What's up with Gendo's invitation letter to Shinji?

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MightyHufflepuff
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What's up with Gendo's invitation letter to Shinji?

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Postby MightyHufflepuff » Sun Nov 25, 2018 1:08 am

In episode 1, after Misato asks Shinji whether he has received an ID card, Shinji pulls out a letter sent to him by Gendo with the card attached to it. Image

I have always been rather confused by Gendo's paper of choice. If he is only going to write "Come - Gendo Ikari", why not just write it on a normal, blank piece of paper? (Now that I try to picture that, it doesn't come off as aesthetically attractive + mysterious + foreshadow the father-son relationship tangle, ha.) Instead, Gendo chose to write it on some sort of an information page about Shinji - but with any possibly useful info obscured by a black marker. :???: Does this mean Gendo originally wanted Shinji to read up on something but then decided against it? But it seems too intentional + too much of an effort to black out everything opposed to just get a new sheet of paper. I hope he didn't do it just for the sake of messing with Shinji's feelings. (:|

Another train of thought, maybe I was led into believing Gendo blacked out the words by the "Gendo and Shinji (Relationship)" wiki page which says the following about the letter:
All of the printed words on the letter have been erased with black highlighter, replaced with a handwritten message in the same from Gendo which reads "COME -- Gendo Ikari". Moreover, Shinji has scribbled over Gendo's words in red pen and torn up the paper out of frustration at his father, later taping the pieces back together.


How do we know Gendo blacked out the words but the scribble and tearing were done by Shinji? I don't think there's any evidence to that (except educated guess based on their mental states... But wouldn't it also work if Shinji was the one who blacked out the words?).

TLDR: It seems a pretty weird letter to me and it's been bugging me forever. Thanks for reading! :tongue:
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Re: What's up with Gendo's invitation letter to Shinji?

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Postby one-eyed » Sun Nov 25, 2018 11:01 am

After the incident with Eva 00 Gendo had to call Shinji and probably did not even remember how to contact his guardian. Then he accessed a forgotten file of the son, printed what he wanted and was going to throw away the rest. Fuyutsuki must have mentioned that Gendo should, at least, write a letter to his son. Gendo picked up that piece of paper that went into the trash and scribbled a few words and sent. Case closed. He always despised son, garbage is the maximum that Gendo would give him. :emogendo: :facepalm:

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Re: What's up with Gendo's invitation letter to Shinji?

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Postby MightyHufflepuff » Sun Nov 25, 2018 1:37 pm

View Original Postone-eyed wrote:After the incident with Eva 00 Gendo had to call Shinji and probably did not even remember how to contact his guardian. Then he accessed a forgotten file of the son, printed what he wanted and was going to throw away the rest. Fuyutsuki must have mentioned that Gendo should, at least, write a letter to his son. Gendo picked up that piece of paper that went into the trash and scribbled a few words and sent. Case closed. He always despised son, garbage is the maximum that Gendo would give him. :emogendo: :facepalm:


Ha, that makes a lot of sense. Thank you! ^_^
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Re: What's up with Gendo's invitation letter to Shinji?

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Postby Kendrix » Mon Nov 26, 2018 4:16 pm

I always read it as being a lot like the documents from the Jet Alone episode, which they had to release for legal reasons but blackened.

It's probably some formal information about Shinji's recruitment, but since it's too Top Secret for non-NerV peeps to actuallly see, Gendo had it blacked out.
Since an all-black document with just a serial number and a name tag would poorly explain what's going on, Gendo scribbled a spartan explication on it.

It certainly set up Shinji's role as this pawn of a gigantic organization who's not even told what he's expected to be messing with
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Re: What's up with Gendo's invitation letter to Shinji?

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Postby ACGT-Samael » Fri Dec 21, 2018 12:19 am

Gendo is definitely not the type of man to keep a proper letter pad at his desk. He probably did just grab the first slip of paper he found.

View Original Postone-eyed wrote:He always despised son, garbage is the maximum that Gendo would give him. :emogendo: :facepalm:


I don't know its necessary true that Gendo despises Shinji. There's definitely tension between the two of them but it's more complicated than simple hatred.


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