#kaworu
Sad that Kawoshin has gone from “They’re 100% canon” to “Aww hehe they might not be canon but I’ll still ship them!” unironically shippers are the first in line to defend deplorable or downright harmful renderings of mlm/wlw relationships in order to keep enjoying their ships without any guilty baggage. I don’t think most of its fanbase is aware of Kawoshin’s influence (As is the case with NGE in general) on anime/manga/other japanese media, either.
If anything this is greenlighting to other studios that they can rope in fujoshi/fudanshi/allies/etc with gay subtext, and then pull the rug once it’s good and done because the majority will not give a shit about them getting straightwashed or dismiss it as “it could’ve been worse” or “It was just bait and it’s your fault for falling for it” and keep profiting off merch/collab sales. It’s so frustrating. I’m not saying that ppl shouldn’t like/ship/whatever them anymore, I’m just asking folks to be more conscientious and critical about the media they consume and indulge in
We can only reason that it’s shitty writing but I don’t think “Kaworu wanted to make Shinji happy” and “Kaworu wanted to be happy” should have been mutually exclusive concepts. It’s the equivalent of saying that Kaworu never really loved Shinji and was only codependent on him which would be…pretty bad. We could argue that Gendo was unhealthily dependent on Yui but it is also validated as being genuine in this movie ,but uhhhh gay not real so let’s chalk it up to angel obsession and have him separate forever from Shinji and immediately throw him into a “real” (het) relationship. How coincidental is it that 4/4 of the het relationships are affirmed as real and/or normal and the only ~ambiguously~ gay one gets hit with the “BAD” hammer
I’m kinda over it already but it irritates me seeing people excuse Khara like “you guys just want Kaworu to be miserable!! let him have a life!!” as if the plot wrote itself and they didn’t bait Kawoshin hardcore by shilling out merch and promoting it for 8 entire years, right before and even after the fucking movie’s theatrical release because there’s not enough demand/interest for merch of the endgame pairings. Literally using 4.0′s own bullets, “I was born to meet you” “This time I’ll make you happy” etc. iirc Ogata said that Anno told her Asuka/Rei/Kaworu all moved on from Shinji and he only had Mari left. I don’t think anybody is malding because they didn’t get a “shipping” ending because NGE/EOE didn’t have those either, it’s just a shitty cop-out that these two characters were teased for so long, and after so long they part without even addressing how they felt about one another throughout all those loops (no, Kaworu’s one-sided ひかれた does not count) not even friendship is left and they get paired off to characters whom they had little to zero development with, just like that. Tell me how I’m not allowed to be bitter about it
??? ...moodboard
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Kaworu paper doll finished!
Kawoshin Eine Kleine redraw
Original:
x will mark the place like the parting of the waves