Neon Genesis Evangelion Goes Viral Thanks to One Buff Shinji Cosplayer

Neon Genesis Evangelion has returned to the world of anime thanks in part to its release on the [...]

By Evan Valentine

Neon Genesis Evangelion has returned to the world of anime thanks in part to its release on the streaming service of Netflix, and one cosplayer has gone viral thanks in part to their amazingly buff interpretation of the protagonist in Shinji Ikari. Shinji himself was obviously never a buff guy to begin with, looking to be "90 pounds soaking wet" while lending his broken psyche to piloting the EVA unit and battling against the angel onslaught that was constantly besieging the citizens of Tokyo-3 while threatening the world at large to boot.

Evangelion is a franchise that prided itself on taking some of the original tenets of anime and re-imagining them through the perception of teenagers who are struggling to discover themselves while also piloting giant mechs that battle against larger than life monsters. Shinji Ikari had a lot of issues in his life outside of the existential threats of the angels, dealing with his problems with his father, the head of the NERV organization, while also attempting to live his life as a teenager at the same time. The end of Neon Genesis Evangelion showed us a world where Shinji probably wouldn't be adding muscle mass any time soon, but that isn't stopping this cosplayer from going viral!

Twitter User Tayun_2 got the ball rolling by sharing this exceptionally buff cosplayer showing of Shinji Ikari's "Plugsuit" which he would don whenever he was looking to pilot EVA Unit 01, with fans definitely making this go viral thanks to the difference between the real life stand in and the original teenage character:

Many Evangelion fans were disheartened when they discovered that the final feature length film of the Rebuild of Evangelion series, Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0, would be delayed as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, being pushed to an undetermined time with COVID-19 causing a number of theaters unable to swing open their doors. With this alternate take on the original story of NERV, we fully expect this re-telling to end in a very different fashion from what we witnessed in the original series.

What do you think of "Buff Shinji Ikari"? Feel free to let us know in the comments or hit me up directly on Twitter @EVComedy to talk all things comics, anime, and the world of NERV!

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