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- Kaworu said that he loved me. It was...It was the first time someone told me they loved me. He was like me, and like Ayanami. I loved him too.
- —Shinji after Kaworu died
KawoShin is the slash ship between Shinji Ikari and Kaworu Nagisa from the Neon Genesis Evangelion fandom.
Canon[]
Kaworu's main appearances are in the original Neon Genesis Evangelion series (in Episode 24) and the following movie, 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, even blushing when the two first meet. The two take a bath together where Kaworu holds Shinji's hand and tells Shinji he deserves affection and that he likes/loves him. Later that night when the two sleep in the same room, Nagisa tells Shinji that he believes he was born to meet him. However, the next day, Kaworu is revealed to be the Seventeenth Angel.
Hijacking Unit 2, Kaworu breaks through Terminal Dogma, supposedly attempting to initiate Third Impact. Shinji initially refuses to believe that Kaworu is an Angel, but quickly realizes he must stop him. Shinji defeats Kaworu, and Kaworu, saying he was glad to have met Shinji, asks Shinji to kill him in order to allow humanity to continue on. Shinji hesitates, but eventually does so. The episode ends with Shinji left broken and distraught by his decision, he tells Misato that Kaworu was the first person to ever say he loved him - "liked" in the netflix redub and re-translation - and Shinji says he loved him too. He is also mentioned again in episode 25 in the context of Shinji's guilt over killing someone he cared about.
Alternatively, in the scrapped draft versions of Episode 24, Kaworu and Shinji share a slightly different relationship. In the first draft, Shinji meets Kaworu by a train station while talking to Ritsuko idly about love. Shinji and Kaworu end up sharing a conversation together in the school, sharing an umbrella, and eventually go skinny dipping. The second draft is similar, with Kaworu talking to Shinji about doing a musical duet together, though the second draft also features a mutual kiss between the two. Both drafts also include a scene of Shinji screaming after crushing Kaworu out of reflex and the detail of Kaworu's blood seeping through the EVA's fingers instead of immediately cutting away before his death as was done in the final product, likely due to the content being too graphic for a 6:30 television show, though Anno and the team got in trouble nonetheless even with the censored version. Although these ideas were abandoned for what eventually became the current Episode 24, it showed what the writers were thinking of during this time.
In End of Evangelion, Shinji is having a full mental breakdown after being faced with the horrors of Unit-02's mutilated corpse and Rei being fused with Lillith into a giant being. This leads to Lillith-Rei sprouting an extra torso, that of Kaworu, which immediately calms Shinji down. Rei and Kaworu, in their forms as Lilith and Adam, discuss with Shinji about the future of humanity and his choice of rejecting Instrumentality.
In the "alternate-universe/sequel" 4-movie series, the Rebuilds, Kaworu and Shinji also have a close relationship. Even though the two didn't interact directly until 3.0, Kaworu was shown in a few scenes in the previous movies thinking about Shinji, even showing jealousy. Most of their iconic interactions from the Rebuilds come from 3.0, beginning with Kaworu helping Shinji learn the piano. Interestingly enough, there is a heart-shaped tree next to the piano. The two work as a team to play a song together (known as Quatre Mains (a quatre mains) =3EM16= on the official Spotify OST). They lie together on the ground at night, as if stargazing, when Kaworu tells Shinji he really was born to meet him, a callback to the original series's line. Kaworu offers to fix Shinji's broken music player, and ends up taking Shinji's DSS Choker for himself, saving Shinji from a possibly-deadly fate by taking his place. Unfortunately, due to a seemingly-fated turn of events, Kaworu ends up dying once more, losing his life via the Choker he willingly wore. In the scene, Shinji desperately attempts to get to Kaworu, but an invisible barrier separates them. Regardless of how much he sobs and eventually screams, the choker detonates and causes Kaworu's blood to splatter against the barrier, traumatizing Shinji and leading to his near catatonic state in the following film.
The following movie, 3.0+1.0, has fewer Kaworu-and-Shinji shared moments, but highlights Shinji's grief over Kaworu's death in a way arguably more emphasized than in the original series. In fact, a large portion of the movie's screentime is used to show how Shinji is truly broken after Kaworu dies. For a long time, he spends his time alone, sitting in the corner and not contributing to the new society he finds himself thrust into. He avoids others and isolates himself, having his first strong reaction to the world around him when seeing Asuka wearing a choker identical to the one that ended Kaworu's life, causing him to have flashbacks to the moment and vomit. He is also seen sobbing quietly at night, which Kensuke overhears but doesn't intervene. Eventually, Shinji figures out the truth behind Kaworu's life (and lives), accepting him and recognizing what he's done, putting an end to the loops that caused Kaworu (and everyone else) pain for an eternity. The movie ends with Kaworu standing on the opposite side of a train platform in a "new" world, with the fate of the two unknown. However, it is definitely possible that Kaworu and Shinji could have found each other once more after the final moments of the film.
Quotes[]
Anime[]
- “Hearts are as delicate as glass. Especially yours.”
- — Kaworu Nagisa, Episode 24
- “It means I love you. (original translation / It means I like you (netflix translation)”
- — Kaworu Nagisa, Episode 24
- “You know, I might have been born so that I could meet you.”
- — Kaworu Nagisa, Episode 24
- “Thank you. I'm happy that I met you.”
- — Kaworu Nagisa, Episode 24
- “Kaworu said that he loved me. That was the first time anyone's ever said they loved me. He was like me, and like Ayanami... I loved him too. (original translation) / Kaworu said I was...worthy of his grace. That he liked me. That's the first time anybody's ever said they liked me. Ever. He was similar to me. And to Ayanami. I really liked him. (netflix translation)”
- — Shinji Ikari, Episode 24
Movies[]
- “This is where you were, Kaworu ?”
- — Shinji Ikari, The End of Evangelion
- “I like it ! Our sounds work well together.”
- — Kaworu Nagisa, Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo
- “Don't look so sad. We'll meet again, Shinji.”
- — Kaworu Nagisa, Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo
Manga[]
- “When we fought against the angel... I felt the will of the First Child...flow inside me. It was luke-warm. Sticky. Heavy. It gave me the creeps. It felt like it was slowly constricting my chest... like I couldn't breath. So. Was that... love ? How does it feel to have something like that take an interest in you ? I wonder ? ...How I would feel ? ...If you had feelings for me.”
- — Kaworu Nagisa, Chapter 67
- “Guys don't like guys !”
- — Shinji Ikari, Chapter 67
- “What I want to know... is... what do you think about me ?”
- — Kaworu Nagisa, Chapter 71
Fanon[]
Like Shinji's other pairings, KawoShin has proven incredibly divisive and controversial.
KawoShin's supporters often state they were drawn in by Kaworu's kindness towards Shinji, with many viewing the pairing as a potential means for Shinji to begin opening up to others more. They view Kaworu as his most healthy potential relationship as a result of this. In addition, this wish often results in many enjoying it as a "tragic" pairing of sorts, with plenty of fanwork within the Angst genre. Many Kawoshin fans also praise the pairing due to its nature as a same-sex pairing in a 1995 anime, and viewing it as positive representation. Kaworu has earned the nickname of "Gay Space Jesus" from them. Supporters of the pairing occasionally accuse detractors of being biphobic or homophobic. These fans consider the pairing canon due in part to what they see as a mutual confession and reciprocal affection within the show. They point to some material such as Parano an interview and essay collection with Anno and others, in which the editor's character guide describes Kaworu to be a "same-sex love interest". Anno talks about their relationship in an interview with JUNE magazine, with a scriptwriter's early drafts for episode 24 that included Kaworu and Shinji kissing and skinny dipping together, something he eventually rejected. Supplemental material however only describes them as friends. Some cast members seem to like the ship, while others, like Shinji's Japanese VA, have described it as a friendship.
Meanwhile, detractors often suggest that Shinji was too broken and Kaworu too naive for either to properly understand their feelings. They point out that Shinji never showed romantic or sexual interest in men prior to Ep 24, thus suggesting his attraction may have been more a symptom of his desperation as opposed to closet bisexuality. Furthermore, other characters were also kind to Shinji - such as Misato - and Kaworu's death damaged Shinji immensely, putting doubt on the suggestion that their relationship was, or could have been, healthy. Many have questioned the extent to which Kaworu, as an Angel, actually felt or understood what he claimed to Shinji. Some further argue that Kaworu was purposefully manipulating Shinji, in order to further damage him. Kaworu seems to represent a form of idealized, unconditional and self-serving affection that is deconstructed throughout the series. Other fans believe it is a negative case of representation, or not intended as such. The EvaGeeks Wiki also has a take on how their relationship was purely Shinji looking up to Kaworu and that it's just two guys being friends and that it is "clear" that Kaworu represents an idealized version of Shinji, though that take is widely frowned from the fandom - shippers and non-shippers alike - when considering the events of the episode. The information from that wiki, however, was used for the Shinji-Kaworu relationship section of the Fandom page. The language used in the series is ambiguous and staff comments are vague, ranging from Kaworu being described as "narcissistic" or "weird", though leaving a good initial impression.[2][3]
Nonetheless, Kaworu and KawoShin have proved immensely popular. While there is evidence in Kaworu's lack of appearance in the TV ending of Evangelion that he was intended as a one-shot character, some spin-offs have expanded on Kaworu and his dynamic with Shinji, with a large amount material of fanwork dedicated to it. In the comic parody Petit Eva, Kaworu openly states his desire to marry Shinji, and in Shinji Ikari Raising Project, Kaworu is one of Shinji's seven romantic options, and one of three in Girlfriend of Steel 2. This also applies to the other popular Evangelion pairings, ReiShin and AsuShin, which also enjoy a large amount of fan and licensed material. Most notably, Evangelion 3.0 focused largely on their relationship, albeit with a similar tragic ending.
As with other ships, Kawoshin gained another popularity spike after the 2019 Netflix release of Evangelion. However, the decision to translate "suki" as "like" as opposed to "love" as in the DVD translation had sparked controversy among Kawoshin shippers and non-shippers alike. Many fans, especially LGBTQ+ fans, felt as though the new translation censored the nature of their relationship. On the other hand, other fans argue that there is evidence that Khara attempted to bring the dialogue closer to the original Japanese script, therefore making the backlash unwarranted. However, when directly translating Kaworu's words ("sukitte koto sa") in Google Translate, it does translate to "I love you".
Fandom[]
- FAN FICTION
- Shinji/Kaworu tag on AO3
- Shinji/Kaworu on FanFiction.Net
- FAN ART
- Kaworu/Shinji tag on Pixiv
Gallery[]
- Main article: KawoShin/Gallery
Notes and references[]
- ↑ Shinji/Asuka: Colleague-Complicated Feelings;Colleague-Love/Hate
Rei/Shinji: Colleague-Favorable;
Kaworu/Shinji: Colleague-Favorable - The Essential Evangelion Chronicle - Side B official guidebook - ↑ https://www.gwern.net/otaku
- ↑ http://www.style.fm/as/05_column/animesama57.shtml
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| Neon Genesis Evangelion Ships • Neon Genesis Evangelion Characters | ||
| SHIPS | het | AsuShin • KawoRei • MisaKaji • ReiShin |
| slash | KawoShin | |
| femslash | AsuRei • MisaRitsu • RitsuMaya | |