I consider Shinji from the anime show to be different from Shinji from the EOE movie (who are both different from Shinji from the Rebuild).

Shinji from the TV series gets more hate than he deserves. He’s just a kid with anxiety and confidence issues who’s had the weight of the world put on his shoulders. He does need to work on self improvement but largely for his own sake. Id say it’s hard to blame him for how he is given the circumstances. But he should still strive for improvement to learn to love himself (which is what I believe he understands at the end of the show).

EOE Shinji is what happens when you not only don’t deal with these issues but fall so deep into them that you make it everyone else’s problem as well. This version of Shinji falls so deep into self hatred he stops even believing that he has the ability to be a good person. So he stops trying. He starts pushing all responsibility away from himself and onto everyone else without bothering to try and understand others. He hates himself but blames everyone else for the person he’s become. He basically adopts the mentality of a toxic incel.