|
"Mature Content Warning!" |
| “ | I mustn't run away! | „ |
| ~ Shinji's popular quote. |
| “ | Nobody cares whether I live or die. Nothing will change... so they can all just die... | „ |
| ~ Shinji Ikari. |
Shinji Ikari is the main protagonist of the Neon Genesis Evangelion franchise. He is the son of Gendo Ikari and Yui Ikari, and the pilot of EVA Unit-01, warding off numerous Angels from intiating Third Impact and attempting to emotionally bond with co-pilots Asuka Langsley and Rei Ayanami.
Following the death of the Final Angel and his implied lover Kaworu Nagisa, he completely emotionally snaps, abusing people in horrible ways and intentionally causing the Third Impact and the end of the world before narrowly redeeming himself.
Shinji is extremely mentally ill, shy and emotionally insecure, with much of his mental neuroses stemming from his abusive relationship with his father, who abandoned him when he was young, and the absence of his mother from his life as a result of her deliberately merging with EVA Unit-01. His apparently polite and kind exterior hides a noticeable selfish streak and desire to force others to be inflicted with and feel his suffering, which eventually boils over into a complete mental breakdown.
In the Japanese version of the anime, he is voiced by Megumi Ogata.
In the original English dub by ADV Films, he was voiced by Spike Spencer. In the newer Netflix dub, he was voiced by Casey Mongillo.
His Evil Ranking[]
What Makes Him Heinous?[]
- Even prior to his turn to omnicidal insanity, it's indicated that Shinji never actually piloted the EVA for the good of humanity, but instead was concerned exclusively with receiving approval and validation. While this is the same motivation for Asuka, it’s not for Rei, who states she feels an instinctive need to pilot the EVA to protect the human race.
- Has a notable selfish streak, believing that he should be able to withdraw into suicidal self-pity even if it emotionally harms others around him.
- He threatened to destroy the NERV headquarters if his father didn't talk to him after Gendo almost caused Toji's death, which would have killed not only NERV's officials, but also some of Shinji's allies such as Ritsuko and Misato.
- He sexually harasses Asuka at the start of End of Evangelion by masturbating to her naked unconscious body. To make things worse, this was after she had been placed on life support after she attempted suicide by cutting herself in her bathtub. Additionally, Asuka's final lines in the film (“You’re Disgusting.”) implies that she remembers Shinji doing this as a result of the mind assimilation that occurred during Instrumentality.
- After emotionally withdrawing from Kaworu's death, he hides in a corner as he knows that innocent people that he's come to know at the NERV staff are being slaughtered. This stands in contrast as everyone else in the situation except Gendo is openly attempting to stop SEELE's invasion, including Asuka, who had just awoken from a coma.
- Slows Misato down as she attempts to rescue him, risking both her life and his own.
- When Shinji is taken to the Giant Naked Rei creature, he is asked for his desire, and declares his hatred of all of humanity and states that he wishes to kill all of mankind in response to his existential angst, to which the creature reluctantly agrees, liquidating the entirety of humanity into LCL fluid.
- Attempts to strangle Asuka while in instrumentality to get a response from her. When he doesn't get any, this tips him off to reject instrumentality, but it still demonstrates the depths to which he's sunk at this point.
- Upon seeing Asuka in the real world after managing to manifest, he begins strangling her as well, ignoring her choking and only relenting when she reaches out a hand to him, which causes him to break down crying.
- While Shinji changes his mind on instrumentality and returns to reality and allows other people to do so, redeeming himself, it’s very clear that it will take a very long time for humanity to recover, and the world will be thrown into chaos for multiple years. Additionally, his decision to reject instrumentality is mostly motivated by his own concerns as opposed to saving humanity and his cause on instrumentality will prevent the world from going back to the state of what it was before it's havoc cataclysm, meaning the damage that he had caused cannot be fully undone.
What Makes Him Inconsistent?[]
- He is both heroic and very tragic for most of the series and fights off Angels that attempt to destroy humanity numerous times, along with being generally polite and rightfully calling out Gendo for his despicable conduct.
- He performs several kind acts, such as volunteering to pilot the EVA unit instead of Rei and attempting to emotionally reach her despite her seemingly being emotionless, which eventually motivates her to turn against Gendo.
- He is horrified when Gendo attempts to kill Toji in order to prevent the EVA units from being corrupted and attempts to stop him to the point that Gendo pulls his controls from the system to force the Dummy Plug system to stop the Angel corrupting the unit.
- He is incredibly tragic, as he was abandoned by his father from an early age before being called back to be abused by him and forced to do horrific traumatizing missions and his mother was missing from most of his life due to assimilating herself with the EVA Unit-01 to fight against SEELE. All of this, including Shinji's heinous deeds would have been avoided entirely if it were not for Gendo's callousness throughout the franchise, or at least mitigated if the rest of the cast — Misato and Asuka in particular — learned to admit their own shortcomings and treat him better instead of enabling his father. Not only that, there's so much Kaworu and Kaji could do before ended up exposed as the Final Angel and dying respectively. Overall, his situation was already hopeless even prior to Bardiel incident, specifically since the day Gendo abandoned him.
- He is severely mentally ill and suicidally depressed in a highly sympathetic fashion.
- His act of slowing Misato down wasn't intentionally was he was still depressed at the time making it understandable.
- He is clearly remorseful of his actions, as he breaks down crying at his utter horror towards strangling Asuka and his other actions at the end of the film.
- He redeems himself by the end of the series by rejecting instrumentality, and allowing life forms to return to life if they remanifest themselves, and ceasing his strangling of Asuka, with her herself forgiving him and staying by his side, as indicated by the post-ending poster for End of Evangelion.
- His incarnation in the Rebuild of Evangelion series redeems himself in Thrice Upon a Time by reaching out to his father, leading to the world being reset to a pre-Second Impact state. Gendo's death here is seen as the symbolic death of Shinji's heinous side, and further highlights how if it weren't for Gendo, Shinji would be a massively better person already.
Trivia[]
- While Shinji's heinous deeds in the show weren't enough for him to get an Inconsistently Heinous profile, or even a Villainous Benchmark profile for that matter, as he is the main hero of the story, the big reason for him ending up as one is because of the events of End of Evangelion, where he was tasked with the most important climatic decision in the series and he lets his emotional angst get to him to the extent of committing omnicide. So his Rebuild counterpart probably cannot count as IH.
- While Evangelion Unit-01 do appear in the Transformers x Evangelion crossover story Transformers Mode: "EVA" it isn't clear if he is in it or if he share the same history with his Rebuild version plus anyways even if both were true, he would fail the heinous standard to Starscream who who intentionally caused destruction unlike him and did far worse than him.
External Links[]
- Shinji Ikari on the Heroes Wiki
- Shinji Ikari on the Evangelion Wiki
- Shinji Ikari on the Inconsistently Admirable Wiki
- Shinji Ikari on the Base Breaking Character Wiki
[]
 Inconsistently Heinous
| ||
|
Mainstream Crossovers | ||