KawoShin

KawoShin is the slash ship between Shinji Ikari and Kaworu Nagisa from the Neon Genesis Evangelion fandom.

Canon
Kaworu only appears in Episode 24 and the End of Evangelion. By the time they meet, Shinji feels completely alone. His friends have moved away, Tokyo-3 has been destroyed, he has lost all hope of earning his father's approval, he is afraid of Rei and Misato, and he is unsure of where Asuka is or how to connect with her.

Kaworu is friendly, gentle, and open towards Shinji, and Shinji, quickly opens up to him in turn. Kaworu tells Shinji that he was born to meet him, and that he likes him. However, the next day, Kaworu is revealed to be an Angel.

Hijacking Unit 2, Kaworu attempts to initiate Third Impact. Shinji initially refuses to believe that Kaworu is an Angel, but quickly realizes he must fight him. Shinji defeats Kaworu, and Kaworu asks Shinji to kill him. He tells Shinji that his death will allow humanity to continue on. Shinji hesitates, but he eventually does so. Shinji is left broken and distraught by the decision. He is only briefly mentioned in the context of Shinji's guilt over killing someone he saw as human in the series' Instrumentality and is otherwise absent from it, including the famous Congratulations scene.

In End of Evangelion, Rei takes Kaworu's form to calm Shinji, though he only enters Instrumentality after seeing the image of woman's clutched breasts. Rei and Kaworu, in their forms as Lilith and Adam, discuss with Shinji about the future of humanity and his choice of rejecting Instrumetality.

Fanon
Like Shinji's other pairings, KawoShin is divisive. The rapid development of their bond, the equally destructive end, and the slash nature took many fans aback.

Supporters argue that Kaworu was the only person who was kind and caring to Shinji. They view Kaworu as Shinji's best option for a healthy relationship, and criticize the dub decision to translate Shinji's feelings on Kaworu as "liking" him rather than "loving" him. This was also reflected in the new Netflix localization, translated directly by Studio Khara, which created controversy among Kawoshin fans. Some further suggest that fans who criticize the pairing do so because of homophobia, though even many LGBT people don't seem to like the pairing, similar to what sometimes happens with other yaoi pairings. It is often argued that their relationship would be groundbreaking and progressive in a 1995 show, however this is a dubious claim considering many other anime from 1995 and even earlier, and the significance of yaoi and yuri in Japan decades earlier.

Meanwhile, detractors often suggest that Shinji was too broken and Kaworu too naive for either to properly understand their feelings. Detractors also argue that portraying Kaworu as the only person who was kind to Shinji is dismissive of or even ignores many other characters such as Misato, Rei, Touji, Kensuke or Hikari. They point out that Shinji was portrayed as unambiguously straight until Episode 24, and that Kaworu's death damaged Shinji immensely. Many have questioned the extent to which Kaworu, as an Angel, actually felt or understood what he claimed to Shinji, not to mention how the original Japanese uses ambiguous and possibly non-romantic terms. Others argue that Kaworu was purposefully manipulating Shinji, in order to further damage him, considering his links to Seele, the main antagonists of the series.

Shinji not loving himself, making him unable to love others and only seeking emotional crutches, a fact later criticised by Asuka, as well as Shinji comparing Kaworu's betrayal to his father's, bring into question the nature and honesty of Shinji's feelings, which he barely conveys in the first place. Additionally, Kaworu also seems to represent a form of idealized, unconditional and self-serving affection that is strongly deconstructed and disapproved of throughout the series.

Nevertheless, Kaworu and KawoShin have proved quite popular. Many of the spin-offs have expanded on Kaworu's his dynamic with Shinji, much like what happened with ReiShin, although it still tends to have much less space than ReiShin and AsuShin. Sometimes, however, Kaworu's interest in Shinji in official spin-offs, is toned down considerably even if he has a larger presence, and he sometimes even shows interest in Rei as AsuShin and ReiShin receive even more material. Most notably, Rebuild of Evangelion 3.0 focused largely on their relationship, albeit with a similar tragic ending, after Evangelion 2.0 focused largely on Rei's own relationship with Shinji. In regards to shipping, the Evangelion fandom is mostly divided between KawoShin and AsuShin, with ReiShin in a third place. KawoShin was fairly popular after the initial release of Episode 24 along with AsuShin and ReiShin but quickly declined in popularity over the years, as in the 2000s the fandom was divided mostly between AsuShin and ReiShin, with KawoShin relegated to more of a niche role. However, it regained some popularity with the new Rebuild movies and exploded after Evangelion 3.0, which features this pairing proeminently, similar to how 2.0 did with ReiShin. As of recent years, however, it seems to be declining again, as AsuShin has remained popular regardless and ReiShin is becoming more common again.

The Netflix release of Evangelion in 2019 included a new English localization, directly made by Khara themselves with strict oversight over the sub and dub, unlike the older ADV dubs and subs. Some changes, like translating "suki" as "like" again like it was in the first ADV VHS subtitle, irritated Kawoshin fans who based their interpretations on the DVD translation or even fansubs. However, there is abundant evidence that Khara simply remade the translation to bring it closer to the way the show was actually written in the original Japanese. See Kaworu's lines in Episode 24 on EvaWiki

Fandom
FAN FICTION
 * Shinji/Kaworu on FanFiction.Net
 * Shinji/Kaworu on FanFiction.Net