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Neon Genesis Evangelion

Humanity as a Failed Project

Neon Genesis Evangelion and Human Dignity

By Deniz Esen and Bengi Aktaş

Still–End of Evangelion after the Immortality Project

Hideaki Anno’s Neon Genesis Evangelion(1995) is an anime series that fundamentally question “what makes us human?” and presents some of the more struggles and fears of human life, such as; living in a society, expressing emotions, making connections, loneliness and sexuality. The plot covers lore about an Ancient Race and a “seed of life” just like in the Bible. There are cataclysmic events called “Impacts” that wipe most of the earth’s populace, and an organization to prevent the incoming third impact planned by “Angels”. Inspired by Christian themes, it also tries to define the human soul. Evangelion binds the idea of human dignity to the first sin. The Series takes on the first sin is that humans were never supposed to split into individual souls and it is the reason why we suffer existentially throughout our lives.

 

Hideaki Anno’s writing mainly focuses on the problem and these problems reveal a lot on their perspective on human dignity. For example, Shinji is left by his parents at an early age, therefore he is extremely self-loathing, thinks he is tolerated by his friends, and thinks he can find his worth by pleasing other people. By this he does not accept himself, rather acts according to other people, leaving him utterly depressed and alone. His father, Gendo Ikari on the other hand, cannot make peace with his wife’s death during the Second Impact and uses her DNA to create someone he can love, a daughter, named Rei. He refuses his grief of his dead wife and breaks the ethical rules of society to have a remnant of someone he loves. Or Ritsuko Akagi, loving the same man as his mother, feels crushed by people’s expectations to be like her mother, therefore she suffers while finding her own identity.

 

By Evangelion, Hideaki Anno shows that our dignity is not something we can find in others. Self-worth and respect can only be achieved by the person him/herself and not facing our fears, problems and anxieties can lead to one’s self-destruction. The Secret organization SEELE thinks that humans can’t achieve true dignity, so they work to bring the end of the world, using the Human Instrumentality Project(In the end of the series, a world-ending event takes place where humanity leaves their bodies, and turn into an entity made of everyone’s souls.) The idea is when we don’t have boundaries of flesh that hold our souls back from connecting each other, we will be free. Free to understand each other, Free to be with one another. There will be no misunderstandings, no differentiative factors between each other. The protagonist, Hideaki Anno rejects this idea, because he thinks there are ways to accept humanity, however flawed it is. The sci-fi dystopic ending to the human race is shown as the impossible solution to loneliness and should be read as we should connect. For Anno there is no other way to find our worth, find dignity in ourselves, the other way only exists in fiction, as it exists in Evangelion. The series ends with showing real-life Japan, crowded streets, as they don’t talk or connect.  Evangelion is made to teach to connect, to accept, to learn become a human.

Still–Lilith Hanging