Neuroplasticity, easier to control and also
Tap for spoiler
Evas hold human souls. The best pilots have a connection to that person. 02 holds a piece of Asuka’s mother, which is why she went insane. 01 holds all of Yuri Ikari which is why Rei and Shinji can pilot her, why she goes rogue and why she’s tried to kill Gendo and Ritsuko
When Toji-of-the-sick-sister was designated the pilot of 04 i s2g my entire soul flew out my arsehole. Thankfully they didn’t go there.
I think there was a canonical reason like brain-elasticity allowing the pilot to interface with the EVA (which was actually problematic in some cases so they had to install a 1 directional filter for the teen to pilot the EVA and not vice-versa).
Also, pretty sure the EVA are literally crafted from the hybridization of DNA and godflesh and uses the pilot’s own mother as a base. It’s symbolic of the mother protecting their unborn child from the horrors of the outside world, including from their own father in Shinji’s case, but ultimately failing and all the characters developing trauma as a result. So if it were adults the symbolism would be mostly lost.
I think it was also like they needed the neuroplasticity but they also wanted someone as mature as possible so they hit the like 14-15 demographic as a compromise.
Additionally, I don’t think they planned to use kids. The hope was that they could develop an autopilot, some sort of clone, or if they were lucky no angels would attack until they were adults. Using kids was a last resort
A bit of a spoiler but they weren’t entirely wrong about that plan.
Child soldiers just hit different
Yeah you save a lot of money on military stuff when they’re smaller.
The Doylist answer is that Eva is a deconstruction of “super robot” tropes. Building-sized mecha having tokusatsu wrestling matches via remote control is a ten-year-old power fantasy. Like somehow only a child has the power, or only a child could be trusted. Taking that seriously gets you Oops, All Trauma.
Basically the “real robots” genre asks, how can we haggle down badass combat robots, to minimize the sci-fi bullshit required for them to be cool? That’s how you get Gundam and especially Battletech. It’s vertical tanks… with swords. War stories for teenage boys, who know ‘I’ll punch him harder’ is not a universal winning strategy, but still think ‘I’ll just move faster’ is. Meanwhile - Eva is Anno asking, what would the world look like if the absurd extreme cliches were just how things worked?
Basically it’s The Boys for Mazinger Z. Ninety percent taking the premise at its word, a few big changes other series honestly should’ve done before, and a sprinkling of edgelord details like the vibro-knife being boxcutters… and that’s how you get episode nineteen.
Because they run on childhood trauma.
This is the answer. Hideaki Anno told me that himself. And then he said “now fuck off” which I think is just his way of saying he loves the fans.
Well, there was a theory going around at the time the original TV series ended that it was his chilldhood trauma that was being reflected and dealt with (or something like that—this was a long time ago and I wasn’t all that interested back then.)
Because dad bod in a plugsuit is…
Have you never seen a fat teenager?
In an anime? I won’t say it never happens, but it’s pretty rare even for minor side characters.
This is the irl reason, nobody wants to see that
Speak for yourself.
