A man once said that there never was a confrontation or conclusion to Shinji and Gendo’s relationship.
I disagree and think it’s during the episodes with the Unit 03 incident up to the absorption/reforming arc, where you get the confrontation and conclusion.


After looking through the episodes the only conclusion i can see the series give regarding Shinji and Gendo is that Shinji ran away from Gendo when he was 8, and that Gendo is indifferent and cold to Shinji because he keeps running away.

I think this shows in the bomb angel episode. Shinji doesn’t run away and is praised by his father.

Did anybody else get the same thing from those episodes?

Ispellnogood wrote:the only conclusion the series gives you regarding Shinji and Gendo is that Shinji ran away from Gendo when he was 8,

Where is that stated?

The last time they were together at Yui's gravesite (not the time in the show) Shinji ran away.

I don't know if he was 8 for sure. But Shinji mentions it when you see them at Yui's gravesite, and again while he's absorbed in eva.

Ispellnogood wrote:A man once said that there never was a confrontation or conclusion to Shinji and Gendo’s relationship.
I disagree and think it’s during the episodes with the Unit 03 incident up to the absorption/reforming arc, where you get the confrontation and conclusion.


After much denial I finally relented and found the only conclusion the series gives you regarding Shinji and Gendo is that Shinji ran away from Gendo when he was 8, and that Gendo is indifferent and cold to Shinji because he keeps running away.

I think this shows in the bomb angel episode. Shinji doesn’t run away and is praised by his father.

Did anybody else get the same thing from those episodes?

I'm a little confused as to what your question is here...Are you asked whether or not the Shinji/Gendo dynamic is an unresolved plot thread within NGE despite it being presented as so pivotal in the opening episodes of the series?

If so, that is a very valid point...I think we (as an audience) get so distracted by the presence of other characters in the series and how Shinji reacts to them alongside the Angel battles and the Nerv conspiracy/backstory that the narrative conflict between Shinji and Gendo does kind of get lost in the shuffle.

However, I would say that Gendo "gets what's coming" to him via his induction into instrumentality by having his own guilt regarding his actions reflected back at him. I would also say the way Shinji "stands up to" Gendo after the events of episode 18 are kind of rendered futile once he re-emerges from Eva 01 in episode 20. I would say that kind of weakened him psychologically. Hence, his ever widening instability in the face of losing his friends, the city, Rei II, and Asuka before the huge mind fuck that is Kaworu and the final assaults to his psyche in EoE (granted by this point, this father-son conflict is rendered somewhat irrelevant outside of Shinji's "raison d'etre," which relates to his "daddy issues," but more broadly trying to get attention/affection and appreciation from others by piloting Eva 01 to the point that he is defined by it).

So I would say, that certain things (like most of Evangelion in general) from the beginning of the series serve to start of the story and become sort of buried by larger events or they just start of snowball into much larger issues.

I believe that was the resolution, and it was in favor of Gendo. Concerning Shinji and Gendo's relationship in the show, that was the confrontation and really it made out that Shinji was at fault.

Believe it wasn't so much overlooked but more denied. Since audiences will almost automaticaly route for the MC and see things through his eyes. A conclusion like that would frustrate the hell out of people or outright be ignored as a conclusion. Especially if it's in favor of a character most would have already dismissed as being an asshole.

EoE and EoTV are different endings. In EoTV Rei never rejects Gendo, and he's the one who starts instrumentality. He didn't answer for anything, in fact the "Thank you to my father" line I believe was Shinji thanking his father for doing it.

It's only in alternate ending EoE made after, that you here about him closing off his heart. Then followed by the coolest death in EoE. Compared to how Shinji's portrayed in EoE, I believe he got off lightly.

Anyway I think the narrative of evangelion has been backing Gendo.

I always thought the fallout from the unit 04/Bardiel incident gave the proper/best possible conclusion to their character arc. They don't have any sort of mutual catharsis or communication because the wider events and the mutually repelling parts of their personalities just don't allow for that (the latter a pain all too common for those who have to deal with abusive or toxic parents). From that point in the series Shinji doesn't even bother to get angry at Gendo or call him manipulative or cruel or anything... he just stops caring and tries to make his own path as best he can.

i kinda agree with their never really being a full conclusion to their relationship. When they say they never wanna see each other at the beginning of episode 19, they only talk face to face once as far as we know and that is when Shinji returns to fight Zeruel. Even when Shinji returns from being absorbed in the eva for two months, gendo never contacted him as for as we know. We just see kinda what they think of each other via instrumentality. Im pretty sure they will have different ending to their relationship in 3.0+1.0

Ispellnogood wrote:I believe that was the resolution, and it was in favor of Gendo. Concerning Shinji and Gendo's relationship in the show, that was the confrontation and really it made out that Shinji was at fault.

Believe it wasn't so much overlooked but more denied. Since audiences will almost automaticaly route for the MC and see things through his eyes. A conclusion like that would frustrate the hell out of people or outright be ignored as a conclusion. Especially if it's in favor of a character most would have already dismissed as being an asshole.

EoE and EoTV are different endings. In EoTV Rei never rejects Gendo, and he's the one who starts instrumentality. He didn't answer for anything, in fact the "Thank you to my father" line I believe was Shinji thanking his father for doing it.

It's only in alternate ending EoE made after, that you here about him closing off his heart. Then followed by the coolest death in EoE. Compared to how Shinji's portrayed in EoE, I believe he got off lightly.

Anyway I think the narrative of evangelion has been backing Gendo.

You are pretty adamant about the separation of EoTV and EoE, especially since a good deal of it can be interpreted as the same ending communicated in two entirely different ways, focusing on different aspects of the fully realized Human Instrumentality Project (EoTV goes to much greater lengths to expound on the psychological experience Shinji faces and details Rei's realization that she is basically Lilith's human avatar, while EoE more or less trims the fat on Shinji's analysis in favor or more explicitly depicting the events of Third Impact and the HIP, with Rei acting upon her realization without any explanation as to how she came to this conclusion save perhaps Kaworu's brief conversation with her earlier on). On what do you base your claim that the two are fundamentally, separate, and potentially contradictory endings, given that they appear to rely on each other to form a complete image of the HIP and Shinji's experience regarding such?

Makes me wonder how this is going to end between the two in 3.0+1.0. I still haven't let up on Gendo because how he treated his own son, and deserves to have a reality check in his face, even by his own son.