Character Study | Why Shinji Ikari is a Great Main Character

Introduction

I think we can all agree that the Main Character is a very integral part of a story. While I don’t believe that all Main Characters need to be the de facto best and most important characters for a story to be successful, it is still a fact that most of us will think of the main character as the first thing when we talk about a story.

This is mostly because the Main Character usually represents the main narrative of a story, and is usually the focal point when progressing a story forward.

Hence, it is called the “Main” Character.

This brings me to our subject today, Shinji Ikari, the main character of one of the most iconic anime, Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Being one of the most culturally important anime of all time, Evangelion has a whole host of memorable characters but Shinji, as the main character, is the character that embodies the story and like most popular characters, he has a very polarising presence.

I’ve seen people who like his characters but it seems as if the people who don’t like him are in the majority.

However, I believe Shinji Ikari is one of the finest main characters in anime history. However, before we get to exactly why I think he is a great main character, let’s talk about some of the reasons why he is disliked, to begin with.

Why is Shinji Hated?

The main reason why I see people hating on Shinji is because of how different he is from the quintessential action-anime main character. Normally, in high-intensity anime, The Main character is strong-willed and has a certain pattern in which they process various types of emotion. They usually step up to the occasion when the going gets tough.

On the contrary, Shinji is just a 14-year-old kid. He doesn’t have any strong character traits, he is a coward, who tries to avoid any situation where you would expect him to step up.

He is also very emotionally unstable and is constantly seen as depressed.

Moreover, he isn’t exactly a good person. He has, throughout the runtime of the series, done some very questionable things which make him out to be unlikeable.

Honestly, if that’s how you see it then, there is not much to say from my side as you are entitled to have your opinion and it wouldn’t be baseless either.

But

Why Shinji Ikari is the perfect main character for NGE

I believe that all the points that I stated as things I found people present as reasons to dislike Shinji are exactly why he is a great main character.

The first thing that we need to emphasize is that he is a 14-year-old kid, who has been told to wear shoes too big for him to even believe, let alone wear. Moreover, he had a very traumatic childhood, and to say he has a bad relationship with his father would be quite an understatement.

When you put all of it together, you get the vision of Shinji Ikari and can at least somewhat understand his depression and his cowardly nature.

That being said, I guess there is no defending his “Questionable” antics.

But, if you put things into context, you might start seeing a clearer image.

Although there is no justification, you need to know that despite his rough mental state, daddy issues, and cowardice, Shinji has had to face and do everything that has been told to him. So, if anything, that has doubled his mental issues, and add on top of that, his relationship with other characters wasn’t that healthy either.

Especially the one that comes to mind first is his toxic relationship with Asuka.

Now, Asuka on her own deserves an analysis but her relationship with Shinji was very toxic. She always treated him in a very lowly manner and as I like to believe, toxicity gives birth to more toxicity so, it was somewhat understandable why things went the way they did.

However, the biggest reason why I think he is perfect for Evangelion is because of how different the anime is from the rest of the anime of the Mecha and Action genre.

It is because of how different the show is that even after 25/26 years, people come up with their interpretations of different scenes, and we got an entire rebuild film series.

This is why I believe the anime wouldn’t have worked with a typical action-mecha main character as the dynamics just wouldn’t add up.

Which is why Shinji, with all his flaws, is the perfect match for a show like Evangelion, and because he fulfills his purpose of being the perfect main character of the story he is in, I believe, Shinji Ikari is a great character.

Conclusion

Thanks for making it to the end. It was quite fun talking about Shinseiki Evangelion as it is one of my favorite series of all time.

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And well, Happy Halloween and Goodbye!