Neon Genesis Evangelion: Identity, Mental Health, & American Culture
During one late night of procrastination, I put in my AirPods, opened Netflix, and turned on Neon Genesis Evangelion. Wrapped in a shroud of darkness as the intro played was comforting, distracting me from all the things I had to do but couldn’t bring myself to. Much like I was doing, the main character, Shinji Ikari, lays in bed and listens to music while staring at his ceiling, and it made me wonder: why do I enjoy laying in my bed watching things that make me sad to the point of tears? What is it about this anime that affects me more than American media?
“Another ceiling I don’t know,” the main character murmurs, as we see the (turned off) ceiling light from his perspective.
“Of course. In this whole city, there’s no place that’s familiar,” he continues behind the melancholy song in his earbuds, one of the two he alternates between during the whole show.
“Why am I here?”
After a series of flashbacks recounting the boy’s trauma, we return to him in bed, in the same position. His guardian opens the door, lingering as if she’s not sure what to say.
“You should be proud of yourself,” she says as Shinji lies on his side.
“Goodnight, Shinji-kun. Hang in there.”
Evangelion, at its surface, follows three teens in a post-apocalyptic world ravaged by an event mysteriously called the “Second Impact” fifteen years prior to the events of the series. Things are normal enough, with society functioning well enough for people to go about their daily lives, with one major change. These children are tasked by a mysterious government agency NERV with piloting mechas called “Evas,” to fight against alien creatures called “Angels,” the creatures responsible for the Second Impact. Shinji Ikari is one of these children and the main character, a fourteen-year-old boy whose estranged father manipulates into piloting the Eva, lest the human race perishes in the fabled “Third Impact.” Ikari is supposed to be the can-do hero with a pep in his step and a drive to save humanity. That’s what defines the Stock Shōnen Hero trope, after all. It’s fun to watch the heroic “chosen one” save the day.
But Shinji Ikari doesn't want to be the hero. He spends most of the series listening to the same two songs, crying, and literally and figuratively running away from his piloting responsibilities, which he only does because he receives praise for it (and because he has to save humanity, too). He’s awkward, shy, and withdrawn, all of his interactions with other characters passive and sad to watch. Not only does he have to deal with the trauma he’s experienced prior to the start of the series, but the aftermath: piloting a giant mech that is synched to his mind and body, meaning he can feel the pain and anguish from what’s happening to the mech even if he doesn’t actually sustain any injuries.
The show presents us with the perfect setup for a tragic story: a depressed “hero” who only does what he’s told and craves affection from his absent father, and a post-apocalyptic Japan inspired by the threat of a nuclear holocaust following the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. The destruction Angels wreak on post-apocalyptic Tokyo (called Tokyo-3 in the series) in Evangelion even mirrors these bombings, as they soar through the air with unexplainable powers, leaving explosions, death, and destruction in their wake. This theme of a nuclear holocaust isn’t just present in Evangelion, but is incredibly prevalent in post-World War II Japanese media. Thomas M. Coar writes of this phenomenon in “A Study of Apocalyptic Themes in Japanese Popular Culture:”
Japanese people draw their understanding of the apocalypse from many different religions and ideologies, also known as religious pluralism. An influential aesthetic inspired by the Buddhist doctrine of impermanence in Japan is mono no aware which is the idea of seeing the beauty in the chaos and destruction, with sadness and compassion, including the apocalypse. Stemming from the ideologies of reincarnation and masse, the Japanese have a unique viewpoint of the end of times, seeing it as the beginning of a new era. This ideology, as well as themes of death and renewal, is represented in many artistic works.
Evangelion is heavily influenced by themes of death and renewal- the first movie of the franchise is even named Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death and Rebirth. The crux of the show focuses on rebirth as well; a secret government organization SEELE wishes to bring about the “Third Impact,” which would cause “human instrumentality,” a sort of liminal, primordial state in which every human being merges and unites into a “transcendental abstract level of existence,” according to the Evangelion.fandom wiki.
Along with exploring the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, manga and anime both have been used to explore tragic themes such as mental health in an otherwise conservative Japanese culture. Pedro M. Teixeia writes in “The Portrayal of Suicide in Postmodern Japanese Literature and Popular Culture Media:”
Anime may be the perfect medium to capture what is perhaps the overriding issue of our day, the shifting nature of identity in a constantly changing society. With its rapid shifts of narrative pace and its constantly transforming imagery, the animated medium is superbly positioned to illustrate the atmosphere of change permeating not only Japanese society but also all industrialized or industrializing societies.
Japan is a notoriously conservative society when it comes to mental health. According to a study, 80% of surveyed Japanese people diagnosed with a mental health disorder had not received any treatment in at least one year, and over 80% of citizens surveyed thought schizophrenia and depression could be cured with treatment, though stigma towards people with those conditions was still very strong. Alyssa Pearl Fusek wrote in “The Shocking Consequences of Mental Illness Stigma in Japan:”
The word most often used to mean “mental illness” in Japanese is kokoro no byouki (こころの病気). In Japan, people with mental illnesses are considered deviant, weak, outside the norm; their existence itself is a barrier preventing them from becoming a full member of society. Families with members suffering from a mental illness are looked down upon, as if there’s something wrong with their bloodline, and their social reputation is often scrutinized. This mindset has reigned for hundreds of years, due in part to a lack of understanding about what mental illness is.
This stigma promotes a drive to explore mental health through art, and that’s the inspiration for Hideaki Anno, creator of Neon Genesis Evangelion. Yuri Mangahas writes in their Flipgeek article “HIDEAKI ANNO Reveals his Inspiration behind EVANGELION:”
Miyazaki [Japanese animator] had often been compared to Walt Disney, but Anno insists that there’s more beyond the former’s signature style that gave rise to Anime’s fame. Their bold attempts to explore dark themes, as well as concepts that surpass the surreal were traits akin to Japanese animation’s ageless appeal.
“Japanese animation isn’t just for kids,” Anno muses.
Thus, mental health is explored in media in a different way in Japan than in the United States, especially during modern times. Ruth Benedict, an American anthropologist, wrote of this: “[The Japanese] play up suicide as Americans play up crime and they have the same vicarious enjoyment of it. They choose to dwell on events of self-destruction instead of on the destruction of others… [Suicide] meets some need that cannot be filled by dwelling on other acts.” While this analysis is controversial and linked with ultra-nationalistic propaganda, suicide is a hot topic in Japan, with their suicide rate being the third-highest of OECD nations as of 2005. It’s also possible that mental health is explored in such an artistic way in Japanese media because they’re encouraged not to speak openly about such topics, thus, they turn to artistic representations through media such as Evangelion.
Hideaki Anno in particular was moved to express the plight of the Japanese and his own mental health through his work. He, born in 1960, cited that fear of the Cold War influenced his and other works significantly, making anime what it is today. And even upon first glance, this influence is very clear. Evangelion is set in 2015, after natural disasters, nuclear war, and mass extinctions. It’s not an action-packed, grim, and gritty yet thrilling view of the future like some American post-apocalyptic films such as Terminator, Pacific Rim, and Blade Rummer.
Instead, Evangelion is sad and desolate, marked by loss shown through silent, sometimes uncomfortably so, scenes, tragic internal monologues, and the own protagonist wanting to run away from his situation but having to resign to his fate. Shots linger for longer than necessary, frames trembling in that nostalgic way that they did in the 90s, inducing nausea and discomfort that perfectly captures the anxiety and turmoil of the main character — and of the creator of Evangelion himself.
“I tried to include everything of myself in Neon Genesis Evangelion — myself, a broken man who could do nothing for four years. A man who ran away for four years, one who was simply not dead. Then one thought. ‘You can’t run away,’ came to me, and I restarted this production. It is a production where my only thought was to burn my feelings into film.”
Evangelion also reflects the plight of the Japanese people, and their struggles with mental health in a post-World War II society. As mentioned before, Japan both has an incredibly high suicide rate and a lot of stigma regarding mental health, which changes how they produce art like Evangelion. Specifically in the 90s, when Evangelion was made, Teixeira writes:
As a result of Japanese culture’s collectivistic inclination of emphasizing the group over the individual, a single person only represents a single brick in the wall that is society. Easily replaceable and unimportant on its own, the wall will not fall from a single missing brick…After all, how can contemporary Japan in general, and the Japanese youth specifically, remain hopeful in the face of endless trauma? The works dealing with..the youth expose many of their anxieties and issues with contemporary Japan, including…perceived lack of autonomy or influence; and their struggle to make sense of their identity…and the collapse of the family ideal.
The Japanese view of mental health, especially among the youth, in media, is incredibly clear from the very start of Evangelion. The second episode of the series doesn’t even put action at the forefront as is expected from the genre, but rather, Shinji Ikari’s internal suffering — it opens with Shinji fighting an Angel, his face marked with terror. The Angel pulls on the Eva’s arm, and Shinji’s own arm contorts in great pain. He screams in agony, a shot of his face with the colors inverted like some trippy filter flashes onscreen. The Angel lances the Eva with a spear of light, and then — silence. Shinji wakes up in a hospital room, the buzzing of cicadas the only sound. The light of the ceiling as Shinji looks up into it blinds the viewer as it must do to him, and then he says, after moments of agonizing silence,
“…A ceiling I don’t know.”
Then, the episode cuts to the title card. Throughout the series, fights are presented this way: bloodcurdling screams, close-ups on the pilots’ faces rather than the fight itself, abstract colors, and startling sounds and imagery. Evangelion begs us to look inwards rather than outwards, to focus on the trauma of loss versus the adrenaline of action.
The same is true for other Japanese media such as Godzilla, which, Coar writes in “A Study of Apocalyptic Themes in Japanese Popular Culture,” “…present the theme of the dangers of science…gives it a nationalistic twist; showing that American technology and atomic usage created Godzilla.” Nippon Chinbotsu is similar, as Coar writes, “There is little sense of excitement in the film but rather a tone of mourning for the loss of Japan.”
Frank R. Fuller writes of this connection between the atomic bombings and the collective trauma of the Japanese more in-depth in his study “The Atomic Bomb: Reflections in Japanese Manga and Anime.” Fuller says that the “grotesque and beautiful mesh well together in anime,” and are “more complex than many Western animated works that are often brought forth.”
How Evangelion presents trauma and loss speaks to the collective psyche and individual suffering of the Japanese people and might be why it’s so enticing to Americans, who aren’t used to that sort of artistic rendering of suffering.
American media seems to show a post-apocalyptic environment in an aggressive, thrilling sense. An opportunity, even, for technological advancement. In American media, good tends to “triumph,” and even if the world isn’t back to normal, there’s always a sense of success and hope. This also extends to how they present media in general, especially that which portrays mental health. In “Americanization: An East Asians’ Perspective,” Professor Emeritus Akio Igarashi explains of post-World War II American media:
Hollywood films were the most successful anti-communist propaganda tools and received powerful backing from the American government. These films exceeded the American government’s expectations by depicting the various circumstances of American society. The crowds that filled the movie theaters to capacity feasted on the freedom and affluence of American society in these films. The children who watched Dumbo, Bambi, and Mickey Mouse were captivated by the colorful and expressive Disney animations.
Compared with Japanese media as I discussed above, there’s a clear difference. Whether it be post-apocalyptic media or media dealing with mental health, the American tendency is to glorify. To say “we’re on top.” American culture, and specifically “good American values” are deeply injected into our media, (don’t forget that the United States military and Marvel movies have a very close relationship), and with that comes an idealized version of our country that juxtaposes the melancholy post-war media of Japan. The goal of this, as Fuller touches on in his study, was to assert “global hegemonic status.” We cannot lose and we cannot dwell on tragedy. Through it all, we must “pull ourselves up by our bootstraps” and carry on, because that is the “American way.”
This shallowness of American media extends to how we view mental health, as well. While Japanese media uses film and TV as a medium to express the tragedy of the individual and collective through themes of death, rebirth, and identity in an otherwise conservative culture, America does the opposite. Amanda Rosenberg of Salon writes of America’s perception of mental health in media:
TV depression looks fabulous. I’d love to have that kind of depression. And it’s not just TV depression; any mental illness on-screen looks rather thrilling. Either it’s dark and dramatic — unlike day-to-day depression, which is at best super dull — or it’s quirky and fleeting, like a flash sale of Zooey Deschanel’s wardrobe.
Statistics back up this claim as well. According to Genesight.com:
Almost half the characters (47%) suffering from mental illness in the movies were subject to “name calling, dehumanizing phrases, and stigmatizing behavior.” Almost half (46%) of the characters with mental illness demonstrated signs of violence.
American media doesn’t just present itself as superior in terms of live-action post-apocalyptic and mental-health-related media. Cartoons such as Evangelion are seen as “shallow,” whereas the Japanese have taken a horrific collective trauma and molded it into an animated format in a solemn, developed manner. There is certainly something to be said about how cartoons are viewed in the West versus Japan, and perhaps that could contribute to the reason we Americans enjoy media such as Evangelion so much; only so much can be done through live-action, and American cartoons are cited as being “for children.” Animation allows for a much more expressive experience, where the sky is the limit, and that’s not something we see every day. Pebble Studios, a video production company, talks about this perception on their blog, saying, “…one reason we might be leaning towards this animated art form as a way to express more complex emotions or adult sensations is that it’s not a direct replica of ourselves.”
Americans have slowly started to adopt animation as a sophisticated and complex medium, such as Bojack Horseman (which received several awards), but it’s still not on the level of Japanese anime. Traditional 2D animation has declined and resulted in the closure of several studios. CGI films and shows are incredibly expensive to make and looked down upon by Hollywood.
Conversely, Japanese anime makes up 60% of the world’s cartoons, and about 33% of Japanese people consume anime and manga often.Japan has embraced animation in a way that is unfamiliar to Americans — especially something like Evangelion, which subverts the typical mecha anime genre and dives deep into not only the collective psychological trauma of the Japanese but the trauma of the individual. It’s very clear that while unfamiliar to Americans, we rather enjoy it: it’s been ranked in the top 10 of many US anime popularity polls, spawned countless merchandise, and even a new movie that Western fans are hoping gets dubbed into English.
I’ve just laid out clear differences between Japanese and American media and how it relates to both our collective and individual perceptions. Now I’d like to take a look into American culture and discuss what we value in our media and why that may contribute to our interest in horribly tragic and sad anime such as Evangelion.
The way Americans view individuality lends to how and why we value what we do in media. Amy S. Choi, writer for Ideas.Ted.com writes in her article “How cultures around the world make decisions:”
One American model: Give me personal autonomy or give me death… “In terms of fetishizing the idea of choice, the U.S. is the absolute pinnacle,” says Barry Schwartz, professor of social theory and social change at Swarthmore College and author of The Paradox of Choice. “We want to be able to choose everything that matters, as well as the things that don’t.”
Autonomy is one of the most vital tenants of our culture, so it would make sense that this extends to the media we watch.
Although, she writes:
…Not exercising your full range of choices, you are demonstrating yourself to be less than a full person — even though most people don’t exercise the choices they believe so strongly in, such as the right to vote. This is the fiction of choice in the West, says Carroll. “Individual choice is a powerful received idea, but frankly, it’s a bit of a white lie that our culture tells itself,” he says.
Regardless, we exercise this autonomy through what we watch.
As Steve Todd, INews writer explains in “Why we enjoy watching sad films:”
I would say that they [sad films] are a safe way to experience extreme emotions and situations that we would never actually want to experience in real life. It would make sense that we’d exercise our autonomy by viewing things that are sad from a safe distance, engaging enough to feel but not enough that it negatively impacts our lives.
American media approaches sadness in its own way, which reflects our culture. Though we enjoy watching things that are sad, American media approaches sadness in a glamorous, dangerous way, as I highlighted earlier. Mental health problems are also conflated with danger and violence, with characters acting rash and “insane” versus Evangelion’s depiction of inward, quiet depression. This could also be another contributing factor to why Americans have an affinity for anime, which depicts their struggles more complicated and delicately than American media, all in an animated format. I talked with my friend and fellow student Sydney to confirm this — she had started watching Evangelion around the same time I did. She told me over text:
…i believe that evangelion’s depiction is better than how american media handles it. especially with depictions of young boys with mental health problems especially. i think it also shows a wider range of what mental health can be. you don't have just “depression” labelled as worthlessness and sell floating and hatred but you also have the deflection of mental health like it’s shown for asuka’s [another character in the show] or even mental health and how it effects sexuality for misato [shinji ikari’s guardian]. you can’t find that wide range of mental health representation in american media.
So, where does that leave us? I talked about how both Japan’s atomic bombings and their culture surrounding mental health affects their media, how it compares to American culture, and why Americans seem to be so enticed by Neon Genesis Evangelion as a result. I don’t have one “true” answer to this, and I don’t think there is one.
The “obvious” answer would be that we relate, or that the media is simply just beautiful. But I think it could be even more than that, at least to some people. Going back to the theme of control, especially among Americans, I believe that we watch stuff like this, and in turn, relate to it, to convince ourselves we have some semblance of control over our own minds. Yes! we say, watching a character go through a thing, I do that and they do that and now I understand myself and have a little monicker of control over my well-being!
This could also mean we watch sad and tragic things like Evangelion not just to relate, but because indulging in media fills us with a temporary control over our emotions. We watch a sad thing to feel sad, we watch a happy thing to feel happy — and life, unfortunately, is rarely ever that simple.
It also may be in part due to how the Japanese broach topics touched on in Evangelion vs. how Americans see it. I believe all of these factors could approach, though not fully answer, the question, why do we watch these things and why do we feel this way about them? This question in particular is such an important thing to think ask because it forces us to come face to face with ourselves, examine the human condition in a way that doesn’t align with our culture and that makes us as uncomfortable as the media we watch.
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