Moo's Review of Kaworu: I Used To Love Him But Now He Scares Me

Watching anime as a teenage girl is all about picking a character to be your boyfriend. The fact that they're 2-D and not a real person is irrelevant. At least not to this nerd.

The choice is obvious when it comes to Evangelion. You didn't want Shinji Ikari because he was a baby who needed your help. You didn't want Kaji because he had facial hair, and gave off sex pest vibes. And you definitely didn't want Gendou, because why would you date a psychopath who's obsessed with making clones of his dead wife? Kaworu was the easy choice: handsome, kind, the right age. I fell in love with him at first sight. The thing that appealed to me the most was that he loved the main character unconditionally. Curiously, the fact that it was a boy and they were very gay did not stop me. I ran wild with my imagination. By "wild" I mean, if Kaworu were my boyfriend, he'd take me to the mall and pay for my french fries. I'd show him off at lunchtime and all the girls would be super jealous. And whenever life got me down, like I got a D in physics, Kaworu would pat me on the shoulder and say: “Don't worry Moo, you're still smart even if you don't get physics.”

When I re-watched Evangelion a week ago, however, I found myself fidgetting in my seat. Maybe it's because I'm at the whopping age of 34 instead of 17. I couldn't watch Kaworu in the same way anymore. He was TOO nice. Nobody is that nice. I was questioning all of his motives. Why is he sitting so close to this boy, they'd just met. Why is he using that weird soft voice? And why is he always smiling? How perverted is he, and what is he planning? I kept waiting for him to do something bad, but he never did. It has come to me that, I've lived in the world too long that I can't suspend my beliefs to appreciate a magically perfect character anymore. And that's a little sad.

It feels good to remember a time when I enjoyed this character without much thinking. But Kaworu and I are definitely no longer a couple. That's probably a good thing.