Interesting analysis on Shikinami's character - "Asuka, the Fighter; Asuka, the Loser"

Discussion of the new series of Evangelion movies ( "Evangelion Shin Gekijōban", meaning "Evangelion: New Theatrical Edition"). The final instalment made its debut in Japan on March 8, 2021.

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WunderBah
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Interesting analysis on Shikinami's character - "Asuka, the Fighter; Asuka, the Loser"

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Postby WunderBah » Thu Oct 07, 2021 9:24 am

I stumbled across a fascinating take on Shikinami and what she represents to NTE via reddit.

While there are some parts I question, overall it was a nice read IMO. I'm interested in hearing thoughts so I'll leave it here:

Asuka was already a fighter and a survivor throughout NGE, but in NTE this facet of her character was increased even further: right from her childhood, a clone racing other clones, her genetic equals, for survival. Therefore, the Asuka we are presented in 2.0 is the Shikinami that overcame all the others, the sole survivor, and hence carries all the traumas and scars associated with it. Clinging to her piloting duties as a coping mechanism to shield her true, wounded self, Asuka bursts with confidence and is abusive towards other pilots, who she can't help but see as competitors to be beaten. But, despite this vibrant surface, deep down she is lonely, very lonely.

https://i.redd.it/itjvdndx1ko71.gif

However, by going to school and interacting with people her own age for the first time in her life, Asuka manages to slowly develop meaningful relationships with her peers, regardless of her abrasiveness. A fellow pilot and roommate, Shinji takes a prominent role in this process, particularly because of his habit of cooking for others, expecting nothing in return. The first two acts of the movie revolve a lot on food in general, as we see Shinji preparing lunch for the whole group on the aquarium visit and many characters getting excited about a dinner never meant to happen. These lighthearted moments also offer a glimpse of the reason for Asuka's affection towards Shinji, as in the scene where Hikari asks permission to sit along her during their lunch break in school, prompting a curious reaction.

https://preview.redd.it/som49dcy1ko71.j ... 4bb16909b0

Hikari shows her own lunch and Asuka can't avoid exposing her surprise: used to utilitarian and exploitative relations during her whole life, to be seen as a nothing but a weapon, it seems inconceivable that someone could genuinely be interested in her without a hidden agenda. This is the reason why Shinji grows on her: his cooking habits represent a perspective of a better, more gentle life, one devoid of all the struggle and misery she had to go through. Cracks start to emerge on the girl's tough shell as she hesitantly starts to open herself to others, in particular during the phone call to Misato before Unit 04's fatidic test and in the conversation in Shinji's room.

https://preview.redd.it/ykg4ca3z1ko71.p ... 08b8e20ba0

In the night following the troublesome battle against the 8th Angel (a battle in which she failed, according to her own insane standards), Asuka has difficulty falling asleep and seems puzzled, not exactly by her loneliness in itself, but rather by how it's affecting her. She's used to it, has been alone her entire life, why suddenly would it bother her to the point of preventing her from sleeping? The answer is straightforward: for the first time, Asuka has felt the taste of togetherness, of genuine intimacy, and she yearns for more, she needs more of it, and so she invades Shinji's room in search of an essential human connection. However, fearful of the pain it may cause, Asuka orders Shinji not to turn towards her, all the while maintening her own back towards him. Thus, they remain somewhat distant from each other, but she accomplishes her goal nevertheless, bonding to him in a deep level through their sincere conversation.

https://preview.redd.it/kih0q4t02ko71.j ... 2019ae9cd5

When Asuka voluntarily assumes Rei's place as the test pilot for Unit 03 (the quick editing here makes it subtle and easy to miss, but it's also quite beatiful in the way it mimics Asuka's own desire to keep a low profile about it), she reciprocates Shinji's kindness by allowing Rei's dinner to take place as intended and granting Shinji a rare opportunity to reach for his father. Considering the jealously she feels towards Rei, this act shows Asuka's growth and willingness to lower her defenses to these characters, despite the fear of being hurt in the process.

https://preview.redd.it/bwm41yk12ko71.j ... 66a6bb1355

After all, she made it, her ordeal is over. It's ok to open up, to know others and make herself known to others.

And then we get this shot, inside Unit 03:

https://preview.redd.it/4q4yicg22ko71.j ... 3673709122

She looks serene. Hopeful, rather. In her mind, it's a routine test like hundreds of others she has nailed. For all that's worth, she could be thinking about meeting Shinji later in Misato's apartment and asking him about the dinner, perhaps even imagining if she would be capable of saying something nice to him instead of her usual, provocative banter. And it's in this state of mind, the most vulnerable ever shown across the three movies in which she is featured, that Asuka is faced with her most crushing defeat, the first in a long, long losing streak.

https://preview.redd.it/1qf759142ko71.j ... bdc7876607

The song about farewell playing as Unit 01 rips the infected Eva apart makes it unmistakable: the incident represents the end of all and any innocence for these characters, a rupture in their relationships that they will hardly recover from. When she needed the most, the boy she loved failed her completely. For Asuka, a tragedy like no other. The movie carefully depicted her discovering the little joys of life, the comfort of friendship and companionship, the bittersweetness of love, only to have it brutally taken away before we could see the girl fully blooming.

We meet Asuka again 14 years later, in 3.0. Trapped in her teenager body indefinitely, we see the same face as before, but now completely changed. The face of a warrior, a very tired and hardened warrior, all hope gone from her gaze.

https://preview.redd.it/ejk7njt52ko71.j ... 55f13df9c0

Assessing how she got like this is difficult, but even if the time skip is infamously known for the vagueness of it's events, when it comes to Asuka, some things can be speculated with reasonable confidence. She recovered from the 9th Angel's assault, sore and tormented by the torturing experience. She longed for the boy she cared for, but he wasn't there, vanished doing for other girl what he had failed to even try to do for her. She also appears to be acquainted with the conditions of the 3rd Impact, suggesting she was there when it happened - and failed to prevent it. From her interactions with Kensuke in 3.0 + 1.0, we learn as well that Asuka can't (or perhaps shouldn't) show up on the village because "it's complicated", to which she replies disdaining it's inhabitants.

https://preview.redd.it/j6wjbxj62ko71.j ... f522bdedcc

This little exchange implies the reason why Kensuke deliberately chose to live in such a remote place for no apparent reason: to have her as his guest, even if occasionally, respecting her desire to be away from other people - and perhaps it was the thread of stability that kept her going for all those years. Additionally, Toji refers to things he did in the early days following the apocalypse which he's ashamed of and when Rei Q visits Kensuke's house looking for Shinji, Asuka suspects the unexpected knock and reacts by pulling a weapon from under her pillow in a very defensive manner. What kind of threat could cause such extreme behavior is never clarified, but it's unlikely to be related to NERV, much more prone to stomping the place with a giant robot than sending agents they don't dispose of. Asuka is also watchful of the village and expressly states her role as it's protector, but from what is, again, never said. So, although we are presented to a well settled Village 3, it seems there was a struggle to establish it, with Asuka potentially having a role in this and perhaps equally not particularly proud of the things she did to ensure it. Little by little, the bagage she has been carrying looms beyond our comprehesion.

https://preview.redd.it/gsm6oaa72ko71.j ... 2fa809acb1

The Asuka we are presented in 3.0 bears all of this: the responsability to protect undefended people; the guilt of her failures; the traumas she has experienced; the bitterness towards the boy she loved. In this condition, she is incapable of reaching out to Shinji, of addressing his own anguish and guilt. Taken by rage and resentment, she can only hammer him with insults and abuse, driving them ever apart. Completely estranged from him, Asuka fails to stop 4th Impact. The grim consequences end up prevented either way, but not by her efforts. Following the battle, she is unable to defeat the Mark. 09 and is forced to sacrifice her dear Eva in order to save the Wunder, ejecting right before the explosion and landing in the crimson wasteland, close to Shinji and Rei Q. The defeats pile up.

https://preview.redd.it/uyz3if582ko71.j ... abc95dc48a

Despite the pain and suffering caused by Shinji's recklesness, Asuka can't leave him behind knowing it would probably mean his death. However, tormented by all she has been through and insulted by the depressive state in which she finds the boy, the only thing she can give him is tough love, and that's what he gets. This sets the tone for the first hour of 3.0 + 1.0 in respect to their relationship, depicting Asuka's somewhat twisted efforts trying to get Shinji out of his depressive plight. Among these efforts, the forced feeding is of particular interest because of how it illustrates the distance between. When she says she doesn't eat anymore, we realize that the very thing that warmed her heart and sparkled her interest in him so many years ago became a suffering curse for her. So, instead of those praised bento boxes Shinji gently made for her, Asuka can only forcibly sitck an indistinguishable mass of goo down his throat, that is how rotten their relationship has become. Also, it's curious to notice that this is the only scene inside Kensuke's house where Asuka is wearing her plug suit. By then, it's as if she is uncomfortable getting close to Shinji without her armor.

https://preview.redd.it/7do0mwo92ko71.j ... 9b1491aa86

But they do improve on each other, though. The feeding, while violent and invasive, stirs a reaction from Shinji and creates an opening for Rei's and Kensuke's contributions to his recovery, which, in regards to Asuka, culminates in the farewell scene on board of the Wunder. Before embarking for her final mission, the one she knows she won't come back from, she feels the urge to have a last conversation with Shinji. They talk in the containment chamber and Asuka acknowledges his growth. With this, she can finally say farewell to him, satisfied by leaving in good terms with the first friend she has ever had.

https://preview.redd.it/ltainica2ko71.j ... 959e66fa5f

The following assault on NERV starts as we watch Asuka diving through a swarm of enemies to reach her objective: the inactive Unit 13. Hindered from fulfilling her goal by her own Eva's AT Field, Asuka see's herself forced to raise the stakes and sacrifice everything. The epic music and the Unit 02's animalesque behavior during the angel transformation mislead the audience into thinking that Asuka's time for reckoning has come, that she will finally pour out all the agony and anger she's been holding up and vindicate herself in a spectable of violence and gore. She relinquishes whatever is left of her humanity and transforms herself into the most exuberant of all angels. Asuka makes herself vulnerable again, this time quite literally by undoing her own Eva's AT Field in order to reach Unit 13's core. She surrenders everything she has only to be brutally crushed yet again without even touching the enemy. It was all for naught: she never stood a chance in the first place. Knowing the time of her so anticipated death has come, Asuka refuses to cede control over it, relying on the DSS Choker to die in her own terms, but even this small, pathetic victory is denied when her original snatches our beloved clone away before the choker could actually end her.

https://preview.redd.it/rssr3xmd2ko71.j ... ce4b8396ef

Later on, during Asuka's instrumentality sequence, we get a glimpse of how lonely she has always been and how much she renounced in exchange for the poorest sense of belonging. In two short passages, Asuka's is shown wearing her plug suit during her most cherished memories, revealing that she clinged so much on piloting, that it was something so ingrained in her ego she couldn't even imagine herself as nothing else than a pilot. Once we are informed by this knowledge, everything she went through takes a deeper meaning, all her losses become ever more sorrowful. That's why seeing this incredible, tragic character being cruelly defeated again and again is so consuming to us: she continuosly pours her heart and soul into every battle, and it's never enough.

https://preview.redd.it/dfomlmhe2ko71.j ... 338dbf00e0

https://preview.redd.it/gjk60a5f2ko71.j ... 4a69244b8f

Nevertheless, Shinji's intervention rescues her from these dark thoughts and we find both of them on the beach. He expresses himself sincerely and finally gives Asuka, shown here with her suit ripped, the opportunity to renounce her armor and live the life she has always yearned for: a life where she has to fight no more.

She can barely believe it.

https://preview.redd.it/jnojk4uf2ko71.j ... 6304482484

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