Our story begins with meeting one of the many antagonists of the manga,the Angels attacking Tokyo-3. You may think they are actually angels of God but they are aliens, the japanese government gives them the name of angels as code names. The Japanese government is giving their all to stop the Angel but it does nothing but tickle it. We then see our protagonist,Shinji Ikari, try to call his dad with all this mayhem in the back but he can not contact him. Lucky his escort,Misato, drives up and takes him to Nerv HQ where the Japanese government is giving orders to the army. The Japanese government decides to drop a nuke on the angel but it just pisses the angel even more.
Misato takes Shinji to meet his dad,Gendo. Gendo is the leader of NERV and he is very cold to his son. He tells Shinji to get into Eva Unit 1, a big green and purple robot, but Shinji refuses. Shinji wants to connect with his dad since it has been ten years since Gendo abandoned Shinji at a train station. Gendo then calls his assistant, Fuyutsuki, to get Rei to pilot Eva Unit 1 since Shinji is not going to do it. Shinji sees Rei get pulled out in a gurney and she is wearing a lot of bandages. The Angel attacks Nerv HQ causing Rei to fall and Shinji rushes to come and see if she is ok and she starts to bleed. Shinji then finally decides to pilot Eva Unit 1 and he goes into combat against the Angel.
This is Shinji’s first time in an Eva so he does not do too good at piloting it and he falls on his face. The Angel then goes in and gives Shinji a whooping. After a while, Eva Unit 1 goes berserk mode and goes ham on the Angel so hard that it had to kamikaze itself to do damage to Eva Unit 1. After a while, Shinji goes on to defeat more angels and make a friendly bond with Rei who was at this point an enigma and did not have any friends.
Now we meet the next pilot, Asuka. Asuka is very hot-headed and does not like Shinji. She is German and she is actually a college graduate even though she is fourteen years old. She pilots Eva-unit 02, which is a red robot with four green eyes. Asuka eventually learns to be a team player and starts to warm up to Shinji, especially since they are living together. However everything comes tumbling down when Eva Unit 3 shows up.
Eva Unit 3 gets corrupted by an Angel however the Angel stays hidden. A student from Shinji’s class gets drafted to be Eva Unit 3’s pilot and it is Toji, Shinji’s friend, however Shinji does not know this. When the Angel uses Eva Unit 3 to go on a ramage, Shinji says he does not want to hurt the pilot but when he was being choked and almost died, Gendo turns on the dummy system,an autopilot system, and Shinji had to see first hand the slaughter of Eva Unit 3 by Eva Unit 1 and he then sees Toji almost dead. This causes Shinji to quit being a pilot and run away; however a very strong Angel comes in and almost kills everyone. He then gathers the courage to pilot again but when runs out of power in his Angel, he panics and Eva Unit 1 goes berserk again and eats the Angel. Shinji was so synchronized with Eva Unit 1 that he turns into LCL,an orange liquid puddle of DNA, and after he gets a pep-talk by the ghost of his
dead mom,Yui, he is able to become human. Rei and Asuka also get a similar exposure to discovering their feelings however they are not like Shinji who was a bit better on the emotional scale.
Shinji meets Kaworu who is the final Angel in human form. Kaworu is unlike everyone so far as he is kind to Shinji from the start. Kaworu even states that he loves Shinji even though they are both males. Kaworu then controls Unit 2 and Shinji has to kill Kaworu. Shinji manages to grab Kaworu and Kaworu says to kill him so humanity can live. This amount of despair makes Shinji want to drown himself but he does not do it.
The Japanese government catches wind of NERV’s secret, which is that the Eva Units are actually not robots but clones of Angels. The Japanese government sends in soldiers and nine mass production EVAs, white bird-like EVAS with creepy smiles. Shinji goes and fights with Asuka to defeat these EVAs but the spear of longinus impales Shinji and by using his EVA, the government is able to cause the impact and make everyone into LCL so they can be together like a hive mind but Shinji and Asuka manage to convert from LCL to being human and they watch the new destroyed world they live in.
In this paper, the target audience of this manga is for people who struggle with loneliness and unhealthy coping mechanisms since every character follows some form of escaping harsh reality. Shinji is the textbook example of this because he runs away from his problems both physically and mentally. The author of the manga, Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, made the manga in December,1994. The manga was based on the name with the same name and most of the events that happen in the anime happens in the manga. Sadamoto even worked on the animation team with the creator of the series, Hideaki Anno, who put his heart and soul into the series. Sadamoto has also helped make other series like The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Crazy Rider.
Every character in this manga struggles with their own version of loneliness or mental issues in their own unhealthy way. Shinji often runs away from his duties as an EVA pilot and problems in general. He feels guilty for basically almost killing his friend even though it was not his fault. He also does not feel like there is no-one on his side so he runs away from those people. He did not like Asuka since she was mean to him so he did not accept her as a person and did not want to connect with her. Shinji learns that he cannot escape life’s struggles so he tries to cope with it in a healthy way as life can be better but it can never be perfect.
Asuka uses self-worth as her escape as she wants to win by herself. She doesn’t want to team up with Shinji to fight the Angels since she feels like if she cannot fight well, then she is dead weight and not strong. She gets this for the feeling of needing to grow up because her mom hung herself and she was alone for so long that she felt like in order to look like a grown-up is by being serious and doing everything herself. After the 3rd impact, she learns she is not the only one with this issue and that she can be open to those people.
Rei follows orders to escape from reality. She does tasks that Gendo tells her and does nothing but await for more orders from him. She is so devoted to him that she does not even get her mail or clean up her apartment that she lives by herself. This is a reflection on how some people think that working hard at their job is just how life works but in turn does not allow them to find a solution with their trauma and loneliness and just amplies it even more.Shinji’s kindness to Rei and him showing that life can be fun when you take care for yourself allows Rei to open her eyes for once and experience life, she turns against Gendo at the end and gives Shinji the god-like powers to him instead of Gendo since he uses her like a tool for his plans.
Gendo thinks he can be with his dead wife if he causes the Third Impact and he will do anything to do it. Gendo felt that because his wife died that he could not be a good parent to Shinji and the only way to raise Shinji to be the son that he wants is by reuniting with his wife. Gendo abandoned his own flesh and blood at a train station because Shinji when he was five did not want to train to be an EVA pilot. This ultimately goes against his plan and is giving into his negatively and making him lonelier because by trying to bring his family closer he is also pushing said family away. Gendo made clones of his wife, a.k.a Rei clones, so he has someone devoted to his orders on bringing him and his wife closer. All of this self-isolation, coldness towards loved ones caused him to get what he deserved. While most humans turned into LCL and have their spirits released, Gendo got eaten by EVA unit 1 and got a painful death unlike the others. This means that he is not going to see his beloved wife after all he did to get her back and is now in hell instead.
A rhetorical device that Sadamoto uses a lot in the manga to help spread his message to the target audience is symbolism. Sadamoto uses symbolism a lot to show how the characters cope with being alone and how their escapist mindset is hurting them and others around them. A great example of this symbolism is when Shinji gets destroyed by the mass production EVAs. Before this fight, Shinji has been getting his butt kicked by everything life has thrown at him and it got so bad that he almost killed himself. When he is forced to hide in EVA unit 01 with the Japanese government invading NERV. Shinji learns that Asuka is up fighting the Mass Production Evas that are trying to kill everyone at NERV so he decides to stand up and fight and he fights well but the spear of longinus comes in and impales him, causing him to lose this battle. This scene shows how life can pull a one-eighty on you and how life is unpredictable even though you are doing well.(Sadamoto,109-130) While this is not really a good message to Sadamoto’s target audience, this negative message can also be seen in a positive light in the final scene after the third impact. After the third impact, Shinji chooses to be human again and comes out of the LCL and when he comes out, he notices that Asuka has also decided to come back as well. Shinji and Asuka lay together as they were together mentally with the rest of humanity and they now understand each other’s pain and struggles and they just lay together as they see the apoyalse landscape they are experiencing. This scene shows the opposite of the previous scene as the last scene shows the unpredictability of life and how at anytime life can take a turn for the worse while this scene still shows how harsh life can be however it also shows that you can go into the harsh lives we live with someone else to make the adventure of life less horrible.
Another rhetorical device Sadamoto uses to help set up his message is allusion. The major source of allusion in the manga is the angels. Even though the angels aren’t real angels, they reference the biblical angels and they mimic those powers. An example of this is Ramiel, the 5th angel, who is a giant blue diamond that shoots high-energy lasers.(Sadamoto,Pg 18-24) Ramiel in the bible is the angel of thunder and lighting and this connects with Ramiel from the manga as they both shoot high power energy attacks. Another angel is Kaworu and he is the only angel with a human form and is the most powerful angel. Kaworu’s real name, Tabris, is the angel of free will in the bible. This is a reference to the fact that Kaworu has actual motives other than causing the third impact like observing humanity and falling in love with Shinji(Sadamoto,Pg 76-84)This shows that he has free will unlike the other angels. The angels overall show the dangers of life/loneliness and how everyone has their own version of loneliness. Sadamoto uses this message to help his target audience with their own loneliness and life issues and to take time to help destroy said issues to make them an overall better person.
In conclusion, the main message of Neon Genesis Evangelion is about people needing to reflect on themselves and help themselves from loneliness and coping mechanisms.Sadamoto uses rhetorical devices such as allusion and symbolism to reflect how life has its unfair moments like having a spear impale Shinji or having blue cube aliens show up as ways on how unpredictable and uncontrollable life is. And even though life is hard and unpredictable, there are ways to help deal with the loneliness that comes with such life in a healthy manner like communicating with people who understand your pain and them willing to be on your side.
Work cited:
Sadamoto,Yoshiyuki ,Neon Genesis Evangelion,Kadokawa Shoten,Kadokawa Shoten,1994-2013