34187


As for the reason why Shinji choked Asuka, I stick with [the translation of
"Kimochi warui" card from Eva card
game](http://www.angelfire.com/anime4/mdwigs/KimochiWarui.html), but I'm
willing to accept other theories,

> Shinji renounced the world where all hearts had melted into one and accepted
> each other unconditionally. His desire... to live with 'others' -- other
> hearts that would sometimes reject him, even deny him. That is why the first
> thing he did after coming to his senses was to place his hands around
> Asuka's neck. To feel the existence of an 'other'. To confirm (make sure of)
> rejection and denial.

But I have no clear explanation of why did Asuka caress Shinji when he is
strangling her.


CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-07-10T02:49:57.317
34179
2020-09-09T20:41:38.010
2016-07-10T15:43:17.323
2516
26098
question
neon-genesis-evangelion
Why does Asuka caress Shinji in EoE?


So, so many possible reasons. I refer to movies like _End of Evangelion_ and
_Madoka: Rebellion_ as "make your own ending kits"; due to their constant use
of symbolism and ambiguous dialogue, combined with a pathological aversion to
explaining themselves, you can basically interpret them to mean whatever you
want them to. If I may be allowed a bit of shameless self-promotion, I
recently [wrote a blog post](https://metatris.blogspot.com/2016/06/evangelion-
iii-end-of-eva.html) doing just that. I didn't specifically analyze why Asuka
caressed Shinji, but going by the interpretation I adopted in my post, along
with the mentioned card game translation, there are a few valid reasons why
she did that.

This scene echoes one earlier in the movie, during Instrumentality, when
Shinji and Asuka are arguing with each other about whose fault it is that they
never managed to get close. I summarized the scene on my blog:

> [Shinji] zeros in on Asuka in particular, isolating her in a dream version
> of Misato’s kitchen and fighting with her as Pen-Pen looks on, responding to
> her accusations that he didn’t know her at all that he couldn’t possibly
> know her, because she never talks about herself, and how unreasonable it is
> for her to expect him to know her when she won’t tell him anything. Rei
> appears and asks if he ever tried, and Shinji responds that he did, but
> couldn’t. Asuka asks how she could like someone who doesn’t even love
> himself. Shinji responds that maybe he could learn to love himself if she
> tried being nice to him, gets angry and smashes a chair, then wraps his
> hands around her neck and strangles her.

Shinji, who has spent a large part of the series being passive and self-
loathing, finally gets angry and blames Asuka (and by proxy the other people
in his life) for his inability to get close to others. Asuka and Rei respond,
with some justification, that Shinji also has to take some blame; he avoids
getting close to anyone because he fears being rejected and abandoned by them,
as he was by his father.

In the end, Shinji manages to get over his fear of rejection and chooses to
reverse Instrumentality and go back to the world where people are separate and
can choose to reject or abandon each other. The card translation says that
Shinji started to strangle Asuka because he wanted to confirm that rejection
and denial exist once more. By going back to a world where rejection and
denial exist, Shinji has admitted that he feared them, and faced that fear. He
has confessed that Asuka's and Rei's accusations in the earlier scene were
true, that he locked people out too tightly because he feared abandonment.

As Shinji strangles Asuka, she reaches up and caresses him, countering that
although rejection and denial exist again, acceptance also exists again—people
have the choice to accept others into their hearts, just as they have the
choice to deny others. And with this, Asuka confesses that Shinji's
accusations in the earlier scene were true: Asuka resisted, at every level,
accepting Shinji (and by proxy, everyone) into her heart, by yelling at him,
demeaning him, and violently rejecting the rudimentary efforts he did make to
get closer to her. But now that Shinji's managed to stop fearing rejection
from everyone, Asuka's learned to stop rejecting everyone. Shinji knows he
can't passively wait for someone to accept him; Asuka knows that she can't
keep rejecting everyone.

Realizing that Asuka intends to stop rejecting him, Shinji breaks down in
tears. Asuka responds "Kimochi warui"; to accept someone feels weird, foreign,
and disgusting to her, because she's always resisted it. At various points in
the series, Shinji and Asuka almost manage to get closer—in Episode 15, Asuka
compliments Shinji on his cello playing and then forces him to kiss her, but
then violently rejects him by feigning disgust and running to the bathroom to
wash her mouth out. Shinji doesn't realize that Asuka was sincerely trying to
get closer to him, or he realizes it, but won't follow up because he's afraid
of being rejected. In Episode 22, after seeing her talk on the phone with her
stepmother, Shinji tries to have a real conversation with Asuka about family,
but Asuka is all pissed off because Shinij surpassed her sync ratio. In the
final scene of _End of Evangelion_ , they both realize their own culpability
in the situation and decide to start trying to become people who are able to
accept one another.


CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-07-10T20:42:25.287
34187
2016-07-10T20:42:25.287
7579
34179
answer


I like all that analogy on [Torisuda's
answer](https://anime.stackexchange.com/a/34187/2516), but there seems to be
missing a piece of information.

While during the instrumentality, all beings become one no matter how brief it
is. All of them experienced what it was like to be one entity and because of
that oneness, everyone experienced the flaw that comes with being wholesome
being. Since everyone became one, there were no secrets to be hidden.

The reason why Asuka said "disgusting" because while they were one, she found
out and knew what he did to her unconscious body. Because of that, the first
thing she said when she saw him was "disgusting".


CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-06-20T16:39:50.993
47509
2018-06-20T16:50:38.827
2018-06-20T16:50:38.827
2516
41205
34179
answer


I rewatched the series after 19 years and just saw End of Evangelion for the
first time.

My theory is that Shinji is actually attempting to do something for Asuka
instead of reacting in a way to avoid conflict and pain. The first time he
chokes her, she goes limp and the scene ends. But we can see in many scenes
that Asuka's mother choked the doll she was pretending to be Asuka, asking her
(the doll) to die together. Asuka is tormented by the fact that her mother
rejected her so Shinji choking her is a reenactment for Asuka's sake, which
was hinted that that's what she subconsciously desired from the first time it
happened.

It doesn't mean that she really wants to be choked to death, it's just a deep-
seeded irrational desire she had that her mother had choked her instead of the
doll, because at least her mother would be paying attention to her.

That's pretty messed up, but it's a very good illustration of the irrational
desires people harbor due to insecurities embedded from different
developmental stages in their lives.


CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-11-17T08:16:51.160
55882
2020-09-09T20:41:38.010
2020-09-09T20:41:38.010
50811
50786
34179
answer