I know, I know, I’ve dealt mostly with animated television shows up to this point. But there’s just something about that mode of storytelling, both entirely human and not at all, that presents a way of looking at reality both obscurely and totally clearly. Every story has a chance of being a parable, because audiences don’t recognize the connection they share with the themes when they are too focused on the characters and the spectacle of the whole thing.
Hideki Anno’s Neon Genesis Evangelion is one of those shows that manages to breach that soundproof wall, by virtue of audiences either rejecting it as a “good show” in absolute confusion and emotional destruction or calling it one of the greatest in all anime from absolute confusion and emotional destruction. Yeah, the factors are pretty much the same, because it all comes tumbling down based on how you react individually, apart from the reality you use to connect to a show normally.
Neon Genesis Evangelion aired in Japan from 1995 to 1996. It was a mecha show about a young cowardly boy forced to fight aliens, known as “Angels,” in a giant robot created by his neglectful father. Shinji Ikari, in an attempt to impress his father, Gendo, and save the life of his cute injured pilot predecessor, Rei, hops in the robot and fights an Angel. He wins, is made a pilot of the “Evangelion,” and joins the war against the Angels as they threaten the end of humanity, known as the “Third Impact.”
Thus begins Shinji’s downward spiral into traumatic self-destruction.
What Neon Genesis Evangelion truly deals with is the complexity and pain of human connection. Understanding people and getting them to like you is sometimes impossible, and always immensely frustrating. The series doesn’t start off like this, focusing more on the flashy kaiju battles and Shinji’s self-doubt. Whatever character development we witness is isolated, especially as Shinji is obsessed with Rei despite the fact that Rei is a mysterious and silent figure who doesn’t really indulge Shinji’s attempts at friendship. As Shinji is consistently hurt or overburdened by those around him, he withdraws into his head, becoming almost as distant as Rei is. Honestly, the show becomes rather difficult to watch around those first episodes as we watch anxiety slowly turn into depression and desensitization.
But then, something happens. Both our world and Shinji’s turn upside-down AGAIN in episode 8. That episode introduces a new pilot, Asuka, who turns the entire show on its head. She is abrasive, selfish, loud, rude, extremely talented, and loves what she does; a complete foil to Shinji in every way. The tone she brings is also a complete foil to the tone we were used to, as scenes become livelier and the mech genre actually gives way to slice-of-life comedy for most of the episodes. There’s even an episode in which Asuka and Shinji must completely sync their movements if they are to destroy the core of an Angel that can split and replicate itself…Naturally, they learn how to do this through the power of dance.
Almost like the character of Shinji himself, the addition of Asuka allowed the show to reroute its almost prehumanist notions, in which the human is isolated by and for his own means, into humanist territory. Sure, Asuka is a little brat most of the time, but this conflict, based in the fact that they butt heads as competitors and not as those whose judgments determine their value as human beings, is exactly what is needed to pull Shinji out of his shell. Or, rather, to help the little hedgehog unfurl.
By hedgehog, I refer to the name of episode 4, “Hedgehog’s Dilemma.” The hedgehog’s dilemma is this: in winter when hedgehog’s must snuggle together for warmth or else freeze, they end up impaling each other on their prickles. This has direct connotations for human connection; human beings must interact and connect with others if they are to keep their sanity, but sometimes the pain that occurs as a result is too destructive. Shinji was overburdened by this dilemma in the first seven episodes, and by his responsibility as a pilot that made him virtually no more than what Rei was: a tool to save the world. With Asuka, he goes through the constant prick of her needles, but it gives him life because someone acknowledges him as a human being and individual. It is a move from prehumanist to humanist, in eight episodes, that lasts until about episode 17.
But something happens at episode 18. Somewhere along the way, as the intentions of Nerv (the organization behind the creation of the Evangelions) and Seele (the organization behind Nerv’s funding) are slowly brought to light, we see another transition. This time, oddly enough, it is regressive, as traumatic experiences and the realization that they are just tools for Nerv start to eat away at Asuka and Shinji. Soon they are no help to each other, because they are so far gone to depression that human connection isn’t even worth the effort. Asuka, in one last attempt to prove herself as an individual, is completely mentally wrecked and tries to commit suicide. She is discharged, and Shinji is all alone again with Rei.
Then this bastard shows up.
This fellow is Kaworu, the replacement for Asuka in episode 24. Kowaru becomes friends with Shinji, understanding him like no one else, and appreciating him as an individual. It is a short-lived bright spot in the otherwise darkened life. I called him a bastard (rather impolitely, I admit) because he technically is one; a mixture between Angel and human. He was literally created by Seele to be a tool, the one who brings about the Third Impact. However, he realizes that his version of Posthumanism, unconditional empathy, is in direct conflict with Seele’s version of Posthumanism. Seele created the Angels, in truth, because they would bring about the Third Impact and merge all of humanity into one giant pool of melded consciousness. That collective consciousness is both death and rebirth, into both everything and nothingness. de Spinoza almost reflects on such idea when he considers the circle, the complete linked existence of the minds of God and Nature, and how humanity might find the prolonging of life and satisfaction from this:
“For example, a circle existing in Nature and the idea of the existing circle, which is also in God, are one and the same thing, which is explained through different attributes. Therefore, whether we conceive Nature under the attribute of extension, or under the attribute of thought, or under any other attribute, we shall find one and the same order, or one and the same connection of causes, that is, that the same things follow one another.
When I said [NS: before] that God is the cause of the idea, say of a circle, only insofar as he is a thinking thing, and [the cause] of the circle, only insofar as he is an extended thing, this was for no other reason than because the formal being of the idea of the circle can be perceived only through another mode of thinking, as its proximate cause, and that mode again through another, and so on, to infinity. Hence, so long as things are considered as modes of thinking, we must explain the order of the whole of Nature, or the connection of causes, through the attribute of thought alone. And insofar as they are considered as modes of extension, the order of the whole of Nature must be explained through the attribute of extension alone. I understand the same concerning the other attributes.
So of things as they are in themselves, God is really the cause insofar as he consists of infinite attributes. For the present, I cannot explain these matters more clearly” (119-120).
de Spinoza, Benedict. A Spinoza Reader: The Ethics and Other Works. Ed. and Trans. by Edwin Curley. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994.
That is the Human Instrumentality Project. To bring everything into the same circle is to bring order, peace, and complete understanding. By achieving infinite being, there is no desire, striving, or even hope for completion, and therefore no disappointment. We have gone from prehumanism, to humanism, to prehumanism again, and now this. This is the extreme principle of Posthumanism; all are one, individuals are meaningless, and we are desensitized to the disappointments of life. Yes, there is a middle Posthuman ground, but it is unstable among those of differing values and ideals. By making all consciousness one, everyone is of the same mind; everyone agrees, because it is impossible to disagree. As an Evangelion pilot, to prevent the destruction of humanity, and even at the urging of Kowaru, Shinji kills Kowaru. And then, after apparently halting the Third Impact, he discovers that no one cares what he did. Or, specifically, no one cares about him.
And then the show ran out of budget for the final two episodes. The Human Instrumentality Project actually begins, with no reason as to how that happened, and we are given a peek into the joined minds of all of our characters as they realize that the merger is actually more isolating than being human; they are now trapped inside their own consciousnesses. But the studio received backfire for the execution, the scenes were quickly and cheaply slapped together, and so none of it made sense. Then Anno received death threats, the studio feared for its further existence in the trust of the public, and a budget was created for a movie finale.
And boy. Was it a finale. It was fun in the first three-quarters, when Asuka returns, Shinji grows the nerve to fight again, and character arcs are paid off. But after all that buildup, all that character development, all those psychological studies, we are given a final Nihilistic bow as the Posthuman extreme of the Human Instrumentality Project ends both the film and the whole planet.
Even if you watch the whole show, it still barely makes sense.
And yet it makes total sense. The whole reason behind Seele’s obsession with the Human Instrumentality Project was because human contact was unfulfilling, painful, and finite. The loss that propelled them towards an extreme Posthumanism was loss of identity, because identity separates and creates pain. The struggles of understanding and connecting with those whom we want to connect to are, to proponents of this “Nirvana” mentality, foolishly skewering ourselves on the prickly backs of each other. As one mind, we know all, we are all, we feel all, and so we encounter nothing so much as we are the encounter.
And yet how do we transition between humanism and the step before this, the middle-ground posthumanism? The truth is that we already have; by regulating people based on identity, not individuality, and diminishing the value of human connection through mass social connection (see my “Gotta Call ‘Em All” post for discussion on this subject), we are closer than ever to Human Instrumentality. Now, biblical references aside, is this merger actually possible at all without some supernatural occurrence? Only the limits of technology can say for sure.
And for those who choose to resist, to hold on to the humanist, to refuse to lose their individuality? The end of the series’ film, End of Evangelion, suggests that individual survival is still possible. But it’s not satisfying. It’s not comforting. It’s too loud, too vast, too complicated. And the film ends with a line that can only be the proper assessment of those two terrible ultimatums of being human:
“How disgusting.”
You can check out Neon Genesis Evangelion and End of Evangelion on Netflix.
Morning's Early Dark 