Neon Genesis Evangelion is so dense with symbolic meaning that it can be easy to overlook some of the smaller, simpler ways the series uses seemingly mundane objects the characters hold dear to convey their thoughts and feelings about ideas like love and pain in the story being told.
Though Gendo Ikari’s the only core Evangelion character who consistently sports glasses, the glasses come to mean quite a bit to others—like his emotionally fragile son Shinji, and Rei, the enigmatic young Eva pilot who holds onto an old, broken pair of Gendo’s glasses as a keepsake. As the series goes on, you can see how Gendo’s glasses are actually one of many solid, translucent surfaces characters interact with that feel like different ways Evangelion’s trying to gesture toward the existence of absolute terror fields, the hard light projections Evangelion and Angels use to defend themselves and attack one another.
One could spend hours thinking about the significance of how people interact with glasses in Evangelion and whether they’re just simplified, miniaturized socially acceptable AT fields people wear on their faces. Or…you could just wear an officially licensed pair? Eyewear maker JINS is hoping you’ll consider its new collection of frames inspired by Evangelion and styled to evoke characters like Shinji, Asuka, and the Eva Unit-01, in celebration of the long-awaited final film in the Evangelion rebuild project, Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time.
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While the glasses don’t immediately shout Evangelion at first glance, when you look closer, you can see the subtlest of nods to the two Eva pilots in small details based on their respective techno-organic mechs. The sunglasses, obviously, are something of a different story, as it’s pretty hard not to recognize what those purple frames are going for.
JINS’ Evangelion collaboration won’t begin shipping until later this fall, but pre-orders open today. Thrice Upon a Time is still currently slated to premiere in the U.S. on March, 8, despite the film’s recent release date delay in Japan.
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