#Introduction My claim is that NGE’s setting, the inner workings of Nerv, the combat, and the presentation are pretty weak. I believe them to be so significantly flawed that the show would be better off without them and that they significantly harm the quality of the show. Each of these flaws indirectly ruin other decent or even good aspects to some degree. To my understanding the general consensus is that the show’s main appeal is the characters and their various struggles. This stands to reason as it likely is the strongest aspect. Not only do the other engagements fail in their own right, but they also weaken the characters as they do not have a place in the lacklustre narrative. Anything interesting about the show is independent of Nerv, the angels, and the Human Instrumentality Project. These things are bad independently, they waste time that could be spent on the characters, and they lead to issues involving the cast’s purpose.
#Characters
(ATR 16 minutes)
Independent to the plot of NGE, the characters have reasonably robust issues. What could be a significant appeal to a better show sits somewhere between window dressing and a waste of time. None of the characterization ends up being critical to how the plot progresses, nor do the character arcs themselves get the conclusions they deserve due to the ending. There is so much setup for these characters independent of their use to the plot for nothing. The characters as functions are paper thin and their character is never given the opportunity to be a fitting appeal.

Misato, while having a decent amount of traits and plotlines that are potentially interesting in isolation, they don’t make sense within the setting. Misato should not be in NGE. She lacks the skill to coordinate a robust counter to the angel attacks, she actively works against Nerv, and could easily be replaced with someone with more knowledge about Seele, the Human Instrumentality Project, or even just someone with more general military experience.

It makes absolutely no sense that one of the most important people within your organisation knows very little about it and eventually works against it to the knowledge of Nerv. She is lacking information that could prove fatal like the cause of the second impact. When Gendo and Fuyutsuki are absent, which is not too terribly uncommon, she could have easily started the third impact unknowingly. The angels are attempting to make contact with Adam and Lilith and she didn’t even know that Lilith was in the Terminal Dogma until Kaji showed her. Your commanding officer should have the same goal as your organisation and have all the information required to complete their job safely and effectively. Assuming the show was competently written, she either should have been completely cut or significantly altered. She has quite a bit of baggage and fails to properly deal with it. It stands to reason that she could have supported the Human Instrumentality Project as it could be seen as an out for her troubles and a mercy for other troubled individuals. That would more or less solve all problems with her placement within Nerv. Instead, the show fat fingers her involvement entirely. She could have been either more involved with the actual plot or replaced with someone that fulfilled her role functionally speaking better. She serves the plot best as an audience insert which is pretty disappointing. A character that has potentially interesting traits should not be used as an excuse to explain things to the audience separate to their interesting traits. Anything interesting about her character has no impact on the plot. The solution isn’t to have completely plain characters rather to construct a narrative that allows for nuanced characters.

After Kaji dies, Misato’s mental state deteriorates, but it doesn’t actually do anything. She was already suspicious of Nerv and was investigating them. The only argument that it changed something is that it made her reckless and or impatient. Maybe she wouldn’t have held Ritsuko at gunpoint to force her to show her Nerv’s secrets. However, it’s largely irrelevant since nothing in NGE has consequences. Gendo is made aware that Misato is onto them in episode 16 and they do nothing to stop her. They continue to allow a traitor to lead their precious assets in combat. Misato answers in kind by doing nothing with the information she collects. The only real purpose of her investigation is to info dump for the audience.

One of Rei’s biggest character moments within the original run of NGE is when she sacrifices herself in episode twenty-three. Functionally speaking it has little to no impact on the plot and it’s not like it informed a big shift in her character since she dies as a result. Rei has had no problem with sacrificing herself in the past. She’s willing to die to shield Shinji within the first few episodes before she has any attachment to him, she launches a kamikaze attack with an N2 mine in episode nineteen, and overall has very little self worth. She might have realised how much she cared about Shinji before dying, but she likely would have done it without needing to protect him. If you really think about it, that scene meant very little, as her realisation about Shinji has no real impact on the outcome, as it is something she would have done otherwise. There is no consequence to Rei’s sacrifice and the decision to commit a suicide attack means nothing due to Rei’s willingness to die in previous episodes. Rei’s character development is irrelevant to her function within the show. This scene is already robbed of any significance it could have had even without looking at the suggestive positions Rei is placed in when she is supposed to be in great pain. It takes something that was already lacklustre at best and makes it seem like an excuse to place a young girl in suggestive positions.

Touji and Aida are a confusing inclusion. They lack any and all purpose. They are weirdly tacked on and only truly serve as a weak attempt at comical relief.

Their lack of purpose is most apparent during episode eight. Two random children that barely even know Shinji, who was only recently adopted into a pseudo military organisation and doesn’t even have his EVA with him, are allowed onto a UN fleet for little to no reason. Even Misato’s inclusion is a bit odd, but we’ll give her a pass as she could be overseeing the transfer of assets even though someone in her position shouldn’t have to, especially since Kaji is already there. However, there is no excuse for Shinji and the others. Shinji does not have access to his EVA during this entire process and is therefore useless. Asuka’s Unit 02 should be capable of protecting Adam and Shinji’s inclusion should not help as he does not have an EVA. Maybe he helped Asuka pilot to some extent since they did set a new record with their sync rate, but we don’t have anyway of knowing if that was necessary, Nerv didn’t plan for that as it was just Asuka acting on impulse, and we do know that Shinji did impede her to some extent at least until she changed the default language, which likely was a disadvantage for her as she now had to think in a nonnative language. On top of that, HQ is now nearly defenseless as Rei’s EVA wasn’t even considered combat ready in the prior episode and it was damaged in that same episode. If Shinji had his EVA with him, there could be a case that he should be there as Asuka has yet to be tested in battle and Adam is fairly valuable, but even then it’s shaky since they would be endangering Lilith in the process. It seems as though the writers only cared about shoving Asuka and Shinji in an EVA together and couldn’t be bothered to come up with a creative way to accomplish that, so he got dragged along for little to no reason and wasn’t allowed his EVA.

Touji and Aida have even less of a reason to be there as they are merely the civilian acquaintances of someone that had no real reason to be there. Aida is even allowed his camera that he uses to openly film everything from the static backgrounds, to the personal, and equipment. Just having a civilian present for no reason seems odd enough, but they had to make it just as little bit more dumb by having one document their trip. Okay, it’s pretty dumb, but the writers must have had a good excuse to have them tag along. After all, if Touji wasn’t there, who would have gotten slapped after a super classy upskirt shot, which is used to introduce a main character by the way? Then imagine if way too many people didn’t take the elevator at once. We wouldn’t have gotten our classy groping scene. We can thank Touji and Aida for that. What would we have done without them?

There are two real places you could argue Touji and Aida matter. Those would be when Shinji decides to stay with Nerv the first time and then when Shinji decides to leave service the second time. You could argue that Shinji didn’t want to leave because he didn’t want to leave potential friends. Even if that is the case, it’s more or less redundant, as Shinji would also be leaving his father, that he seeks the approval of, and Misato, a mother figure. There is also the very real chance that without Shinji Tokyo 3 would be doomed and by extension the rest of the world via the third impact or even just the angels since they are viewed as a threat that can only be answered by the EVAs. He has so many reasons to stay that it would make more sense that he wouldn’t have tried to leave at all as opposed to Touji and Aida making any real difference.

The second time Shinji decides to leave is as a direct result of Touji being injured as an EVA pilot. However, there are a few issues with this. Shinji was already upset when he thought he killed a random person. If Shinji reacted the way he did when his friend was only injured from the use of the dummy plug, it’s not like Shinji would have run up and given Gendo a big old hug after getting back if he had instead inadvertently killed a random person. Both killing a random person and injuring his friend serve as sufficient reason to quit NERV, so for the story as a whole it didn't require Touji at all, and, not only would it save a lot of screen time, but, as argued in the next section, the show would have been better without Touji's and Aida’s inclusion.

It might seem weird that I have such a big issue with Touji and Aida’s inclusion, but they not only waste time, they also detract from Shinji’s character. I’m supposed to believe that Shinji is so deprived of positive human interaction that he is head over heels about Kaworu after an interaction that barely lasts a minute. His strange attachment to Kaworu, unlike that which he had previously expressed with people he had known for longer and more meaningfully, doesn’t make any sense and it is important for his reluctance to kill Kaworu. He needs this for Kaworu to function the way he does in the show, but Touji and Aida make it so hard to believe. Even after removing Touji and Aida, Shinji’s relationship with Kaworu needed more to it, but it had the potential to work. Touji and Aida weren’t the best friends possible to Shinji, but they did more than letting him call them by their first names. Touji and Aida are just oddly tacked onto the show for little to no reason without any thought about their impact. If you are being generous, they are irrelevant. If you are being especially critical, Touji and Aida ruin Shinji’s character.

Shinji’s lack of initiative, self worth, and social skills are potentially compelling and relatable especially due to anime’s target audience. However, all they really do is meander with his character with minimal intrigue.

Shinji’s struggles with being an EVA pilot are at best muddled by everything surrounding it. The first time Shinji tries to give up on being an EVA pilot is clearly the worst. Shinji is the only one that can pilot an EVA at the moment as Rei is injured and she failed her activation test, failure to repel the angels will more or less result in the end of the world as it is know or at the very least a global scale disaster, and Shinji has nothing to return to. He doesn’t have a loving family or friends to go back to and he is being recognised in the ways he clearly wants to be due to his position. He had nothing, he is the only person that can fulfill his role that is absolutely necessary, and due to being an EVA pilot he has a loose mother figure, his peers are paying attention to him, and he has the potential to receive attention from his father. The arguably more damning issues with the first time he turns away from his responsibilities are slightly more meta. Nobody is going to believe that the main character that has relatively developed connections with a myriad of characters is just going to disappear. You know damn well that Shinji isn’t gonna go back home. The only possible value from this is developing the relationship between Shinji and Misato, but that has very little value, as Shinji remains distant throughout the show’s entire runtime.

For that episode we trade the impact of the second time Shinji tries to leave service that, without outside factors, could be reasonably compelling. The second time we see it, it has significantly less impact. It’s just a repeat of an event that only should have happened the second time. Shinji doesn’t need a grandiose reason to be an EVA pilot. He is the only one that can pilot Unit 01. If Unit 01 doesn’t have a pilot, everyone dies. The AT fields of the angels are treated as if they are immune to modern military weaponry outside of the EVAs. Even though N2 mines were shown to have some effect when used, the characters within the show for some reason believe them to be ineffective. This means that from the perspective of the characters in the show, the EVAs are required to combat the angels. It is even directly stated by Ritsuko in episode seven that the EVAs are the only weapons capable of defeating the angels. Even before the knowledge of Lilith being underneath Nerve, it’s game over without the EVAs. If he doesn’t pilot Unit 01, Tokyo 3 is done for, he will eventually die, and so will everyone else. Working for Nerve is a job. He should be getting paid to do it. He is being housed by Nerv. He has plenty of reasons to continue doing his job. The dummy plug and additional pilots allows for Shinji to leave service without too much impact and unlike the first time he has a good reason to leave. He would finally be given the opportunity to ask himself if he really wants to do this and he is given a reason to not want to work for them anymore at the same time in Touji’s contrived near death experience. It would have been alright. It could even expose Shinji’s reliance on being an EVA pilot as so much of his new life is because of his position. The reason for leaving itself is certainly not without issue for a number of reasons, but that is besides the point.

Even outside of the motivation, the second time Shinji tries to leave is mostly functional and it has a far better pay off. Instead of just deciding to stay after all, we get a reasonably effective speech from Kaji that knocks some sense into Shinji. First Shinji stands by his convictions and decides to forgo his father's potential affection by leaving Nerv. Then Shinji makes an active decision to do something even though it was influenced heavily by Kaji. This is all coming from a character that is constantly stated to only do what others say to make his life easier. Even though it is ultimately just restoring the status quo at a material level there is the suggestion that Shinji has grown as a character, but that is immediately thrown out the window as he never truly makes an independent decision again and regresses even further into the old mindset. Regardless of its numerous faults, it is close to being good in isolation. Most things happen for a reason that you are able to follow easily enough and has lasting implications on the cast even if you exclude Shinji due to the inconsistency of his new trait which is a hell of a lot more than most of the series. It is an arc that with some polish could be a really worthwhile inclusion unlike the first time Shinji decides to leave which overshadows this arc.

Shinji’s decision to be an EVA pilot is something that takes a significant amount of the show’s runtime, but it’s rather dull and is even more so in comparison to a more realistic variation of that choice. Shinji ultimately doesn’t have a choice over whether or not he should be an EVA pilot. The obligation to take such a demanding role and the stress associated with it could be mildly interesting, but that’s not the angle they take. If this was about Shinji deciding to go to college or something like joining the family business, the option to refuse is very real. You could then examine the social pressures associated with making such a choice in a meaningful way. In the actual version of NGE, it is just pretending to be something interesting. Due to the nature of the choice, it is inherently a boring dilemma. Shinji lacks any real option due to the nature of the show. I know Shinji won’t run away from the plot for good during episode four, less than a sixth into the show’s runtime. However, the same would not be true for a more mundane issue. The ride could still be potentially intriguing, but it does very little in that regard. Shinji just decides to stay because some kids said goodbye and the situation that resulted in those children sending him off is more than contrived. If the decision was much more mundane and grounded, there are multiple viable options and a multitude of implications as a result of those options. In a mundane setting, Shinji would have a near infinite amount of choices just in regards to his career path and each of those would likely have very different outcomes that are all reasonable options. In NGE, Shinji has a binary choice with two simple and immediate outcomes. He can either pilot Unit 01 or die along with everyone else. It is inherently a very boring decision that the show dedicates two episodes to.

It is almost as if Shinji’s role in the show and his character were written separately. Nobody that desired the Human Instrumentality Project did anything to affect how Shinji would shape the world. Gendo and Seele both had their own ideas on what should be done, but neither did anything to secure their vision. Both needed Shinji because Unit 01 was home to his mother’s soul, meaning only he can pilot it. The spear of Longinus and Kaworu could presumably start the Human Instrumentality Project, but both are lost by the ending. Ultimately what happens to the human race and the world is his decision, but neither do anything significant to shape his decision. Seele doesn’t even inform their foot soldiers that they shouldn’t kill Shiniji. With the death of Kaworu, Seele ran out of other options. Assuming Misato did not save him, any hope that either side had to initiate the Human Instrumentality Project would have been squashed. There is no concern for his well being or disposition that is supremely important for accomplishing their goals. This outlines a clash between the two separate stories.

Shinji’s condition is of the utmost importance. It is important that he is not only mentally healthy but it is also important that he aligns with a party’s ideology. Not only would it have made sense that Seele would try to manipulate his decision, but it would have made for a more dynamic narrative. Throughout the entire runtime we are constantly told that Shinji just does what he is told to get by easily, but it never actually becomes a significant part of the narrative. If Seele was shaping his thought process, it would actually become relevant. You could bridge the gap between the main character’s trait and the plot if they were all working towards shaping Shinji’s ultimate decision. It would have been a plot significant trait with a genuine impact on the narrative. It would also make the points where Shinji makes his own decisions more impactful. There are likely easier ways to tell a far more compelling narrative than the original, but this way it would combine two largely independent aspects without many significant rewrites. Shinji as a character and Shinji as a function are almost completely divorced and something like this would remedy that.

If your narrative has to strictly explain the main concept being explored, are you really exploring the human condition? By the third episode the anime shows its entire hand in a scene where Ritsuko briefly explains the hedgehog’s dilemma. We’d be better off clicking off and watching a more involved explanation of the hedgehog’s dilemma as the show has nothing more to add to its brief explanation of it. NGE explains its main idea, the hedgehog’s dilemma, in better detail during episode three’s brief explanation than it ever expresses throughout the show’s remaining runtime.

It then trivialises the exploration of the human condition by putting the characters in unique situations that give them significant perks that would mitigate most of their problems. Shinji, who would otherwise be a wallflower with no friends, achieves prestige and makes friends due to his position, but his friends and mother figure never seem to change anything about him. Everyone is interested in him and wants to help him with his problems, directly or otherwise, but despite this help he doesn't get any closer to overcoming his problems, until suddenly at the very end of the show, which is happening outside of traditional reality. His entire class is interested in him immediately after discovering that he is Unit 01’s pilot. Misato is constantly giving Shinji advice, trying to be there for him, and providing for him throughout the entire show. His friends would likely have either never spoken to him or would not have immediately begun interacting with him if he was not an EVA pilot. For Shinji to work as a character he's supposed to be missing these types of interactions, yet he is showered in them due to his position

Misato clearly cares about Shinji and feels comfortable around him. Shinji’s friends even draw attention to how Misato acts like herself around Shinji, meaning he knows she feels reasonably comfortable around him, but he never warms up to her in a meaningful way. The two of them clearly had a relatively safe environment to be themselves around each other. This is clearly not conducive to telling a story about someone who can't make meaningful bonds and is scared to try, so the narrative just turns a blind eye to his circumstance as to maintain the status quo. The introduction of Kaworu makes this even worse. Misato who has constantly been shown to be caring and attentive to Shinji never makes meaningful headway on Shinji as it would more or less solve his problems. However, Kaworu so much as looks at Shinji in the right way and he’s head over heels for him because the show intends to tear him away. He has to do so much less to receive Shinji’s favor and almost complete openness so that Shinji will be in an even worse condition when he has to kill him. The show only cares to demonstrate pain for the sake of it. It’s not deserved. It is far beyond reason.

Asuka receives the same prestige by the nature of her position, but it is something she should care far more about. She wants to be recognized and respected, but that’s a plotline that should be dead before it ever starts. Nerv undeniably gives her purpose. It earns her respect. Her level of education is far beyond that of what should be considered reasonable for a fourteen year old. She is considered one of three people capable of saving the world yet she has issues with inadequacy. The problem isn’t with the potential to be interesting in concept, but her position in the setting prevents it from being a reasonably positive appeal. On top of that, things like her very early college education are tacked on to make this worse. That is something that would make anyone exceptional, yet it is used as little more than a throw away line that brings into question why she is even in school at all anymore. This is made worse, as she later overcomes these feelings almost instantly after coming to the conclusion that her mother loved her in End of Evangelion. It’s just so silly. There is nothing to it.

It isn’t that the characters are completely without potential. The most significant problems are caused by the actual plot. The show’s stakes make it so character choice is largely irrelevant. It is not an environment that suits more mundane issues. A show can have extremely high stakes and still have nuanced characters, but that nuance needs to service the plot or else it falls flat in most cases. Shinji deciding whether or not to be an EVA pilot is not a real decision as it only functions if it does not have the inevitable negative outcome. Shinji deciding what to do during the Human Instumentaily Project is a real decision as the outcome of either decision, however vague, is still viable. However, not only are two episodes dedicated to Shinji quitting as an EVA pilot and then coming back, Shinji is constantly trying to figure out why he is piloting an EVA and asks other people the same question. It is given so much screen time spread across the entire show only for Shinji’s decision regarding the Human Instrumentality Project, the interesting dilemma of the show, to be relegated to the ending.

The characters’ motivations and disposition has little to no impact on the narrative, so it isn’t character driven in a meaningful way. It is less character driven and more a mediocre narrative with memorable characters at best. The character’s conditions change, but it doesn’t actually matter. It’s more window dressing than anything else. There is no consequence, no character arcs, it isn’t plot relevant, or anything of the sort. Characters like Misato, Shinji, and most prominently Asuka have pronounced deteriorating mental states, but it doesn’t actually change anything. What could be considered far more damning is that the character’s conditions are all wiped away with god magic completely eliminating any consequence and along with it any enjoyment that could be derived from it.

#Angel Encounters
(ATR 8 minutes) A single N2 mine buys Nerv six days and destories 28% of the angel in episode nine. If a single N2 mine is able to vaporise 28% of that angel, why not use another four; it’s not due to Nerv having a limited supply of N2 mines, in episode sixteen Ritsuko states that Nerv has 992 N2 mines in stock. The actual plan of attack used in the episode was braindead, involving an unnecessary dance routine, but even if it made more sense, the fact that N2 mines were shown to be effective carries hefty implications for how the episode should unfold.

Diving deeper into this episode's other layer of stupidity; it decided to use a choreographed dance to fight the angel. Which was unnecessary even without the use of the N2 mines as the angel takes quite a while to recover from damage seen by the time bought by the N2 mine. If all damage was instantly recovered, an attack like the dance routine would have been potentially useful, but it doesn’t. I find it hard to believe that both cores need to be hit at the same time or the angel will recover when it took six days for the angel to recover from relatively superficial damage. Even if you accept that the cores need to be hit at the same time, the plan is overly complicated for no real reason. There isn’t even any margin for error. The plan in the show relies on the enemy that had already defeated both units to be a nonfactor as if they were slowed down at any point they would have to make back the time somehow to stay in sync. Assuming the N2 mines couldn’t defeat the angel and that the angel would only die if two EVAs hit its cores at the same time, there are far more simple ways of achieving this that are simultaneously far more effective. Using something like a metronome would be far more consistent and allow for error. You could have pilots try to attack the core every however many ticks which would be easier and allow for mistakes. Say Shinji got knocked away right before he was supposed to attack in both scenarios. With the dance they just lose. RIP humanity. With something like a metronome he would just get back up and try again during the next of what could be many opportunities to attack. Furthermore if the reason the dance was used was due to the recovery as it is stated to be, why isn’t the entire dance composed of finishing blows? It is just wasting time and making it so that there is only one chance even though there should be backups.

There is no defending anything to do with the angel in episode nine. At best it is a poor excuse to get Asuka and Shinji to work closely together. That in itself isn’t worth much as Shinji and Asuka have a moment together and do things like speaking in tandem to demonstrate their connection only for that to go nowhere. They aren’t any closer at the end of the episode. The only thing of importance that occurs during that episode is that Asuka moves in with Misato and Shinji even though they absolutely should not be living together. It is revealed to Misato and the rest of Nerv that Shinji almost sexually assaulted Asuka in a household that is not uncommonly without an adult. Typically adults attempt to limit a child’s ability to have sexual relations espically if they aren’t consentual.

Not only is it nearly a completely skippable episode, it almost should be skipped for an artificially better experience. You don’t lose the justification of the EVAs due to the effectiveness of the N2 mine, you don’t have to suffer through the contrived nonsense, and it leads to a more consistent relationship between Asuka and Shinji. That seems to be a recurring issue with the series. Misato and Shinji are constantly having moments together that in any other show would result in them growing closer to each other, but they stay fairly distant. There would still be other parts of the show that also work against justifying the EVAs, but the less that it comes up the better.

Another example of a poorly designed angel encounter is in episode eleven. Asuka, Shinji, and Rei are all together in their EVAs when they are ambushed by an angel that spits acid down the shaft that they are climbing up. This results in them dropping their only rifle to the bottom of said shaft and taking cover in a tunnel connected to the shaft. The stage is set. They have an enemy that they can not get within striking range of and they lost their only ranged weapon. I wonder what creative solution they will come up with. They decide that someone should body block the acid while someone else grabs the rifle to throw up to the third person so that they can shoot the angel. Why doesn’t the person that grabs the rifle just shoot the angel? How is the rifle fine even though it should be sitting in a pool of the angel’s acid? Why are they blocking the acid at all? It clearly doesn’t pose an immediate threat to the EVAs and it doesn’t take too long to blow the angel away after getting the rifle. If it did take a while and the acid therefore became a problem for the EVA on offense, the rifle would be destroyed by the acid before the EVA firing it would. Protecting the rifle should be the priority as the EVAs can last in the acid long enough to complete the entire plan and Asuka moves out of the way while the rifle is being fired, so she isn’t really protecting the rifle from meaningful danger. By blocking the acid Asuka is actually putting herself in more danger than the person grabbing the rifle would be without a human shield, as most of the acid lands on her EVA where the plug should be. She even decides to block the acid with her back, where the plug ejects from, possibly trapping herself inside or worse. Keep in mind that this plan was made by Asuka, the brilliant child prodigy that completed college early.

This plan is completely braindead and the only reason it even works is because that angel is uniquely weak. It is the only angel that the rifle is shown to be effective against. The rifle is shown to be completely ineffective in episodes three, nine, and nineteen which are the only other times they are actually used against an angel. The writers seem to be completely incapable of managing more than one EVA at a time. It is often avoided and when it isn’t the result is embarrassing.

Episode twelve does irreparable damage to the power scaling of NGE as well as being just another example of general incompetence to write decent action. The monster of the week this time around is an angel that plans to fall from orbit to destroy Nerv. The setup is potentially more interesting than a straight up traditional fight with a random angel, but the result is anything but interesting. The master plan to stop the angel that is falling toward Nerv HQ is to just grab it out of the air and then have another EVA pilot stab it. This takes the fairly ambiguous capabilities of an EVA’s AT field and then asserts that they can stop an object many times the size of an EVA that is falling from orbit. Shinji stops the initial impact on his own and the angel should then have no momentum. At that point it just comes down to being able to bear the weight of the angel itself which should be trivial when compared to Shinji’s previous feat. That more or less means that every angel that does any damage to Unit 01 has to be exerting that much force or something close to that. Sure, he might have been generating an especially powerful AT field due to the circumstance, but the difference between his especially powerful AT field and his normal AT field is not going to be many times greater. His AT field also managed to withstand that, so it should be able to take even more punishment than we saw. This is while Shinji has a lower sync rate than Asuka by the way. Then you need to consider that a berserk EVA is shown time and time again to be significantly stronger than a normal EVA and that the armor on the EVAs double as restraints. It results in an unfounded amount of force being required to be significant. It also makes the angels seem strangely weak. That damage is done to the series so that we can experience the brilliant plan that is grab and stab. If you are not going to come up with an interesting solution to an interesting problem, do not introduce an interesting problem.

After the Spear of Longinus is removed from Lilith nothing happens even after a significant period of time. Nerve is in possession of the weapon from episode fourteen onwards until it is thrown onto the moon in episode twenty-two. Since there is no negative side effect of removing the spear and it insta kills all angels while breaking through any AT fields, it should have been used to kill every angel without issue in between its arrival and the loss of the spear. That completely eliminates any threat the three angels could potentially pose to Nerv. It would as a result significantly undermine Shinji’s decision to return to Nerv because Asuka would have had no problem dealing with the angel that attacks shortly after he leaves for the second time. It would also have a few other side effects. Asuka would not have her self worth shattered in that fight, Shinji would not achieve a 400% sync rate, and Shinji might not have even returned at all. That makes it a pretty significant oversight. Even if the spear was not used on every angel in between in an attempt to protect such a valuable asset, it should have at the very least been used after Shinji left and Asuka was defeated in episode nineteen. The Spear of Longinus is a way better hail mary than a single N2 mine.

In episode eighteen during Unit 03’s activation test, it goes berserk and is classified as an angel. The remote shutdown signal completely fails and the plug could only be partly ejected, as there is a membrane of sorts holding it in place, meaning the pilot Touji is still trapped inside. Unit 03 defeats both Units 00 and 02 with ease. It attempts to corrupt Unit 00’s arm, so HQ remotely severs the arm. After Unit 00’s arm is severed, Unit 03 just walks away for no reason instead of trying to further corrupt Unit 00 or even just finish off Unit 00. Your guess is as good as mine for why they did not try to remotely sever Unit 03’s limbs like they did to Unit 00 or why they did not try the same thing to Unit 02 when Kaworu uses it to break into the Terminal Dogma. The writing staff could not be bothered to find a reason for Unit 00 and 02 to not help out in the following scene, so Unit 03 just attacks them and then walks away. Brillant.

When Shinji is attacked by Unit 03 turned angel in episode eighteen, his refusal to fight is silly. His reasoning is that he doesn’t want to hurt the pilot as he can see that the plug is held into place by a membrane of sorts. The problem is that he could either defeat the angel without damaging the plug or he could try to remove the membrane holding the plug in place so that he could bring the pilot to safety. The plug is already partly ejected and they are not in control, so it is doubtful that the pilot would even feel anything as they shouldn’t be neurally connected anymore. By just letting the angel kill him he is actually putting the pilot in even more danger because Asuka and Rei had both already been defeated. By letting the angel go it would almost certainly start the third impact and even if it didn’t I don’t believe someone attached to the back of an angel has a high quality life or even just a long life. If the dummy plug system absolutely had to be used to get Shinji to leave Nerv, they could have made it so that Shinji was focused too much on recovering the plug resulting in a losing fight. This could motivate Gendo to order them to switch to the dummy plug. It still wouldn’t be very good, but it would be a hell of a lot better than the actual material without changing too much. I’d happily take sloppy and only sort of stupid over the actual events of the show. The entire episode is scuffed. They had to force a situation where the other pilots are completely useless, and even if you overlook that, the scene they tried so desperately to get to is arguably even worse than the sacrifices made to get there.

#Plot
(ATR 4 minutes) A glaring issue with the Human Instrumentality Project is the set up. Gendo has Lilith’s body, Adam’s body, Rei who has Lilith’s soul, Shinji, and Unit 01 from episode eight to the end of the show. The last relevant piece, the Spear of Longinus, enters Gendo’s possession in episode fourteen. Even if there is some dumb unstated rule that all of the angels had to be killed first, Seele does not instantly lauch their attack the minute Kaworu, the last angel, is killed. Either everything Gendo did to betray Seele was completely useless because he needed Seele's new EVAs to initiate the Human Instrumentality Project or he could have started the Human Instrumentality Project comfortably before Seele launched their attack or potentially even as early as episode eight. It just doesn’t make any sense. It comes across as something that happens when it does because the show is ending, as opposed to something that makes logical sense.

What is wrong with Seele? Seele does not only employ one but three high ranking people that wish to defy their vision of the future. Those would be Gendo, Fuyutsuki, and Misato. Somewhere along the chain of command all of these people are known to be potentially dangerous to the cause or actively working against it. We are fed meek excuses for Gendo’s continued employment in episode twenty. However, we are lacking an excuse for Fuyutsuki and Misato and Gendo’s excuse is painfully stupid. Seele states that Gendo was the only person that could put their plans into action yet we are never made aware of anything he has done to receive such praise. Even if we assume that Gendo was important for some reason earlier, in episode twenty-three the council considers the loss of the Spear of Longinus to be an act of insubordination and even suspect that he might be planning to betray them. You would assume that they would err on the side of caution as their plan revolves around changing the world. The stakes are too high to take a risk like leaving a commanding officer that plans to betray you on your payroll. Getting rid of Gendo should have been an easy decision for Seele to make, since this would be long after Gendo did whatever it was that ''only he could do'', so it would be of little to no consequence to them.

In the next episode twenty-four Seele recognises that Gendo has fused with the body of Adam while speaking with Kaworu which would seem to be pretty strictly an act against the council. Instead of removing Gendo from his position and then just letting Kaworu do what they want unimpeded within their own base, they try to sneak him in, ultimately putting themselves in a poor situation. There is no reason that Kaworu should have had to enter the Terminal Dogma by force. Furthermore, Seele recognises that Gendo has fused with Adam and has even told Kaworu that, but Kaworu is still surprised that Lilith was the angel in the Terminal Dogma. Did he expect Gendo to be crucified in the basement? How can you honestly think that Gendo has fused with the body of Adam and that Adam is in the Terminal Dogma? It’s just so dumb.

Seele isn’t the only one to continue the employment of traitors. Gendo is made aware that Misato is onto them as early as episode sixteen and nothing is ever done to her. That treatment is extended to after Ritsuko tells her most of what she was missing out on in episode twenty-three and after she has a monitored conversation with Ritsuko in the following episode. Almost nothing in NGE has consequences.

The most important characters to the plot are largely unseen. It’s like if Star Wars took place from the perspective of the faceless foot soldiers. Nothing that they really do or feel matters. They are required for combat, but everything outside that is irrelevant. They have no power over their own fate, so why is so much of the runtime used on them? It’s not that I want NGE to only have two characters. The problem is their near complete lack of integration with the lacklustre plot and setting. A story that is largely driven forwards by characters we barely get to see has little narrative potential in my eyes. Why do I know more about some random girl that has a crush on Touji, another irrelevant character, than the characters responsible for setting everything into motion? I would assume most people that watched NGE are familiar with Touji and Aida, but I doubt as many are familiar with chairman Keel, a far more important character.

Why do the angels wait to attack Nerv until after Shinji arrives to pilot Unit 01? The angels do not appear to have needs like food, water, or oxygen as a few angels lack any easily apparent orifices and two appear in space. The only things the angels appear to care about is Adam and Lilith. Every angel attack is either an act of self defense or in an attempt to reclaim Adam or Lilith. As the angels are born of Adam, they had to have been created prior to the second impact as humanity is in possession of Adam from then on. Even though they appear to have only one goal, the angels wait many years until attacking even once. If the third angel appeared even an hour earlier, it would have made contact with Lilith as Shinji would not have the time to arrive at Nerv. Unit 00 still isn’t considered battle ready during episode six and the current Rei was heavily damaged making them more or less a nonfactor. As Shinji is the only one that can pilot Unit 01 because it is home to his mothers soul, even if Rei was up to piloting or if she was replaced with another Rei that could she wouldn’t have an EVA to use. Buried in episode fourteen, the recap episode, Rei does have a compatibility test with Unit 01 that goes successfully. At the time of the first angel attack Rei couldn’t even sync with Unit 00 which is likely home to a previous Rei’s soul, so it is unlikely that she could sync with Unit 01 at the time if she could not even sync with her own EVA. She also loses the ability to pilot Unit 01 in episode nineteen, so it’s really hard to take that possibility seriously. Anyway with the tiniest change to the timing of the first angel attack, the show would end on episode one, so why the angels aren’t appearing really matters.

The only thing that we can really understand about the angels is part of their motivation. They are attempting to make contact with Adam and or Lilith, but we don’t know why. When were the angels made, where were they in between the time they attacked and when they were created, and why do they attack when they do? For all intents and purposes, the angels are just kaiju with the good old “pretending to be deep,” paint job. It is explicitly clear that no thought whatsoever went into the setting of NGE.

#Ending
(ATR 3 minutes) The ending of Evangelion is not a satisfying conclusion. This is something that seems to be a point of contention for a lot of people. The best arguments I could find to support the ending was that it was jammed full of symbolism and that it was a satisfying conclusion because it ended in the main cast confronting their problems which is a far more interesting topic to me. There are a few problems with the first part though. Symbolism itself does little to make something good. It’s like flashy animation or great music. If you pretty up trash, it’s still trash. While it might help you enjoy or appreciate something more it doesn’t really have much of a home in deriving the quality of a product. The second issue with using symbolism to justify the ending is that it is for the most part up to interpretation. I could come up with any number of negative interpretations or ignore the interpretations entirely of the last two episodes and the film and I wouldn’t count that against the product. It’s more than enough to explain why you personally like something, but it doesn’t go much past that. Lastly, it just isn’t an interesting topic to discuss. The only real response to someone’s interpretation of NGE is to say, “okay.” I would also need to single out individual interpretations. For those reasons, it is not an argument that I am personally going to engage with.

Regarding the second argument, I believe the ending of NGE to be a poor conclusion to the main cast's personal conflicts. What each character’s wrap up boils down to is the characters being forced to recognise their faults and then they are just fixed. Recognising a mental health issue or character defect does very little to actually solve the issue. I’m depressed. Why don’t you just stop being depressed? It’s silly. I’m sure many people have some deep rooted issue that they are likely aware of in some capacity. It is not a satisfying conclusion by any means and it robs the audience of everything built up over the show’s runtime.

Misato has even recognised that she is selfishly looking for attention from other people in episode fifteen and in episode twenty-three, she has recognised that she found her father in her significant other in episode fifteen, and states that she hates herself in episode fifteen. Nothing we see involving her in the last two episodes goes past recognising the condition she has already recognised. How is that supposed to be a satisfying conclusion for her character if it is at best a rehash of things that have already happened?

I wonder how Shinji will come to terms with his father and why. Oh his father just kind of got eaten. What was his reaction to that? He didn’t have one. Shinji seeking the approval of his father was a huge part of the narrative for a long time only for it to go nowhere. Then what about his unwillingness to connect with people. Oh someone just told him to stop doing that during the Human Instrumentality Project. What is supposed to be genuinely interesting about the ending?

I don’t think it is enough to just play with the idea of doing something interesting. Most of the main cast is clearly damaged in some way, but it amounts to nothing. Their issues do not drive the show forward in any meaningful way, the character’s conditions don’t improve outside of what amounts to a contrived dream sequence, and the characters don’t have much of an impact on the other characters.

If not for the ending, even though the characters would still be largely independent to the plot they could have received a satisfying conclusion. Each character could have either continued to suffer or move on as a result of a character specific moment. Instead we get damn near nothing. It isn’t that you cannot include any erroneous details in your narrative. The idea is that you cannot spend much much more time on erroneous details than the actual plot and it only gets worse when the supplementary content does not get a satisfying conclusion.

#Miscellaneous
(ATR 9 minutes) Religion The constant references to the bible serve little to no purpose while being extremely annoying. It just takes things from the bible and warps them into an anime counterpart without purpose. Why is Lilith being crucified? It’s because Jesus was crucified. Why do many explosions resemble crosses? It’s because crosses are a religious symbol. Why does Shinji receive holes in either hand? It’s because Jesus got holes in his palms from being crucified. Shinji isn’t even portrayed to be a selfless martyr in the movie, but he still receives the stigmata. It is clearly religious symbolism for the sake of it and nothing else. Say what you will about the bible, but there is a reason for those things to be included and there is a reason that those symbols mean what they do.

Kaworu’s use of the word lilin to describe humans is fine. It’s a reference to the in-universe creator of humans being lilith. It’s a decent use of fictional religious terminology to show a disconnect between how he views himself and the people around him. It has an actual purpose. I’d take good fictional religious references over references to real world religion without reason. The problem with religious symbolism isn’t that it is inherently bad. The issue is that it is commonly used in NGE without reason. It’s used as little more than a fashion statement. They are constantly using names and images relating to the christian faith, but it ends at the surface level.

How are humans angels? They are the only angel that does not appear to have a real AT field. It is stated that the metaphorical walls we put up between us and other people are AT fields, but it isn’t clear if that too was a metaphor. Assuming humans have AT fields that means that AT fields can be beaten by brute force as I’m fairly confident that a vending machine does not disable your AT field before crushing you. Disregarding the incredibly large difference in attack power when comparing every other angel with humans and the either weaker or absence of an AT field, humans are completely different. Angel’s are not designed efficiently unlike all other life on Earth. They don’t seem to need food, water, or oxygen as some of the designs are lacking any orifices and can potentially live in the vacuum of space, and they don’t seem to reproduce as all the angels are completely original. If humans are the eighteenth angel, are dogs the nineteenth angel, and then are cats the twentieth angel? It’s just such a silly half baked idea. It’s the in-universe anime equivalent to an “I'm fourteen and this is deep quote.”

It doesn’t make any sense at all and it brings more attention to whether or not the world of NGE is one of intelligent design. The source material is lacking a proper answer for this and it’s genuinely important to understand anything that is happening. It’s using a mundane setting as it’s base and then applying a completely different design with the implication of a god. Angels are not designed in a way that they are an even vaguely believable byproduct of evolution, but everything else is. Either way doesn’t make sense.

The EVAs The EVAs should not have an exact runtime. It is just a method of introducing tension where there otherwise shouldn’t be any. Since there is an explicit runtime, an EVA running and or maintaining a strong AT field uses the same amount of power as one standing completely still. It is explained in episode three that an EVA can run on low gain mode which increases its runtime by four minutes, but we never see a difference in the EVA’s output. The same could be said between an EVA that is plugged in or is running on internal power. If the difference is so negligible that it isn’t noticeable, the significant increase in active time is well worth the trade off yet we never see it used effectively.

The additional batteries attached to the EVAs in episode eleven are a direct insult to the viewer’s intelligence. The EVAs needed to run for longer than they should’ve been able to without an external powersource, so the writers just made something up without a care in the world. There is no excuse for those batteries to not be attached at all times, as it is often that an EVA gets unplugged and or loses power during combat. The batteries do not appear as if they impede nor should they impede the EVAs enough to outweigh the advantage they provide assuming they make any significant difference at all and, if for any reason they were providing some significant disadvantage, they could quickly and easily be ejected. The EVA’s cords are significantly more of a disadvantage as they are shown to be durable enough to reel in an EVA attached to a rather large angel. An enemy could very easily grab the cord and use it against the pilot. The same cannot be said about the batteries.

At their best AT fields are frankly a lazy and sloppy system to fabricate a requirement for the EVAs. However, being an uninspired system isn’t quite enough to earn a place in this review. The problem is that like most other systems introduced to NGE, it is inconsistently used. We first see its poor use in the very first episode. An N2 mine is used to damage an angel with no assistance by an EVA to disable the angel’s AT field. This lends credence to the idea that an AT field can be overcome by brute strength. It stands to reason that a continued assault with more N2 mines would have eliminated the angel as it passed through the AT field and then did damage. Instead of attempting to finish off the angel, the military just rolls over because this is a show about mechs not mines, as there were clearly enough N2 mines to finish it off because in episode sixteen we are made aware that Nerv HQ had 992 N2 mines.

In episode eight an angel is not only damaged but actually destroyed by mundane means. Two battleships are inserted inside the mouth of the angel before self-destructing. There are a few possible explanations. You could argue that an angel’s AT field does not protect them from the inside and that there would be little to no damage if the battleships detonated along the outside of the angel. However, the battleships would have had to pass through the AT field to enter the angel’s mouth. If the AT field did not apply to the battleships entering the angel’s mouth, this means that it only requires a payload less than or equal to two battleships exploding to exceed the protection the AT field provides, that AT fields allow things that are not perceived to be a threat by some specifications to pass through, or that EVA pilots don’t have to be strictly involved in an attack to disable an AT field. All three of those options are exploitable.

If AT fields are really that easy to break through, a weapon specifically made to combat an angel could easily far exceed the destructive capabilities of two battleship’s self-destruct systems. Such a weapon would be far easier to produce than an EVA, a system that integrates the human soul, uses a pilot’s mind for the controls, and is a bipedal weapons system, something many times more complex than any current military vehicle with more points of failure.

You’d even be able to use weapons that otherwise would have far too damning implications on the future due to the angels almost exclusively attacking a single location with only one exception. Why build a mech when you can just nuke Tokyo 3 a dozen or so times? The one encounter that could not be solved like this, that being the water-based angel that was defeated by Unit 02 using two battleships, wouldn't result in a critical failure; Assuming the battleships could not beat the angel without the minimal assistance of Unit 02, in the worst case scenario the only consequence would be the loss of the fleet, because Kaji would have evacuated, taking the sample of Adam, which the angel was after, with him on his private jet, the same way he did in the actual show. This would result in the angel following Kaji to wherever he'd decide to take the sample, which would give Nerv plenty of time to set up angel countermeasures.

Assuming the battleships succeeded due to some system that allows things that are perceived to be nonviolent to pass freely through an AT field or something of the sort, you could relatively easily create a weapons platform that utilizes a slow moving projectile or some form of chemical weapon to circumvent the AT fields entirely.

If an EVA does not need to be involved in an attack to remove an AT field, why do EVA’s exist. If that is the case, then all you need is a cockpit where the pilot disables the AT field from a distance, or you know maybe someone that has the soul of an angel like Rei or Kaworu, before dropping a few N2 mines on the angel which would likely be significantly more effective without being impeded by an AT field. It doesn’t quite make sense why the EVAs exist as they were developed prior to ever fighting a single angel as there is little outside of the damage Adam did that would lead the viewer to believe that Adam and Lilith were problems solved via violence, and if they were, the EVAs were clearly not necessary. Since the EVAs are made using Adam and Lilith in some unknown capacity, they clearly couldn’t have been used. After their capture, Rei, who was seen far prior to the third angel's appearance in the flashback episode number twenty-one, could likely disable any angel's AT field to open it up for mundane attacks since she has the soul of an angel. As Rei dies multiple times, she is extremely replaceable and therefore a reliable method of defeating the angels. It doesn’t help that the creation of EVAs requires such significant technological advancement. It would be as if we made guns to kill mosquitoes. It’s just dramatic overpreperation done in the least efficient manner possible. They didn’t make super tanks equipped with a mother’s soul. They made bipedal mechs piloted with a person’s brain. You’d have to make so many incredible leaps in technological advancements to solve a problem that could be solved with fewer or no advancements at all. The show can not find an excuse for mechs, so they are just thrown in because anime.

During a fight in the End of Evangelion, Asuka’s EVA is heavily damaged. This results in her losing an eye and having her arm split down the middle. These injuries mimic the ones her EVA incurs and the damage is done by seemingly nothing. Her injuries are clearly caused by the damage done to her EVA. This goes against every other instance of a character being injured while in their EVA. In episode two Misato says, “Your arm only feels like it’s being hurt,” while Unit 01’s arm is being broken. If this was not the case, Asuka should have lost both arms in episode nineteen. In that same scene Asuka is shown to be in pain from her EVA’s “guts” being torn out after the EVA is no longer operational. There should no longer be a neural link since the EVA is out of power, so she should have felt nothing. This demonstrates a general disregard for the poorly established systems.

Statistics Neon Genesis Evangelion has a significant problem with establishing stakes. The best example of this would be the abuse of incredibly low numbers in relation to probability. First of all, you need to be under the impression that characters have enough data to assess the probability at all in a meaningful way. Then the show would like you to believe that multiple events with far less than a one in one thousand chance of ending favorably do just that. The numbers mean nothing as they are just randomly selected to make things seem more dire than they are, but you are supposed to take them seriously. It’s made abundantly clear that the numbers mean nothing in episode twelve as a relatively simple plan is given a probability of 0.00001% of success. The implications are that Nerv has no idea how strong an AT is, they don’t understand gravity, or the number is greatly inflated due not knowing where the angel will land. It is made clear that they don’t know where the angel will land when Misato uses her “woman’s intuition,” to decide the EVA’s positioning even though the angel is not shown to move during its descent which should make it relatively easy to figure out. Assuming any of those possibilities are true, Nerv's statisticians have joined the ranks of people within Nerv that deserve to be fired because they are just making up numbers. The only reasonable variable that would make this a difficult situation to gauge would be the angel’s mass even though you likely could get a reasonable idea based on the smaller shots the angel makes to aim. You could figure out the mass of the smaller pieces based on their impact and then scale that up to the full size. That might not be entirely realistic based on the timeframe, but if you can’t determine that how do you determine the probability? Something similar could be said about where the angel would land.

No matter how you slice it the number is just made up to trick the audience into thinking this is interesting and this is far from the only time it is done. In episode one, Ritsuko says that Unit 01 has a 0.000000001% of operating at all. The plan in episode six is given a 8.7% chance of success which is weirdly the highest probability I could find in the show and it’s tacked onto the plan that makes the most sense to be inconsistent. It uses an experimental weapon that is still in development that uses a projectile that has a high degree of variance as it is affected greatly by minute factors and that experimental weapon is having far more energy pumped through it than was ever tested. Even if you wanted to say for some reason this plan should have the highest probability, it certainly shouldn’t be many thousands of times more likely than everything else. The unusually high chance of success lends further credence to the numbers meaning diddly squat. In episode seven the reactor has a .00002% chance of shutting down on its own. Lastly, in episode twenty-two the probability of the angel entering Unit 00’s range is stated to be 0.0% which seems nearly impossible to determine based on their information. They could say it is unlikely, that the angel has no reason to advance, or that the angel shows no signs of movement, but instead the show had to include another largely baseless statistic.

#Conclusion It is clear that the human aspect of NGE is the only part that anyone on the writing staff cared about based on the lack of forethought or time invested in any other aspect. That isn’t to say that the human aspect of NGE is particularly amazing or profound, especially since it is hampered by the other content, but it certainly is the most developed aspect. Then the question becomes why is any of it included? This isn’t a character driven narrative as the characters have minimal impact on the plot aside from maybe Gendo, it isn’t a high quality exploration of the human condition for a number of reasons previously expressed, none of the characters have meaningful arcs or development as the show would rather indulge in how broken the cast is, and the ending sucks any potential that the narrative had in concerns to giving the audience a satisfying payoff for what amounts to episodes worth of mostly useless padding, so why do people care about the characters? Then you take a look at the setting that is in part responsible for compromises involving the characters and it’s far worse. Nearly everything is either poorly established, inconsistent, and or mind numbingly stupid. It’s an absolute miracle that this ever managed to become critically acclaimed.

Editor: @DeirdreSkye