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"Get In The Robot, Shinji"

I wonder how much the "jeez, poor kid" vs. "ugh, whiny brat" reactions to Shinji correlate to whether people watched it in Japanese or with Spike Spencer's dub.

Shinji's dad could stop the monsters from attacking at any point without involving his son.

spoiler[They're attacking in an attempt to retrieve Adam from within NERV to begin with, but Gendo needs Adam to fulfill is entirely selfish plan to reunite with his dead wife. So he keeps Adam in NERV underneath a city that's home to thousands of civilians and sends his kid into dangerous situations to defeat said monsters.]

I've heard many people say, and I'd generally agree, that Gurren Lagann serves as something like Gainax's answer to Evangelion

This is a really well-written article and I definitely understand the point Zac is making here, but I have a fundamentally-different reaction to the series. Right after I first saw Eva during its [adult swim] airing, I was quick to defend the series as a whole and Shinji in particular against the usual litany of complaints from most of my friends. However, with the passage of time, I can't really bring myself to stand up for him anymore. I also suffered from clinical depression and anxiety in my past, but I don't recognize a kindred spirit in Shinji. At my lowest points, I would have LONGED for someone to tell me to "get in the [expletive] robot," because it would have given me a goal, a purpose, anything to hang my hat on, an escape for the drifting feeling of worthlessness and inadequacy. My overwhelming desire was to be able to do something that no one else could, to be a hero to someone, and the fact that I couldn't was a large part of what kept me in despair. Even though I'm in a much better place now, those lingering desires still bounce around in my head from time to time. So to a see a character given that chance to step into that role, even if it's the result of heinous manipulations, but continually and repeatedly shy away from it at every opportunity, is something I fundamentally can't identify with.

I've heard many people say, and I'd generally agree, that Gurren Lagann serves as something like Gainax's answer to Evangelion, with Simon as Shinji's antithesis. I can't help but think of the middle arc of that series, when Simon is at his lowest point of all, and how he escapes it not through some grand heroics or inner mind theater, but by the simple act of recalling just what it is that he CAN do, and then going ahead and doing that one small thing. It's a far more life-affirming and encouraging sentiment to me than anything that Evangelion ever delivered. But hell, maybe that's because Shinji really needed a Kamina in his life but never had that blessing. One of the things I found most appealing about the Rebuild movies is that in 2.22, Shinji was allowed to be far more proactive than in the series proper, especially in its triumphant climactic moments. I haven't seen 3.33 yet, but from what I've heard, it seems like Anno chose to once again step back from that, which is definitely frustrating.

So I guess my rambling point here is that it's possible for someone to understand what Anno was going for with Shinji, and to have empathy for the idea of him as a character, but still not really identify with him in any way. At this point I find Eva much more interesting as a case study of what sort of creative endeavors a person under extreme stress and suffering from severe mental illness can produce, instead of as a piece of entertainment in its own right. Most of its cast feel more like archetypes ripped from a psychology textbook than living, breathing people, and while I'm long overdue for a rewatch, I don't expect to come back around on Shinji.

I don't have rebuttal or anything I just appreciate how you articulated your own experience because it felt very relatable to me, so thank you for sharing.

So far I'm Reading a lot of negative feedback. Netflix was too cheap to get the rights for the ending theme, Fly Me to the Moon. amazing. A lot of bad new translation decisions. No translation of things like signs and what not - many of which are fairly important. The episode titles are now basically direct translations, when the old ones "Rei I, Rei II, Rei III for example) were supposedly chosen by Anno himself, so those should've been kept.

Shay Guy wrote:

I wonder how much the "jeez, poor kid" vs. "ugh, whiny brat" reactions to Shinji correlate to whether people watched it in Japanese or with Spike Spencer's dub.

The good news is Spike Spencer is not involved in the new dub, so that shouldn't be an issue with new viewers. The new dub voice for Shinji sounds a lot closer to Megumi Ogata's original performance.