(This is specifically ABOUT 3.0+1.0, NOT 3.0, or NGE)
I have to wonder how eva’s japanese LGBT audience feels like after this movie. After 8 entire fucking years of khara putting out kawoshin merch NON-STOP, insinuating through interviews that kawoshin COULD be good for each other (really, it was only a matter of setting healthy boundaries if the looping was the only thing keeping kaworu attached to Shinji/sacrificing himself to cope with his fate), only for 3.0+1.0 to shoot it down in three minutes tops of exposition and not even allow room for ambiguity. I would believe that kawoshin was only a matter of a tragedic pair that could never be if it wasn’t for the fact that:
* Gendo is compared to Kaworu in the sense that both of them were lonely, played piano (yes, they really went there) and only had Yui/Shinji in the world. The idea is that both of them were dependent on their respective partners to somehow bring them happiness. So what is Gendo rewarded with, in shin eva? After abandoning, neglecting, abusing his own son, being mainly responsible for the state of the world and harming billions of innocents? He’s redeemed through a sob story and gets to be reunited with Yui. In other words, Gendo’s obsessiveness is remunerated with the same person he became dependent on, but Kaworu/Shinji have no choice but to separate indefinitely.
>Lovers committing double suicide believed that they would be united again in heaven, a view supported by feudal teaching in Edo period Japan, which taught that the bond between two lovers is continued into the next world, and by the teaching of Pure Land Buddhism wherein it is believed that through double suicide, one can approach rebirth in the Pure Land.
(this has not been confirmed canon, but god forbid the implications that the Gendo/Yui scene could have)
(Shinji and Kaworu don’t even get to stay as friends in the Neon Genesis, because the message is that Anno (Shinji) bid farewell to all of the eva characters and his relationship with them, for good. That’s why they go their opposite ways in the last train scene)
* Not to mention the wlw baiting with Asuka & Mari (Kaworu/Shinji parallels were even used in the promotional material to suggest that they had a bond akin to theirs), that also added up to nothing bc ig gay ppl only serve as Marketing Tools lol.
* Kaworu might be coupled with Rei in the “Neon Genesis”. Kaworu is a character that throughout the years (in spin-offs, drama CDs, magazines, you name it) has been portrayed as having little romantic/sexual interest in women and thus had been established as a more gay coded/leaning character to the audience/fans. “He could be bi/pan!” do you really think that this was not a decision made out of convenience because they didn’t want to commit to him being exclusively mlm?
Any traces of Shinji’s/Mari’s/Kaworu’s and even Maya’s queerness are as good as gone by the end of the film. Finito. This goes WAY beyond “omg we know your ship didn’t become canon but that doesn’t mean it’s queerbaiting!!” This is straight up 25 years that amounted to NOTHING but picking people’s pockets for profit and selling out the narrative that gay relationships are temporary and adults eventually settle down for the opposite sex (actual belief in the conservative parts of japan). How ppl are blind to this as if it has nothing to do with khara’s potential views on lgbt relationships is beyond me.
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