And this is where I post the link to Fane of the Firebird, the SKU/Eva hybrid where Shinji is Utena, Rei is Anthy, Kaji is Touga, Asuka is Nanami, and EVERYTHING IS PAIN.

Nocturnalux wrote:

pesimistamente wrote:

Raven Nightshade wrote:

I'm starting to think that SKU is Evangelion, post-Instrumentality.

This is 100% based on the resemblance between Tokiko and Yui.

^ ^ ^totally been thinking this lately

Utena and Shinji both navigate masculinity and feminity in a patriarcal society (where Akio/Gendo are in control), yet Shinji is punished for his femiinity, while Utena manages to succeed by navigating masculinity and "princehood". They both tell similar stories in similar universes.

Also, Nemuro's glasses remind me of Gendo's BYE

Shinji is indeed mocked for his supposedly girly ways in universe but fans sure love him for them. To the point many straight male fans have decided that it's fine to be gay for Shinji since he has such waifu potential. Granted, Eva's fandom can be unique, for lack of a better term, (and I am a huge Eva fan myself) but it is very interesting how differently the fans react to Shinji's perceived feminity in comparison to how characters around do. Then again this can be argued for so many things Eva-related.

Still, we both can notice that 200% of the memes against Shinji are because of said feminity. "Shinji's a wimp/fag/pussy/cry baby" and all the derivates. Feminity is punished (when is not submissive) while masculinity is rewarded. Evangelion and Utena do talk a lot about feminity/masculinity in all genders and I'm pretty sure not only the characters, but the viewers, have a tendency to react to those concepts in a similar way by a vast majority.

pesimistamente wrote:

Nocturnalux wrote:

pesimistamente wrote:

^ ^ ^totally been thinking this lately

Utena and Shinji both navigate masculinity and feminity in a patriarcal society (where Akio/Gendo are in control), yet Shinji is punished for his femiinity, while Utena manages to succeed by navigating masculinity and "princehood". They both tell similar stories in similar universes.

Also, Nemuro's glasses remind me of Gendo's BYE

Shinji is indeed mocked for his supposedly girly ways in universe but fans sure love him for them. To the point many straight male fans have decided that it's fine to be gay for Shinji since he has such waifu potential. Granted, Eva's fandom can be unique, for lack of a better term, (and I am a huge Eva fan myself) but it is very interesting how differently the fans react to Shinji's perceived feminity in comparison to how characters around do. Then again this can be argued for so many things Eva-related.

Still, we both can notice that 200% of the memes against Shinji are because of said feminity. "Shinji's a wimp/fag/pussy/cry baby" and all the derivates. Feminity is punished (when is not submissive) while masculinity is rewarded. Evangelion and Utena do talk a lot about feminity/masculinity in all genders and I'm pretty sure not only the characters, but the viewers, have a tendency to react to those concepts in a similar way by a vast majority.

To be fair, though, a lot of those memes have a lot to do with Shinji's inverate tendency to refuse to fight and run away. While this kind of fan often forgets the times Shinji does fight, all the times he flat-out won't leave a very sour taste on some people's mouth and would do so regardless of how 'girly' he is. Mecha protagonists are also expected to follow a certain heroic template from Shinji deviates, a lot.

A good comparison would be with Kazuki from Fafner who, incidentally, has a mother who is very much the second coming of Yui in almost every single respect. Kazuki is a mecha protagonist and just like Shinji he is extremely good at cooking and household affairs as a whole on account of his father being hopeless about such things and their living alone. Kazuki is so great at cooking that he even becomes a professional at it in later seasons and his signature dish even bears his name.
He also has a lot of homoerotic tension going on with his best friend (fans joke that Fafner is known for being as heavy on the sadness as on the gay), wears skin-tight suits that were lifted from Eva (along with a lot of Fafner's initial template), has a weird lack of awareness of his female harem yet he is not called girly even though as the story progresses he becomes more and more girlish looking.

Granted, Fafner's fanbase is hardly comparable to Eva's, at least not the West, its popularity is still massive in Japan but there is an interesting parallel in the attitudes fans normally take regarding the respective leads. Only once does Kazuki pull a 'I won't fight' stunt and it is early on and never repeated, so it falls very neatly into the typical rebellious fase that virtually all mecha heroes fall into, sooner or later.

Fanart will still depict Kazuki as extremely girlish, which is not at all surprising, but even fans who dislike the homoerotic undertones still don't accuse Kazuki of being girlish.

All this to state that while you most definitely have a point (and there is also the fact that fans who do love Shinji for his girlish loveliness, so to speak, then to fetishize what they deem to be 'maidenly' in often disturbing ways; the whole 'waifu' thing can be the stuff of nightmares), I'm just saying that even when there is a girlish element, if the characters always fight bravely and sacrifice themselves like the good mecha heroes they are meant to be- Kazuki being the poster child of that, even more than the usual Gundam hero- then fans will often overlook any feminity and see them as brave. Which, again, is food for thought but I have derailed this enough as it is.