If you’re someone who hasn’t heard of Neon Genesis Evangelion, then you’re either someone who has been living under a rock for the last twenty years or you’ve been too busy actually having a life to care about what all the weebs of the world have been ranting about for decades.

For anyone who is interested, Neon Genesis Evangelion is widely considered to be one of the truly seminal works of anime, a series which not only still as an effect on anime to this day, but also has spawned thousands of think-pieces, video essays, and analyses. So, hopefully you now have a sense of exactly what I’m wading into when I decided to write a think-piece of my own. Evangelion is a series which has been analyzed through pretty much every lens you could possibly imagine, feminist theory, modern and post-modern theory, auteur theory, metaphysical theory, its religious motifs have been picked apart, basically every single aspect of this anime has been looked over at some point over the last few decades. Trying to find new ground to cover when it comes to one of the most analyzed and critically beloved animes of all time is not an easy task by any means, but I think I may have hit upon something of interest to me, personally, and something which I haven’t really seen talked about before. I’m not sure how much more I have to reveal and I’m not sure how well my theory is going to stand up, but, I figured I would get my thoughts out and see what people think.

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Warning that spoilers abound for the original series and for the movie, End of Evangelion.

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An Eva (Right) Fighting an Angel (Left)

For those who don’t know the story, those who need a refresher, or even those who want to make sure they’re all on the same page, the story of Neon Genesis Evangelion takes place in the a post-apocalyptic world fifteen years after a massive global catastrophe, called the Second Impact, that decimated humanity. The armoured and mechanized city of Tokyo-3 is being besieged by strange, alien beings called Angels who are supposedly out to destroy what remains of humanity. In order to stop these Angels, three young people, two girls, Asuka and Rei, and a boy, Shinji, are trained as pilots in giant robots calls Evangelions, or Evas, which are used to fight and kill these Angels under the management of the pseudo-military organization known as Nerv.

The Neon Genesis Evangelion Cast, from left to right: Front row — Kaworu, Penpen (the penguin), Hikari, Kensuke, Toji, Asuka, Shinji, and Rei. Back row — Ritsuko, Gendo, Yui, Kozo, Shigeru, Maya, Makoto, Ryoji, and Misato.

Shinji acts as our protagonist throughout the series and is the estranged son of the leader of Nerv, Gendo, who he has very mixed feelings around being near since his father abandoned him years ago. His growth and interactions with the rest of the cast, from his cold, even cruel father, to the aloof and somewhat emotionless Rei, to the brash, assertive Asuka, to his caretaker Misato, a kind, yet slightly out-of-control woman who feels like she’s way out of her depth within Nerv, form the bulk of the plot points in the series. Shinji, at the beginning of the story at least, is someone who often feels like he is completely unnecessary, someone who runs away from hardship and anything vaguely difficult, but slowly begins to become more confident and develop more of a sense of his own agency as the story progresses as well as coming to know those around him more, too.

But, honestly, the most interesting character for me, and perhaps the most interesting character for much of the fan base, is one which shows up quite late in the show and one who disappears quite quickly afterwards, a boy named Kaworu who is brought in as a replacement to Asuka after she undergoes a mental breakdown. Anyone who has watched the show will tell you that Shinji’s relationships with most of the other characters are a little rocky and a little fraught to say the least. Shinji, and really most of the characters in the show, desperately seeks validation and unconditional love, something which his father is completely and utterly uninterested in giving him and something which the females around him are largely unable to give to him due to each of them dealing with their own issues around love and validation, and any love that he is given over the course of the show often comes with strings attached and is withdrawn the minute that Shinji no longer plays the role which he has been assigned. The only character who loves Shinji unconditionally and accepts him for who he is without any strings attached, even going so far as to say “I love you” to him (in the original Japanese anyway, it’s often made much less explicit in the English dubs and later subtitles *shakes gay fist*), is Kaworu.

How dare they get rid of this?!

And Kaworu is a boy. I don’t mention that because it’s necessarily all that unusual for anime, especially nowadays. Boys liking boys is something which is most definitely not unheard of in anime, though it’s most often relegated to its own genre known as “Boys’ Love” which is predominantly made for straight female viewers. No, I bring it up because this always seemed like an interesting choice to me, the choice to make Kaworu a boy.

Up until this point, Shinji has been almost entirely surrounded by women and has exclusively only shown interest in women, and, while many of these relationships with women are rather rocky and rarely ever go where Shinji wants them to go, Kaworu and his affection for Shinji does kind of come out of nowhere, especially in a show that is very, very comfortable letting characters develop slowly over time and letting their relationships form organically. The fact that Shinji really seems to accept and treasure Kaworu’s love for him also seems to come slightly out of left field.

And, as an aside, this is one of the things I’ve really come to appreciate about the modern Evangelion fan base. The fan base is actively and completely outraged that dubs and subs of the show erase the explicit affection between Shinji and Kaworu which is a big deal in a media landscape where such things are not unheard of, see Sailor Uranus and Neptune from Sailor Moon as another example, and it can sometimes go unremarked upon. But, no, the Evangelion fan base is so protective of and treasures the show so much that any attempt to change the source material is met with widespread outrage and condemnation and at least a substantial portion of the fan base actively acknowledges and agrees that Shinji and Kaworu are in love with each other! It’s nice, seeing anime weebs standing up for gay representation in a positive way like this! For once, anyway.

Still, this decision to make Kaworu male and to make the only source of true affection in Shinji’s life a boy was something that stuck with me ever since I watched the show myself which was much more recently than most people. Why? There had been no whiff of any previous LGBT elements throughout the show, beyond a sub-textual same-sex attraction that Maya might have for Ritsuko, so why suddenly add it in near the end? The writers could have easily made Kaworu a female character or even had Rei fulfill his role as the two are actually somewhat similar in a lot of ways. I struggled over this question for ages, why did they make Kaworu male and add in something like this? I doubt it was just for the straight female members of the audience, the show had pretty heavily been marketed towards the typical male anime weebs previous, so why?

Well, the most recent round of outrage around the sanitization of Shinji and Kaworu’s relationship in the English release of the latest iteration of Evangelion last year or so finally made the pieces snap together in my mind and it was done by looking at Evangelion not necessarily through an academic lens, but through my own perspective as a very not-masculine, gender nonconforming gay guy!

Putting children into giant, humanoid robots is nothing new in the medium of anime, there’s an entire genre of anime dedicated to it called the Mech or Mecha genre which was a thing even before Evangelion, but Evangelion took in it a completely different direction in more ways than one. Mecha anime was born out of Japan’s militaristic and colonialist past, spinning off from World War II-era propaganda, though much of the Mecha genre has, thankfully, at least tried to cover up this less than politically-correct start to the whole genre as franchises and shows like the Gundam series often depict the Mechas working for a sort of collective military force protecting all of humanity from evil or by creating two fictional competing parties like the more recent Aldnoah.Zero. Evangelion, on the other hand, allows the audience no illusions when it comes to the fact that the Evas are controlled by Nerv as an extension of the Japanese army. Soldiers are a common feature of Mecha anime, but rarely does Mecha anime capture the feel of a military institution like Evangelion does, strict, regimented control and cold focus on getting the job done at all costs. Many Mecha animes have the usually teenage protagonists acting just like ordinary teenagers, goofing off, having fun, and becoming friends with one another, but this is all not so with Evangelion. Though there may still be some more light-hearted moments here and there, those in power within Nerv like Shinji’s father, Gendo, always make sure to remind Shinji and the others that they are basically soldiers and are expected to act like soldiers.

In many ways, the fourteen year-old protagonists of Evangelion probably act much more like teenagers than the average Mecha anime. These are young people who are still just trying to figure out who they are in this world and often chaff against the strict control and standard of conduct that is imposed on them. They’re just starting to figure themselves out, what they really think about what’s going on around them, what they think about each other and what they feel about each other. The teenagers of Evangelion are just beginning to come into their own sense of self, but they never have the time or the space to be able to goof off and act like children, they’re constantly being told just how important their jobs are and how the future of the human race depends on them. They don’t have the time or the luxury of being children because they have to act like soldiers.

Honestly, I could probably write an entire think piece about what the show says about the military alone, but the great “Eureka!” moment for me when it came to my ponderings of Evangelion was thinking about how the children were forced into large, humanoid bodies, especially being placed inside of adult forms even though they’re only fourteen. These are teenagers who are being forced to grow up very, very quickly and take on adult roles, adult behaviour, and adult responsibilities long before they’re ready to and, once I realized that, I then had to ask, “Okay, if they’re being forced to grow up, what sort of adult they are being forced to become?”

And, well, they’re expected to act like soldiers, they’re expected to not let their feelings show, or to at least not let their feelings affect their work, they’re expected to follow orders, they’re expected to conform to and uphold the standards of behaviour that are being set for them. They’re even regularly monitored on how well they synchronize with these large adult forms which they are expected to operate and inhabit with any drop in their synchronization scrutinized with the threat that they could be sidelined if they ever drop far enough out of sync with the standards set for them. And it is implied by the show that the factors which determine how well or how poorly they synchronize with the Evas is how much emotional distress they are under, how empty their minds are, and how obedient they are to Nerv’s goals.

And anyone who has lived in a very heteronormative society like ours as a most definitely not heteronormative teenager, as I have, knows exactly what it feels like for society to try and mould you in this way.

Hell, you only need to look what’s projecting out from between the legs of the Eva units to see that these are also supposed to be masculine forms which becomes very significant considering that two of the three pilots are girls. These girls are being held to the same standard as the boys are and they are being moulded by the same mould as the boys are, too. They’re being forced to act just as masculine as the boys.

But, the expectations do not end there, either. These children are also expected to sacrifice themselves for the greater good if that is what they are ordered to do or if that is the only way to protect the mission and some of the characters do, at some point, have to do just that. Rei sacrifices herself and blows up her Eva unit to protect the others from an Angel that has taken over her unit while Shinji is forced to watch as Nerv takes over his unit in order to destroy the unit being controlled by Toji who had only recently become an Eva pilot, too, all in the name of the greater good. And, of course, they are expected to kill Angels.

That, of course, led me to think about the Angels. If the Evas are representative of the model that society tries to force teenagers into, then what do the Angels represent in relation to that? Well, the appearance of the Angels vary greatly compared to the Evas. The Evas all possess a basic humanoid body plan and some of the Angels do, too, but some don’t. Some are so alien that our minds struggle to comprehend them. So, obviously, the Angels must represent everything that exists outside of the mould which these children are being forced into and everything that exists outside of the worldview which these children are being taught. And these children are now being sent out to destroy these things which exist beyond their limited, narrow worldview.

The True Power Behind NERV

As the show progresses, it’s revealed that Nerv is actually secretly being controlled by a group of powerful men called Seele who wish to use the Evas and one of the Angels that they’ve captured, named Eve, to implement what they call “The Human Instrumentality Project” which is meant to break down all individuality and force all of humanity to “evolve” into one single consciousness, one consensus, one great singular unified whole with one vision, believing that getting rid of things like uniqueness, autonomy, and the self is the only path to a peaceful world. Once this is revealed, the fact that the Angels are focused on attacking Tokyo-3 and Nerv in particular becomes re-cast in a new light. It’s stated outright that the Angels were trying to get to Eve, as if to free her and put a stop to the Human Instrumentality Project.

These children were forced into a mould of perfect, obedient soldiers in order to do the bidding of a small group of powerful old men who wanted to destroy the world and bring it under their control and to kill anything that stood in the way of the plans of said small group of old, powerful men.

But, you may now be asking, what does this have to do with Kaworu being a boy? What does this have to do with your experience of being a gender nonconforming gay guy?

Well, it has to do with Kaworu and Shinji because this mould that Shinji, Rei, and Asuka are forced into is a heteronormative one.

Heteronormativity, for those who aren’t aware or for those who have been deceived about the term, refers to the idea that, within our society, to be heterosexual, cis-gender, and gender conforming is synonymous with being considered “normal” and that all other forms of existence outside of these moulds are considered “abnormal”. Heteronormativity is reinforced by society through society pressure, by the privileging of a heterosexual, cis-gender, and gender conforming perspective and by punishing anything that strays outside of these rigidly-defined ideas and roles. Heteronormativity is expressed through people insisting that “there are only two genders” and that nothing else exists in parallel and through “traditional” gender roles, such as boys being tough and girls being sensitive, boys asking girls out and not the other way around, that boys like trucks and girls like dolls, etc. Heteronormativity is why we can have white, straight, able-bodied male protagonists in videos fighting in wars all around the world and confronting the deep, ideological costs of doing such and no one bats an eyelash, but, when you have a protagonist who is female, or black, or gay, gamers will decry games being “too political” because heterosexual, male, cis-gender perspectives are considering the default and universal, but anything that exists outside of that is “pandering to the SJWs”.

Heteronormativity is the entirety of how our society still looks at sex, sexuality, and what is considered “proper” behaviour and, if you’ve lived your entire life perfectly happy with the roles and expectations which society has set out for you, then you may have never even given a passing thought to these ideas, you’ve probably never wondered why men are supposed to be strong and woman are supposed to be weak, you’ve probably never thought how anyone could not be satisfied being either a man or a woman, you’ve probably always thought that these ideas that you accepted were universally true, but, if you have ever stepped even one toe out of these roles and concepts which society has constructed for you, then you know exactly what it feels like. I know I do.

And the denigration of everyone who exists outside of these binary, rigidly-defined ideas is the foundation of these beliefs. Conformity is rewarded and rebellion is punished. Why are men so desperate to act manly and strong and masculine? Because they’re afraid that, if they don’t, then people will think that they’re gay. And why is being gay so horrible? Because of how society treats gay men and how they’ll be looked upon as lesser in the eyes of everyone if there’s even the vaguest suggestion that they’re not perfectly masculine or perfectly straight. And also because they’re rewarded and are able to live easier lives if they meet these standards, or, rather, they hope they will.

Why are women told to wear clothing and make-up which makes them appealing to men? Because society teaches both men and women that a woman’s value depends on her beauty and her attractiveness to men. And things like office dress codes reinforce this through forcing women to wear things like high heels or even though advertising that pushes a very make-up and flawless appearance as “natural”. And because they know that they’ll be able to exist without being judged for not being attractive and that they may even get rewarded for all the work they put in, or, rather, they hope they will be.

Why do so many people believe that only two genders are possible and that everyone who claims to exist outside of that binary or who wishes to change their position within or without that binary are mentally ill or just looking for attention? Because our society has pushed the idea that sex and gender are one and the same and that the only two sexes are male and female with any elaboration on the subject being gated off within higher-level courses or deeper reading online. Because we live in a society that is so rigidly divided along gender lines that, if you don’t conform to one or the other, then it seems like some great transgression. And because there’s always an army of TERFs and conservatives who will slap them on the back and give them praise for standing up to the gay/transgender agenda.

And what will happen if you question anyone on why these things are seen as absolute truths of the world even when science shows that sex is a spectrum at the absolutely least, when psychology confirms that gender exists independent of sex, when history proves that gender roles and gender norms have changed throughout time, when zoology proves that same-sex relationships exist and are quite common in the vast majority of animal species, and when anthropology proves that gender roles and norms varying across cultures? They’ll respond with some variation of “This is the way it has always been!” or “Because, if we don’t have this, then society will end!”

Heteronormativity is, in essence, a lie. Heteronormativity presents people with a set of ideas and artificially-constructed binaries and then convinces them through forcing it down everyone’s throats that these are more important, more ironclad, and much older than they actually are. Because if you can get people believing in these lies about themselves and each other and get them to see everyone who tells them otherwise as evil or mad, then it makes them much, much easier to control and convince them of many other lies. There’s a reason why the “traditional family”, i.e. the heterosexual, monogamist, procreative family, and “traditional gender roles” have been central pillars of every single version of fascist and totalitarian ideology that has every existed in the modern era all the way up to the present day. Gay people, transgender people, non-binary and gender nonconforming people are easy targets to get people to rally against because they go against these supposedly ironclad values, because they show that these values are actually lies, after all.

Shinji, Asuka, and Rei are told that, if they don’t pilot the Evas and if they don’t succeed in their mission, then humanity is doomed. And they’re told that they cannot properly pilot the Evas if they do not act accordingly to the standard set out by Nerv and secretly by Seele and if they aren’t willing to sacrifice everything that makes them individuals. They’re rewarded when they do well with attention, affection, and praise and told that, if they save humanity, they’ll be considered heroes, and are ostracized, belittled, and threatened with being cast aside if they prove they no longer meet the standards of conformity and if they don’t succeed in destroying that which they have been told is their enemy at all costs.

“Wait, wait, wait!” You may be saying, “Are you saying that the Angels, alien monsters, are really gay, trans, and non-binary people?”

Well…kind of? I mean, we do have people who still have the joke “I identify as an attack helicopter!” as a way to denigrate trans and non-binary people, saying that identifying as a different gender than what society has assigned you is analogous to declaring yourself a different species.

(And I’m sorry to burst your bubble, transphobes, but, as someone who knows the furry community pretty well, I can tell you that there are people with fursonas that are basically anthropomorphized jet planes and tanks so, yes, there are people in this world who do identify as attack helicopters! Go look at some furry porn and grow the fuck up!)

And, to a person who has lived a life where things like gender, sexuality, and gender roles have been rigidly defined and enforced, those who transgress these binaries very well could seem alien. Angels represent whatever exists outside of the comprehension and worldview which Nerv and Seele is forcing onto Shinji, Asuka, Rei, and the rest of humanity. Gay, trans, and non-binary people, women, people of colour, disabled people, socialists and communists, basically anyone who is used as a scapegoat by those in power and by fascist movements and anything or anyone who exists outside of the rigid world which we are raised with. The Angels are blamed for everything when, in the end, it’s revealed that Seele is the one who is responsible for all the destruction that befalls humanity, because humanity believed the lies that Seele sold them through the government and through the military.

Shinji, in particular, almost always struggles with the standards applied onto him by his father and by Nerv. He’s a very timid, shy person who lacks almost any trace of self-confidence, someone who feels so helpless and powerless that he feels like he doesn’t even have the initiative to commit suicide, but is also a very caring and kind person, all very, very unmanly qualities, and he’s always seeking love and acceptance and continues to do so during his time at Nerv. He tries to live up to his father’s expectations, but often fails and, even when he does succeed, he rarely gets any acknowledgement from his father who is much closer with Rei, he is confused and unable to handle Asuka’s abrasiveness and isn’t as cultured or grown up enough for her tastes, Rei does her best to keep him at arm’s length as she does with humanity in general, and Misato isn’t going to be in a relationship with him because she’s a grown woman and he’s fourteen! Shinji is a lot like a typical fourteen year-old where he knows that he likes women and wants to be involved with them, but doesn’t know how to do that and how to bridge the divide which heteronormativity has placed between the genders. He is constantly rejected by everything and everyone around him and left completely and utterly alone. That is until Kaworu appears.

Kaworu, unlike everyone else in Shinji’s life, loves and accepts him for who he is. He doesn’t set standards for Shinji in order to earn his affection and he doesn’t try to change Shinji into a different person, Kaworu treats Shinji as the beautiful, kind, and unique person that he is. Kaworu sends time around Shinji because he likes Shinji just as he is. Kaworu accepts and loves Shinji unconditionally, and Shinji even admits that he loves Kaworu back!

…and then Kaworu is revealed to be an Angel, perhaps the most powerful of all after Eve, and Shinji is forced to kill him.

Heteronormativity forces people into rigid ways of being and then it forces them to destroy those who seek to free them from their bonds.

Out of all three pilots, Rei is probably the one who is lavished with the most affection and attention, especially from Gendo, for a time, anyway. She is largely emotionless, doesn’t have much sense of self-worth, largely doesn’t have any motivations or desires or her own other than to fulfill the missions she is given which she will do at any and all costs, and she is also completely and utterly disposable. No, really, she’s actually an artificially-created clone and Nerv has dozens more of her. Rei is the ideal person within a heteronormative society, a person who only exists to meet the expectations of society, to fulfill the role set out for them, and then to be disposed of when they have outlived their usefulness to those in power.

Rei, born to be disposed of when she is no longer useful.

So, given everything I’d laid out here and everything that’s revealed about Seele and the Angels, you would think, or at least hope, that these kids break free from Seele’s plan, the world is saved, and the story has a happy ending, right?

Well…eheh…

…eheh…

…eheh…

…eheh…

…eheh…

…heh.

The answer to that is kind of complicated. You see, in a way, the original run of Evangelion kind of has two endings, there’s the ending to the original TV series and then there’s a movie produced several years later which picks up right where the series ended off and provides an alternate ending. Which ending is supposed to be canon and which ending was the intended ending of the show is something which has been debated and argued over for the last two decades or so ever since the movie premiered.

If you want a good rundown of what happened and what I think is a great take on the two endings, I highly recommend Dan Olson’s video on the subject from way back in 2013. His video actually helped to inspire my take on Evangelion so check it out if you haven’t:

Dan Olsen’s End of Evangelion of the Audience/Author Membrane

Overall, I agree with Dan’s take on End of Evangelion because, when I watched the original series and the movie for myself, I felt like there was a dramatic shift in Shinji’s character from the series compared to the movie.

Shinji’s journey through the original series wasn’t easy by any means, but it generally trended upwards, it slowly built Shinji up as a person and gave him more and more strength and more and more confidence in himself.

Contrast this with the Shinji we see in End of Evangelion where he basically seems to be a complete empty husk of a person, is basically in the middle of one long emotional breakdown, oh, and also, as Dan puts it, “masturbates to completion over Asuka’s comatose body”. It seemed to me, when I watched the movie, that Shinji had taken several giant steps backwards. Even having to kill Kaworu didn’t destroy Shinji in the original series because Shinji had grown enough to be strong enough to overcome it and to make sure it wasn’t going to happen again. End of Eva’s Shinji can barely even function anymore and has to be saved and pushed along by Misato, otherwise he would have happily let himself be killed a dozen times.

I repeat! Shinji masturbates to completion over Asuka’s comatose body!

The movie also pushed Asuka as a love interest for Shinji whereas, while the two may have had some tension in the series, she was never any more of an interest in Shinji than anyone else. In the end, I agree with Dan’s take that End of Eva was Anno’s revenge against the fanboys who had hated the original ending of the show because the Shinji that I knew from the original series wasn’t the Shinji I was presented with in End of Eva.

So, how does this affect my reading of Evangelion as a whole? Well, I think the original ending of the show melds reasonably well with my reading, Shinji ultimately learns to accept himself for who he is and decides to stop seeking validation for his identity from the people around him and from society around him so he can finally just be himself and be happy. Through this, the world is essentially reborn through him, all barriers removed and all walls torn down so everyone is free to live and exist as themselves, but, as someone who did enjoy plot of the rest of the series, it did leave me a little unsatisfied, especially considering that it almost completely writes out every other character except Shinji with a little bit of Asuka and Misato here and there.

End of Eva actually does have some moments that fit quite nicely into my reading of Evangelion, however, particularly around Rei. Rei, as I said before, was basically a non-person throughout much of the show, she lived basically entirely to fulfill her role in Gendo’s plan and had few desires or motivations of her own outside of that. Gendo’s plan is to have Rei, who he believes he can control, merge with Eve so that he can take control of the rebirth of humanity and the world all for the sole purpose of seeing his late wife, Yui, again, but, in End of Eva, she ultimately betrays Gendo, merges with Eve and instead, along with Kaworu who has been reborn as the Adam to Rei’s Eve, gives the control to Shinji who throughout the series had been kind and understanding to her, treating her like an actual person and not a tool or an object like basically everyone else. Shinji humanizing Rei and treating her with respect ultimately empowers her, Shinji, and Kaworu to overcome Seele’s vision for the world and break free of the expectations set for them.

Destroying Heteronormativity Be Like…

The only problem is that, in the movie, Shinji uses this control to bring Asuka back to life only to immediately try to strangle her. Yeah, a bit of a downer.

Yeah, just a bit of a downer ending.

If I’m allowed a little headcanoning and conspiracy theorizing of my own, I think that it’s obvious that at least some of the ending had been planned beforehand since we see some concept art and first draft animations in the credits near the tail end of the original series so my best guess based purely on the series and the movie is that the “canonical” ending of Evangelion plays out basically the same as in the movie except that Shinji isn’t such a massive useless sack of potatoes. Rei betrays Gendo and takes control of the end of the world, Misato convinces Shinji to get back into the Eva before sacrificing herself, Asuka sacrifices herself to make sure Shinji can get to Rei and Shinji is immersed deep into the reshaping world.

Kaworu and Shinji, reunited.

Here’s where I’d place Shinji’s psychological journey from the end of the original series, Shinji coming to this realization of his own worth and value as a human being which therefore extends to everyone’s value and worth as a human being, and through the love Shinji showed to Rei, the faith Rei, Misato, and Asuka had in Shinji, the love Kaworu and Shinji had for each other, and the new love Shinji found for himself, the world is reborn again, either essentially the same, but without Seele, without the First and Second Impacts, without the need for the Angels, or perhaps even transformed into a better, freer world. Either way, Shinji has Kaworu back and they’re in love, yay! Happy ending all around, proving that the way you fight against the barriers and the boxes heteronormativity tries to place you and other into is to be kind, to be accepting, and to reach out to other people, to love and respect them unconditionally as they are, to be yourself and to love yourself and to not live based on how others want you to live, but how you want to live.

Congrats, Shinji! You ended heteronormativity! Yay! :D

But, ultimately, I can’t really find any evidence or any quote which confirms or disproves this, this is something purely based on my own interpretation of Evangelion. I suppose I can only hope that I get the happy, uplifting ending I want for the story in the reboot of the franchise, Rebuild, which, like Dan, I also haven’t watched yet. I’m waiting for the final episode to come out.

So, when is the final episode coming out again?

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…June 2020?

…When was the last one?

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…2016?

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…When was the first one?

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…2007?!

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…Goddamnit, Anno!

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