Abstract
To understand the impact of the 20th century on Japanese consciousness, one must examine examples of its popular culture that have had a profound impact on its audience. To best accomplish this, this paper examines the main characters from two works of popular culture, Sensei from the 1914 classic novel Kokoro, and Shinji Ikari from the 1995 television series Neon Genesis Evangelion.
This study analyzes the events occuring at the time of and between the two stories, and also examines the authors themselves in order to determine why these seminal works are especially representative of human beings in general and especially the Japanese. If the Twentieth Century is an age of remarkable freedom, it is one in which human beings exist in an abandoned state. Lacking an essential truth about what they should want or ought to be, humans must struggle to find their own purpose, sense of self, and happiness. At the same time, forces around them dramatically change the landscape, removing traces of familiarity and a recognized history. These two works feature protagonists struggling to weather the storm of their respective eras. By understanding their struggle, we can learn how to survive modernity.
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