You know, when you think about it, for as utterly screwed up as the Ikari family is, their pull game is absolutely insane.
I mean, Yui only exists in a few short flashbacks, but so far she's got the edgy bad boy Gendo willing to destroy the world for her and her silver fox mentor Fuyutsuki more than happy to pitch in. For her.
Gendo never even attempts to have anything resembling a winning personality, and yet he's got scientist hottie Yui and two generations of Akagis, to all of their regret.
And Shinji? Oh boy, don't get me started on Shinji. Despite being anime's most infamous scrawny sadboy, the dude is practically a harem protagonist. It's just that he only seems to attract people who are just as screwed up as he is. When you go through the show, movies, and various spin-offs, the list of romantic prospects he has includes:
Asuka, the quintessential angry tsundere who basically matches him for self-loathing but channels it into hyper-aggression instead of depressive withdrawing.
Rei, the emotionally stunted clone of his own dead mother carrying the soul of the progenitor of all life on Earth who has a weirdly uncomfortable relationship with his father.
Misato, his hot mess of a guardian who admittedly isn't so much genuinely interested in him as she is also an emotionally stunted trainwreck who doesn't really know how to connect to men except through sex, but there it is.
Kaworu, the mysterious sexy twink who's also the reincarnation of the extraterrestrial being who was supposed to populate Earth with his progeny and is the father of all Angels.
Mari, his mom's flirty college roommate who de-aged herself by transferring her brain into an immortal teenaged clone body.
Mana, a child soldier secret agent sent to seduce him, only to get seduced by him for real.
Mayumi, his own distaff counterpart who was murdered by her own father and resurrected to carry an Angel's core.
Honestly, his only remotely "normal" option is that one Hikari route from Girlfriend of Steel.
