History Awesome / NeonGenesisEvangelion

* When supporting character Ryoji Kaji is about to be shot by a [=SEELE=] assassin, he just turns around and calmly asks, "What took you so long?"

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* Misato gets a grand moment in End of Evangelion when she guns down several well armed JSSDF members with nothing but a pistol, without bothering to take cover, then kicks one against the wall and shoots him in the head at point blank range, and she remains unscratched throughout the whole thing.
* Asuka in ''The End of Evangelion'', when she took on ''nine'' Evas, each with unlimited power and a weapon that could slice through an AT field like it wasn't there, at once, armed only with a progressive knife and three and a half minutes of battery power. And won. [[HopeSpot Once]].

** Add in also the interesting fact that the manga was the first iteration of the series ever shown to the public, preceding the anime with some months - and throughout watching the entire franchise and it's characters go many beloved ups and as many iconic lows, stuck to giving a closest to a '''canon''' happy ending to the original series after a decade and half of its whole run.

* Episode 9, in which Asuka and Shinji beat Israfel with the power of dance-fighting, complete with SoundtrackDissonance. [[MundaneMadeAwesome Both Of You, Dance Like You Want To Win!]]

* Lets all give a giant round of applause to Shinji here, folks; after an hour and a half's worth of TraumaCongaLine, MindScrew, OhCrap, and finally JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope, Shinji still retained enough of himself to reject [[AssimilationPlot Instrumentality]] and give people the option to return to a corporeal form if they so wish. Remember that this is a character who had never known true, unconditional love in his life and was more than ready to ''[[DrivenToSuicide kill himself]]'' at the start of this thing, but he still was willing to risk people hurting each other or themselves if it also meant that they could experience love and happiness as well. He was able to give humanity the chance at something he had never known when all he had been through beforehand should've (and did) [[MaddenIntoMisanthropy madden him into misanthropy]]. The boy who [[ArcWords mustn't run away]] stood by those words, to the very end.

* One of the most awesome moments was when Unit-00 went haywire and they were forced to shut it down. Rei trapped inside, the team tells Gendo, "The plug is still extremely hot, you can't do anything, you'll burn your own hands off" then Gendo proceeds to run down, and OPEN THE PLUG WITH HIS OWN BARE HANDS! Just to help Rei, no matter how much of a jerkass he is he does care about someone even though Rei is the living clone of his wife. It's still awesome.

* In End of Eva Shinji is, well... [[{{Angst}} being Shinji]], saying he wants to die after Misato saves him. She first tries to reason with him but when that doesn't work she tries another approach: shoving him against a cage and roaring in his face.
-->'''Misato:''' ''[[PrecisionFStrike So fucking what if I'm not you!?!]]''

* Shinji's WorldOfCardboardSpeech in the GainaxEnding. Not only was the final episode rather inspirational, but this is also (if memory serves) the first and ONLY instance of Shinji getting a ThemeMusicPowerUp. If you're paying attention, you can hear an instrumental, piano version of [[SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic Cruel Angel's Thesis]] in the background. Doubles as a TearJerker, [[ManlyTears of the good kind]].

'''Shinji:''' [[SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments Maybe it's okay for me to be here!]] [[IAmWhatIAm That's right! I'm me, nothing more, nothing less!]] [[HumansAreSpecial I'm me. I want to be me!]] [[PatrickStewartSpeech I want to be here!]] [[WorldOfCardBoardSpeech And it's okay for me to be here!]]

* The manga version has Shinji with several moments where he shows honest signs of badass. The most epic moment being after Toji is killed during the fight with Bardiel which Gendo forced Shinji to do by using the dummy plug to take over Unit 01. He later faces his father and asks him if he has anything to say about it. When Gendo says no, Shinji '''tries to punch him in the face''' and is only stopped by Kaji when his fist is literally an inch away from Gendo's face. The moment is so unexpected that '''[[MagnificentBastard Gendo Ikari]]''' is thrown off guard and has a look of [[OhCrap complete shock]] on his face.

* The fifth Angel has a long range laser that is absolutely lethal. A plan is formulated to have Rei use a shield while Shinji takes the shot. However before he can her shield melts, so she steps in the path to give him more time. The fact Rei has a Olympic level [[DeathSeeker death wish]] loses nothing. Though this is mainly because she knows of WeHaveReserves.

** You really have to give the kid some credit here. The 14th angel is also known as ''The Angel of MIGHT''. Prior to this, Rei and Asuka had thrown ''everything'' they had at the creature, and hadn't been able to even ''scratch it'' (at one point, Rei even resorted to charging it with an N2 missile and ''detonated it in the angel's face''). It was seconds away from vaporizing Misato and the bridge crew when [[BigDamnHeroes Shinji and Unit 01 smash through a wall]] and start an ''[[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown all out brawl]]'' in the middle of Central Dogma. He wasn't just the first person to damage it either, ''he beat the shit out of it'', and was getting ready to destroy the core. Too bad the batteries died right then.

* Misato gets a grand moment in End of Evangelion when she guns down several well armed JSSDF members with nothing but a pistol, without bothering to take cover, then kicks one against the wall and shoots him in the head and point blank range, and she remains unscratched throughout the whole thing.

!!Examples with their own pages: