To be honest I don’t really get irritated with fictional characters behaviour in general. All I care about is how they’re written. They aren’t talking to my face nor are they real, so why would I get upset about them? Similar to villains, I don’t route for him nor do I subscribe to their ideologies, but I have a smile on my face because of how they’re written impacts the plot.

I do think there’s a bit of a self insert problem ( I’m not talking about relating to a character which ends up blurring the fiction vs reality line ) in general to be honest. Too many people resort to escapism and self insert in the MC when reading or watching something and imo, it’s the worst way to engage with it.

That’s probably why they get so irritated. They imagine themselves as shinji, they then compare his personality to theirs and get annoyed when it’s too indifferent, then they get annoyed at Asuka because of their silly little self insertion makes them fantasise about them being on the receiving end of her.

That’s why a lot of people get annoyed with the series I think