If there was one persistent thing in the Eva fandom up until the mid-2010s, it was the notion that Shinji sucked terribly. This led to all kinds of stories where Shinji gets over his issues, becomes a badass, saves the planet, gets the girls, and gains about 50 pounds of muscle. And of course, this story is the king of them all: as it probably should be, because from the pure perspective of what it was aiming to accomplish, it accomplished its goals with aplomb. It contorts the world of Eva to fit the hypermasculine, chest-pounding, quasi-fascistic framing of 40K, with full success. For all that this review tells you not to read it, from a sheer craft perspective, it's creative, the fights are good, the prose is at least competent, and it's frequently funny. There's talent here.
But nowadays, it seems people are becoming aware that Shinji was supposed to be a flawed character and not a reader-insert fantasy, and so we're seeing increasing warmth and focus on his actual feelings and motivations—what he wanted, how his life affected him, and how he stands as a depiction of depression and self-loathing. He wasn't done perfectly, but he remains one of the most unique protagonists in mainstream anime. And in that modern mindset, this fic comes across as, er, kind of hateful. Shinji's angst is framed as aberrant, immature, and wimpy—which is exactly the thing you need to tell depressed people in real life. Not that their feelings are valid and they're not alone, but that they're pathetic and need to grow up. And to be sure, I do not believe that a fic must by nature duplicate the original's themes, but I do believe it should recognize them, and respect them for what they were. I do not detect recognition or respect here, and for a case study, let's talk Kaworu.
People in those days never seemed to get Kaworu. This makes sense, since nobody got Shinji, and to get Kaworu is to pay attention to Shinji. Kaworu was the only character in the series who made Shinji happy with no reservations and completely accepted him—and Shinji has to kill him. That's why it's tragic. But if you don't get why Shinji felt that way, then Kaworu just seems weird and yaoibaity. And so in this fic, he's jury-rigged into a weird antichrist-cum-shounen rival, who's in love with Asuka, of all characters, so that Shinji can be such a chad that he wins Asuka anyway.
And you know, I think that good long shot of Shinji holding Kaworu with no animation had more emotional resonance than every single scene Kaworu had in this whole reinvention. For all its darkness, for all talk of deconstruction, Eva was built out of love for the genre that spawned it, for Ultraman and sentai and super robots, and out of a desire to show deeply written and achingly personal characters living in their world. Shinji and Warhammer 40K was built out of disdain, so crushes those achingly personal characters under its boot before shooting them in the face and giving a pithy remark.
A story from a very different time.
If there was one persistent thing in the Eva fandom up until the mid-2010s, it was the notion that Shinji sucked terribly. This led to all kinds of stories where Shinji gets over his issues, becomes a badass, saves the planet, gets the girls, and gains about 50 pounds of muscle. And of course, this story is the king of them all: as it probably should be, because from the pure perspective of what it was aiming to accomplish, it accomplished its goals with aplomb. It contorts the world of Eva to fit the hypermasculine, chest-pounding, quasi-fascistic framing of 40K, with full success. For all that this review tells you not to read it, from a sheer craft perspective, it's creative, the fights are good, the prose is at least competent, and it's frequently funny. There's talent here.
But nowadays, it seems people are becoming aware that Shinji was supposed to be a flawed character and not a reader-insert fantasy, and so we're seeing increasing warmth and focus on his actual feelings and motivations—what he wanted, how his life affected him, and how he stands as a depiction of depression and self-loathing. He wasn't done perfectly, but he remains one of the most unique protagonists in mainstream anime. And in that modern mindset, this fic comes across as, er, kind of hateful. Shinji's angst is framed as aberrant, immature, and wimpy—which is exactly the thing you need to tell depressed people in real life. Not that their feelings are valid and they're not alone, but that they're pathetic and need to grow up. And to be sure, I do not believe that a fic must by nature duplicate the original's themes, but I do believe it should recognize them, and respect them for what they were. I do not detect recognition or respect here, and for a case study, let's talk Kaworu.
People in those days never seemed to get Kaworu. This makes sense, since nobody got Shinji, and to get Kaworu is to pay attention to Shinji. Kaworu was the only character in the series who made Shinji happy with no reservations and completely accepted him—and Shinji has to kill him. That's why it's tragic. But if you don't get why Shinji felt that way, then Kaworu just seems weird and yaoibaity. And so in this fic, he's jury-rigged into a weird antichrist-cum-shounen rival, who's in love with Asuka, of all characters, so that Shinji can be such a chad that he wins Asuka anyway.
And you know, I think that good long shot of Shinji holding Kaworu with no animation had more emotional resonance than every single scene Kaworu had in this whole reinvention. For all its darkness, for all talk of deconstruction, Eva was built out of love for the genre that spawned it, for Ultraman and sentai and super robots, and out of a desire to show deeply written and achingly personal characters living in their world. Shinji and Warhammer 40K was built out of disdain, so crushes those achingly personal characters under its boot before shooting them in the face and giving a pithy remark.