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That said, I still enjoy seeing a more willful Shinji. I can relate to him better than the pathetic failure he was in the TV series.
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The thing with the TV series is that the characters were being developed in the first half with the three Children learning to work together, Shinji realizing the reason he works with NERV is to get closer to his father (and smiling with that comment), him becoming a bit more openminded at school, etc.
Then in the second half most characters are brought back to level 1 as Shinji feels betrayed by his father when he forces Unit 01 to nearly kill Toji, Asuka takes her defeats really badly until she breaks (the same happens in the manga but she is calmer and it results into a funny scene with Kaworu), while Rei at least dies happy that her sacrifice saves Shinji. Shinji then goes to level 0 after Rei's death and learning of her true nature. He becomes attached to Kaworu but basically uses him to get away from the people he knows (Kaworu says this in the manga). When Kaworu dies Shinji goes to level -5 and is worse than ever. The End of Evangelion didn't really help him to recover.