Gendo Ikari


Gendo Ikari is a fictional character in the Neon Genesis Evangelion franchise. He is the commander of NERV, a fictional research-and-development and paramilitary organization under the command of the United Nations. While all of the English versions romanize his given name as Gendo, Gainax's website romanizes it Gendoh, and some fansites romanize his name as "Gendou", which accords with the traditional romanization of the Japanese katakana.

Overview

In NERV, Gendo is responsible for the research done on the Evangelion Project and the Human Instrumentality Project. He is the father of the Third Child, Shinji Ikari. At the start of the series, only Rei Ayanami reliably interacts with him.
Gendo is a brilliant scientist and politician who works diligently for his organization; however, he is an extremely callous person and a cold and distant father towards his son, and has no qualms about using and discarding people to achieve his goals:
"Gendo is the type of person who can see & think about the welfare of an organization as a whole. In other words, he'd do anything to succeed. He takes drastic and extreme measures, by fair means or foul, or by hook or by crook, in order to accomplish his own purpose. In some ways he's mean, he hardly cares about Shinji."

His last lines in The End of Evangelion reveal his regret and the true motivations for his ruthless behavior. He intended to use Third Impact to become godlike and create a better future for humanity together with his wife Yui Ikari, whom he intended to rejoin at the conclusion of Instrumentality. However, when Rei defies him he realizes that his efforts are in vain and that he ignored the real wishes of Yui. She intended to bring about a brighter future for their son Shinji, whom Gendo has sacrificed in order to bring her back. In essence, Yui's dreams and principles were violated to resurrect her. He was also afraid that his love for Shinji would instead hurt him and therefore distance himself from him. Shortly after, in the surreal sequence Evangelion #Evangelion Unit 01 |Unit 01 is shown grasping Gendo in its hand before decapitating him. The camera then shows Gendo's lower body still standing with his upper torso severed.
In the Rebuild of Evangelion film franchise, his overall role and actions have remained consistent.

Background

Born Gendo Rokubungi, virtually nothing is known about his childhood or young adulthood. During his study at university, he meets Yui Ikari, with whom he started a relationship. Through Yui, he is introduced to Professor Kozo Fuyutsuki. Fuyutsuki takes a dislike to Gendo, as he carries unspoken romantic feelings for Yui, and he suspects that Gendo has an ulterior motive in pursuing a relationship with her; namely her connections to the shadowy organisation SEELE. Gendo and Yui are married at the beginning of the 21st Century, wherein he changes his surname to Ikari. Late in 2000, Gendo, in company of SEELE's chairman, Keel Lorenz, visits the Katsuragi Expedition on Antarctica to oversee the Adam recovery project. Gendo and his team then leave Antarctica, a few days before Second Impact. In 2001, in the wake of Second Impact, Yui and Gendo's son Shinji is born.
In 2003, Gendo and Yui work together at the research organization GEHIRN. Gendo, meanwhile, recruits Fuyutsuki into the organisation. After the failed activation test of Unit 01 and Yui's apparent death during this event, Gendo fundamentally changes as a person. He becomes very cold and abandons Shinji. He goes on to propose a plan to SEELE for achieving Human Instrumentality through Third Impact; but unbeknownst to SEELE, Gendo's plan is really meant to allow him to be reunited with Yui's soul. The only person Gendo lets in on the truth is Fuyutsuki, who, despite his dislike for him, agrees to help him with the plan. Gendo enters into affairs with both Naoko Akagi and, some years later, her daughter Ritsuko, seemingly casting doubt on his commitment to Yui; however, it is implied that Gendo was simply using them to achieve the means to accomplish Third Impact. Shortly afterwards, in secret, Gendo and Fuyutsuki creates an imperfect clone of Yui, by combining DNA material from her and the second angel, Lilith, and names her Rei Ayanami. To ensure himself control over Third Impact when the day comes, Gendo puts life into Rei by imbuing her with Lilith's soul, and takes to raising her himself, passing her off as the daughter of a friend, who he is looking after. The day after the development of the revolutionary computer system MAGI is completed, GEHIRN is reorganized to become NERV, of which Gendo becomes Commander.
A massive malfunction during the first activation test for Evangelion #Evangelion Unit 00 |Unit 00 causes the Eva to go "berserk." To prevent Rei from being seriously injured, the entry plug was ejected, and Gendo pried the plug's superheated door open with his bare hands to extract Rei. His hands have severe scarring because of this and he is never shown without gloves.
Although Gendo pretends to follow SEELE's orders without question, he has his own agenda and tries to out-manipulate the committee. His final outspoken rebellion towards SEELE comes from his desire to initiate Third Impact under his complete control. He implants Adam's embryo in his hand and tries to merge with Rei to achieve this purpose.
In The End of Evangelion, Rei finally defies Gendo forwardly and separates with him to merge with Lilith and start Instrumentality on her own. Seeing that all his plans to be reunited with Yui have come to nothing, Gendo begs Rei to return to him; she refuses. After Instrumentality is started, Gendo confronts specters of the various Reis as well as Kaworu and Yui herself. Gendo confesses that he is afraid of the "invisible bonds" formed by those around him, and that he was afraid to confront his son after Yui's death. A vision of Unit 01, with much of its armor missing is seen holding Gendo in much the same manner as Kaworu in Episode 24; the real Unit 01 is at that moment within the Tree of Life, and still fully armored. Gendo states that "...this is my retribution", and the spectral Unit 01 bites off his torso as he utters his final words: "Forgive me, Shinji." The camera then shifts back to Terminal Dogma, where the lower half of Gendo's body is seen, still standing, with his torso severed.

Appearances

Manga adaptation

Gendo's role and overall character in the manga is pretty much the same, with only a few differences. Gendo is shown to be even more antagonistic towards Shinji than in the anime, first shown when he calls his son a coward when he refuses to pilot the Eva. Later, while Shinji is recovering, Gendo checks on Rei in the hospital with Shinji watching them and even makes eye contact with him, though other than this he does not acknowledge him.
After the battle against Bardiel, where the pilot of Unit 03, Toji is killed, he calls Kaji and tells him to bring Shinji to him. Gendo reads off the list of criminal charges, acquired by Shinji who asks his father if he has nothing to say to him, which Gendo corresponds, causing Shinji to respond by trying to punch him. While held by Kaji, Shinji begins to scream at his father, telling him that he never wants to see him again. Gendo's response to this is the same as in the anime, to have Shinji removed from NERV's records. When Zeruel attacks, after Rei fails to activate Unit 01, he heads down to the cage to try to get the Dummy System to work, which proves to be futile. Gendo, in his first act of distress, frantically asks why Unit 01 is rejecting him, to which Shinji's picture appears on the screens, genuinely surprising Gendo, which is only furthered by his son's reappearance at the cage.
Just as in the anime, SEELE begin to have serious doubts about both Gendo's motives and loyalty after Unit 01 absorbs Zeruel's S² Engine. This results in them sending Kaworu Nagisa in order to keep an eye on him. During Shinji's time in Evangelion Unit 01, he imagines himself killing Gendo. Afterwards, Gendo once again continues to follow the anime adaption, through his defiances of SEELE, while he continues to further his plan to take control of the Human Instrumentality Project. He later swallows Adam instead having it grafted to his hand. Additionally, Adam later appears on his left hand, not the right.
During the Invasion of NERV, he saves Shinji from being killed by JSSDF soldiers by projecting an AT Field from his left hand, which now has Adam embedded within. Gendo also reveals the extent of his madness with his plans to use Third Impact to become God and asks his son to pilot Unit-01 once again to aid in his plans, since after all Shinji has experienced he can now understand Gendo. He covers Shinji and Misato's escape to Unit-01's hangar, certain that Shinji will do as he is told.
Like in the anime, Ritsuko tries to stop Gendo but fails due to the Magi system rejecting her command. Gendo shoots Ritsuko fatally and tries to merge with Rei who however, remembering Shinji rejects Gendo by severing his hand instead of his arm and absorbs Adam and merges with Lilith on her own. However, instead of Rei ripping him in half, Ritsuko is able to shoot him in the throat. He falls to the ground on his knees shortly after. While he is dying, he is visited by Yui. Gendo asks if this is his punishment for causing Shinji so much pain. Yui explains that Shinji will be the one to decide the future of the world and tells Gendo the reason why they met was to bring Shinji into the world. Yui then explains that she remained inside Eva-01 to protect Shinji, and that Gendo has violated that purpose. Gendo realizes he has really never loved Shinji and Yui asks him to remember the first time he met his son. He then has another vision about the first time he met Shinji and the first time he felt love for his son. He dies finally understanding Yui's intentions. While all the other people on Earth returned to puddles of LCL due to the global Anti A.T. Field, Gendo's corpse alone remained intact as he died.

Rebuild of Evangelion

Gendo's relationship towards his son takes more central focus in Rebuild than in the TV series, with a different story. Unlike in the original series, Gendo is shown to be less antagonistic to his son, willing to spend if a little time with him as per Rei's request. However, this warmer interaction is completely undone by , in which Gendo, who wears a visor that hides his eyes at all times, coldly manipulates Shinji and Kaworu into causing the Fourth Impact.

Shinji Ikari Raising Project

In the manga adaptation of the game, Gendo is shown in a humorous light, much unlike his anime counterpart. His antics, often embarrassing for Shinji, frequently end with him being hit by Yui. During a blackout at NERV, he shined his torch in a scary way, which promptly earned him a smack from Yui. Another time, Gendo is reading a newspaper when Yui asks him if he told Shinji something. Gendo's response was to sweat and shake nervously and the scene ends with the sound effect of Yui hitting Gendo. Gendo is also shown to be a rather charismatic figure during this time, moving several members of NERV staff to aid with the "pedaling for power" plan.
Also, the perceived "father-son rivalry" between Gendo and Shinji in Evangelion fandom is parodied here, as both men decided to "compete" to see who could pedal the fastest. The contest was actually a way to generate electricity for NERV HQ, which had been hit by a blackout. The incident also pays homage to the original anime, where Gendo helps in the manual launching of the EVAs against the invading Angel. Both Fuyutsuki and Rei were shown to put in their share of work before dropping out due to fatigue.

Character notes

Gendo's last names mean "sextant" and "anchor" in Japanese, respectively; his first name was taken from another anime project prior to Evangelion that was aborted. Yoshiyuki Sadamoto has admitted inspiration from the British television show UFO for the design of Gendo's uniform, specifically that worn by Commander Edward Straker.

Reception

Nicolas Demay was disappointed that although Gendo was portrayed as being a "normal" father in the alternate universe shown in episode 26, that in Angelic Days, Gendo's portrayal returns to that of a "heartless taciturn" man. Zac Bertschy has described Gendo as being "a giant douchebag". Tim Jones described Gendo as having an "'I want to be God' complex".
During Takaaki Mitsuhashi's 2010 campaign for the House of Councillors, he cosplayed as Gendo Ikari.