About
“Get In The Fucking Robot Shinji” is a catchphrase used by fans of the anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion to mock the character Shinji Ikari’s refusal to pilot the Evangelion Unit 01, one of the show’s giant mecha. The phrase has also has been used to refer to characters that are forced to do stuff they don’t like, but are too mentally weak to decline.
Origin
The earliest instance of the phrase can be found on a thread on 4chan’s anime board /a/, created on June 11th, 2008. The thread features a picture of Gendo Ikari, Shinji’s father, accompained with the message “Get in the fucking robot, Shinji”.[2]
Spread
[wip]
The phrase remaint dormant until July 11th, 2011, when a radio thread on /a/ featured a story where Bedford, a popular namefig on the board, shouts the catchphrase while being under the influence of peyote.[3] The same thread featured various messages with the catchphrase, inspired by Bedford’s story.[4]
Various Examples
Search Interest
External Links
[1]archive.moe – Search for get in the fucking robot on /a/
[2]archive.moe – Get in the fucking robot, Shinji
[3]archive.moe – New r/a/dio thread!
[4]archive.moe – r/a/dio thread!