14 years after Hideaki Anno began the Rebuild of Evangelion series, reimagining and remixing the original Neon Genesis Evangelion story in movie form, the final entry finally became available for international audiences. It was a long wait, but Evangelion 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time is a finale worth celebrating, not just of the Rebuild movies but of the franchise as a whole. Helmed by an Anno that seems to have finally connected all of the dots of his own creation in his head, Thrice Upon a Time gives protagonist Shinji one more go at tackling the demons in his mind, finally delving deep into understanding the root cause of his problems - his relationship with father - and giving him one last chance to properly move on, which he gladly takes. It's not that Evangelion has never felt hopeful before; the TV series and even End of Evangelion can be read in that way. But it's never been this unambiguously hopeful, so shamelessly positive about the future.
Still, it's Evangelion, and I ended up finding myself connecting the most to the first act, which follows Shinji as he wallows in his depression and self-loathing following the events of the third film. In that movie, Shinji has been told officially that he more or less caused the end of the world, ironically by piloting the robot he has been told in so many ways was his job to pilot; the sole thing anyone expected of him has only made people hate him more. He found unconditional love in Kaworu, only to discover that love from the outside doesn't make up for a lack of love for himself on the inside. In the end, he almost causes another world-ending scenario, loses Kaworu, and is dragged off by Asuka, who reprimands him for never actually confronting his problems.
She's not wrong, but that kind of blunt, compassionless criticism certainly isn't what Shinji is in need of at that point, so he spends much of the first act of Thrice Upon a Time doing what a depressed person is best at doing: nothing. They visit a town of survivors of the "Near Third Impact," among which are some of Shinji's old friends from school, from before life seemed so hopeless. These friends let him stay in their home, even though all Shinji can manage to do is lay around, hardly even eating, and throwing up most of what he does. Even when he does manage to leave the house, it's only to find another secluded place where he can continue to sulk without the burden of being seen.
This portrayal of Shinji's helplessness resonated with me because I've been there — in fact, I was almost literally that person just over a year ago, when a combination of intense depression and related issues landed me in the hospital. I spent the next year in various forms of physical rehabilitation — thinking about it now, it was a traumatic experience, but if you had been talking to me at the time you'd hardly be able to tell I was even phased by it. That's how deep I'd sunk into this depression: I could still hardly even tell what was happening to me. I was lucky to be surrounded by caring family, friends, and physicians who supported me in every way possible through it all, but even though I'd sunk to this intense low, I couldn't bring myself to care about what it meant for me — each milestone was just something to satisfy what someone else told me would be good for me.
That's what I see in Shinji, both here and in the previous entries in Evangelion. He pilots the Eva because people tell him it's what is good for him, or what is good for the world. He doesn't typically want to do it, and when he does, it isn't rewarding for him and he can't figure out why. Everyone tells him this is the thing that will make him feel better, what will make him look better to the people he cares about, so why does it never turn out well for him? By Thrice Upon a Time, he has finally exhausted every variation of this avenue of self-actualization. Doing things people tell him to do doesn't make him feel any better, so it must be that nothing will — even Asuka's reprimands don't affect him anymore. He lays on Toji's floor with no motivation to do anything, because the result has never been worth it. It's sad to say this about the physical therapy that allows me to stand and walk around now, but it's truely how I felt: progress without meaningful results is hollow.
Then, something small happens, something that might go forgotten in the utter scale and ambition of the rest of Thrice Upon a Time: Kensuke takes Shinji fishing. Well, not really. Kensuke, one of Shinji's old friends who wants to help Shinji recover from his slump, takes Shinji out on one of his usual rides to check out the town's infrastructure, hoping getting out of the house will help Shinji's mood. Eventually they reach a point where the area ahead is too dangerous for the weakened Shinji, and Kensuke gives him a fishing rod to pass the time with. Shinji initially refuses with a familiar response — "No. I've never done it. I can't do it." — a refrain familiar to anyone who has had self-esteem as low as Shinji's before. He does end up trying it out, though, and despite catching no fish at all, Kensuke is happy he gave it a shot, reassuring Shinji that he hasn't disappointed anyone ("Don't sweat it. Our quota is one fish a week.") and that he can always improve ("You'll have another chance."), without demanding that Shinji actually follow through with any of it. Kensuke never brings it up to Shinji again.
That positivity without judgment seems to connect with Shinji, as from that point forward we no longer see him lying about when he goes to his usual spot by the water. Instead, he is usually seen fishing. It feels like an important step for Shinji, because it's the first time he started doing something seemingly for himself. Piloting the Eva was for the sake of humanity, even learning the piano was so he had something to do with Kaworu, but no one is pressuring him to fish. He does that for himself, and from that point forward in the movie, he begins doing everything for himself. He wants to understand his father, seek some sort of penance, and pilot the Evangelion one last time, all for himself rather than to satisfy someone else's expectations of him, and the results are finally positive.
Shinji's fishing and subtle realization about the contradiction between his actions and his motivations stuck with me because at some point in my therapy I had the same revelation. If all I was doing was for the sake of hitting milestones, I was going to fall back into the same pattern of behavior that got me there in the first place. If I only wanted to get better to make other people stop feeling bad for me, I wasn't actually going to achieve anything meaningful. I started working out with more personal motivations — I want to be able to climb X number of stairs so I can comfortably sit at the top row of a movie theater again (my favorite vantage point), or I want to be able to walk X distance so I can keep up with my friends when we can hang out again. Importantly, this applied to my mental health, too — I want to be able to have a stable enough mental state to write so and so many words about my favorite shows again. I had the same initial reactions to all of those as Shinji has to fishing: I’ve never done it, I can’t do it. I had a full-blown breakdown at the top of a set of stairs just three steps high because that’s how little confidence I had in my own ability to grow. But in the end, I had to, for myself. I want to remember what it’s like to enjoy life again.
And I have to say, Shinji seems to be on to something here. By the end of Thrice Upon a Time, he has broken free of his mental hold over himself. In doing so he is able to connect to the people around him in a real way, even to his father, who has up to this point in the franchise been presented as an insurmountable wall, a completely unknowable force of nature. Shinji's personal growth doesn't fix his past mistakes, which the movie also makes clear, but it presents an avenue for him to move toward the future, and that journey rings true because I see my own reflected clearly in it. By being honest about the ugliness of its protagonist, Thrice Upon a Time finally gives Shinji a chance to recover and finally love himself, and to that end it's exactly the movie I needed to see right now.
Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time is streaming now on Amazon.
