Everybody Hates Ritsuko

[Yaywalter]

Ritsuko is awesome.

She's not exactly likeable, but she's an extremely interesting character... moreso than any of the EVA pilots, by far.

[Allemann]

A hot women can never be hated.

[Stryker]

As one may have noticed, Tines has not posted in this thread yet.

Not supposed to mean anything. Nope. Nothing at all.

[Squigsquasher]

Ritsuko is wonderful. When I'm writing on of my awful, canon-defiling spoof fics, whenever I need a healthy dose of deadpan/yuri, Ritsu-chan is my go-to-girl. As one of my previous avatars stated, she has a PHD in not giving a fuck.

Really I don't hate any of the Eva characters, because most of the more unlikeable ones aren't developed enough to hate- Naoko, for example, comes across as a bitch, but we don't know enough about her to really judge her. Same with Shiro Tokita, who's just a bit of a dick.

[Dataprime]

Do I hate her? No, I just don't care for her.
For me he provided nothing more than a vent to Misato to talk about "adult conversions"
that she couldn't necessarily talk to Shinji about.

[Gorbatschow]

Hmm, she's more a "plot-device" than an actual main character. She's rather ordinary developed and is more an element to make the plot move forward than anything else. Still I kind of like her and compared to other animes she's a really "good" (in terms of depth) character.

[Madonna]

I notice that, aside from people disliking the 'action arc' (which is probably more systematic of red/blue leanings than anything else), the individual episodes that people tend to dislike are 7, 13, 14 and my own suggestion of 21... which, incidentally, are all episodes that aren't focused on the children and which all feature more Ritsuko than usual.

Why do you all hate Ritsuko so much?

Since I first watched the show, quite a few years back, Ritsuko, Misato and Kaji have always been my favourite characters. While Shinji and the other pilots were interesting, and the story line compelling, it was the aforementioned three which spoke to me the most.

Ritsuko, in particular, is probably the most realistic character in a show that, let's face it, is anything but grounded. However, at the same time she has her own personal demons to contend to. I wish her relationship with Gendo was fleshed out more, the fact that she turned out to be exactly what she hated most - exactly like her mother, is a massive part of why I find her to be quite interesting.

[Bagheera]

Ritsuko, in particular, is probably the most realistic character in a show that, let's face it, is anything but grounded. However, at the same time she has her own personal demons to contend to. I wish her relationship with Gendo was fleshed out more, the fact that she turned out to be exactly what she hated most - exactly like her mother, is a massive part of why I find her to be quite interesting.

What makes you think she hated her mother?

[Reichu]

What makes you think she hated her mother?

Love and hate aren't mutually exclusive.

RITSUKO:
I don't think I'll ever be a mother,
so I don't understand her as a mother.
But I respected her as a scientist.
However, as a woman, I even hated her.

[Bagheera]

Love and hate aren't mutually exclusive.

Fair point. It's a pity we never learned the why of that, as they interacted well enough in the flashbacks we saw.

[Chuckman]

It seems like of all the characters, Ritsuko has the most emotional distance from her mother. She does specifically say as a woman, she hates her.

[Guy Nacks]

I'm amazed that Tines hasn't yet posted in this thread. I thought he was for Ritsuko what Bagheera is for Asuka.

OT: I never hated Ritsuko while watching the series. Moreso, I just felt bad for her but never felt any significant attachment to her as a character. It's not that she's a bad character, I just don't identify with her as personally as some of the other characters in the series.

I think Rits gets a lot of crap because of her going down the path of her mother, who is probably one of the least likeable characters in the series. The thing is Rits is given way more screentime than her mother, so we're able to learn more about her as a human being outside of the fact that she sleeps with Gendo and has a grudge towards Rei.

[Baz]

It's a pity we never learned the why of that.

Ritsuko hated Naoko for the same reason that Naoko hated Yui. Jealousy. That, and Ritsuko recognized the trait that made her hate herself (human frailty of the feminine sort) in her mother.

[NemZ]

Jealosy seems like a bit of a stretch to me. I think it was more a combination of her both controlling much of her life and also not taking much interest in her as a person. That sort of upbringing could definately make you resent a parent's influence.

I also have to wonder what happened to her dad.

[Chuckman]

She never mentions him at all and as far as the show is concerned he doesn't exist. Given the type of person she was, Naoko probably had a fling with a colleague that ended badly but left her with a baby. He was clearly out of the picture before Ritsuko would be old enough to remember him, which also rules out dying in Second Impact.

[Bagheera]

Jealosy seems like a bit of a stretch to me.

But why else would she hate Naoko as a woman? That's a pretty specific qualifier (why not "as a person"?), which suggests something to do with her relationships with men in particular. It seems that, as far as the show is concerned, everyone loves Gendo! No accounting for taste, eh?

[Chuckman]

His beardly might makes children faint and vulvas quiver.

Maybe she hates Naoko as a woman because Naoka was kind of an asshole. Although, textually, everything points to jealousy.

Unless Ritsuko's apparent connection with her mother as seen in the Iruel episode are imagined on her part and when "Naoko" chooses Gendo over her in EoE it shatters the illusion.

[Rei IV]

Wouldn't be surprised if Ritz also has some Daddy issues as well.

On her more positive attributes, Ritz is actually very good friend to to Misato and a lot of episodes in NGE to highlight that very, IMHO. When it comes to her relationship with Rei, well, it's really not hard to understand why there is some resentment and animosity. Gendo, a man in his late 40s, giving all this special attention to this peculiar 14 year old school girl for other personal reasons besides the Instrumentality project while simultaneously ignoring her, a 30 something odd woman, someone who he clearly is having sexual relations with (I'm referring to Ritz, here), and doesn't seem to be as invested in said relation as she is, is enough to ring the alarms for her on a personal level.


Gendo doesn't deserve Ritz.

[Chuckman]

Gendo doesn't deserve Ritz.

Truth.

Ritsuko's attraction to Gendo being oedipal is an angle that I've never considered before. We don't really see enough of their interactions to confirm that but it's highly likely.

[SoryuUberAlles]

RITSUKO:
I don't think I'll ever be a mother,
so I don't understand her as a mother.
But I respected her as a scientist.
However, as a woman, I even hated her.

But why else would she hate Naoko as a woman? That's a pretty specific qualifier (why not "as a person"?), which suggests something to do with her relationships with men in particular. It seems that, as far as the show is concerned, everyone loves Gendo! No accounting for taste, eh?

Ah, this is one of those 'all interpretations hinge on an syntactic comprehension of an elaborate system explained in one line in conversational Japanese' moments that EVA keeps giving us. I can't really tell if the three-part thing is referring to Ritsuko as a woman or Naoko as a woman.

I find it interesting to interpret this scene as a little dramatic-ironic. The Akagi women attribute Ritsuko's quite proud prudishness to her distant, male-less upbringing, don't they? In other words, the reason she's willing to reproach Misato for taking off with Kaji is on the same terms as why she's willing to openly criticise her mother petty romantic jealousy - she seems to spend much of her life thinking of sex and romantic attachment as disastrous. It might also add something as to why she's willing to be be confrontational about how unsentimental she is compared to Misato. Turning out like her mother, destroying Rei and accepting suicide, is only more ironic if you think of her as a her person who always had a wary opinion of relationship drama her whole life. At least that's what I think 'hated her as a woman' means - If her romantic jealousy is behind her apparently open disregard for Yui, self-destructive hatred of Rei (linked!), and ultimately suicide, you could certainly imagine Ritusko hating Naoko for her approach to sexual relationships.

Since I first watched the show, quite a few years back, Ritsuko, Misato and Kaji have always been my favourite characters. While Shinji and the other pilots were interesting, and the story line compelling, it was the aforementioned three which spoke to me the most.

I've always felt that Ritsuko's relationship with her mother was well-handled because the show seems to take mommy-issues as standard it knows how to handle them with characters besides the pilots. For comparison, I feel like Ritsuko's mommy issues are handled better than Misato's daddy issues. I certainly think she has the unique advantage of the being the only inside-the-cosnpiracy character that I sympathise with. Of course, being potentially part of the 'evil' group on the show is why a lot of people DON'T sympathise with her.