Terletskyi 1

Oleksandr Terletskyi
28919

Szkoa Wysza Psychologii Spoecznej

Instytut Anglistyki

Oedipus, Castration and Archetypes of the Otaku Unconscious:

Neon Genesis Evangelion as a Postmodern Simulation of the
Fairytale

Praca magisterska napisana pod kierunkiem

Prof. dr. hab. Tadeusza Rachwaa

Warszawa 2013

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Abstract
This research analyzes Hideaki Annos Neon Genesis Evangelion in the light of Carl Gustav
Jungs The Archetype and The Collective Unconscious. First, the research diagnoses the main
characters in accordance with Jungian and classical psychoanalysis in this way explaining the
premise of the series. Second, it maps the psyche of the protagonist, referring to the basic set of
Jungian Archetypes. Third, it specifies and interprets various narrative stages of NGE as stages of
the individuation process, which the protagonist undergoes on his path. The goal of this research
is to establish NGE as the modern simulated fairytale which, by being such, illustrates the psychical
structure of the dominant post-modern character, namely otaku or geek and ultimately conveys
the notion of fairytale and the psychological processes that are encrypted within it in the terrain of
the hyperreal.

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction.4
2. Background Information.9
3. Complex Characters....10
3.1.Castration and Oedipus Complexes..12
3.2.Mother Complex16
4. M(other)20
5. Father.27
6. Friend or Foe.31
7. Mandala of Individuation....36
8. Conclusion54
9. Works Cited59
10. Illustration..64

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Introduction
The other thing I thought of was about copying. Quite aptly, Anno declared himself a copy, saying, Im a copy
of a copy. But this is a copy of a copy of a copy. In the future, there will undoubtedly be a copy of a copy of a copy of a
copy, and undoubtedly, this chain of copies will continue(Oshii)

Neon Genesis Evangelion is a huge Japanese franchise that incorporates in itself countless
animated films, mangas, video and board games plus any imaginable piece of fan merchandise,
ranging from Evangelion sneakers to Evangelion noodles. It all has started in the late 1991 when
one of the co-founders of Gainax anime studio Hideaki Anno completed his directorial debut
Nadia the Secret of Blue Water. Although, the series was a huge hit, young director withdrew from
the anime industry confused by his work and its impact. The reasons for such an unpredictable
move could be only guessed. It is said that Nadia was a project based upon the Jules Vernes
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and that it has already been scripted and adapted by one
of the most prominent animators of the industry Hayao Miyazaki. So Anno did not get enough
space for his creativity. Moreover due to Nadias immense success among fans, series had had to
be expanded, in that way Anno was not only creatively restricted but also forced to mindlessly pad
the show. (Danielson)
This leads us directly to the phenomenon of otaku, who are the major consumer group of
any media (especially anima and manga) in Japan. According to an encyclopedia Basic Knowledge
of Modern Terms (Gendai Yogo Kisochishiki) word otaku Has been used as discriminatory word
among manga and animation maniacsIt indicates the type of person who cannot communicate
with others, is highly concerned about details, and has one exclusive field of interestThe word
corresponds to nerd which in the USA is used for computer and SF fantastic.(Grassmack)
According to Grassmack otakus isolative tendencies approximate them to the notion of
Moratoriumu Ningen (moratorium people). At first term moratorium was referred to the
training or study in which young people are suspended from fulfilling their obligations and
responsibilities to society.(Grassmack) But later in the use of Okonigi Keigo, the professor at the
neuropsychiatric department of Keio University, it has turned into the signifier of todays
dominant social character that inevitably leads to the identity diffusion syndrome and ego
vacuum that have today become the normal state of affairs.(Grassmack, qtd in Moratorium
ningen no jidai)

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Otakus culture is considered to be major in Japan and accordingly constitutes a major group
of consumers. Anno and Gainax knew that phenomenon very well, since they themselves were a
part of the subculture. Even before the Gainax was made, in 1983 a bunch of yet unknown otaku
(Hideaki Anno, Yoshiyuki Sadomoto, Hiroyuki Yamaga, Takami Akai, Toshio Okada, Yushiro Takeda
and Shinji Higuchi - future Gainax crew) released a short opening animation for the DAICON IV
(Japan National SF Convention) that exhibited a great understanding of otaku culture and its
needs. After that, followed The Wings of Honneamise, Gunbuster, Otaku No Video and finally
Nadia - the titles that made otaku feel completely regarded.
However, being so aware of oneself and of the audience Gainax could not help but to expose
both sides of the culture they were part of. Most notably in Otaku No Video, where Studio Gainax
revealed their ambiguous emotions about being the obsessed fans in a - part satire, part
autobiographical, and part wish fulfillment [story, where] a university student who gets
gradually sucked into the otaku lifestyle and, subsequently rejected by society, vows to become
Otaking, and attempts to otakuize the human race through building a mighty corporation that will
sell otaku culture to the world. (Horn) The main trick was in that studio had decided to mix
animation with live footage, thus producing a mocking contrast and showing a pathological culture
as it was. And although movie was a commercial failure, Gainax in this way openly admitted that
they were otaku and that they were not afraid to critically examine themselves, their audience and
their medium.
After that, Gainax was hired to produce Nadia for NHK Educational TV, where as we
mentioned above, Anno encountered numerous inconveniences. In fact as he stated these
inconveniences was brought about not only because of the already adapted script that could have
limited his creativity, but mainly because of the established child orientation that series had had,
and which is why they turned out to be childish. (Anno 2003 8-19). Moreover Thomas Lamarre,
who is a teacher of East Asian studies at McGill University and the author of the Anima Machine
concludes that For Anno, the popularity of Nadia, its fans erotic attachment to the character of
Nadia and the demand to stretch out the series were all surely crucial in his shift of attitude.
(2009 179)
At this point, the perspective animator and director Hideaki Anno had broken and retreated
into the four years long clinical depression, during which as he himself states: all I was doing
was simply not dying.(Anno 1995) In one American interview he reveals that these four years was
a serious struggle against his own cowardice. Cowardice, that used to be seen as limitations of

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the industry but turned out to be the limitations of the mind, - a kind of autism that was shared
by both, people who made anime and people who watched it. (Horn 1996) Moreover, it is said
that Anno were also actively studying psychology(prevalently Jungian) ...as he coped with
creative doldrums(Clements 211) in order to explore what the human mind is all
about.(Malone 120 qtd in Newtype 1996 February, 20-23)
Over the time, the depression has taken on a new form, when Anno being summoned by
Gainax to direct their first anime in four years, and his in five in the same way as the protagonist
of his future project Shinji being summoned by his father to pilot the Evangelion (Tsurumaki
2001) Neon Genesis Evangelion was made to take still recent, nonsensical idea from Otaku No
Video, seriously namely to otakuize the human race. In this way Anno hoped to break the
closedness for otaku culture as well as for himself, and the anime industry. (Hiroki 1998) So he
packed the series with everything that otaku could ever desire: mecha (gigantic robots), shojo
(adolescent girls) and masses of obscure and intricate religious/ psychoanalytical/ technological
references and terminology. But more important is that he created this series, being inspired by
and in an almost mystical accordance with Jungian Archetypes and Collective Unconscious, which I
admit, sounds tautological, since this Jungian work in itself aims to outlines the fundamental traits
of every possible narrative, or even any possible psyche. However, the degree to which we can
read Evangelion through the Jungs volume as much as the almost schizophrenic sense of
literalness with which Evangelion corresponds to Jungs research, suggest that Anno, guided or
inspired by Jung, created or simulated a new century fairytale that is fully corresponds to our postmodern Baudrillardian reality of simulation.
Here is how Anno presented the series before the first air in 1995:
The year: 2015. A world where, fifteen years before, over half the human population
perished. A world that has been miraculously revived: its economy, the production, circulation,
consumption of material goods, so that even the shelves of convenience stores are filled. A world
where the people have gotten used to the ressurection-yet still feel the end of the world is
destined to come. A world where the number of children, the future leaders of the world, is few. A
world where Japan saw the original Tokyo destroyed, discarded and forgotten, and built a new
capital in Nagano Prefecture. They consructed a new capital, Tokyo-2, then left it to be a decoythen constructed another new capital, Tokyo-3, and tried to make it safe from attack. A world
where some completely unknown enemy called the "Angels" comes to ravage the cities.

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This is roughly the worldview for Neon Genesis Evangelion. This is a worlview drenched in a
vision of pessimism. A worldview where the story starts only after any traces of optimism have
been removed.
And in that world, a 14-year-old boy shrinks from human contact. And he tries to live in a
closed world where his behavior dooms him, and he has abandoned the attempt to understand
himself. A cowardly young man who feels that his father has abandoned him, and so he has
convinced himself that he is a completely unnecessary person, so much so that he cannot even
commit suicide.(Anno 1995)
Anno continues saying:I started this production with a wish that once the production [sic]
complete, the world, and the heroes would change. I tried to include everything of myself in Neon
Genesis Evangelion-myself, a broken man who could do nothing for four years. A man who ran
away for yearsIt is a production where my only thought was to burn my feelings into film
(Anno 1995) This desire for a change and recovery that is expected to be achieved through work
together with a admitted Jung influences makes me presuppose, that for Anno, Evangelion was a
way to individuate himself, plus to capture the process in a film, as an example of individuation for
the others. Which is perhaps why, the film that was supposed to be an otaku heaven turned out
to be a self-tormenting, auto-destructive critique of anime fans(Hiroki) since an individuation
process usually runs a dramatic course, with many ups and downs and requires not only
recognition of the problem but also dealing with it. (Jung 41)
Significantly, the Evangelions production was unpredictable, improvisational and had a live
feeling around it. Anno was constantly changing things and frequently made decisions without
knowing why or for what purpose. (Anno 1996d) At some point, the crew was ready to quite as all
the series were literally collapsing. However, as Kazuya Tsurumaki the assistant director of
Evangelion mentions that Gainax decided to continue and to show the whole process including
our breakdownmake it a work that shows everything including our inability to create a
satisfactory product.(The Red Cross Book)
In this way Gainax in general and Anno in particular created an extremely ambiguous work
which in its ambiguity constitutes a union of at first sight irreconcilable opposites. It is a fairytale
that was created in accordance with the universal canons of fairytaling which in itself contradicts
the essence of fairytaling that is supposed to be a spontaneous, nave, and uncontrived product
of the psyche (Jung 239) And yet at the same time NGE is spontaneous and improvisational

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enough to maintain the ambiguous status, even while being simulated; or could it be that because
it is consciously simulated in an age where simulation already goes on unconscious level that NGE
acquires the dissociative illusion of originality? It simultaneously attracts otaku with its
deliberately familiar setting and various manufactured fan services but ultimately repels them
with painfully relevant confrontations that otaku decided to evade by escaping into the medium of
anime. Thus, creating an unpleasant but inevitably heeling experience, - sort of Annos mandala
(Jung 390), which yet by being contradictory personal, honest and spontaneous, captured the
valuable unconscious material, and had broken through the stagnant world of animation that has
been reproducing the same product for the same needs for a decade.(Anno 1996b 27)
Mariana Ortega who is a Professor of Philosophy at John Carroll University in her article My
Father, He Killed Me; My Mother, She Ate Me: Self, Desire, Engendering, and the Mother in Neon
Genesis Evangelion states that: The shows proclivity for self-referentiality, parody, pastiche,
metalepsis, and ultimately, deconstruction provides us with a general instance of what Umberto
Eco has termed opera aperta, or open work a piece that allows and even requires multiple
interpretation.(217) So in this research I intend to analyze Neon Genesis Evangelion and its rich
symbolism through the framework of classical psychoanalysis in general and Jungs Archetypes
and Collective Unconscious in particular. In this way, I hope to clarify Evangelions narrative, and
determine its impact as a grand-scale depiction of individuation process made by and for otaku.
Though, I will omit distinguishing any massage of the story which in the case of Evangelions
deliberately evasive nature would certainly prove to be insensible and as informative as sharing
ones impression on the way back home from the theater. And, since Neon Genesis Evangelion, as
a, simulated and yet still somehow spontaneous, fairytale cannot very well express anything
except what the psyche actually is. (Jung 239)
In this research I will focus mostly on the original TV series and the theatrical release of the
alternative ending - End of Evangelion, in this way, keeping as close to the original script as
possible. Also, I have to admit that there is an essay by John Faulkner that has already attempted
to research the connection between Evangelion and Jungian psychology. However, with all respect
and acknowledgment to Falkners paper I found enough arguments that has been disregarded or
ignored for whatever reason. So I hope that my research would be a worthy match as much as the
necessary extension on the concerned subject.

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Background Information
Carl Gustav Jung was a well-known Swiss psychotherapist, who was particularly preoccupied
with the notion of unconscious which is only natural for a great psychotherapist. Needless to say
that he greatly influenced and developed the field of psychoanalysis adding to it already classical
and yet indispensable notions like archetype, collective unconscious or complex. He regarded
unconscious as the psyche that resides deep down into the nervous system that is also known as
sympathetic, that is a total opposite of cerebrospinal system with which he associated
consciousness: and while latter is responsible for muscular activity, perception and environment
control, the former mystically feels and affects other beings; and while latter perceives everything
as outside, the former accordingly - as inside. The Bible in its turn refers to the unconscious as the
heart which contains temptations, anger and is inhabited by blood spirits. Moreover it is said
that anyone who ever descends into that most personally intimate layer, will find oneself trapped
into the claustrophobic prison of egocentric subjectivity and will definitely encounter personal
monsters that dwell within. (Jung 19-20). The unconscious usually manifests though the fantasy
products (dreams, delusions, visions) at the times when the conscious control over unconscious
activity weakens, thus letting unconscious and repressed materials leak to the terrain of
consciousness. (Jung 155).
By studying dreams, fantasies and products of psychoses and neuroses Jung have noticed
considerable parallels that correspond to the mythological motifs and fairytales. These motifs
were not predisposed by place of birth, religion or education and could have been explained only
if they were universal and common for everyone. (Jung 152) This gave a beginning or better says
renewed the attention to the phenomenon called the collective unconscious, since it has been
already assumed in a form of Levy-Bruhls representations collectives, Huberts and Mauss
categories of imagination and Adolf Bastians elementary or primordial thoughts. (Jung 43)
Following this revelation, If our consciousness, headed by ego, is of extremely personal nature as
well as the closest areas of its unconscious counterpart that is simply called unconscious or
personal unconscious, collective unconscious in its turn, on the contrary, is identical in all
individuals and is inherited. Collective unconscious is constellated with pre-existent forms, motifs
and patterns of behavior that closely resemble instincts and are called archetypes. (Jung 43)
However it is impossible to describe an archetype or its meaning, in words or images, since it
issues from the collective unconscious, which is initially unconscious and hence unknown.
Therefore together with Jung we can only say that its meaning may be circumscribed, but not

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described.(156) and that any attempt to define it will prove to be futile and will make us oversee
the essential nature of archetype which is the manifold of meaning. (Jung 38)
The archetypes could be activated and connected which means that they freely convey the
energy (libido) from unconscious to consciousness and manifests adequately every time when
they are needed. But occasionally they could be stored up and disconnected which happens when
the content associated with archetypes were repressed by consciousness as a result of a conflict.
In this case they clog the energy in themselves and soon overpowered unconscious inflates and
aiming for a balance, affects whatever view or idea or tendency our intellect may choose to
dangle enticingly before our desiring eyes.(Jung 94) The archetypes are of a great importance to
us and our well-being; they link us to the treasures of our ancestors and show us where the
consciousness takes its roots. (Jung 160) The consciousness in its turn is young if compared to
archetypes or collective unconscious, and while we are still surprised and excited with what is
going to happen tomorrow, unconsciously, with unconsciously inherited millennial memory trace,
we basically reenacts the same old story over and over again.
The individuation process that is the target-concept in Jungian psychology is aimed on
uniting the consciousness with unconscious and thus making the person psychologically individual of whole (Jung 275) This process is crucial in curing mental illnesses for the conflict
with unconscious as much as the repressed archetype may cause a great disturbance: ranging
from the occasional neurosis, hysteria, delusional psychosis or schizophrenia. (Jung 278) The
collaboration of unconscious in the task of individuation is indispensable since it naturally puts all
its efforts on restoring the balance. But the amount of efforts has to be equal from both sides,
since two would not make a genuine whole if one is suppressed or dominated by the other. This is
why both of them are supposed to show their best and commence open conflict and open
collaboration.(Jung 288)

Complex characters
It's strange that 'Evangelion' has become such a hitall the characters are so sick! (Anno 1996a)

One of the main tricks in NGE is that it depicts the events that most likely happened in
protagonists head (Malone 116) which instantly makes it what Freud calls a psychopathological
drama where the main struggle is directed not against God as in religious, particularly Greek
drama, and not against the Society as in social drama or against the equally powerful and
outstanding individual as in character drama, but against hero him/herself and takes place

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accordingly in his/her mind. Moreover, psychopathological drama in contrast to a psychological

drama focuses on the conflicts between conscious and repressed while the psychological drama
depicts the conflicts exclusively between conscious materials. (Freud 1610) Interestingly enough,
Freud points, that such drama could be written and enjoyed only by the neurotics, who
understand and draw pleasure from revelation of repressed material, while the normal person in
this case would be repulsed and in the instant need to repress the revealed material again.(1610)
Practically the same idea is implied by Anno who says that Evangelion is a work for otaku like he
himself and that if a person who can already live and communicate normally watches it, they
wont learn anything.(Tsumuraki 1997)
Furthermore, Evangelion ontologically suggests that reality itself might be a reflection of
mind that observes it (Napier 2007 120), in accord with Goethes All that is outside also is
inside.(Jung 101) Thus, we can assume that the more bizarre and troubling the reality appears to
be the more eye that comprehendeth it must be wronged. Paul Malone who is a faculty member
of Germanic and Slavic studies of the University of Waterloo in his article My Own Private
Apocalypse: Shinji Ikari in Hideaki Anno's Neon Genesis Evangelion as Schreberian Paranoid
Superhero compares NGEs content to the delusions described in Memory of My Nervous Illness
written by Daniel Paul Schreber. As a result he finds numerous similarities between two, which
allows us to assume that Schreber and Shinji could be the victims of similar psychic deviation.
Fortunately enough, Schrebers case was thoroughly studied by the brightest analysts of that time,
namely Jung and Freud, what gives us an opportunity to examine the diagnosis with which Jung
interpreted the decease. I will omit the Freudian interpretation since my paper mainly focuses on
Jung and since the two diagnoses coincide for the most part. Here it is:
Closer study of Schrebers or any similar case will show that these patients are consumed
by a desire to create a new world-system , or what we call a Weltanschauung, often of the most
bizarre kind. Their aim is obviously to create a system that will enable them to assimilate unknown
psychic phenomenon and so adopt themselves to their own world. This is a purely subjective
adaptation at first, but it is a necessary transition stage on the way to adapting personality to the
world in general. Only, the patient remains stuck in this stage and substitutes his subjective
formulation for the real world which is precisely why he remains ill.(Malone 118 qtd in Jung
1968, 189)
So let us assume that Shinji, much like Schreber is unable to assimilate unknown psychic
phenomenon which is why he retreated into a fantasy world. Naturally, a question rises: what

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kind of psychic phenomenon pushed Shinji into the terrain of delusions? However, to trace down
the troubling phenomenon we have to consider its manifest-content first, namely delusions.
Delusions in fact, are closely related to or could be perceived as logical extensions of the Jungian
idea of projection which works as follows: The defense mechanisms of consciousness occasionally
reject some disturbing content into the unconscious from which it automatically gets projected
onto the external objects as if it has never belonged to the subject in the first place. It is crucial
that subject has no idea about such projections and that the projections could only be removed if
subject become conscious about them. (Jung 60) Therefore, we can alledge that this psychic
phenomenon issues from some troubling, perhaps painful content that once has been excluded
from consciousness into the unconscious and now manifests itself through Shinjis bizarre
Weltanschauung.

Castration and Oedipus complexes

Not surprisingly, Shinjis pathology could be seen as originating from his childhood. It could
have started as early as an initial stage (1-4 years). During which childs not yet differentiated
consciousness perceives everything with an extreme vulnerability and as a rule fantasizes and
mythologies perceived content to the cosmic proportions. (Jung 66) Thus, parents that no doubt
are the two most authoritative persons in childs world are taken for a divine pair of gods- the
syzygy archetype. (Jung 60) In the case of a boy, the mother appears to be of more grandeur
nature, owing that potency to the anima archetype (feminine, unconscious counterpart of male
psyche), projected on her during that stage, while in a girls case grandeur is, accordingly endowed
to the father image by means of animus (masculine, unconscious counterpart of the female
psyche). (Jung 65)
Gradually, as the consciousness of the child is getting more and more differentiated, the
rough contrast between real parents and its mythologized images becomes evident. At this point it
is crucial for child not to be overly attached to or identified with the concerned archetypes;
otherwise its inevitable repression by commonplace reality would probably result in a complex. In
the case of identification, as soon as real parents cease to correspond to its divine counterparts,
the child also gets thrown from his/her childhood Olympus; after that the real liferefused to
come up to his[her] erstwhile childish expectations, and everywhere lacked that mythological
meaning which he[she] still dimly remembered from his[her] earliest youth.(Jung 68)

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In this way, child starts to consider itself being castrated from which originates the name
castration complex, and tries to compensate his/her deficiency with megalomania or its
opposite (Jung 68). For a child with castration complex life becomes literary godless and home
is nowhere to be found because a father and mother are missing.(Jung 69) Needless to say
that Shinji in this case ends up with inferiority complex as opposed to his earthly counterpart
Asuka who has obviously became a megalomaniac. But in a long run, both compensatory
developments appear to be the two sides of the one and the same coin: the conscious inferiority is
countered by the unconscious megalomania and vice-versayou never get one without the
other (Jung 180)
Necessary to mention that Freuds ideas of castration complex, differs from the Jungian but,
being the original ones it surely served as a basis for Jungs study which is why it has to be
included. According to Freud the castration complex happens in the phallic stage (3-6 years) and is
directly connected to the Oedipus complex (Freud 4086) which in its turn quite corresponds to
Jungian anima/animus attachment concerned above. In a boys case, castration complex starts in
the phallic stage when his genitals constitute the object of main interest. During this stage he
inevitably learns that girls genitals are different and that the organ that [he valued] so
highly need not necessarily accompany the body (Freud 4727)
Following this revelation, he starts believing that he may lose it, especially, taking into the
account threats uttered by his mother in order to scare him off from indulging in a masturbation;
threats that were ranging from classical Stop, or I will tell Father! to exquisite Stop, or I will cut
It! or even Stop, or I will cut your Hand! which is quite logical since it is a hand that plays an
active role in the autoerotism as opposed to penis. (Freud 4086) And in the end, since, his
masturbatory tendencies were mainly connected with oedipal attachment to mother, he ends up
in a classical oedipal fear of being castrated by father, which actually forces him out of Oedipus
complex. (Freud 4731)
In a girls case castration complex also begins in a phallic stage when she beholds the same
fundamental difference that boy does. However on the contrary to boy, girl does not get anxious
with a possibility of losing penis, but feels inferior as the one who has already lost it. (Freud 4727)
From which springs the envy for penis that girl initially requires for having a complete heterosexual
relationship with her beloved mother in her Pre-Oedipus attachment (Freud 4728) and which is
why she reorients her fascination from mother to father, since the former could not help. (Freud
4730) At this point girl enters into the Oedipus stage where her father becomes a target and her

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mother rivalwho receives from her father everything that she[daughter] desires from
him.(Freud 4731) Thus, while the boys castration complex causes the dissolution of the Oedipus
complex, for a girl it signals the entrance into one. (Freud 4731)
Freud says that Castration complex as much as Oedipus complex is the indispensable social
initiations that forces future individual to take on the adult role of one of his/her parents. (Freud
4085) Thus, in a case of boys Oedipus he, despite the hatred towards his father/rival usually
identifies with him in order to be like the one closest to the object of his desire. In a case of a girls
Oedipus she identifies with her mother/rival for the same reasons. However, it happens to be
vice-versa when a boy identifies with the mother to win the love of his father (Freud 4088), or the
girl remains stuck in her pre-Oedipus mother fascination and never reaches actual Oedipus. (Freud
4732). Similar to the Jungian analogy, castration complex could result in a serious pathology, and
constitute one of the initial traumas that has an enormous effect on the personal development.
In Evangelion it is all downhill from the Oedipus and castration complexes. Although, from
the very beginning we are informed about Shinjis dysfunctional family, the fact that his mother
have died and his father deserted him could be nothing more than a delusional manifest-reaction
to his castration anxiety both in Jungian and Freudian senses. Basically we can say that Shinjis
solid oedipal attachment with his extremely mythologized mother image was interrupted by tragic
death, a commonplace reality, or just fear of fathers superior position. Anyway, Shinji felt himself
symbolically castrated or was anxious by the perspective of castration, what is metaphorically
restated throughout the series by the countless shots of him looking at or pumping his hand that
occasionally happens to be covered with blood or semen.
His oedipal relation to father together with super ego, that his father became to represent
(Freud, 4089), established an ambiguous attitude: from one perspective father was the
authoritative tyrant, a rival who has taken mother away, from the other perspective he was the
role-model who possessed desired mother and, thus was the image to identify with and look up
to. However, similarly to Schreber: Beneath thismasculine identification [Shinji] remained
secretly an infant who wished to be the sole possessor of the mother - possible only by magical,
primitive identification with her a symbolic, magical merging with her(Malone 122 qtd in
White 1961, 62-3) which explains why he needed to pilot Evangelion at the first place. And yet, it is
also possible that Shinji pilots Eva to be praised and to deserve a respect from his father as he
himself admits, what suggests that Shinjis classical Oedipus complex is also mixed with the

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inverted one in which he literary identifies with his mother (by piloting Eva) to win the love of his
father. (Freud 4088) Nevertheless in both cases he is strongly dependent on mother.
As for the explaining castration, we can go as far back as to the oral stage and breastfeeding, the end of which could also be perceived as a castration, and which doubtlessly affects
the infant (Freud 4724) Moreover according to psychologist Doi Takeo the breast feeding period
and its end are of a special significance in Japan. Because of the extremely close relationship with
the mother, as opposed to western standards, Japanese children naturally develop a feeling of
amae (passive dependence), a continuation of the infants experience of the mothers breast.
(MacWilliams 134-5) Needless to say that they later have to break this dependency and since it is
assumed to be stronger than in the West, the castration complex accordingly must be twice as
anxious.
Furthermore, we can assume the Lacanian quasi-initial castration that is experienced with
birth as the new-born child is extricated from his previous pre-conscious inseparable existence in
his mothers womb. This loss is supposedly leaves an ineradicable sense of an absence that
individuals struggle to fill throughout their lives. That is the lack of mind, the deficiency that NERV
and SEELE try to complement via the Instrumentality project throughout the series. And which
Shinji continually tries to compensate by piloting Eva, which also coincides with the Lacanian
notion of gestalt:that unite the I with the statue in which man projects himself, with the
phantom that dominates him, or with a automaton in which in an ambiguous relation the world of
his own tends to find completion.(Goldberg)
The female characters of NGE are also not spared from the Oedipus disappointment and
castration anxieties. For example Misato who is Shinjis guardian express the sight of the classical
Oedipus complex or according to Jung Electra complex, and penis envy that gradually has turned
into the desire for a baby. (Freud 4730) In episode 25 we see the revelation from her child-self
that she did not want to be like her momma and that she had had to be a good girl so that her
papa would not hate her. The suggestive dialogue also supplemented by no less suggestive figure
that she made from a box of bricks. (fig.1)
Classically, her penis envy has led her to the father fixation which in its turn led her to her
love-object Kaji, who not surprisingly appeared to be just like her father. In this way she
unconsciously taking on the role of her mother, but yet consciously she wants to be anything but
her which is why she behaves in a stereotypically masculine way being a complete slob [ who
] has a habit of yelling out war-whoop after drinking a can of beer(Redmond 214)

Terletskyi 16

Nevertheless in the end we can see that Misatos masculinity was in fact over dominated - by the
new established femininity, the moment she took on the responsibility to look after Shinji and
later on Asuka. (Freud 4730) Her penis envy was exercised in a form of surrogate motherhood in
which she invested all her unresolved masculine ambitions. (Freud 4735)
Asuka in her turn represents a case when a girl remains fixated on her mother in a preOedipus fascination and never reaches the actual Oedipus complex. (Freud 4732) Her attachment
to her doll doubtlessly suggests that she regularly takes the role of her mother while playing with
it. (Freud 4601) And yet her fascination with mother was horribly impaired with some early
repression (presumably castration complex) that has resulted in a fear of being killed by the
mother and her consequent death-wish towards her mother, (Freud 4601) as actually revealed in
an episode 25 when Asuka begs her mother not to kill her while her dead mother hangs from the
ceiling. And what could be assumed from the way she treated her doll afterwards that supposedly
reflects the way in which her mother treated her.(fig.2) (Freud 4730) Naturally with such a fixation
on the mother Asuka came out of castration stage with an extreme masculine complex in which
she constantly belittles boys, and violently resents her period, what we can see in episode 22
where she complains: Why do I have to suffer through this just because Im a girl, its not like I
wanna have children anyway! And although occasionally we can see her character behaving in a
seductive Lolita-like fashion, ultimately she seeks maternal love.
Naturally, to continue analyzing the character we would have to proceed to Rei who closes
the circle of characters of the main concern. However she is not an easy subject to put a finger on.
Doubtlessly, Rei is in an Oedipus relation with Shinjis father, moreover as it turns out later she is a
fellow-clone of Shinjis mother, which makes Rei as if identified with her. But still this identification
is not really possible, since she has never had a mother and in fact is an artificial simulation of
Shinjis mother/sister, what would be most certainly clarified later on with the Jungian anima
archetype.

Mother complex
Perhaps one of the most noticeable features of NGE is that no one seems to have a living
mother, (Danielson) moreover it appears that most of the deceased women were mystically
transformed into the bio-machines such as Evangelions or MAGI supercomputers and by means of
this transformation are able to maintain a contact with their children. (Ortega 223) Which makes
me presuppose that Evangelion universe must have been badly traumatized in the maternal

Terletskyi 17

aspect, and its characters all without exception must have mother complexes. Now, a boy with a
mother complex could either turn into the homosexual whose heterosexuality remains forever
tied to his mother, or into Don Juan who would chase every skirt, seeking his mother in each of
them. It is also necessary to emphasize that boys mother complex is usually mystified and
complicated by the anima that adds a sexual overtones to his mother image, as in Oedipus
complex. (Jung 85-6) Moreover, on its own anima also intensifies, exaggerates, falsifies, and
mythologies all emotional relationssoftens the mans character and makes him touchy, irritable,
moody, jealous, vain and unadjusted. (Jung 70-1)
All of which we can actually see attributed to Shinjis character. And although we cannot
determine his orientation with certitude, the presence of feminine traits, moody disposition and
vulnerability in him is out of question. Shinji diametrically differs from the occasional male-bimbo
protagonist in the mecha plot, who, summoned by his father to pilot the gigantic robots (which is
canonically a father creation) immediately and with enormous amount of gusto proceeds to save
the world. (Napier 2007 109) On the contrary, Shinji is reluctant, scared and in the end unhappy
about piloting Eva, since it brings him only pain - much like any real person and moreover otaku
would be feeling. (Malone 121 qtd in Napier 2002, 424-5) In fact, the designer of NGE Yoshiki
Sadomoto was asked to create the protagonist that would look nothing like conventional mecha
jock: So finally I tried for a look where you can see the forehead through the bangs, shorter hair,
the look of a boyish young girl (fig.3) (Malone 122 qtd in Sadomoto 1998, 164-5) Moreover,
when Shinji moves into Misato home, he is the one who takes over the role of the housewife.
(Redmond 214) Finally, Shinjis latent homoerotic relation with Kaworu by the end of the series
concludes in favor of his mother complex. Now, the anima that makes Shinjis complex even more
complicated is represented by Rei. Who, as has been said, is simultaneously Shinjis mother, sister
and possible love interest what illustrates animas presence in mother complex, with a rare sense
of literalness Queen was the Kings sister, mother, or wife(285 qtd in Ripley Revived or An
Exposition upon Sir George Ripley's HermeticoPoetical Works 1678)
As for the girls mother complex, it is much more pure, distinguished and has a clear division
as opposed to the boys mother complex. Again, starting with Misato we can say that her
appearance together with her behavior unambiguously suggest The Overdeveloped Eros. A girl
with this complex is:in unconscious incestuous relation with her father.(Jung 88) what explains
Misatos motto for fighting Angels and her relationship with Kaji. The incestuous relation with the
father naturally makes her jealous of the mother and forces her to outdo mother in any way

Terletskyi 18

possible. However since in Misatos case a precious father has left the family she tries to surpass
her mother by being her opposite, which is why she outstands with horny and provocative
behavior, slutty outfits, cartoonish slovenliness and in a words of adjunct lecturer at the University
of Texas Dennis Redmond represents the complete antithesis of the docile Japanese
housewife(Redmond 214) A girl in this complex unconsciously fights against the
preponderance of female maternal element in lives of the men with passive Eros, what makes
Misato an indispensable element for Shinji who is definitely under concerned preponderance.
However, being the disturbing and combustible character she occasionally sets herself on fire and
the glare of the fire she ignites both illuminates and enlightens all the victims of the
entanglement.(Jung 95-96)
Now, Asukas mother complex apparently manifests in a - Resistance to the Mother. This
resistance usually caused by a contradiction where: on the one hand daughter is so fascinated
with her mother that could not even dream about identifying with her (Pre-Oedipus) and on the
other hand she jealously resists her because of the father. (subsequent Oedipus)(Jung 90)
However, in Asukas case fathers influence and authority are completely disregarded due to
exclusive mother fixation. In this way, her resistance to, as much as, her fascination with, mother
are twice as strong, where the former was presumably caused by the troubled relation with
mother alone.(castration complex) Since the resistance is aimed towards mother and hence
matter, the girl resists everything natural and material. All of her instincts happen to be deeply
impaired; she is troubled by menstruations, clumsy with objects and seeks her resort in
masculinity and occasionally intelligence if her mother has not invaded these fields by that time.
(Jung 90-1)
Following this, Asuka has taken her college degree in 14, always strives to maintain an
independent leading position, impatient with her Eva and as has been said is deeply disturbed
with her period. Moreover her hatred of everything that is natural also includes hatred of
everything that is ambiguous, dark and unknown which she exorcises with the cold light of
dogmatic reason. (Jung 98) Thus in episode 11 when Shinji habitually to his withdrawn character
reflects upon: Why do the Angels attack us? or, Why do we fight Angels? Asuka immediately
sloughs off all of his philosophical inquiries with her classical: What are you stupid? Who knows
what they think? or What are you stupid? Strange beings are attacking us. When someones
attacking you, you cant just sit and do nothing. Furthermore her resistance towards mother is
not limited only to her mother but is targeted at the whole concept. For example in episode 14

Terletskyi 19

when Shinji undergoes the compatibility test she sarcastically asks: whats it like Moms
breasts? Or inside her womb?, or in the next episode, where she proposes Shinji to kiss and while
he is hesitating, she no less sarcastically asks: Do you not want to kiss on the anniversary of your
moms death? Afraid she may be watching you from heaven?
However, the rare combination of masculinity and femininity that issues from the
resistance to the mother proves to be of a great use as it builds bridges for the masculine mind
over which he can safely guide his feeling to the opposite shore.(Jung 99-100) And for Shinji
Asuka is doubtlessly a guiding star that helps him traveling through the alien, frightening and
obscure world of Kali and Hecate. (Jung 100) What is mostly visible in episode 24 and 25 of EOE
when Shinji repelled by Reis artificiality and scared by Misatos excessive femininity ultimately
seeks Asuka. Nevertheless, being opposed to the mother and femininity in general the girls true
self remains unconscious and hidden from the world and the more she resists maternal element
that more it dominates her life. (Jung 100) Therefore Asuka as a result of her resistance to mother
joins the bunch of kids with mother complexes to pilot one of mother-replacing Evangelion in
order to guard all-encompassing mother Lilith.
Next comes, Rei, which as has been said is a bit more complicated case, since she is not
entirely human. Nevertheless, taking into the account that she is made as a clone of Shinjis
mother and that she possesses Lilith soul, who represents in NGE the mother of all humanity, we
can assume her to represent Identity with the Mother. Her Eros and maternal instinct are
completely atrophied, and when some hints of affection do manage to penetrates her protective
shell, she usually confuses without any clue how to deal with it whatsoever. Usually she looks pale
and helpless because of the mother that feasts upon her daughters vigor by the way of this
vampiric identification. (Jung 89-90) Her helplessness plays a great deal in attracting a man
without whom she is unable to realize herself. In this way she will keep on playing a laid out role of
a doll for a long time, till she finds him and devote or even sacrifice herself entirely for her
savior.(Jung 97)
Rei indeed appears to be uncannily distant and emotionless. And while an intruder that sees
her naked in her room, does not make her in anyway uncomfortable, the mere exposure of
concern or affection from a side will certainly make her blush. She secretly works as a nurturing
core of the Dummy System that aimed to make Eva (that represents the mother) to operate
automatically. Finally her helpless nature makes Shinji to pilot Eva at the first place and needles to
say that later on she ultimately sacrifice herself for him. Finally, her nature which can be described

Terletskyi 20

as empty or abysmal and hence mysterious represents the ultimate feminine secret and serves as
a perfect vessel for males anima projection. (Jung 98)
Necessary to point that although each of the mother complexes mentioned above
significantly differs from the other, some of them could be intermingled within a character or
overflow into one another according to persons development. Thus, for example in episode 14 Rei
calls herself woman who does not bleed showing the rudiments of growing Resistance to the
Mother, or Asuka whose provocative Lolita-like behavior and caustic comments towards Shinji
could be seen as features attributed to Overdeveloped Eros, and Misatos stereotypical
masculinity that conforms to the motto: Anything so long as it is not like my Mother.!(Jung 90)
that outlines Resistance to the Mother. Finally all three of the concerned females at one point or
another exhibit genuine if not excessive concern about Shinji what hints upon the possible
Hypertrophy of the Maternal Element, which is however the only type of mother complex that has
not been realized in the series, allegedly due to its motherless nature.
So far we have analyzed Oedipus, castration and mother complexes and although some of
them closely correspond to the others and sometimes could be seen as identical, their division
was necessary in order to produce more comprehendible diagnosis and not to mix two
distinguished views. It is also necessary to mentioned that Evangelion as a matter of fact pivots
around Shinji and mainly depicts his perception which is why the characters are explained partly in
a relation to him. As has been said before, NGE is a depiction of inner world and its psychological
aspects rather than simply sci-fi animation. (Napier 2007 114) And so above, we have analyzed few
basic complexes that make the person what it is, and that constitute the fundament of repressed
materials. In the following chapters we focus on how these repressed materials manifest and what
significance they bear. As a conclusion we can say that universe of NGE is of a lonely, confused and
closed nature. Each of its characters live for his/her secrets masterfully covered by personas which
ultimate makes them unbearably distant from each other. And even if they try to open up and get
closer - the closer they get the more they injure one another, as according to Schopenhauers
Hedgehog dilemma.

(M)other
The Mothers, The Mothers, how eerily it sounds (Jung 98 qtd in Faust part 2, Act 1)

As we mentioned before Shinjis Weltanschauung or in other words the world of NGE is of an

extremely bizarre nature. It is filled with childhood traumas, fears and unresolved complexes

Terletskyi 21

which has been mythologized and blown out to the cosmic proportions. So it is only natural to
assume that, the major influence on interior of this world has come from unconscious. Hence, it is
no coincidence that Shinjis world is preoccupied with the manifestation of mother archetype, and
the femininity in general, since the masculine unconscious is likely to be of a feminine nature.
(Jung 175) Moreover, according to Jung the unconsciousis none other than the image of father
and mother that was acquired in early childhood, overvalued, and repressed on an account of the
incest-fantasy associated with it.(66) So let us start with the image of mother and the mother
archetype. The mother archetype could be seen almost in any imaginable form. It could be
woman, goddess, city, moon, wood, sea, earth, hollow object etc. And as any archetype, the
mother archetype could have both positive and negative effect. It could represent:the wisdom
and spiritual exaltation that transcends reason, any helpful instincts or impulseall that cherishes
and sustains, that fosters growth and fertilitytogether with anything secret, hidden,
darkanything that devours, seduces and poisons, that is terrifying and inescapable like
fate.(Jung 82)
Since in NGE actual mother of Shinji and mothers of other pilots are replaced by the Evas we
can presuppose they are the closest representations of mother archetype in the series. Being
mecha, Eva peculiarly stands for wish-fulfilling fantasy of power, authority and technological
competence.(Malone 111 qtd in Napier 2005 86), and yet she is nothing like a classical angular
tons of steel in a form of easily reproducible toys. In fact her appearance as much as the way she
moves suggest something animalistic. (Goldberg) In one of the interview Anno mentions that Evas
look was based upon the Japanese demon called oni but beneath the surface and metal plates Eva
is ultimately a human. (Anno 1996b 27) Significantly, in order to pilot Eva one has to synchronize
with her, which in itself is already a departure from the classical robots that have to be ridden.
The actual process of synchronization with Eva is also of interest: The child encapsulated in
the phallic-shaped cockpit, filled with liquid that provides oxygen directly in his/her blood, is
injected into the womb-like sphere inside of Eva, in this way supposedly reenacting a return to
the womb. (Ortega 225) Moreover if the child, Eva has synchronized with, is in danger she literary
breaks laws of logic and reason to defend the pilot. At these special berserk moments We no
longer see him [Shinji] in the cockpit and merely watch the violence from a distance. He and the
Eva become one(Goldberg) which is occasionally presaged by the cauda pavonis the
appearance of all Colors unfolding realization of wholeness, once the dark dividing wall has
broken down(fig.4) (Jung 375) This dark dividing wall supposedly represents the border which

Terletskyi 22

was created as a result of consciousness tendency to differentiate from unconscious. Thus in

episode 2, for example we see the all Colours and subsequent berserk of Eva manifest only after
Evas and hence Shinjis head was badly traumatized, which might have resulted in a loss of
consciousness, which is also highlighted by the mentioned inability to see him in the cockpit.
Moreover, the phenomenon of the berserker is also signified or better say triggered by the
blue-fire-like emanation that is directly associated with the mother of the pilot and appears only in
the most blindest life-threatening alleys as in episode 16, 19, 20 and 25 of EOE. (fig.5)
Consequently, this fire could be referred to the either primal-warmth of the Stoics, or the
Heraclitean(ever-living fire), which borders on the primitive notion of an all-pervading vital force,
a power of growth and magic healing that is generally called mana.(Jung 33) Furthermore, as the
signifier of transformation and due to its flashing nature, concerned fire could be legitimately
referred to the lightning that signifies a sudden, unexpected, and overpowering change of
psychic condition.(Jung 295) All in all this hidden maternal potential as much as the ability to go
berserk when the pilot is unconscious suggest Eva to be responsible for some unconscious
functions if not being the signifier for the whole unconscious or the Id if using Freudian terms.
(Freud 3959)
Remarkably, only 14-yaers old child can synchronize with Eva, what naturally raises a
question why exactly 14? Well, from one perspective as Anno comments it is the special age when
your independent mind starts manifest and when you are no longer a child but not yet an
adult.(Anno 1996c), a middle position when your ego and consciousness are not yet solidified. Yet
from the other perspective it could be seen as a satirical reference to the Nintendo generation and
theirs phenomenal abilities to handle technology. (Redmond 210) However according to
Evangelions plot 15 years ago a mysterious catastrophe known as a Second Impact occurred:
humanity reached a God and this discovery wiped out the half of the earth population and
seriously messed up the eco-system. The series also mentions that The First Impact which is the
analogy of the Big Bang out of which the universe was created and The Third Impact which is the
aim of both leading NGEs organization NERV and SEELE that could be understood as either return
to the primordial homogenous state or the artificially forced evolution of humanity that strangely
leads to the same primordial homogenous existence.
According to Faulkner, impacts could be the metaphors for the psychic development of life.
Thus, the First Impact could stand for the appearance of unconscious; then followed the centuries

Terletskyi 23

of evolutions, during which happened the miracle: the divine/devilish curiosity has been born from
the darkness of unconscious womb in to the light of reason which is known as human and its
consciousness. (Jung 96) The Second Impact which is triggered by humanity reaching a God,
represents the critical split of inclined on differentiation consciousness from its unconscious origin.
And finally The Third Impact represents the inevitable reunion of consciousness with
unconsciousness. In this way, the 14-years old children that were born after the Second Impact are
the generation of apocalyptically differentiated consciousness. (Faulkner) Therefore, since all
the 14-years old were born already divided from unconscious, they can (or rather need to) pilot
Evas that as substitutes of pilots mothers, and, hence matter and, hence matrix, stand for sin qua
non of all experience and differentiation namely, the unconscious. (Jung 334)
Moreover, following the analogy we know that Asukas Evangelion 02 is produced from the
Adam, while Shinjis Evangelion 01 is produced from Lilith, which illustrates how, in female case,
Eva correspond to the unconscious masculinity and in males case Eva corresponds to unconscious
femininity. In fact, we can even compare these sex correlations of Evas to the similar correlation
with horses in Deutsche Miirchen seit Grimm ["The Princess in the Tree"] where the swineherd, in
the end, gets four-legged horse(four stands for femininity) and the princess peculiarly gets threelegged horse(three is accordingly stands for masculinity). (Jung 234)
Necessary to add that Eva as a manifestation of mother archetype conforms to the concept
of loving and terrible mother. (Jung 82). It is said that Evagelion unit 01 contains the nous of Yui
and is made from Lilith, naturally we can presuppose that loving aspect of Eva is represented by
the almost canonized Yui and the all-pervading life force in a form of blue flashing fire that is
associated with her. The loving side of Eva manifests through her nurturing and protecting
qualities mentioned above. By piloting Eva Shinji comes to terms with his unconscious, (Faulkner)
and unarguably grows closer to being individual. In fact, we can say that Eva is literary pregnant
with its pilot, and throughout the series she carries her baby through all of the transformations, till
the time it is ready to be born.
Thus, the red sphere inside of Eva (fig.6) where the fetus-pilot is growing could be nothing
else but a symbol for the future Self, (Malone 122 qtd in Napier 2005, 99) that is going to hatch
from it someday. In fact the form of the sphere itself resemble the: the philosophical eggthe
vessel from which, at the end the opus alchymicum, the homunculus emerges, that is the
Antropos, the spiritual, inner and complete man (Jung 293 qtd in Psychology and Alchemy, pars

Terletskyi 24

138f, 306) Moreover, the combination of Eva and Shinji literary resembles the peculiar feature of
the Self, namely of being bigger than big and smaller than small. (Jung 171) - Shinji is literary
smaller than small both in his size and self-esteem while Eva is gigantic and powerful beyond
measure.
The terrible aspect of the Eva 01 is accordingly represented by the devilish Lilith. Some
gnostic and esoteric traditions consider Lilith to be Adams first wife, who similarly to Adam was
made from a soil. It is said that she left Adam for Samael, supposedly because she did not want to
yield her dominant position on the top during the sexual act. (Ortega 221-2) In NGE she represents
the all-encompassing mother and in this way could be referred to the Earth Mother to which we
can legitimately attribute Evas terrible aspect and all possible wildness of Id. From the very first
episode Eva appears as a monster from the underworld *Nerv+, and as we proceed further in the
series she gradually reveals her chthonic, instinctual and blood-thirsty nature. In episode 18, for
example Eva methodically disembowels angel with her bare hands, or in episode 19 she gets on all
four and hungrily devours her opponent. Moreover, the physical and psychical suffering that is
associated with piloting Eva suggests that child is not piloting but rather is sacrificed to it. (Jung
184-5)
Now, while the validity of loving aspect of the mother does not raise too many questions
and is commonly taken for granted, the terrible aspect could be explained as a traumatic
reaction to the slightly modified Lacanian mirror stage. During mirror stage individual looks in
the mirror and according to his/her reflection starts differentiating him/herself from the others,
thus establishing his identity. (Goldberg) In episode 26 Shinji is said that the identity exists only via
interaction with the others and that the first other that a person has to accept, is the mother.
Apparently, Shinji has not accepted his mother as the other and is still dependent on her, which is
why he pilots Eva. However, the dread suspicion of his mother being the other must have crept
into his head. Inevitably, the frightening possibility was repressed, what made the unconscious
mother image ten times scarier, and ten times more alien and other.
Significantly, Lilith, who has been referred to Earth Mother and who thus constitutes the
terrible aspect, is also could be seen as the anima manifestation. In accordance with anima,
Lilith is known for her seductive, illusory and rebellious nature as much as for belonging to the
Other Sidewhere libidinal and unconscious desires go unchecked. (Ortega 222) (Jung 25)
Both of them are thought to be the magic breath that has brought Adam to life. (Ortaga 222) (Jung

Terletskyi 25

26). And finally both of them were nowadays reduced to the erotic fantasies to which we can
attribute failed sex, spilling semen in sleep or masturbation [all of which] proves to be
psychologically valid today in terms of the minds daily struggle between unsuppressed desires
and thoughts (Ortega 227 qtd in Rosenberg Dreams of Being Eaten Alive 18). Following this, we
can presuppose that this sexualized aspect of the mother which is caused by anima and which
issues from Oedipus complex was repressed by a castration, and thus, together with a mothers
sheer femininity had only increased the degree of mothers otherness.
Remarkably, Eva 01 who contains Yuis mind and Lilith body is perfectly complemented by
Rei who is made as Yuis clone and possesses Lilith soul. These intricate feminine correlations
could be clarified by the figure of Demeter and Kore. The figure of Demeter and Kore is actually
threefold and incorporates in itself maiden, mother and Hecate. (Jung 182) Maiden is known to be
of a divine descent and myth-like nature. (Jung 186) From a males perspective she is the anima
archetype, an illusory and helpless femme homme that is bound to get in trouble or to be
sacrificed. (Jung 198-9) Rei, with her identity to the mother which includes helplessness and
tendency to be sacrificed directly corresponds to femme homme and anima, and thus fits in the
maiden type. Mother and Hecate in their turn represent over-life-size Mothers where the
former is thought as a noble and pure Demeter, and the latter - on the contrary chthonic, childsacrificing Earth Mother. (Jung 185) Thus, Yui that is associated with life, growth and who
manifests through the emanation of benevolent blue light stands for Demeter, while bloodthirsty,
animalistic Lilith stands for Hecate.
Yet, somehow differently we can also compare concerned feminine entities to the divine
triad of Sophia, Zoe and Eve where: Sophia is the female emanation of the divine, Zoe is her
manifestation as material purveyor, and Eve is both a manifestation of Zoe and the material but
divinely informed husk that is left behind when Zoe-Eves essence enters Tree of Knowledge,
thwarting a plan by the demiurge and his archons to rape her.(Ortega 223) However, on the
contrary to Ortega who suggests that concerned trinity corresponds either to Misato, Asuka and
Rei, Yui alone, or to the trio of the supercomputers Magi, I propose the following analogy:
Sophia the female emanation of the divine should be related to Shinjis deceased mother
Yui. Yui as has been mentioned before represents the ultimate virtue and apparently takes place
of the Holy Ghost within NGEs cosmogony that is regarded by some Gnostics as feminine and
motherly Sophia.(Jung 64) Rei as a clone of Yui, is accordingly her material purveyor, while a

Terletskyi 26

manifestation of Zoe and the material but divinely informed husk that is left behind is Eva herself.
Since first of all, being made from Lilith Eva could be considered as a manifestation of Rei/Zoe who
possesses Lilith soul. And second of all because during the Third Impact in EOE where Eva, Rei,
Lilith, Yui merged into one cosmic mother who at first harvested all the life back into her womb
and then repopulated the Earth a.k.a. enters the Tree of Knowledge that accordingly thwarts
Gendos (Shinjis father and assumingly demiurgh) plan of Instrumentality, Eva is left behind.
Back to the figure of Demeter and Kore, it is important to mention, that while for a boy it
illustrates the complex interconnections between mother and anima, for a girl it shows something
completely different: Maiden(Kore) is perceived as a supraordinate person or the symbol of the
Self. (Jung 183) Mother(Demeter and Hecate) in her turn does not appear in any way alien or
frightening as in a boys case, but stands for aspect that is a part of girls consciousness per se, and
in a worst case could be perceived as powerful. And the more powerful mother appears to be
the less conscious is the daughter about her maternal aspect. (Jung 186) And indeed, we never see
Asukas or Reis Evangelion going berserk but Asukas Eva in particular seems to be powerful
beyond measure.
Finally it is said that, during the embryo development, every pre-conscious psyche of the
future daughter actively participates in the mothers psyche and vice-versa. Thus, we can agree
that every mother contains her daughter in herself and every daughter her mother, and that
every woman extends backwards into her mother and forward into her daughter.(Jung 188) In
accord with that, Rei and Asuka by piloting their Evas extend the feminine consciousness both
upwards and downwardsadd an older and younger stronger and weaker dimension to it....
(Jung 188)
To sum up, Shinjis unconscious is legitimately overwhelmed with and represented by
feminine presence. Among its repressed content we encounter, still active and intense mother
image, to which he is still attached and which classically possesses both heimlich und unheimlich
traits in the nature of her representation, and anima that plays her seductive illusionary games of
love and death luring Shinji in to the depths of his psyche. (Jung 26) And how alien, other or
terrifying this chasm may not be, to go down this chasm is the only way for Shinji to individuate
and make a man of himself. (Jung 98)

Terletskyi 27

Father
The very word v means 'poison' as well as 'antidote,' (Jung 227)

Naturally, the father image also occupies a fundamental place among the repressed material
of unconscious. (Jung 66) The fathers of NGE, while all being alive in the crude contrast to the
deceased mothers oxymoronically appear to be more distant from their children. Moreover the
tendency to neglect family either over professional or personal ambitions that is present in all
NGEs fathers without exception was frequently a cause or a decisive circumstance in the death of
their wives. This neglect however, could be easily understood in the context of aftermath of
financial Bubble-Crisis in Japan, where they (fathers) all were desperately trying to pull things
together. (Redmond 209)
Now from a psychological perspective, after males castration complex and dissolution of
Oedipus complex, father image, whose authority is directly responsible for latter, became a
severe super-ego. (Freud 4731) It is not difficult to notice how enormous Gendos (Shinjis
father) paternal authority is. He is the head of an organization for which Shinji works and which is
literally charged with saving the world.(Malone 121 qtd. Kotani 1997, 99). When Shinji
occasionally confronts his father, the latter is symbolically towering over his son, speaking in harsh
imperatives and looking with scorn. (fig.7) During these confrontations Shinji, usually emotionally
destroyed by such an overbearing domination of the father, just childishly stares up from below or
shamefully looks away. (Kreamer 5) Moreover, the oppressive authority of the super-ego also
manifests through the Gendos panopticon: almost every Shinjis move is watched by his father
either from his platform high above or via monitors. (Malone 121) Needless to say, that in this way
Shinji constantly feels himself being observed and under the pressure.
As a sadistic super-ego Gendo represents the ideal person that Shinji wants to become but
simultaneously he is the one responsible for a constant strain, shameful repressions and passive
feminine masochism that Shinji acquired. (Freud 4561) This ambiguity in Gendos nature as much
as him being the main reason of his sons repressions makes him resemble shadow archetype. We
know that shadow is everything that person refused to acknowledge about him/herself and yet
cannot get rid of. Shadow is always impedes our affairs in the most horrible way imagined and
constantly reminds man about his/her helplessness and inadequacy. (Jung 23) In psychological
terms, shadow corresponds to the inferior function which is the one of the four functions of

Terletskyi 28

consciousness such as thinking, feeling, sensation and intuition. (Jung 320) Inferior function always
remains completely rooted in the unconscious and thus, remains disturbingly independent, while
the superior function is on the contrary differentiated the most and therefore is fully under the
control of the will.
These two polar functions are mediated by the two middle functions that although appear to
be more differentiated than inferior function still have the considerable degree of spontaneity.
Naturally, the superior function strives to get these two functions under its control and establish
the delusional monarchy of consciousness, while deliberately ignoring the existence and influence
of the inferior function. Whereas inferior function like the devil who delights in disguising
himself as an angel of lightsecretly and mischievously influences the superior function most of
all, just as the latter represses the former most strongly.(Jung 238) In this way the inferior
function appears to be: the Achilles heel of the most heroic consciousness *and proves that]
somewhere the strong man is weak, the clever man foolish, the good man bad (Jung 237)
The best example of these correlations between functions could be seen in the NGEs
Control Deck. (fig.8) Here we have three lower platforms that contain the three Magi
supercomputers that are literary responsible for the rational thinking: starting from analyzing the
data from Evangelion and ending with governing the presidential election of Tokyo-3 as
mentioned in episode 11. The Magi are controlled by the three members of the personnel at the
fourth higher platform, which is fully subjected to the unquestionable and equally unfathomable
will of Commander Gendo Ikari. And, even when the main operator of the Magi - the daughter of
its founder - Ritsuko Akagi, tries to pull a diversion against Gendo in EOE, one of the three
computers inevitably betrays her, showing its inclination towards spontaneity and its allegiance to
Gendo. Who despite his apparent superior position, oxymoronically represents the inferior
function, taking into the account that NERV is assumed to be the kingdom of Shinjis unconscious
(Napier 2007 84), and the inferior function in this terrain is accordingly regarded as superior.
Moreover, the vivid megalomania that is attributed to Gendos character creates a rightful
unconscious balance to Shinjis conscious complex of inferiority. (Jung 180) In the end
nonetheless, despite their apparent opposition, similarly to the opposition of the evil hunter and
swineherd from The Princess and the Tree one goes about the others business (Jung 241)
Thus, Shinji while fighting Angels for the sake of humanity, in fact is executing his fathers plan,
and Gendo while concocting his schemes, in fact is concocting Shinjis individuation. And, as the

Terletskyi 29

series unfolds Shinji/swineherd gets more and more like Gendo/hunter, while Gendo turns out to
be like Shinji/swineherd, who failed to attain the soul/anima. (Jung 241)
Yet if we ignore Gendo as an inferior function and establish him as a super-ego which makes
perfect sense, taking into the account that his platform is a superstructure over the main platform,
the Magi that occupy the three remaining platforms and more importantly Eva whose operability
is the Magi responsibility would be closest to represent inferior function. And even more so taking
into the account Evas berserk issues a.k.a. deus ex machina and the sex correlation to the pilots
unconscious. (Jung 238)
Next, given, that scientifically arrogant Gendo was trying to attain the God, what has
resulted in a catastrophe of the Second impact, and that after catastrophe he did not stop, but
changed his aim from attain God to create God. We can legitimately compare him to the tyrannical
demiurge that shapes the reality as he likes (Second Impact erased half of the earth population
and impaired the eco-system) and attempts to create a perfect human (Evangelion). (Ortega 222)
Moreover Gendos ambiguous morality: he is saving the world in order to put an end to it, just to
reunite with his wife, while constantly cheating on her - suggests that he is very much like Yahweh.
(Keamer 7) who despite his role as the guardian of justice and morality, is amoral and unjust
(Jung 341 qtd in Stade, Biblische Theologie des Alten Testaments Vol. 1), and who in this way also
corresponds to the Father in Bhmes cosmology.
Somehow differently, we can associate Shinjis father with the archetype of the wise old
man. The wise old man advices, prohibits convicts or teaches, not infrequently taking on the father
image. From time to time he can even diminish to just voice which laconically and unarguably
passes the final judgment.(Jung 214-15 qtd in Psychology and Alchemy 115) The wise old man
sticks to the form that presupposes authority and manifests when hero is in the deadlock and so
he/she has to be pushed, advised or tricked by the old man in order to proceed further. (Jung 216)
As any archetype the wise old man evades the obvious dichotomies and thus can be both good,
bad or all at once, depending on the situation. (Jung 227)
Gendo Ikari, apparently represents the wicked side of the old man. First he abandons
Shinji, then he summons him because he had a use for him what makes Shinji go through
unendurable suffering. He puts his son in a beast that contains his mother presence and makes
him fight fearful mind/body tormenting enemies that are ultimately not enemies at all. Moreover,
Gendo hooks Shinji up with a 14 years old clone of Shinjis mother to stir the forgotten and more

Terletskyi 30

important forbidden emotions. Finally he forces Shinji to kill a friend but when Shinji refuses he
does it anyway literally using Shinjis hands. In fact, as has been implied before the whole NGEs
plot apart from retrospections could be perceived as Gendos one big scheme for the sole
purpose of bullying on Simple Simon of an ego-consciousness into the way he[Shinji] should go,
which for sheer stupidity he would never have found for himself.(Jung 227) Needless to say that
Shinji rarely meets his father and the only connection they have is established via extramural
orders.
The other instance of the paternal principle and the archetype of the wise old man is Kaji
Ryoji. On the contrary to Gendo, Kaji seems to be on a good side of the wise old man and
conveniently appears when Shinji requires masculine counsel or encouragement. Thus, at the
episode 17 he explains to Shinji the ups and downs of growing process on the example of
watermelons and tells that pain does not make you weak but sensible to the others, or in the next
episode 18, he tells Shinji about huge sea of misunderstanding that divides man and women and
that the desire to cross the sea and understand each other is what makes life interesting.
Significantly in the same episode, he advices Shinji and Asuka who are in distress to sleep on it,
which corresponds to the classical wise old man attitude that: morning is cleverer than
evening(Jung 220-1 qtd in Finnische und estnische Volksmiirchen)
As for the, Kaworu, being the Reis divine counterpart, he represents the ultimate
masculine/paternal principle - animus, the Spirit, (Jung 306) on the contrary to the Rei that
represents the ultimate feminine/maternal principle, - anima the Soul (Jung 26). Naturally for
Shinji as for the male, the Spirit represents the Self and mentioned above wise old man archetype
appears to be one of the Spirits affiliation. (Jung 215) Kaworu befriends, betrays and then
ultimately sacrifice himself for Shinji, all in one episode. What proves once more, that unconscious
works in mysterious ways and that: we never know what evil may not be necessary in order to
produce good by enantiodromia, and what good may very possibly led to evil.(Jung 215)
It is worth mentioning, that all three of the Spirit or wise old man manifestations ask Shinji
self-realizing questions like Who? Why? What? or simply start suggestive conversations in order
to gather the assets of the whole personality together at the critical moment, when all spiritual
and physical forces are challenged(Jung 218-20) Thus, at the critical moment of episode 19, we
have Kaji who makes Shinji reconsider his refusal to pilot Eva. And then Gendo, whom Shinji
confront under the similar circumstances as in episode 1, only instead of averting his eyes in
shame and piling Gendo with childish pretensions, his personality is ascertain now and he answers

Terletskyi 31

on Gendos: Why are you here? with self-realizing Im here because Im pilot of Evangelion unit
01, thus, accepting the role, that he has been having problem with since the beginning.

To summarize, we can say that masculine/paternal characters in NGE are as ambiguous as

feminine/maternal characters. From one perspective Shinjis father Gendo represents severe
super ego that still haunts Shinji, with the terrifying prospect of castration, from the other he takes
the form of a shadow-like wise old man or the inferior function that has prepared numerous trials
which Shinji has to overcome in order to accept his shadow and become whole. Kaji in his turn
appears to be of a lighter nature, and in this way provide Shinji with wise insight counterbalancing
Gendos wickedness. Kaworu ultimately represents the Spirit and the Self, and in his qualities, if try
to grasp his divine self, is situated between Gendo and Kaji neither this nor that. All three in
general can be ascribed to the motif of Spirit, which represents the masculine idee force that
inspires Shinji to explore the feminine depths of his unconscious, to conquer his complexes and to
reconcile with his father, thus achieving the longed Self. (Jung 187)

Friend or Foe
Behold, upon the selfsame tree
Two birds, fast-bound companions, sit
Enjoys the ripened fruit
The other looks, but does not it

On such a tree my spirit crouched

Deluded by its powerlessness
Till seeing with joy how great its lord
It found from sorrow swift release
(Jung 121-2 qtd in Shvetashvatara Upanishad 4, 6ff.)

It is known that any mecha-anime needs to have an opposing force - the enemies, preferably
aliens that came from the outer space to invade native land and to rape native women. NGE is not
an exception from the list, only here Hideaki Anno does not try to pull the familiar trick in which
anime, fueled with spirit of patriotic revenge, tries to reenact WW2 via mecha jocks and
kamikaze pilots who, in the famous words of Rembo finally get to win.(Redmond 197-8). In NGE
evil aliens from outer space are of an extremely ambiguous nature and bear no less ambiguous
names - Angels. They are altogether materialistic but abstract homogenous existence, that

Terletskyi 32

although appears in many forms have one collective mind and are able to learn and to evolve.
Azuma Hiroki suggests that theirs dubious nature perfectly illustrates Japanese crises like Aum
Shinrikyo, when you have a problem but you cannot trace its source. (1998) Mari Kotani Japanese
science fiction critic and the author of the book Evangelion as the Immaculate Virgin in her turn
proposes that Angels represent Julia Kristevas abjection.(Kotani) And while both suggestions
are quite interesting and deserves attention, we are bound to provide more Jungian
interpretation.
To understand Angels nature better, we have to consult Justins gnosis, according to which:
The Father (Elohim) begets with Edem, who was half woman half snake, twelve fatherly
angels, and Edem gives birth besides these to twelve motherly angels, who in psychological
parlance represents the shadow of the twelve fatherly angels.(Jung 310) The third of the
fatherly angels Baruch. He is also the tree of life in paradise. His counterpart on the motherly
side is Naas, the serpent, who is the tree of knowledge of good and evilEdem is the soul,
Elohim is the spirit(Jung 317) In NGE Angels correspond to Adam, the paternal element that
represents divine power of the Tree of Life, which is why Angels are immune to all types of
conventional weapon and constitute one undifferentiated entity,while scientifically arrogant,
passion prone, and irrational human [corresponds to] Lilith - [Tree of Knowledge] forbidden
knowledge, unrestrained desire.(Ortega 222) In this way the Elohim could be seen as represented
by Adam, and the Edem accordingly is represented by Lilith. Notwithstanding the fact, that Elohim
is basically absent from the series we can see his name written on the tree of Sephiroth during the
opening sequence, (fig.9) which thus suggests NGEs connection to concerned gnosis.
The Baruch/ The Tree of Life and Naas/ The Tree of Knowledge in their turn are represented
by the Kaworu and Rei, since both of them possess the vital parts of their ancestor, namely the
souls in accordance withangel Baruch stands for the pneuma of Elohim, and the motherly
angel Naas for the craftiness of Edem. (Jung 324) And although, the number of Angels is not
complied to the number from gnosis, the motif of motherly angels being the shadow of
fatherly angels is supported by Kaworu who addresses Eva as the Adams shadow in episode
24. Succumbing to this idea, we can legitimately presuppose that Angels represent the fatherly
angels and Evas accordingly represent the motherly angels. Moreover: Elohim we are told, set
the prophet Heracles the task to delivering the Father (the pneuma) from the power of the
twelve wicked angels (Jung 324) In the same way but with a slight alteration, we can assume
that Shinji is a Heracles prototype who was sent by Adam or more correctly by its earthly

Terletskyi 33

manifestation Gendo(since at one point he obtains the Adams embryo and at another absorbs it
into his body) to salvage Kaworu/Baruch from the SEELE and its wicked Angels. And although
this assumption may appear contradictory since in this way Elohim/Adam sent prophet/Shinji to
salvage his pneuma(soul)/Kaworu from his own fatherly angels, the opposition which it creates
fully corresponds to the gnostic opposition The soul is against the spirit, and the spirit against the
soul. (Jung 317, qtd in Hippolytus, Elenchos, V, 26, 21ff.)
Remarkably the same opposition is reflected in the opposition of two major and seemingly
cooperative organizations, namely NERV and SEELE. NERV is headed by Gendo Ikari and is known
as an executive branch of the SEELE. NERV is responsible for creating Eva series and its disposal,
while SEELE, and it has been busily shadowed throughout the series, is somehow responsible for
Angel attacks. Accordingly, Rei that is working for NERV possesses Liliths soul while Kaworu from
SEELE possesses Adams soul. But, borrowing the absolutely legitimate question from the Malone,
we can ask why, in a Japanese program are two such important entities given German names,
and why these particular names?(Malone 115) Most of the scholars and fan sites tend to
interpret NERV as a nerve, and SEELE as a soul. (Malone 115 qtd in Napier, 2005 268) And
although, being particularly right in terms of translation (Jung 26) and fortunately implying the
mind/body dichotomy, this conjecture begs correction.
Malone, quite usefully brings about the first epigraph from Daniel Schrebers memoirs: The
human soul is contained in the nerves of the body (119), which is considered to be Schrebers
schizophrenic interpretation of Flechsigs thesis: Diseases of association centers are the foremost
causes of mental illness (Malone 119 qtd in Santner, 1997, 71). He explains that this
inetrpretation was a result of the peculiar sense of literalness with which schizophrenics in general
and Schreber in particular comprehend and who generally have no capacity for metaphorical
understanding.(Malone 119 qtd in Adams, 2004, 81-2) So, Malone states that this literal
reinterpretation of Schreber has been put on the screen by no less literal Hideaki Anno. And in this
way, the idea that soul contains in nerves was shown through the obscure cooperation of NERV
and SEELE, which, thus justifies the concerned interpretation of NERV as a nerve and SEELE as a
soul.
However, while the assumption, that concerned Schrebers phrase was portrayed in
Evangelion could be true, the soul mentioned in it, could not be equated to the SEELE
organization. This soul supposedly resides in nerves per se, while SEELE much rather denotes

Terletskyi 34

Spirit. Both soul (Jung 26) and spirit (Jung 210) in fact, could be perceived as stimulating, inspiring,
quick-moving, changeful, twinkling or breath, which presupposes that both could be called SEELE.
But, the idea to assign these qualities to the bunch of extremely orthodox, stubborn and grumping
old - geezers that SEELE is, sounds to me utterly inappropriate and ridiculous. NERV on the other
hand, is filled with young woman, kids and Evas, that have to react to the unpredictable Angel
attacks on the daily basis, fits better for the term. Therefore it is much more appropriate to
translate SEELE as a Spirit the sum-total of all the phenomena of rational thoughta certain
attitude spirit of the age, which stands for the principle and motive force behind certain views,
judgments, and action of a collective nature.(Jung 208-9) SEELEs members are all exclusively
senile, what makes them signifiers of their age and its views. But most of all they are of a collective
nature which is highlighted simply by the fact that they hold a committee. NERV on contrary is
headed by a mad Machiavellian tyrant, and more important contains Rei which as the anima
represents the femininity, mystery, temptation and is considered to be Soul. (Jung 26) As opposed
to the Kaworu, who corresponds to the paternal principle, wise old man and Spirit.
Following the concerned misinterpretation, J. Faulkner says that the mere fact of nerves
being tangible, on the contrary to the soul, being ephemeral, accordingly makes NERV the signifier
for consciousness and SEELE the signifier for the unconscious. (Faulkner) And while this
supposition sounds plausible at first, according to Jung, however, consciousness is differentiating
from unconscious upward towards individuality, uniqueness and abstractness in this way the
more conscious means the more individual and abstract. The unconscious in its turn keeps getting
more collective, universal and material as we descend to its bottom where we most likely would
simply find the world. (Jung 173) Thus, if producing such a division, the underground facility of
NERV is more likely to be the representation of unconscious and the so secret that almost nonexistent facility of SEELE to be the representation of consciousness. However I am personally in
favor of the division where NERV represents a feminine, anima and soul principle and SEELE
accordingly - a masculine, animus and spirit principle.

The same could be said about the nature of Angels and Evas. Significantly enough, both Evas
and Angels have red spheres that signify their weak spot. Somewhere above, we have already
established this sphere to be the symbol of the Self, akin to the egg in which fetus undergoes
countless transformations till it is ready to hatch. Thus, we can logically assume that the same
sphere in Angels must also symbolize the Self. Moreover, the Angels multiplicity of shapes that
varies from insects and animals to geometrical figures and finally human also suggests the same.

Terletskyi 35

(Jung 187) In addition in episode 5 we learn that Angels DNA on 99,89% coincides with human
DNA. In EOE it is said that humanity is in fact an Angel and that Angels are just different variations
of what humanity could be like. Following this logic, plus taking into account that Angels start
attacking at the same time when Shinji has been summoned or vice-versa, and that Angels has
been evolving ever since they started fighting with Shinji, we can presume that this war against
the Angels is in fact the enantiodromical process of growth of one Self in opposition to the other
Self. In which Shinjis collaboration with Eva stands for one Self while the Angels represent the
other Self.
This other Self according to Jung: is the other person in ourselves that larger and
greater personality maturing within us, whom we have already met as the inner friend of the
soul [but who our consciousness resists] because [or which is why] the other person seems
strange and uncanny, and because we cannot get accustomed to the idea that we are not absolute
master in our own house.(130-1). This inner friend or other self frequently gets projected on
the external figure as on the mystical Stone of alchemists that crieth out to you: Protect me and
I will protect thee, Give me what is mine and I may help thee.(Jung 133 qtd in Ars chemica
"Septem tractatus seu capitula Hermetis Trismegisti aurei 1556) Although, In NGE the other
Self/inner friend is projected upon everything possible except for the Stone, the Angels are
indeed occasionally try to enlighten Shinji and to compromise. These moments are usually shown
as the deconstructive psychoanalytical dialogues where Shinji in particular talks with hisself. Thus,
at the episode 16 we see Shinji talking with his childlike self who gives following insight: I am you.
This self incorporates another self. The self has always been composed of two selvesthe self
which is observed and the self which observes itself. clearly pointing to the notion of aliquem
alium internum, a certain one, within us.(Jung 131 qtd in Rulando, Lexicon 1893 edn. p 226)
At this point it is necessary to mention that term shito that is used to denote Angels in fact
could be translated as a messenger or even apostle.(Angels). The same could be said about
the name of the final Angel Nagisa Kaworu: Nagisa means either shore which already suppose
a mediating position between matter and water, or as the kanji nagisa consists of katakana
SHI and kanji SHA , therefore he's SHISHA [messenger ].(Anno 2000) Thus, taking
into account that Angels correspond to SEELE hence animus and Spirit and that they signify Self
and could be translated as messenger, we can presuppose that they are nothing else but:
Mercury, that is Hermes, is the Nous, the mind or reason, and that is animus, who is here outside
instead of insidea veil that hides the true personality. (Jung 306) In this way the Angels are

Terletskyi 36

these mythical mediators between the sacred and profane, water and matter, unconscious and
conscious. In the end, the sole fluidity of Angels nature suggest them being like a quicksilver
Mercury. (Jung 306)

All in all, agreeing with Susan J. Napier the professor of the Tufts University and the author
of the Anime: From Akira to Howls Moving Castle, we can say that these so called enemies are
nothing else but a product of internal misunderstanding. (Napier 2007 114) They are an initial
friend who tries so hard to find a common ground with Shinjis ego-consciousness. The egoconsciousness in its turn is terrified by the prospect of being dependent on somebody but
ultimately both ego and self are in fact one-sided and could constitute whole only through the
collaboration. (Jung 132-3)

Mandala of Individuation
The difference between a good life and a bad life
Is how well you walk through the fire.
(Jung)

At the introductory part, it has already been mentioned that Evangelion is the work which
although simulated still incorporates a great degree of spontaneity and intimacy and which was
conceived by the Anno in order to overcome his depression and collaterally to capture the
unpredictable trials that he has encounter on his way to recovery, thus creating the example of
healing and liberating process of individuation. Following this, plus the fact that Anno was heavily
inspired by Jungian psychology, we can consider NGE to be a sort of Annos mandala. To make it
clear: mandala is a picture drawn in a ritualistic or therapeutically views to reach the universal
totality as opposing to the individual existence (Jung 357); or to prevent some demonic force from
getting inside ones inner spiritual self (Jung 376); or, speaking in psychological terms, to organize
ones disturbed and disoriented psyche.(Jung 360-1)
Mandala features lots of recurrent motives like: above and below where we have a
straight division on above that is, in brief, heaven and below that is, in brief, hell, mediated by
the center that is the union of these opposites the Self (Jung 367) These Self in terms of mandala
is achieved by the motif of squaring of a circle where the naturally circular mandala is divided on
a four parts that are usually distinguished by the four colors and which through the four entrances

Terletskyi 37

converge in the center, creating the quarenity of the One(Jung 388) In this way, mandala
illustrates the undeniable urge of opposing principles to become what one is and to embrace in
its totality consciousness, personal unconsciousness and finally collective unconscious. (Jung 357)
Therefore it is not a coincidence that mandala is regarded as a symbol of the individuation process
as much as its depiction. (Jung 35) Jung in his collected works used the series of mandalas to
illustrate and explain steps and peculiarities of the individuation process. (Jung 293) In the same
way we are going to use Evangelion episodes to delineate Shinjis individuation process.
The, concerned individuation process implies the integration of unconscious into the
consciousness. The process usually has a recurrent nature and cannot be completed once and for
all but have to be experienced and re-experienced with patience and understanding. The
integration has to be done through the recognition of unconscious content and supported by
necessary actions. The passive attitude will not do for this matter - the patient has to really come
to terms with unconscious and archetypes in order to be able to synthesize them in consciousness.
What usually is achieved through lots of painful confrontation, dramatic turns and by an inner
colloquy with ones good angel (Jung 40-1 qtd in Ruland, Lexicon alchemiae, 1612)
First stage of Shinjis individuation could be called infantile stage. At this stage Shinji still
identifies himself with abandoned or misunderstood child, filled with pretensions and capricious
tantrums (Jung 180). (fig.10) He does not want to pilot Eva, he hates his father, and he evades the
personal contact in any way possible, excusing himself on the ground of being abandoned and
hence useless. However, no matter how childish Shinjis behavior may appear, this motif of
abandonment plays an important role in psychological development, deliberately extracting the
person from its origin and thus forcing him/her move towards independence and
individuation.(Jung 168)
At the episode 1, Shinji is contacted by his father (first time for 4 years, apparently father
was excluded from puberty) and is summoned into the NERV headquarters. The sudden and
unpleasant prospect of meeting father that abandoned Shinji is paralleled by the Angels
appearance, which in its turn is signaled by the brief illusory appearance of Rei who, being the
incarnation of Lilith and anima archetype symbolizing the entrance into the phantasmagorical,
delusional world. It is good to notice that in the same way Rei signals the end of Shinjis
individuation in EOE, what thus makes her sort of a frame for the Shinjis trip and the trip itself a
Lilithian dream.

Terletskyi 38

At this point Shinji meets his guardian Misato whose sexually provocative appearance and
behavior on the one hand and maternal care that has been awakened by the post-penis envy
desire for a baby on the other hand, make for a gentlest beginning of individuation ever. Moreover
her oedipal relation with her father very much resembles Shinjis oedipal relation with his father
and thus, makes for better understanding between them. After that, follows the descending into
the NERV headquarters which in the words of critic Endo Toru symbolizes: a descending into
the unconscious, metonymically reinforced by the profusion of downward escalators and elevators
from which the protagonists emerge into disorienting maze of long empty corridors and bizarre
machinery.(Napier 113 qtd in Endo Toru, Konna kitanai kirei na hi ni wa 84) While descending
on one of the downward escalators, stunned Shinji beholds the Geofront, (fig.11) to which Misato
refers as the key to rebuilding our world. The fortress for all mankind
There are lots of issues to analyze in georfront: First of all it is placed in an Egg of Lilithsource of all human life which is another rotundum that literary and metaphorically signifies Self
(Jung 294) Next we have the inverted Tokyo-3 city, hanging from the ceiling that literary slides
down to this position when occasional Angel comes to ravage the city. Of course at the time of
peace the Tokyo-3 comes back to surface, thus illustrating the motif of above and below where
NERV not surprisingly represents below. Moreover Tokyo-3 itself directly corresponds and
reflects Shinjis self, in accord with Oxyhynchus who said to Jesus: Therefore know yourself, for
you are the city, and the city is the kingdom.(Jung 35 qtd in James, The Apochryphal New
Testament 27) Tokyo-3 is half-abandoned, half-flooded, half-destroyed and is constantly attacked,
all of which clearly reflects the critical condition of Shinjis mind. And in the end of episode 26 for
example, in the classical school-romance sketch which shows Shinji possibility of individuation,
Asuka gleefully exclaims that Tokyo-3 became a new capital. Finally, taking into the account that at
some point Tokyo-3 collects both Tree of life(Adam) and Tree of Knowledge(Lilith) within its walls ,
we can compare it to the Garden of Eden or the city of Apocalypse, which both have been built as
mandalas and represents Self and again individuation. (Jung 35)
Right opposite to the inverted city we can see the pyramid on the island that barely emerges
from the water. The island motif has been numerously addressed by Jung, according to him, it is
the symbol for the new, not yet developed ego-consciousness that just recently has emerged from
the unconscious waters and still occasionally gets submerged in it. (Jung 281) On the island we can
observe the peculiarly looking construction: a three-sided pyramid that elongates into the
immensely bigger square void that is nothing else but an inverted four-sided pyramid. (fig.12) In

Terletskyi 39

order to interpret this image we have to refer to the mystical relation of 3 to 4 that we have partly
touched upon, in correlation between Eva and its pilot sex, and in correlation between four
functions of psyche on the example of Shinji - Gendo relations.
This mystical relation is known as axiom of Maria from the third comes the one as the
fourth.(Jung 237) The three-sidedness together with an upward direction of the first pyramid
inevitably suggest masculinity (Jung 247) and together with its comparatively smaller size
represents Shinjis consciousness. The downward, noticeably bigger, square, dark void which
constitutes second pyramid stands for femininity and the infinitely bigger unconscious substratum.
(Jung 247) However despite theirs apparent differences both pyramids in fact point to the same. It
is known that number four or quaternity stands for the wholeness while the three in relation to
four represents the part - the polarity of triads that have the potential to become whole. (Jung
234) In our case, however, we have three-sided pyramid which peculiarly alongside with square
signifies number four and wholeness (Jung 372) supposedly because the three angles of it
converge on its peak, thus producing the fourth. In this way both pyramids represent the path to
the whole, the Self that could be achieved either through consciousness or unconscious but
nevertheless, taking into the account their apparent junction, the collaboration of latter and
former is indispensable for this achievement.
Next, Shinji confronts both of his repressed parental imagos that as has been mentioned
before represented the unconscious. (Jung 66): first he sees his mother/Eva, at which Shinji looks:
as if into a distorting mirror and as is horrified by the self that he finds there.(Goldberg), then
he sees Gendo, who greets Shinji from a great height, in accordance to his dominative paternal
authority and super-egotistic position, and at whom Shinji is too afraid to look straight.
Significantly this symbolic encounter quite corresponds to Jungian metaphor where one takes a
look into the well, as if in the unconscious and the first thing he sees in there is his reflection in the
dark water. (Jung 20) As we know father summoned Shinji to pilot Evangelion, to which Shinji
reacts with a tantrum. Remarkably, Shinji asks his father: Why me? On what father responds in
his harsh laconic fashion: Because no one else can., suggesting the strongest and the most
ineluctable urge in every beingthe urge to realize itself the inability to do otherwise(Jung
170) Shinji however keep opposing this urge, till the moment when victimized maiden/Rei is about
to be sacrificed (Jung 184) (fig.13) which persuades him to pilot Eva.

Terletskyi 40

In the episode 2 we witness the battle and, as has been said before, Eva and Shinji is injured
in a head, what results in that Shinji loses consciousness which in its turn results in a complete
merging with Eva -its berserk, and a subsequent victory. However, the most outstanding detail
that we can notice during the battle is that Angels explosive power as much as Angels selfdestruction manifested in the form of the fiery cross-like explosion. (fig.14) In fact the crossexplosions is a recurrent motive throughout the series, that occasionally signifies either the
destruction that Angel brings or the destruction of Angel itself. Of course, one may think that it is
another bitter echo of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that happened to be the two biggest Japanese
centers of Christian mission. But still in accord with my research I inclined to present a more
Jungian interpretation for this peculiar feature.
First of all we have to take a look at Jacob Bhmes mandala. (fig.15) The dark lower side
corresponds to the Father The Kingdom of Nature and the First Principle while the light
upper part corresponds to the H.Ghost, the Kingdom of Glory and the Second Principle
(For the symbols that illustrate this and further correlations from an appropriate perspective
consult Jung 298) The two halves are crossed by the opposition of Earthly Man and Sonne.
(Jung 298-9, 341) In NGE the dark lower half that is labeled with the Father is accordingly
represented by the kingdom of Shinjis unconscious - the NERV that is headed by the Gendo.
Moreover, unconscious has always been associated with animals, instincts, (Jung 250) and hence
perfectly fits to be the Kingdom of Nature. Finally, somewhere above we have already compared
Gendos ambiguous character to the one of Yahweh, whom Jung in his turn found thoroughly
consistent with the motif Bhmes Father (Jung 341) And if someone sees a contradiction in
that kingdom of unconscious is associated with the paternal and hence immaterial element,
instead of maternal (Jung 334), Jung comments that the nature of Father could be perceived as:
Aureim veil uswhere earth signifies the Father and his shadow signifies matter.(Jung 341
qtd in Stade, Biblische Theologie des Alten Testaments, Vol. 1)
The bright upper half that is labeled H.Ghost accordingly corresponds to the everything
above ground, and most of all to Shinjis deceased mother Yui that as has been said before
coincides with the notion of Sophia and hence H. Ghost. (Jung 64) Moreover, it is said that the
upper part or the Kingdom of Glory is associated with Salniter which is:the mother and
cause of all metals and salts.(Jung 298 qtd in Signatura rerum, XIV. 46 and lll. 16, pp. ,18 and 19)
and also - the prima materia which is a subtle body, the paradisal earth and the spotless state
of the body before the Fall(Jung 298) In episode 12 Gendo declares that ever since the Second

Terletskyi 41

Impact where humanity has reached the God, earth has been purged and purified from the
original sin, which makes it as much as its products Evas - the prima materia. This idea is also
supported by the logo of NERV (fig.16), on which we see only a half of the fig leaf. It is necessary to
add that in opposition to the lower, dark part that stands for unconscious, this upper,
salniterious part could appear as super or higher consciousness but in the end they are two
principles of one and the same, just as in eastern philosophy what are thought to be a higher
consciousness appears to be what in the west is called unconscious. (Jung 282)
Now the cross that goes in the middle of Bhmes mandala:corresponds to the second
Principle, the Kingdom of Glory, which is revealed through magic fire, the lightning, which he
[Bhme+ calls a Revelation of Divine Motion (Jung 299 qtd in Tabula principiorum, 42 p 279)
Somewhere else Bhmes mentions that: When the Fire-flash reaches the dark substance it is a
great, from which the Cold Fire draws back in affright as if it would perish, and becomes impotent
and sinks into itselfBut now the Flash makes in its Rising a Cross with the Comprehension of
all Properties; for here arises the Spirit in the Essence (Jung 298). Judging by the effect and the
form, as much as in accord with Jung we can presuppose that both fire-flashes and the lightning or
magic fire are of the similar nature.
Moreover we have already established that Angels are the manifestation of the divine power
and all in all could be seen as Hermes. Therefore the Spirit that arises in the Essence due to
these fire-flashes is nothing else but the Mercurius since the Source-spirit Mercurius arises in
the Fireflash (Jung 296 qtd in Bhme Aurora, XV. 84, p. 154) Following this we can assume that
these fire-flashes could be seen as the particle beam of the Angels that takes the form of the
cross, when being released in the dark substance and caught in the quaternity of the elemental
reality.(Jung 298) Or we can also perceive them as the quternal symbol of the wholeness that
signals the inclusion of oneself(Angel) into the other(Shinji/Eva) when Angel perishes.
However, beside all of that, the cross, as much as fire (Jung 382) or lightning (Jung 295) are
first of all the symbols of transformation. Somewhere above, we have already mentioned that
Evas transformation is usually signaled by the blue-fire which is directly associated with pilots
mother and which corresponds to the lightning, ever-living fire or mana. However, in the EOE,
besides this blue fire, we can also see the cross-like explosion, similar to the one of Angels, which
arises from Eva, signaling her transformation into wholeness that is the SonAnd this is the true
Holy Ghost (Jung 298 qtd 21 Aurora, XI. 37, p. 95.) Thus, taking into account the similar nature

Terletskyi 42

of Angels and Evas we can say that these fire-flashes are attributed to Evas as well. Moreover,
because of the similar functions and suggestive forms we can presuppose that beside the crosslike explosions these fire-flashes could be also referred to the blue ever-living fire or mana.
Thus, Bhme says that: For if I could in my Flesh comprehend the Flash, which I very well
see and know how it is, I could clarify or transfigure my Body therewith, so that it would shine with
a bright light and glory. And then it would no more resemble and be conformed to the bestial
Body, but to the angels of God.(Jung 295 qtd in Aurora (Works, I), X. 38. p. 86.) Though, NGEs
Angels as much as Eva(especially after transformation) do not conform to the well-known biblical
conception but rather resemble the animal spirit as has been said Mercuriusthat arises in
the Fireflash and from Lucifers body, struck into the Salniter of God a fiery serpent form its
hole, as if there went a fiery Thunder-bolt into Gods Nature, or a fierce Serpent, which tyrannizes,
raves, and rages, as if it would tear and rend Nature all to pieces (Jung 296 qtd in Aurora, XV. 84,
p 154)
But back to the plot, following episodes mostly depict Shinji wallowing in the different
aspects of maternal care presented by the trio Misato, Rei and Eva. He is still reluctant with his
role as an Eva pilot and estranged by the unfamiliar but overwhelming feminine presence. Few
times he quits but always comes back after some self-realization as in episode 4 when he escapes
to the countryside and in a classical hero-pilgrimage fashion ascends to the top of the mountain
The bigness and tallness [of which] are allusions to his adult personality. (Jung 219) In the
episode 8 Asuka and Kaji appear and bring noticeable changes to the NGE atmosphere. Asukas
with her naughty Lolita-like behavior extracts Shinji out of maternal phlegm of Misato and Rei.
(Redmond 221), while Kaji, typically to the good side of the wise old man, provides Shinji with
piece of masculine confidence and carelessness.
Till this episode, Shinji was considerably fixed on the uncanny and somber Rei and Gendo,
whose emotional and physical distance was highlighted by the icy blue color of Reis Eva 00. But
now lewd Kaji and provocative Asuka with her fiery red Eva turned the series upside down, adding
the bloody carnality to the show. (Jung 313) Even the title sequence, that used to show us the girl
floating downwards in the moonshined water, now acquired new orange shades as if the Sun was
rising. (fig.17) The Sun which is the common signifier for Spirit or the wise old man - paternal
principle (Jung 224) which is why the appearance of the Asuka who outstands with her masculine
traits, as much as the Kaji who is another representation of the Spirit, signifies for Shinji new

Terletskyi 43

state characterized by red (feeling) and yellow or gold (intuition) [as if Shinji was] shifting of the
center of personality into the warmer *more familiar+ region of heart (Jung 379) It is interesting
to add that Shinjis self is represented through Eva 01 which is purple, the color that could be
obtained through the mixture of blue Eva 00 and red Eva 01. (Smith 22)
The episode 14 is a milestone and a turning point of the series. According to influential
Japanese critic Azuma Hiroki, Evangelion became immensely successful and Anno, noticing that his
plan of massive otakuzation only encourages autistic tendencies, decided to change the course
of the series Several composition *that+ were made for the purpose of constructing a 90s
savior were instead employed to tear to shreds the interactive communication among the
characters [thus] Anno deliberately cut off communication with anime fans who supposedly
can only appreciate works by identifying themselves with the characters(Hiroki) This is where
the NGE grand narrative starts to dismantle itself in favor of the multiple small ones. (Thouny 119)
And it is from this episode the scruples may appear that:Second impact was no accident at all;
that angels are not really a demonic creatures they seem to be; that NERV is not quite the heroic
defender of humanity it advertises itself on being. (Redmond 199-200)
In this episode Rei and Shinji undergo an applicability test to each others Evas. We already
know that Rei possesses Lilith soul and Yuis body while Eva 01, vice-versa. Not surprisingly this
grand union/reunion triggers a powerful self-explorative trip in Rei psyche. In this trip Rei discloses
that she hates red color and calls herself woman who does not bleed which could be read as the
rudiments of her identity that manifests through her resistance to matter, mother and hence her
role as being identical to the mother. (Jung 90) As has been mentioned before such, a rebellion in
her case is the only way to find herself (Jung 97) and so it is not a coincidence that a trip takes on a
dissociative turn and she detects a certain one, within *her+.(Jung 131 qtd in Rulando Lexicon
1893 edn. p 226)
Shinjis applicability test in its turn is interrupted because Eva 00 has gone mad. It is crucial
to note that literary the same was shown to happen with Rei in episode 5, only in Shinjis case Eva
went wild after Rei/Lilith/anima-like massage was trying to invade Shinjis head and accordingly
Eva start attacking Rei, when in Reis case it attacked Gendo. And although we are not shown the
reason for Evas madness in episode 5, taking analogy from episode 14 we can presuppose that
since it attacked Gendo it was because of Gendo. Following this, we already know that Rei is in an
Oedipus relation with Gendo, Shinji in his turn is in the Oedipus relation with Yui, what suggests

Terletskyi 44

that in both cases Eva 00 was reacting badly on these Oedipus attachments and accordingly
attacked the sources of these attachments that hinder the persons individuation.
It is good to notice that in accordance with these tests in episode 5 and 14 Shinji and Rei
start to be driven to each other, and the closer they get the more Rei resembles Yui and Shinji,
accordingly resembles Gendo. For example: when Shinji tries on his father glasses in Reis room in
the episode 5 or in the next episode, when Shinji heroically rescues Rei from the incandescent
entry plug and burns his hands just as his father did before. The same could be said about Rei,
when in episode 15 Shinji remarks that: The cloth the way you[Rei] wringed it it reminded me
of the mother., or when Rei word in word repeats Yuis words Well, thats good for you that
Shinji has heard while being absorbed by the shadow in episode 16. All in all, we can say that both
synch tests with Eva 00 as if introduced Rei and Shinji to theirs Oedipus complexes and by its
malfunctioning that could be seen as the manifestation of the castration anxiety, as if forced them
to dissolve it and try on their parental roles.
In the episode 16, begins the second stage the hero myth, where:the colossal
pretensions [from stage of abandonment] grows into a conviction that one is something
extraordinary, or else the impossibility of the pretensions ever being fulfilled only proves ones
own inferiority which is favorable for the role of the heroic sufferer.(Jung 180) At this stage:we
getgradual separation fromthe childidentity breaks down and is accompanied by the
intensification of fantasy (Jung 180) Shinji, praised by Misato for the highest synch-ratio,
surprisingly shows some cockiness that leads him directly into the trap when he is absorbed by the
shadow-Angel. Being trapped there without any supply, Shinji is nearing his death, what results in
another self-explorative trip where the Angel or the other self contacts him.
The other self appears in a form of a Shinjis child-self that corresponds to the motif of
vision of oneself. (fig.18) This child self represents a dissociation between past and present
[in other words] mans present state may have come into the conflict with his childhood state,
or he may have violently sundered himself from his original character in the interest of some
arbitrary persona.(Jung 162) Since, the child wears the t-shirt that resembles the t-shirt from the
picture of Shinjis abandonment we can assume that dissociation and conflict accordingly have
started with the abandonment. However on the contrary to Shinjis conviction that father has
abandoned him, his child-self states that: It was really yourself that you ran away from. It is
significant that the whole dialogue or perhaps soliloquy is taking place in the train wagon, since
the Japan railways are considered to be one of the safest in the world. (Anime and East Asian

Terletskyi 45

Culture) Also of interest that, during this dialogue Shinji is blinded by the Sun that represents the
future Self (Jung 379) as much as the child itself anticipates:the figure that comes from the
synthesis of conscious and unconscious (Jung 164)
But as soon as Shinji body assumes an embryo position and his facial expression soften and
relax, indicating that he is ready to die, the immaculately white emanation of motherly live force
appears to save her child. We can see little Shinji who holds the tiny red sphere, showing it to his
mother. (fig.19) Similar to the red spheres in Angels and Evas it represents the Self, and taking into
the account its size, the Self that has been just conceived in a result of the first serious contact
with unconscious. In reaction to this Eva reactivates and rips the Angel-shadow from inside (fig.20)
which quite corresponds to the mandala that has been drawn by the patient with the
psychogenic depression from the beginning of the treatment [where] the black sphere developed
a red center, from which red rays or streams of blood ran out into the tentacle-like extremities
[and] the patient herself was shut up in the sphere.(Jung 315)
In the episode 18, Shinji is facing another manifestation of the shadow. This time it is
represented by the raven black Eva 03 that turns out to be another Angel. Significantly that for the
first and the last time Shinji is under the command of his father and not of Misato as he used to
be. However, even despite that, Shinji refuses to fight another Eva, since he could harm the child
inside of it, and is willing to die instead of to kill. But, as it is said: if we step through the door of
the shadow we discover with terror that we are the objects of unseen factors.(Jung 23) so
accordingly Shinjis father mercilessly deploys the Dummy Plug. With the Dummy Plug on, Shinji
loses control over Eva which goes automatically berserk and methodically disembowels Eva 03.
But unlike before, where the berserk was caused by the loss of Shinjis consciousness that
was highlighted by our inability to see Shinji inside the cockpit. This time Shinji is seen sitting inside
of the cockpit and watching the atrocities from the first row without any chance to intervene,
which in its turn shows how Shinji became a little bit more conscious of the danger of being
unconscious. It is important to note that this cruel event fully corresponds to the Maria axiom
according to which: when unconscious wholeness becomes manifest, i.e. , leaves the
unconscious and crosses over into the sphere of consciousness one of the four remains behind,
hold fast by the horror vacui of the unconscious(Jung 235) In this way when three of the chosen
children: First Child Rei, Second Child Asuka and Third Child Shinji were joined by Fourth Child Toji

Terletskyi 46

who pilots Eva 03, they created wholeness, but in the course of the individuation fourth has to
be sacrificed, what actually happens with Toji.
In the episode 19, Shinji, enraged by his father deed, childishly threats to destroy NERV
headquarters and his father along with it, but is instantly neutralized. When Shinji regains
consciousness, he is taken under the custody and is summoned to his father where he declares his
desire to quit. Remarkably, when Shinji turns to leave, his father, who is sitting at the table, forms
a shape of the hexagram. (fig.21) Hexagram that represents the union of opposites and proclaims
that:there is no development unless the shadow is accepted (Jung 340) Shinji however walks
away from his father, shadow and evil without accepting him and his purpose. But over time the
new Angel attacks that cannot be stopped neither by Rei nor by Asuka. Shinji, meanwhile
conveniently bumps into Kaji who in a wise old man fashion helps Shinji to asset his personality
and to realize his inability to do otherwise (Jung 170) than defeating the Angel. And as has been
mentioned before Shinji comes back to the place when he first faced father and Eva in the episode
1, only now he finally accepts his role as Evangelion pilot, laid out by his father and thus, accepts
shadow. The stage of abandonment together with the identification with the child ends here,
where Shinji voluntarily comes to his father to voluntarily pilot an Eva.
Shinji fights the Angel and with the struck of lighting and appearance of ever-living fire Eva
becomes even more chthonic. She approaches the Angel on all fours and starts devouring her pray
what in the words of Gendo and Ritsuko means that Eva has finally awakened. In the episode 20
we finds out that beside of the Angels, Shinji also has been devoured by Eva, or to be precise he
has been dissolved into the LCL liquid that fills the entry plug, and while all the elements that
constitutes his self are still present in the liquid, his ego and, thus his shape has been lost as a
result of complete merging with Eva. According to Ortega these recent event signify that Eva
became whole: being made from Lilith, she ate the flesh of her counterpart Angel which comes
from Adam and her child Shinji as Lilim and in this way she ate herself Thus, inverting the birth
process, and death, the Eva become utterly invulnerable and single, embodying its origin,
reproduction and end.(226) Moreover, the fact that Shinji dissolved into Eva could be seen as the
complete and literal identification with the hero as according to the second stage.
In this fluid state Shinji undergoes another self-realizing trip. He, at large dwells upon the
notion of the enemy that peculiarly comes from under water, suggesting that the enemy issues
from the unconscious. Moreover the notion of the enemy gradually mixes with the image of

Terletskyi 47

Gendo which allege that enemy issues not merely from the unconscious but from the content that
has been repressed into the unconscious. Shinji is also realizes that he already knew Eva and that
he was not abandoned at all but ran away himself, leaving his mother and father behind. And, on
the contrary to the similar revelation from episode 16 when Shinji was incriminated like this by his
child-self, this time it is Shinjis present self that disclosed the truth. Moreover, Shinji comes to
realize that only by piloting Eva he justifies his existence and that he needs to pilot it rather than
has to, thus showing how much he is identified with it.
Significantly, the child which used to talk with Shinji in the train wagon is now substituted by
Rei. At this point Shinji, as the one who was looking in the well of unconscious and after passing
through his own dark reflection, notices the magical water beings: nixies or sirens that lure the
person that watches, into the deep, and are known to be the instinctive representation of the
anima. (Jung 24-5) The naked Misato, Asuka and Rei, who appear in turns on the hazy white
background, are temptingly approaching Shinji in a repeating loop, asking if he wants to become
one with them, thus luring him into death (fig.22) Nevertheless, the all-pervading mother force,
replaces nixies and inspires Shinji to come back. It is remarkable how these fire-flash shifts from
blue to red indicating Shinji comeback into the corporeality. (Jung 313) Necessary to add, that this
episode is called Oral-stage, that is perhaps an allusion to the first stage of sexual development
in Freudian psychoanalysis, during which the child is the most dependent on the mother.
Episode 22 mostly focuses on Asuka. Necessary to point that since Shinji reached the second
stage identification with the hero and his former inferiority was turned into the feeble but still
noticeable megalomania, Asuka accordingly went from her usual megalomania to the inferiority.
In this episode her synch-ratio with Eva has considerably dropped and her period causes her
unnatural disturbance, which signifies her negation of the mother. She arrogantly talks to Eva,
wondering why the weapon like Eva needs a mind which closely resembles George
Sandsconversation [in Daily Converstation with Dr.Piffoel] with a spiritual friend [where]
for thirty pages she talks to herself while one waits in vain for the other to reply. (Jung 132) Rei in
her turn rightfully points to Asuka: If you dont open your mind to her your Eva will not move in
accord to Jung which states that a real colloquy becomes possible only when the ego
acknowledges the existence of a partner to the discussion.(132)
Asuka, however keeps disregarding her inner friend and, driven by her wounded pride, steps
into a trap. The new Angel attacks her with an angelic light that in Asukas words rapes her mind.

Terletskyi 48

Naturally this process is shown through the self-realizing trip, where Asuka faces her childhood
fear of being killed by her mother, her guilt of whishing her mother dead and ultimately her preOedipus disappointment of being abandoned by her mother. (fig.23) In fact we can legitimately
compare this confrontation with the one that Shinji underwent in the episode 16, only here the
shadow is oxymoronically represented by the light that shines from above instead of the shadow
that absorbed Shinji from below. But it is only natural since for the Asuka as for the female the
typical danger from the unconscious comes from above from the spiritual sphere personified by
the animus, whereas for man it comes from the chthonic realm of the world and woman, i.e.,
the anima projected on to the world. (Jung 317)
Episode 23 is fully devoted to the handling of the anima. New Angel appears and it instantly
penetrates into the Eva 00 and Rei within it. Significantly enough, the concerned penetration
evokes blush on Reis face instead of the painful contortions, thus, hinting to the obscenities to
which Rei as maiden could be subjected. (Jung 184) This invasion triggers another self-realizing
trip: similarly to episode 14 Rei detects the presence of the other within herself, only now this
other actually appears and speaks, not surprisingly looking just like Rei. Thus we have two Reis
that are communicating only one Rei is floating above the water, representing the conscious and
differentiated Self while the other is waist-deep into the water, representing accordingly the
other, undifferentiated, and unconscious Self. (fig.24)
Angel also invades Eva 01 and Shinji in it, thus creating a chain of Rei-Angel-Shinji. As a result
angel takes a form of Rei like being that accordingly to her anima nature mesmerizes and tames
the Eva 01. (fig.25) However, Rei shows another signs of rebellion against her role as identical to
the mother, femme homme and a mere vessel for anima. (Jung 98) She draws and shuts the
anima-projection that is the product of her nature, into the place from where it issues, namely
herself, thus stopping its work of illusions, and creating the other inverted birth process which
makes her implode. Similar to the maiden, Rei had to be sacrificed because of her exclusive
domination of feminine psyche that hinders the individuation process (Jung 198) In addition to
this, later in episode, Shinji is revealed to the secret of Rei, being from spare parts or in other
words artificial. And while on the one hand this is a liberating revelation that shows animas true
nature and thus ceases the illusory hold that she had on her victim, on the other hand as soon as
animas illusory nature ends to encourage man to suspect a secret order, to sense a plan, a
meaning, a purpose over and above her nature, (Jung 32) life could get meaningless.

Terletskyi 49

But it is at this moment when: all props and crutches are broken, and no cover from the
rear offers even the slightest hope of security, does it become possible to experience an archetype
that up till then had lain hidden behind the meaningful nonsense played out by the anima the
archetype of meaning... (Jung 32), which is another name for archetype of the wise old man and
the Spirit. (Jung 347) Thus as episode 24 begins everything is soaked in the silent despair: Asuka
has broken down into coma and is hospitalized, Rei appeared to be a fake, Misato frightens Shinji
with her excessive femininity. And so Shinji aimlessly blunders alone, till he conveniently bumps
into Kaworu, which as has been said before represents the ultimate manifestation of the wise old
man, the spirit and the Hermes.
Remarkably Kaworu appears sitting on the something which looks like phoenix statue that
represent the status nascendi the place from which the Self emerges. (fig.26) (Jung 367) Kaworu
immediately befriends Shinji and they have some quality homoerotic time together, including
taking a bath and spending a night together. During that time Kaworu, with his inhuman kindness
and understanding has proved to be a genuine inner friend of the soul for Shinji. However, in
accordance to the motif of Mercurius duplex who on the one hand is Hermes the mystagogue
and psychopomp, and on the other hand is the poisonous dragon, the evil spirit and
trickster.(Jung 377), Kaworu turns out to be the last Angel and attacks the NERV. He easily
reaches the Terminal Dogma, but after finding the Lilith inside of it instead of expected Adam, he
surrenders and asks Shinji to kill him.
This, another self-sacrificial move could be perceived in various ways. First, it again complies
with the Maria axiom: similarly to Toji, Kaworus appearance as the Fifth child, after the Fourth has
already been removed, again creates the wholeness, represented by the four children. And so the
fourth again has to be sacrificed. Thus at the end of episode 24 we can say together with Socrates
One [Rei] , two [Asuka], three [Shinji] - but, my dear Timaeus, of those who yesterday were the
banqueters and today are the banquet-givers, where is the fourth [Kaworu] ?(Jung 235) Second,
Kaworu as the symbol of the Self had had to be removed in order to avoid:the great psychic
danger [that] lies in the identification of ego-consciousness with the self [that] produces an
inflation which threatens consciousness with dissolution.(Jung 145) In this way Kaworu rightfully
asks Shinji to destroy him Otherwise youll be destroyed, only one life form can be chosen to
evade the destruction and inherit the future Finally, Kaworus voluntary death for the sake of
humanity suggest him being no one else than variation of the Christ himself, whose image not
surprisingly considered to be the symbol of the Self. (Jung 367) The same idea is confirmed by the

Terletskyi 50

bumper sticker that has been issued for the 10th Anniversary Special Edition of Evangelion, which
ironically proclaims Kaworu Died For Your Sins.
At this point we come to the culmination of the series, namely the episode 25 and 26. It is
known that back in 1995 TV release of the final two episodes caused a great scandal akin to the
BBC scandal after the end of Patrick McGoohams The Prisoner. (Anime and East Asian Culture)
People were terribly confused by the ambiguous finale that depicted internal psychoanalytic
monologues of the characters instead of the grand mecha-battles as was expected. The front
entrance of Gainax studio was vandalized, Anno received tons of hate male some of which were
almost like death threats which we can see flashing in EOE. Here is the part of its translation:
Even so, a jerk-off posing as a god (laugh) who cant get it onIf you wont die on your
own. Ill do you a favor and set fire to your studio. Late beyond belief and totally brainless.
(raucous laughter) Talk about not knowing your own limitsI dont know if youre putting on some
kind of striptease or jerk-off show, butup on your pedestal, you cant possibly be aware of just
how stupid you are(End of Evangelion Death Threats)
Some critics like Eijji Otsuka and Tetsuja Miyazaki called the finalebrainwashing or psycho
therapy [that] was only a self-affirmation of otakus autistic tendency for escapism [and
Evangelion in general as] something like clinical record of a morbid person who confines himself
to the world of information and cannot realize actuality.(Tsuribe) And so, two years later Anno
and Gainax released an alternative theatrical ending - The End of Evangelion, which however did
not shed any of the series gloom nor had it concluded in any way more clear and coherent. In fact
it enhanced the violence and blunt critic of its viewer to the point where people though it was
revenge against the fans. (NaveryW) But according to its theatrical pamphlet The Red Cross Book,
EOE has realized the series original conception in all its glory, that has not been realized on the TV
because of the budget and time limitations. (The Red Cross Book) However, both endings deserves
analysis as being a different perspectives on the same story. (Ledoux) Thus in the following pages
we are going to analyze both endings side by side or one within the other as internal and external
view on the course of event.
Episode 25 of EoE starts with the completely spaced out and immobilized Shinji. Ironically,
the murder of Kaworu, who is Shinjis spirit and inner friend might have resulted in what is called
a loss of soul or in modern terms Abaissement du niveau mental. In this state: One no
longer has any wish or courage to face the tasks of the dayOne feels like lead, because no part of

Terletskyi 51

ones body seems willing to movethe whole personality falls apart (Jung 119) All of which we
can actually see in Shinji as he is crouching in a corner of some parking lot, brooding over his
amoral deeds and mindlessly calling Asuka for help. Even when he is about to get killed does not
he break from his catatonic despair, showing a complete indifference to his life that is a kind of
voluntary deatha surrender of our own power, not artificially willed but forced upon us by
nature; not a voluntary submission and humiliation decked in moral grab but an utter and
unmistakable defeat crowned with the panic fear of demoralization.(Jung 32) Even after he is
saved by Misato he remains immobile and so Misato has to tugs him by force to his Eva.
But, regardless of Shinjis absolutely inertness; inwardly he undergoes self-reproaching
interrogation as seen in TV release of episode 25. It is important that besides torturing himself for
killing Kaworu and whining about the abandonment, he focus on questions like: Why do I pilot
Eva? and Who am I without piloting it? Thus, signifying the tendency to test, analyze and possibly
break the identification with hero which otherwise could cause serious mental misbalance. (Jung
180) Meanwhile outside, SEELE commences attack on NERV, presaging the union of spirit and soul,
anima and animus. At this point the Instrumentality project is about to start; Gendo takes Rei in
the Terminal Dogma and in accordance with NERV and SEELE forceful conjunction, attempts to
execute the forbidden merging of Adam and Lilith. Rei as a maiden is again subjected to the
obscene treatment. (Jung 184)
Meanwhile, Shinji finally gets inside of his Eva and performs the final transformation which
classically includes stigmata and crucifixion. The crucifixion symbolizes an ultimate sacrifice
that...involves the bringing down of the domain which has become too prominent, or overadapted, such that neglected domain can be brought to bear on itthe sacrifice forces a
confrontation between the pressing unconscious contents and the conscious kingdom *which]
precipitates the catastrophic event whereby the barrier between the two domains disintegrates,
and which is symbolized by Third Impact. (Faulkner)
Rei, with a part of Adam joins Lilith and becomes homogenous all-encompassing mother that
begins the Third Impact. At this point Shinjis consciousness cannot take it any longer, destrado
begins to manifest and according to the one of the remaining NERV personnel, his ego is about to
burst. But Rei shows the hermaphroditic nature of the Self and splits into the Kaworu, what
incredibly soothes Shinjis panic. (fig.27) This moment illustrates what was anticipated by the

Terletskyi 52

James: When the two shall be one, the outside as the inside, and the male with the female
neither male nor female.(Jung 176 qtd in The Apocryphal New Testament p 11)
The divine pair- syzygy, the opposites, appears united within a single hermaphroditic body
signifying that the rule of tertium non datur meaning we cannot envisage the opposites in their
oneness has been surmounted. (Jung 230) and that Shinjis consciousness losses its differentiated
position and joins the unconscious. Following this, Shinji receives a Fruit of life and by doing this
becomes a sole possessor of both Fruit of Life and Fruit of Wisdom, what makes him a God. Then
he forms a Tree of Life that, however continue to maintain the form of a cross, thus corresponding
to the tree of the cross that often takes place at the very center of mandalas and symbolizes
mother. (Jung 336) From this point as Gendos right hand Fuyutsuki says, it is for Shinji to decide
whether to choose creative or destructive imperative as the fate of himself and this world. It is
from this point that Shinjis psychic state illustrates the Goethes exclamation: What terror then
seize the Superman! ...who is burst asunder because he tried to imprison the divine paradox
within the narrow framework of the mortal man.(Jung 104) His identification with the hero and
the Self reached its highest peak and as has been said before his consciousness is in danger of
dissolution. (Jung 145)
We suddenly cut off to the sequence where the child Shinji builds a three-sided pyramid in
the sandbox; the three-sided pyramid as has been mentioned stands for quaternity, wholeness
and the Self. (Jung 372) He, however is hesitating, struggling as Napier points between libido
and death wish(Malone 116) which is why the pyramid is being destroyed and built anew over
and over again. The following sequence mostly focuses on Asuka and also incorporates
reappearance of nixies from episode 20 whose equivocal nature keeps confusing Shinji. We can
see that Rei, Misato and most of all Asuka represent horribly other and frightfully independent
entities, which Shinji cannot control and still much less understand. According to Tsuribe this
relationship is all-or-nothing that corresponds to the Sartres notion of conflict(conflit)
between self and the others.(Tsuribe) In this way each of them wants to possess the other and
treats one accordingly as possession. So Asuka demands from Shinji: If you dont become all
mine, I dont want anything at all However, others can be never fully possessed or interiorized
and so Shinji in his turn decides to strangle the ambiguous and independent existence of Asuka,
thus subduing her under his control, (Tsuribe) and by doing so ultimately chooses destructive
imperative.

Terletskyi 53

As a result, A.T. field, which encircles and separates every mind, breaks down, making every
person to lose their human form and to turn into the LCL liquid. According to Faulkner the LCL
symbolizes undifferentiated libido residing in the collective unconscious. And so every
consciousness on its way of disintegration back into its origin first have to go through personal
unconscious with its personal desires, which is exactly why Makoto sees Misato and Maya- Ritsuko
and Fuyutsuki and Gendo Yui, to whom they felt a considerable affection. (Faulkner) Symbolically
enough, Gendo confesses that he was afraid of his son as much as his son of him and as a king of
NGE universe whose reign has ended he is decapitated by Shinjis Eva 01. (fig.28) In this way NGE
joins the Sophocles the Oedipus Rex, Shakespeares Hamlet and Dostoevskys the Brothers
Karamazov as a story particularly preoccupied with parricide. (Freud 4364)
Consequently, the all-encompassing mother Lilith gathers all libidos from the all life forms on
the Earth back into its Egg. Thats when series utterly deconstructs itself. TV release regresses to
the point where we can see fluid sketches on the blank background and where the voice tells
Shinji that he is everywhere and can do anything that this is the world without restriction and
without anything in it, which is quite confirms to the description of collective unconscious which
is:
a boundless expanse full of unprecedented uncertainty, with apparently no inside and no
outside, no above and no below, no here and no there, no mine and no thine, no good and no bad.
It is the world of water, where all life floats in suspension; where the realm of sympathetic system,
the soul of everything living, begins; where I am indivisibly this and that; where I experience the
other in myself and the other-than-myself experiences mesheer objectivity, as wide as the world
and open to the entire world. There I am the object of every subject, in complete reversal of my
ordinary consciousness, where I am always the subject that has an object. There I am utterly one
with the world, so much a part of it that I forget too easily who I really am (Jung 21-22)
In EoE we also come to the point of collective unconscious, where Rei explains it to Shinji as
the sea of L.C.L, the world without A.T. Field, without your own shape. An ambiguous world
where it is impossible to tell where you end and the other person starts. A fragile world where you
exist everywhere and thus exist nowhere (Faulkner) Moreover, the position in which Rei
explains Shinji, highly suggests a sexual intercourse. And, if taking into account that Rei is a divine
being Lilith together with Shinjis mother and sister, the whole situation could be considered as
hieros gamos. (fig.29) Now, hieros gamos symbolizes yet another union of opposites through the

Terletskyi 54

sexual act of god and goddess, which usually signifies the final stage of individuation process.
(Faulkner) As much as the sacred incest (Jung 229) that is directly connected to anima and her
condensation with the figures of the sister, wife, mother, and daughter[what]can be found in
Goethe You were in times gone by my wife or sister(Jung 285 qtd in Werke "Warum gabst du
uns die tiefen Blicke" 11, p. 43.) Either way Shinjis undergoes a symbolical rebirth through
reentering mothers womb; he thanks his father, in this way accepting his shadow and bids
farewell to his mother, in this way letting her go and thus, realizes the Self. (Faulkner)
In the TV release, Shinji also experiences a new birth, after accepting his mother otherness,
and, thus breaking the identification of the second stage. He hatches out of his shell, that is
according to Tsuribe symbolizesthe closed domain of anime that keeps on offering narcissistic
pleasure to otaku *and which Evangelion] crack[s] not from the outside but from the inside
make joy of anime self-destruction at the utmost limits.(Prison of Self-Consciousness) In the end
Shinji finds himself being congratulated by every character of the series. The scene witch just looks
schizophrenic, unfitting and forced after the tone and atmosphere that the series has established
hitherto. Moreover, even taking into the account that Shinji has been reborn we are still
witnessing a grim and not very promising post-post-apocalyptic ending of EOE, where Shinjis
repeated desire to strangle Asuka as much as the devastated new world that unfolds before
their eyes makes the impression that it was only one of a many rebirths that are required on the
way to the individuation.

Conclusion
What actually happens in the movie is that as Nine Inch Nails March of the Pigs blares, Anno, backed
by strobe lights, nude except for a tip of the hat to William Burroughs, and visibly aroused, blows away
successive EVA characters with a 12-gauge Mossberg airsoft, the six millimeter pellets shredding acetate
avatars. At the end, covered by flecked and filmy remnants, he inserts the gun into his own mouth, only to
find the bore choked by wads of merchandising cash. (Horn 1997)

Neon Genesis Evangelion, in words of Napiertakes the viewer on a journey into inner and
outer reality before ultimately leaving both its character and its audience floating in a sea of
existential uncertainty.(Napier 2007 108), which is why the series still inspire great debates and
controversy. For Anno as has been said before, Evangelion was an attempt to change and to grow;

Terletskyi 55

it was a confession of one otaku to the others. As he himself comments: They [otaku] do not
leave their [comfortable little] worlds. They feel safe. They have nothing solid in themselves on
which to relyFor twenty-one years I have been an anime-fan, and now, thirty years old, I notice
with sorrow: Im nothing but an honest fool (laughs). (Anno 1996c)
The bitterness of NGEs characters as much as the impossibility of the conventional happy
ending was not conceived to approve and justify the autistic tendencies as Anno has been accused
of doing, but on the contrary to make characters resemble the viewers and, thus break the
escapist identification. (Hiroki 1998) Thus, we have Shinjis SDAT, which he apparently uses as a
medium to escape, listening to the same two tracks over and over again. It is remarkable that
these two tracks numbered 25 and 26 which according to Matt Greenfield, a staffer for ADV (the
company which release Evangelion in America): is a bit of foreshadowing to the final episodes
of the series (25 and 26) (Smith 6), where Shinji finds himself in an ego-centered and isolated
world to which he has apparently been escaping before via listening to his SDAT.
Moreover the tendency to escapism is also seen in the supposedly impaired climate of
Evangelion, where it is always an endless summer with an equally endless humming of the cicadas.
Granted, in natural circumstances, these factors bring sooth and delight, but in the world of Eva
which is of a second nature (Thouny 113) they appear to be compulsory, simulated and artificial
thus creating a drowsy, phlegmatic and all in all clinical atmosphere. And of course the
masturbation scene which slaps the audience from the very beginning of EOE and is assumingly
the most morbid critique of fan servicing that has ever been thrown so bluntly in the face of
audience: Shinji, being extremely distressed, tries to wake Asuka up from her coma, and
accidentally exposes her breasts, then using such an opportunity he starts masturbating. Not only
the Asuka is totally unconscious during this time, which makes the masturbation more secret,
isolative and sterile, but the circumstances of masturbation are horrendously inappropriate: Shinji
secretly masturbates on his injured fellow pilot, who is in coma, which could be something that
countless otaku have been dreaming to do since 1995 and what has been realized in a countless
doujinshi. (Basically, the art of self-published fan-fiction that reached the whole new qualitative
and quantitative level in Japan)
However, we cannot ignore how fishy and doomed is the idea of making a protest against
otakus escapism via the medium that is used for escaping. And so by critiquing and resisting the
otaku culture, Evangelion became its pinnacle - one of the best-selling franchises with one of the

Terletskyi 56

most numerous cult following. In fact, Anno himself admits his failure saying that Evangelion not
onlybecome merely a place of refuge [but] did not arrive *at reality+. (Anno 1996d) even
despite the suggestive live-footage that was shoved in at the end of EOE. Moreover, borrowing the
argument from Toshio Okada the co-founder of Gainax if he[Anno] wanted to make such a
statement, to say, this is just fiction and you should go back to the real world, he could do it a
better wayhes still an animator, and he wants to make another anime serieshis true mind does
not say, its only animation(Okada)
In this way, just as Baudrillard suggests that whether you take the capital for moral and
rational or fight it in the name of morality and rationality it is equally enhances capital. (Simulacra
and Simulation 15) The same goes for Annos who has taken anime for real and fought it in the
name of realism, but in the end it only made the medium more alluring for otaku to escape into.
Moreover just as such historical movies as Chinatown or All the Presidents Man with theirs
perfectionistic hyperresemblence to the events they depict have turned real history into the
once meaningful fossils (Baudrillard 48-9) or as the TV reality show The Louds with its effect they
lived as if you were not there has turned familial privacy in the transparent slide. (Baudrilliard 30)
So NGE with its extremely detailed and sometimes too literal adaptation of Jungian psychology
could signify the complete loss of meaning and reference of this psychoanalysis to hyperreal
nowadays.
So what? Does that make Evangelion a bizarre masturbation show, contrived entirely to
pleas Annos twisted sadomasochistic inclination? Possibly, and yet it is a plausible documentation
of directors mind that bears a sensible witness of an otaku culture part of which he appears to be.
Evangelions characters, being all composed from Annos own personality, (1731298478) has been
solidified as the illustartion of many within a global younger generation, who stuffed with the
excessive amount of Pop Culture media like ghosts and psychotics no longer anchored in reality
wonder trough a hallucinatory world where the material real is forever lost (Napier 103 qtd in
Sconce Haunted Media 18) Moreover, Evangelion series in general with its ...incoherent narrative
paceproblematic attitude towards real [and its inquiries in] the construction of human
identity(Napier 2007 108) could be seen as a perfect medium to capture what is perhaps the
overriding issue of our day, the shifting nature of identity in a constantly changing society.(Napier
2005 30)

Terletskyi 57

Peculiarly, in Japan, the style in which anime is drawn creates many debates on the subject
of its identity. Taking into the account the characters with shrunken torsos, oversized heads,
elongated figures, huge eyes and endless flowing hair which anime are famous for, one can
legitimately wonder, Why the characters look Western? (Napier 2005 43) These inconsistency or
unrealism provoked many anxious suggestions: like the one from a great animator Mamoru Oshii
who suggest that Japanese strives to evade the fact that they are Japanese using anime, or from
no less great animator Hayao Miyazaki that Japanese hate their faces.(Napier 2005 43)
Consequently, the considerable number of Japanese intellectuals regard anime as being
muroruseki which means stateless, or without identity , (Napier 2005 42) and the world it
creates, as being isekai as some other and absolutely remote from reality, fantasy world. (Napier
2005 44) Furthermore, anime is known for its diversity of genres, the truly overwhelming numbers
of anime that have been produced and broadcasted annually, and the enormous market of manga
and doujinshi that literally gives ability and a chance to complement, rewrite or find tons of
alternative versions of your favorite narrative, which in this way illustrates the already trodden if
not asphalted way through the transparent fourth wall.
Nevertheless, as the Evangelion series ended, Anno has sunk into an even more severe
depression and was seriously considering the possibility of suicide. As he himself admits, he had
invested everything in Evangelion and now was completely empty and worthless. (Anno 1997a)
The anime fans in they turn obtained a new exclusively crafted narrative to escape into, that as
has been said before quickly turned into the huge franchise offering to its fans everything from
Evangelion sneakers to Evangelion noodles. And this is perhaps another trick of Evangelion. The
protagonist as much as its author and the audience do not change or learn valuable lessons that
immediately made them understand their mistakes and find the one they truly love. And even if
they have, these lessons and changes are slight, self-referential and in no-Disney-way magically
turn the personality that you have been, ever since you remember yourself into the personality
that you dreamt to be, ever since you remember yourself. For this matter, the modern simulated
fairytale as I have called Evangelion, concludes in an oxymoronically realistic way. In accord with
Jung it communicates an important massage that There is no linear evolution; there is only a
circumambulation of the self. (Jung 1989 196)
And so Evangelion franchise has [and keeps] continually rebirthed [rebirthing] itself
through multiple videogames different manga storylines and two films from Gainax studio
[already three], each iteration both a revenue stream and an opportunity to clarify a story that

Terletskyi 58

resists transparency or completion.(Ashby 349) Significantly, the three motion picture releases,
that are called Rebuilds and which in fact according to its title rebuild the original Evangelion
series, do not try to pack all the complexity of a series into one dazzling yet almost incoherent
film(Lammare 2010 352) as it is common for such revitalizing projects. As a matter of fact, new
versions while aligning the frantic pace of the TV series, adds many out of joint turns that make
the old story new. In this way, similarly to Jung who saw that everything, all paths [he] had
been following, all steps [he] had taken, were leading back to a single point(Jung 1989)
Anno, disregarding the Miyazakis advice to keephands off Evangelion entirely from here on
out.(Anno 1997b) keeps rebuilding and reenacting the old scenario, circumambulating the self
and attempting the individuation. Remarkably, in one of the Rebilds Shinji transcends beyond his
usual listening to the same old tracks 25, 26 and suddenly switches to the track 27, what, despite
of being a breaking innovation for Shinji, still remains an innovation within the boundaries of the
medium to escape.

Terletskyi 59

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Anime and East Asian Culture: Neon Genesis Evangelion, MLA meeting, 2004. Web. December
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July 17 1995. web. December 2012. http://www.evamonkey.com/writings_anno01.php
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Aerial Magazine, January 1996a. Web. December 2012.
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ion/anno.html
--- Interview. Interview by Shinichiro Inoue. gwern.org, Newtype, June 1996c. Web. December
2012. http://www.gwern.net/docs/eva/1996-newtype-anno-interview
--- and Yuko Miyamura, Interwiew, Animage. Transl. Numbers-kun, July 1996d. web. December
2012. http://www.gwern.net/otaku
---EVA*26+ Dream World? Interview by Pierre Giner. eva.onegeek.org, AnimeLand #32, May
1997a. Web. December 2012. http://eva.onegeek.org/pipermail/oldeva/1997September/003351.html
--- and Hayao Miyazaki, Interview Sahara Trip. gwern.org. 1997b. Web. December 2012.
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---Character Name Origins evacommentary.org. Transl. massangeana, December 2000. Web.
December 2012. http://www.evacommentary.org/appendix/character-names.html
--- Hideaki Anno: Life after Evangelion Interview. Newtype USA, Eva monkey, July 2003. 8-19.
web. December 2012. http://www.evamonkey.com/inside_gainax.htm

Terletskyi 60

Ashby, Madeline Epic Fail: Still Dreary, after All These Years Three Faces of Eva. Mechademia 5.1
(2010): 349-353. Project MUSE. Web. 27 Dec. 2012.
Baudrillard, Jean Simulacra and Simulation, University of Michigan Press 1995, Print.
Christophe Thouny. "Waiting for the Messiah: The Becoming-Myth of Evangelion and Densha
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Clements, Jonathan and Helen McCarthy The Anime Encyclopedia: A Guide to Japanese Animation
since 1917. Stone Bridge Press, November 2006. 211. Print
Danielson, Sheldon Neon Genesis Evangelion: A Boys Own Odyssey or the Dream of Shinji, 12
February 2011. n.p. web. December 2012. http://www.kanedatetsuo.com
End of Evangelion Death Threats wiki.evageeks.org n.p. n.d. Web. December 2012.
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Faulkner, John Evangelion and Jung oocities.org, 2006. n.p. web. 5 March 2012.
www.oocities.org/sudowoodo123/EvangelionJungEssay.html
Freud, Sigmund. Freud Complete Works. Ed and transl. Ivan Smith. 2010, Retrieved from
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Goldberg, Wendy This Isnt Your Mother Mecha: The Adolcent and Narrative in Neon Genesis
Evangelion. The Annual Popular Culture Association, American Culture Association
(PCA/ACA) National Conference, New Orleans, Louisiana. April 16-19 2003. Web. December
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Grassmuck, Volker Im alone but not lonely: Japanese Otaku-Kids colonize the Realm of
Information and Media A Tale of Sex and Crime from a faraway Place Internet archive:
Wayback Machine, December 1990. web. December 2012.
http://web.archive.org/web/20110724231148/http://www.cjas.org/~leng/otaku-e.htm
Hiroki, Azuma Anime or Something Like it: Neon Genesis Evangelion ntticc.or.jp n.d. n.p. web
December 2012. http://www.ntticc.or.jp/pub/ic_mag/ic018/intercity/higashi_E.html

Terletskyi 61

--- Towards A Cartography of Japanese Animation Interview by Krystian Woznicki. nettime.org.

20 February 1998. web. December 2012. http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l9802/msg00101.html
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December 2012. http://web.archive.org/web/20020613153736/http://www.jpop.com/anime/archive/reviews/09_fan_fav/picks0.html
---*Eva+Hideaki Anno Wizard: Manga Scene, Eva.onegeek.org, November 1996. n.p. web.
December 2012. eva.onegeek.org/pipermail/oldeva/1996-November/000809.html
---Re: End of Eva Question groops.google.com. July 23 1997. Web. December 2012.
https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!msg/rec.arts.anime.misc/qQULw4dqZKs/
Y6xTa4t0su0J
Jung, Carl Gustav. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious Collected Works Transl. R.F.C.
Hull. vol. 9. 2nd edn. Princeton University Press, 1968. Print.
--- Memories, Dreams, Reflections, ed. Aniela Jaffe. New York: Vintage Books, 1989. Print.
Kreamer, Christine Hoff Self and (M)other: Apocalypse as Return to the Womb in Neon Genesis
Evangelion. American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, San Antonio, 22 November
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Kotani, Mari, Evangelion as the Immaculate Virgin. Magazine House, 1997. web. December 2012
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Lamarre, Thomas The Anime Machine: A Media Theory of Animation. University of Minnesota
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---The Rebild of Anime Three Faces of Eva. Mechademia 5.1 2010, 349-353. Project MUSE. Web.
27 Dec. 2012
Ledoux, Trish, Doug Ranney, Fred Patter, Anime Guide: The Complete Anime Guide: Japanese
Animation Film Directory & Resource Guide ed. Fred Patter. Tiger Mountain Pr, 2nd ed,
February 1 1997. Print

Terletskyi 62

MacWilliams, M.W. Japanese Comic Books and Religion Japan Pop. ed T.L. Craig, M.E. Sharpe,
September 11 2000. Print.
Malone, Paul M. My Own Private Apocalypse: Shinji Ikari as Schreberian Paranoid Superhero in
Hideaki Annos Neon Genesis Evangelion Super/Heroes: from Hercules to Superman. ed.
Wendy Haslem et al. New Academia Publishing 2007. 111-127. Print.
Napier, J Susan, Anime: From Akira to Howls Mowing Castle: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese
Animation 2nd ed. Palgrave McMilan 2005. Print.
--- When The Machines Stop. Fantasy, Reality and Terminal Identity in Neon Genesis Evangelion
and Serial Experiments: Lain Robot Ghosts and Wired Dreams: Japanese Science Fiction
from Origins to Anime. ed: Christopher Bolton. University of Minnesota Press 2007.Print
NAveryW Yamaga: EoTV planned from the start, EOE was an afterthought eva.geeks.org, Sat 29
May, 2010 6:46 pm. Web. December 2012.
http://forum.evageeks.org/thread/9158/Yamaga-EoTV-planned-from-the-start-EoE-was-anafterthought/
Neon Genesis Evangelion - Platinum: Perfect Collection, dir. Anno Hideaki, ADV Films, November
27, 2007. DVD.
Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion, dir. Hideaki Anno, WEA, September, 2002. DVD.
Okada, Toshio Return of the Otaking Internet Archive: Wayback Machine. Anime America, San
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Ortega , Mariana My Father , He Killed Me ; My Mother , She Ate Me : Self, Desire, Engendering
and The Mother in Neon Genesis Evangelion Mechademia 2 Network of Desire. ed: Frenchy
Lunning, University of Minnesota Press 2007. Print.
Oshii, MamoruWhether One is Aware of Being a Copy or Not Rahxephon: The Motion Picture,
gwern.net, 2004. ADV 44-51. web. December 2012. http://www.gwern.net/docs/eva/2003oshii-izubuchi

Terletskyi 63

Redmond, Dennis The World is Watching: Video as Multinational Aesthetics 1968-1995. Board of
Trustees, Southern Illinois University 2004. Print
Smith III, Claude You Are Not Alone: Self-Identity and Modernity in Neon Genesis Evangelion and
Kokoro. MA thesis. Florida State University Fall 2008. Web. December 2012.
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The Red Cross Book. evaotaku.com. Gainax, 1997. Web. December 2012.
http://www.evaotaku.com/html/rcb.html
Tsuribe, Manabu Prison of Self-Consciousness: an essay on Evangelion www001.upp.sonet.ne.jp, February 1999. web. December 2012. http://www001.upp.sonet.ne.jp/tsuribe/anime/critique/evae.html
Tsurumaki, Kazuya, A Story of Communication: The Kazuya Tsurumaki Interview The Red Cross
Book. evaotaku.com. Gainax, 1997. Web. December 2012.
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Woznicki, Krystian Towards A Cartography of Japanese Animation Interview
amsterdam.nettime.org. 20 Feb 1998. web. 5 March 2012.
1731298478 Re: So how about this material? [Books] Schizo/Parano, eva.geeks.org Mon.
January 24 2011 11:59 am. Web. December 2012.
http://forum.evageeks.org/post/420652/Books-Shizo-Parano/#420652

Terletskyi 64

Illustrations:

Figure 1 Misato's Penis Envy

Figure 2 Asuka's Doll

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Figure 3 A boyish young girl

Figure 4 Cauda pavonis

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Figure 5 Ever-living fire

Figure 6 rotundum

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Figure 7 Paternal Authority

Figure 8 3:4

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Figure 9 Tree of Sephiroth

Figure 10 Abandonment

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Figure 11 Geofront

Figure 12 Pyramids

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Figure 13 Maiden in trouble

Figure 14 Fire Flash

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Figure 15 Mandala from Jakob Bohme's XL Questions concerning the Soule

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Figure 16 NERVs Logo

Figure 17 Fiery Moon

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Figure 18 Shadow

Figure 19 Newborn

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Figure 20 Escaping Shadow

Figure 21Hexagram

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Figure 22 Nixie

Figure 23 Abandonment 2

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Figure 24 aliquem alium internum

Figure 25 Anima is taming the beast

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Figure 26 Status nascendi

Figure 27 Syzygy

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Figure 23 King's decapitation

Figure 29 Hieros Gamos

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Streszczenie

Niniejsza praca proponuje analiz Neon Genesis Evangelion Hideaki Anniego w wietle teorii
archetypw i pojcia niewiadomoci zbiorowej Carla Gustava Junga. Po pierwsze, praca
diagnozuje gwne postacie zgodnie z klasyczn psychoanaliz, a szczeglnie z psychoanaliz Junga
i w ten sposb wyjania podstawowe zaoenia omawianej serii filmw. Po drugie, praca
przyporzdkowuje rodzaje archetypw Junga podwiadomym zachowaniom bohatera. Po trzecie,
okrela i interpretuje rne narracyjne etapy w NGE jako etapy procesu indywiduacji bohatera
serialu. Celem przeprowadzonej analizy jest ukazanie NGE jako nowoczesnej symulowanej bani,
ktra ilustruje psychiczn structure postmodernistycznej tosamoci postani, a mianowicie otaku
lub nerta, i ostatecznie przenosi pojcie bani i zaszyfrowane w niej procesy psychologiczne do
sfery hiperrealnoci.