Postby CyberXIII » Tue Jul 17, 2012 6:34 pm
Oh boy, where to begin....
First of all, let me first point out that the hatred Shinji gets in the West is a combination of multiple factors involving the definition of a hero. Contrary to popular belief not every hero (action, super or otherwise) in the 90s was a muscle-bound gun-toting cigar smoking badass that always got the girl, beat the villain, saved the world, etc. Spider-Man was probably at his lowest point in decades around that time period but he was and still is one of Marvel's flagship characters. Despite that no one in their right minds would ever want the horrible, horrible, HORRIBLE life he has to lead. The guilt issues, the constant fear for his loved ones, the poverty, the hatred he has done nothing to earn the evil writers trying to bury him at every turn....it's a nightmare. Spider-Man's actually a lot like Shinji and yet he's much, much more popular than Shinji could ever hope to be. Why? Because he's a true hero that gives us something to aspire to.
Shinji isn't a hero, he's a (pardon the trope-speak here, but hopefully I'll get my meaning across) Type I Anti-Hero, also known as the loser protagonist. Despite all he does he really doesn't accomplish much in the grand scheme of things. He's a pawn with daddy issues up the wazoo and a boatload of mental problems. And no, I don't say he needs to suck it up or grow a spine/pair/what have you. I'm saying that people in the West general have a low tolerance for angst, especially when it doesn't lead to character development. And as much as I like and sympathize with him and his problems I'll be the first to admit he's a failure of a protagonist, in that he really doesn't amount to much in the beginning or the End.
He winds up developing as you'd expect over the first arc, but after the mess with Armisael and what happened with Rei and Kaworu he just falls apart. While sad as all hell, this is not heroic, not in the modern sense of the world. That gives people nothing to aspire to, nothing to respect, nothing to use as a role model to better themselves. And yes, in that situation most everyone would probably have killed themselves much earlier, but that's my point. Characters like Spider-Man, Superman, Sonic the Hedgehog or Optimus Prime or real life heroes like Martin Luther King or the man who landed that plane in the river in New York and saved all those people show a better side of humanity. They give us something to look up to, to showus that maybe, just maybe we can be a better person than we were yesterday. Shinji doesn't do that in the original series, he just does what people tell him and generally acts like a self-hating coward.
Notice I say "acts like", not is. Shinji, for all his faults is much better than he thinks he is, which leads to another point of contention among Westerners; his so called "wimpiness" or as Reichu so rightly brought up, his lack of a "spine" or "balls". Being an American male with more than my fair share of mental issues, I've been told these phrases or other permutations thereof, which has given me ample time to think about them and what they really represent. George Carlin would attribute these to simple male insecurities and outdated principles that should've been thrown out with the Stone Age, but I'm not so sure. As awful as it sounds, phrases like that need to be thrown around on occasion to keep people from getting complacent or falling into the trap of "political correctness gone rampant". Trying to please everyone is a fool's idea to begin with.....but I digress. The reason those phrases and ideas of "manliness" or badassitude is that it's an ideal to live up to. I'm not saying that women can't be badasses or action heroes (history's pretty much proven that they can) it's that men have always been pretty much expected to. If you do anything outside of a certain narrow range of actions, including showing emotions (especially sadness) or loving someone you're not biologically designed for or what have you, you're not "manly" and therefore must be shunned. It's a self-perpetuating problem and part of it is the fault of past generations of men, but it's our job, no matter what culture you head to, especially in Japan. Hell, Misato's probably the biggest badass in the show that doesn't get in a Eva, and what does she tell Shinji in EOE?
"Act like a man!"
Obviously she's not sexist, nor is she cruel. So why is she saying that? Is it for Shinji to live up to some outdated ideal of manhood? Of course not, she's trying her damnedest to get him to stop feeling sorry for himself (as she sees it; we know better), climb out of that shell he's in and keep those soldiers from butchering them all. I think our illustrious OP may have been reading into the phrases a mite too literally. It's not so much that people think Shinji is worthless from the get-go; if he was he wouldn't have climbed into Eva-01 at all and just let Rei do it. The real problem is that he shows signs of developing the way Spider-Man did: from a wussy, pathetic boy picked on by everyone to a man that, for all his faults, failures, and screwups gives us something to look up to. After that laughably clumsy, starkly realistic first sortie, Shinji does end up doing pretty well for himself as a pilot; trouble is the job is so demanding and traumatic that, much like Peter, he'd like nothing more than to hand it over to someone else. Fans and non-fans can empathize with that; how many of us work shit jobs we'd love to be rid of? Shinji's crowning moment was the battle with Zeruel, and despite how it ended it left many people hoping he'd turn out like Spidey: a flawed hero with a truckload of mental problems that can still save the world and give the viewers someone to look up to.
I said before that Spider-Man is much more beloved than Shinji could ever hope to be, despite the tights, the angst, clones and deals with the devil. The reason why is, again, Spidey gives us something to hope for and aspire to, unlike Shinji who's a mess from beginning to end. Spider-Man is relatable, yes; he has issues that we all have to deal with such as money, love, and they occasional person trying to kill him for one reason or another. Shinji has slightly more mundane issues of being an awkward teen in a setting that he really has no place in, but we've all had to be there in one fashion or another. It's not the lack of wish fulfillment either. Shinji already does live a life that most people would kill to have: piloting a giant robot and saving the planet while living with two beautiful women who clearly have romantic interests in him. That's most nerds' wet dream, right there. And yet everyone ignores that in favor of EoE's shattered mess of a character. Spider-Man has a similar problem:right up until a certain event he was living in the Avengers Mansion, happily married, and had done things that most men/women only dream about with his powers.
TL;DR: Shinji is hated because he is not a hero; he does not overcome his mental problems, he succumbs to them. It's not a lack of manliness, it's a lack of heroism that most people really take for granted in stories like this. He's a failure, a loser, and nothing that anyone really wants to be like. Compared to other typical shounen heroes like Naruto or Ichigo or Goku or so on he does nothing outstanding. He mindlessly does as he's told (in a way he's more of a puppet than Rei - she at least knows what he role in the story is), he caves to everyone, he's hopelessly awkward and more than a little crazy. And no one wants to watch or be anything like that.
Because when you get right down to it don't we all have enough mental issues in our
"Crapsack worlds and anti heroes have their place. Sometimes, they are very necessary. But an endless diet of dreary cyberpunk and dark fantasy won't do us any more favors than an endless feast of glurge. I'd argue that the cynical nature of these really hurt our ability to hope and work for better. It gets us to accept the hopelessness and jaded outlook of things as 'That's the way it is. I can't change it,' and stops us from fighting when we NEED to fight."
I am ask-shinji-ikari on tumblr.com. Feel free to ask me questions!
Na7e wrote:Yes, because in NME people are so horrible to him. Misato lets him live in her house. Rei was throwing a party for him. Asuka was cooking so he wouldn't have to shoulder the load on himself. Toji & Kensuke drag him outside so he can actually have a social life. And, Kaji actually gives him some pretty good advice. There all such dicks to him amirite?
