"Get in the kanmusu, Tenryuu!"

Yo, I hear you like Tenryuu, so I put a Tenryuu in your Tenryuu.

Ya scared yet?

Neon Genesis Kantai Collection?

"Pilot the EVA, Tenryuu. Or Tatsuta will have to do it again".

I think this would work if the Abyssals were gigantic but the kanmusu army's funding came from marketing them as characters and stuff like that. They needed mecha to stand a chance in a fight but they needed to appeal to the fans (funders) to keep the fight going.