Author: Amanda Wells
Source: Noise In My Brain
Dated: August 23, 2002
Shinji was a hard character to like. In him, I found what I hated most about myself, personified and allowed to consume. Yet there was something compelling about the character that stopped me from hating him. In fact, I had the same defensive reactions to Shinji being called a "wuss" that I did to my other favorite characters being stripped to a one-note description. That eventually grew to this point.
Shinji is different from any other favorite character on my roster. There is hardly anything empowering, admirable, or amusing about him. He is the worst things about me: apathy, pitiable selfishness, fear of change, extreme introversion, insecurity. Seeing him forced me to recognize those traits in myself, traits I believed I'd left behind. Also, when I started liking Neon Genesis Evangelion, I was facing anxieties about growing up belatedly, if at all. My feelings were reflected in Shinji's dependence on his EVA.
Yet it is possible to like Shinji. He never acts with malicious intent (except when deranged in combat sometimes) and, at the end(s) of it all has the potential to "grow up". Calling him a "wuss" neglects the complexity of his character, another strong point. Shinji can be tormented, indifferent, happy, angry, sad, deranged, even, rarely, arrogant.
Above all, Shinji Ikari is real. Some may percieve him to be a contemptable whiner, but no one would ever mistake him for an adolescent male power fantasy. Despite the surreal, postapocalyptic (and foreign, for us Western fans) world he inhabits, Shinji's true problems are those many can relate to. Some may loathe the character for that, because he's not an escape from, but a recognition of, life. You can't look up to him, but some find they can't look down on him, either. Not many characters, even those I like, do that. Even among flawed characters, it's rare to find someone like Shinji, who can be a dark, but very accurate mirror, of the insecure self. This uniqueness is appealing.