The one criticism of EVA I've never been able to dispute.

[CyberXIII]

...is that the setting is so bleak and hopeless that there's no bloody point to the story. We've heard this before, but I'd like to flesh that statement out and play devil's advocate.


To sum up, half of humanity is already dead before the story even begins. The survivors are some of the worst of the lot, ranging from being egocentric jackoffs or mentally ill hopeless cases.

The protagonists of the story are all ineffectual at best, or trying to finish the job. Shinji is useless, Asuka is a selfish jerk, Rei is...Rei, Misato's so consumed with her own petty vengeance she has no qualms about sending children into black holes or volcanoes or what have you, and I'm not even going to get started on NERV's upper management. Nothing the good guys do amounts to shit. The organizations tasked with keeping humanity alive are either ineffectual and bickering at best, or secretly trying to finish the job 2I started.

Anyone who does anything commendable suffers for it. It's like the setting runs on "No good deed goes unpunished." Shinji tries to be a standard shonen hero and gets to watch everyone he ever cared about die horribly. Asuka tries to make her mother proud doing the same, and fails so horribly that her mind shatters. Rei tries everything in her power to make Gendo happy, knowing fully well he's going to feed her to the abomination downstairs nailed to a cross.

At first, we were all tricked into caring about the story because things didn't seem so horrific, despite the setting. We laughed, we cheered, and there was some hope that things might turn out for the best....and then Bardiel showed up and everything went to hell. Honestly, looking at the series as a whole you realize that nothing that happens in the early episodes has any purpose aside from character study. While Anno was shooting for that, it's still completely pointless since they're all going to die horribly anyway. It's like a slasher film setting with giant robots.

Actually, I take that back. NGE's more like a cosmic horror story dressed up as a super robot show. The good guys just suffer ineffectually as they try to save the world (but not the people in it). The bad guys win and still end up dead. None of the conflict matters in the least because they're all doomed from the start. It's Space Runaway Ideon with cleverer fights and dialogue.

I'd love to hear a rebuttal to this. Preferably one that does not take anything Yui Ikari said at face value; I'd trust that insane bitch about as far as I could throw EVA-01.

[Monk Ed]

You don't need to take Yui's words at face value. Asuka showing up at the end after clearly dying is the proof of her words -- even after Shinji probably stopped believing them.

[SEELE-01]

I'd trust that insane bitch about as far as I could throw EVA-01.

Well, I've always considered that out of all the characters she was doing what she was doing out of actual commitment with humanity...
What her husband; the slutty 3rd in charge; the mentally unstable computer genius (daughter of the mad children-choker); the 3 voiceless bridge bunnies and approval-hungry son, wannabe pilot of unit 2 and mass produced clone wanted to do with or wanted to get out of Yui's legacy is besides the point when it comes to trusting her or not, even if it IS what sets the whole story in motion...

So, there's point... It's the story of how a buch of mad people (one of which I shall remind you, has a pet Penguin) ends with the little that remained of the world out of their different mental pathologies...

[Guy Nacks]

The organizations tasked with keeping humanity alive are either ineffectual and bickering at best, or secretly trying to finish the job 2I started.

I'm strongly reminded of the Fiscal Cliff debacle that is occurring in America's Congress, so i guess there's some real world truth to this trope.

It's like the setting runs on "No good deed goes unpunished." Shinji tries to be a standard shonen hero and gets to watch everyone he ever cared about die horribly. Asuka tries to make her mother proud doing the same, and fails so horribly that her mind shatters. Rei tries everything in her power to make Gendo happy, knowing fully well he's going to feed her to the abomination downstairs nailed to a cross.

As Anno would probably say: "That's life. Too bad."

Honestly, looking at the series as a whole you realize that nothing that happens in the early episodes has any purpose aside from character study. While Anno was shooting for that, it's still completely pointless since they're all going to die horribly anyway. It's like a slasher film setting with giant robots

Well you didn't KNOW they were going to die the first time you watched the series....unless you spoiled it for yourself beforehand.

[Dream]

@Everyone is useless and no good deed goes unpunished: Setting aside the fact that NGE's character are just a handful of the survivors (and people like Hikari, Touji or others who aren't too involved in NERV or Instrumentality seem to be rather normal fellows) Are... Particular specimens, and not neccessarily representative of humanity's general state, they're all ineffectual for a valid, believable reason. Shinji's useless by crippling self-doubt and loathing, deppression, and an uncertainty if he even can do anything good for anyone. It doesn't help that when he does go out bold to do something "heroic", for lack of a better term, it ends up bitting him in the ass or otherwise being thrown back in his face. Asuka does care about others, but just has difficulty showing it, and if you had her past and mentality you would probably be quite abrasive too. Rei being Rei is something so vague i can't even imagine how that can be a critique, leaving aside the implication that Rei being herself is bad. Misato's willingness to send the children seems more caused by the fact there's no other rather than her vendetta, if she could go there instead of Shinji, i am sure she would. The characters aren't very effective agents or human beings and they're not supposed to, all of them are very incomplete people and their personality/minds and the dynamic between them help illustrate the existential/human themes that characterize NGE.

It's true that Shinji sometimes tries to be a shonen hero (episode 16 is a good example) But Evangelion being a more "mature" anime than the typical shonen, recognizes shonen antics are stupid, and will get you killed in a combat setting. Something similar happens in ep 19, but with different themes. Asuka was so fucked up that something like that was bound to happen, probably not to the level of shattering her mind, but the girl was going to have to go throught a lot either by herself or in therapy. Rei's willingness to make Gendo happy even when she knows his final intentions for her might seem a bit off... But it was developed in a very believable way to me. I guess you could say that the plot contrivances from descent arc onwards that lead the characters to such broken shells by the time the endings come might be a bit too forced, but i felt they came quite naturally and fitting for the narrative. I wouldn't say it's so much that the show punishes good deeds, but rather that it recognizes that sometimes, even when you do good things, the world might still be bleak.

@Nothing matters in the end, there's no hope and they're going to die anyways: To be honest, even if i knew they were all going to die (not that i believe that happens in either ending) I still would have cared, i don't see why the characters living or dying in the end would completely change a story. It will still (hopefully) have a lot of character and theme development, and interesting plot and character dynamics, and sheer emotional strenght. Also, even in EoE -nah, specially in EoE- NGE was always about hope and life, so i fail to see what's so deppressing about it.

[jimmiel]

...is that the setting is so bleak and hopeless that there's no bloody point to the story.

"[the world-view for Neon Genesis Evangelion] is a world-view drenched in a vision of pessimism. A world-view where the story starts only after any traces of optimism have been removed."
- Hideaki Anno.

At the end of the story, however, they decide to keep struggling in such a world because even painful life is worth living and the feelings of happiness were real and worthwhile after all. You could say it's excessive, but it being all so hopeless is also kind of the point.
Yes, they were fucked from the start, but Shinji's (eventual) actions in EoE make the best of a truly screwed-up situation: those who wish to return to life can, Yui gets her goal and mankind gets to try again without the doomsday cult who ruined it in the first place.
The worst eventuality would have been an Angel initiating a world reset Third Impact that just kills everyone. Next would have been Seele's force-everyone-to-become a single being scenario (at least for the people who wanted to choose life). Above that we have what ended up happening.

[NemZ]

Yep, it's a depressive fucking nightmare where nothing works out in the long run, every success or failure is equally fated to lead your further down the slope, and the only hope offered at the end of the journey is given by someone who isn't in the same shitty circumstances and is arguably the most to blame for everything turning out as it did though she isn't punished at all. The point of the exercise is what it tells your about yourself, not how fucked the charecters are, because they're all a lost cause.

Ah, but the problem is you're watching the wrong version. The correct ending is a one-way trip to a whole new world of unfathomable experiences, free of the annoyances of biological life and psychological isolation.

[Mr. Tines]

...is that the setting is so bleak and hopeless that there's no bloody point to the story.

There are two takes on the story.

The as aired one ends in triumph, as Anno's depression remitted.

Then they got money to finish it off with more than just two episodes of re-used footage, animatics and still frames, however Anno relapsed in the meantime.

[A.T. Fish]

There's nothing to dispute there, after all Eva is, in a nutshell, a series about depression, so I'm completely ok with people finding it way too dark for their taste. Just try and look at it from this perspective, in the end the entire world had to die just so a problematic guy could come to a catharsis and regain his self esteem. The goal of the story is showing us the journey through depression and overcoming it, the giant robots and monsters, the world and the apocalypse are just the scenery.

[EvaBrothers]

NGE is definitely nightmarish, but there is a subtle pattern of hope that permeates the whole series. I think that's the hope that comes from human beings' ability to get back up on their feet no matter what tragedy they live. They do all they can do.

The goal of the story is showing us the journey through depression and overcoming it, the giant robots and monsters, the world and the apocalypse are just the scenery.

It's why I watched the series after coming out of a depression. It reinforced my strength (although depression tends to come back at random times). NGE is therapeutic work.

[Mr. Tines]

The goal of the story is showing us the journey through depression and overcoming it, the giant robots and monsters, the world and the apocalypse are just the scenery.

Yep!

[A.T. Fish]

That was genuinely funny.

[Dream]

I honestly don't get it. From where do you people get the impression that NGE is such a deppressing and negative work? It's certainly pretty dark and serious in a lot of aspects, but to me the whole series ultimately has always leaned more towards the side of hope.

I just don't see what's so unsalvageably deppresive about it.

[Kendrix]

Sure, many of the things that happen it are horrible and depressing, but overall, the work has a very positive message, it's a lovesong to the human will to survive no matter what and supposed to tell you that if you only adjust your point of view, you can find a way to go on living.

Both endings are pretty much of the everybody-lives-variety, TI is undone and everyone will most likely come back, as Yui told us. And Yui herself will make sure that we're never forgotten.

Sure, one more final really looks bleak, but what it's telling us is that misunderstanding and pain are back in this world ... which, as we had explained to us earlier, is a prerequisite for good things to exist, it's just gonna take time after those two kids have just been through hell.

Also, the general bleakless makes the little moments of light in it shine brightly like stars in the endless vacuum of creation.

As the author puts it

'Eva' is a story that repeats.
It is a story where the main character witnesses many horrors with his own eyes, but still tries to stand up again.
It is a story of will; a story of moving forward, if only just a little.
It is a story of fear, where someone who must face indefinite solitude fears reaching out to others, but still wants to try.

It's way more satisfying to see anyone in EVA archieve anything, however short lived it is, because it's so much harder for them...


It's just that sometimes you have to break an egg to find out whats inside, both the uglyness and the beauty.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

I must have missed the part where everyone dies horribly at the end of the film. Were there scened added after Asuka woke up on the shore with Shinji?

I also missed the reasons why we can't use Yui's voice-over in context with the film's ending.

It seems that, in order to claim the whole series was pointless, you have to ignore too much of the film's ending. That's just not worth the trouble, if you ask me.

[Monk Ed]

Kendrix and FreakyFilmFan, I love you. You said what I didn't have the energy to say for the hundredth time.

[NemZ]

I must have missed the part where everyone dies horribly at the end of the film. Were there scened added after Asuka woke up on the shore with Shinji?

I also missed the reasons why we can't use Yui's voice-over in context with the film's ending.

Just because Asuka got better later (arguable) it doesn't mean she didn't die horribly along with nearly everyone else or that they won't probably die even more horribly very soon.

Yui is a pie in the sky, ivory tower sort who is on her way out the door as an immortal goddess figgure, not staying to suffer and toil with them in the sad ruins of humanity. Her vague optimism counts for nothing.

[AuraTwilight]

Am I the only person who finds both endings to Evangelion to be extremely uplifting?

[riffraff11235]

Am I the only person who finds both endings to Evangelion to be extremely uplifting?

Nope. Although I find EoTV to be more uplifting, I prefer EoE. Just... 'cause.

[EvaBrothers]

Am I the only person who finds both endings to Evangelion to be extremely uplifting?

EoTV more than EoE, but I could feel that substrate of hope in both versions. ^^