Rei, Shinji, and the "pre-romance" trope

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Rei, Shinji, and the "pre-romance" trope

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Postby Angel » Mon Oct 31, 2022 12:48 am

A little over 20 years ago, Don Bluth released his final animated masterpiece, Titan AE. It had a male protagonist (Cale) and a female character that he was clearly attracted to (Akima). The movie went through a lot of the early steps of a love story, but by the time the credits rolled, they hadn't kissed, had sex, said "I love you", or anything of that nature; they shared a hug, they held hands, and each one had seen the other wearing nothing but a towel, and that was it.

Fast-forward to 2010 and Daft Punk's 2-hour-long music video, "Tron Legacy". Again there's a male and female lead who clearly like and are attracted to each other. Again, the movie goes through many of the early steps of a love story. When Sam is describing the sun to Quorra, and he turns to her and looks at her before saying "beautiful", you can't convince me that he's still talking about the sun at that point, and judging by her reaction, she knows it too. Yet, by the end of the movie, they haven't kissed or said "I love you". They're just driving off into the sunrise on a motorcycle with her arms around him (standard motorcycle procedure, to my knowledge, but still cute).

Fast-forward to 2013 and the movie "Pacific Rim". Here the female character's attraction toward the male lead is a bit more obvious than vice versa, in contrast to the previous two movies, but the pattern remains the same. They're not officially a romantic pairing by the end of the movie, but they almost certainly had sex after the credits rolled.

This is a phenomenon that I call "pre-romance", and I believe it's the best way to describe the trajectory of Rei and Shinji's relationship. From the smile at the end of episode 6, to Misato's line about making Rei and Shinji a team in episode 9, to Shinji telling Rei she'd make a good mother in episode 15, to Toji telling Rei that she cares about Shinji in episode 17, to Armisael acting on Rei's innermost desire to "become one with" Shinji in episode 23, it's obvious to me that these two characters were in the early stages of becoming a romantic pairing, and would have officially gotten together if a certain blonde scientist hadn't screwed everything up. However, it's less obvious to some other people. I suspect that the reason why not everyone "gets it" is because we've been conditioned to expect romances to be explicitly confirmed by something like kissing, and in Eva's case, that imagery was given to a different character combination (Shinji & Asuka). There is no doubt that Shinji and Asuka have more clips that can be taken out of context and used in romance AMVs than Shinji and Rei do. In other words, "noise" from Asuka was interfering with the Rei/Shinji "signal".

Of course, this is only the case in the original series. The rebuilds make Rei and Shinji a much more explicit pairing, with even Asuka commenting "that means you're in love with him, you idiot!"... but even then, it never escapes pre-romance purgatory thanks to 3.0 acting as a giant reset button on their relationship followed by Rei exploding into Tang and then Anno trolling us with a Mari/Shinji ending.
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Re: Rei, Shinji, and the "pre-romance" trope

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Postby orcot » Tue Nov 29, 2022 12:45 pm

Honnestly evangelion can almost be a comedy/critique on the harem manga.
Misato uses sex to advance in life and whilst not portrayed as a pedo her actions are dark and put her into a bad light.
Rei's inability to properly communicate somewhat caused her second death ( a more rebelious third Rei who has overcome some of her problems avoids Shinji)
Asuka's attraction is agressive and ends up with Rape, attempted murder, attempted suicide
Kaworu simply couldn't be

So Shinji is in the crosshair of many beautiful partners, but it's weird and everyone is unhappy.
They each work (and fail) in developing their relationship with Shinji

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Re: Rei, Shinji, and the "pre-romance" trope

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Postby Blockio » Tue Nov 29, 2022 1:19 pm

View Original Postorcot wrote:Honnestly evangelion can almost be a comedy/critique on the harem manga.

Not really. It plays with those tropes in much of the same way that a lot of other shows did at the time; it's the same story as how people unfamiliar with mecha keep claiming that Eva was fundamentally unprecedented. Including some common tropes played for drama when they usually aren't does not make a a parody/critique/deconstruction/whatever other term one might use of the genre most commonly associated with those tropes
I can see why Gendo hired Misato to do the actual commanding. He tried it once and did an appalling job. ~ AWinters
Your point of view is horny, and biased. ~ glitz2hard
What about titty-ten? ~ Reichu
The movies function on their own terms. If people can't accept them on those terms, and keep expecting them to be NGE, then they probably should have realized a while ago that they weren't going to have a good time. ~ Words of wisdom courtesy of Reichu

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Re: Rei, Shinji, and the "pre-romance" trope

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Postby orcot » Tue Nov 29, 2022 5:02 pm

View Original PostBlockio wrote:
View Original Postorcot#938028 wrote:Honnestly evangelion can almost be a comedy/critique on the harem manga.

Not really. It plays with those tropes in much of the same way that a lot of other shows did at the time; it's the same story as how people unfamiliar with mecha keep claiming that Eva was fundamentally unprecedented. Including some common tropes played for drama when they usually aren't does not make a a parody/critique/deconstruction/whatever other term one might use of the genre most commonly associated with those tropes


I'm curious in what other manga the harem suffers from the harem situation, usually theirs a conflict and then they overcome it.
I'm not exactly sure if theirs a haram series where things spiral so out of control leaving everyone traumatized.
Do you have any other examples? (stuff like Tenshi muyo, Ranma harem is usually played for comedic relief)
That's what I think at least

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Re: Rei, Shinji, and the "pre-romance" trope

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Postby Blockio » Wed Nov 30, 2022 12:11 pm

Well, for starters calling Eva a harem is stretching the term far beyond what it applies to. Not only does Shinji only have two actual love interests (three if you insist on counting Misato, but given that he outwardly rejects all her approaches, I do not), he also very crucially does not end up with either of them, nor are the two on board with both being his followage or fighting over who gets to keep him.
At most you could call it a love triangle (although given the lack of focus it is given, even that is a stretch), examples of which being played for drama are virtually everywhere you look in media
I can see why Gendo hired Misato to do the actual commanding. He tried it once and did an appalling job. ~ AWinters
Your point of view is horny, and biased. ~ glitz2hard
What about titty-ten? ~ Reichu
The movies function on their own terms. If people can't accept them on those terms, and keep expecting them to be NGE, then they probably should have realized a while ago that they weren't going to have a good time. ~ Words of wisdom courtesy of Reichu

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Re: Rei, Shinji, and the "pre-romance" trope

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Postby orcot » Thu Dec 01, 2022 1:00 pm

View Original PostBlockio wrote:Well, for starters calling Eva a harem is stretching the term far beyond what it applies to. Not only does Shinji only have two actual love interests (three if you insist on counting Misato, but given that he outwardly rejects all her approaches, I do not), he also very crucially does not end up with either of them, nor are the two on board with both being his followage or fighting over who gets to keep him.
At most you could call it a love triangle (although given the lack of focus it is given, even that is a stretch), examples of which being played for drama are virtually everywhere you look in media


Why not include Kaworu?
It's true that he does not end up with any of them that is why it's a critique, not 20 minutes of something happens and they solve it and grow in the process. The issues wich each person are prett ymuch clear from the start and they can not ever resolve them.
Looking on eva side projects girlfriend of steel the manga with how Gendo should really be but I forget the name of it, they all exagerate this trope even further. But eva plays with the trope and makes it crash (deliberate). The side projects go for a happy ending true but they compensate by making the trope even more silly regardless these are side tracks and don't really fit into the eva continuity. Altough they could learn something of the portrayel of Gendo, to be fair I can't see the OG Gendo run a company as he would be to depressed and delegates to much responsibility to other people and navel gazes beyond being a functional human being.
alt Gendo is at least intense and manic. You can run on a compagny on manic energy

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Re: Rei, Shinji, and the "pre-romance" trope

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Postby Blockio » Thu Dec 01, 2022 2:51 pm

I didn'T include Kaworu because at the time I wrote that comment I fully forgot about him :bigeyes:
But even so; he is there for one episode and has next to no meaningful interaction with anyone other than Shinji.

The descriptor of "harem" simply does not fit Eva (not the main work at least; random spinoff manga with little to no creator oversight are gonna do whatever they want to and have precisely fuckall importance to the part that actually matters, so they don't matter here), not even as commentary on it.
You're trying to force a label on a show that it plain and simple isn't. It's like if you were to call a war series a commentary on sports media if the soldiers play some football in their downtime.
I can see why Gendo hired Misato to do the actual commanding. He tried it once and did an appalling job. ~ AWinters
Your point of view is horny, and biased. ~ glitz2hard
What about titty-ten? ~ Reichu
The movies function on their own terms. If people can't accept them on those terms, and keep expecting them to be NGE, then they probably should have realized a while ago that they weren't going to have a good time. ~ Words of wisdom courtesy of Reichu

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Re: Rei, Shinji, and the "pre-romance" trope

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Postby orcot » Fri Dec 02, 2022 2:20 am

I wasn't really calling it a harem anime, more of a critique on a harem anime.

The sports reference is a bit to far fetched I think. It would be more like a show like Dragonball when you beat your enemy you become instant friends, instead of the other person hating your guts and tries to team up with others.

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Re: Rei, Shinji, and the "pre-romance" trope

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Postby Blockio » Fri Dec 02, 2022 4:24 pm

Eva doesn't comment on harem anime, either. Rivals for love as a concept is SIGNIFICANTLY older than the harem genre, is only ever really alluded to in Eva, and lacks any of the other hallmarks of a harem show. You're trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.
I can see why Gendo hired Misato to do the actual commanding. He tried it once and did an appalling job. ~ AWinters
Your point of view is horny, and biased. ~ glitz2hard
What about titty-ten? ~ Reichu
The movies function on their own terms. If people can't accept them on those terms, and keep expecting them to be NGE, then they probably should have realized a while ago that they weren't going to have a good time. ~ Words of wisdom courtesy of Reichu

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Re: Rei, Shinji, and the "pre-romance" trope

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Postby orcot » Sat Dec 03, 2022 2:01 am

Okay not a harem then but a show where the main character has 4 love intrests in 26 episodes.
All of them are seriously flawed, but it never works out as the flaws grow instead of getting solved
(even tough sometimes they do try).
ALso I called it a critique of the harem trope not a harem serie in itself (but it is necesairy to play many of the same elements)


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