I've heard a really interesting interpretation of Gendo"s "death" in End of Evangelion. While everyone else is dissolved into Instrumentality through a welcoming figure of comfort or desire, Gendo's end was violent, suggesting that his greatest desire was to be punished for all the wrongs he'd done knowingly.
Gendo was the sole human denied Rebirth by his soul being destroyed due to how he abused Shinji, who (for a time) was the god who controlled instrumentality.
He was killed instead of being a subject of the Instrumentality Project. That was his ironic punishment since he orchestrated the whole thing to get back with his wife.
well consider, if he had succeeded how would she have reacted to him after she learned what he had done while she was dead, how he'd treated their boy yada yada? And what would he have done with her reaction? maybe he would accept her rejection and recrimination, and in this case instrumentality has been subverted in some fashion to instead revive yui, so gendo can live at peace considering himself the hero that saved humanity by resurrecting his wife and who now lives in penance but contentment that she is alive. essentially reclaiming the comfort of solitude. or he rejects her rejection with the same force and drive which he rejected her death, becoming a monster, well more of one. a terrible monster rather than a pathetic one. either way, well if he loved her doesn't matter at all because that guy died with her, now there is only the shadow of the man, and a shadow can't feel love.
Nah he definitely loved Yui, which is what we see when he's around her. He has a smile and spoke to her differently, compared with how he spoke with others. The anime makes these gestures to tell us he did love her and when she died it was world shattering enough for him to change his direction.
I mean it's pretty much explicitly shown that when unit 01 literally eats Gendo during instrumentality so that his soul wouldn't be able to rejoin with the rest of humanity.
It's interesting how Gendo is able to give off such a powerful and intimidating aura, but the more you learn about him the more it becomes clear how pathetic he is. We don't know much about his past, but it's hinted that he was a troubled youth who never tried to better himself. Yui was able to help him become more stable and less self-destructive. He was so reliant on her that once she was gone he reverted back and wasn't man enough to take care of his son. He also has a frail and weak body. He's really just a weak man with a weak heart.
I found that to be true about lots of real life people I used to find intimidating too. Some people who give off confident aura can just be brash and unburdened by self-reflection.
*_"Hard Times create Good Men. Good Men create Good Times, Good Times create Weak Men. Weak Men create Hard Times."_* Gendo is one of those Weak Men creating Hard Times.
@PedroOrtega1993 that's just how life is, people get partners that are less/more deserving, it is what it is. and even they know it, they still love each other.
I read an interesting comment someone made on another website. In Japanese culture - If a man comes from a family with a bad reputation and marries a woman, he will take her last name instead of the other way around. This would explain why he chose to change his last name to Ikari when he married Yui, and it also sheds some light on his background in a very subtle way. My guess is that he was probably made an outcast from a young age because of his family's reputation, and it instilled a deep shame within him that festered as he grew older.
I used to cosplay Gendo on occasion at some cons, and the reactions I had with some other con goers were always fun. Had a "World's Best Dad" mug as a little extra flavor.
@@vulgardisplayofpink5668 I don't have a personal Pinterest, but it's possible someone had the same idea, or posted my picture on it; which I consent to of course. I got a lot of picture requests.
Get you a girl like Gendo Ikari. A girl that would sacrifice all present, past and future humanity to grab your soul from the void and bring you back so you can live together.
There's an interesting parallel betweeen SEELE's plan and Gendo's. SEELE wanted to merge all of humanity together because they believed that the weaknesses inherent in every human soul would be erased by the strengths in all the others, eliminating suffering, misunderstanding and loneliness. But in a way, Gendo had already achieved this himself in his marriage to Yui. He loved her so completely because her strengths made up for his weaknesses. So when he lost her, he not only lost the person he loved more than anything, he lost what made him a better person.
@@louisduarte8763 That's in part because they aren't supposed to. SEELE and Instrumentality are intended to be vague because in truth their actual purpose to the plot is irrelevant to the journey the characters take. The purpose of Evangelion is to show us the lives of Shinji, Rei, and Asuka and how placing these children in such disastrous situations has had grave effects on their already damaged minds. Shinji at large is supposed to be a reflection of the viewer, someone who fears abandonment and the inability to merge with others, Asuka shows us how arrogance and narcissism is born from neglect and a lack of love, while Rei shows us that feeling that one is replaceable and only a means to an end will lead to self-loathing and a dismissive nature. SEELE's plans, to merge every mind into one, thus erasing insecurity, is ultimately only a bridge to these character's introspection and Shinji's eventual realization that his self-perception is determined by others, and that he loathes himself for he believes others loathe him.
@@louisduarte8763Basically they wanted to transform every living being into a hive mind of fanta, because as fanta we dont suffer Weird, yeah, but it makes sense in a way
@@louisduarte8763 It makes about as much sense as what Christians actually believe; that humanity's only salvation is to become ascended beings in the afterlife.
@@vovin8132 Yeah when you see Gendo flying around shooting lasers out of his eyes in that 4th movie it really makes your eyes roll. It’s so ridiculous and misses the mark on the character.
@@vovin8132 They didn't retcon anything. Rebuilds are a sequel series. Adam/Kaworu was resetting the Earth back to the second impact and messing with variables until he created a scenario where Shinji can be happy. And apparently, he did that a LOT, because some people seem to be aware of it, since the plate commemorating AA Wunder's launch dates to sometime in 11000's.
The rebuilds turned Gendo into a mustache-twirling villain and even took away his humanity, and therefore his agency. And then Shinji beats him with the power of friendship after a pep talk from Mari Sue. It’s awful
the thing with gendo and grief is that.. well.. for him yuui didn't just die, she changed existence. that's why you can see him not really mourning for his loss much. he simply knew he just had to go on with his research on the eva and the rituals found in the scriptures.. and so he did. and when he found out that the eva 01 was actively protecting shinji... he just used hatred as a trigger to make him the bringer of distruction and unified (quite literally) rebirth
Gendo is the ultimate manifestation of the central existential tenant of NGE, the ultimate Bad Ending of the path Shinji was on. "Wanting to be useful to others is admirable, but you must always have an internal sense of self-worth. Defining yourself entirely by your relationships to others will end in disaster." Gendo's entire sense of self was Yui. His entire world began and ended with her. When she was lost to him, he ENDED THE GODDAMN WORLD for a chance to be part of her again.
The point was explicitly NOT to end the world. He intended to hijack the intrumentality and use the precise moment when all souls hand in balance to get Rei/Lillith to pull his wife out of the Eva. That's why him and Seele came to a brutal conflict. They wanted to turn humanity into orange juice to escape their own mortality, while he just wanted his wife back, no matter the cost. Both parties were aware of the other's goals but didn't care as long as their interest aligned, for now. The big zinger being, Yui never wanted out, and Shinji turned everyone into orange juice anyway, because Gendo got him traumatized too hard, lmao.
The most disturbing part of Gendo is his love of his wife doesn’t draw him close to his son at all despite the fact that’s what’s a part of her left alive
Gendo Ikari always reminded me a lot of Joseph Stalin. Both grew up in poor and abusive environments, and their youths were marked by loneliness, petty crime, and a lack of close relationships. Both entered their respective organizations (RSDLP/Genrin) as low-class nobodies surrounded by high-class people and intellectuals who looked them dow and underestimated them. They both had a happy marriage with a woman who melted their hearts of stone (Kato/Yui) whose death left them devastated and made them more ruthless than ever. Through cunning and manipulation they rose to the top of their respective organizations (CPUS/NERV) and ended up as supreme and feared bosses. Both had a distant relationship with their sons (Yákov/Shinji) whom they abandoned at an early age, reuniting with them at the age of 14. Both tyrants were distant and cold with their children, as they reminded them of their happier past. Both Yakov and Shinji were permanently scarred in their minds by their father's cruelty and desperately tried to seek his approval. One of the most terrible things they suffered is that both young people ended up failing in all their love relationships due to their self-esteem and meekness as a result of their upbringing (Rei, Asuka/Zoya, Ketevan). They too were forced to fight in a war in which they ended up failing miserably (Yakov captured/Shinji running away) and both parents were as indifferent to the fate of their sons as they were to those of their unknown soldiers. Finally both young men end up broken by all their suffering and end up falling into utter despair, Yakov commits suicide in Sachsenhausen ashamed to learn of the Katyn massacre committed by his father and Shinji begins the Instrumentality as revenge against a cold world that made him suffer. In the end, Stalin and Gendo end up paying heavily for their crimes, they die alone and in terrible agony in their offices without any kind hand comforting them and accompanying them in their last moments on earth.
As someone who has a father similar to Gendo Ikari, I applaud Hideaki Anno for his depiction of the psychologically abusive effects of parental neglegence, and how it can lead to a child growing up with either little to no self-worth, an obsessive desire to prove themselves while incapable of ever feeling content with their accomplishments, or both. 12:23 is a defining example of my relationship with my father. Such parents might think they're teaching their child to be "tough enough" to handle themselves on their own, but to have a parent like that can lead to one being unable to understand why anyone regards them as having any importance to anyone or anything. It's ironically funny to me looking back when I first watched the series in my early adulthood, being initially annoyed by Shinji's behavior. Then once I recognized his relationship with his father, it made perfect sense why Shinji is the way he is. Gendo reminds me a lot of Tywin Lannister. Like Tywin, Gendo was at his happiest when he was with his late wife. He could've reclaimed his happiness after her death had he given his son the love and attention he required, but he failed to understand that loving his son and giving him the attention he needed would have been most benificial not only to himself, but to his wife's legacy. Maybe if both men took the time to understand and love their son, they could've better understood that the woman they lost and loved more than anything in the world had actually survived through the life of the child they together created.
It's so sad how many parents are just so terribly equipped to raise their childrens. In their eyes they think they're doing a favor by being so distant and detached, but in the end it only leads to social anxiety, severe trust issues, and an inability to connect with anyone. We are animals after all, it's SCARILY easy to condition us. If we're taught as children that relationships are sources of pain, we'll do anything in our power to flee from that pain, like any animal would. Even if it's obvious that not everyone is out to get you, and that most people are actually nice, you will still instinctively recoil away from intimacy, because that's what you've been conditioned to do. No one on this earth likes to feel pain, no one on this earth inflicts pain unto themselves on purpose. You can't just tell someone that deals with trauma like this to "simply accept that pain is a part of relationships". It's easier to stay alone than to risk getting hurt. I just hate how people think that loneliness is as easy to fix as "simply going outside". It's a multifaceted affliction that's deeply personal and difficult to unravel. There's a million pieces that have to fit together in perfect sync so that healing can occur. A lot of the time there's nothing you can really do as an individual unless a positive relationship just suddenly appears in your life. For those that don't get lucky, hope is difficult to cling to...
OMG! The Vile Eye covering Evangelion? What a treat! As for Gendou, the way I see him/remember him is a case of mourning process going terribly wrong. Instead of healing, accepting the loss and moving on he decides to basicly sacrafice all humanity in an unearthly ritual to reunite with his dead wife. His plan includes using people as tools, killing aliens, creating man-made-god and making his son's life as miserable as possible (among other things). Normally it would sound like complete insanity but in EVA world it's actually doable. What's realy insane is that Gendou believes it's all worth it.
Hearing all about Gendo's mentality and motivations reminds me of a quote from Ultra Magnus, in a Transformers comic book. Loosely paraphrased, "I'm glad you've found company, because you may be the loneliest individual I have ever met."
Eva has such psychologically complex characters, and the ambuiguity leaves so much to personal interpretation. Even though I know the lore like the back of my hand I always love to hear any analysis of the characters because everyone's is a bit different
Same here! Totally agree with you. I first watched it some 20 years ago, I was around 14. The story has been with me with through so many crucial points in my life that even my own perspective and thoughts on the characters changes year on year. This series doesn't seem to stop teaching me things and that's why it's my fav.
@@aSUGAaddiction Gonna add this one to my list. Anything with a robot larger than the observable universe deserves my attention. Also, I heard many good things about this anime, so it's a long time coming
"I would give any thing, or pay any price, if you could help save my people." - Arthas, back when he's just a hotheaded little prince and not a cynical warlord
Honestly a small headcanon of mine made Arthas my all time favorite character in WoW- what if instead of corrupting him, Frostmourne just calmly asked "Hey dude, wanna kill your dad and all your friends, sit on a cool chair and take a nap?" and Arthas was like "... lol, I'm in" and they became best friends and had the greatest adventure ever while ruining some lives along the way. As for his end in Lich King, I like to either A- not think about it, or B- make my own fake ending where everything is the same except Arthas's soul just flips the bird on his way out to go kill his dad again in heaven or wherever they went. I dunno, I just find the idea of his morals doing the biggest 180 ever being on a whim instead of through a "deal with the devil/magic sword" to be funny as fuck.
@@Eva-uw6uo It didn't go 180 on a whim. The flip happened slowly, as far as in Hearthglen. Frostmourne didn't start the flip, it was simply the final nail in the coffin. Meanwhile, my real gripe with Arthas is the fact that right after crowning himself the new Lich King he just fell asleep. Like, dude, taking a nap when a lot still needs to be done is not part of his character. Even as his morals degraded and he simply became a petty and cynical warlord, he only stops ripping and tearing when he's done. He didn't take a break on Quel'thalas. After Quel'thalas, he immediately decimated the Blackrock clan, then proceeded to Dalaran. I get that he's tired from nonstop fighting and he needs to adjust to his new powers too, but there's still a lot to be done. With Ner'zhul weakened back when the Frozen Throne only had a crack (Ner'zhul probably lost even more power when Arthas shattered the Frozen Throne), Arthas, while now significantly more powerful than back then, is far from invulnerable relative to his enemies. What should've happened is that he quickly amassed his Scourge to defeat any non-compliant undead on Northrend and Lordaeron, killing people like Kael, Sylvanas, Illidan and Varimathras along the way. Only when he finishes reconquering Northrend and Lordaeron should he finally sit on Icecrown and sleep.
@@jvbutalid8316 Oh I know, hence why it's my random little headcanon. I know full and well how Arthas got turned over to the Lich King. I just don't care, I genuinely just like the idea of him being like "I'll do anything for my people" and Frostmourne being like "Yeah but killing them all would be hilarious" and Arthas just being like "ok" and immediately after ADVENTURE. Plus I like that he falls asleep on the Frozen Throne- again, because I find it funny. How else are you gonna spend the afternoon once you've murdered your dad and your people and killed and resurrected an elf lady then got into 1v1 with Mister Glowyarms McYouAreNotPrepared? Like I know that interpretation isn't accurate to the lore, but that's why it's just a dumb headcanon I've held onto for a few years out of sheer amusement
Yui is on a similar level of evil as Gendo with the full context of her involvement in the series and how nearly every event can trace back to her in one way or another. The fact that she had full control of Unit 01 and purposely prevented Shinji from piloting it while Asuka was torn to shreds in EoE alone is bad enough. But knowing that she set the events of the series in motion, knowing the suffering and death that would come from it and doing it all willingly to esstionally make herself an immortal being really makes you reconsider just how good of a person she really is.
eh, i don't think we can assume she has full control of the eva unit. we see her activate in stressful situations, and prevent activation when she wanted shinji to pilot/back in the womb and not a "dummy plug" or rei. I see her as a starry eyed scientist who basically figured out she could become immortal so did. But she clearly became immortal in an imperfect vessel, no S2 engine till she ate zeruel's, 01 is a stitched together frankenstein with human cybernetics all up in it's whole nervous system and "failsafes" intended to shut it down at anytime. She might've been in basically deep sleep most of the time, or psychotic dream, how often she was really lucid and in control of her own body is quite up in the air. She bought an immortal body through suicide, but not one she seemed to have complete control over.
The concept of Evil Yui is an interesting one to explore. They are kind of demons or something, in fact one of the more thought provoking concepts I got from EoE is that Shinji/Unit 01 was a representation of the devil, the destroying angel of death, a false god of separation/entropy/pain etc. The concept of Yui being Evil is an interesting concept to explore but I think it is just a fan one, Anno clearly does not think so. The platinum booklet says that in a very real way the Hero and Heroine of the story are Gendo and Yui, I don't agree with everything that booklet states but I agree with that. I don't even think Gendo is Evil the consistent thing I get from Anno's portrayals of Gendo is 'Misunderstood Antihero'.
@@manhornhead2659 You know one thing i really wish we got was a short Evangelion OVA series. Probably about 4-6 episodes in total call it "Neon Genesis Evangelion before Impact". Essentially dive deeper into Gendo and Yui a bit more and further show more events the happened prior to the start of the series. How Gendo's relation with SEELE was at that time and how he was brought into the fold, Yui's death, Katsuragi Expedition before Second Impact, an NERV's foundation and early days.
@@silentecho92able I think Eva is one of those things where Evangelion Imaginary will be better then anything they can actually put down. Kind of like dark souls in a way, the stuff the best of the lore community comes up with is no doubt gonna be better then anything the devs come up with, an attempt will probably just kill it. 2011 me definitely would have agreed with seeing something like that but the last rebuilds kind of killed any interest I have in seeing anymore of Evangelion, Anno's Evangelion anyway.
@@manhornhead2659 Yeah i think the same thing too, one thing i think they could give us is maybe a Mari Illustrious short spin-off series essentially delving a bit more into her mysterious background and considering its stated she worked European branch of NERV. So seeing what a different branch is NERV and what they are doing would be interesting aside from seeing NERV Japan mostly. But again from what i see Anno wants a new generation of animators and storytellers to make their own interpretation of Evangelion. So most likely we might get a different Evangelion divorced and different from the original. I just hope they don't pull "Eureka Seven: AO" on us in terms of storytelling.
Beautiful work, as always. I've watched your entire channel multiple times, but this video spoke to me in a different way that I especially appreciated. The words at the end: "When you are alone with no hope, there's no telling where your mind will go, or what you'll do once it gets there." To me, the connection you so eloquently voiced is the entire point of understanding "villains" and "evil". If abuse and violence are to decrease, it has to be understood that these "villains" could be any one of us if the circumstances occured in just the way to trigger our behavior to change. I love how you use both empathy and cognitive understanding to underline the importance of both our choices and our environment, which then leads to the choices of those around us. It helps me feel hopeful that there isn't just some predestined big bad out there which cannot be eliminated, but rather a complex web of human interactions and projections that - working together - we can change.
Shinji is a reflection of Gendo. The "Forgive me Shinji" Gendo final scene pretty much sums it up. Love your children. Children are so helpless in the world without loving parents. Their minds are so fragile. It shows that without parental acceptance, children feel unloved and have no place on earth. No one shows them to live for themselves and accept themselves. Shinji doesn't live for himself, but who does he live for? None, not even him. No one ever showed him that it's good for him to be there. No one showed him that they were happy that he was born. That's why Gendo is obsessed with Yui because she was the only one who tried to meet him too.
Which is why Yui/Rei took Gendo's hand off, for what he did to her son. He was so obsessed with bringing her back (and creepily loving on a literal child made from her DNA) that he shunned his son, who reminded him of her. You'd think he'd be closer to Shinji as he clearly resembles Yui, but logic is not his strong suit, no matter how much he pretends to put logic over emotions.
I am kind of glad you put Shinji as the reflection of Gendo instead of vice versa. As I see Gendo as the real character to judge Anno on in Evangelion and that works for that. I think that is what the Shinji/Gendo dynamic is at best too, like Gendo looking back on the cowardly child who runs away he once was. Going into Meta territory Anno the director looking back on the cowardly otaku he once was. I do think Shinji is also a reflection/representation of otaku's, kind of a petulant and spiteful one too. That is at least part of the reason why we got EoE Shinji, a character who was defined and concluded really as a cowardly Rap**t who killed everybody because nobody understood him. Rebuild Shinji is pretty much just a thinly veiled, strawman representation of Evangelion Otakus specifically. Anno is not sympathetic to Shinji, it's Gendo who has Annos backing in Evangelion, and consistently too IMO. Even in EoE, like just going on that movie, the title of this video should be Analising Evil - Shinji Ikari (EoE). The thing I think Anno has always been going for with Gendo is the misunderstood anti hero deal.
@@WobblesandBean I see Rei as different then Yui, but I think the creepiest thing about the Rei/Gendo thing is that I think Anno kind of ships them together, in an unspoken and cowardly way. Like I think Rei Ayanami actually wanted to be be the new Yui Ikari for Gendo or some shit.
@@manhornhead2659 Keep in mind that Rei is a literal alien God that predates life on Earth. Don't let her appearances deceive you. She might be stuck ina shell crafted from, Yui Ikari's cells, but she's Lillith, even if amnesiac until the tail end of the story due to having her soul fractured.
You know what's even more terrifying? In the Manga, it is suggested that Gendo is somehow looping the timeline, retaining memories after every failure just to be even more ruthless each rebirth of the universe after third impact. The first redo was in the Manga, the second was the 90's series and the last was the rebuilds. There's more evidence in how every instance of rebirth, tokyo 3 and what the pilots go through is absolutely worse every time, from the angels to the subtle changes made. You could also see this by subtle changes in decisions Gendo makes after each redo. He can't do this again as Shinji erased all Eva's at the end of the series.
Human emotions are really overwhelming, you never know what a person feels or if they're being true so it's easier to not get involved with other people, but when someone takes you out of your loneliness and shows you how love can be happy and fulfilling you end up being depended of that person, which only worsens when they leave you because you wish you never let yourself open to love them in the first place. All the hesitance to love or be loved comes back as well as the need to feel loved by that person again
Gendo Ikari to me is cold, calculating, and a sad old man who cared little of others even to his own son. I still can't believe that some fans of the series like him even though he abandon his own son when he needed him the most. Hell! He would sacrifice the whole world and his own son to get his dead wife back. Yet he should have moved on with his life, instead he ended up destroying himself, the world and making Shinji suffer.
I get your point, but there is other point that should be added, that is the significance of emotions that one feels especially grief and loneliness which represent a mangle of doubt, worry, and sadness where one can never connect with others and that the past he had of love would never return as the present is without Yui. According to Merleau Ponty emotions express a change that we feel in our World, and a change we see in ourselves. As his grief and loneliness persisted that lead to a change in himself and with grief there being a tension of a life with and life without. His inability to accept this change leads to his behavior towards an emotional norm that is a life without yui arising out his emotion from and towards the change in his life being Yui who is no more. Grief drives anguish and literal reconciliation in gendo imo
I agree with you. In nearly all versions of like the video from the anime, manga, End of Evangelion, and the Rebuild series. I could never see him as a redeemable person he choose to do things he did purposefully. Especially to his own son, Shinji, he uses him and doesn't bother acknowledge his existence. Seele may have been this evil organization that wanted to bring about the end of humanity through the instrumentality, but his goal was different from them. He was more the devil or antagonist in this series than the Seele in the anime or Manga.
@@aaronsteel853 He's still the lesser evil. Seele wanted to turn all of humanity into orange juice as a means of escaping their own mortality, Gendo wanted to hijack the process to pull his wife's soul out of the eva. And contrary to popular belief, he does care about his kid a great deal. It's just that in his asinine, insecure circular logic, he believes that by trying to bond with him, he's only gonna get them both hurt. So he shuts him out completely instead, which guess what - hurts him. He might put on a stoic, logical and badass look, but underneath that facade, he's a traumatized little man scared of bonding with people after losing his wife.
Anno has been pretty consistent Gendo Fanboy from the start. This is why Shinji Ikari is kind of a doomed to suck, doomed to being held back and doomed to being screwed over character in Anno's evangelion. Really I think this is why Evangelion is different from say Raxhephon or something. But I think the difference largely comes from a misinterpretation about Eva/Anno, that I think it has been largely judged on the wrong character. It should have been Gendo all along IMO. The ironic thing about Gendo's portrayal in Evangelion though is that when I judge him as the real Misunderstood antihero/self insert of Anno instead of Shinji, He just seems like a gratuitous, hypocritical and kind of juvenile stand in for a director with an almost tropish hard on for stoic authority figures, also creepy pedo bait implied romances if i'm honest.
This is an incredible iteration of gendo, he is one of my favourite characters and this video 100% did him justice. I’m so glad someone finally made an in depth analysis of his character, because truly it is one of the best in the series!
A set of villains I recommend are those of the Dr. Who universe. The Daleks, The Master, the Cybermen, Davros the Time Lords, the 456, The Eleven, there’s so many fascinating monsters and villains to analyse in Dr. Who. I really hope you take a look at it one day
Neon Genesis has to be one of the greatest, multi-layered stories ever told. Thank you for covering Gendo, I would advise the consummate viewer to check out further analyses of the series with respect to alienation as presented in what I like to call the "questionable" trilogy, ie the final episodes of the original show.
I swear you could make an entire career out of just analyzing Evangelion. There are so many layers to it, so many different and unique angles to analyze it from, it's almost like the Bible in a crazy way. Like even if you don't care about the story there's so much to say about the craftsmanship and the creativity and animation and world-building and sound design and just EVERYTHING. It's the show that keeps on giving, 25+ years later and we're still talking about it.
Gendo is such a great deviation from normal anime villains. He is not some strong fighter or intergalactic threat (atleast in the original). But he manages to be one of the greatest anime villains just through his sheer cold heartedness and abuse. Also, since you did cover NGE, it would be a pleasure if you covered Vicious from Cowboy Bebop, another one of my favourites.
It's okay Vile, we know that frustration of working a problem out the hard way, just to find the answer for free on the next page. You get full credit for showing your work, A+.
I think Gendo has something in common with Professor Souichi Tomoe, a villain from Sailor Moon, especially they use their own children as a key to destroy all humanity.
According to rebuild all of the three Gendo's are the same guy in different states of the endless recurring cycle. Even the one who sold out to make pachinko machines. The Gendo that promoted razor blades. And the Gendo that fought Shin Godzilla.
@@megabyte01 Yeah there was a Shin Godzilla/Evangelion crossover. But the ride was shut down and there are no full videos of it. Apparently it introduced Shin Ghidorah and a red MechaGodzilla piloted by Asuka. Also Evangelion is considered a prequel to Shin Godzilla since the world that Shin Godzilla, Shin Ultraman, and Shin Kamen Rider are in is suggested to be Earth post Rebuild. And there are thing in Kamen Rider that suggest that SHOCKER either knows about instrumentality. Or that SEELE remnants are the ones backing SHOCKER.
Some antagonists I can't believe you haven't covered yet: -Professor James Moriarty, from the Sherlock Holmes series. A man nicknamed "the Napoleon of Crime" definitely deserves an in-depth look. -President Coriolanus Snow, from The Hunger Games. -Sheng, from Kung Fu Panda 2. Easily the most complex villain in the series, he can be silly, tragic, and terrifying. -Luca Blight, from Suikoden 2. No, I'm not going to shut up about him. -Handsome Jack, from Borderlands. -a "silly" villain, like Team Rocket from Pokemon, or Zedd and Rita Repulsa from Power Rangers. -Biff Tannen, from Back to the Future. Buttheads!! -Oroku Saki (The Shredder) from Ninja Turtles. Another one who can be goofy in one iteration and deadly serious in another. -and finally, Count Dracula himself
Honestly Zedd and Repulsa have some REALLY good moments, not just in the show but in the recent comics, so I'd definitely love to see them covered. Like yeah, they *are* silly, but we must remind ourselves of the time when Tommy (as the White Ranger) had a 1v1 with Zedd- no monsters or zords for either- and got fucking *bodied.*
I don't think Gendo was evil. Desperate and lonely, yes. Gendo was an ordinary man. He had no powers, no exceptional gifts. When his wife died (or was absorbed, same thing essentially in this context) his answer was to kill God, end the world, and reunite with her. And he F'n did it.
Yes! I was scrolling through the comments seeing if anyone recommended Bondrewd. He's such a fascinating character. He does such horrible things to the kids he experiments on and yet he is also so charismatic and polite. He remembers all the kids names, and their interests in the short time he spends with them. Also, whenever he's fighting the main trio, he constantly was complimenting their plans against him. I always love seeing new analysis on him.
Excellent Analysis, as always! You have really humanized Gendo without excusing or dismissing his evil actions. And well done for recognizing all his backstory without the context of the Rebuild films! Genod reminds me of another sympathetic villain who I must recommend you cover: another monster, who is taught to appreciate the world around him, until the love of his life is taken, so they embark on a crusade of wrath and loss, all while ignoring their son and toll it takes on the humanity their wife loved. I speak of course of Dracula, from the Netflix Castlevania series. With Castlevania Nocturne coming out in September, it would be an excellent time to cover this classic animated villian! Either way, I can't wait to see who you analysis next!
I like your video analysis on Gendoh Ikari from Neon Genesis Evangelion. This is my first time watching a video from your channel and hear your thoughts. From my perspective since watching the anime on Netflix and then reading the manga and watching the End of Evangelion. I have always seen Gendoh as the main villain in the story not the angels trying to attack or destroy Toyko-3 to get to Lilith or Adam downstairs or even Seele who were in fact responsible for the Second Impact that started this series of event leading to an eventually battle to decide the fate of mankind as a whole though they are evil men with a motive and grand design planners at time there involvement is rather limited that it can be said there a secondary evil in the series. I've always wondered what was driving him to such atrocious acts of cruelty and deceit from being a cold calculus man that showed little to no emotion or feelings as a person, to treating his only flesh and blood son like a total complete stranger and doesn't even acknowledge him or treat as someone special or of value but instead looks at him like an eyesore or the worst thing in his life a waste of existence, and finally manipulating both Dr. Ritsuko and her mother through either physical intimacy or sexual desire or whatever the case depending upon the version or perspective. The rebuilds changed him in the first two movies, but it's still doesn't change Gendoh towards being someone worthy of redemption at least in my take he doesn't deserve one never has the moment he left his son at the train station he lost the right to be a Father, a parent, and it burns me up that shinji never comes around to accepting he never needed Gendoh to be his parent, his father because he could never be that to him it's the reason he abandoned him. It's the reason, why I see Misato as his parent or Mom in the story or a mother figure despite her flaws and shortcomings. It's the one thing, I wanted from the series as a happy ending to it was Misato taking in Shinji as her own child. Anyway Gendoh's a character that chooses to be so tightly wound up in the past that he is driven to destroy, use, manipulate, and abuse anything and anyone to accomplish his goals like most villains do. I see not redemption for a man like him. As for the instrumentality question you asked. As a christian, I believe we should all live our own lives as individuals in this world. It's true we cause conflict, destruction, war, and death due to a number of reasons regarding own nature as flawed sinful being given temptation of thought, mind, and heart. But one of the teaching I heard as a kid in church school was that the holy trinity; God, his son, Jesus, and the holy ghost. The holy ghost is supposedly connected to us all as a whole that is also saying we are all connected. We all have feelings, emotions, thoughts, pain, heartache, dream, and wishes. Just like in Avatar: the last airbender the episode in the swamp or the forest. The old man gave an important lesson; "You think you're any different from me, or your friends? " We are share a connection we are human and we understand each if we are willing to listen, feel, and connect with each other. Seele's goals was nothing more than a desire to leave the physical world behind because of the nature of humanity as a whole was to be self destructive and instead of being a force of change of better the world they used cruel manipulative tactics to ensure their wished was fulfilled. Evil is what comes to mind for me.
Omgggg I’ve wanted a video on Gendo from you foreverrrrrer, he’s one of my absolute fav villains from a story that is/has been so deeply meaningful to me since I was Shinji’s age.
so are we just not going to talk about how he canonically SA'd rei and ritsuko? they're just as much victims as shinji is, if not more so. shinji was abandoned, yes, but rei and ritsuko had to suffer even more abuse the entire time. ritsuko blatantly says "why don't you have your way with my body, like you did that time?" in episode 24 i believe, an unambiguous reference to SA, and there are also photos of a middle school aged ritsuko standing next to an adult gendo, which is just gross. gendo is also regularly seen staring at rei's naked body and grabs her breast in EoE (neither of which he has any good reason to be doing). there are also drafts of episode 24 where ritsuko says that rei is gendo's "plaything", which further proves this point. so basically if we're going to talk about how evil gendo is, we should probably be talking about his other victims, don't you think?
Interestingly enough I never really saw the whole breast thing in EoE as explicitly sexual. It's apparently a very symbolic scene and it has to do with some Nietzche stuff about the breast being "the principal pleasure" and by achieving instrumentality, Gendo is returning to that "principal pleasure", an eternal unconscious bliss. So him touching rei's breast is a direct reference to that idea. However, I'm not saying your interpretation is wrong. But the scene really didn't give rapey vibes honestly. Rei's nakedness is more of a representation of her divine purity, but who knows it's honestly been forever since I watched EoE and it might be more explicit than I remember.
In the End of Evangelion, Instrumentality -- at least, Instrumentality as Shinji accepts it -- is presented as an escape from reality. A world of dreams, and a world of non-reality. A world without pain, but also without true happiness. My personal interpretation of Instrumentality has always been the total, logical end of Escapism, of rejecting reality and hiding from the pain that it comes with. Only by accepting the present reality, its pain along with it, can we begin to experience the joys that reality holds. That's how I've always interpreted it, anyway. Side note: Seeing this video on my timeline gave me such a dopamine rush, one of my favorite series getting an Analyzing Evil episode is a dream come true ^^
Gendo and so many others refused to accept reality because the loss they suffered is too great. Gendo really did cease to be human after his wife died his obsession with being her consumed him and he was no longer apart of the world i never watched evangelion but from watching this i understand that gendo is a man who cannot accept the reality of his situation and wants to achieve something that he knows can never happen. a world without fear without pain without suffering a fantastical Utopia where all negatives we have in life no longer exist.
There's a beautiful line in one of the final episodes of the original series, where Shinji goes all abstract and is pondering the nature of his own existence, and he says something along the lines of: "I only exist because of my environment. I can only define myself because of the way my environment interacts with me. If I had full control of reality, if everything was truly calm and neutral, I would not have an identiy" As someone with Autism, this line really stabs me in the guts. Reality can be so overwhelming, multiple times have I fantasized about the end of it all, about simply ceasing to exist so that the pain can finally stop. It's hard to remember that even our pain, the things we hate, the things we hold negative opinions about, even those things contribute to our sense of self. Even the things that you are against help to give you purpose. This is not to say that one should be happy about bad things, or that we shouldn't condemn evil or try to alleviate our suffering. It's simply to say that isolation is not a solution, you need to hold opinions about things, including negative ones, to have an identity.
You have to love the subtext of how Gendo's inability to let go of the past is also commentary of how the mecha genre was (and still is) unable to let go of its past as well.
Kind of a random call but I think you could make a mini-episode on Fuyutsuki as well. It could be an interesting concept to analyze a side "villain". It's a discret but also very well written character as well.
Ngl, after seeing Thrice upon a time ( 3.0 + 1.0 ) , i forgave him. That scene where he and Shinji realize that fighting isnt going to solve "their" problem and they decided to talk it out on that train cart and gendo admitting to his faults and not trying to deflect everything on shinji was just perfect. That scene is up there with my fav anime scenes of all time
Recommendation: Yoshii from Texhnolyze. Texhnolyze is criminally underrated and I feel like Yoshii is an underrepresented yet beautiful type of villain
The fans and culture surrounding it are insufferable but the series itself is great especially the reboot movies are some of the most mind bending stuff in anime and you can really see the influence on pop culture
@@gggallin8279 as someone who recently got into this rabbithole of evangelion, i must say the community isnt as bad/weird/annoying as i expected. They arent like other Anime communities but imo its a really pleasant community. Only weird ones are those that know all the names of the Angels...
Gendo was an introvert tasked with saving the planet from divine super beings. Yes he became cold and objective. No he didn't want to get close to people so his decisions could be 100% rational and non-emotional. He had the world on his shoulders. He did take it a bit too far we find out
Something that occurs to me is that since Gendo’s primary goal is to reunite with his wife, he must have attempted to synchronize with Unit 01 at some point. That attempt and the aftermath would be fascinating to see.
Just recently discovered this channel. Really enjoying how vast and diverse your character studies are. Would love to see your takes on certain characters down the road (Makima, Jinx, Dio Brando, Silco, Wilson Fisk, Killgrave, etc)
Gendo is one of the most evil characters out there. He low key means to destroy humanity (their individuality, but you're not "you" without it anyway) without even caring to ask anyone... ok, that's insane. Not to speak of the trauma his caused his son and the way he uses Rei as if she was a doll. Pretty insane, but great character.
To be fair to him it's not exactly *his* plan. It's the plan of the cabal he's working for. The evil part is not only is their plan evil, but then Gendo is manipulating their plan into more selfish end.
I disagree that he's one of the most evil characters ever I see him as an anti villain he just wants to reunite with his wife and he is technically saving mankind from an even worse fate that SEELE wants to bring about
for how fucked up SEELE is, at least their goal was truly selfless, they did want to use instrumentality to cleanse all the suffering, pain and doubts from mankind Even being the villains, they are still miles better than Gendo that want the instrumentality sorely to bring his wife back, even if it means the end of the world Fucking selfish
My friends meme about this series a lot, and they’ve all seen it and know it well, but I never have. I know the broad strokes through listening to their banter. Generally when this series comes up, I laugh or roll my eyes. When I heard you say “if you’ve ever lost something, you know Gendo Ikari” I thought, I’ve gotta watch this properly. Thanks for doing this one, Vile. And well done on puzzling out Gendo’s motives so accurately without having seen all the material first. That little edit near the end was both funny and impressive.
I feel you on the little adendum, I was also proud of realizing all this before the rebuilts. But hey, better be sure than wrong heh? you can still cry.
This is the second Jappanese cartoon that Vile defends the villain (likewise Light Yagami) by saying, "They were no longer themselves", little does he know that they were those monsters all along.
I want to see a video analyzing Bondrewd from Made in abyss. He is so vile but at same time he never outright shows anger or disgust when fighting or when he’s experimenting of children
Consider that Gendo never had an ending with Yui. She died but she didn't as well since she was completely absorbed by the EVA. She's dead but there's no body to bury
I feel that gendo's character is a prime example of what unhealed cognitive emotions look like and how those unhealed emotions can lead you to make horrible acts and have consequences that traumatically effects other people, the lesson i got from Evangelion especially the stuff that shinji experienced , was start healing , we're all hurt in many ways and thats okay, however it doesn't justify any actions that could lead others into traumatic events.
In EoE, Gendo does terrible things, but he justifies it to himself because he seeks affirmation from Yui, the only one he thinks can love him. And so too does Shinji do a terrible thing, hoping to get affirmation from Asuka, the only one he thinks he can interact with. when Asuka says he's pathetic in this moment, she's correct. BUT. The latter half of the movie, in tandem with episodes 25 and 26, are about Shinji digesting this information and coming to the conclusion that despite interactions with others being painful and uncomfortable sometimes, the happiness from them is real and worth it. That's something his pathetic father never did, and it's why Shinji comes back, and Gendo cannot.
I've heard a really interesting interpretation of Gendo"s "death" in End of Evangelion. While everyone else is dissolved into Instrumentality through a welcoming figure of comfort or desire, Gendo's end was violent, suggesting that his greatest desire was to be punished for all the wrongs he'd done knowingly.
Similar to how Ritsuko was killed, it’s my theory that Gendo was her path to instrumentality
Gendo was the sole human denied Rebirth by his soul being destroyed due to how he abused Shinji, who (for a time) was the god who controlled instrumentality.
It's also not clear exactly how it happened. Eva-01 was in high orbit at the time, whatever bit him in half, was some kind of spectral copy.
They were halfway into Instrumentality at the time. The big biting eva is just a ghost image of Shinji's rage IMO.@@dheck1138
He was killed instead of being a subject of the Instrumentality Project. That was his ironic punishment since he orchestrated the whole thing to get back with his wife.
I always wondered... if Gendo actually loved Yui, but rather the image of Yui he had built in his mind, and how she made him feel.
well consider, if he had succeeded how would she have reacted to him after she learned what he had done while she was dead, how he'd treated their boy yada yada? And what would he have done with her reaction?
maybe he would accept her rejection and recrimination, and in this case instrumentality has been subverted in some fashion to instead revive yui, so gendo can live at peace considering himself the hero that saved humanity by resurrecting his wife and who now lives in penance but contentment that she is alive. essentially reclaiming the comfort of solitude.
or he rejects her rejection with the same force and drive which he rejected her death, becoming a monster, well more of one. a terrible monster rather than a pathetic one.
either way, well if he loved her doesn't matter at all because that guy died with her, now there is only the shadow of the man, and a shadow can't feel love.
Nah he definitely loved Yui, which is what we see when he's around her. He has a smile and spoke to her differently, compared with how he spoke with others.
The anime makes these gestures to tell us he did love her and when she died it was world shattering enough for him to change his direction.
I think this view of him is why the Rebuild offered him a redemption and a chance to convey sorrow for how he treated his son.
I mean it's pretty much explicitly shown that when unit 01 literally eats Gendo during instrumentality so that his soul wouldn't be able to rejoin with the rest of humanity.
@@ishill85 Reading this comment I’m getting a weird sense of deja vu.
It's interesting how Gendo is able to give off such a powerful and intimidating aura, but the more you learn about him the more it becomes clear how pathetic he is. We don't know much about his past, but it's hinted that he was a troubled youth who never tried to better himself. Yui was able to help him become more stable and less self-destructive. He was so reliant on her that once she was gone he reverted back and wasn't man enough to take care of his son. He also has a frail and weak body.
He's really just a weak man with a weak heart.
I found that to be true about lots of real life people I used to find intimidating too. Some people who give off confident aura can just be brash and unburdened by self-reflection.
Well spoken
@PedroOrtega1993can i get an amen up in here?
*_"Hard Times create Good Men. Good Men create Good Times, Good Times create Weak Men. Weak Men create Hard Times."_*
Gendo is one of those Weak Men creating Hard Times.
@PedroOrtega1993 that's just how life is, people get partners that are less/more deserving, it is what it is. and even they know it, they still love each other.
Shinji: You ruined my life!
Gendo: How could I ruin your life? I wasn’t even a part of it.
I remember that meme. Garmedon named Lloyd but had the audacity to ditch him after that?
no way he said that? lol
@@miguelrosas1992 no that’s from the ninjago movie
"The day I abandoned you was the most important day of your life; for me it was Tuesday" Gendo
Lol.
A character with Hedgehog Complex. And a "Hero" with the same characteristic as the villain.
I remember during the end of Evangelion when Kaworu Rei and Yui called him out and I was like “man he really is like Shinji”
I read an interesting comment someone made on another website. In Japanese culture - If a man comes from a family with a bad reputation and marries a woman, he will take her last name instead of the other way around.
This would explain why he chose to change his last name to Ikari when he married Yui, and it also sheds some light on his background in a very subtle way.
My guess is that he was probably made an outcast from a young age because of his family's reputation, and it instilled a deep shame within him that festered as he grew older.
I used to cosplay Gendo on occasion at some cons, and the reactions I had with some other con goers were always fun. Had a "World's Best Dad" mug as a little extra flavor.
Did one of the people that approached insulted you? (Also that "best dad" mug caught me off guard xD)
I saw a familiar cosplay that you described on pinterest.
@@vulgardisplayofpink5668 I don't have a personal Pinterest, but it's possible someone had the same idea, or posted my picture on it; which I consent to of course. I got a lot of picture requests.
Get you a girl like Gendo Ikari. A girl that would sacrifice all present, past and future humanity to grab your soul from the void and bring you back so you can live together.
Uhhh, no thanks? If she's gonna abandon our kid, I dont want her
All so he could say goodbye.
A girl that would fuck your coworker and the coworker's kid soon as you're dead?
"All past present and future humanity" um, that includes me, so pass 😅
@@spudsbuchlaw Right, that sounds toxic af, like yandere vibes
There's an interesting parallel betweeen SEELE's plan and Gendo's. SEELE wanted to merge all of humanity together because they believed that the weaknesses inherent in every human soul would be erased by the strengths in all the others, eliminating suffering, misunderstanding and loneliness. But in a way, Gendo had already achieved this himself in his marriage to Yui. He loved her so completely because her strengths made up for his weaknesses. So when he lost her, he not only lost the person he loved more than anything, he lost what made him a better person.
All these yers later, and the villains' plans still make no sense to me.
@@louisduarte8763 That's in part because they aren't supposed to. SEELE and Instrumentality are intended to be vague because in truth their actual purpose to the plot is irrelevant to the journey the characters take. The purpose of Evangelion is to show us the lives of Shinji, Rei, and Asuka and how placing these children in such disastrous situations has had grave effects on their already damaged minds. Shinji at large is supposed to be a reflection of the viewer, someone who fears abandonment and the inability to merge with others, Asuka shows us how arrogance and narcissism is born from neglect and a lack of love, while Rei shows us that feeling that one is replaceable and only a means to an end will lead to self-loathing and a dismissive nature.
SEELE's plans, to merge every mind into one, thus erasing insecurity, is ultimately only a bridge to these character's introspection and Shinji's eventual realization that his self-perception is determined by others, and that he loathes himself for he believes others loathe him.
@@louisduarte8763Basically they wanted to transform every living being into a hive mind of fanta, because as fanta we dont suffer
Weird, yeah, but it makes sense in a way
@@louisduarte8763 It makes about as much sense as what Christians actually believe; that humanity's only salvation is to become ascended beings in the afterlife.
Honestly gendos arc in the rebuild let alone the end of thrice upon a time was the biggest curve ball. You did absolutely amazing
The rebuild sucks, the original run was a masterpiece. I couldn't even be bothered with the fourth rebuild film with how they retconned everything
@@vovin8132 Yeah when you see Gendo flying around shooting lasers out of his eyes in that 4th movie it really makes your eyes roll. It’s so ridiculous and misses the mark on the character.
@@vovin8132 They didn't retcon anything.
Rebuilds are a sequel series. Adam/Kaworu was resetting the Earth back to the second impact and messing with variables until he created a scenario where Shinji can be happy. And apparently, he did that a LOT, because some people seem to be aware of it, since the plate commemorating AA Wunder's launch dates to sometime in 11000's.
@@vovin8132it’s literally a different continuity 💀
The rebuilds turned Gendo into a mustache-twirling villain and even took away his humanity, and therefore his agency. And then Shinji beats him with the power of friendship after a pep talk from Mari Sue. It’s awful
the thing with gendo and grief is that.. well.. for him yuui didn't just die, she changed existence. that's why you can see him not really mourning for his loss much. he simply knew he just had to go on with his research on the eva and the rituals found in the scriptures.. and so he did. and when he found out that the eva 01 was actively protecting shinji... he just used hatred as a trigger to make him the bringer of distruction and unified (quite literally) rebirth
Gendo is the ultimate manifestation of the central existential tenant of NGE, the ultimate Bad Ending of the path Shinji was on.
"Wanting to be useful to others is admirable, but you must always have an internal sense of self-worth. Defining yourself entirely by your relationships to others will end in disaster."
Gendo's entire sense of self was Yui. His entire world began and ended with her. When she was lost to him, he ENDED THE GODDAMN WORLD for a chance to be part of her again.
The point was explicitly NOT to end the world.
He intended to hijack the intrumentality and use the precise moment when all souls hand in balance to get Rei/Lillith to pull his wife out of the Eva. That's why him and Seele came to a brutal conflict. They wanted to turn humanity into orange juice to escape their own mortality, while he just wanted his wife back, no matter the cost. Both parties were aware of the other's goals but didn't care as long as their interest aligned, for now.
The big zinger being, Yui never wanted out, and Shinji turned everyone into orange juice anyway, because Gendo got him traumatized too hard, lmao.
Yui really was the antagonist of NGE
Gendo is the perfect depiction of a crazy villain. Hes not insane, hes fully in control of his actions, but he is crazy
The most disturbing part of Gendo is his love of his wife doesn’t draw him close to his son at all despite the fact that’s what’s a part of her left alive
Gendo Ikari always reminded me a lot of Joseph Stalin. Both grew up in poor and abusive environments, and their youths were marked by loneliness, petty crime, and a lack of close relationships. Both entered their respective organizations (RSDLP/Genrin) as low-class nobodies surrounded by high-class people and intellectuals who looked them dow and underestimated them.
They both had a happy marriage with a woman who melted their hearts of stone (Kato/Yui) whose death left them devastated and made them more ruthless than ever.
Through cunning and manipulation they rose to the top of their respective organizations (CPUS/NERV) and ended up as supreme and feared bosses.
Both had a distant relationship with their sons (Yákov/Shinji) whom they abandoned at an early age, reuniting with them at the age of 14.
Both tyrants were distant and cold with their children, as they reminded them of their happier past.
Both Yakov and Shinji were permanently scarred in their minds by their father's cruelty and desperately tried to seek his approval. One of the most terrible things they suffered is that both young people ended up failing in all their love relationships due to their self-esteem and meekness as a result of their upbringing (Rei, Asuka/Zoya, Ketevan).
They too were forced to fight in a war in which they ended up failing miserably (Yakov captured/Shinji running away) and both parents were as indifferent to the fate of their sons as they were to those of their unknown soldiers.
Finally both young men end up broken by all their suffering and end up falling into utter despair, Yakov commits suicide in Sachsenhausen ashamed to learn of the Katyn massacre committed by his father and Shinji begins the Instrumentality as revenge against a cold world that made him suffer.
In the end, Stalin and Gendo end up paying heavily for their crimes, they die alone and in terrible agony in their offices without any kind hand comforting them and accompanying them in their last moments on earth.
That’s an excellent observation
Shinji, get in the t-34
As someone who has a father similar to Gendo Ikari, I applaud Hideaki Anno for his depiction of the psychologically abusive effects of parental neglegence, and how it can lead to a child growing up with either little to no self-worth, an obsessive desire to prove themselves while incapable of ever feeling content with their accomplishments, or both.
12:23 is a defining example of my relationship with my father. Such parents might think they're teaching their child to be "tough enough" to handle themselves on their own, but to have a parent like that can lead to one being unable to understand why anyone regards them as having any importance to anyone or anything. It's ironically funny to me looking back when I first watched the series in my early adulthood, being initially annoyed by Shinji's behavior. Then once I recognized his relationship with his father, it made perfect sense why Shinji is the way he is.
Gendo reminds me a lot of Tywin Lannister. Like Tywin, Gendo was at his happiest when he was with his late wife. He could've reclaimed his happiness after her death had he given his son the love and attention he required, but he failed to understand that loving his son and giving him the attention he needed would have been most benificial not only to himself, but to his wife's legacy. Maybe if both men took the time to understand and love their son, they could've better understood that the woman they lost and loved more than anything in the world had actually survived through the life of the child they together created.
It's so sad how many parents are just so terribly equipped to raise their childrens. In their eyes they think they're doing a favor by being so distant and detached, but in the end it only leads to social anxiety, severe trust issues, and an inability to connect with anyone. We are animals after all, it's SCARILY easy to condition us. If we're taught as children that relationships are sources of pain, we'll do anything in our power to flee from that pain, like any animal would. Even if it's obvious that not everyone is out to get you, and that most people are actually nice, you will still instinctively recoil away from intimacy, because that's what you've been conditioned to do.
No one on this earth likes to feel pain, no one on this earth inflicts pain unto themselves on purpose. You can't just tell someone that deals with trauma like this to "simply accept that pain is a part of relationships". It's easier to stay alone than to risk getting hurt. I just hate how people think that loneliness is as easy to fix as "simply going outside". It's a multifaceted affliction that's deeply personal and difficult to unravel. There's a million pieces that have to fit together in perfect sync so that healing can occur. A lot of the time there's nothing you can really do as an individual unless a positive relationship just suddenly appears in your life. For those that don't get lucky, hope is difficult to cling to...
This man actually put the hospital scene cuts in it 😂😂😂
He didn't show the coom.
@@ferreira991Though he did show the wardrobe malfunction...
The worst thing Gendo has ever done, was making Shinji get in the GODDAMN EVA
Really? _That's_ the worst thing?
Abridged gendo: shinji if you get in the robot I’ll love you
Abridged shinji: father you never loved me!
A!gendo: hehehehehehe
If he didn't, humanity would have ended with the 3rd Angel.
Wrong
Actually the worst would be him making Shinji fight and nearly killing his friend.
OMG! The Vile Eye covering Evangelion? What a treat!
As for Gendou, the way I see him/remember him is a case of mourning process going terribly wrong. Instead of healing, accepting the loss and moving on he decides to basicly sacrafice all humanity in an unearthly ritual to reunite with his dead wife. His plan includes using people as tools, killing aliens, creating man-made-god and making his son's life as miserable as possible (among other things). Normally it would sound like complete insanity but in EVA world it's actually doable. What's realy insane is that Gendou believes it's all worth it.
In a sense he is a Vader clone.
Hearing all about Gendo's mentality and motivations reminds me of a quote from Ultra Magnus, in a Transformers comic book. Loosely paraphrased, "I'm glad you've found company, because you may be the loneliest individual I have ever met."
Eva has such psychologically complex characters, and the ambuiguity leaves so much to personal interpretation. Even though I know the lore like the back of my hand I always love to hear any analysis of the characters because everyone's is a bit different
idk i'm just here for the german p***y
Same here! Totally agree with you.
I first watched it some 20 years ago, I was around 14. The story has been with me with through so many crucial points in my life that even my own perspective and thoughts on the characters changes year on year. This series doesn't seem to stop teaching me things and that's why it's my fav.
As someone who only watched the original anime and nothing more I really appreciate the deconstruction before it was explained
The tantrum was adorable and I acknowledge your hard work! Could you do the Spiral King and Ant-Spiral from Gurren Lagann?
Ant-Spiral :D
PLEASE THIS WOULD BE SICK!!!!
Is that the one where there's a robot larger than the observable universe?
@bigguy8435 yes. There are 2 backstory movies on both villains that really flesh them out. They are not east to find and were never dubbed.
@@aSUGAaddiction Gonna add this one to my list. Anything with a robot larger than the observable universe deserves my attention. Also, I heard many good things about this anime, so it's a long time coming
"I would give any thing, or pay any price, if you could help save my people."
- Arthas, back when he's just a hotheaded little prince and not a cynical warlord
Honestly a small headcanon of mine made Arthas my all time favorite character in WoW- what if instead of corrupting him, Frostmourne just calmly asked "Hey dude, wanna kill your dad and all your friends, sit on a cool chair and take a nap?" and Arthas was like "... lol, I'm in" and they became best friends and had the greatest adventure ever while ruining some lives along the way.
As for his end in Lich King, I like to either A- not think about it, or B- make my own fake ending where everything is the same except Arthas's soul just flips the bird on his way out to go kill his dad again in heaven or wherever they went.
I dunno, I just find the idea of his morals doing the biggest 180 ever being on a whim instead of through a "deal with the devil/magic sword" to be funny as fuck.
@@Eva-uw6uo It didn't go 180 on a whim. The flip happened slowly, as far as in Hearthglen. Frostmourne didn't start the flip, it was simply the final nail in the coffin.
Meanwhile, my real gripe with Arthas is the fact that right after crowning himself the new Lich King he just fell asleep. Like, dude, taking a nap when a lot still needs to be done is not part of his character. Even as his morals degraded and he simply became a petty and cynical warlord, he only stops ripping and tearing when he's done. He didn't take a break on Quel'thalas. After Quel'thalas, he immediately decimated the Blackrock clan, then proceeded to Dalaran. I get that he's tired from nonstop fighting and he needs to adjust to his new powers too, but there's still a lot to be done. With Ner'zhul weakened back when the Frozen Throne only had a crack (Ner'zhul probably lost even more power when Arthas shattered the Frozen Throne), Arthas, while now significantly more powerful than back then, is far from invulnerable relative to his enemies. What should've happened is that he quickly amassed his Scourge to defeat any non-compliant undead on Northrend and Lordaeron, killing people like Kael, Sylvanas, Illidan and Varimathras along the way. Only when he finishes reconquering Northrend and Lordaeron should he finally sit on Icecrown and sleep.
@@jvbutalid8316 Oh I know, hence why it's my random little headcanon. I know full and well how Arthas got turned over to the Lich King. I just don't care, I genuinely just like the idea of him being like "I'll do anything for my people" and Frostmourne being like "Yeah but killing them all would be hilarious" and Arthas just being like "ok" and immediately after ADVENTURE. Plus I like that he falls asleep on the Frozen Throne- again, because I find it funny. How else are you gonna spend the afternoon once you've murdered your dad and your people and killed and resurrected an elf lady then got into 1v1 with Mister Glowyarms McYouAreNotPrepared? Like I know that interpretation isn't accurate to the lore, but that's why it's just a dumb headcanon I've held onto for a few years out of sheer amusement
Gendo is who Shinji would have become had he not experienced the growth he did in the Rebuilds, got together with Asuka, and then lost her.
Shinji is truly Gendo's son. And Gendo is truly Shinji's father. Two sides of the same coin. Different, yet same.
Consistent top 5 competitor at the Worst Fictional Fathers competition
Yui is on a similar level of evil as Gendo with the full context of her involvement in the series and how nearly every event can trace back to her in one way or another. The fact that she had full control of Unit 01 and purposely prevented Shinji from piloting it while Asuka was torn to shreds in EoE alone is bad enough. But knowing that she set the events of the series in motion, knowing the suffering and death that would come from it and doing it all willingly to esstionally make herself an immortal being really makes you reconsider just how good of a person she really is.
eh, i don't think we can assume she has full control of the eva unit. we see her activate in stressful situations, and prevent activation when she wanted shinji to pilot/back in the womb and not a "dummy plug" or rei. I see her as a starry eyed scientist who basically figured out she could become immortal so did. But she clearly became immortal in an imperfect vessel, no S2 engine till she ate zeruel's, 01 is a stitched together frankenstein with human cybernetics all up in it's whole nervous system and "failsafes" intended to shut it down at anytime. She might've been in basically deep sleep most of the time, or psychotic dream, how often she was really lucid and in control of her own body is quite up in the air. She bought an immortal body through suicide, but not one she seemed to have complete control over.
The concept of Evil Yui is an interesting one to explore. They are kind of demons or something, in fact one of the more thought provoking concepts I got from EoE is that Shinji/Unit 01 was a representation of the devil, the destroying angel of death, a false god of separation/entropy/pain etc.
The concept of Yui being Evil is an interesting concept to explore but I think it is just a fan one, Anno clearly does not think so. The platinum booklet says that in a very real way the Hero and Heroine of the story are Gendo and Yui, I don't agree with everything that booklet states but I agree with that.
I don't even think Gendo is Evil the consistent thing I get from Anno's portrayals of Gendo is 'Misunderstood Antihero'.
@@manhornhead2659 You know one thing i really wish we got was a short Evangelion OVA series. Probably about 4-6 episodes in total call it "Neon Genesis Evangelion before Impact". Essentially dive deeper into Gendo and Yui a bit more and further show more events the happened prior to the start of the series. How Gendo's relation with SEELE was at that time and how he was brought into the fold, Yui's death, Katsuragi Expedition before Second Impact, an NERV's foundation and early days.
@@silentecho92able I think Eva is one of those things where Evangelion Imaginary will be better then anything they can actually put down. Kind of like dark souls in a way, the stuff the best of the lore community comes up with is no doubt gonna be better then anything the devs come up with, an attempt will probably just kill it.
2011 me definitely would have agreed with seeing something like that but the last rebuilds kind of killed any interest I have in seeing anymore of Evangelion, Anno's Evangelion anyway.
@@manhornhead2659 Yeah i think the same thing too, one thing i think they could give us is maybe a Mari Illustrious short spin-off series essentially delving a bit more into her mysterious background and considering its stated she worked European branch of NERV. So seeing what a different branch is NERV and what they are doing would be interesting aside from seeing NERV Japan mostly.
But again from what i see Anno wants a new generation of animators and storytellers to make their own interpretation of Evangelion. So most likely we might get a different Evangelion divorced and different from the original. I just hope they don't pull "Eureka Seven: AO" on us in terms of storytelling.
"Grief can make you a monster."
- The Monument Mythos
Beautiful work, as always. I've watched your entire channel multiple times, but this video spoke to me in a different way that I especially appreciated.
The words at the end:
"When you are alone with no hope, there's no telling where your mind will go, or what you'll do once it gets there."
To me, the connection you so eloquently voiced is the entire point of understanding "villains" and "evil". If abuse and violence are to decrease, it has to be understood that these "villains" could be any one of us if the circumstances occured in just the way to trigger our behavior to change. I love how you use both empathy and cognitive understanding to underline the importance of both our choices and our environment, which then leads to the choices of those around us. It helps me feel hopeful that there isn't just some predestined big bad out there which cannot be eliminated, but rather a complex web of human interactions and projections that - working together - we can change.
Shinji is a reflection of Gendo. The "Forgive me Shinji" Gendo final scene pretty much sums it up.
Love your children. Children are so helpless in the world without loving parents. Their minds are so fragile.
It shows that without parental acceptance, children feel unloved and have no place on earth.
No one shows them to live for themselves and accept themselves.
Shinji doesn't live for himself, but who does he live for? None, not even him. No one ever showed him that it's good for him to be there. No one showed him that they were happy that he was born.
That's why Gendo is obsessed with Yui because she was the only one who tried to meet him too.
Which is why Yui/Rei took Gendo's hand off, for what he did to her son. He was so obsessed with bringing her back (and creepily loving on a literal child made from her DNA) that he shunned his son, who reminded him of her. You'd think he'd be closer to Shinji as he clearly resembles Yui, but logic is not his strong suit, no matter how much he pretends to put logic over emotions.
so Gendo is what grief does to a mf
I am kind of glad you put Shinji as the reflection of Gendo instead of vice versa. As I see Gendo as the real character to judge Anno on in Evangelion and that works for that.
I think that is what the Shinji/Gendo dynamic is at best too, like Gendo looking back on the cowardly child who runs away he once was. Going into Meta territory Anno the director looking back on the cowardly otaku he once was.
I do think Shinji is also a reflection/representation of otaku's, kind of a petulant and spiteful one too. That is at least part of the reason why we got EoE Shinji, a character who was defined and concluded really as a cowardly Rap**t who killed everybody because nobody understood him.
Rebuild Shinji is pretty much just a thinly veiled, strawman representation of Evangelion Otakus specifically.
Anno is not sympathetic to Shinji, it's Gendo who has Annos backing in Evangelion, and consistently too IMO.
Even in EoE, like just going on that movie, the title of this video should be Analising Evil - Shinji Ikari (EoE).
The thing I think Anno has always been going for with Gendo is the misunderstood anti hero deal.
@@WobblesandBean I see Rei as different then Yui, but I think the creepiest thing about the Rei/Gendo thing is that I think Anno kind of ships them together, in an unspoken and cowardly way.
Like I think Rei Ayanami actually wanted to be be the new Yui Ikari for Gendo or some shit.
@@manhornhead2659 Keep in mind that Rei is a literal alien God that predates life on Earth. Don't let her appearances deceive you. She might be stuck ina shell crafted from, Yui Ikari's cells, but she's Lillith, even if amnesiac until the tail end of the story due to having her soul fractured.
The true villian of Evangelion is Pen-Pen
You know what's even more terrifying? In the Manga, it is suggested that Gendo is somehow looping the timeline, retaining memories after every failure just to be even more ruthless each rebirth of the universe after third impact.
The first redo was in the Manga, the second was the 90's series and the last was the rebuilds. There's more evidence in how every instance of rebirth, tokyo 3 and what the pilots go through is absolutely worse every time, from the angels to the subtle changes made.
You could also see this by subtle changes in decisions Gendo makes after each redo. He can't do this again as Shinji erased all Eva's at the end of the series.
Gendo is the spikiest of hedgehogs. No wonder Shinji had such difficulty connecting to other people.
Thanks for another excellent video, Vile.
I see what you did there :)
Lavos incarnate
Human emotions are really overwhelming, you never know what a person feels or if they're being true so it's easier to not get involved with other people, but when someone takes you out of your loneliness and shows you how love can be happy and fulfilling you end up being depended of that person, which only worsens when they leave you because you wish you never let yourself open to love them in the first place. All the hesitance to love or be loved comes back as well as the need to feel loved by that person again
Gendo is such a great/horrible deconstruction of the typicsl father on this type of anime.
"Analysis". Deconstruction means nothing. It's a propaganda word to hide the word "destruction"-
What do the "typical" ones act like?
@ben_sisko2149 Not sure what that means. Is this about Jaques Derrida or something?
@@matthewjonas8952lmao right? What a weird, bullshit nitpick...
@@ben_sisko2149wait till you learn how language evolves
Gendo Ikari to me is cold, calculating, and a sad old man who cared little of others even to his own son. I still can't believe that some fans of the series like him even though he abandon his own son when he needed him the most. Hell! He would sacrifice the whole world and his own son to get his dead wife back. Yet he should have moved on with his life, instead he ended up destroying himself, the world and making Shinji suffer.
But in the manga they basically give him a lot of time with Shinji and have him almost save humanity from the project
I get your point, but there is other point that should be added, that is the significance of emotions that one feels especially grief and loneliness which represent a mangle of doubt, worry, and sadness where one can never connect with others and that the past he had of love would never return as the present is without Yui. According to Merleau Ponty emotions express a change that we feel in our World, and a change we see in ourselves. As his grief and loneliness persisted that lead to a change in himself and with grief there being a tension of a life with and life without. His inability to accept this change leads to his behavior towards an emotional norm that is a life without yui arising out his emotion from and towards the change in his life being Yui who is no more. Grief drives anguish and literal reconciliation in gendo imo
I agree with you. In nearly all versions of like the video from the anime, manga, End of Evangelion, and the Rebuild series. I could never see him as a redeemable person he choose to do things he did purposefully. Especially to his own son, Shinji, he uses him and doesn't bother acknowledge his existence. Seele may have been this evil organization that wanted to bring about the end of humanity through the instrumentality, but his goal was different from them. He was more the devil or antagonist in this series than the Seele in the anime or Manga.
@@aaronsteel853 He's still the lesser evil. Seele wanted to turn all of humanity into orange juice as a means of escaping their own mortality, Gendo wanted to hijack the process to pull his wife's soul out of the eva. And contrary to popular belief, he does care about his kid a great deal. It's just that in his asinine, insecure circular logic, he believes that by trying to bond with him, he's only gonna get them both hurt. So he shuts him out completely instead, which guess what - hurts him.
He might put on a stoic, logical and badass look, but underneath that facade, he's a traumatized little man scared of bonding with people after losing his wife.
Anno has been pretty consistent Gendo Fanboy from the start.
This is why Shinji Ikari is kind of a doomed to suck, doomed to being held back and doomed to being screwed over character in Anno's evangelion.
Really I think this is why Evangelion is different from say Raxhephon or something.
But I think the difference largely comes from a misinterpretation about Eva/Anno, that I think it has been largely judged on the wrong character.
It should have been Gendo all along IMO.
The ironic thing about Gendo's portrayal in Evangelion though is that when I judge him as the real Misunderstood antihero/self insert of Anno instead of Shinji, He just seems like a gratuitous, hypocritical and kind of juvenile stand in for a director with an almost tropish hard on for stoic authority figures, also creepy pedo bait implied romances if i'm honest.
This is an incredible iteration of gendo, he is one of my favourite characters and this video 100% did him justice. I’m so glad someone finally made an in depth analysis of his character, because truly it is one of the best in the series!
A set of villains I recommend are those of the Dr. Who universe. The Daleks, The Master, the Cybermen, Davros the Time Lords, the 456, The Eleven, there’s so many fascinating monsters and villains to analyse in Dr. Who. I really hope you take a look at it one day
I would add The Great Intelligence to that list.
Neon Genesis has to be one of the greatest, multi-layered stories ever told.
Thank you for covering Gendo, I would advise the consummate viewer to check out further analyses of the series with respect to alienation as presented in what I like to call the "questionable" trilogy, ie the final episodes of the original show.
I swear you could make an entire career out of just analyzing Evangelion. There are so many layers to it, so many different and unique angles to analyze it from, it's almost like the Bible in a crazy way. Like even if you don't care about the story there's so much to say about the craftsmanship and the creativity and animation and world-building and sound design and just EVERYTHING. It's the show that keeps on giving, 25+ years later and we're still talking about it.
To be truly human is to reject instrumentality.
Child Abuse in everybody's robot anime, i like this topic. everyone over looks this part.
"expose himself"
*cuts to a shot of asuka with a ripped up suit*
Gendo is such a great deviation from normal anime villains. He is not some strong fighter or intergalactic threat (atleast in the original). But he manages to be one of the greatest anime villains just through his sheer cold heartedness and abuse.
Also, since you did cover NGE, it would be a pleasure if you covered Vicious from Cowboy Bebop, another one of my favourites.
Yes! Vicious would be great to analyze
I concur!
I’d also love to see a spotlight on Vicious.
It's okay Vile, we know that frustration of working a problem out the hard way, just to find the answer for free on the next page. You get full credit for showing your work, A+.
We're gonna see alot of Anime fathers in these videos. Yujiro Hanma, Endeavor, Shou Tucker, etc.
I think Gendo has something in common with Professor Souichi Tomoe, a villain from Sailor Moon, especially they use their own children as a key to destroy all humanity.
The "I deserve the credit damnit" , made me laugh!
Good job! Enjoy your content, and you do deserve the credit... Damnit.
According to rebuild all of the three Gendo's are the same guy in different states of the endless recurring cycle. Even the one who sold out to make pachinko machines. The Gendo that promoted razor blades. And the Gendo that fought Shin Godzilla.
Wait... Gendo Ikari is in Shin Godzilla?? I have to watch that film now!
@@megabyte01 Yeah there was a Shin Godzilla/Evangelion crossover. But the ride was shut down and there are no full videos of it. Apparently it introduced Shin Ghidorah and a red MechaGodzilla piloted by Asuka. Also Evangelion is considered a prequel to Shin Godzilla since the world that Shin Godzilla, Shin Ultraman, and Shin Kamen Rider are in is suggested to be Earth post Rebuild. And there are thing in Kamen Rider that suggest that SHOCKER either knows about instrumentality. Or that SEELE remnants are the ones backing SHOCKER.
Very weird and trippy... but gendo to me was clearly a most ruthless villian. He's what shinji could grow into. A cautionary tale
Some antagonists I can't believe you haven't covered yet:
-Professor James Moriarty, from the Sherlock Holmes series. A man nicknamed "the Napoleon of Crime" definitely deserves an in-depth look.
-President Coriolanus Snow, from The Hunger Games.
-Sheng, from Kung Fu Panda 2. Easily the most complex villain in the series, he can be silly, tragic, and terrifying.
-Luca Blight, from Suikoden 2. No, I'm not going to shut up about him.
-Handsome Jack, from Borderlands.
-a "silly" villain, like Team Rocket from Pokemon, or Zedd and Rita Repulsa from Power Rangers.
-Biff Tannen, from Back to the Future. Buttheads!!
-Oroku Saki (The Shredder) from Ninja Turtles. Another one who can be goofy in one iteration and deadly serious in another.
-and finally, Count Dracula himself
Honestly Zedd and Repulsa have some REALLY good moments, not just in the show but in the recent comics, so I'd definitely love to see them covered.
Like yeah, they *are* silly, but we must remind ourselves of the time when Tommy (as the White Ranger) had a 1v1 with Zedd- no monsters or zords for either- and got fucking *bodied.*
I've seen plenty of Handsome Jack videos, yet Id love one from Evil Eye
Would also love to see some Frieza from DBZ or even Vegeta
I second the Handsome Jack request
Missing Dio & Enrico Pucci from Jojo's Bizzare Adventure, i'd love to see vile eye's take on how the idea of "heaven" is presented in jojos
My new favorite video. Thanks Mr Vile Eye
Gendo became Yui’s prophet. If you view him as a Moses figure, Yui is God. Just like Moses, Gendo is not allowed to see the promised land.
I don't think Gendo was evil. Desperate and lonely, yes.
Gendo was an ordinary man. He had no powers, no exceptional gifts.
When his wife died (or was absorbed, same thing essentially in this context) his answer was to kill God, end the world, and reunite with her.
And he F'n did it.
Love to see this. You should do a video on Bondrewd from Made in Abyss, one of my favorite anime villains.
Yes! I was scrolling through the comments seeing if anyone recommended Bondrewd. He's such a fascinating character. He does such horrible things to the kids he experiments on and yet he is also so charismatic and polite. He remembers all the kids names, and their interests in the short time he spends with them. Also, whenever he's fighting the main trio, he constantly was complimenting their plans against him. I always love seeing new analysis on him.
Excellent Analysis, as always! You have really humanized Gendo without excusing or dismissing his evil actions. And well done for recognizing all his backstory without the context of the Rebuild films!
Genod reminds me of another sympathetic villain who I must recommend you cover: another monster, who is taught to appreciate the world around him, until the love of his life is taken, so they embark on a crusade of wrath and loss, all while ignoring their son and toll it takes on the humanity their wife loved. I speak of course of Dracula, from the Netflix Castlevania series. With Castlevania Nocturne coming out in September, it would be an excellent time to cover this classic animated villian!
Either way, I can't wait to see who you analysis next!
"When simping goes too far" A Gendo Ikari story
😂
Atleast it was his wife
Thank you so much for doing Gendo. Evangelion is my favorite series. This is a great video🔥
I like your video analysis on Gendoh Ikari from Neon Genesis Evangelion. This is my first time watching a video from your channel and hear your thoughts. From my perspective since watching the anime on Netflix and then reading the manga and watching the End of Evangelion. I have always seen Gendoh as the main villain in the story not the angels trying to attack or destroy Toyko-3 to get to Lilith or Adam downstairs or even Seele who were in fact responsible for the Second Impact that started this series of event leading to an eventually battle to decide the fate of mankind as a whole though they are evil men with a motive and grand design planners at time there involvement is rather limited that it can be said there a secondary evil in the series. I've always wondered what was driving him to such atrocious acts of cruelty and deceit from being a cold calculus man that showed little to no emotion or feelings as a person, to treating his only flesh and blood son like a total complete stranger and doesn't even acknowledge him or treat as someone special or of value but instead looks at him like an eyesore or the worst thing in his life a waste of existence, and finally manipulating both Dr. Ritsuko and her mother through either physical intimacy or sexual desire or whatever the case depending upon the version or perspective.
The rebuilds changed him in the first two movies, but it's still doesn't change Gendoh towards being someone worthy of redemption at least in my take he doesn't deserve one never has the moment he left his son at the train station he lost the right to be a Father, a parent, and it burns me up that shinji never comes around to accepting he never needed Gendoh to be his parent, his father because he could never be that to him it's the reason he abandoned him. It's the reason, why I see Misato as his parent or Mom in the story or a mother figure despite her flaws and shortcomings. It's the one thing, I wanted from the series as a happy ending to it was Misato taking in Shinji as her own child. Anyway Gendoh's a character that chooses to be so tightly wound up in the past that he is driven to destroy, use, manipulate, and abuse anything and anyone to accomplish his goals like most villains do. I see not redemption for a man like him.
As for the instrumentality question you asked. As a christian, I believe we should all live our own lives as individuals in this world. It's true we cause conflict, destruction, war, and death due to a number of reasons regarding own nature as flawed sinful being given temptation of thought, mind, and heart. But one of the teaching I heard as a kid in church school was that the holy trinity; God, his son, Jesus, and the holy ghost. The holy ghost is supposedly connected to us all as a whole that is also saying we are all connected. We all have feelings, emotions, thoughts, pain, heartache, dream, and wishes. Just like in Avatar: the last airbender the episode in the swamp or the forest. The old man gave an important lesson; "You think you're any different from me, or your friends? " We are share a connection we are human and we understand each if we are willing to listen, feel, and connect with each other. Seele's goals was nothing more than a desire to leave the physical world behind because of the nature of humanity as a whole was to be self destructive and instead of being a force of change of better the world they used cruel manipulative tactics to ensure their wished was fulfilled. Evil is what comes to mind for me.
Omgggg I’ve wanted a video on Gendo from you foreverrrrrer, he’s one of my absolute fav villains from a story that is/has been so deeply meaningful to me since I was Shinji’s age.
Yui: Did you do it?
Gendo: Yes.
Yui: What did it cost?
Gendo: Everything.
The sad part about Gendo is we can no longer take him seriously anymore as he became a Madao in the Gintama universe.
so are we just not going to talk about how he canonically SA'd rei and ritsuko? they're just as much victims as shinji is, if not more so. shinji was abandoned, yes, but rei and ritsuko had to suffer even more abuse the entire time.
ritsuko blatantly says "why don't you have your way with my body, like you did that time?" in episode 24 i believe, an unambiguous reference to SA, and there are also photos of a middle school aged ritsuko standing next to an adult gendo, which is just gross.
gendo is also regularly seen staring at rei's naked body and grabs her breast in EoE (neither of which he has any good reason to be doing). there are also drafts of episode 24 where ritsuko says that rei is gendo's "plaything", which further proves this point.
so basically if we're going to talk about how evil gendo is, we should probably be talking about his other victims, don't you think?
Interestingly enough I never really saw the whole breast thing in EoE as explicitly sexual. It's apparently a very symbolic scene and it has to do with some Nietzche stuff about the breast being "the principal pleasure" and by achieving instrumentality, Gendo is returning to that "principal pleasure", an eternal unconscious bliss. So him touching rei's breast is a direct reference to that idea.
However, I'm not saying your interpretation is wrong. But the scene really didn't give rapey vibes honestly. Rei's nakedness is more of a representation of her divine purity, but who knows it's honestly been forever since I watched EoE and it might be more explicit than I remember.
In the End of Evangelion, Instrumentality -- at least, Instrumentality as Shinji accepts it -- is presented as an escape from reality. A world of dreams, and a world of non-reality. A world without pain, but also without true happiness. My personal interpretation of Instrumentality has always been the total, logical end of Escapism, of rejecting reality and hiding from the pain that it comes with.
Only by accepting the present reality, its pain along with it, can we begin to experience the joys that reality holds. That's how I've always interpreted it, anyway.
Side note: Seeing this video on my timeline gave me such a dopamine rush, one of my favorite series getting an Analyzing Evil episode is a dream come true ^^
Gendo and so many others refused to accept reality because the loss they suffered is too great. Gendo really did cease to be human after his wife died his obsession with being her consumed him and he was no longer apart of the world i never watched evangelion but from watching this i understand that gendo is a man who cannot accept the reality of his situation and wants to achieve something that he knows can never happen. a world without fear without pain without suffering a fantastical Utopia where all negatives we have in life no longer exist.
There's a beautiful line in one of the final episodes of the original series, where Shinji goes all abstract and is pondering the nature of his own existence, and he says something along the lines of:
"I only exist because of my environment. I can only define myself because of the way my environment interacts with me. If I had full control of reality, if everything was truly calm and neutral, I would not have an identiy"
As someone with Autism, this line really stabs me in the guts. Reality can be so overwhelming, multiple times have I fantasized about the end of it all, about simply ceasing to exist so that the pain can finally stop. It's hard to remember that even our pain, the things we hate, the things we hold negative opinions about, even those things contribute to our sense of self. Even the things that you are against help to give you purpose. This is not to say that one should be happy about bad things, or that we shouldn't condemn evil or try to alleviate our suffering. It's simply to say that isolation is not a solution, you need to hold opinions about things, including negative ones, to have an identity.
You have to love the subtext of how Gendo's inability to let go of the past is also commentary of how the mecha genre was (and still is) unable to let go of its past as well.
I guess?
Kind of a random call but I think you could make a mini-episode on Fuyutsuki as well. It could be an interesting concept to analyze a side "villain". It's a discret but also very well written character as well.
15:44 "and i deserve the creddit damit" is probably the best thing you've said so far 😅
Ngl, after seeing Thrice upon a time ( 3.0 + 1.0 ) , i forgave him. That scene where he and Shinji realize that fighting isnt going to solve "their" problem and they decided to talk it out on that train cart and gendo admitting to his faults and not trying to deflect everything on shinji was just perfect. That scene is up there with my fav anime scenes of all time
"Ours is not a conflict that can be solved through violence" is one of my favorite lines in the entire series
One of the biggest L dads in fiction
wow, i did not expect an analysis on Gendo, but love this vid!
Loved the vid! Can next be Frank Fontaine from Bioshock?
Amazing video. One of my favorites so far
He was Buck Cluck before Buck Cluck
The Bastard King himself
A worthy subject for review
Recommendation: Yoshii from Texhnolyze. Texhnolyze is criminally underrated and I feel like Yoshii is an underrepresented yet beautiful type of villain
Great rec.
thank you for covering this, always appreciate your uploads
I remember my korean friend like 20 years ago telling me over and over how good this anime was, still haven't seen it!
The fans and culture surrounding it are insufferable but the series itself is great especially the reboot movies are some of the most mind bending stuff in anime and you can really see the influence on pop culture
@@gggallin8279 as someone who recently got into this rabbithole of evangelion, i must say the community isnt as bad/weird/annoying as i expected. They arent like other Anime communities but imo its a really pleasant community. Only weird ones are those that know all the names of the Angels...
15:40 This is a completely understandable indignation but still a hilarious tantrum.
I’ve been requesting this for so long, and it’s here in time for my bday!!! Thank you so much Vile Eye!!
Gendo was an introvert tasked with saving the planet from divine super beings. Yes he became cold and objective. No he didn't want to get close to people so his decisions could be 100% rational and non-emotional. He had the world on his shoulders. He did take it a bit too far we find out
Okay, that rant about rebuild was hilarious. I don't blame you for being frustrated, but dang is that funny.
Something that occurs to me is that since Gendo’s primary goal is to reunite with his wife, he must have attempted to synchronize with Unit 01 at some point. That attempt and the aftermath would be fascinating to see.
Just recently discovered this channel. Really enjoying how vast and diverse your character studies are. Would love to see your takes on certain characters down the road (Makima, Jinx, Dio Brando, Silco, Wilson Fisk, Killgrave, etc)
Gendo is one of the most evil characters out there. He low key means to destroy humanity (their individuality, but you're not "you" without it anyway) without even caring to ask anyone... ok, that's insane. Not to speak of the trauma his caused his son and the way he uses Rei as if she was a doll. Pretty insane, but great character.
To be fair to him it's not exactly *his* plan. It's the plan of the cabal he's working for. The evil part is not only is their plan evil, but then Gendo is manipulating their plan into more selfish end.
I disagree that he's one of the most evil characters ever I see him as an anti villain he just wants to reunite with his wife and he is technically saving mankind from an even worse fate that SEELE wants to bring about
good job not watching the video
for how fucked up SEELE is, at least their goal was truly selfless, they did want to use instrumentality to cleanse all the suffering, pain and doubts from mankind
Even being the villains, they are still miles better than Gendo that want the instrumentality sorely to bring his wife back, even if it means the end of the world
Fucking selfish
My friends meme about this series a lot, and they’ve all seen it and know it well, but I never have. I know the broad strokes through listening to their banter. Generally when this series comes up, I laugh or roll my eyes.
When I heard you say “if you’ve ever lost something, you know Gendo Ikari” I thought, I’ve gotta watch this properly.
Thanks for doing this one, Vile. And well done on puzzling out Gendo’s motives so accurately without having seen all the material first. That little edit near the end was both funny and impressive.
Gendo is great villain both in eva tv series and movies
I feel you on the little adendum, I was also proud of realizing all this before the rebuilts. But hey, better be sure than wrong heh?
you can still cry.
Analyzing evil : Pablo Escobar plz he was a real life villain
This video made my day, my week even.
This is the second Jappanese cartoon that Vile defends the villain (likewise Light Yagami) by saying, "They were no longer themselves", little does he know that they were those monsters all along.
I've been waiting so long for you to cover him🙏
You could probably make a couple of these with half of the cast of this anime
If there ever was a man who deserved to spend eternity in the lowest depths of Hell...
“Shinji! Stop running away and get in the goddamn robot!”
I want to see a video analyzing Bondrewd from Made in abyss. He is so vile but at same time he never outright shows anger or disgust when fighting or when he’s experimenting of children
Consider that Gendo never had an ending with Yui. She died but she didn't as well since she was completely absorbed by the EVA. She's dead but there's no body to bury
Gendo: "Ritsuko akagi....The truth is..."
Ritsuko: "You liar..."
This was a fantastic break down of a fantastic fictional character.
I feel that gendo's character is a prime example of what unhealed cognitive emotions look like and how those unhealed emotions can lead you to make horrible acts and have consequences that traumatically effects other people, the lesson i got from Evangelion especially the stuff that shinji experienced , was start healing , we're all hurt in many ways and thats okay, however it doesn't justify any actions that could lead others into traumatic events.
In EoE, Gendo does terrible things, but he justifies it to himself because he seeks affirmation from Yui, the only one he thinks can love him.
And so too does Shinji do a terrible thing, hoping to get affirmation from Asuka, the only one he thinks he can interact with.
when Asuka says he's pathetic in this moment, she's correct.
BUT.
The latter half of the movie, in tandem with episodes 25 and 26, are about Shinji digesting this information and coming to the conclusion that despite interactions with others being painful and uncomfortable sometimes, the happiness from them is real and worth it. That's something his pathetic father never did, and it's why Shinji comes back, and Gendo cannot.