I don't know how many Japanese anime i've seen, but it's like a typical pattern: Always some 14-yearo-old or 15-year-old gets to be the hero to control some big biomechanical apparatus.
Like The Voices of a Distant War
Because kids watch anime. Grown-ups have other tastes.
shareThe kids aren't leading the war, the adults are. They let the kids fight the battles. Though in other countries turning 14 or 16 means you're an adult... in the States it's 21. And in the old show Shinji uses the 'kid' version of himself throughout the tv show until The End of Evangelion when he has... a little fun with himself next to Asuka... he starts using the adult version of 'I' or 'me' in Japanese from what I understand and is showing how adult Shinji is becoming. For the rebuild series... it seems Shinji 'growing up' was more represented as the huge lapse in time, and the supposed new curse of the Eva pilots... never really 'growing older' or at least not SHOWING to age. touché...
3rd generation American from a long line of Gottscheers... it was Drandul, dude!