Neon Genesis Evangelion, Nietzsche and Schopenhauer.

Spoiler Alert: Even if Neon Genesis Evangelion is a pretty popular and commented anime, with lots of fan pages dedicated to its analysis, I shall say: the topics that are about to be discussed here reveal the plot of the story.

So, the warning has been issued, so let's begin. NGE is a particular series. At first glance it is easy to think of it as a classic member of the mecha genre, very popular through the 70's and 80's. But the story is a lot more complicated than the usual plot "save the world from the evil enemies". In this case, there is much under the surface. The post-apocaliptyc scenario shows us, at first, the imminent threat of the angels: strange beings that seem to be driven by the desire to destroy humanity. In response, the UN and other organizations start a joint-venture to develop the EVAS: entities that appear as giant robots but are, in fact, biological creatures, with a genetic structure similar to the human. This entities are piloted by children of 14 years old.

The point of this "analysis" is the secret objective of one of the organizations that oversees the fight against the angels and the development of the Evangelions: SEELE and the Human Instrumentality Project. Without engaging in a deep study about this plan (which is not very clear at all and depends on which version of the anime or manga we talk about), the final goal is to reunite all human beings into an indeferentiated entity. As it is seen on "The End of Evangelion" instrumentality is portrayed as the dissolving of all human beings (and their individuality) into a liquid, pretty  much a resemblance of blood or the primordial fluid that scientists postulate to be the start of life in planet Earth.

What does this have to do with our two philosophers? Well, as the human instrumentality is believed on the NGE universe to be the ultimate solution to human evolution and the inherent conflict of humans (insociable sociability, as Kant said), Arthur Schopenhauer wrote about this in his greatest work The World as Will and Representation. There, Schopenhauer explains the world in two terms: representation is the world as human cognition perceives it; the classification, the order of natural laws, the differentiation between entities. On the other hand, will represent the world as it is really is, its essence as an indefferentiated primal force. The pain and sorrow in human life is the result of the process of scission of that primal force in individuals, that human beings nevertheless feel through their bodies, hoping in despair to sate.

Schopenhauer was far least radical in his attempt to restore the unity, pleading to aesthetic experience, compassion and reflection. But the similarities between his theory and the plot of NGE are to be noted. Even in NGE doesn't portrait the concept of Will, it does show the subyacent desire of unity and to stop disgregation, pleading for a better state of human race by erasing individual barriers; such argument is similar to the yearning that humans experience for such a state of unity, according to Schopenhauer.

Moreover, this idea is similar to the Primordial One that Friedrich Nietzsche wrote in The Birth of Tragedy, his first book. Ancient greeks knew, thanks to the theater, specifically, the tragedies, to commune with the primordial unity, represented by Dionysus, maimed before birth. dismembered by the Titans acording to Plato. The greek tragedy was not just a play, but a way to overcome the inherent despair of life, where every spectator was an active part of the representation, according to Nietzsche and his interpretations of the greek tragedies and mythologies. Again, the leitmotif is the yearning to unity.

In this way, NGE, wether on purpose or not, takes again an old human problem and transfigurates it into a contemporary view, where the human kind tries again to solve the issue of struggling between unity and individuality.