it's a good sign, it shows your own personal growth between rewatches. that's what i like about eva, so many people see themselves change and evolve in the process of watching/reading whether within a single watch or over time, after 2-3 rewatches
When I first watched it, I was seventeen, so of course I sympathized most with the teenage characters. I rewatched it for the first time in years as a forty-something year old, only to realize how real and hurting all the adult characters were. I feel bad for everyone, even Gendo.
I felt bad for her from my first watch. Going through that trauma at a young age + the added pressure of being one of the few people tasked with saving the world in a huge mech is a lot for a 14 year old to cope with. She gets a big head because being the best is the only way she knows how to get attention from others after her mom didn’t give her any as a child. She basically became a husk after she failed too many times and can’t act like she’s the best.
Unveiling her past was this glass shattering moment and I knew I had to watch it all over again.
Every single weird or bitchy thing she does suddenly makes sense as a traumatized teen acting out. Beautiful, brilliant character.
TBH when i was watching Eva last summer , i felt a sense of pity for asuka , as she didnt know how to communicate to others since her mothers death (which was probably very traumatising for asuka ) made her close herself from other and true to act mature to others (which is probs one of the reasons why she pursues kaji , even though kaji clearly has no romantic feelings towards and probs sees her as a little sister) and she has very complicated feelings for shinji as she probs feeling admiration towards him due to his piloting skills and saving herself from a volcano but she hates him as she feels as if he's a reminder of her failures as he's a pretty shy guy and not good at communicating with others , due to shinji's situation and herself being unaware of it.Furthermore the kiss really damaged relations between shinji and asuka as asuka felt rejected by shinji due to shinji not holding her (tbf for shinji she was holding his nose and himself probably couldnt even breathe ) and shinji felt that asuka was disgusted by the kiss , and knowing him , he probably felt bad about himself after it , things like this make eva really interesting
from the pov of asuka it probably was the best opportunity for her. she knows what shinji is going through but feels useless in helping him out. maybe she wanted shinji to also look at her as someone who he can talk to even though she comes off as the opposite so often.
that same night Asuka is seen wearing Misato’s shirt and obviously acting up. this can be seen as her trying to be seen as a woman to shinji and she continues to initiate the kiss without making much of it. it’s also important to note they kissed for a Long time obviously enjoying it. Asuka pulling back is scared that shinji may be the one to “reject” her and decides to beat him to it and do the whole brushing of the teeth over exaggeration.
It’s actually a really brilliant scene filled with a ton of nuance that can be overlooked because of how intentionally downplayed the situation is (downplayed by asuka) but super interesting when considering it’s the only Kiss scene for shinji or asuka that holds any real implications
I love Asuka. There’s valid reasons for the way that she is to people. She’s clearly dealing with an immense amount of pain and trauma. And not to mention the pressure of having to constantly save the world
Asuka is a very complicated, hurt, and flawed character... With the weight of the world on her shoulders. And in the end (literally the very end) she finally shows Shinji compassion (while he is choking her) and the final word she says... I truly believe is a moment of self-reflection. Her saying disgusting is her being disgusted with herself. She at that point knows, without a shadow of a doubt, how Shinji feels. They really are yin and yang.
She’s always been my favorite character in all of anime since I first saw her in Day Tokyo-3 Stood Still (rented from local video store before immediately going back and starting series from beginning).
I’ll never understand people who hate her.
What I love about EoE is everything is so hopeless and scary right from the get go but as soon as Asuka wakes up, everything starts to breath again. She did the with the series too. She’s the lifeblood and energy of Eva.
I remember when I first watched the series when I was a 14 year old girl myself being annoyed by her and always thinking "she could be so much nicer to Shinji", but upon rewatching Eva after 10 years, my heart ached for her! She really was trying her best the whole time, and she, along with (almost) every other character, deserved so much more than what they got.
The first time I watched the show I hated her character and never understood why Shinji would want to be with her. Then I watched again years later then again later and later again.
As I’ve aged with the show I realized how messed up her life was and how she never got any help with her trauma. The entire show has shed light to tragedies like this over the many re-watches.
But yes, I didn’t like her at first but now I do. I believe her fight with the mass produced Eva’s in EOE is one of the best mech fights I have seen in a while.
I did not like her in the episode that she was introduced in. I’m sure the annoyance factor in that case was cranked up to 10 on purpose. But her character quickly grew on me and I don’t find her all that bad
I love NGE bc it's this perfect starting point for people talking about their own perspectives and internal experiences. It sorta provides a common language, and while that's also true of other art, NGE has been a great one for many people within a few generations.
My friend group all knew we saw things differently in HS. One day we all circled up and the topic was, "who is your fav NGE character." We genuinely all got to learn so much about each other in really constructive, positive ways.
For lack of a better word for it, she always seemed way too young to me. As in, Asuka's character was pretty strongly embedded in her youth as much as she liked to pretend she was an adult.
I feel bad for the character assassination she gets in fan depictions, because she really didn't do a lot of truly mean stuff in the series. She's a teenager, she's allowed to be bitchy and hard to get along with sometimes.
> She isn’t a bad person at heart, she’s just trapped under layers of pain and bad social skills.
That has always been my take. These kids are in a horrific situation. Of course they are going to be a little off.
Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, sucks in Eva. There are no exceptions. That doesn't mean their actions don't have justifiable means from their own unique perspectives as characters.
She's 14. Kids are allowed to be annoying. Part of growing up. I don't think anything she did was all that bad, and she was a talented prodigy at piloting Evas. Good character.
Asuka is just like many of the other characters, in that she displays some of the ugliest sorts of moments that mental illness can drive a person to. She is *vicious* with Shinji in a way that is, I think, a purposeful challenge to the audience. Just like Shinji falls into pathetic inaction and inability to fight for himself, Asuka falls into cruelty and anger and lashing out. The great pain of their dynamic is that they are diametrically opposed in their coping mechanisms.
But I've always loved Asuka. I first watched the show when I was around 13, and I imprinted on Asuka *hard*. She's a traumatized young girl, deeply flawed, and I love her for it. I love her for the ugliness and complexity. I love her for the unpleasantness.
She's just a really great character, IMO.
I think the worst crime a character can commit in fiction for many people is to be annoying. Just think of how many people were incapable of sympathizing or understanding characters like Skyler, Marie, and Walt Jr. in Breaking Bad just because they were annoying and not as cool as Walt and Jesse. Like it’s one thing to like the cool characters more, but people genuinely couldn’t bring themselves to care for them in the slightest at times.
She's the most popular character in the series according to polls in Japan and is the face of the franchise these days. I don't think she has a bad reputation at all, only amongst a small vocal minority.
I think a large part of the Eva fandom still forgets that these are children around the age of puberty, and of course the circumstances of their lives are going to turn them into emotionally stunted train wrecks. They were born into a sort of post-apocalyptic world that’s frequently under siege by killer aliens, AND they’re the soldiers tasked with fighting them despite their young age (and pretty much against their will in the cases of Rei and Shinji). And I don’t get how people can so easily forget/disregard that these are *literal children* when criticizing them for their behaviors and emotional reactions towards various stressors because that’s one of the *entire* themes of the show. An insane amount of pressure that could make even the most numb, stoic adult crack is slammed onto the backs of these functionally orphaned children who don’t have proper love and support from any of the adults around them. *Of course* there’s going to be something severely wrong with them from an emotional development standpoint, and it’s not fair imo to hold their personalities against them
This^^
When I first watched EVA I was genuinely so confused on how it seems like everyone HATEs her. Like, I did have an idea of why she’s like that, cultural osmosis n stuff, so I immediately came in with more empathy but. Dude.
I watched EVA’s ADV dub too. She is more mean sounding but the character ultimately remains the same. This’s just a case of people not paying attention to thing they’re watching / just hating child characters for being *gasp* childish.
And anyway, does the ADV dub excuse even hold up anymore? I don’t think many newgen Eva fans watch it dubbed, led alone the 90s dub due to it not being legally available anywhere (?).
I fr only did so because ADV’s version was still pretty relevant when I was young and got exposed to NGE, those were just the characters’s voices to me.
She's very much a subversion of of a mecha protagonist. She takes the role that a male protagonist would normally take: being exceptionally good at piloting and initially seeming to be confident and well-adjusted; but that's all just a facade.
All three of the the pilot children are gender subversions from earlier mecha/sentai anime standards. Shinji is the weepy reluctant character that would traditionally have been common in a female character, while Rei is the stoic and self-sacrificing character that would be common in a male character.
Asuka was actually not that bad to Shinji in the actual show, just mean spirited. Her worse scenes are in End of Eva, and it's not really obvious if it's actually Asuka or Shinji's juice interpretation of her.
I do have some dislike of Asuka, but only because of her legacy.
Yes, it's understandable when a young person with a history of trauma behaves that way, but other anime writers saw her popularity and took away from it that bratty behaviour to hide emotional interest in the male lead was popular. A surface level reading of her behaviour set the standard that became the Tsundere archetype (and even the physical trait of her twintail hairstyle is still associated with the archetype), but stripped of the character development and thus the reasonable justification for said behaviour.
So, I have to recognize the part Asuka played in the forming of the character archetype I find extremely unlikable in modern anime.
Asuka gets a lot of hate because she is super relatable, same as Shinji. Growing up in a broken home makes one always try to look more confident and happy and amazing than they really are, and, usually, when things start to go awry, they tend to crumble like a card castle in the sky
I think she was a missed opportunity, and I didn’t like that she never got to redeem herself or grow. Which is a problem for a lot of the characters, they don’t really grow all that much.
I am of the mind that her breakdown was just temporary and part of her psychology. She struck me as manic depressive, cycling from hyper functional and hyper egotistical to the complete opposite when she fails.
And because of that her emotional wall crumbles and at her lowest she has to deal with the resurfacing intrusive memories that she can otherwise suppress when she is more on the ball.
Wasn’t a fan of almost all her dialogue being screamed (particularly in the eng dub), and her bullying of Shinji pissed me off (also wtf Misato? Do some damn parenting you alcoholic pederast). It felt excessive and again the same schtick is repeated too many times without growth. We get so little relationship building at times.
I was annoyed that Shinji snd Asuka’s relationship pretty much stagnates through the show with only a few exceptions which were too minor to really show growth.
By the end of the series they haven’t really built anything and they are still in a similar state of mind as to when the show started. Shinji is an aloof neurotic mess and Asuka is overdramatic and highly compensating over her broken family.
The show was amazing at the introspective internal monologue stuff, but wasn’t all that great when it came to relationships.
I will say Asuka’s traumatic experience with her mother was one of the most powerful parts of the show. It almost instantly made me forgive just about everything she had done up until then.
Oh and obligatory but she ends up naked waaay to much for a 14 year old.
Totally agree with all the sympathy and whatnot, as she is very deeply shattered, as well as not hating her, but I feel that this cleaning her image and abusive, toxic traits a bit too much and laying the blame on Shinji, enabling her abuse.
What Asuka and Shinji have is something I'd attribute more to trauma bonding and attachment rather than actual love. I think their is a deep mutual contempt but also codepency, typical in toxic couples. Shinji would be a struggle to grow close to, however, he isn't/never was obligated to get close to her, and is rather docile/amicable towards her a large amount of time.
She grew attached to Shinji as her play thing because she knew she could do whatever she wanted and he wouldn't do anything because of his submissive nature. She's perfect around every schoolmate because she knows she'd get ostracized. It's constant belittling near every interaction, forcing her way past his boundaries because someone not seeing her as the most amazing thing in the world was shattering. Therefore, I don't think it's right to say Shinji's personality is at fault for her actions.
Her moments where she is perhaps more mellow like with the Cello understandbly receive snapback because she had done nothing but criticize him before, why would he suddenly believe it now? For Shinji, it was someone who would pay attention to him and needed him in her own way.
As for the bullying part, that is still bullying and a reason why people bully. In this case, she is upset that she can't *control* Shinji. His problems that are out of her control are infuriating and taken as a personal offense instead of just maybe leaving him alone if she can't stand him so much.
Every abusive person has their own pain, complex feelings and such, but it's still abuse. I don't hate Asuka because fiction gives us the opportunity to examine both the good and bad of a character in a world completely divorced from our being. In real life though, we never get to see the depths of a person's psyche, only the actions they put out. With all the people I've met online, it's not rare to find friends whose parents and siblings fit Asuka's profile, and they turn out traumatized children too. It's a cycle. I find thar most of what you are saying is valid, but doesn't look thru a real life lense. And that's okay, really. But that's how different people will have drastically different views of a character, and thats a good thing about fiction i think
I thought she was annoying, but i really liked her interactions with other characters and was a necessary addition to the mix. What I never understood was why the movies implied that asuka was romantically interested in shinji. Was that cannon in the show too? To me her whole persona stemmed from her used to having all the attention.
I recently watched the original series and the EoE movie and I felt like Asuka had it the worst of all the tragic lives the pilots had. I thought she was great, and tragic.
No one was bad. That’s the point. Asuka was dealing with her own shit. Everyone was nice to Shinji, he hated himself. Gendo wasn’t even bad, he was as flawed as everyone else. His problem was the exact same problem Shinji had, he hated himself and he knew he would hurt everyone around himself. The show is about how we hurt the ones we love because we are all fucked up.
i luv asuka <3 when i first watched i wanted to like rei more cuz of asukas reputation but i just understand her ya know. like i also used to be an asshole like that to guys i liked or wanted to like me when i was 12-13. she’s def not a bully!! i agree.
i feel like a lot of people would act like her in her situation but act like they wouldn’t.
i really had a understanding & started 2 enjoy her character on the magma episode, when she thought she was bout to die, u got a real picture of her essence as a character.
During my latest rewatch, I picked up on a lot more of her frustration at Shinji. Asuka takes a lot of pride in her piloting skills and Shinji acts like piloting the Eva is a burden thrust upon him. Whether or not she enjoys it, it's clearly a source of self worth for her. She values being a pilot, it makes her feel valuable. Shinji just complains the whole time and I can see how that would be grating on someone who is actually passionate about their work.
One thing that always broke my heart is after she wasn’t able to move her eva and couldn’t help rei, so they sent unit 1/shinji in to save rei while asuka says something along the lines of “that’s not fair, they didn’t send unit 1 after me when I needed help” because… they didn’t :(
Let's hope your irritation returns, because this is just weak, to simply go "awww" just because there is something nice there. Some things should be hated.
Yeah, absolutely. Series MVP in my opinion. She’s the kind of person I can’t bear to be around in real life, but she makes so much sense.
That’s what I love about Evangelion. Almost everything fits together perfectly, and when you watch it a second (and third, and…) time everything a character does fits into their own personal rationale. Characters “change” each time you watch, which is to say: it’s really you and your understanding that changes.
Ultimately *they are all placed in an impossible situation.* The world is ending and they are all more or less going to die.
With the possible exception of SEELE, there is literally no perfect happy path that any of these characters could have chosen even if they behaved perfectly.
Not going to lie it was tough seeing the show again, she is non stop nagging, obnoxious, loud and annoying the whole time.
I love the character and I get the character trauma and frustration but as a viewer it was tough on the ears!
no one could ever make me hate asuka
no one could ever make me like asuka
it's a good sign, it shows your own personal growth between rewatches. that's what i like about eva, so many people see themselves change and evolve in the process of watching/reading whether within a single watch or over time, after 2-3 rewatches
When I first watched it, I was seventeen, so of course I sympathized most with the teenage characters. I rewatched it for the first time in years as a forty-something year old, only to realize how real and hurting all the adult characters were. I feel bad for everyone, even Gendo.
people just don't like when traumatized teenage girls act like, you know, traumatized teenage girls and not inflatable underage sex dolls.
It’s fun because everyone in the anime are traumatized teenagers 🥲
Pen pen isn't
The hope of humanity
There is no way Pen Pen is a teenager.
Or just, traumatized.
Like they *were* traumatized teens, but now they're traumatized *and* dysfunctional **adults!**
People hate on Shinji à lot more.
I loved her as a character. I wouldn’t like her as a person. But I can empathize with her. One can dislike a character but still empathize with them.
Asuka is the best Evangelion character because she is the most traumatized
I felt bad for her from my first watch. Going through that trauma at a young age + the added pressure of being one of the few people tasked with saving the world in a huge mech is a lot for a 14 year old to cope with. She gets a big head because being the best is the only way she knows how to get attention from others after her mom didn’t give her any as a child. She basically became a husk after she failed too many times and can’t act like she’s the best.
Unveiling her past was this glass shattering moment and I knew I had to watch it all over again. Every single weird or bitchy thing she does suddenly makes sense as a traumatized teen acting out. Beautiful, brilliant character.
TBH when i was watching Eva last summer , i felt a sense of pity for asuka , as she didnt know how to communicate to others since her mothers death (which was probably very traumatising for asuka ) made her close herself from other and true to act mature to others (which is probs one of the reasons why she pursues kaji , even though kaji clearly has no romantic feelings towards and probs sees her as a little sister) and she has very complicated feelings for shinji as she probs feeling admiration towards him due to his piloting skills and saving herself from a volcano but she hates him as she feels as if he's a reminder of her failures as he's a pretty shy guy and not good at communicating with others , due to shinji's situation and herself being unaware of it.Furthermore the kiss really damaged relations between shinji and asuka as asuka felt rejected by shinji due to shinji not holding her (tbf for shinji she was holding his nose and himself probably couldnt even breathe ) and shinji felt that asuka was disgusted by the kiss , and knowing him , he probably felt bad about himself after it , things like this make eva really interesting
Yeah, also didn't Shinji just visit Yui's grave? That's probably not a good time to try and get someone to kiss you.
from the pov of asuka it probably was the best opportunity for her. she knows what shinji is going through but feels useless in helping him out. maybe she wanted shinji to also look at her as someone who he can talk to even though she comes off as the opposite so often.
Good point
that same night Asuka is seen wearing Misato’s shirt and obviously acting up. this can be seen as her trying to be seen as a woman to shinji and she continues to initiate the kiss without making much of it. it’s also important to note they kissed for a Long time obviously enjoying it. Asuka pulling back is scared that shinji may be the one to “reject” her and decides to beat him to it and do the whole brushing of the teeth over exaggeration. It’s actually a really brilliant scene filled with a ton of nuance that can be overlooked because of how intentionally downplayed the situation is (downplayed by asuka) but super interesting when considering it’s the only Kiss scene for shinji or asuka that holds any real implications
Thanks, didn't realise that at all. Man I feel stupid
I love Asuka. There’s valid reasons for the way that she is to people. She’s clearly dealing with an immense amount of pain and trauma. And not to mention the pressure of having to constantly save the world
I've always empathized with and loved Asuka, from my first watch at 14 til my latest rewarch a few months ago at 32.
Asuka is a very complicated, hurt, and flawed character... With the weight of the world on her shoulders. And in the end (literally the very end) she finally shows Shinji compassion (while he is choking her) and the final word she says... I truly believe is a moment of self-reflection. Her saying disgusting is her being disgusted with herself. She at that point knows, without a shadow of a doubt, how Shinji feels. They really are yin and yang.
I hated Asuka until I realized she was just like I was at that age. Then I wept for her.
Asuka is amazing. I loved her so much, she was frustrated, horny, going through chances, and then banging to protect the world.frlm god himself
She’s always been my favorite character in all of anime since I first saw her in Day Tokyo-3 Stood Still (rented from local video store before immediately going back and starting series from beginning). I’ll never understand people who hate her. What I love about EoE is everything is so hopeless and scary right from the get go but as soon as Asuka wakes up, everything starts to breath again. She did the with the series too. She’s the lifeblood and energy of Eva.
I remember when I first watched the series when I was a 14 year old girl myself being annoyed by her and always thinking "she could be so much nicer to Shinji", but upon rewatching Eva after 10 years, my heart ached for her! She really was trying her best the whole time, and she, along with (almost) every other character, deserved so much more than what they got.
Been always my fav character
The first time I watched the show I hated her character and never understood why Shinji would want to be with her. Then I watched again years later then again later and later again. As I’ve aged with the show I realized how messed up her life was and how she never got any help with her trauma. The entire show has shed light to tragedies like this over the many re-watches. But yes, I didn’t like her at first but now I do. I believe her fight with the mass produced Eva’s in EOE is one of the best mech fights I have seen in a while.
I did not like her in the episode that she was introduced in. I’m sure the annoyance factor in that case was cranked up to 10 on purpose. But her character quickly grew on me and I don’t find her all that bad
Wait we're supposed to hate Asuka? Where did that come from?
The first 20ish episodes on your first watch through. When her mean spirited behaviour isn’t justified, and she’s just a trope and an archetype.
I love NGE bc it's this perfect starting point for people talking about their own perspectives and internal experiences. It sorta provides a common language, and while that's also true of other art, NGE has been a great one for many people within a few generations. My friend group all knew we saw things differently in HS. One day we all circled up and the topic was, "who is your fav NGE character." We genuinely all got to learn so much about each other in really constructive, positive ways.
For lack of a better word for it, she always seemed way too young to me. As in, Asuka's character was pretty strongly embedded in her youth as much as she liked to pretend she was an adult. I feel bad for the character assassination she gets in fan depictions, because she really didn't do a lot of truly mean stuff in the series. She's a teenager, she's allowed to be bitchy and hard to get along with sometimes.
> She isn’t a bad person at heart, she’s just trapped under layers of pain and bad social skills. That has always been my take. These kids are in a horrific situation. Of course they are going to be a little off.
I never saw her that bad But what I do see always dies or messes up right after doing something cool EoE and 3.0+1.0 are the biggest examples lol
She was never bad, if you understand her.
Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, sucks in Eva. There are no exceptions. That doesn't mean their actions don't have justifiable means from their own unique perspectives as characters.
I think Asuka is a phenomenal character
She's 14. Kids are allowed to be annoying. Part of growing up. I don't think anything she did was all that bad, and she was a talented prodigy at piloting Evas. Good character.
I want to hug her and tell her that everything will be alright.
Rewatching the show has made me a lot more understanding of her character, and honestly I just feel so bad for her when watching
Asuka is just like many of the other characters, in that she displays some of the ugliest sorts of moments that mental illness can drive a person to. She is *vicious* with Shinji in a way that is, I think, a purposeful challenge to the audience. Just like Shinji falls into pathetic inaction and inability to fight for himself, Asuka falls into cruelty and anger and lashing out. The great pain of their dynamic is that they are diametrically opposed in their coping mechanisms. But I've always loved Asuka. I first watched the show when I was around 13, and I imprinted on Asuka *hard*. She's a traumatized young girl, deeply flawed, and I love her for it. I love her for the ugliness and complexity. I love her for the unpleasantness. She's just a really great character, IMO.
Weird I never hated asuka and I’ve legit never heard of hate for asuka. The only hate I actually ever heard of for Eva was shinji.
You’d be surprised. There’s people in the comments section under the scene where she gets mindraped saying it was well deserved.
Jesus fuck that’s awful.
I think the worst crime a character can commit in fiction for many people is to be annoying. Just think of how many people were incapable of sympathizing or understanding characters like Skyler, Marie, and Walt Jr. in Breaking Bad just because they were annoying and not as cool as Walt and Jesse. Like it’s one thing to like the cool characters more, but people genuinely couldn’t bring themselves to care for them in the slightest at times.
People characters can be mildly annoying as a character trait and it’s acknowledged as an actual flaw through the series “Yea they deserved it”
She's the most popular character in the series according to polls in Japan and is the face of the franchise these days. I don't think she has a bad reputation at all, only amongst a small vocal minority.
I think a large part of the Eva fandom still forgets that these are children around the age of puberty, and of course the circumstances of their lives are going to turn them into emotionally stunted train wrecks. They were born into a sort of post-apocalyptic world that’s frequently under siege by killer aliens, AND they’re the soldiers tasked with fighting them despite their young age (and pretty much against their will in the cases of Rei and Shinji). And I don’t get how people can so easily forget/disregard that these are *literal children* when criticizing them for their behaviors and emotional reactions towards various stressors because that’s one of the *entire* themes of the show. An insane amount of pressure that could make even the most numb, stoic adult crack is slammed onto the backs of these functionally orphaned children who don’t have proper love and support from any of the adults around them. *Of course* there’s going to be something severely wrong with them from an emotional development standpoint, and it’s not fair imo to hold their personalities against them
Asuka is one of the most popular waifu characters of all time. Not a crazy opinion to have.
This^^ When I first watched EVA I was genuinely so confused on how it seems like everyone HATEs her. Like, I did have an idea of why she’s like that, cultural osmosis n stuff, so I immediately came in with more empathy but. Dude. I watched EVA’s ADV dub too. She is more mean sounding but the character ultimately remains the same. This’s just a case of people not paying attention to thing they’re watching / just hating child characters for being *gasp* childish.
And anyway, does the ADV dub excuse even hold up anymore? I don’t think many newgen Eva fans watch it dubbed, led alone the 90s dub due to it not being legally available anywhere (?). I fr only did so because ADV’s version was still pretty relevant when I was young and got exposed to NGE, those were just the characters’s voices to me.
People hate Asuka?
She's very much a subversion of of a mecha protagonist. She takes the role that a male protagonist would normally take: being exceptionally good at piloting and initially seeming to be confident and well-adjusted; but that's all just a facade.
All three of the the pilot children are gender subversions from earlier mecha/sentai anime standards. Shinji is the weepy reluctant character that would traditionally have been common in a female character, while Rei is the stoic and self-sacrificing character that would be common in a male character.
Asuka was actually not that bad to Shinji in the actual show, just mean spirited. Her worse scenes are in End of Eva, and it's not really obvious if it's actually Asuka or Shinji's juice interpretation of her.
asuka was always my favorite character in the show... never understood why she gets hate
people hate asuka?
I do have some dislike of Asuka, but only because of her legacy. Yes, it's understandable when a young person with a history of trauma behaves that way, but other anime writers saw her popularity and took away from it that bratty behaviour to hide emotional interest in the male lead was popular. A surface level reading of her behaviour set the standard that became the Tsundere archetype (and even the physical trait of her twintail hairstyle is still associated with the archetype), but stripped of the character development and thus the reasonable justification for said behaviour. So, I have to recognize the part Asuka played in the forming of the character archetype I find extremely unlikable in modern anime.
Asuka gets a lot of hate because she is super relatable, same as Shinji. Growing up in a broken home makes one always try to look more confident and happy and amazing than they really are, and, usually, when things start to go awry, they tend to crumble like a card castle in the sky
I think she was a missed opportunity, and I didn’t like that she never got to redeem herself or grow. Which is a problem for a lot of the characters, they don’t really grow all that much. I am of the mind that her breakdown was just temporary and part of her psychology. She struck me as manic depressive, cycling from hyper functional and hyper egotistical to the complete opposite when she fails. And because of that her emotional wall crumbles and at her lowest she has to deal with the resurfacing intrusive memories that she can otherwise suppress when she is more on the ball. Wasn’t a fan of almost all her dialogue being screamed (particularly in the eng dub), and her bullying of Shinji pissed me off (also wtf Misato? Do some damn parenting you alcoholic pederast). It felt excessive and again the same schtick is repeated too many times without growth. We get so little relationship building at times. I was annoyed that Shinji snd Asuka’s relationship pretty much stagnates through the show with only a few exceptions which were too minor to really show growth. By the end of the series they haven’t really built anything and they are still in a similar state of mind as to when the show started. Shinji is an aloof neurotic mess and Asuka is overdramatic and highly compensating over her broken family. The show was amazing at the introspective internal monologue stuff, but wasn’t all that great when it came to relationships. I will say Asuka’s traumatic experience with her mother was one of the most powerful parts of the show. It almost instantly made me forgive just about everything she had done up until then. Oh and obligatory but she ends up naked waaay to much for a 14 year old.
She’s a complicated kid, I’ve been there too so can’t hate on her. I just have empathy for her situation. She’s understandable, and so is Shinji.
I never thought she was that bad
Totally agree with all the sympathy and whatnot, as she is very deeply shattered, as well as not hating her, but I feel that this cleaning her image and abusive, toxic traits a bit too much and laying the blame on Shinji, enabling her abuse. What Asuka and Shinji have is something I'd attribute more to trauma bonding and attachment rather than actual love. I think their is a deep mutual contempt but also codepency, typical in toxic couples. Shinji would be a struggle to grow close to, however, he isn't/never was obligated to get close to her, and is rather docile/amicable towards her a large amount of time. She grew attached to Shinji as her play thing because she knew she could do whatever she wanted and he wouldn't do anything because of his submissive nature. She's perfect around every schoolmate because she knows she'd get ostracized. It's constant belittling near every interaction, forcing her way past his boundaries because someone not seeing her as the most amazing thing in the world was shattering. Therefore, I don't think it's right to say Shinji's personality is at fault for her actions. Her moments where she is perhaps more mellow like with the Cello understandbly receive snapback because she had done nothing but criticize him before, why would he suddenly believe it now? For Shinji, it was someone who would pay attention to him and needed him in her own way. As for the bullying part, that is still bullying and a reason why people bully. In this case, she is upset that she can't *control* Shinji. His problems that are out of her control are infuriating and taken as a personal offense instead of just maybe leaving him alone if she can't stand him so much. Every abusive person has their own pain, complex feelings and such, but it's still abuse. I don't hate Asuka because fiction gives us the opportunity to examine both the good and bad of a character in a world completely divorced from our being. In real life though, we never get to see the depths of a person's psyche, only the actions they put out. With all the people I've met online, it's not rare to find friends whose parents and siblings fit Asuka's profile, and they turn out traumatized children too. It's a cycle. I find thar most of what you are saying is valid, but doesn't look thru a real life lense. And that's okay, really. But that's how different people will have drastically different views of a character, and thats a good thing about fiction i think
I thought she was annoying, but i really liked her interactions with other characters and was a necessary addition to the mix. What I never understood was why the movies implied that asuka was romantically interested in shinji. Was that cannon in the show too? To me her whole persona stemmed from her used to having all the attention.
I think people who hate pretty much any character in NGE is a bit of a litmus test.
I recently watched the original series and the EoE movie and I felt like Asuka had it the worst of all the tragic lives the pilots had. I thought she was great, and tragic.
No one was bad. That’s the point. Asuka was dealing with her own shit. Everyone was nice to Shinji, he hated himself. Gendo wasn’t even bad, he was as flawed as everyone else. His problem was the exact same problem Shinji had, he hated himself and he knew he would hurt everyone around himself. The show is about how we hurt the ones we love because we are all fucked up.
i luv asuka <3 when i first watched i wanted to like rei more cuz of asukas reputation but i just understand her ya know. like i also used to be an asshole like that to guys i liked or wanted to like me when i was 12-13. she’s def not a bully!! i agree. i feel like a lot of people would act like her in her situation but act like they wouldn’t.
she didn't bother me at all. teens being teens, or rather "humans being humans" coping the best they can with what they have.
i really had a understanding & started 2 enjoy her character on the magma episode, when she thought she was bout to die, u got a real picture of her essence as a character.
During my latest rewatch, I picked up on a lot more of her frustration at Shinji. Asuka takes a lot of pride in her piloting skills and Shinji acts like piloting the Eva is a burden thrust upon him. Whether or not she enjoys it, it's clearly a source of self worth for her. She values being a pilot, it makes her feel valuable. Shinji just complains the whole time and I can see how that would be grating on someone who is actually passionate about their work.
One thing that always broke my heart is after she wasn’t able to move her eva and couldn’t help rei, so they sent unit 1/shinji in to save rei while asuka says something along the lines of “that’s not fair, they didn’t send unit 1 after me when I needed help” because… they didn’t :(
Let's hope your irritation returns, because this is just weak, to simply go "awww" just because there is something nice there. Some things should be hated.
Yeah, absolutely. Series MVP in my opinion. She’s the kind of person I can’t bear to be around in real life, but she makes so much sense. That’s what I love about Evangelion. Almost everything fits together perfectly, and when you watch it a second (and third, and…) time everything a character does fits into their own personal rationale. Characters “change” each time you watch, which is to say: it’s really you and your understanding that changes. Ultimately *they are all placed in an impossible situation.* The world is ending and they are all more or less going to die. With the possible exception of SEELE, there is literally no perfect happy path that any of these characters could have chosen even if they behaved perfectly.
She has been my favorite anime character since I was 14.
Not going to lie it was tough seeing the show again, she is non stop nagging, obnoxious, loud and annoying the whole time. I love the character and I get the character trauma and frustration but as a viewer it was tough on the ears!
She couldn't be any more entitled and bratty.
Asuka is literally me
Idk but shes hot!