The Doylist answer is that Eva is a deconstruction of “super robot” tropes. Building-sized mecha having tokusatsu wrestling matches via remote control is a ten-year-old power fantasy. Like somehow only a child has the power, or only a child could be trusted. Taking that seriously gets you Oops, All Trauma.

Basically the “real robots” genre asks, how can we haggle down badass combat robots, to minimize the sci-fi bullshit required for them to be cool? That’s how you get Gundam and especially Battletech. It’s vertical tanks… with swords. War stories for teenage boys, who know ‘I’ll punch him harder’ is not a universal winning strategy, but still think ‘I’ll just move faster’ is. Meanwhile - Eva is Anno asking, what would the world look like if the absurd extreme cliches were just how things worked?

Basically it’s The Boys for Mazinger Z. Ninety percent taking the premise at its word, a few big changes other series honestly should’ve done before, and a sprinkling of edgelord details like the vibro-knife being boxcutters… and that’s how you get episode nineteen.