#justngetalk

[justngethings]

Have you made a justngetalk about ritsuko? I'd love to see that

sure have! she was one of the first characters i talked about hehehe and she is one of my favorite characters too.

here are the links, because it’s been a while and they’re kind of tucked away in the back of the justngetalk tags.

http://justngethings.tumblr.com/post/71361675800/your-blog-is-really-cool-also-u-mentioned-that-u

http://justngethings.tumblr.com/post/71365004602/i-was-blinded-by-the-love-triangle-and-the-creepy-stuff

http://justngethings.tumblr.com/post/72508907628/okay-well-because-you-are-going-to-answer-questions

if there’s anything specific you’d like me to comment on, though, please let me know!

[justngethings]

(about shinji's analysis) actually, shinji himself stated in the manga that he didnt pilot the eva to help humanity nor for pity towards rei, instead, he seeked his father's approval (for obvious reasons). just pointing this out because you used it as an example for shinji being "somewhat sympathetic" (i agree, tho)

ahhh yes you're right. i actually haven't had the chance to read the manga yet (blasphemy, right?) but i totally believe you. shinji's motivations to pilot the eva certainly included gaining his father's approval. and there's also a thing going on between rei and gendo and shinji and gendo (and rei and shinji).

[justngethings]

What do you think is Shinji's orientation is? The consensus is that he's bi, what are your ideas?

my short answer is that yes, shinji is bi. he is attracted to both asuka/misato/rei and kaworu. 

i think that shinji's attraction to kaworu is more biromantic than bisexual. i do think he likes kaworu, but in a non-sexual way. he was at the very least unprepared for kaworu's sexual advances (much more so in the manga than the show). perhaps it would have developed to that point in a later stage, but all that is conjecture.

shinji's attraction to asuka, rei, and misato is different in each case and i think more complex, too. i think he's definitely sexually attracted to asuka, and vice versa (it goes without saying when you think about the kisses and sleeping-in-the-same-bed and the hospital scene, not to mention the copious strangulation). same goes for his attraction to rei and misato, but when they're mother figures...yeah. rei doesn't think of shinji sexually at all in my opinion (or romantically, for that case -- rei's transformation is from apathy to sympathy, worthlessness to self-worth, loneliness to human connection). misato communicates to others through her sexuality (the provocative postcard, scant clothing, the lingerie handing in the bathroom, her relationship with kaji, the shinji kiss scene, trying to take hold of shinji's hand). i would say that when misato comes on to shinji, it's less about being attracted to him and more about trying to have control, trying to validate her actions, or trying to comfort herself.

[justngethings]

Because they're appealing girls/characters, they aren't real, you could take the same characters and say they're 18+ and no one would have a problem with it. Plus like Asuka said in the last rebuild movie, she's much older than 14 she just has the same body that she had when she was. Which isn't anything to complain about either, because girls develop differently and have different body types. It's possible that even if her body had aged, she wouldn't look very different anyway.

thanks for the response! i think it’s a valid point that you make, and i agree that there is a certain amount of fluidity in how people see asuka and rei. however, i’m not convinced that this is an okay thing, or that it’s necessarily what asuka and rei are meant to represent for us.

i think the fundamental thing that jars me about people over-sexualizing rei and asuka (in a serious way – i can take a joke) is that you’re doing exactly what anno is telling you not to do. this connects back to the post i reblogged recently about why anno hates his fans. anno created asuka, the classic tsundere, and rei, the classic frosty bitch-queen who eventually melts, in order to deconstruct them, to destroy them. evangelion is meant to be iconoclastic. it was the first of its kind to really deconstruct anime stereotypes in such a bleak and forthright manner.

at the same time, anno failed in his endeavor because part of the fandom still fetishizes asuka, rei, and misato as sexual objects. they aren’t. women, as these three are meant to be portrayed, are not sexual objects. anno depicts these three women in constant conflict with the society around them, as human beings, not sex fantasies. in my humble opinion, i don’t think it’s okay to just reduce them, or anything really, to fappable dolls.

i think continuing to over-sexualize the women in evangelion is completely missing the point of the series. it’s a psychological exploration of what it means to be a human-with-real-life-problems, a down-and-dirty depiction of depression. but evangelion is also one big sarcastic gift to the otaku fandom, meant to serve as a wake-up call saying “this shit is not okay.” so please, let’s try to think of it that way. 

[justngethings]

I'm not sure if you've answered this already, but I was curious on your input of Asuka's character. Your last few on other characters have been wonderful insights and reads :)

thank you, my darling! and i was just about to write an asuka thing, so you caught me just in time —

i mentioned that asuka is one of my favorite characters, so i’m gonna enjoy this a lot…

we see asuka portrayed as a confident, independent, somewhat-flamboyant character who overpowers everyone else in the room. as the series progresses, however, we see that her outer facade of self-sufficiency and superiority belies a very insecure, lonely, and scared girl. 

i think the problems she has now in her teen years really originate from her experience with her mother, who after her own contact experiment presumably lost part of her soul and began to coddle an asuka doll, thinking it was asuka. her mother asking her to “die with me" is honestly pretty horrific and, i think, began asuka’s conviction that she was not wanted and that everyone would leave her. thus, she sought to make herself as accomplished as possible by studying very hard (graduating from university at 14) and ranking number one on the synchronization tests. this also leads to her dislike for dolls (and rei, too — she compares rei to a doll).

while she’s convinced that she has to be dependent on nobody but herself, she realizes that this, too, is counterproductive to what she really wants — company, someone to trust. for example, with her father and stepmother, her demonstrations of independence (wrecking the stuffed animal given to her) earn her nothing but her stepmother’s rejection. via her overly aggressive and attention-seeking outer self, she sabotages her own desires. 

much of asuka’s real intentions and the real state of her mind are revealed in her battle with arael and episodes 25 and 26 (in the case of asuka langely soryu). we see much explanation of why she treats shinji the way she does. 

i believe asuka likes shinji. this is shown in the often aggressive way she acts toward him (showing a child-like mindset of bullying the individual you like) and the way she flirts with him. during the arael mindrape scene, she says (referring to shinji) “you won’t do anything! (after the “wall of jericho” scene from episode 9) you won’t help me! (referring to episode 10, magma diver, where shinji saves her, physically, but doesn’t help her the way she really wants to be helped — emotionally) you won’t even hold me! (after shinji fails to reciprocate her kiss in episode 15; she even says that she would have let him go even further had the kiss continued)”  here, she’s demonstrating how frustrated she is with shinji’s passive, overly accepting, over apologetic, and non-responsive (or just plain clueless) behavior. she’s also betraying her true feelings for him — that she wants him to do something, help her, hold her. 

she tends to push other boys away, shown through her very haughty attitude at school. she’s completely indifferent to kensuke and toji, and only seems to have eyes for kaji (blatantly, at least). her preference for older men can be seen as a desire to be more mature — both in her own mind and in the minds of others. this attitude lends even more frustration to her relationship with shinji — i think she’s got to have some degree of irritation because she likes a “baka" like shinji, who has his own host of issues that prevent him from reciprocating any of her advances. i think it leaves her wondering how she can be so reliant on and attracted to a boy who really isn’t that special or strong.

asuka wants to be strong, she wants not to cry, and she wants not to be hurt. she wants not to like shinji, but she does and i think she finds it infuriating. her aloofness is a way of avoiding the pain of trusting and investing herself in others. however, by never trusting anyone and never allowing anyone to get close to her, she causes herself to be even more alone.

so, for this reason, i think the strangulation scenes in the end of evangelion are pretty important. this is maybe the first time asuka has really let a boy lay hands on her. there’s no question about the sexual nature of strangulation — especially the second time, when shinji is straddling asuka. i think this demonstrates a certain vulnerability that asuka finally demonstrates, allowing herself to finally receive the violence and aggression and emotion she threw at shinji in the past. in allowing herself to be hurt, is she trusting shinji — does it show a willingness on her part to let him have his way?

[justngethings]

okay well because you are going to answer questions. when you were talking about what gendo said to ritsuko before he shot her. i recently read the manga and he says i did love you, not i did need you. does that change how you fell about their "relationship."

ooh interesting — i haven’t read the manga yet (very regrettably — i suddenly feel like i’m missing out on a bunch of things) so thank you for telling me this? 

so…. “truly, i loved you,” huh? (or was it love in the present tense?). i’m assuming ritsuko still says “liar" in reponse.

if it were either loved/love, with ritsuko’s retort, it still wouldn’t really change my opinion about the nature of their relationship. (though i strongly encourage you or anyone to convince me otherwise! healthy debate is great and i absolutely love hearing other opinions and diverging perspectives.) i think the nature of their relationship was at its core abusive — gendo used ritsuko to fulfill his objectives, and ritsuko was so entirely consumed in the whirlwind of his plottings that she could neither escape nor protest (because of gendo’s machinations and her own weaknesses). 

i loved you seems a line even more worthy of liar (my first reaction is — ok, gendo, thanks for bullshitting me even more), but i’m gonna cut gendo a little slack and try to work with it being an actual genuine line. my first question would be: how was it written in the original japanese? i know there are many ways to say “i love you” and not many ways to translate it, so it would be interesting to know (even if it doesn’t contribute anything to this discussion). 

if this line were genuine, what could gendo possibly mean? that he loved ritsuko in a way that was different from the way he loved yui? that he loved ritsuko for the science and intelligence she provided for his cause, but perhaps not for herself — her identity as not only a scientist but also a woman. maybe that’s why ritsuko said “liar”: she knew that she was appreciated in some way, but recognized that gendo’s flaws in his appreciation were so deep that there was no hope he would ever love her as she wished to be loved (in other words, maybe he was so blind to reuniting with yui to recognize the other women — naoko, ritsuko, heck, even rei — supporting him this whole time). 

[justngethings]

Which Evangelion character do you relate to the most?

hmmm, i'd say it would be a tie between misato and ritsuko. i would have loved to see more of yui -- i feel like if we knew her better i would have related to her best, but i simply don't have much to go on (though i haven't read the eva manga yet).

misato because i sometimes feel like a badass queen and ruler of all men yet i feel i should be more self-confident and less reliant on others for self-validation (a work in progress). ritsuko because i'm a science/economics double major in college and i definitely feel that side of her, and also because i feel like a dope around guys sometimes too. and as i said, i feel that it's healthier to recognize your own power instead of investing that energy into other people who may let you down and hurt you; on the other hand, you can't thrive without human connection, and so you can't completely cut yourself off.

i think that maybe first i ought to know myself best -- after which i can confide more fully in others. it's still very much a confusing matter to me.

[justngethings]

what is your opinion on rei.

rei was a big, big question mark to me for the longest time. i think that at that time, in my case, the best words to describe her would be unrelatable and intimidating. she didn’t quite fit in with the other characters (that’s the point, of course) and i was never sure of her being human, robotic, ghostly, inhuman, etc. especially as an emotive person, it was hard for me to personally identify with her. there are so many things to be said about rei, but i think this time (since you asked for my personal opinion), i’ll focus on talking about her intangibility (and how that changes). 

as i said, i’m pretty sure this is intentional. anno intended to start her off as the unfeeling, detached puppet. she seems neither selfish nor selfless because neither of those words apply — i think that at least in the beginning of the series rei sincerely believes that she is worth nothing.her mantra seems to be “i don’t care." got slapped? whatever. got yelled at? whatever. got injured? whatever. die? there’ll be a replacement; it simply doesn’t matter. 

she’s the polar opposite of asuka. in terms of self-awareness, take this: when shinji sees asuka naked, she reacts as she, or any girl really, typically would — get very embarrassed, get a little angry, retreat right away. on the other hand, rei goes completely against this normality of modesty — when shinji trips over her and lands on top of her, she stands up, naked, seemingly completely unaware or indifferent to her exposure, and calmly dresses

we know that there are three reis: the first was killed by naoko akagi, the second sacrificed herself in episode 23, and the third rei lasts until the end of the series. in each incarnation, she is influenced in different ways which later shape how she thinks and feels. in the first, she’s a mere child: impressionable and young. she seems prim enough when gendo first introduces her to naoko, but we see later that rei I calls naoko an “old hag” and states that gendo is just using her, revealing naoko’s biggest fears; moreover, naoko instantly recognizes rei as a virtual clone of yui, and so rei’s insults really drive home the fact that naoko will never be number one in gendo’s eyes. one can’t help but wonder if those words were implanted in rei, and she was used as a mere messenger to carry out gendo’s plan. 

rei II is the one we meet at the beginning of the series, and while she seems cold and aloof her relationship with shinji begins to thaw her. she seems confused by emotions, completely indifferent to/unaware of any of asuka’s anger, bitterness, and jealousy. the only person she seems to have a strong connection with is gendo, whose glasses she keeps in her apartment. it seems like she is investing all of herself to gendo’s cause — why? — to feel some sort of purpose in her existence. 

episode 23 — ah. the one where rei cries and gets tentacled (not sexual at all) and gets to psychoanalyze herself (well, really, it’s armisael). she realizes a couple of major things: that she is terribly lonely, and that she has a connection with shinji. she cries for the first time (pretty much the most emotion we get out of her the entire show) and self-destructs. 

rei III comes after, and she seems even less attached to gendo. i think she probably knows, either consciously or subconsciously, that gendo is merely using her (since she’s not really yui, just an expendable clone) and would use her again and again until he completes his objectives. she turns away from gendo and toward shinji. she realizes that instead of seeking self-validation through the lives the wishes of others, she ought to make her own decisions and live for herself. she must cease to define herself through the lenses of others. she realizes that if she wishes to live, and to interact with the world, who is gendo to dictate otherwise?