Not sure what else you want : I think overall they answered every questions…. Although to be fair, you have to watch the OVA end of evangelion too. But I pretty much consider it part of the show.

• What is Gendo plan ? Answered

• What is Seele plan/human instrumentality project ? Answered

• What are the Angels plan ? Answered.

• What caused the 2nd impact ? Answered

• What is the being crucified in terminal dogma ? Answered

• What happened to Naoko Akagi ? Answered

• What happened to Yui Ikari ? Answered

• Who is Rei ? Answered

• What are angels ? Answered

• What are evas? Answered

The answer are sometimes a bit obtuse but that’s pretty much a given in any mystery/conspiracy show. In fact Evangelion is actually pretty straightforward compared to True Detective, X-Files,. It’s all within the show, they wrap it up in 26 episodes of 23 minutes + one 1h30 ova, it’s relatively coherent as long as you accept the show premise. In several case they give you point blank the answer.

I guess the only thing that isn’t “answered” is “who” killed Kaji… and that’s because there is no real who. It’s a nameless seele operetive. I’d say it’s more poor storytelling than anything else. There was no big mystery to it. The director confirmed it. Kaji went against their plans and was terminated as a result. The “oh it’s you” was simply to show it was someone who worked within the organization. Poor storytelling that fed conspiracionist reading.

I suppose you can consider the meaning behind the religious iconography is unclear …but it’s pretty much because there is NO deeper meaning. They picked a few Christian symbols that tied in their mythology without much care for coherence. Angels explode as cross of fire because it looks cool. The Dead Sea scrolls are talked about because it’s old as fuck and it gives gravita. They talk about Adam and Lilith because they were the first beings created by God and again they wanted a mythological tone/show we were dealing with the origin of time. The Sepiroth tree gave a roadmap to the Battle with Angel/gave them names and looked mystic/cool as fuck (and also tie in with the divine creation aspect which is the canvas of the plot : I mean the show IS called a new genesis…). The Longinus spear was simply the most mythical weapon used in the Bible and it again tied in the whole cross motif.

The iconography of evangelion is shallow as fuck. The meaning is twofold : does this christian iconography tie in with the conceptual idea we’re trying to convey ( old book, old being, weapon, etc…) ? Does is sound/look cool ? Yes to both ? Then it’s in. Simple as that. You didn’t miss anything.

If you really REALLY want to nitpick, the “first ancestral race” is a piece of lore never included/explained within the show. And I find it almost useless. I learned about it years later and it barely changed anything to the big picture. Sur it adds some background but the show mostly works without it. Only the lance “sort of” requires it.

If you can bear the tedium of the last two episodes of the TV show/complete with the OVA end of evangelion , you’re left with a show that has interesting dynamic between flawed characters, deal in a fairly crude and realistic way with themes such as depression and trauma but also explore other theme like the difficulty of communication in general and specifically parent/children relation in a slightly sophomoric but overall honest way, has original and relatively coherent lore, awesome soundtrack and cool battle with mechas. As far as pop culture goes, I’d say that make the show a timeless classic. Anyone who wants more than that is not only looking in the wrong book but in the wrong library.

You're right and this is something I'll actually have to quickly edit and correct there. Thanks

You wrote a lot and I agree these things would add much valuable information that was put aside. Thank you!

Yeah, except you would never find it in that case.

So appealing to shakespeare's authority as a quick determiner of "good work" wouldn't fly.

Art can't make an example about an arbitrary human construct by accident.

Like I agree with the statement... but it's a little late to the party...

Anno has always been a more intuitive filmmaker. He nailed the feelings of the characters in the show.

Always good to put something like "let's call them robots for now" at the start of the article. Avoids the "ActHuAlLy" ppl

It's not bad, but there's so much unrealized potential.

Just from Sartre and Heidegger and Kierkegaard there's more that could be explored. You mention Schopenhaur, but you could even take it a step further with Nietzsche!

Sartre's Bad faith: Shinji chooses not to act because he's afraid of the responsibility of freedom, but denies his refusal to act by claiming he's powerless. Asuka gets Shinji to 'act out' a kiss because she has some level of emotional attachment or attraction she doesn't want to address. Misato realizes the cruelty of forcing children to go through war and her role in it, as well the acknowledgement that she could refuse to force the children, but rejects the responsibility by claiming she's following orders and then attempting to act like a parent. Gendo attempting to bring about Instrumentality is a way for him to avoid the responsibility and knowledge that he is still a being capable of love, and what he 'owes' Shinji as a father.

Sartre's Gaze: So much of this show involves Gaze, the fear that comes from being objectified by another and having the totality of your existence reduced to a single facet as well as people using Gaze to promote images of themselves. Asuka has basically spent her entire life trying to use Gaze to convince everyone (including herself) that she's an excellent pilot and thus deserving of love. Rei, primarily in Rebuild, concerns herself with trying to 'appear' and thus be human like others by attempting to mimic the proper affect. Shinji has spent his whole dang life being subject to the Gaze of others, especially Gendo and Asuka in multiple situations where his humanity has been reduced to his ability/willingness to pilot an EVA.

Heidegger's Anxiety and Dasein: "A human being is an existence that is aware of its own awareness," is a simplified example of how he describes Dasein - a Being that is capable of contemplating its own existence with the ability to shape that existence with the knowledge it will one day end. Dasein is a being that can experience Anxiety, the temporary disruption of everyday existence in the Fallen word in which an individual must choose how to live their life and create meaning in the face of the knowledge they will one day die. And they must choose whether to become Authentic by creating their own set of values or return to Fallenness by letting themselves be absorbed by (in Shinji and Gendo's case, music as well as) everyday living.

Shinji and Gendo (as revealed in the Rebuilds) are both individuals who experience frequent bouts of Anxiety, but in their youth they reject Authenticity and Fall into just doing everyday tasks without care and isolating themselves because that's easier than being Authentic. Shinji's attempts to be Authentic, to choose for himself what he desires and how to live his life are what lead to his departure from NERV (after he tries to destroy it) and the (partially realized) Third Impact of the Rebuilds - and eventually the decision to remake the world.

Kierkegaard's Either/Or: There's a whole section in Either/Or about how choice is required of living beings, how personality can be crafted from choice or subsumed when the individual refuses to choose out of the belief that regret is inevitable. In addition, the section includes how an individual who rejects choice while living attempts to delude themselves into thinking both options remain available, but in so doing only makes himself miserable. This is Shinji (and Gendo when he was younger). He rejected the act of choosing for himself because he doesn't really have goals or desires, because he's not Authentic, and in so doing ends up in a lot of bad scenarios or ends up acting impulsively and seemingly without reason because he thinks his actions will always end in regret.

Nietzsche: There's so much potential here, the aphorism about how being loved can be disgusting or unsettling because the person being loved is full of self-loathing (Shinji, Gendo); because they see themselves as unlovable. The idea that every philosophy (and anime) is an attempt for the author to justify their own existence and that 'all writing is done in [the] blood [of the writer]', (Anno's 'journey' through depression). The idea that being known by another, and their attempt to understand is painful because understanding and empathy are their own forms of suffering (the hedgehog's dilemma and why Gendo/Shinji/Asuka/Misato put up so many emotional barriers).

The entire dang series could be seen as a promise/threat of Eternal Recurrence and the problem of Nihilism. Shinji and Gendo have built their lives on a basis of fear and rejection of life, a desire to never do any of it again, a rejection of pain and in its essence life itself - they become Nihilistic in a negative sense seeking only the end. Kaworu accepts the pain because of the love and joy it enables, he accepts life, and has literally lived his life repeatedly without end (until 3.0+1.0) in pursuit of helping Shinji learn how to do the same - Kaworu recognizes that while there is no definite objective meaning in the universe, meaning can still exist and creates/seeks his own. It is only in 3.0+1.0 after Shinji learns how to accept his life, to accept life and wish to do it all over again, to will the Eternal Recurrence, that he becomes able to literally break into a new reality. And the idea that acts can exist beyond good and evil (especially when they come from 'love') comes up repeatedly, it's why Shinji tries to save Rei and causes the partial Third Impact, it's the idea behind Gendo's pursuit of Instrumentality, it's why Kaworu spends who knows how many lifetimes trying to save Shinji.

Even after all of this, there's still stuff - just in the authors presented here - that could be further explored.

Someone flagged this comment as harrasment lmfaooo

Many things are entirely provable.

Using the book "how to lie with statistics" as an example of the importance of being skeptical is just wierd. The author will do well to remember just who Darrell Huff was, a skeptical statistician hired by the tobacco industry claiming cancer from smoking was a statistical artifact. You can't use his book as an example for why one should be skeptical. It's just plain stupid. A better alternative would be to use Cohen's paper of the significant p-value of brain activity inside a dead salmon. Please don't make facts about true or not, but add the degree of likelihood and effect size to the argument.

Everyone knows Penpen is the real best girl. Just a penguin that likes to take baths and drink beer, none of that trauma.

Philosophy can manifest in any form of art or media. After all, anime is just an animated story. No different than a book made into a documentary. It's up to the writer.

Such an American thing to say…

Didn’t fancy replying to my last response?

"2 + 2 = 4" is an objective fact if we agree on the fact that "+" signifies the operation of addition and not, let's say, string concatenation, which will result in "2 + 2 = 22".

The crux of the matter is that we no longer have a basis of facts on which to rely, to provide a cohesive story for the Kantian questions: what can I know? what ought I to do? what may I hope for? what is man?. One might even argue that we never had [1].

[1] Bruno Latour, We Have Never Been Modern

Yes. I recognize all the criticisms people have here because it is super fucking true. Actually, my first thread here where I don't feel completely clueless abt the subject. NGE doesn't cut very deep into actual philosophy or anything like that, despite that it indeed does resonate in an amazing way with people who were/are depressed, myself included. I would say that despite all NGE's flaws in writing and it's confusing and random lore it's one my favorite pieces of media. Etched in my soul too!

Outside the scope of this post, but would be interested in hearing some of your other anime recommendations that do have deeper philosophical characters/stories.

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LOL -- is this a meta-reply? Are you applying your definition of "death of the author" here to decide to interpret what I said as whatever it is you want it to mean?

That is funny, and makes an interesting point, but I don't actually believe you read my response to have an opposite meaning to what "I intended". You might interpret it slightly differently than how I might have written it, but death of the author doesn't give carte blanche to willfully lie about how you received it.

Philosophy can help in analysing the concepts behind the characters/episodes, but the core is that everyone is flawed with varying levels of awareness rather than philosophy being front and center.

Because every character has a similar relationship to their flaws (that’s the relationship the author had with himself at that time), even aware characters cannot work through their flaws but somehow begrudgingly make it a non-fixable part of themselves.

The movie about death is the most fascinating one as that’s the moment he must face his demons and comes the closest to pure philosophical analysis, but you have to see the whole series before that to understand the context, and even then, reading about the background story that happens behind the scene (because the story focuses mostly on what shinji is aware of) is almost necessary.

AT fields are a metaphor for the emotional barriers we put up between ourselves and others. Barriers that help us feel safe but also prevent us from achieving true intimacy. This ties in to Shinji's arc. There is even an episode of the original series titled "Hedgehogs Dilemma" which is what some philosopher called this dilemma. What the AT fields actually "are" is never really explained but it's also irrelevant to what the show is trying to do and say.

This is essentially accurate. Eva is about the mindset of a depressed person, that is its fundamental topic and what it focuses on portraying above all else. Things like philosophy, plot and character development are incidental elements and are at best handled in heavily ambiguous ways, but are preceded by a dedication to showing a particular state of mind wracked by guilt, uncertainty, stress and melancholy.

Um okay? But do you have anything to say about the topic at hand