>>3610916>doujin artists welcomed her as a new hole for Shinji. But over a decade later that has pretty much died out. Even though she is his official girl, there is just one devoted artist and no hentai artists or regular ship artists care. Anno probably used her exactly for that reason cause outside kawoshin fanworks are dying, and even kawoshin has lost some steam.I can't seem to find the interviews because a quick search of keywords "Anno interview otakus" brings up little, but I'm pretty sure he was concerned about otakus spending all their time in their bedrooms with anime and manga and tried to get a "go out and live your life" message across in NGE, and particularly the 4th wall break in EoE after people had sent him obsessive death threats over how the show ended.
I think he failed with this message in NGE because people instead became obsessed with the show and held it up as some kind of masterpiece. So 3.0 + 1.0 making everybody frustrated and give up on the franchise is very much in line with his stated intentions.
>>3610936tbf, it does imply that Shinji calls him daddy
