How are people still with Asuka decades later? There has to be some weird psychosexual thing that makes her so iconic

>redhead

>g*rman

>14 years old

>tsundere

>psychological trauma

>MC is literally 95% of fans

Gee I wonder

The question is on a false premise. Eva has been a massive hit for decades and up until last year was still ongoing. Her popularity has actually increased these last few years because of zoomer memes and zeitgeist. I remember rei being the more popular one up until the latter part of the last decade.

The reason is she's 14

Tsunderes go hard. Misaka Mikoto was still topping popularity charts until a few years ago

Probably just has to do with how old the anime is, she is probably a lot of people's first waifu. I also suspect a lot of submissive, meek weebs identify with Shinji a lot (whether they want to or not) and like to self-insert into the scenes the two of them are in.

Last idea: NGE is a "coming of age" anime that features a young boy thrust into close-quarters with an attractive girl his age. It's unlikely most weebs got to experience this irl or did experience it by, again, self-inserting as Shinji when they first watched it, so they personally attached themselves to the "young love" they never got to have.

TL;DR: A weeb's first "girlfriend" was probably Asuka.

Rei is much better

Isn't she a child?

its pretty simple, Asukas character is I hate you (but I actually love you) and because gross smelly nerds only get the I hate you part it helps them cope thinking everyone loves them.