Shinji in your eyes

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Shinji in your eyes

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Postby DatDude » Tue Feb 22, 2005 10:05 pm

One thing i've seen in my time on these boards is peoples diffrent views of the same characters. Im intrested in taking a look at peoples views of Shinji.

Please in your own words discribe Shinji ikari and your opinion of him.

As is become my patteren here i;ll ket you people get started before I chime in.
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Re: Shinji in your eyes

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Postby Reichu » Tue Feb 22, 2005 10:22 pm

DatDude wrote:Please in your own words discribe Shinji ikari and your opinion of him.


Sounds like one of those essay questions they give you in high school... :shock:
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Postby DatDude » Tue Feb 22, 2005 10:26 pm

YEs actualy that was the kind of responce I was hoping for. :D
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Postby Sectre01 » Tue Feb 22, 2005 11:23 pm

I think he needs to grow a pair.

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Postby Reichu » Wed Feb 23, 2005 2:40 am

Sectre01 wrote:I think he needs to grow a pair.


Judging by the secretions on his hand in #25', I would say that he already has them.
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Postby DatDude » Wed Feb 23, 2005 10:30 am

Ok looks like its my turn.

Shinji Ikari in my eyes is for the most part a coward, and at least at the start of the story thats ok. I think he's never really hand anyone to teach him how to be brave or anything to care about enought to stand up for. As the show goes on he gets these things slowly firends, people that care like Misato who shares a lot of the same problems, and mabe even potential girlfriend meterial in Rei or Asuka. Now of course he's got no idea how to deal with these things or connect with these people to start of with but then thats EVAs story people trying to connect with eachother.

Shinji makes lots of mistakes dealing with these things over the course of the series/movie but some people are just like that. They're aquward around others and are unsure how to talk to people. Time goes on and you learn.

The things he goes thorugh in the show make these problems all the worse and give him plenty of new ones. He sees horrable things, and in general goes through hell. Come the End of Eva Shinji loses just about everything, his friends are gone Rei's not human shes something else that scares him, Asukas in a coma, Misato thouw still physicaly their is emotional distant and to top it off the person he reaches out to to try to deal with this crap turns out to be the last angel that he has to kill.

Then he's put on the cross so to speak and given the future of humanaity to decide. Going through that hell i'd end the world too. Good thing he's a decent kid at heart and when forced to confront his demons he came out on top, and gave every one with the same strength the chance to come back.

By the end of the story Shinji changes hes will to risk the pain of loss to get the joy that comes from beeing excepted. Asuka too but concedering the hospital scene I think he's in for a large dose of vengful red hed but if im right about him he's done running away and they can work things out.

So that my view of Shinji coward that by the end of the story is will to give being brave a shot.

DD
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Postby Mr. Tines » Wed Feb 23, 2005 1:45 pm

Shinji, huh?

More screwed up than most.

He gets his negative self-evaluations wrong - his flaws are low self esteem, lack of sense of obligation. He has anger, but only chooses to fight exactly when it is most self-defeating.

To some extent I can relate to the zoning-out refusal to confront that he gets into at the end, as I got into some black moods when in late teens I saw the unwanted future looming up in front of me; but a combination of habit, a sense of obligation, and animal level survival drive kept me functioning from day to day.

At the end, I'm surprised that he rejected Instrumentality, which was the logical extension of all that he had been attempting when Misato came to start dragging him around like a life-size Raggedy Andy - the suicide of the ego, while maintaining some continuity of existence. Taking the opportunity to quote from stuff I already have lying around that puts the positive spin on much the same situation:-

“It all starts to sound like religion, when you put it into words. The promise of something better than this universe of happenstance and evolved beings. Following the hint of something akin to apotheosis in the state which the Ascended have attained. Seeking Paradise. Satisfying that continual hunger that is life, dissolving into an Ocean of being, world without end.

“But not just for me alone, but for the whole of Humanity, or at least one cohort of it. An end to all the need in the world.”


and

And yet had she not set out on this project, this quest for eudaimonia, with the intent of immersing herself inside something finer, seeking the ego-null feeling of flow for now and forever, world without end?


(Sounds like the long form of Gendou's justification from EoTV, doesn't it)
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Postby Hexon.Arq » Wed Feb 23, 2005 6:53 pm

While I am tempted to submit an answer, I will, for the sake of everyone's patience, abstain.

_you can't do anything, so don't even try
_get some help
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Postby Reichu » Wed Feb 23, 2005 7:02 pm

Hexon.Arq wrote:While I am tempted to submit an answer, I will, for the sake of everyone's patience, abstain.


Aww, I wanna hear it! Come on, spit it out!
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Postby Dave » Wed Feb 23, 2005 7:33 pm

Reichu"][quote="Hexon.Arq wrote:Aww, I wanna hear it! Come on, spit it out!


Seconded. *Pokes Hexon with a stick.*
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Postby Hand of God » Thu Feb 24, 2005 1:59 pm

for me Shinji is a cowerd little guy who needs to grow up
the world is just a sick and twisted place

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Postby Ryo » Fri Feb 25, 2005 7:36 pm

Hmmm............ :shifty:

Doesn't seem to be many Shinji-fans here :P

I'm not done with the series yet, but I not sure of that I would have liked it if it wasn't for Shinji. I really find the concept of a psysically(spelling) weak character that litterally 'goes through hell' and ends up making a unselfish decision, that affects the fate entire mankind itself.

By the way, it seems like this is my first post here. Kinda forgot that... Hello everyone. *waves hello*

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Edit: And if you really don't like Shinji, you can always read the manga :wink:
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Postby Reichu » Fri Feb 25, 2005 9:26 pm

It's not that I don't like Shinji. I just don't feel like writing an essay on demand about him. The thoughts come out more readily in the heat of a debate.
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Postby Mr. Tines » Sun Feb 27, 2005 7:04 am

Ryo wrote:Doesn't seem to be many Shinji-fans here :P


Incisivis makes up in quality any lack of quantity in that respect.

Might as well link her essay on the subject in here

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Postby RubberSoul » Tue Mar 15, 2005 5:27 am

Personally, I like Shinji's instability. I love his imperfection because for some odd reason I find human flaws to be incredibly beautiful. Sure, he whines and feels sorry for himself a lot, but he sometimes tries to rise out of that slump, and other times he goes, 'fuck it', and reverts back to his depressed state. He's so wonderfully human like myself and the people in my life.

Yeah, that was a personal analysis really... my post probably gave you all diabetes. I'll probably write something longer at another time. I'm way too tired right now.

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Postby Olin of Xephon » Wed Mar 16, 2005 3:29 pm

I'm not sure I'd label his tendencey to sink into depression as "wonderfully human," (more like Horribily Human IMHO)
but I agree with rubbersoul that if he wasn't so human (I.E. Whiny cowardly, sexually frustrated) he wouldn't be nearly as interesting to watch.

Sometimes I think the attraction of Eva is in not unlike Jerry Springer,
people like to watch people (even animated people) who are just a little more screwed up then themselves, argue with eachother.

While Evangelion does have a lot more going for it asthetically, there is a morbid kind of pleasure in watching anime charaters that "screwed up."

Of course the fun's over when one realizes Shinji and the gang are little more then well polished mirrors Anno is holding up to the audience's face.

Through Shinji we see a world of uncertanty, pain, sorrow, and yes again, sexual frustration. I think that is the reason so many people love AND hates Shinji.

At some point in time (if you want to be honest probably several points in time) we have all been Shinji. Scared, Selfish, and Sad.
The reaction to that image is what polarizes us.

Some find a kindred spirit in the little Eva pilot that couldn't, everybody else is disgusted with him, and by extention, themselves.
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Postby Mr. Tines » Wed Mar 16, 2005 5:15 pm

Olin of Xephon wrote:Of course the fun's over when one realizes Shinji and the gang are little more then well polished mirrors Anno is holding up to the audience's face.


Mirror is a good analogy - it's the one I usually use to try to explain what it is about Eva - the depths are those you bring with you.


Olin of Xephon wrote:Through Shinji we see a world of uncertanty, pain, sorrow, and yes again, sexual frustration. I think that is the reason so many people love AND hates Shinji.


Sexual frustration? Not something I associate with being 14, based on my own personal experience. Five, six years later, perhaps. Or perhaps that's just a side-effect of experiencing single-sex education to 18. For me, the "Shinji in my mind" is the fear of the "me inside other peoples' minds", and shows in a narrow comfort zone in dealing with people for the first few times.

Olin of Xephon wrote:Some find a kindred spirit in the little Eva pilot that couldn't, everybody else is disgusted with him, and by extention, themselves.


"The little Eva pilot that couldn't" - what a wonderful phrase!

The Shinji I despised is the one I couldn't identify with, the Shinji of EoE, who didn't have a "muddle through" coping strategy.
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Postby Reichu » Wed Mar 16, 2005 5:43 pm

If any human being had been as systematically abused (through the course of NGE's events) as Shinji, they'd probably be ready to say, "Fuck this cruel world! Let's all die!", too.

I would also be hard-pressed to say that Shinji's frustrations are purely sexual; sex is just a subcategory of the need for contact and intimacy, and Shinji, frightened little hedgehog that he is, doesn't let himself get very much of anything.
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Postby AchtungAffen » Wed Mar 16, 2005 7:58 pm

Shinji wasn't a total loser with girls also. I think it's episode 4 or 5, when Touji, Kensuke and him are talking on the Physed court, while watching the girls on the pool, you can hear some girls chanting "Ikari-kun". The script even shows a heart at the same line.
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Postby Nephilim » Wed Mar 16, 2005 8:02 pm

WOW, it's incredible how nobody here likes, or feels identified with Shinji.

Well, i started to like the show because of Shinji. I couldn't belive that in a show, the hero wasn't some pretty boy, with lots of friends and an optimistic personality.

I felt so identified with Shinji that i just started to love his character. I'm not proud of this, and i don't wish this to anyone, but my life was very similar to his.

Only people with the same problems can understand Shinji's reactions.
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