Site Information

History

Couple shrine aren’t usually my thing, if I like a character I like them not because they are the love interest of someone else. But this case is different. After all, don’t they say the exception proves the rule?

I first watched Evangelion I was about 12 years old. At that time, I didn’t pay too much attention to the whole “love between characters” topic. And if I must be sincere, at the beginning I only cared for the action scenes (I blame my young age for this naivety)! Although I enjoyed Evangelion since the first time I watched it, there were things I didn’t grasp very well.

When I was around 15 years old I happened to find a copy of the Evangelion manga in my comic book store. Since the quality of my video recording was rather poor, I though the paper version of my favourite anime could be a good addition to my collection. However, the manga didn’t seem like the anime I watched years before. Luckily MTV Italy began to air Evangelion exactly in that period so I took the chance to re-watch the whole series.

Upon a second watch I was able to notice many things that I only overlooked when I was younger. And it was then that the idea of Asuka and Shinji as a couple started to lure my mind. From there it slowly, but steadily, grew from thought to conviction.

Name

Odi et Amo means “love and hate” in Latin. It is also the name of a famous poem by Latin author Catullus, which I find quite suitable to describe the relationship between Asuka and Shinji.

Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.
Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.

The contrast expressed by Catullus is the same contrast existing in Asuka and Shinji’s relationship. Even if they are captivated by each other to some degree, neither manages to express what they feel. Asuka does like Shinji, but he never responds on her “signs”. This obviously disappoints Asuka, as she also doesn’t like Shinji’s submissive behaviour. Shinji is attracted to Asuka, although his choice will not be clearly manifested until the End of Evangelion.

Layout

Name: Everything You Want
Brushes: Ex-posed, Ewanism, Masterjinn, Misguided Buddha
Textures: Ex-posed, Masterjinn
Fonts: Arial, Courier New (CSS); Tequila, Secret Labs (title)
Original picture: manga volume 2, stage 8 "Shinji’s Bad Mood" (Shinji), Der Mond artbook (Asuka, small Asuka/Shinji)

Version 1 features two rotating images, one with Asuka and the other with Shinji. Shinji’s image was simply scanned from the Evangelion manga, while Asuka’s image required more work. I wanted an image of her similar to the one of Shinji, in terms of pose and expression, but none of her manga’s one page pictures were suitable. I found the right image on the Der Mond artbook, then modified it to make it look like a manga image. Both images were vectorised in Illustrator, as they were too small and also to clean them.

Everything you Want, this version’s title, comes from the homonymous song by Vertical Horizon. I discovered it while searching for Asuka and Shinji AMVs, as it is the background music of a famous video dedicated to the couple.