RollForInitiative said:
Salad Is Murder said:
Because the show is really bad, with a stolen plot poorly done and populated by thoroughly unlikeable characters.
The end was just the point when most people realized it.
I couldn't agree more. It was almost reasonable until around the half-way marker, where it really began to fall apart in earnest.
As for unlikable characters, well, Shinji is basically my marker for everything I loathe in a protagonist. I can't even
begin to relate to a character that pathetic, whiny, and weak.
I'm not going to try to convince you to like Shinji - that would be pointless - but consider the following:
Shinji thinks himself weak and pathetic, and nobody hardly ever tries to convince him otherwise. Yet, this is the same Shinji who...
...defeated Sachiel with
no training whatsoever. He'd never heard of a giant robot, and he'd certainly never seen a
giant fracking trippy daikaiju before.
...actually did what the typical anime action hero is supposed to do and aggressively attacked Shamshel and defeated it...with two other people in the plug, interfering with his synch rate. Again, with maybe a week's worth of training.
...would have handily defeated Zereul - who had previously defeated both Asuka and Rei without breaking a sweat - if his battery power hadn't run out.
...defeated Unit 02 - a superior unit - being controlled by an angel...who can
set his own synch rate.
...contributes very greatly to battles fought alongside the other units.
Considering Shinji was summoned by a father he barely knows, told "hey, you, we're just going to place the fate of humanity on your shoulders by making you pilot a giant robot you've never heard of before, so don't screw up," and then dropped right into the middle of a year long fight for his life, I think that's pretty good. NGE is (at a superficial level) a deconstruction of the whole "shounen hero pilots the robot and saves humanity," so accusing NGE of not playing the anime-shounen-action-hero tropes straight doesn't make much sense.
For that matter, Shinji has a couple of reasons to be a bit down in the dumps, given...
...as previously mentioned, he gets a summons from his estranged father, who promptly tells him, basically, "I don't care about you, but now you can do something for me, so go pilot that big purple thing you've never seen before."
...afterwards, exactly one person shows any gratitude whatsoever for what he did or recognizes what he might be going through.
...and, incidentally, Shinji figures out that the robot he was piloting...yeah, not quite a robot.
...subsequently, he's put through a very traumatic experience with the Shamshel incident.
...when Shinji finally snaps as a result, this isn't recognized as a hint that maybe Shinji has some psychological issues that might, plausibly, interfere with the whole defending humanity thing.
...Shinji
does in fact seem to improve, and continues to do the right thing and pilot the Eva unit, despite Shinji, Misato, Asuka, and Rei all totally failing to communicate with each other, and the enormous stress put on them all - but especially Shinji - by the operations against the angels.
...Shinji falls into an angel and is then forced to think about questions he'd really rather not. And incidentally discovers that the abomination-disguised-as-a-robot he's piloting...yep,
has his mother's soul in it.
...Shinji is asked to destroy an angel possessing an Eva and refuses. Okay, that really is kind of a douche-bag move. However, he then has a near death experience (as usual), has control of the Eva forcibly wrested away from him, and, while still fully synched and so feeling everything the Eva feels like he was doing it, nearly kills his best friend. Very, very violently. And I cannot reiterate this enough: he feels as if he's doing it with his own hands. And there's
nothing he can do. Nothing.
...When Shinji feels a bit pissed at Gendo for this, Gendo subsequently tells him basically "stop whining," and knocks him unconscious.
...Shinji, surprisingly enough, snaps again, but eventually does the right thing and comes back...only to watch Asuka nearly die horribly and Rei try to sacrifice herself. But he does return to pilot Unit 01. And what happens? Unit 01 goes berserk, and Shinji is forced yet again to confront everything he'd rather not.
...Shinji watches Rei try to sacrifice herself again...and succeed. He then finds out Rei is a clone. This totally isn't a shocking revelation at all.
...Shinji finally meets someone who genuinely cares about him and isn't too tied up with his own issues to express it. This is just what Shinji needs right now. Oops, no wait, he's an angel. But Kaworu is of course very nice about it...right up until Shinji has to crush him with his own hands in order to save the human race.
Suffice it to say Shinji has a few reasons to be a bit down during the series.
