>>3633207I mean even just the anime sort of revels in scenarios meant to make shinji and the audience feel despair.
It’s not limited to Kaworu and Shinji, Asuka ends up comatose in the original show thanks to reliving repressed memories of walking in on her mother’s suicide by hanging.
The entire show is teenagers constantly being tortured, emotionally and physically, and by beings called Angels. Shinji wonders one episode why the beings called Angels are attacking Tokyo if Angels are supposed to be messengers of God: the implication being that Shinji is being tormented by heaven itself.
From a psychological perspective, you can almost always interpret “God” in a story as the story’s creator: in this case Anno, who it’s well known was “working through his suicidal depression” with Eva: but the story of Eva is essentially “Shinji gets beat up until he dissociates and creates a new reality”.
It’s scenario after scenario of extreme, despair inducing drama involving children, and I just have to wonder if it’s not exacerbated my metal health problems instead of helping.
