Okay so I'm watching the hospital scene and I'm trying to understand Shinji's logic and I am stumped as fuck, what did he expect Asuka to do even if she could and was willing to help?

Her attitude is what a person like Shinji needed.
Energy+lack of energy=some energy
He also just missed her and wanted a familiar face.

ChaddyManPrime wrote:Okay so I'm watching the hospital scene and I'm trying to understand Shinji's logic and I am stumped as fuck, what did he expect Asuka to do even if she could and was willing to help?

It was an act of desperation and wasn't really meant to be logical. Shinji is psychologically broken at this point and, in his mind, he has nowhere to turn. Asuka isn't in any position to say "no", so in a twisted way that made her the perfect one to plead to.

What Reichu said is 100% true, but he was also there because he and Asuka are eternal cosmic lovers bound by the skeins of fate to find one another across universes, and you can’t convince me otherwise.

Reichu wrote:It was an act of desperation and wasn't really meant to be logical. Shinji is psychologically broken at this point and, in his mind, he has nowhere to turn. Asuka isn't in any position to say "no", so in a twisted way that made her the perfect one to plead to.

Huh. Curiously similar to the "logic" of a Weinstein. Perhaps a seed that may blossom into a disturbing pattern later in Shinji's life...

You've brought out an unexplained dimension of depravity in Shinji's actions. Unironically: good job.

Chuckman wrote:he and Asuka are eternal cosmic lovers bound by the skeins of fate to find one another across universes

"he" is not how you spell "Rei."

Your offering pleases me.

shinryujimikihiko wrote:"he" is not how you spell "Rei."

Jokes aside, I think that Asuka and Shinji make a good couple. I hope both of them can smile at the end of 3.0+1.0.

snow344 wrote:Jokes aside, I think that Asuka and Shinji make a good couple. I hope both of them can smile at the end of 3.0+1.0.

I think they make good counterparts to one another and have some of the best interactions, but they would not make a good couple right off the bat, too much bad blood.

Sure, sure, because both Shinji and Asuka are brats unable to love themselves and anyone else. After EoE however, they seem to have grown and changed, it at least started to.

be At that point he was willing to take anything even just a reaction.

Also it's one of those thing where people project outward what they want hoping to get it back but since they never actually say it they get used or misunderstood or nothing happens. (In a way that also goes for her) - "I'll need you, so please need me so I can feel less unwanted".

At that point he only perceives his own acute pain that drowns out everything else - such as the logical reasoning that would tell him that she's incapacitated and quite possibly can't answer.
I mean everyone he cared about died, got maimed or went nuts in very short sucession and this is the very day after he was forced to kill Kaworu with his own hands - we can't pin this entirely on the circumstance because how he cracked is still quite characteristic and indicative of his preexisting dysfunctionalities flaws and distortions - He generally does go out of his way to be nice and considerate insofar as he's making deliberate choices but under stress, he also shows a consistent pattern of completely losing sight of the big picture, including consequences and the needs of other people, ep 19 being another glaring example.

But this is also a pretty extreme, 'cannibalism on a deserted island' type of situation not something he'd do in his everyday life. This is the kind of show that drives its characters to the brink because it's interested in exploring what they might do there and what that might say about humanity

snow344 wrote:Jokes aside, I think that Asuka and Shinji make a good couple. I hope both of them can smile at the end of 3.0+1.0.

I don't think so. Shinji was in a comma so his mental age is still 14 years old, but Asuka is much mentally older (27/28 years old) so they are very different, while biology also plays an important role in the development of an adult person. Asuka is also mad at Shinji, but this time she is not covering any feelings. And, 14 years is much time, Asuka has lost any feelings for Shinji.

I would agree if both of them where in comma or none of them.

scorpew wrote:I don't think so. Shinji was in a comma so his mental age is still 14 years old, but Asuka is much mentally older (27/28 years old) so they are very different, while biology also plays an important role in the development of an adult person. Asuka is also mad at Shinji, but this time she is not covering any feelings. And, 14 years is much time, Asuka has lost any feelings for Shinji.

I would agree if both of them where in comma or none of them.

That's probably my one and only real problem with 3.0. Was the 14 year time skip REALLY necessary? Shinji is so disconnected from everyone now. Everyone he has ever known has now grown up and matured and left him behind. Shinji already had trouble forming bonds and connections with people, and right as he was finally starting to, the 14 year time skip happens and undos it all. How is he supposed to form bonds and connections with anyone now that they're all so far ahead of him mentally? He's basically a stranger in a strange land.

It's not like he can just meet new people either, because everyone his age from the newer generation has probably been raised to believe that Shinji is some sort of villain that caused Third Impact, and so would probably hate him and want nothing to do with him. I don't get it, what was Anno trying to accomplish with that 14 year time skip? We could have had the same story, but without the 14 year time skip by having Unit-01 spit Shinji out after a few months like it did in the original series, and then having the rest of the movie proceed as it did with Shinji waking up onbaord the Wunder. He's now made it virtually impossible for Shinji to bond with anyone. How is Shinji supposed to grow as a person in this type of situation where he's been socially stunted to such a degree? No matter what he does, Shinji will feel like he just doesn't belong anymore. It's such a bleak and depressing outcome. I wouldn't be surprised if he tries to off himself because of how out of place he feels.

Melkor wrote:That's probably my one and only real problem with 3.0. Was the 14 year time skip REALLY necessary? Shinji is so disconnected from everyone now. Everyone he has ever known has now grown up and matured and left him behind. Shinji already had trouble forming bonds and connections with people, and right as he was finally starting to, the 14 year time skip happens and undos it all. How is he supposed to form bonds and connections with anyone now that they're all so far ahead of him mentally? He's basically a stranger in a strange land.

It's not like he can just meet new people either, because everyone his age from the newer generation has probably been raised to believe that Shinji is some sort of villain that caused Third Impact, and so would probably hate him and want nothing to do with him. I don't get it, what was Anno trying to accomplish with that 14 year time skip? We could have had the same story, but without the 14 year time skip by having Unit-01 spit Shinji out after a few months like it did in the original series, and then having the rest of the movie proceed as it did with Shinji waking up onbaord the Wunder. He's now made it virtually impossible for Shinji to bond with anyone. How is Shinji supposed to grow as a person in this type of situation where he's been socially stunted to such a degree? No matter what he does, Shinji will feel like he just doesn't belong anymore. It's such a bleak and depressing outcome. I wouldn't be surprised if he tries to off himself because of how out of place he feels.

Guess they did that for giving new technology and a new geopolitical situation to the plot. It's an easy resource I guess. However I think this could happen in just 2-3 years, and not breaking all Shinji's relationships with everyone and leaving him isolated from all the characters and the world.

Melkor wrote:That's probably my one and only real problem with 3.0. Was the 14 year time skip REALLY necessary? Shinji is so disconnected from everyone now. Everyone he has ever known has now grown up and matured and left him behind. Shinji already had trouble forming bonds and connections with people, and right as he was finally starting to, the 14 year time skip happens and undos it all. How is he supposed to form bonds and connections with anyone now that they're all so far ahead of him mentally? He's basically a stranger in a strange land.

It's not like he can just meet new people either, because everyone his age from the newer generation has probably been raised to believe that Shinji is some sort of villain that caused Third Impact, and so would probably hate him and want nothing to do with him. I don't get it, what was Anno trying to accomplish with that 14 year time skip? We could have had the same story, but without the 14 year time skip by having Unit-01 spit Shinji out after a few months like it did in the original series, and then having the rest of the movie proceed as it did with Shinji waking up onbaord the Wunder. He's now made it virtually impossible for Shinji to bond with anyone. How is Shinji supposed to grow as a person in this type of situation where he's been socially stunted to such a degree? No matter what he does, Shinji will feel like he just doesn't belong anymore. It's such a bleak and depressing outcome. I wouldn't be surprised if he tries to off himself because of how out of place he feels.

In addition, the main goal of a scriptwriter (or whatever you like to call it) is not to make a story happy, but more interesting. Well, in fact there isn't any certain goal by definition.

However, I have to say that if a story ends happy, usually, the spectator feels happy too. Perhaps they want us to feel void so we consume their merchandise in order to fill the void that the story left us while they make money.

I don't think the time skip is meant to be taken literally (like IMO most stuff in 3.0).
Asuka being the same after 14 years stands for her lack of progress I think, in the sense that a lot of her issues have stayed the same (like the short temper). She is also stuck in the past with the apparent crush over Shinji.

I think this also plays into the "nation of children" Anno described Japan as in an older interview, where he said Japan has no true adults.

https://animediet.net/commentary/hideaki-anno-interviewed-by-atlantic-monthly-by-way-of-getreligionorg

Well, we technically DID see Shinji asking Asuka to help TWICE in EoE (once in the hospital with "THE SCENE" and the other with they're at Misato's house, which is meant parallel Episode 15 when they kiss, except there, they're just themselves without anything masking their true selves.) I think though by that point he was just desperate for someone to help guide him. Both time resulting in something uh...well not EXACTLY helpful outcomes...well maybe one of them was helpful temporarily for Shinji (yeah, you know what scene I'm talking about ), but still.


I think he just wants ANYONE to help him, Asuka is just someone that seems unique compared to everyone and I guess just rubs Shinji a certain way that makes him see her as someone who can help. Kaworu in Episode 24 pretty much came for Shinji when he needed him, and I guess why the two become so close and why it's even sadder what happens at the end of the episode. But that's just my guess, I don't really think I have a right to talk on Asuka considering she's not the one I'm always talking on (though it is good to know more stuff about her.)

kuribo-04 wrote:I don't think the time skip is meant to be taken literally (like IMO most stuff in 3.0).
Asuka being the same after 14 years stands for her lack of progress I think, in the sense that a lot of her issues have stayed the same (like the short temper). She is also stuck in the past with the apparent crush over Shinji.

I think this also plays into the "nation of children" Anno described Japan as in an older interview, where he said Japan has no true adults.

https://animediet.net/commentary/hideaki-anno-interviewed-by-atlantic-monthly-by-way-of-getreligionorg

SPOILER: Show

Anno understands the Japanese national attraction to characters like Rei as the product of a stunted imaginative landscape born of Japan’s defeat in the Second World War. “Japan lost the war to the Americans,” he explains, seeming interested in his own words for the first time during our interview. “Since that time, the education we received is not one that creates adults. Even for us, people in their 40s, and for the generation older than me, in their 50s and 60s, there’s no reasonable model of what an adult should be like.” The theory that Japan’s defeat stripped the country of its independence and led to the creation of a nation of permanent children, weaklings forced to live under the protection of the American Big Daddy, is widely shared by artists and intellectuals in Japan. It is also a staple of popular cartoons, many of which feature a well-meaning government that turns out to be a facade concealing sinister and more powerful forces.

Anno pauses for a moment, and gives a dark-browed stare out the window. “I don’t see any adults here in Japan,” he says, with a shrug. “The fact that you see salarymen reading manga and pornography on the trains and being unafraid, unashamed or anything, is something you wouldn’t have seen 30 years ago, with people who grew up under a different system of government. They would have been far too embarrassed to open a book of cartoons or dirty pictures on a train. But that’s what we have now in Japan. We are a country of children.”

To be honest, we're starting to see that more and more here in the U.S. as well, even without the war. Maybe that's just people though becoming more and more immature as their reality blurs thanks to the presence of the internet. But I do get how the quote connects here.

(Going off on a ramble here, but hear me out.) It sort of reminds me of the Elevator scene where Asuka (representing Japan) is talking about how their "almighty Shinji" (representing America) would take of the Angels (representing threats/enemies of other countries) and how "the girls" (people of Japan) wouldn't have to worry about fighting anything because they find themselves too weak to fight.