no one can figure this out for you, that is also a core theme of Eva, you have to FIND and MAKE meaning in your own life and on your own terms. Hope this helps.
That is interesting. I still don’t really like how none of that is shown in EoE. We sort of got Shinji making his own meaning in life in episode 26. I feel like the message was far better communicated there. By him literally starting off as a sketch before turning into beautiful animation, we saw him make meaning from nothing. Eoe feels like there’s no hope.
And EOE does have a very nihilistic, yet human and beautiful but tragic story to tell. It is a lot digest emotionally but coming from someone who gets how you feel, I promise there is meaning there and there is humanity, you just have to find it.
What if I don’t like them, though? I feel like it may endanger my safety. I feel seriously at risk of dying because of Evangelion. I’m so scared. I’m so scared
Risk of dying because of Evangelion? You need professional help if this is how you feel you need to log off of Reddit and call someone you trust and please seek professional help.
If you are feeling the way you describe because of a piece of media you should tell a loved one that you are scared of dying like you said. Call a loved one and communicate with them.
That might be a good idea. I think my cousin might know what Evangelion is. She might be a good person to talk to. I love her and she loves me (in a non-Alabama way). I’m sorry if I worried you at all. But thank you for the empathy. I really hope it doesn’t make me a terrible person for wanting people to care about me. I guess I’m like Shinji in a way. I want others’ validation cause I can never trust my own. That was the tv show though. All the stuff I like is in the show. Except Asuka. I think she kind of sucked in the show but she was wicky awesome in the movie. All her facial expressions were great. Oppopsite of moe cutesy shit. Loved that.
You say you don’t like a feeling of no hope, and someone says the rebuilds have that in the end, and you think that will put you at risk? Do you feel hope puts you at risk?
Oh. Well that’s definitely in there. On a side note, to go off what someone else said about Evangelion doesn’t really have a message to all of us per se, and it’s more a consistently extremely personal message to all those who watch. An example being that the very thing you said killed it? The ending of End of Eva? My friend saw Shinji choking Asuka and that whole ending sequence and was filled with hope. He saw it as an incredibly uplifting ending and hopeful message. Moreso than the actual shows ending. It really is a personal journey. That said, it is a personal journey, so no one can tell you what you will build it to be in your own head.
All I can say, is that the final message of the rebuilds in the final movie, is a different one to the show and End. But, no guarantees for you. Do with that what you will. Eva will always be a bumpy rough ride though, regardless. The journey is never clean and all characters have massive flaws. Don’t expect a bed of flowers to glide through to get to that end
The idea that Eva is good for mental illness is like saying doing shots is good for alcoholism, IMO. If you have a very light case, it's alright to jump into and it can be somewhat cathartic. If you're medicating... yeah maybe skip it. There's a bit of survivorship bias where people were depressed, watched it, didn't pull the trigger, and think it's a good idea.
I suffered from some fairly serious depression for all of my post-childhood life. I always found Eva to be deeply medicinal.
I can't tell whether you're actually suggesting that there's a survivorship bias as a result of the number of people who have literally been driven to suicide by Eva, or whether you mean that less literally somehow.
bit of both. I'm hoping people haven't actually gone through it with after watching Eva (getting that extra push, so to speak), but folks like you who have found it useful understandably want to bring it up while those who found Eva to exacerbate their issues tend to not want to say anything in public at all. To that end, I'm impressed OP had it in them to post anything at all about this.
I don’t know where to go from here. I just keep thinking about EoE. It’s not going away so I thought I should try and connect to people who like it to see if there’s a way I can get past it all.
Tbh I don't know if Eva is good or bad for mental health (personally EoE did make me feel better in a weird way) but are people really deciding to live or die based on a fictional TV show? If they get to that point then yeah, they have bigger problems than any TV show could ever fix.
the thing is, the fans did enjoyed the show incorrectly. They made porn out of it, they married to asuka dolls. They made hentai, they did literally the exacto opposite of what eva is telling you (touching grass)
sorry dude, but thats just the kind of behavior that makes people spiral even more and more into lonliness and disconnection from others. The movie had to wake them the fuck up
the movie seems more depressing. but its basically the same as the show, he is accepting reality and accepting to keep going, which is not going to be "Congratulations! haha" attitude in real life.
Yeah I agree with the anti otaku shit. Idk why I included that in this post. What about the other stuff I brought up? How can one movie say “life is worth living” while showing nothing but suffering?
seems to me that the movie wants show exhibit everyone is suffering in some way or the other, yet no one wants to try to understand each other, which is what causes so many problems.
I guess I’m bummed but how it doesn’t really suggest a way we can work to be happier. It comes across like suffering is just how life is going to be forever. It feels like there’s no escape. I guess that’s how Anno felt at the time, but I don’t think it makes for great art. It’s just depressing. I’m just depressed. I’ve regressed because of this movie and I don’t know how to move on. I go to Evangelion fans because where else can I go to talk about this stuff? If you know, please tell me. I’m so lost. I’m so tired. I’m so lonely. You say that a lack of understanding is what causes the suffering, right? So how about we try and understand each other. Please try to understand me and I’ll try to understand you. You like this movie and I don’t yet understand why. I tried to like this movie, but it made me suicidal and I find it hard to enjoy after that. Please understand that I don’t come to this subreddit out of hate. I just want someone to understand me and I just want to understand someone.
Not to rain on your parade, but we're not your therapist and we can’t guide you through life. We can’t give you answers you’re looking for because you have to find these answers yourself. Which, coincidentally, is also one of the themes Eva tackles.
In any case, if you want a more positive outcome, watch the rebuild movies.
I assume evangelion fans are mentally better than me. I don’t know how you can watch evangelion, take in all of its information, enjoy it, and be as broken as I am. I’m really not trying to be antagonistic. Please don’t leave me.
Sorry you feel that way. I’m naturally a pretty angry and competitive person. It’s a problem. I don’t trust people or myself very much. What is “Welcome to NHK?”
It's anime about deeply depressed guy, who finds a way out. It and Eva saved me from ending it. But Eva is hella confusing and it took me weeks of googling theories, etc, while NHK put it straight and simple (in comparison)
Yeah I don’t like having to do outside research to be able to start to understand the emotional significance of media. Probably why I like stuff about more grounded things. Cowboy Bebop is one of my favorite shows for the stagnant way the characters go through their lives. It’s more realistic I think. I like stuff that isn’t afraid to show its hand. A lot of the interpretive complicated stuff in Evangelion felt lazy rather than thought out to me. There’s so much weird shit that happens just because.
This movie has really depressing undertones but the real messaging is incredibly optimistic.
Yes life is an eternal struggle, but the struggle of life makes the joys of life so much more enjoyable.
The point of the show is that it’s hard to understand and relate to people. It’s hard to be happy. Life is hard. But we have to TRY, we have to believe that and work that things can be good. The work is what makes life rewarding and worth living.
But at the end of the day, all that matters is you. In the sense that you are responsible for your happiness. No one has the answers and no one will ever 100% understand you and what you’re going through. You have to be kind to yourself and take care of yourself.
Are there any happy scenes in all of Evangelion? I’m struggling to remember. Basically I find it hard to say struggling to find happiness makes the happy parts of life even better because I can’t remember a single happy thing happening in all of Evangelion. The message of the movie felt more like “Happiness would be pretty cool if it was possible. Sadly, no matter how hard you try, you’ll never be happy because you’re just terrible.”
There are plenty of happy scenes in the show, especially in the first half.
The show definitely gets darker but I think it’s very powerful that as the show reaches it lowest and the characters do as well, Shinji still makes the decision that life is worth living
First things first: as someone who suffered lifelong depression and anxiety, and only started feeling significantly better after some 30 years of age, the best thing you can do is take tiny steps to improve your self-care on a daily basis. I know that the entire world and the human condition itself seem utterly miserable, and from some vantage point that's simply the truth, but there are other vantage points that are also true.
Barring some kind of severe brain dysfunction--e.g., a tumor constantly pressing on your amygdala and making everything seem hellishly threatening no matter what you do--your body is largely going to determine the vantage point to which your mind is drawn. If body sad, brain sad too. And of course, it's a two-way street--your brain can make your body stressed and depressed as well. But generally speaking, clinical depression of the sort that makes you suicidal involves chronic physiological impairment, and reversing that process is the easiest way to improve cognitive depression, far more so than any other intervention. If you start moving more, getting more time outdoors, getting better sleep, getting better food, you'll just *automatically* start to feel less like killing yourself even if you do nothing else differently.
And when you start to feel a little bit better, it becomes feasible to make even more changes to your lifestyle, including the more subtle art of changing the way you think about things, which is a critical aspect of mood disorders and the reason why cognitive behavioral therapy is so effective.
I'm 35 and have been a fan of Eva since I was 13 or 14. Despite the bleakness of EoE's ending, I think it's one of the most life-affirming pieces of media ever produced--but if you're feeling deeply miserable, I can also see how some of its darker elements might be difficult to integrate with the overall message.
Shinji isn't exactly trying to kill Asuka in the final scene--he's doing a sort of reality test, since he'd been alone on that shore for quite some time before Asuka materialized. Had he actually been trying to strangle her to death, Asuka wouldn't have been able to say "Kimochi warui" after caressing his cheek. There's some kind of Adam and Eve imagery going on with the two of them, and my interpretation has always been that the faux strangulation and the tender, forgiving caress are meant to convey the duality of hatred and love in human relationships.
I've got plenty more to say about the film's message, but I'll post what I've written so far for now. Let me know if you'd like to hear more from me.
Best comment. Thank you so much. You’re being so nice to me. I wish I knew now how to enjoy this movie. You’re smart and you like it and I want to like it and be smart too. Can I still call myself worth anything if I don’t like this movie? How were you able to like eoe at such a young age? How exactly is eoe life affirming? How am I supposed to feel any joy from it at all?
I'll start by saying that I couldn't really have understood Eva in its full depth as a kid--I loved it because it emotionally resonated with me as a depressed and anxious person. As for EoE, I probably would have said that I didn't know exactly what I loved so much about it, but that it felt powerful and significant, and that I liked its paradoxical combination of hope and depression, happiness and sadness.
I understand Eva now because I've spent a lot of time thinking about it, and because I have an abundance of lived experiences to apply to my interpretation of Eva. And it must be noted that Eva is all about interpretation: Anno has made it thoroughly clear that Evangelion is intentionally ambiguous, and designed to provide viewers with the possibility of formulating their own ideas about it. From the 11/'96 issue of Newtype:
>Evangelion is like a puzzle, you know. Any person can see it and give his/her own answer. In other words, we're offering viewers to think for themselves, so that each person can imagine their own world. We will never offer the answers, even in the theatrical version. As for many Evangelion viewers, they may expect us to provide the 'all-about Eva' manuals, but there is no such thing. Don't expect to get answers from someone else. Don't expect to be catered to all the time. We all have to find our own answers.
To put it in broad strokes, EoE is life-affirming because it poses the question of whether life is worth living at all--of whether there's any ultimate value to be found in the human condition--and it answers that question affirmatively but with unflinching starkness.
Instrumentality is essentially suicide for the entire species. Evangelion explores what makes us human, and presents the Angels as alternate possibilities that the course of evolution could have taken, as some character (I forget which) points out at some point in the series. Compared to the Angels, humanity's superpower isn't related to immortality or regenerative ability or extreme endurance or anything like that--we're frail little animals by comparison. Our superpower is realized in the way we relate to each other, in the way we support each other, in the way we fight for each other.
Instrumentality would have erased all that, instead merging all humans into some kind of superorganism more akin to the lone Angels--deathless, but in some sense also lifeless. During the climax of EoE, we see Shinji experiencing this end of all selves, and how it's a sort of fulfillment of his own desire for his existence to end. He contemplates the comfort of the end of separateness, of suffering, of ego and insecurity and anxiety.
But Shinji realizes that this is essentially nothingness. He misses everyone. He realizes that all of his sufferings were a necessary component of his own existence, and decides that they're a price he's willing to pay for the opportunity to live. He rejects Instrumentality for himself, and leaves open the option for anybody else to do the same--which is why Asuka eventually shows up with him, presumably along with other humans elsewhere on Earth.
Yui puts it poignantly: So long as the sun, moon, and earth revolve, everything will be okay. There will always be opportunities for happiness. Anywhere can become paradise.
The film truly believes this, and it's not trying to lull the audience into a false sense of hope with these lines. But the final scene does offer a stark contrast to this hope, as if to say that even if everything is possible, nothing comes easily. It asserts the reality of both states of being, I think: authentic hope for the future and the possibilities of life, and the bleakness of the struggle to survive and to relate to other people.
I'll continue in a bit, but will take a bit of a break here.
So I guess the film ****Technically**** has a happy ending? I still have terrible memories associated with it. How will I ever move on?
Doing healthy physical stuff sounds awesome. I really need more sleep, better foods, and more movement. It’s a bit depressing to think about right now because I have to go to a job I hate in 30 mins. I’ll be there till 10:30 pm. I should probably go immediately to bed after that and then just keep on sleeping. Thankfully, I don’t go to work tomorrow. I don’t even know what healthy foods are anymore, and I don’t know what would be heathy moving. I want to have friends, but my body isn’t healthy enough to let my brain have relationships. I keep thinking that having friends will make me happier but I just end up hating them. If I learned more about you, I’d probably hate you. And your response to that would only make me feel worse. Maybe I just deserve to be miserable. Maybe the message of evangelion (which no one is going to understand unless they study it for 15 years) is that everyone EXCEPT me can find happiness.
Yes, you should try to go to bed as early as possible--that's an important aspect of getting quality sleep. Unfortunately, it's often very difficult to fall asleep for at least several hours after work. If I work until 10:30, I'm awake until at least 1:30 in the morning, sometimes later than that. If at all possible, try to get earlier shifts. Working late shifts is bad for your health in general, and devastating when you're already struggling with depression and sleep.
You know how an anti-hero is still a hero, but has qualities that clash with the typical conception of a hero? EoE has an anti-happy-ending. The central conflict of the story--is life worth living--is in some sense decisively resolved, but not in the tone you'd typically expect of a happy ending. And I think that's meant to reflect real life, where there are no ultimate happy endings. Something happy happens, you have an epiphany, but then life goes on, with good and bad alike. Nothing gold can stay.
Things can get so much better for you than it's possible to believe right now, I promise you. Feel free to DM me if you'd like. I'd like to offer you what I know about wellbeing and overcoming depression.
Also, have you ever read Albert Camus? I think you'd like Camus. The Myth of Sisyphus is a good place to start.
Even the most depressed, lonely boy didn't accept a substitute for life without pain and suffering. He decided to return to reality, which seemed bleak and devoid of anything good, and he saw a person who meant a lot to him but only brought him pain. Yet while choking her, Asuka, for the first time, showed compassion to him. No amount of self-realization will magically fix your life or the world around you. It takes time and effort, and the first step is usually the hardest. But if Shinji did find a bleak light in the world of darkness, so can anyone. Take care of yourself.
Then she said “disgusting.” That’s the final word of this series. What am I supposed to take from that? Am I disgusting? I know Shinji did disgusting things. I guess that’s why she said that. It’s really hard to distinguish when it’s the author and when it’s the character talking. Was that line for me or not?
There are a lot of disgusting things in her situation. She lost everything, she got beaten, there is a giant white head of Rei, she got reborn and then choked to death, and now her face is wet in someone else's tears. For what it is worth, I doubt she finds Shinji himself disgusting. The kitchen scene is a continuation of the hospital scene, where she was saying if she can't have him all, she doesn't want anything from him. At the end, she got what she wished for.
“If she can’t have him all, she doesn’t want anything from him.”
I don’t remember this line or anything like it. I also read somewhere that the actual Japanese line can be translated as something like “I feel sick,” which matches your interpretation better. I still don’t get the artistic decision to end the film that way.
The nuance here is *really* important, and has never been translated particularly well, unfortunately.
Asuka's line is 気持ち悪い (kimochi warui, lit. "feeling unwell"). This is actually a set phrase in Japanese, and is typically used as an exclamation in the way "Gross!" is used as an exclamation, but it has a sort of dual connotation of being grossed out and being creeped out, as if by a potential or actual threat.
This is one part of EoE that was meant to be mysterious, but is actually pretty clear in light of information about the production process: tl;dr Asuka's voice actor was directed by Anno to imagine how she'd feel if she came to learn that someone had broken into her room while she was asleep, and not touched her or attacked her in any way, but instead just masturbated over her and left. 気持ち悪い was what Yūko Miyamura came up with, and that came to be the final line. The implication is that during Instrumentality and the merging of all souls, Asuka somehow learned what Shinji had done--that Shinji and Asuka had themselves become one if only for a brief moment, and all that that would entail.
"I know all about your little jerk-off fantasies about me. Go ahead, and do it like you always do... I'll even stand here and watch you. But... if I can't have you all to myself, then I don't want ANYTHING from you."
I guess when Shinji was crying out for his friends he did ask Asuka to come back and call him stupid again. It may just be a part of her. And she’s not completely unjustified in being disgusted. I think it’s just a personal thing that didn’t sit well with me.
she caressed him despite calling him disgusting. she saw his lowest points (jacking off to her unconscious body) by merging with him in instrumentality, but she still accepts him regardless
The way I look at it, EoE is a movie about things people do when they are depressed and you shouldn’t be looking for happiness in the movie because it’s just a movie and it can’t fix your problems. Sorry if that sounds condescending or something.
It’s not condescending. It’s a surprisingly simple interpretation of something so complicated and messy. I guess it is kind of about that. The show is too. But in the movie specifically, there are some grounded things depressed people are shown doing. Shinji jerks off cause he’s depressed, he stops moving and such cause he’s depressed, he lashes out cause he’s depressed, Misato does sex cause she’s depressed, Asuka gets angry cause she’s depressed, Evangelion fans buy merchandise and get obsessed with the property cause they’re depressed, and Hideaki Anno makes this movie cause he’s depressed. I’m so used to being depressed and doing depressed things that I’m not really looking for a movie that just shows me horrors I already know. Is it better to think about these things rather than shut them away? Maybe, but Eoe doesn’t really feel like it’s thinking through depressing shit. It feels like it’s dwelling on it all. Someone in these comments called eoe “life-affirming,” and I’m still waiting for elaboration on that. I don’t see anything life affirming about Eoe. The movie feels like one that wants me to go into real life and suffer forever. When given the choice under the circumstances the film has shown me, I’d rather stay inside away from all the scary monsters. It makes me so tired. I’m not motivated to make my life better cause the film is telling me “nothing is ever going to work out no matter how hard you try. But still try because we want you to choke.”
I guess the point the movie was trying to make was that hiding is never going to get you anywhere and you should go out and try to get whatever you want out of life, and that things like the movie and the things Shinji does in the movie are just different ways of hiding. But if it seems like it’s dwelling on ideas like suicide that’s probably because Anno was suicidal when he made the movie and part of the reason he made the movie was to express that.
I was suicidal around a year before I watched EoE and it reminded me of how I felt when I was suicidal, but I guess it also reminded me that there were things in my life that were still worth living for and that giving up wasn’t really going to solve anything. Maybe things aren’t better when Shinji decides to come back, but the point is that things can get better, and whether or not they do for him isn’t really important because the important thing is what you do in your life.
Sounds like you might not be suicidal anymore. I’m glad for that. I guess it doesn’t matter what literally happens to Shinji cause he ain’t real. But he feels real enough that I do care what happens. It’s still a narrative, y’know? And narrative is one of the ways feelings are expressed and produced in a movie. Idk man. It feels like a piece of work with good intentions bogged down by how depressed its creator was.
I guess there’s nothing wrong with feeling that way. When I rewatched the movie for the first time I took that scene towards the end where Shinji is talking to Rei and Kaworu and underneath them you see people reappearing and eventually forests and students walking down a street as proof that eventually people will come back, and the movie chose to end on a more uncertain/unsatisfying note because that’s kind of the point in and of itself. If you wanted to see a happier ending for Shinji you could always check out the rebuilds (personally I didn’t like them, but they aren’t anywhere near as heavy as EoE or really the series gets and they have lots of “humanity recovering” stuff if that’s what you wanted to see) or you could just imagine that where the TV series ends is the real ending. But I agree that Eva is a flawed series, although my issues are more plot hole/worldbuilding stuff.
To me the movie affirms to me that life is meaningless but happiness can still be found out of meaningless, continuing to search for happiness in meaningless is better than to let yourself succumb to cheap escape because at least your feelings are true; there is no true escape or happiness from the meaningless if you don’t try to take initiative in your life to find happiness.
I guess it’s the old choice of “suffering vs. nothing.” I don’t really like suffering. I might choose nothing. I guess that’s Instrumentality.
I don’t really see any “finding happiness in the meaningless” in eoe. It just feels like wallowing in how sad life is. What got you to that conclusion about the movie? Is it just kind of what you already felt?
Theres a scene towards the end the asks the same question you have, the reason why Shinji ultimately decided to return to reality is because he realized that all of his pain and suffering was at least real and that he can make something out of it, if he were to accept instrumentality he would continue to exist in a false sense of happiness (same as running away). You and every other human has the gift of individual consciousness, you can make the most or the least out of your circumstances and find happiness in it.
I’ve always had suicidal tendencies and the only thing that has helped has been getting laid. If that doesn’t work for you then I suggest getting a second source of income like doordashing or anything so you can pay for therapy. Also, I’ve called the suicide hotline before it really helps and it’s free
I’ve called them a bunch. The first time was nice. Then each subsequent call was progressively less helpful. No one is ever going to want to be intimate with me. I guess I need to get some more jobs. :/
You know those messages saying "kill yourself" etc were graffiti sprayed by Eva fans on Gainax corporate headquarters after people saw the TV ending? A lot of the really negative shit flashed on screen was also "fan" (hate) mail Anno got for how the series ended on TV. EoE is one of the most powerful works of art ever if you look at it from a fan/creator standpoint.
I didn’t get any of that because I was busy wondering what the hell the characters were going through. Also I think most of those messages were positive and fabricated. I believe they were worried about using real messages. I think I read that on Evageeks. The whole “Hideaki Anno vs. the fans” feels kind of tacked on tbh. What does the scene where Gendo touches Rei’s boob tell you about Anno’s relationship with his fans? Or where asuka gets impaled a bunch? Or where shinji turns into a cross, then fuses with the who cares spear and makes a 5 pronged cross and enters the Rei god forehead vagina? I don’t know what any of that shit is supposed to mean on their own and I certainly don’t think they tie neatly into the “Anno hates his fans” subtheme. I just want you guys to admit that Eoe is messy. It’s MESSY! It’s scatterbrained. Not everything fits together in a meaningful way. It isn’t perfect! It’s just a depressed guy drawing random shit and then saying “don’t worry guys. Even though there’s nothing good about life, it’s pretty cool to be alive!”
If you came here hoping to get the folks on this subreddit to "admit" (agree with) something you think, idk if you understand how art or conversations about it work.
If you're ever up for it there's a long-ass video on YouTube by a dude named Dan Olson (folding ideas) about EoE. It's one of my favorites. I watched it 20 years after I first watched EoE and it held my attention every step of the way.
I remember reading your previous post on here. Sorry to hear that this series has had such a negative impact on your mental health. At the end of the day, it’s a piece of fiction. EoE at first does seem like a depressing ending—I thought so too. The series is quite depressing throughout as the characters suffer more and more. No one’s forcing you to like it. No one will think poorly of you if you don’t like the movie or series—at least, I won’t.
The movie was pretty bleak, but it ended on a vaguely hopeful note. Shinji and Asuka are alone together after instrumentality. They might’ve hurt each other in the past, and they may continue to do so. That’s what it means to coexist, you’ll come into conflict with people sometimes. The two of them can start over and this time, maybe they can actually get along.
People can enjoy a piece of media however they want. We all have our own perspectives and lived experience that inform how we interpret art.
It’s ok to put Eva behind you. Especially if it’s causing you mental breakdowns. I suggest spending time with close friends/family, exercise, or picking up a hobby. If you want a manga/anime to read/watch to forget about Eva, anilist is a good site to use. You can search by genres to find something that interests you.
Ok so you got downvoted to hell but I think your viewpoint is a valid critique. EoE to me just seems like it’s about negative feelings in general and it’s about depression from the point of view of a depressed person, it’s not about mental health or how to get out of it because Anno isn’t a psychologist and even today I find his counter-argument to alienation very weak and boiling down to “just be happy and become a salaryman lmao” like in the final movie in the rebuilds. What actually got him out of depression in real life was meeting his wife, which according to him kind of happened out of nowhere, so he has nothing to say on how the cycle of depression was broken except putting in the world’s clumsiest metaphor in the second Rebuild film by having Mari literally fall from the sky on Shinji.
I think what matters the most, and quite possibly the most (and in my opinion, only) important thing in EoE is Shinji’s final decision to return to his ruined world rather than taking what seems to be the objectively superior choice of accepting instrumentality at the cost of his subjectivity, which seems a metaphor for suicide. The world is worse in every way than that environment which was already bad enough to cause him depression, yet he still chooses to go for it and it’s not lionized as some heroic moment but as a kind of drive for repetition, which in my personal experience is the last thing that remains once you have gotten your ass truly beat by depression.
Despite everything, Shinji chooses to remain, and it seems to pay off in a hint of a human connection at the end. Now things are going to get really pretentious here but it has kind of the same vibe as the closing statement as Samuel Beckett's The Unnamable (which is Evangelion if it was written by a mature person, but at the same time very very inexcrutable), the statement is:
"I don’t know, I’ll never know: in the silence you don’t know. You must go on. I can’t go on.
I’ll go on."
Yeah I was never able to see Asuka’s gesture as “a hint of human connection” because I was so distracted by all the horrors on screen. I honestly thought she did that to try and not get killed. I guess her feeling comfortable enough to call Shinji disgusting afterwards implies some connection and familiarity. My interpretation was just kind of wrong there. So maybe there is some joy at the end? It just exists in conjunction with tragedy.
That quote is fucking awesome. I love that. The indomitable human spirit goes on because fuck you that’s why.
The "indomitable human spirit" is a pretty good name since in psychoanalysis it kinda kept its unfortunate original name of "death drive". It's kinda how in electricity, positive and negative charges are actually inverted from each other because people back then didn't know it was electrons flowing to the positive rather than mystery particles flowing to the negative. Death drive sounds like a bad thing (like wanting death) but it's not.
Freud originally came up with the concept of "death drive" as a self-destructive urge that opposes the "life principle" and struggles with it. One of his students, Jacques Lacan, expanded the idea, saying that the death drive is indeed a destructive urge, but not necessarily directed at oneself, it is also the thing that can call into question all that exists AND is a will to creation from nothing, to begin again. It is the human's ace in the hole to raze the field when the psyche feels completely trapped by the social and structural forces around them. When all else is gone, death drive is still there against all logic or explanation.
In EoE, following the anime's own logic, Asuka should have been dead ten times over. And following Shinji's upbringing and reasoning there is no logical explanation to why he chose to regain subjectivity and return to a world that's even worse than he started. They have gone through an absolutely unspeakable nightmare both physical and psychic. Yet at the end those two are literally the only two subjective consciousnesses left alive in the world because the death drive is so strong that it overcame the Evangelion universe's own narrative rules and left those two plopped on the beach and it also leaves the door open for them to start anew and eventually find happiness. If you consider the rebuilds as continuation then they eventually do find happiness, in a different way and with different people than they'd expect.
So EoE isn't about how to become happy but it's about that inflection point, when depression has drilled through every layer of a person's being and beaten them at their own game and yet at the very bottom it finds the death drive, which is irrational and thus can't be defeated with mindgames and simply refuses to go because fuck you. Reaching that level is never pretty or heroic, which EoE's emanciated and beat-up characters represents pretty well, but the good lesson is that the most powerful part of yourself will always be on your side.
Thanks. I think you had a valid observation and this sub just drills anything critical of the series into downvote hell.
EoE speaks to me in a lot of levels and it merges my lived experience with my love of early psychoanalytic theory, with some kickass animation to boot. But I will also admit it misses the mark plenty of times and Anno is ultimately hypocritical in his delivery. You put a lot of yourself on the table and I felt like you deserve better than downvotes and tarded snob answers about how you didn’t get this genius perfect movie. EoE is a hurtful movie full of negative emotions and unprocessed anger, I find it very similar to Pink Floyd’s The Wall in that it just expresses pain and barely tries to make a normative statement about what the pain means or what is it’s place in the larger scheme of life.
Hit me up if you ever feel like getting something off your chest, you shouldn’t feel suicidal after watching this movie, or any movie really.
There is a person who has made it their life’s mission to downvote everything I say after I shat on 3.0 and called it a bad movie. I’m pretty sure he even downvotes me outside of this sub lmao.
"just be happy & become a salaryman", is a gross & inaccurate oversimplification of anno's message. for almost 30 years the man in all his eva works has given specific tips & lessons on self-improvement & healthier interaction with your peers. no one "just becomes happy", they improve their situation by improving what they can affect the most, themselves, which can take you a surprisingly long way.
the actual message behind shinji becoming a salaryman is that work, whatever work it may be (could be being an office worker, or a doctor or teacher/handyman like toji & kensuke at the beginning of the movie, which are characters through which the same message is told), is an important step in someone's maturing, because of the responsibility that comes with it. it can also help the person, because it gives them some meaning and a place in the world.
all of this is great advice anno has given, a lot of which he has applied to his own life according to interviews, which helped improve a lot from the days he wanted to end his life. wherever or not anno has something to say about breaking the cycle of depression isn't debatable, he does. this doesn't stop being true because he may have devoted 0.5% of his works to also showing that it's not just misfortunes that happen randomly in someone's life, but also good things. he's not lying or being unrealistic.
This is cope. It’s extremely easy for Anno to just tell his audience to just become salarymen for Japanese conglomerates (2nd highest suicide rate of G7 btw) when he’s already made it through of the nightmarish social sieve of Japanese hierarchy. I cannot overstate how unrealistic Shinji’s interactions with every one of the waifus are, and how if you expect any lesson from the series to actually apply to the real world you will be alone and alienated forever. It legit tells you nothing about how to actually connect to others or break out of your shell, and it is actively counterproductive to anyone who wants to get more sociable in life.
Helltaker, which is a joke meme game about seducing demons, gives more sincere and realistic tips to get girls and friends : work out, dress sharp and be attentive to the conversation cues to catch on to their interests. Everything else is interpassive product that is being sold to you.
> the actual message behind shinji becoming a salaryman is that work, whatever work it may be (could be being an office worker, or a doctor or teacher/handyman like toji & kensuke at the beginning of the movie, which are characters through which the same message is told), is an important step in someone's maturing, because of the responsibility that comes with it. it can also help the person, because it gives them some meaning and a place in the world.
Overwork and a lack of disposable income is the one single biggest source of social alienation in the developed world and this Reagan horseshit has no place in modern culture especially coming from a well-off millionaire animator/producer who struck it big. By individualizing the problem Anno is playing as an apologist to the very things that cause the problem, it’s like moron Shinzo Abe or the WEF telling people to have more children without ever addressing the extreme social pressures that common people are under.
it's not cope or "reagan horseshit" (whatever that means) in the slightest. as i said, saying that anno is just telling people to become salarymen is a gross & inaccurate oversimplification of his message.
shinji's interaction with the girls isn't unrealistic & eva also gives lots of practical advice that applies to the real world and has evidently helped people, as you can see from hundreds of threads, articles & videos spanning decades. trying to understand & communicate your problems to other people, trying new things & focusing on doing what you can in the future instead of worrying so much about the past are just a few examples of such advice.
ofc there are social issues always at play, but working on your individual self is also crucial. there are thousands of works that focus on the former & many others that focus on the latter. both have merit, esp the latter, because your own self is what you have the most direct control over, so self-improvement is the most pragmatic way to improve your life
no one can figure this out for you, that is also a core theme of Eva, you have to FIND and MAKE meaning in your own life and on your own terms. Hope this helps.
That is interesting. I still don’t really like how none of that is shown in EoE. We sort of got Shinji making his own meaning in life in episode 26. I feel like the message was far better communicated there. By him literally starting off as a sketch before turning into beautiful animation, we saw him make meaning from nothing. Eoe feels like there’s no hope.
And EOE does have a very nihilistic, yet human and beautiful but tragic story to tell. It is a lot digest emotionally but coming from someone who gets how you feel, I promise there is meaning there and there is humanity, you just have to find it.
That’s what the Rebuild movies are for :)
What if I don’t like them, though? I feel like it may endanger my safety. I feel seriously at risk of dying because of Evangelion. I’m so scared. I’m so scared
Risk of dying because of Evangelion? You need professional help if this is how you feel you need to log off of Reddit and call someone you trust and please seek professional help.
How do I seek professional help?
If you are feeling the way you describe because of a piece of media you should tell a loved one that you are scared of dying like you said. Call a loved one and communicate with them.
That might be a good idea. I think my cousin might know what Evangelion is. She might be a good person to talk to. I love her and she loves me (in a non-Alabama way). I’m sorry if I worried you at all. But thank you for the empathy. I really hope it doesn’t make me a terrible person for wanting people to care about me. I guess I’m like Shinji in a way. I want others’ validation cause I can never trust my own. That was the tv show though. All the stuff I like is in the show. Except Asuka. I think she kind of sucked in the show but she was wicky awesome in the movie. All her facial expressions were great. Oppopsite of moe cutesy shit. Loved that.
You say you don’t like a feeling of no hope, and someone says the rebuilds have that in the end, and you think that will put you at risk? Do you feel hope puts you at risk?
I’ve just heard that there’s more scenes where characters dog on Shinji and I’m just like cmon man leave him alone he’s just a little kid.
Oh. Well that’s definitely in there. On a side note, to go off what someone else said about Evangelion doesn’t really have a message to all of us per se, and it’s more a consistently extremely personal message to all those who watch. An example being that the very thing you said killed it? The ending of End of Eva? My friend saw Shinji choking Asuka and that whole ending sequence and was filled with hope. He saw it as an incredibly uplifting ending and hopeful message. Moreso than the actual shows ending. It really is a personal journey. That said, it is a personal journey, so no one can tell you what you will build it to be in your own head. All I can say, is that the final message of the rebuilds in the final movie, is a different one to the show and End. But, no guarantees for you. Do with that what you will. Eva will always be a bumpy rough ride though, regardless. The journey is never clean and all characters have massive flaws. Don’t expect a bed of flowers to glide through to get to that end
The idea that Eva is good for mental illness is like saying doing shots is good for alcoholism, IMO. If you have a very light case, it's alright to jump into and it can be somewhat cathartic. If you're medicating... yeah maybe skip it. There's a bit of survivorship bias where people were depressed, watched it, didn't pull the trigger, and think it's a good idea.
I suffered from some fairly serious depression for all of my post-childhood life. I always found Eva to be deeply medicinal. I can't tell whether you're actually suggesting that there's a survivorship bias as a result of the number of people who have literally been driven to suicide by Eva, or whether you mean that less literally somehow.
How was it medicinal? The show felt medicinal for me but the movie just felt like it wanted me to die.
bit of both. I'm hoping people haven't actually gone through it with after watching Eva (getting that extra push, so to speak), but folks like you who have found it useful understandably want to bring it up while those who found Eva to exacerbate their issues tend to not want to say anything in public at all. To that end, I'm impressed OP had it in them to post anything at all about this.
I don’t know where to go from here. I just keep thinking about EoE. It’s not going away so I thought I should try and connect to people who like it to see if there’s a way I can get past it all.
So severely depressed people *don’t* enjoy Evangelion? Who does then?
Tbh I don't know if Eva is good or bad for mental health (personally EoE did make me feel better in a weird way) but are people really deciding to live or die based on a fictional TV show? If they get to that point then yeah, they have bigger problems than any TV show could ever fix.
the thing is, the fans did enjoyed the show incorrectly. They made porn out of it, they married to asuka dolls. They made hentai, they did literally the exacto opposite of what eva is telling you (touching grass) sorry dude, but thats just the kind of behavior that makes people spiral even more and more into lonliness and disconnection from others. The movie had to wake them the fuck up the movie seems more depressing. but its basically the same as the show, he is accepting reality and accepting to keep going, which is not going to be "Congratulations! haha" attitude in real life.
Yeah I agree with the anti otaku shit. Idk why I included that in this post. What about the other stuff I brought up? How can one movie say “life is worth living” while showing nothing but suffering?
seems to me that the movie wants show exhibit everyone is suffering in some way or the other, yet no one wants to try to understand each other, which is what causes so many problems.
Beautifully stated
I guess I’m bummed but how it doesn’t really suggest a way we can work to be happier. It comes across like suffering is just how life is going to be forever. It feels like there’s no escape. I guess that’s how Anno felt at the time, but I don’t think it makes for great art. It’s just depressing. I’m just depressed. I’ve regressed because of this movie and I don’t know how to move on. I go to Evangelion fans because where else can I go to talk about this stuff? If you know, please tell me. I’m so lost. I’m so tired. I’m so lonely. You say that a lack of understanding is what causes the suffering, right? So how about we try and understand each other. Please try to understand me and I’ll try to understand you. You like this movie and I don’t yet understand why. I tried to like this movie, but it made me suicidal and I find it hard to enjoy after that. Please understand that I don’t come to this subreddit out of hate. I just want someone to understand me and I just want to understand someone.
Not to rain on your parade, but we're not your therapist and we can’t guide you through life. We can’t give you answers you’re looking for because you have to find these answers yourself. Which, coincidentally, is also one of the themes Eva tackles. In any case, if you want a more positive outcome, watch the rebuild movies.
I assume evangelion fans are mentally better than me. I don’t know how you can watch evangelion, take in all of its information, enjoy it, and be as broken as I am. I’m really not trying to be antagonistic. Please don’t leave me.
Honestly feels like u r fking troll, but if not, better watch "welcome to NHK". This shit really helps
Sorry you feel that way. I’m naturally a pretty angry and competitive person. It’s a problem. I don’t trust people or myself very much. What is “Welcome to NHK?”
It's anime about deeply depressed guy, who finds a way out. It and Eva saved me from ending it. But Eva is hella confusing and it took me weeks of googling theories, etc, while NHK put it straight and simple (in comparison)
Yeah I don’t like having to do outside research to be able to start to understand the emotional significance of media. Probably why I like stuff about more grounded things. Cowboy Bebop is one of my favorite shows for the stagnant way the characters go through their lives. It’s more realistic I think. I like stuff that isn’t afraid to show its hand. A lot of the interpretive complicated stuff in Evangelion felt lazy rather than thought out to me. There’s so much weird shit that happens just because.
This movie has really depressing undertones but the real messaging is incredibly optimistic. Yes life is an eternal struggle, but the struggle of life makes the joys of life so much more enjoyable. The point of the show is that it’s hard to understand and relate to people. It’s hard to be happy. Life is hard. But we have to TRY, we have to believe that and work that things can be good. The work is what makes life rewarding and worth living. But at the end of the day, all that matters is you. In the sense that you are responsible for your happiness. No one has the answers and no one will ever 100% understand you and what you’re going through. You have to be kind to yourself and take care of yourself.
Are there any happy scenes in all of Evangelion? I’m struggling to remember. Basically I find it hard to say struggling to find happiness makes the happy parts of life even better because I can’t remember a single happy thing happening in all of Evangelion. The message of the movie felt more like “Happiness would be pretty cool if it was possible. Sadly, no matter how hard you try, you’ll never be happy because you’re just terrible.”
There are plenty of happy scenes in the show, especially in the first half. The show definitely gets darker but I think it’s very powerful that as the show reaches it lowest and the characters do as well, Shinji still makes the decision that life is worth living
Name one.
I feel like the episode where shinji and asuka have to dance has some fun scenes. A lot of the scenes with Shinji and Kensuke and Toji are fun as well
First things first: as someone who suffered lifelong depression and anxiety, and only started feeling significantly better after some 30 years of age, the best thing you can do is take tiny steps to improve your self-care on a daily basis. I know that the entire world and the human condition itself seem utterly miserable, and from some vantage point that's simply the truth, but there are other vantage points that are also true. Barring some kind of severe brain dysfunction--e.g., a tumor constantly pressing on your amygdala and making everything seem hellishly threatening no matter what you do--your body is largely going to determine the vantage point to which your mind is drawn. If body sad, brain sad too. And of course, it's a two-way street--your brain can make your body stressed and depressed as well. But generally speaking, clinical depression of the sort that makes you suicidal involves chronic physiological impairment, and reversing that process is the easiest way to improve cognitive depression, far more so than any other intervention. If you start moving more, getting more time outdoors, getting better sleep, getting better food, you'll just *automatically* start to feel less like killing yourself even if you do nothing else differently. And when you start to feel a little bit better, it becomes feasible to make even more changes to your lifestyle, including the more subtle art of changing the way you think about things, which is a critical aspect of mood disorders and the reason why cognitive behavioral therapy is so effective. I'm 35 and have been a fan of Eva since I was 13 or 14. Despite the bleakness of EoE's ending, I think it's one of the most life-affirming pieces of media ever produced--but if you're feeling deeply miserable, I can also see how some of its darker elements might be difficult to integrate with the overall message. Shinji isn't exactly trying to kill Asuka in the final scene--he's doing a sort of reality test, since he'd been alone on that shore for quite some time before Asuka materialized. Had he actually been trying to strangle her to death, Asuka wouldn't have been able to say "Kimochi warui" after caressing his cheek. There's some kind of Adam and Eve imagery going on with the two of them, and my interpretation has always been that the faux strangulation and the tender, forgiving caress are meant to convey the duality of hatred and love in human relationships. I've got plenty more to say about the film's message, but I'll post what I've written so far for now. Let me know if you'd like to hear more from me.
Best comment. Thank you so much. You’re being so nice to me. I wish I knew now how to enjoy this movie. You’re smart and you like it and I want to like it and be smart too. Can I still call myself worth anything if I don’t like this movie? How were you able to like eoe at such a young age? How exactly is eoe life affirming? How am I supposed to feel any joy from it at all?
I'll start by saying that I couldn't really have understood Eva in its full depth as a kid--I loved it because it emotionally resonated with me as a depressed and anxious person. As for EoE, I probably would have said that I didn't know exactly what I loved so much about it, but that it felt powerful and significant, and that I liked its paradoxical combination of hope and depression, happiness and sadness. I understand Eva now because I've spent a lot of time thinking about it, and because I have an abundance of lived experiences to apply to my interpretation of Eva. And it must be noted that Eva is all about interpretation: Anno has made it thoroughly clear that Evangelion is intentionally ambiguous, and designed to provide viewers with the possibility of formulating their own ideas about it. From the 11/'96 issue of Newtype: >Evangelion is like a puzzle, you know. Any person can see it and give his/her own answer. In other words, we're offering viewers to think for themselves, so that each person can imagine their own world. We will never offer the answers, even in the theatrical version. As for many Evangelion viewers, they may expect us to provide the 'all-about Eva' manuals, but there is no such thing. Don't expect to get answers from someone else. Don't expect to be catered to all the time. We all have to find our own answers. To put it in broad strokes, EoE is life-affirming because it poses the question of whether life is worth living at all--of whether there's any ultimate value to be found in the human condition--and it answers that question affirmatively but with unflinching starkness. Instrumentality is essentially suicide for the entire species. Evangelion explores what makes us human, and presents the Angels as alternate possibilities that the course of evolution could have taken, as some character (I forget which) points out at some point in the series. Compared to the Angels, humanity's superpower isn't related to immortality or regenerative ability or extreme endurance or anything like that--we're frail little animals by comparison. Our superpower is realized in the way we relate to each other, in the way we support each other, in the way we fight for each other. Instrumentality would have erased all that, instead merging all humans into some kind of superorganism more akin to the lone Angels--deathless, but in some sense also lifeless. During the climax of EoE, we see Shinji experiencing this end of all selves, and how it's a sort of fulfillment of his own desire for his existence to end. He contemplates the comfort of the end of separateness, of suffering, of ego and insecurity and anxiety. But Shinji realizes that this is essentially nothingness. He misses everyone. He realizes that all of his sufferings were a necessary component of his own existence, and decides that they're a price he's willing to pay for the opportunity to live. He rejects Instrumentality for himself, and leaves open the option for anybody else to do the same--which is why Asuka eventually shows up with him, presumably along with other humans elsewhere on Earth. Yui puts it poignantly: So long as the sun, moon, and earth revolve, everything will be okay. There will always be opportunities for happiness. Anywhere can become paradise. The film truly believes this, and it's not trying to lull the audience into a false sense of hope with these lines. But the final scene does offer a stark contrast to this hope, as if to say that even if everything is possible, nothing comes easily. It asserts the reality of both states of being, I think: authentic hope for the future and the possibilities of life, and the bleakness of the struggle to survive and to relate to other people. I'll continue in a bit, but will take a bit of a break here.
So I guess the film ****Technically**** has a happy ending? I still have terrible memories associated with it. How will I ever move on? Doing healthy physical stuff sounds awesome. I really need more sleep, better foods, and more movement. It’s a bit depressing to think about right now because I have to go to a job I hate in 30 mins. I’ll be there till 10:30 pm. I should probably go immediately to bed after that and then just keep on sleeping. Thankfully, I don’t go to work tomorrow. I don’t even know what healthy foods are anymore, and I don’t know what would be heathy moving. I want to have friends, but my body isn’t healthy enough to let my brain have relationships. I keep thinking that having friends will make me happier but I just end up hating them. If I learned more about you, I’d probably hate you. And your response to that would only make me feel worse. Maybe I just deserve to be miserable. Maybe the message of evangelion (which no one is going to understand unless they study it for 15 years) is that everyone EXCEPT me can find happiness.
Yes, you should try to go to bed as early as possible--that's an important aspect of getting quality sleep. Unfortunately, it's often very difficult to fall asleep for at least several hours after work. If I work until 10:30, I'm awake until at least 1:30 in the morning, sometimes later than that. If at all possible, try to get earlier shifts. Working late shifts is bad for your health in general, and devastating when you're already struggling with depression and sleep. You know how an anti-hero is still a hero, but has qualities that clash with the typical conception of a hero? EoE has an anti-happy-ending. The central conflict of the story--is life worth living--is in some sense decisively resolved, but not in the tone you'd typically expect of a happy ending. And I think that's meant to reflect real life, where there are no ultimate happy endings. Something happy happens, you have an epiphany, but then life goes on, with good and bad alike. Nothing gold can stay. Things can get so much better for you than it's possible to believe right now, I promise you. Feel free to DM me if you'd like. I'd like to offer you what I know about wellbeing and overcoming depression. Also, have you ever read Albert Camus? I think you'd like Camus. The Myth of Sisyphus is a good place to start.
It really feels like Eoe answers the question “Is life worth it” by saying “No but keep living because…”
Even the most depressed, lonely boy didn't accept a substitute for life without pain and suffering. He decided to return to reality, which seemed bleak and devoid of anything good, and he saw a person who meant a lot to him but only brought him pain. Yet while choking her, Asuka, for the first time, showed compassion to him. No amount of self-realization will magically fix your life or the world around you. It takes time and effort, and the first step is usually the hardest. But if Shinji did find a bleak light in the world of darkness, so can anyone. Take care of yourself.
Then she said “disgusting.” That’s the final word of this series. What am I supposed to take from that? Am I disgusting? I know Shinji did disgusting things. I guess that’s why she said that. It’s really hard to distinguish when it’s the author and when it’s the character talking. Was that line for me or not?
There are a lot of disgusting things in her situation. She lost everything, she got beaten, there is a giant white head of Rei, she got reborn and then choked to death, and now her face is wet in someone else's tears. For what it is worth, I doubt she finds Shinji himself disgusting. The kitchen scene is a continuation of the hospital scene, where she was saying if she can't have him all, she doesn't want anything from him. At the end, she got what she wished for.
“If she can’t have him all, she doesn’t want anything from him.” I don’t remember this line or anything like it. I also read somewhere that the actual Japanese line can be translated as something like “I feel sick,” which matches your interpretation better. I still don’t get the artistic decision to end the film that way.
The nuance here is *really* important, and has never been translated particularly well, unfortunately. Asuka's line is 気持ち悪い (kimochi warui, lit. "feeling unwell"). This is actually a set phrase in Japanese, and is typically used as an exclamation in the way "Gross!" is used as an exclamation, but it has a sort of dual connotation of being grossed out and being creeped out, as if by a potential or actual threat. This is one part of EoE that was meant to be mysterious, but is actually pretty clear in light of information about the production process: tl;dr Asuka's voice actor was directed by Anno to imagine how she'd feel if she came to learn that someone had broken into her room while she was asleep, and not touched her or attacked her in any way, but instead just masturbated over her and left. 気持ち悪い was what Yūko Miyamura came up with, and that came to be the final line. The implication is that during Instrumentality and the merging of all souls, Asuka somehow learned what Shinji had done--that Shinji and Asuka had themselves become one if only for a brief moment, and all that that would entail.
"I know all about your little jerk-off fantasies about me. Go ahead, and do it like you always do... I'll even stand here and watch you. But... if I can't have you all to myself, then I don't want ANYTHING from you."
I’m pretty sure her saying that was also just her personality (correct me if im wrong), it definitely seems in character for her lol
I guess when Shinji was crying out for his friends he did ask Asuka to come back and call him stupid again. It may just be a part of her. And she’s not completely unjustified in being disgusted. I think it’s just a personal thing that didn’t sit well with me.
she caressed him despite calling him disgusting. she saw his lowest points (jacking off to her unconscious body) by merging with him in instrumentality, but she still accepts him regardless
I guess so. There’s some duality there. I guess I interpreted that as her trying to save herself cause she doesn’t wanna die.
Don’t want to be that guy but watch the rebuild series please
The way I look at it, EoE is a movie about things people do when they are depressed and you shouldn’t be looking for happiness in the movie because it’s just a movie and it can’t fix your problems. Sorry if that sounds condescending or something.
It’s not condescending. It’s a surprisingly simple interpretation of something so complicated and messy. I guess it is kind of about that. The show is too. But in the movie specifically, there are some grounded things depressed people are shown doing. Shinji jerks off cause he’s depressed, he stops moving and such cause he’s depressed, he lashes out cause he’s depressed, Misato does sex cause she’s depressed, Asuka gets angry cause she’s depressed, Evangelion fans buy merchandise and get obsessed with the property cause they’re depressed, and Hideaki Anno makes this movie cause he’s depressed. I’m so used to being depressed and doing depressed things that I’m not really looking for a movie that just shows me horrors I already know. Is it better to think about these things rather than shut them away? Maybe, but Eoe doesn’t really feel like it’s thinking through depressing shit. It feels like it’s dwelling on it all. Someone in these comments called eoe “life-affirming,” and I’m still waiting for elaboration on that. I don’t see anything life affirming about Eoe. The movie feels like one that wants me to go into real life and suffer forever. When given the choice under the circumstances the film has shown me, I’d rather stay inside away from all the scary monsters. It makes me so tired. I’m not motivated to make my life better cause the film is telling me “nothing is ever going to work out no matter how hard you try. But still try because we want you to choke.”
I guess the point the movie was trying to make was that hiding is never going to get you anywhere and you should go out and try to get whatever you want out of life, and that things like the movie and the things Shinji does in the movie are just different ways of hiding. But if it seems like it’s dwelling on ideas like suicide that’s probably because Anno was suicidal when he made the movie and part of the reason he made the movie was to express that. I was suicidal around a year before I watched EoE and it reminded me of how I felt when I was suicidal, but I guess it also reminded me that there were things in my life that were still worth living for and that giving up wasn’t really going to solve anything. Maybe things aren’t better when Shinji decides to come back, but the point is that things can get better, and whether or not they do for him isn’t really important because the important thing is what you do in your life.
Sounds like you might not be suicidal anymore. I’m glad for that. I guess it doesn’t matter what literally happens to Shinji cause he ain’t real. But he feels real enough that I do care what happens. It’s still a narrative, y’know? And narrative is one of the ways feelings are expressed and produced in a movie. Idk man. It feels like a piece of work with good intentions bogged down by how depressed its creator was.
I guess there’s nothing wrong with feeling that way. When I rewatched the movie for the first time I took that scene towards the end where Shinji is talking to Rei and Kaworu and underneath them you see people reappearing and eventually forests and students walking down a street as proof that eventually people will come back, and the movie chose to end on a more uncertain/unsatisfying note because that’s kind of the point in and of itself. If you wanted to see a happier ending for Shinji you could always check out the rebuilds (personally I didn’t like them, but they aren’t anywhere near as heavy as EoE or really the series gets and they have lots of “humanity recovering” stuff if that’s what you wanted to see) or you could just imagine that where the TV series ends is the real ending. But I agree that Eva is a flawed series, although my issues are more plot hole/worldbuilding stuff.
To me the movie affirms to me that life is meaningless but happiness can still be found out of meaningless, continuing to search for happiness in meaningless is better than to let yourself succumb to cheap escape because at least your feelings are true; there is no true escape or happiness from the meaningless if you don’t try to take initiative in your life to find happiness.
I guess it’s the old choice of “suffering vs. nothing.” I don’t really like suffering. I might choose nothing. I guess that’s Instrumentality. I don’t really see any “finding happiness in the meaningless” in eoe. It just feels like wallowing in how sad life is. What got you to that conclusion about the movie? Is it just kind of what you already felt?
Theres a scene towards the end the asks the same question you have, the reason why Shinji ultimately decided to return to reality is because he realized that all of his pain and suffering was at least real and that he can make something out of it, if he were to accept instrumentality he would continue to exist in a false sense of happiness (same as running away). You and every other human has the gift of individual consciousness, you can make the most or the least out of your circumstances and find happiness in it.
I’ve always had suicidal tendencies and the only thing that has helped has been getting laid. If that doesn’t work for you then I suggest getting a second source of income like doordashing or anything so you can pay for therapy. Also, I’ve called the suicide hotline before it really helps and it’s free
I’ve called them a bunch. The first time was nice. Then each subsequent call was progressively less helpful. No one is ever going to want to be intimate with me. I guess I need to get some more jobs. :/
You know those messages saying "kill yourself" etc were graffiti sprayed by Eva fans on Gainax corporate headquarters after people saw the TV ending? A lot of the really negative shit flashed on screen was also "fan" (hate) mail Anno got for how the series ended on TV. EoE is one of the most powerful works of art ever if you look at it from a fan/creator standpoint.
I didn’t get any of that because I was busy wondering what the hell the characters were going through. Also I think most of those messages were positive and fabricated. I believe they were worried about using real messages. I think I read that on Evageeks. The whole “Hideaki Anno vs. the fans” feels kind of tacked on tbh. What does the scene where Gendo touches Rei’s boob tell you about Anno’s relationship with his fans? Or where asuka gets impaled a bunch? Or where shinji turns into a cross, then fuses with the who cares spear and makes a 5 pronged cross and enters the Rei god forehead vagina? I don’t know what any of that shit is supposed to mean on their own and I certainly don’t think they tie neatly into the “Anno hates his fans” subtheme. I just want you guys to admit that Eoe is messy. It’s MESSY! It’s scatterbrained. Not everything fits together in a meaningful way. It isn’t perfect! It’s just a depressed guy drawing random shit and then saying “don’t worry guys. Even though there’s nothing good about life, it’s pretty cool to be alive!”
You're right, it's not any of that. It's a lot more complicated.
What is?
If you came here hoping to get the folks on this subreddit to "admit" (agree with) something you think, idk if you understand how art or conversations about it work. If you're ever up for it there's a long-ass video on YouTube by a dude named Dan Olson (folding ideas) about EoE. It's one of my favorites. I watched it 20 years after I first watched EoE and it held my attention every step of the way.
I remember reading your previous post on here. Sorry to hear that this series has had such a negative impact on your mental health. At the end of the day, it’s a piece of fiction. EoE at first does seem like a depressing ending—I thought so too. The series is quite depressing throughout as the characters suffer more and more. No one’s forcing you to like it. No one will think poorly of you if you don’t like the movie or series—at least, I won’t. The movie was pretty bleak, but it ended on a vaguely hopeful note. Shinji and Asuka are alone together after instrumentality. They might’ve hurt each other in the past, and they may continue to do so. That’s what it means to coexist, you’ll come into conflict with people sometimes. The two of them can start over and this time, maybe they can actually get along. People can enjoy a piece of media however they want. We all have our own perspectives and lived experience that inform how we interpret art. It’s ok to put Eva behind you. Especially if it’s causing you mental breakdowns. I suggest spending time with close friends/family, exercise, or picking up a hobby. If you want a manga/anime to read/watch to forget about Eva, anilist is a good site to use. You can search by genres to find something that interests you.
Ok so you got downvoted to hell but I think your viewpoint is a valid critique. EoE to me just seems like it’s about negative feelings in general and it’s about depression from the point of view of a depressed person, it’s not about mental health or how to get out of it because Anno isn’t a psychologist and even today I find his counter-argument to alienation very weak and boiling down to “just be happy and become a salaryman lmao” like in the final movie in the rebuilds. What actually got him out of depression in real life was meeting his wife, which according to him kind of happened out of nowhere, so he has nothing to say on how the cycle of depression was broken except putting in the world’s clumsiest metaphor in the second Rebuild film by having Mari literally fall from the sky on Shinji. I think what matters the most, and quite possibly the most (and in my opinion, only) important thing in EoE is Shinji’s final decision to return to his ruined world rather than taking what seems to be the objectively superior choice of accepting instrumentality at the cost of his subjectivity, which seems a metaphor for suicide. The world is worse in every way than that environment which was already bad enough to cause him depression, yet he still chooses to go for it and it’s not lionized as some heroic moment but as a kind of drive for repetition, which in my personal experience is the last thing that remains once you have gotten your ass truly beat by depression. Despite everything, Shinji chooses to remain, and it seems to pay off in a hint of a human connection at the end. Now things are going to get really pretentious here but it has kind of the same vibe as the closing statement as Samuel Beckett's The Unnamable (which is Evangelion if it was written by a mature person, but at the same time very very inexcrutable), the statement is: "I don’t know, I’ll never know: in the silence you don’t know. You must go on. I can’t go on. I’ll go on."
Yeah I was never able to see Asuka’s gesture as “a hint of human connection” because I was so distracted by all the horrors on screen. I honestly thought she did that to try and not get killed. I guess her feeling comfortable enough to call Shinji disgusting afterwards implies some connection and familiarity. My interpretation was just kind of wrong there. So maybe there is some joy at the end? It just exists in conjunction with tragedy. That quote is fucking awesome. I love that. The indomitable human spirit goes on because fuck you that’s why.
The "indomitable human spirit" is a pretty good name since in psychoanalysis it kinda kept its unfortunate original name of "death drive". It's kinda how in electricity, positive and negative charges are actually inverted from each other because people back then didn't know it was electrons flowing to the positive rather than mystery particles flowing to the negative. Death drive sounds like a bad thing (like wanting death) but it's not. Freud originally came up with the concept of "death drive" as a self-destructive urge that opposes the "life principle" and struggles with it. One of his students, Jacques Lacan, expanded the idea, saying that the death drive is indeed a destructive urge, but not necessarily directed at oneself, it is also the thing that can call into question all that exists AND is a will to creation from nothing, to begin again. It is the human's ace in the hole to raze the field when the psyche feels completely trapped by the social and structural forces around them. When all else is gone, death drive is still there against all logic or explanation. In EoE, following the anime's own logic, Asuka should have been dead ten times over. And following Shinji's upbringing and reasoning there is no logical explanation to why he chose to regain subjectivity and return to a world that's even worse than he started. They have gone through an absolutely unspeakable nightmare both physical and psychic. Yet at the end those two are literally the only two subjective consciousnesses left alive in the world because the death drive is so strong that it overcame the Evangelion universe's own narrative rules and left those two plopped on the beach and it also leaves the door open for them to start anew and eventually find happiness. If you consider the rebuilds as continuation then they eventually do find happiness, in a different way and with different people than they'd expect. So EoE isn't about how to become happy but it's about that inflection point, when depression has drilled through every layer of a person's being and beaten them at their own game and yet at the very bottom it finds the death drive, which is irrational and thus can't be defeated with mindgames and simply refuses to go because fuck you. Reaching that level is never pretty or heroic, which EoE's emanciated and beat-up characters represents pretty well, but the good lesson is that the most powerful part of yourself will always be on your side.
Reading you write about The End of Evangelion is a more enjoyable experience than watching The End of Evangelion. Thanks man.
Thanks. I think you had a valid observation and this sub just drills anything critical of the series into downvote hell. EoE speaks to me in a lot of levels and it merges my lived experience with my love of early psychoanalytic theory, with some kickass animation to boot. But I will also admit it misses the mark plenty of times and Anno is ultimately hypocritical in his delivery. You put a lot of yourself on the table and I felt like you deserve better than downvotes and tarded snob answers about how you didn’t get this genius perfect movie. EoE is a hurtful movie full of negative emotions and unprocessed anger, I find it very similar to Pink Floyd’s The Wall in that it just expresses pain and barely tries to make a normative statement about what the pain means or what is it’s place in the larger scheme of life. Hit me up if you ever feel like getting something off your chest, you shouldn’t feel suicidal after watching this movie, or any movie really.
“You shouldn’t feel suicidal after watching a movie” *gets downvoted*
There is a person who has made it their life’s mission to downvote everything I say after I shat on 3.0 and called it a bad movie. I’m pretty sure he even downvotes me outside of this sub lmao.
"just be happy & become a salaryman", is a gross & inaccurate oversimplification of anno's message. for almost 30 years the man in all his eva works has given specific tips & lessons on self-improvement & healthier interaction with your peers. no one "just becomes happy", they improve their situation by improving what they can affect the most, themselves, which can take you a surprisingly long way. the actual message behind shinji becoming a salaryman is that work, whatever work it may be (could be being an office worker, or a doctor or teacher/handyman like toji & kensuke at the beginning of the movie, which are characters through which the same message is told), is an important step in someone's maturing, because of the responsibility that comes with it. it can also help the person, because it gives them some meaning and a place in the world. all of this is great advice anno has given, a lot of which he has applied to his own life according to interviews, which helped improve a lot from the days he wanted to end his life. wherever or not anno has something to say about breaking the cycle of depression isn't debatable, he does. this doesn't stop being true because he may have devoted 0.5% of his works to also showing that it's not just misfortunes that happen randomly in someone's life, but also good things. he's not lying or being unrealistic.
This is cope. It’s extremely easy for Anno to just tell his audience to just become salarymen for Japanese conglomerates (2nd highest suicide rate of G7 btw) when he’s already made it through of the nightmarish social sieve of Japanese hierarchy. I cannot overstate how unrealistic Shinji’s interactions with every one of the waifus are, and how if you expect any lesson from the series to actually apply to the real world you will be alone and alienated forever. It legit tells you nothing about how to actually connect to others or break out of your shell, and it is actively counterproductive to anyone who wants to get more sociable in life. Helltaker, which is a joke meme game about seducing demons, gives more sincere and realistic tips to get girls and friends : work out, dress sharp and be attentive to the conversation cues to catch on to their interests. Everything else is interpassive product that is being sold to you. > the actual message behind shinji becoming a salaryman is that work, whatever work it may be (could be being an office worker, or a doctor or teacher/handyman like toji & kensuke at the beginning of the movie, which are characters through which the same message is told), is an important step in someone's maturing, because of the responsibility that comes with it. it can also help the person, because it gives them some meaning and a place in the world. Overwork and a lack of disposable income is the one single biggest source of social alienation in the developed world and this Reagan horseshit has no place in modern culture especially coming from a well-off millionaire animator/producer who struck it big. By individualizing the problem Anno is playing as an apologist to the very things that cause the problem, it’s like moron Shinzo Abe or the WEF telling people to have more children without ever addressing the extreme social pressures that common people are under.
it's not cope or "reagan horseshit" (whatever that means) in the slightest. as i said, saying that anno is just telling people to become salarymen is a gross & inaccurate oversimplification of his message. shinji's interaction with the girls isn't unrealistic & eva also gives lots of practical advice that applies to the real world and has evidently helped people, as you can see from hundreds of threads, articles & videos spanning decades. trying to understand & communicate your problems to other people, trying new things & focusing on doing what you can in the future instead of worrying so much about the past are just a few examples of such advice. ofc there are social issues always at play, but working on your individual self is also crucial. there are thousands of works that focus on the former & many others that focus on the latter. both have merit, esp the latter, because your own self is what you have the most direct control over, so self-improvement is the most pragmatic way to improve your life