Ask John: How do the Endings of Evangelion Relate to Each Other?

Question:
So I was watching Evangelion with a friend in fact I think he asked a question as well anyways at the end of the series when everyone congratulates Shinji is everyone alive or is that like at the end of a video game where it’s like congrats you beat the game sort of thing for watching the anime? Oh and how do the last two episodes relate with the movie do they connect? Or is it like the End of Evangelion takes place during episode 25 and 26, and the congrats part is after everyone ones returned to human form from the LCL. Or is it a complete different out look on things an alternate ending could you explain it to me I’m confused?

Answer:
The End of Evangelion motion picture is an alternate ending intended to replace TV episodes 25 & 26. The thematic point of the Evangelion television series is that Shinji Ikari is a frightened, lonely adolescent. He has trouble making friends or relating to other people. His mother is dead; his father is distant and seems to use Shinji as a tool rather than as a son and child. Shinji is attracted to Rei Ayanami for several reasons. He senses aspects of his mother in Rei’s personality. His father seems to love Rei, so Shinji presumes that by also loving Rei, he draws psychologically closer to his father. And he empathises with Rei. Shinji sees Rei’s alienation and suicidal instincts and realizes that they are similar to his own. When Asuka approaches Shinji, he’s flummoxed. He’s frightened by a girl’s aggressiveness and sexual intimidation, but at the same time attracted. After all, he is a heterosexual adolescent boy. Asuka calls him “Baka Shinji” because she recognizes his conflicted hesitation. Shinji can’t decide if he should respond to or reject Asuka’s advances. When Kaoru openly admits that he loves Shinji, Shinji reacts both with shock and pleasure. Shini recoils because his social instincts force him to presume that love from another male is immoral or wrong. But at the same time, Shinji is happy because no one has ever before told him that he was loved. Again, Shinji doesn’t exactly know how to react becaue he doesn’t know what Kaoru is thinking and feeling.

That very principle is at the heart of Evangelion. Human beings can never fully know what others are thinking and feeling. The boundaries of our bodies and minds, the limitations of our physical form and intellect prevent us from knowing other people as intimately as we know ourselves. The Human Instrumentality Project is a plan designed to eliminate this natural human barrier that creates conflict, sadness, confusion, and misunderstanding. In the end of the Evangelion television series, Shinji rejects the third impact. He recognizes and accepts the idea that the transformation of adolescence, becoming an adult is to recognize and respect that human limitations and differences are precisely what define humans. Human beings are unique and wonderful because they’re all different, because they struggle to understand themselves, understand other humans, and understand the relationships between themselves and others. The Evangelion cast figuratively congratulate Shinji because they’re acknowledging him accepting himself, accepting the fact that he will always be himself and never know exactly what other people think and feel, and that separation is what makes him human. Fundamental loneliness, separation from other humans, isn’t sad; it’s something to be celebrated and cherished. It’s what defines the person Shinji Ikari and makes him himself and not just an extension of some other person.

However, in 1996 anime viewers worldwide didn’t understand or didn’t accept this psychological, thematic ending to the Evangelion story. Viewers wanted a more obvious ending that involved literally battling the Angels and a climax that took place externally and affected everyone instead of an ending that concentrated on just Shinji Ikari coming to grips with and accepting his own anxiety. So the 1997 End of Evangelion movie is an alternate ending that does involve more action and illustrates Shinji again rejecting the third impact, but this time out of fear and selfishness instead of a developing maturity. Because Shinji is frightened of being rejected and criticized by other people, when all of humanity joins its consciousness into a single living entity, Shini refuses to join the evolution of the human race. He, instead, remains isolated in his individual body, and he brings Asuka with him – the only person left alive whom he thinks cares about him – just so he can take out his frustration and anxiety on her, choking her as a means of releasing his own fear and anger over his alienation from other people, his inability to love and feel love from other people.

Although abstract, the television series ending was a hopeful, positive ending in which Shinji breaks through his shell and realizes that his sense of not knowing or understanding other people is an opportunity, a treasure, not a curse. The End of Evangelion paints an opposite grim, apocalyptic ending in which even when the rest of humanity finds peace and mutual understanding, Shinji remains alone, traumatized and spiteful by his own choice, because he’s so frightened of being hurt by other people that he’d rather stay alone. But even then he’s so weak-willed that he can’t bear to literally be alone. He’s got to have Asuka with him to share his emotional torment.