Neon Genesis Evangelion and Philosophy: That Syncing Feeling

by Christian Cotton (editor), Andrew M. Winters (Editor)

When most people think of anime, they think of large-eyed adolescents fighting fearsome monsters (kaijū). On the surface, Neon Genesis Evangelion is just the same, filled with destructive explosions and gigantic EVA missiles that can only be piloted by badass teens. But as every 'otaku' knows, anime as a stylized artform has much more to offer, often pushing the artistic, emotional, and intellectual boundaries of its audiences with its storylines. 

Neon Genesis Evangelion is one such beyond the fearsome monsters and Evangelions, Neon Genesis explores the depths of the psyches of the adolescents when they become the very weapons needed to destroy the onslaught of Angels. The emotional complexities of the show make Neon Genesis Evangelion an emotional and intellectually challenging anime to watch. Fortunately, many of us do not undergo as extreme of experiences facing Shinji, Rei, and Asuka. But many of us do face tragedies that prompt us to ask questions about our own existence, how to live, and how to relate to others.

Neon Genesis Evangelion and Philosophy encourages readers to take a moment to explore the wide range of philosophical topics found within the anime to challenge and encourage you to reflect on who you are and how to live with others. 

Genres: Philosophy

228 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 2, 2022

Reviews

[EK McClelion]

“And when the hourglass has run out, the hourglass of temporality, when the noise of secular life has grown silent and its restless or ineffectual activism has come to an end, when everything around you is still, as it is in eternity, then… eternity asks you and every individual in these millions and millions about only one thing: whether you have lived in despair or not, whether you have despaired in such a way that you did not realize that you were in despair, or in such a way that you covertly carried this sickness inside of you as your gnawing secret, as a fruit of sinful love under your heart, or in such a way that you, a terror to others, raged in despair. And if so, if you have lived in despair, then, regardless of whatever else you won or lost, everything is lost for you, eternity does not acknowledge you, it never knew you - or, still more terribly, it knows you as you are known and it binds you to yourself in despair."

—Soren Kierkegaard, "Sickness Unto Death"

[Drake Finlay · Rating 2 out of 5]

In theory, I'm the perfect audience for this book, I did my undergrauate in philosophy and I'm a huge Evangelion fan. Perhaps because I am both of these things, I had really high expectations going into this collection. Unfortunately, there are really only two good essays in this collection, both, unsurprisingly are from Japanese authors who have much more to contribute to the conversation about Evangelion than the Western authors. The Western authors spend about 90% of their time writing summaries of what's happening in Evangelion (often assuming that the audience has no familiarity with the show, or that they have no familiarity with anime as a concept) and occasionally interspersing broad stroke philosophy to what's happening. In contrast, the Japanese authors spend considerable time engaging with Evangelion, speaking to where its influences came from and the philisophical underpinnings of the work. One is summary the other is analysis.

Im genuinely stunned, when there is such a wealth of written material in Japan on Evangelion, from pop culture to philosophy, why this collection wasn't more Japanese focused, with a Western perspective when it would bring in an additional flavor (Ano was of course influenced by Western philosophers after all), rather than mostly Western focused with no one who could engage with the media properly as they don't speak Japanese.

Two examples stood out where the author's inability to engage with the primary material significantly reduced the analysis of their essay:

1) an author claims that Gendo is being curt/dismissive of Shinji because he greets him with "it's been a long time" (in English), which is not typical for a familial greeting in English after a long absense. However, Gendo literally says "久しぶりだな" which while literally "it's been a long time" is not comparable to the English phrase and is used in Japanese for many different kinds of interactions, and is totally fine as a greeting in this circumstance. It's hard to give appropriate examples to how common this greeting is but here are two similar-ish uses of it: 1) if you're familiar with Jujutsu Kaisen, Geto approaches Gojo with "久しぶり" during Shibuya which is literally someone's best friend coming back from the dead, it's about as intimate of a greeting as is possible here, 2) it's niche, but a visual novel called Cafe Sourire has a scenario where a son runs away from home for weeks without contacting his father, and after finally hearing from his son the father says "久しぶり."

2) an author describes Asuka's last words in The End of Evangelion as "how disgusting," the actual phrase used in Japanese is "気持悪い" literally "bad feeling." This is important, because Japanese does have words to describe something as "disgusting," which was deliberally not chosen. (And if you're familiar with the development of EoE, it's often suggested that Asuka's voice actress improvised the line). Due to this choice against more common "disgust" words, Asuka is more likely expressing a kind of Sartrean Nausea at being thrown back into existence from the LCL. Which could actually be a really interesting lens of analysis to dive into. "How disgusting" doesn't really convey the meaning of "気持悪い" and using "disgusting" as a basis for analysis is incorrect in my opinion.

The few Japanese authors save this from a 1/5, but I seriously recommend against reading this collection.

[L C Winters · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting collection of essays. My only critique is that it is occasionally quite limited in its topics, Schopenhauer, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, and Sartre all get mentioned constantly. Existentialism is the key thematic discussion point for the text and after a while I did want to see some other topics discussed such as theology or gender, or a more intensive look at the series’ psychoanalytic influences. Another thing I found lacking was the lack of discussion of the Eva manga, which gets one essay out of 19, and basically no discussion of Eva 3.0+1.0: TUAT, I understand that it is a very recent film but for many that was the ultimate Evangelion conclusion and it seems an oversight to not discuss it in depth. The Evangelion Manga is in many ways the most complete form of the Eva narrative, not relying on additional films to complete its arc, it also explains the world much more clearly, so I believe it deserves further examination should this volume be updated.

[I live in your walls (real) (go check) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was written specifically for me and nearly no one else amen

[Tyler Witt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me having an existential crisis over an anime show? Pshhhhh…okay kind of.