“Neon Genesis Evangelion” is one of the most famous and appreciated anime in the world, both for its deconstruction of the giant robot genre, a term made known by the philosopher Jacques Deridda (2018) and translated into narrative creation as the critical analysis of the tropes and themes of a certain narrative genre, implementing them with the intent of showing how they would work in real life (Suvilay, 2017), and for being a detailed description of depression and mental illness, mainly translated from the experience of director Hideaki Anno (Stewart-Ahn, 2019).
The figure of the Parent in Evangelion
In the animated series in question, inspired by the readings of the Bible and the cult of Christianity , with which the Japanese land has had an ambivalent relationship of curiosity and containment throughout its history, the clash of humanity against alien beings called Angels in a post-apocalyptic situation provides the backdrop to the animated re-proposal of themes dear to psychology, psychoanalysis and Western philosophy, such as the Oedipus complex (Ortega, 2007), parental abandonment and alienation from the world (Smith, 2008) and the problem of the pain of human intimate relationships and its traumas (Veit, 2020).
A key element of the series is the dysfunctional relationship between Shinji, the anime's main protagonist, and his father, Gendo Ikari, director of NERV, the secret agency that fights the Angels, with its ambiguous and complex morality. Their relationship is influenced by personal trauma and generally has a toxic component (Malone, 2010). This distance, along with that which many other characters in the series have had with their parents, was inspired, as emerges from interviews, by the relationship that Anno and other key members of Gainax, the production company of the original series and the film "The End of Evangelion," had with their parents, a factor that points to a social component that is still relevant today in Japanese culture.
The social figure of the father in Japanese culture
Japanese society is characterized by a Confucian foundation , where social classes and roles are deeply rooted with little room for social mobility and where the patriarchal vision is still relevant, leading current Japanese society to experience paradoxical situations between a strenuous attachment to traditional values and the pursuit of modernity through elements such as gender equality (Oi, 2021). The figure of the father plays a preponderant role in Japanese culture, as he is traditionally the one who works, financially supporting the family and has the greatest decision-making role within the family unit (Villa, 2019).
The cultural demand to adhere to a more composed emotional display and to devote oneself mainly to work, a key element of modern Japanese culture (Hirosuke, 2007), has often led to a distant emotional and affective relationship between fathers and sons (Ishii-Kuntz, 1994), which not infrequently results in a formal and affectively vacuous if not traumatic relationship, as reported in some previously mentioned interviews by Anno (Valentine, 2019 and by assistant director Kazuya Tsurumaki (Horn, 2006).
The small changes of fatherhood in today's Japanese society
In the fourth film of the “Rebuild of Evangelion” tetralogy, which retold the story of Evangelion through significant changes with Anno’s intention to definitively end his involvement in the series, namely “Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time”, one of the film’s most famous scenes features the final confrontation between Shinji and Gendo, where the latter exposes his fragility, his fear of not being a good father, which then resulted in the traumatic decision to abandon his son and the suffering he feels due to the physical death and absence of Yui, the love of his life and Shinji’s mother.
This scene from the film, released in theaters in 2021, is curiously and unintentionally indicative of a small sociocultural revolution that is currently taking place in Japan : although the patriarchal setting is still a foundation for Japanese society, the geriatricization of its population and the notable decline in the birth rate has led to a subtle but noteworthy change in perceptions in social customs, including that of implementing a more present and relaxed paternity (Rush, 2015), so much so as to see the emergence of social phenomena such as that of the ikumen (Robson, 2018).
Despite this, the patriarchal setting remains firm, given the typically conservative setting of Japanese culture, thus highly influencing the highly complex and at times absolutely conflictual relationships with the new generations (Jozura, Wang, Ogura, 2021).
John Charles Bruni
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