his own mind, imagining worlds and new scenarios, still paralyzed by the choice that he feels he has no right to make.

But in going inside himself, he realizes he has the right to exist. That he is worthy of existing. And thus he becomes “The Beast That Shouted ‘I’ at the Heart of the World.” But it turns out this is just the first internal step.

Because with The End of Evangelion, we see the external, literal version of all of this happening in the world around him. They even clearly take place at the same time (Shinji catatonically repeating phrases from the show’s first finale as he clutches himself). But once he takes that step to understanding, recognizing that the Instrumentality Project is just another aggression, he realizes he must make the choice to end the cycle of Adam and Eve and begin anew. He must let people into the whole of himself, thus breaking the cycle. But for Shinji, letting people in is not an easy choice …

Because it requires shining light in the darkest of places.

7. Raging rebirth amongst a game of gods

Tell me, what do you think of when I say the word “godliness”?

We can get literal with the definition: “the quality of being devoutly religious; piety.” Which all just evokes the traditional notion of man feeling humbled before the Creator, fearing him, wanting to obey, all in order to be loved and let into heaven. Or perhaps you think of the word as being descriptive, as in “god-like,” where we apply such notions of power to our creators, our fathers, our authority figures, and those whose power directly shapes our lives.

For me, and for many others, godliness evokes the notion of existentialism. The would-be death. The confronting of whatever is on the other side of consciousness, or staring into the abyss. To some, that notion inspires a level of panic that forces a million forms of subconscious defiance, procreation, and building monuments to testify that they existed and somehow will forever.

But to someone who has known the depths of suicidal depression, who has genuinely not cared if they lived or died, it elicits a shrug. And the ability to stare at that same abyss and say, “OK, sure” just tends to scare the panickers even more. But the truth is none of these views of godliness are all that singular. We may lean in one direction or the other, but as human beings, we contain all these capacities for godliness. And they all tend to smash together in our brains and behaviors.

Image: Gainax

But now, what do you think of when I say the word “birth”?

Some might picture a little blanket they were given on the day they were born. Or think about their birthday or earliest memory. Some might picture their own child and smile. Some might picture saintly notions of motherhood, human cycles, and the prospect of life moving through eternity. Some see birth as a sacred duty. Some see it as just another patriarchal duty passed on as part of the rigged game.

As you get older, however, the notion of birth becomes a bit more literal as you face the harsher realities that shape it. Wombs. Doctors. Complications. Miscarriages. You also realize that people’s birth stories vary widely. That birth itself is messy, dangerous, and often a fucking miracle, but not in the sanitized way that people think. It’s all uniquely human. Like death, birth takes the sacred and constantly crashes upon the rocks of the profane. And so it also smashes together in our brains and behaviors.

I ask about those two words because they are at the heart of Evangelion, both as a show and concept. After all, the word literally translates as “good news” or “the gospel” or “the accounts of life, death, and resurrection.” And virtually every idea I present in the two paragraphs above comes crashing into the thematic text of the show with reckless abandon.

From moment one, this show could only have become a cosmic opera, best typified in Shinji’s battle with Kaworu. But soon, so much of the movie becomes about cosmic horror, the ugliest demons are unleashed, and we get our own haunting Koyaanisqatsi as the men of SEELE praise “The origin of life! The egg of Lilith! The black moon!” But from here, the haunting final sequence of The End of Evangelion shifts into the transcendence of cosmic pop.

The infectious song creeps in, and suddenly the horror feels less horrible. Suddenly, Shinji is making the choice he learned from the Instrumentality Project. Yes, these events are all terrifying. But we actually exist in them always. The cosmic whatever will always go on, but as human beings, corporeal and limited, we are mostly preoccupied with the needs two inches in front of our faces.

Whenever something miraculous happens, I always think of the phrase, “I still gotta buy milk in the morning.” Maybe it’s oat milk now, but the point stands. We can always be paralyzed by the cosmos, but ultimately, what we really have to face is the mundane. Especially because that’s where the greatest horrors can sometimes live.

These are the aforementioned darkest of places.

Which brings us back to the bookend sequence of The End of Evangelion, with Shinji and Asuka at the hospital. Yes, it becomes very easy for Shinji to question the gods and want everything to stop, when really he is running from his deep sense of shame at what he has done. Because there is no denying what he has done. Shinji masturbated over the body of his comatose friend.

He committed an act of violation. And in his final internal headspace during Instrumentality, when she tells him she is rejecting him, he responds with another violation and begins choking her. It is a moment that symbolizes all the toxicity that he has felt and inherited. It is the complete resentment of women for maintaining their own boundaries. It is the inherent sexism and rage of the male mind made literal. And it is the thing Shinji was so afraid to acknowledge. Saying yes to a new world means letting the light in on this reality. But if we are going to go on being better humans, if we are going to break the cycle of Adam and Eve, if we are going to continue, it is precisely what must be done.

And so Shinji’s universe is born anew. They are at the edge of a bloodstained lake. Asuka’s arm is now repaired. But his hand is still clasped around her neck. He’s gone through the metaphorical undoing; now he must go through the literal undoing and face the consequences of his actions. Slowly Asuka comes to. She puts her hand up to his face, and Shinji finally lifts his hands off her neck. He falls back, crying in a heap to himself. And there, in silence, Asuka looks at all of it, all he has done, all that he is, all the cycles of destruction that men have wrought, and lets out her final words to sum it all up: “How disgusting.” Cut to black.

It’s a hell of a way to end an epic. But this is what Shinji knew he must face. Angelic demons are one thing. We all have different versions of those. But acceptance of the horror of our actions is another. And so, to press on in the world and break the cycle, he must be willing to live with the truth of her final words. Before Adam and Eve partook of the Tree of Knowledge, it is said they “were naked and felt no shame.” But after, the shame was everywhere. But not because being naked is a crime. No, it’s all the other power and control that comes along with it.

Transcendence is accepting this dichotomy. It is not bullying or repressing. It is letting the light in on our feelings. It is being able to feel. It is knowing that it is better to cry and be vulnerable than it is to strangle in great rage. This should be obvious to humanity; after all, these are the lessons we are supposed to learn in kindergarten. But take one look at adulthood and you see how many real-life men do not know that this is true whatsoever. We all live to the ballad of the broken boys. And they must learn that vulnerability starts with self.

Just as the creator starts with himself.

Epilogue: Just one step

When I first started watching this show, people couldn’t stop telling me about the series’ creator, Hideaki Anno. They threw quotes at me about his depression, or suspicions of his autism. They threw the story behind the final line reading at me, or what line was a reference to what, or how it was a response to fans, etc. As I said at the beginning, I really do get the instinct.

The Anno I really wanted to know, though, was the Anno in the work itself. And within the show, he makes his relationship clear. One character says piloting the EVA is a “convenient symbiotic relationship,” which is clearly a metaphor for Anno’s own relationship to making the show. It comes with adoration, hope, success, but also pressure and failure. And it is not hard to watch the final movie and see a deep consideration of his own complicity in the problems it perpetuates.

Take the bookend with Asuka. It can easily be read as calling out the fan base for their sexualization of the character, the way they ogle a lifeless body from a layer of separation at home. And it is that. But it is also more than that. Because Evangelion never shies away from the notion of Shinji’s culpability. And by Anno connecting his authorship so close to Shinji, it is not a declaration of “you’re disgusting,” but that “we’re disgusting.” Unfortunately, so many men reject this notion of collective responsibility (witness: hashtag not all men). But forget about what you did or didn’t do.

Making it purely about your own individual actions is ultimately just a form of denial. Because misogyny is in the air. It’s a part of existing structures we participate in every second. Saying you don’t take part in it is like saying you don’t breathe. We are inherently complicit. Even just in the act of watching. And so our worth is not found in the performative action of cataloging the ways we, as individuals, transcend those sexist bounds and deserve praise, but in endlessly examining the ways we are still part of it.

This is letting the light in. One’s individual actions might not be so ghastly as Shinji’s, but every human (which, yes, means every man) has bad things that they’ve done. And the first step will always be acceptance. That’s what that final sequence of The End of Evangelion ultimately feels like: the grandest acceptance. Why else would Anno insert footage of his real life? Of his fans waiting patiently in the theater? Anno tells us that the EVA is the dream, but he also asks a larger question: Is it “a convenient fantasy to take revenge against reality,” or a way of “avoiding the truth”? It is the limits and realities of one’s own private dream becoming a substitute for reality. Ultimately, it has to come back to reality.

For it is so easy to get lost in the hypothetical answers to these dreamlike questions. Especially when we know that being an animator is akin to being the god of your own little universe. But when the animator’s words and feelings become the de facto answer, then they are largely thin and uninteresting.

That’s because “the person” always becomes an answer, not the idea. It doesn’t become about Evangelion; it becomes about “Anno” or “what the fans said after the finale” or this or that. So opening up the answers to larger realities does not limit the work. It actually makes for something more expansive. Because it is all about how the work reflects and moves you in turn. There is something more empathetic that can happen when, as is said in the show itself, “reality comes after the dream.”

That reality is your reality. Because the only real, lasting truth of the work is not actually in the text, but in its resonance. In Anno exploring the topic of depression, it becomes about my experiences of depression. Evangelion becomes an opportunity to sit and reflect and truly see and observe. Here, the personal becomes universal. And for me, it all keeps coming back to the show’s central question. The one asked of Shinji again and again and again, especially near the end of the show’s run:

“Why do you pilot the EVA?”

It’s the great question of criticism, too. Not what, not how you do it, but why? For Anno, that question might mean, “Why do you make the show?” Or perhaps it is broader and really asking, “Why do you exist?” Notice I am not saying “we.” I am saying “you.” Like the intention of all art, I am asking you, the one reading this now: Why do you get up in the morning? Why do you express love? Why do you express self-hate? Do you sincerely know that it’s OK to be here? Do you know that, regardless of what has been done to you or what you have done, you have the right to exist in the cosmic scheme?

Image: Gainax

What the original finale depicted inside Shinji’s head, the final sequence of The End of Evangelion depicts as impressionist drama. It would be so easy to get lost in the endless imagery. Every single idea in this essay, every damn one, flies fast and furious across the screen with dazzling chutzpah. The iconography of Adams and Eves, the hybrids born for both ill and love.

There are bloody Angels birthing to beautiful music. They are a haunting reminder that life will always be painful. That there will always be dreams to escape into. That the yearning for love will always feel like a prayer. That oceans will always be stained with blood. That the relics of man will stand like crosses in the night sky. That the cosmic dances will go on, whether operatic, horrific, or the feverish pop insanity of our own delirium. And that the lowest of the low will always exist within ourselves …

But that’s just living.

All those things, happening all the time, always. And nestled amongst the cosmic art of the final sequence is a simple image that keeps coming back over and over: Shinji’s foot stepping over the small crack of the barrier and into his apartment. It is an image of crossing a threshold.

An image that echoes the powerful mantra of the “just one step” episode from earlier in the series. You probably already know what it means. And so, if the legions of fans who look upon this great work want to take one tiny message away from it — a spark, a flash of self-loving anger, an “I” to shout at the heart of the world — then I would argue it is this: Like all great work about depression, Neon Genesis Evangelion understands that in a world gone mad, sometimes the most herculean thing a person can do is find the courage to put one foot in front of the other. Sometimes, there is nothing more brave.

Take your step.

<3 HULK