How do you feel about NTE? + Rank the movies!

[ChrisTamv]

Yeah, but do we even see Shinji recovering? He spends most of the time doing nothing. Then, in the last five minutes we, as the audience, are on the village, he suddenly goes through a life defining change.
And what is even that "change" to begin with?

The entire Village scene is mainly about Shinji's recovering. In an actually healthy and welcoming setting, contrasting that of 3.0, surrounded by people who care for him, Shinji is urges and eventually agrees to socialize, go out into the world, try new things, help and feel part of the society by fishing, etc. He gets to feel human again, finds a reason to fight as in these people and this oasis of humanity, and it could even be argued that the contrast between Shinji and his once classmates, who are now respected adults with families while he's still a crying kid, was a wake up call too.

All of this culminated to Shinji's response to Rei's death and him finally escaping the vicious cycle of good times followed by horrible tragedies and then his downfall due to him being unable to accept them and move forward. This time, he merely takes the first step, exactly because of what happened prior at the Village. He isn't magically healed, as despite the two flawed instances in the rest of the movie where Shinji displays an unrealistically stoic, unresponsive behavior to tragic events, Shinji very much does not have all the answers and still grows throughout the rest of the movie. That's why he contemplates, hesitates, and continues to make important realizations like when he finally accepted Kaworu's death on the Wunder.

decides to use the godly powers of his EVA once again (just like his "immature self" tried to do in HA and Q, but failed) and then creates a "perfect" world in his image. He, for example, "fixes" Asuka without asking her what she wants and sends her away without even giving her a chance to say anything. Then he proceeds to destroy the power he used to do all of that and labels it as the source of all people's problems. That's, at least, hypocrite.

OG Shinji: "I'm giving people the possibility to get out of Instrumentality, with the free will that's inherent to everyone. The real world isn't perfect, but I rather live in it than in a lie."
NTE Shinji: "I'm using this godly power to create my vision of a perfect world, because I know better than everyone. Then I'm destroying this power because it's bad."

Not really though... Almost two years have passed since this movie's release and, for me at least, the only interpretation of the ending that makes sense and agrees with the many important details and clues in these last few scenes is that Shinji doesn't literally create a new world, nor does he reset the world or turn back time (as he says so himself). He merely wishes that all Evas stopped existing from that point onwards. No one loses their memories, no one else should even logically have come back to life outside of Asuka (not even the people inside the FoI), and the red contamination around the Earth only disappears because it's caused by the presence of Angels / Evas (recall Neo NERV's flying ships, how Bethany Base in 2.0 where Angels were being experimented on was guarded by Pillars, how Asuka in 2.0 after being infected by the 9th started emitting this same exact contamination and had to be contained with the Pillars), and so when all Evas, including the FoI (with their also distinctively red color) scattered around the world disappeared, so did the contamination. Ultimately, only Shinji and Mari who promised to everyone to come for Shinji (and is probably also paying the debt to her best friend Yui by doing so) remain stranded inside the Anti Universe with no Eva to get them out. Because the Anti Universe connects fiction (the Eva universe), with reality (hence why the Giant Rei that came out of the Doors of Guf was so realistic - looking), that's where these two eventually end up, in our world, where the figures of Rei, Asuka, and Kawuru that Shinji sees across the train station are merely visions and are closely framed as such.

What I want to emphasize though, is that to make his wish in 3.0+1.0 Shinji agrees to sacrifice his own life, an instrumental detail that changes the context dramatically and is too often forgotten by some. It's this detail that renders criticisms of the ending being an escapist one as frankly nonsensical.

So, in EoE, Shinji's decision, not what ultimately came out of it, was that everyone should die basically because no one understands him. In 3.0+10, he decides to give his own life so everyone else can life in a world without Evas. The Evas aren't the scapegoat, it's always been people that are at fault hence why the final confrontation is between Shinji and Gendo and not Shinji and some unnamed Eva. They are merely a symbol, arguably of the means that allow people to realize their escapist, destructive wishes, and certainly of the Eva franchise itself. After all, there's a reason why in promotional material for the film, in the slogan "Goodbye, all..." the word "Evangelion" and its plural, "Evangelions", are used interchangeably. This last symbolic level of the Evas is most probably why this part of the ending even made it in tbh. The plot is already finished by the time Shinji makes his wish, and it would only had been easier and perhaps even better "fanservice" if the movie just ended with Shinji cancelling the Impact and returning to Earth to rebuild the world with Asuka and any other survivor. Hell, they even have the Pillars and the means to transport them so they could even slowly work to clean up the entire Earth.

Nor is Shinji's wish hypocritical, because to destroy the Evas he must also destroy himself. I am emphasizing this because this is Shinji's mindset throughout the ending. He doesn't discard his friends, he's merely saying his last goodbye to them because he's going to die. He isn't resulting to escapism again, because he won't even be around to experience the fruits of his supposedly escapist wishes. He never expected Gendo and Yui to take his place, and so everything that happens after this point is unplanned and out of his control. The fact that Mari joins him is out of his control and the different world he ends up in is out of his control. As for Asuka, I do certainly have my doubts about how effectively her conflict with Shinji was involved, but I have to say that Shinji simply used the properties of the Anti Universe and of Additional Impact which he was the center of to pretty altruistically help her. Yes, I do think the second scene of Asuka's sequence has no time to breathe, but arguably because of the ambiguity around Asuka's feelings for him in the end, Shinji wanted to send her somewhere he knew from first hand experience she would be safe (close to Kensuke, asn individual who she just realized has been the parental figure she has always longed for in the previous scene), before she made any stupid decision like deciding to stay right there with him.

[BernardoCairo]

I know what the first third of the movie was trying to do. I just think it failed at it. Shinji's recovery was too sudden and came off as both unrealistic and something that only happened because the plot needed to move forward. If you break down that entire sequence, you'll see that it's much more about Ayanami than Shinji. So essentially the movie wants us to believe Shinji through Ayanami's efforts instead of his own. You can't really change a character that much out of nowhere and expect everyone to buy it.
But my problem with it is not even that. I just think that Shinji's characterization as a "mature adult" is a very limiting and toxic one, as if being an adult means to have all the answers and know what's best for everyone. There are so many ways one can choose to grow and I don't think people need to sacrifice their vulnerability to get there. It makes Shinji goes from a reasonable traumatized teenager to an instrument for things to happen in the story, as if his character was completely erased and switched for a default "mature" male protagonist that will fix everything by doing the same exact thing he has been doing for two movies now (use the godly powers granted to him).
You can argue that a sacrifice is needed for his ideal work, but Yui and Gendo bailed Shinji out. So the movie failed at going all out with that too. He got what he wanted and Gendo also got what he wanted. But what about Asuka and the others? Did someone ask what they wanted? Asuka is Asuka and that's enough. But I'm changing you so you can fit better and then I'm sending you away.
EOE Shinji isn't mature and isn't really a good person either. But the movie isn't trying to paint him as neither of that. That's the difference, I guess. Being "good" is such a subjective thing anyway.

[AsuQa_PsyOp_Langley]

To be fair, maybe in mini-instrumentality not all need to be said explicitly... So maybe he didn't have to ask Asuka ?
Not sure I'm myself convinced by that, to be honest. All scenes with the other characters present there are played as straight, normal one to one dialogue. I think NGE or EoE had more visual metaphors and cues that memories were shared and merged. In Thrice... maybe he sees his father memories as they unfold ? (Tangent : Not a big fan of having Gendo be a proto Shinji... NGE didn't go too far into the topic but Gendo was a bit of a rogue scientist having bar fights. But it's not uncommon for someone to realize how much they have in common with their father or mother. But I felt it was a little simplistic and thus eyerolling that Gendo has an epiphany about something so transparent ?)

I'm going to be in agreement that Shinji "coming back" is maybe not all that convincing to me (though I think Toji, Kensuke and Rei did say the right things) but that's maybe subjective. He also does patch things up with Misato -not enough material in the film there for my taste, but it is there- and Asuka speak her piece. One can certainly feel the clicking at the end of NGE was as artificial. Same with EoE (though his bounce back there is very limited in the latter.

One perhaps unintended reading of that ending is that Shinji "being better" means he is cutting off everyone he cares for off his life. And intends to kill himself just after that.
One of those things where Rebuild is applying a lot of glossy sheen to have a very bright, saturated happy ending over plot beats that in isolation might be read differently.

[ChrisTamv]

I know what the first third of the movie was trying to do. I just think it failed at it. Shinji's recovery was too sudden and came off as both unrealistic and something that only happened because the plot needed to move forward. If you break down that entire sequence, you'll see that it's much more about Ayanami than Shinji. So essentially the movie wants us to believe Shinji through Ayanami's efforts instead of his own. You can't really change a character that much out of nowhere and expect everyone to buy it.

I think Ayanami is more in the spotlight but not by much. I respect your view but since all of the developments regarding Shinji in the Village that I brought up were clearly presented in the movie itself, I think it did a good job. Everything led up to Shinji making merely the first step at the end of the Village sequence, so I think the development was organic and realistic in terms of the time it took, as Shinji doesn't magically mature at that moment but for the entirety of the second act is still contemplating and healing. Some level of jarringness however I think is inevitable for longtime fans like me and I suppose you too. We've spent decades with Shinji and we've never seen him like this, after all.

But my problem with it is not even that. I just think that Shinji's characterization as a "mature adult" is a very limiting and toxic one, as if being an adult means to have all the answers and know what's best for everyone. There are so many ways one can choose to grow and I don't think people need to sacrifice their vulnerability to get there. It makes Shinji goes from a reasonable traumatized teenager to an instrument for things to happen in the story, as if his character was completely erased and switched for a default "mature" male protagonist that will fix everything by doing the same exact thing he has been doing for two movies now (use the godly powers granted to him).

With what I said in mind, and how irrational and in the wrong the adults of Eva were generally presented until the very end, I can't agree with your first point. The "sacrifice of one's vulnerability", to an extent, is in my opinion necessary to grow up, and I have heard some people misinterpret Shinji's line of "I'm not going to cry anymore" in the finale, as the next line contextualizes this statement because Shinji says "Crying won't fix anything". The act of crying, the expression of human emotion isn't presented as something to be discarded, we're just warned that our reaction to problems and misfortune shouldn't just be limited to grief, which is exactly how Shinji used to handle his problems this far.

But what about Asuka and the others? Did someone ask what they wanted? Asuka is Asuka and that's enough. But I'm changing you so you can fit better and then I'm sending you away.

Well Kaworu and, more importantly, Rei, did choose their own fate in the end. And I don't think Shinji did anything wrong by helping Asuka. He simply helped her get over the traumas that had been tormenting her since she was a child, which alongside Shinji's wish resulted in her getting healed from the condition she herself described as a "Curse" in 3.0.

that will fix everything by doing the same exact thing he has been doing for two movies now (use the godly powers granted to him). You can argue that a sacrifice is needed for his ideal work, but Yui and Gendo bailed Shinji out. So the movie failed at going all out with that too. He got what he wanted and Gendo also got what he wanted.

I'm just specifying the context of Shinji's mindset and actions and how some criticisms just make no sense in said context.

The characters and especially Shinji spend the entirety of the film fixing themselves without any divine help whatsoever. So, characterize Shinji solely on his last decision just doesn't seem right. Not only that, the ending remains bittersweet for Shinji as I doubt that he wanted to end up in a completely different world, separated from almost everyone else, and for most of his friends and loved ones to remain dead.

Likewise, Gendo does not get what he wanted, that is, for more than 10 minutes or something. He gets to finally meet Yui, yet he agrees with her and/or takes the initiative to assume Shinji's position and become the sacrifice necessary to fulfill Shinji's wish, and at the same time a good cause for once.

[Axx°N N.]

The act of crying, the expression of human emotion isn't presented as something to be discarded, we're just warned that our reaction to problems and misfortune shouldn't just be limited to grief, which is exactly how Shinji used to handle his problems this far.

Did you mean in NTE specifically, or the franchise too? EOE ends with him embracing the cyclical nature of life, including its potential for happiness, not just grief. It was a re-orientation of his prior view he was stuck in where he fixated on pain and felt that it was an inevitability. Instead, by seeing life as a balance between opportunities for both joy and displeasure, pain is positioned in a more accurate way: just as fleeting as happiness, versus dwelling on happiness as the regretfully ephemeral aspect and constantly ruing over it. When the better position is taken, everything becomes less pessimistic, because pain becomes necessary and a means to an end for happiness to be possible, or at the least pain is taken as transient, and happiness can be appreciated and not seen as hopeless or unobtainable.

Thrice doesn't really have the same frame of mind regarding this kind of thing, because it's so determined to end on what it suggests are more enduring happy notes than what can reasonably be expected from life.

Even in NTE, Shinji's reactions weren't limited to grief. His wish to save Ayanami in 2.0 seemed quite the opposite.

The characters and especially Shinji spend the entirety of the film fixing themselves without any divine help whatsoever.

Unless you count the writers! It's perfectly resonable to question if events in a script, even without the presence of divinity, are believable and organic. The phrase Deus Ex Machina has come to have negative connotations because it can just happen (a lot, actually) that writers force things to happen and events read as contrivances instead of natural developments.

[ChrisTamv]

Did you mean in NTE specifically, or the franchise too? EOE ends with him embracing the cyclical nature of life, including its potential for happiness, not just grief. It was a re-orientation of his prior view he was stuck in where he fixated on pain and felt that it was an inevitability. Instead, by seeing life as a balance between opportunities for both joy and displeasure, pain is positioned in a more accurate way: just as fleeting as happiness, versus dwelling on happiness as the regretfully ephemeral aspect and constantly ruing over it. When the better position is taken, everything becomes less pessimistic, because pain becomes necessary and a means to an end for happiness to be possible, or at the least pain is taken as transient, and happiness can be appreciated and not seen as hopeless or unobtainable.

Thrice doesn't really have the same frame of mind regarding this kind of thing, because it's so determined to end on what it suggests are more enduring happy notes than what can reasonably be expected from life.

First of all yeah I was mainly referring to the Rebuilds. And I agree that there's a difference in how these two approach this.

Even in NTE, Shinji's reactions weren't limited to grief. His wish to save Ayanami in 2.0 seemed quite the opposite.

Crap and I really wanted to edit that last sentence so it wouldn't come out as absolute XD . To expand more on this vicious cycle I brought up that Shinji is stuck in in NTE is I would say comprised of 5 segments: good times, followed by sudden tragedy to the people closest to Shinji, followed by rage, immense grief and finding refuge in escapism. Nothing unnatural about these displays of human emotion, the problem with Shinji though is that he was never able to accept reality, with both its happy and sad moments. That way, it was impossible for him to stand up on his feet again, see what he can and can't fix and work to do things better in the future.

Unless you count the writers! It's perfectly resonable to question if events in a script, even without the presence of divinity, are believable and organic. The phrase Deus Ex Machina has come to have negative connotations because it can just happen (a lot, actually) that writers force things to happen and events read as contrivances instead of natural developments.

Agreed, I was just referring to a specific point the user I was replying to mentioned.

[Konja7]

No one loses their memories, no one else should even logically have come back to life outside of Asuka (not even the people inside the FoI), and the red contamination around the Earth only disappears because it's caused by the presence of Angels / Evas (recall Neo NERV's flying ships, how Bethany Base in 2.0 where Angels were being experimented on was guarded by Pillars, how Asuka in 2.0 after being infected by the 9th started emitting this same exact contamination and had to be contained with the Pillars), and so when all Evas, including the FoI (with their also distinctively red color) scattered around the world disappeared, so did the contamination.

I just want to mention that red Earth seems to be caused by the Third Impact during the "purification" of the ground that Gendo mentioned. It's never mentioned or implied that Evas or FoL caused the red Earth. In fact, the sea was red after the Second Impact, but there wasn't Eva or FoL at that time.

Using the Spear of Gaius and Eva-01, Shinji repaired the planet to make it habitable for humans again. Kaworu has a similar plan in 3.0.

[ChrisTamv]

I just want to mention that Red Earth seems to be caused by the Third Impact during the "purification" of the ground that Gendo mentioned. It's never mentioned or implied that Evas or FoL caused the Red Earth. After all, the sea was red after the Second Impact, but there wasn't Eva or FoL at that time.

In my examples I also included Asuka and how the 9th Angel would also cause this kind of contamination when she first merged with her. Of course this isn't confirmed in any way but I think it's quite likely that FoI sustained the contamination or caused it, which happened at the same time as Third Impact because that's when the FoI were created. The water contamination does not see to follow this logic, though.

[Konja7]

In my examples I also included Asuka and how the 9th Angel would also cause this kind of contamination when she first merged with her. Of course this isn't confirmed in any way but I think it's quite likely that FoI sustained the contamination or caused it, which happened at the same time as Third Impact because that's when the FoI were created. The water contamination does not see to follow this logic, though.

It isn't weird that the 9th Angel has this kind of contamination, since it's implied the Red Earth is the right environment for Angels.

Honestly, I don't think the FoL sustained the contamination. If that was the case, WILLE will try to destroy the FoL (the red Earth is a constant threat for humanity). Not to mention that the sea doesn't need FoL to mantain the red color.


Also, I think people inside the FoL were likely alive and preserved, since the FoL were SEELE's attempt to "evolve" humans. Then, it isn't so difficult to imagine they could recover whent Shinji reverts the effects of Impacts.

[JoelcrNeto]

I ask for everyone’s cooperation in reducing the use of quotes – especially the practice of omnislashing – and avoiding quoting an entire post.
This is in our forum rules (section “Use quotes properly”) and aims to make the posts more clean and nice to read. I did some edits regard nested quotes.

Thanks!

[ChrisTamv]

Using the Spear of Gaius and Eva-01, Shinji repaired the planet to make it habitable for humans again. Kaworu has a similar plan in 3.0.

I forgot to reply to this part of your comment previously. So the reason why I and other people even felt the need to explain this part of the ending is because the cleansing of the world doesn't really logically follow from Shinji's wish, which was limited to just getting rid of all the Evas from that point onwards. Also, while Kaworu's plan is ultimately a bit similar, I'm pretty sure he wished for a total redo, which Shinji rejects.

It isn't weird that the 9th Angel has this kind of contamination, since it's implied the Red Earth is the right environment for Angels.

Yep, the point though is that before the Angel merged with Asuka, there was no contamination. The Angel's presence clearly causes this phenomenon.

Honestly, I don't think the FoL sustained the contamination. If that was the case, WILLE will try to destroy the FoL (the red Earth is a constant threat for humanity).

But wouldn't that be pretty futile? Like the FoIs are absolutely everywhere... There's literally billions of them...

Also, I think people inside the FoL were likely alive and preserved, since the FoL were SEELE's attempt to "evolve" humans. Then, it isn't so difficult to imagine they could recover whent Shinji reverts the effects of Impacts.

Shinji never wishes for the reversal of the Impacts' effects though. Since he doesn't wish that the Evas never existed in the first place either, then all the souls inside the FoIs would have to be given a body once again in order to return. This is possible, it's what Shinji did to Asuka, but arguably that's only because Asuka's "original" was alive and in one of Unit 13's 2 Entry Pods. Otherwise, the movie solidly establishes that if someone is inside a Unit while they get pierced and destroyed, they'll die too. Then again though the FoIs are not pierced and the directorial choice to have them cruble and fall ack to Earth clearly hints that these people returned. I think it's a 50/50 here.

[Konja7]

I forgot to reply to this part of your comment previously. So the reason why I and other people even felt the need to explain this part of the ending is because the cleansing of the world doesn't really logically follow from Shinji's wish, which was limited to just getting rid of all the Evas from that point onwards. Also, while Kaworu's plan is ultimately a bit similar, I'm pretty sure he wished for a total redo, which Shinji rejects.

I don't think Shinji's wish is exclusively getting rid of all the Evas. He likely include all things related to Eva (like the effect of the Impacts)

Cleansing the World still follow Shinji's wish, since he directly says he wants to help Asuka and others. This likely include his friends in Village 3 (whose life is always at risk by the red Earth) and WILLE.


Also, in 3.0, Kaworu only mentioned that they could repair the World with the Spears and Eva-13. It's never mentioned he wanted a complete redo.

The issue was that Shinj trying to repair the World in 3.0 is mainly with intention of being forgiven by humanity (escape from the pain). In 3.0+1.0, Shinji rejects this selfish motivation, since he just want to help others and he would sacrifice himself for that.


PS: I suspect Kaworu planned to sacrifice himself in 3.0 to repair the World.

[ElMariachi]

The ending of this movie annhilates this. Shinji's payoff is turning into Shinzo Abe's ideal Japanese man. He is a salary-man and paired with a "reward woman" with which he shared 3 single moments in hours of story prior to the ending, two of this moment being explicitely situations centered on Mari's breasts. This is so limiting to their actual relationship that the movie has to focus on Mari's breasts even during the epilogue, because the audience never actually saw them talk about each other of any topic that isn't Mari's "big chest" and Shinji's body odor. I don't know how intentional this is, but all we see of them interacting about stuff that isn't an immediate "mission objective" is purely sexual and instinctive in nature.
Ultimately the end goal for Shinji was spending time with a big breasted girl when he's not working the most socially-normative work immaginable like the most disposable harem-romcom epilogue.

If you look at it, the conservative angle starts as soon as in the Village: while Toji and Kensuke do obviously care about Shinji, the way they dealt with it is more akin to how families in Japan usually deal with hikikomoris: just leave him alone, he'll come around eventually, which isn't really how you should deal with people with severe trauma, and seeing how Shinji was mentally broken to the point of being a despondent husk slowly starving himself to death without realizing it, he definitively fit the bill.
Of course, since the movie champions such behavior, Shinji does comes around after some time (with just Rei Q's nudging that his friends doesn't hate him because of... reasons) and is immediately send on errands, and the whole thing has that same conservative undercurrent that you should deal with your problems on you own to not "bother" others with it, with everyone's almost militant refusal to try to know what happened to Shinji. And at first you could think that the movie simply glossed over it, but it actually brings it up when they come back to the Wunder, with Sakura wondering what could had happened to him since the DSS Choker did detonate, and why would he even want to go back (with the strong implication that she's actually the first person to ask those questions), to which Asuka literally answers "beats me", then the scene changes to Misato and Ritsuko who are wondering the exact same thing, even thinking that it mustn't be doing it for paying for his "sins" so it's not worth it to put another DSS Choker on him, yet don't try to learn more about it, after all him going back to be send in jail is the proper thing, so whatever.

The village part of the movie also pushes (through Kensuke) the idea typical in conservative ideals of always completely supporting and putting all your trust in your figures of authority (parental or at work) no matter what:

• first when he told Shinji that "despite everything" Gendo is still his father and thus that he should go talk to him properly at least once and try to understand him, even making a comparison with Kensuke's father and his regrets that he couldn't have a closer relationship with him, as if both situations were similar... nevermind that said "despite everything" is literally everything that has gone bad in his life for his 14 years of existence, and also the past 14 years of literally everyone else still alive in this planet. But Shinji is a Japanese kid so it's expected that he owes his father understanding and forgiveness.
• then there's the introduction of Kaji Jr, Misato and Kaji's canonical son, a character which could potentially bring the pseudo-parental relationship between Shinji and Misato to new directions, who's the only person of his age both physically and mentally and thus the first new friend he could make in this new world, only to have their interaction happens off-screen, immediately followed by Kensuke telling Shinji that he must realize that he's not the only one in pain, because Misato too suffered... because she abandoned her son and forbade everyone from letting him know who his parents are, which makes the entire scene a blatant attempt to make a parallel with Gendo with the subtext that if Shinji can (and should) forgive Misato, then obvious he can forgive his father too.
• he then immediately follows up by the explanation that actually, Misato's actions against Shinji were actually because she felt bad about making him shoulder the burden of piloting and the blame of what and she wanted to avoid making him go through that again (before saying the aforementioned line that Shinji isn't the only one who suffered), with the implication that Shinji simply didn't trusted her intentions, well dragging him in chains through the ship with people constantly pointing their gun at his head, telling him with a look of contempt that from now on "he'll do nothing" while putting an explosive leash around his neck for his "punishment" and planing to put him in a solitary cell surrounded by explosives sure as shit did a terrible job at conveying the message! (and seeing how most of the crew looking at him and Hyuga had to remember Midori that N3I was an accident, it doesn't looks like she made a lot of effort in "sharing the blame")

All this carries the fairly conservative message of always believing and fully supporting your figures of authorities (parental or professional) even when their actions don't make sense, because they always knows best, and if it looks irrational, it's because you don't understand their motives and if their motives are actually bad, it's because you didn't supported them properly. Cue Shinji low-key apologizing to Gendo for not having tried to understand him earlier as if he's partly responsible for him being evil!

And once Shinji thoroughly internalized that his problems don't matter and that the problem is that he didn't properly supported his superiors, there's a cosmic balance restored because he doesn't encounter any difficulties as every problem solves themselves:

• he can walk from his cell to the Wunder's reactor to ask to pilot again without anyone noticing him or trying to stop him
• Misato backs up his request and even take a bullet to protect him because now "he knows the smell of Earth" and she gives her full support to him, and the rest of the crew hellbent on killing him just give up after one shot
• but hey, actually there are no more Eva to pilots, since Gendo just gtfo with Unit 01! Well Mari conveniently arrives and she can teleport and open teleporting portals directly to EVA-01's cockpit, how convenient!
• Rei II doesn't seems to have any objections that she spent the last 14 years blocking EVA-01's cockpit for fuck-all, nor that Shinji is about to go fight Gendo (the other person most important in her life that raised her) potentially to the death
• he ask Gendo to stop his plans that he worked for during two decades and half just as he won because Shinji now realized that all the atrocities his father did were because he was sad and that he never tried to understand him... and Gendo accepts.
• but it's too late, Instrumentality is already underway! Luckily, Ritsuko played again with the power of the gods and created a completely new spear, which combines the powers of both types of spears created by the unfathomably advanced precursor race without any caveats, how convenient! And of course, Gendo just accept the L without issues.
• but still, a sacrifice is necessary for activating the spear. Well conveniently Yui just remembered that she exists and takes Shinji's place for the sacrifice, how convenient!

Unlike the other times were Shinji encountered difficult choices that tested his limits, now Shinji doesn't encounter any obstacles, or the few ones he does encounter are immediately resolved because the solution was "put your whole being and trust behind the figures of authority" all along. The fact that this blind trust could be a bad thing because said figures could have bad intentions is never brought up. (despite having been Gendo's MO for three movies and half at this point)
And the worst is that indeed, everything would had been better had Shinji just blindly obeyed orders instead of questioning things: he should had killed Asuka like Gendo ordered him, that would had destroyed the Ninth Angel and maybe nipped in the bud Gendo's plans! He should had just let WILLE murder Rei in front of him even after they (unwittingly) gave him the proof that he did saved her, after all Misato told him that Rei is not Rei and since she's a figure of authority he should just obey! Likewise, he should had just stopped when Kaworu told him to stop without any further explanation and submitted to Asuka who was just vociferating that she's going to kill him!

And with that in mind, Shinji last appearing in the form of a salary-man, people who under the conservative Japanese ideal always put their private life and well-being behind the needs of the company, who always dutifully follows their manager's orders and venerate the CEO, makes perfect sense. Like you said, he became the Shinzo Abe's ideal Japanese man.

And I find that really off-putting when at the same time you have more and more works in Japan criticizing how this ideal is toxic and self-destructing.

The entire Village scene is mainly about Shinji's recovering. In an actually healthy and welcoming setting, contrasting that of 3.0, surrounded by people who care for him, Shinji is urges and eventually agrees to socialize, go out into the world, try new things, help and feel part of the society by fishing, etc. He gets to feel human again, finds a reason to fight as in these people and this oasis of humanity, and it could even be argued that the contrast between Shinji and his once classmates, who are now respected adults with families while he's still a crying kid, was a wake up call too.

The thing is that what you describe didn't happened, or rather, what you describe happened to Rei Q, not Shinji.
You're talking about fishing, but what happened is that Kensuke shoved a fishing rod on Shinji's hand because "that will be good for him" and then left him without even teaching him, despite Shinji telling that he never fished and didn't had any idea what to do, and in the end he never caught a single fish, meaning that he didn't contributed to anything.
And it's the same for the rest: he didn't tried new things, only did what he was told to, didn't socialized, didn't get to know anyone, didn't made any friends, didn't get to be a part of the village's society. His interactions was limited to whatever errand was asked to him then retreating to gaze either at the ruins on the lake or the fields.
That place was foreshadowed since the end of 3.0 as the place where he'll finally find peace and a place in the world, but that didn't happened, he was basically a ghost in this village, a transient visitor, and in the end this place wasn't a home, but a diaporama that this is the "real people" and as such that he should die to protect them.
Hell, from the look of it he didn't even got back there at the end of the movie, instead leaving it and everyone there behind.

This last symbolic level of the Evas is most probably why this part of the ending even made it in tbh. The plot is already finished by the time Shinji makes his wish, and it would only had been easier and perhaps even better "fanservice" if the movie just ended with Shinji cancelling the Impact and returning to Earth to rebuild the world with Asuka and any other survivor. Hell, they even have the Pillars and the means to transport them so they could even slowly work to clean up the entire Earth.

In complete honesty and wholeheartedly: yes, I genuinely believe that this would had been a better ending, more in tune with the themes the previous movie build up to.
That bad things happen and that there are no magic button to erase all your mistakes and make the bad thing go away, you make do with the situation and work toward making it better little by little with everyone else, that's how the real world that this movie vaunts so much works.
"Redemption" is not a big action you do to revert all the bad things and then cross out "Redemption quest" from you personal life's questlog before moving on entirely with you life onto something else.

[ChrisTamv]

while Toji and Kensuke do obviously care about Shinji, the way they dealt with it is more akin to how families in Japan usually deal with hikikomoris: just leave him alone, he'll come around eventually, which isn't really how you should deal with people with severe trauma, and seeing how Shinji was mentally broken to the point of being a despondent husk slowly starving himself to death without realizing it, he definitively fit the bill.

But wasn't Kensuke who took Shinji on walks and drives, helped him meet new people and pushed him to try new things? I certainly wouldn't call his stance as "conservative", he just wanted to give him some space in the very beginning.

(with just Rei Q's nudging that his friends doesn't hate him because of... reasons)

Because she never heard a single bad thing about Shinji in the Village, and because she was right there and saw how lovingly Toji, Hikari and Kensuke would treat him?

And at first you could think that the movie simply glossed over it, but it actually brings it up when they come back to the Wunder, with Sakura wondering what could had happened to him since the DSS Choker did detonate, and why would he even want to go back (with the strong implication that she's actually the first person to ask those questions), to which Asuka literally answers "beats me"

Okay, is Asuka portrayed as being in the right in this case? Or most other cases for that matter? I wouldn't say this is anything more than Asuka being in character.

first when he told Shinji that "despite everything" Gendo is still his father and thus that he should go talk to him properly at least once and try to understand him, even making a comparison with Kensuke's father and his regrets that he couldn't have a closer relationship with him, as if both situations were similar... nevermind that said "despite everything" is literally everything that has gone bad in his life for his 14 years of existence, and also the past 14 years of literally everyone else still alive in this planet. But Shinji is a Japanese kid so it's expected that he owes his father understanding and forgiveness.

Isn't a main theme of Eva to try and understand people? Which is as core to the essence of the series as its nuanced way of approaching its characters, by always providing both perspectives and showing even the "good" characters saying and doing terrible things? Again, I don't think this is a conservative statement. Kensuke just advises him to try to talk with not just Gendo, but every person he currently has conflicts with, including Misato. It's clear that Shinji is affected by these conflicts, and they will never go away until he tries to talk to them. Not only that, honest, meaningful discussion is almost always futile without mutual understanding.

e then immediately follows up by the explanation that actually, Misato's actions against Shinji were actually because she felt bad about making him shoulder the burden of piloting and the blame of what and she wanted to avoid making him go through that again (before saying the aforementioned line that Shinji isn't the only one who suffered), with the implication that Shinji simply didn't trusted her intentions, well dragging him in chains through the ship with people constantly pointing their gun at his head, telling him with a look of contempt that from now on "he'll do nothing" while putting an explosive leash around his neck for his "punishment" and planing to put him in a solitary cell surrounded by explosives sure as shit did a terrible job at conveying the message! (and seeing how most of the crew looking at him and Hyuga had to remember Midori that N3I was an accident, it doesn't looks like she made a lot of effort in "sharing the blame")

I think this is a very big stretch. I don't see how Kensuke stating Misato's true intentions in the hopes that Shinji would try and make up with her implies that it is Shinji's fault for not understanding them. Especially when Misato goes through her own arc and realization, is portrayed as very much in the wrong here and in the end accepts her responsibility and apologizes for her mistakes. Which alongside how Gendo is portrayed actually renders the authority figures here as completely broken people that are also very much in the wrong.

The thing is that what you describe didn't happened, or rather, what you describe happened to Rei Q, not Shinji.
You're talking about fishing, but what happened is that Kensuke shoved a fishing rod on Shinji's hand because "that will be good for him" and then left him without even teaching him, despite Shinji telling that he never fished and didn't had any idea what to do, and in the end he never caught a single fish, meaning that he didn't contributed to anything.
And it's the same for the rest: he didn't tried new things, only did what he was told to, didn't socialized, didn't get to know anyone, didn't made any friends, didn't get to be a part of the village's society. His interactions was limited to whatever errand was asked to him then retreating to gaze either at the ruins on the lake or the fields.
That place was foreshadowed since the end of 3.0 as the place where he'll finally find peace and a place in the world, but that didn't happened, he was basically a ghost in this village, a transient visitor, and in the end this place wasn't a home, but a diaporama that this is the "real people" and as such that he should die to protect them.
Hell, from the look of it he didn't even got back there at the end of the movie, instead leaving it and everyone there behind.

I couldn't disagree more. Both Rei and Shinji are in the spotlight in the Village and all the events and realizations I brought up are shown in the film itself. Yes, Shinji is pushed to try new things initially. Of course he would, since until that point he's so traumatized that he won't even eat. But what happens after that initial push? Shinji tries, fails, but then continues to help around in the Village without ever again being explicitly asked to do so. This is the crucial detail here, which is absolutely expressed in the film, alongside his limited but existent socialization attempts with Kaji Jr., etc. So yeah, via these actions and the others I mentioned Shinji did get to feel part of a community, at least for a bit. In essence yes, the foreshadowing in the 3.0+1.0 did come out true: it's because of his stay at the Village that Shinji changed his course, made his first step and realization, regardless of whether or not he returned to this place in the end, which as I explained was a decision out of his control.

In complete honesty and wholeheartedly: yes, I genuinely believe that this would had been a better ending, more in tune with the themes the previous movie build up to.
That bad things happen and that there are no magic button to erase all your mistakes and make the bad thing go away, you make do with the situation and work toward making it better little by little with everyone else, that's how the real world that this movie vaunts so much works.
"Redemption" is not a big action you do to revert all the bad things and then cross out "Redemption quest" from you personal life's questlog before moving on entirely with you life onto something else.

I respect your opinion. Who knows, maybe this ending would had worked better, my point however is that this ending also works. It works because as people very correctly point out, the Evas are not the root cause, and by the time they are even brought up the main characters' journeys have pretty much concluded. Not only that, Shinji doesn't erase his mistakes. He outright says it, that he's not going to revert the world or turn back time. He's just going to get rid of all the Evas from that point onwards, that's it, a wish which according to my interpretation of the ending at least couldn't had magically brought back the people who died during 3I and N3I, which actually was Shinji's mistake.

And finally, your final line I believe fundamentally make no sense. When you want to sacrifice your own life for something, you don't plan ahead. Shinji didn't, obviously, as he didn't expect to be saved at the last minute. The fact that he was saved and where he ended up and with who were events completely out of his control.

At the end of the day, Shinji had 2 choices. Either cancel the impact, and return to Earth, or suffer a million times more just so everyone else could live in a better, not reverted, world. He chose the latter, and that's what matters. For me, it is conclusive evidence of his bravery, and maturity, and an effective yet unorthodox ending to his journey of growth and Eva's themes.

[Konja7]

Hell, they even have the Pillars and the means to transport them so they could even slowly work to clean up the entire Earth.

In complete honesty and wholeheartedly: yes, I genuinely believe that this would had been a better ending, more in tune with the themes the previous movie build up to.

In 3.0+1.0, it's implied humanity couldn't really survive without cleansing the World. Kensuke mentioned that the pillars could stop to work at any time, which would kill people in the Village.

This isn't really a new thing from 3.0+1.0, since Kaworu implies that humanity is in a precarious situation in 3.0 as well.

[ChrisTamv]

In 3.0+1.0, it's implied humanity couldn't really survive without cleansing the World. Kensuke mentioned that the pillars could stop to work at any time, which would kill people in the Village.

This isn't really a new thing from 3.0+1.0, since Kaworu implies that humanity is in a precarious situation in 3.0 as well.

That's an important detail I didn't think about! Thanks!

[AsuQa_PsyOp_Langley]

Shinjo wishes all Evaway but there's an entry plug by Kensuke's house.

[ChrisTamv]

Shinjo wishes all Evaway but there's an entry plug by Kensuke's house.

Yep. Just some of the proof that Shinji didn't wish that all Evas never existed in the first place.

[ElMariachi]

I couldn't disagree more. Both Rei and Shinji are in the spotlight in the Village and all the events and realizations I brought up are shown in the film itself. Yes, Shinji is pushed to try new things initially. Of course he would, since until that point he's so traumatized that he won't even eat. But what happens after that initial push? Shinji tries, fails, but then continues to help around in the Village without ever again being explicitly asked to do so. This is the crucial detail here, which is absolutely expressed in the film, alongside his limited but existent socialization attempts with Kaji Jr., etc. So yeah, via these actions and the others I mentioned Shinji did get to feel part of a community, at least for a bit. In essence yes, the foreshadowing in the 3.0+1.0 did come out true: it's because of his stay at the Village that Shinji changed his course, made his first step and realization, regardless of whether or not he returned to this place in the end, which as I explained was a decision out of his control.

The problem is that we have the same things on parallel between Rei Q and Shinji: Rei Q also works in the village, but then is also seen talking with the old ladies she does farming with, resting under the trees with them and chatting with them and having a good time in the public bath after a day of work, playing with the children outside, trying new clothes during an afternoon off with the villagers for fun.
Shinji has nothing of this: he's seen directly doing a job, then back at the ruins at the lake, without ever talking or having a good time with the people he helps.
The only "socialization" he has is as you wrote with Kaji Jr. Once. And offscreen. And they never meet again. And we never get to know what they talked about. And it's quickly clear that the whole thing is here only to make a parallel between Misato and Gendo as a stepping stone to Shinji's ultimate goal to forgive his father.

And finally, your final line I believe fundamentally make no sense. When you want to sacrifice your own life for something, you don't plan ahead. Shinji didn't, obviously, as he didn't expect to be saved at the last minute. The fact that he was saved and where he ended up and with who were events completely out of his control.

You wouldn't happen to go with the pseudo "understoodwhisky4" somewhere else? Because I had that exact debate on the reason why the world was reverted and if the people inside the FoIs were resurrected or not a couple of weeks ago.

Anyway, what I meant in my final line is that I always found that a redemption story where said redemption happens by magically erasing your mistakes so you can continue with your life with a now clean slate as if nothing happened is not a real redemption story, but a wish fulfillment story. Or at least it doesn't work in Evangelion with its recurring theme of taking responsibility and working to make things better little by little.
That's why I made the comparison with a RPG quest that you finish and move on to the next.

In 3.0+1.0, it's implied humanity couldn't really survive without cleansing the World. Kensuke mentioned that the pillars could stop to work at any time, which would kill people in the Village.

This isn't really a new thing from 3.0+1.0, since Kaworu implies that humanity is in a precarious situation in 3.0 as well.

Then why did they had this laboratory to research core erosion cleansing and find a way to revert it, if they didn't had any chance to survive without a miracle cleansing the whole planet in one go?
There are no indication anywhere that WILLE planned to find or build a spear and create an Impact to reverse the effects of the last three.

This laboratory is added in the movie to show us that this is WILLE and KREDIT's plan for after the war and that their long-term plan isn't to stop Gendo out of spite and then live in the Village for however long the pillars held, then they all die, but to research how to definitively revert it, even if it'll take (a lot of) time, and unlike the Evas and spears that are always shrouded with mystery and menace (in a "we're tinkering with things with unfathomable power and outside our understanding" way), this is presented as something unambiguously good and right.

And we already see what they can do with it: the movie's opening scene has then cleansing an entire capital city and its suburbs with one pillar. And sure it's very probable that it'll be only temporary, but it shows that they can do more with them than simply "make a circle to form a clean perimeter and pray that it doesn't break down", and their main problem seemed to be more the hordes of Evas commanded by neo-NERV to attack them, and coincidentally all of them died at the end of the movie!

And to be honest, I find Kensuke's line that they can't do anything if one of the pillars fail to be really stupid: the movie is actually telling us that WILLE couldn't spare at least one fucking pillar engineer for each of the settlements that are literally the organization's reason for existing? And what about the people in the core-erosion lab, they're really wanting to make us believe that absolutely none of the people working full-time on the pillars and their effect on core material had any idea on how said pillars works or how to repair them? Then what the bloody hell are they doing in this lab?!

[Axx°N N.]

Shinjo wishes all Evaway but there's an entry plug by Kensuke's house.

Are Mari's eyeglasses part of her body? Would you see them on a shelf and go "Sup Mari?"