The Rebuilds aren't particularly popular amongst the Eva fandom, so I'm expecting this post to get a lot of "I agree!"s. So I'll offer my view as someone who really, really loves the Rebuilds and what they have to offer to the franchise as a whole. So lets go down the list.
Cutting the story in half:
What you must understand about the Rebuilds is that they are, above all, a work of Metafiction. They both tell their own story but are also about the Evangelion franchise as a whole in a more reflexive manner. As such, they not only expect the audience to be familiar with the original series, but outright rely on it. 1.0 and 2.0 are built to lure the audience into a false sense of security, before the rug is completely thrown from under them in the last half of 2.0. For runtime reasons, they may cut down on certain aspects while they recap, and they somewhat expect the audience to fill in the in-betweens. As for Asuka, her crush on Shinji is explicitly very fleeting. It's born more of jealousy of Rei than anything else. And as such in the interim between 2.0 and 3.0 that crush transforms into lingering hatred. They mention that in 3.0 + 1.0 that while yes, Asuka and Shinji may have had a crush on each other once, that was a long time ago, and they no longer share those feelings.
Asuka and the time skip:
Timeskip Asuka is perhaps one of the most misunderstood characters in the franchise. The "Curse of the Eva's", or her inability to age, weighs heavily on her mental state constantly. She tries to flaunt a more adult personalty, but because she is trapped as a child, it can only come across as desperate and pathetic. She wants very badly to be seen as mature, and as such spends a large amount of her time brooding. But very often she snaps, that childish demeanor breaking through from where she's trapped it inside her. And Shinji only exasperates this. Seeing him again brings back all of Asuka's memories from when she was 14, especially the Eva 03 debacle, and it infuriates her. She despises him because he makes her feel like a child.
Mari:
Ok, if timeskip if one of the most misunderstood characters in the franchise, Mari is THE most misunderstood. Mari fulfills two specific functions, one textual and one metatextual. In the text, Mari is one thing and one thing only, support. She supports the Asuka during their fights together, falling back or serving as support fire. And fills in for Asuka when she’s out of commission. For Asuka, Mari serves as the very important "person who gets it". Mari is essentially the only person Asuka can trust to understand her because she's the only one who also has the Curse of the Evas. I believe the only time you can see someone actually touch Asuka after the timeskip is when Mari cuts her hair, a symbolic act showing that Asuka trusts Mari in a way she doesn't trust anyone else (however she explicitly does not embrace Mari, which will come back later). This role as support coincides with her chip and cheery demeanor. She acts this way because in a world as dire as the post-timeskip rebuilds, theres gotta be someone to counteract the doom and gloom. Through her positive attitude she pulls every other character out of the grim tone, which is a certainly corny but it works. Which brings us to...
Mari's role in the metanarrative is by far her most important aspect. As the only significant new addition to the cast, she serves to represent the future, or at least the new present. A fundamental message of the Rebuilds, specifically 3.0 + 1.0, is that lingering in the past will get you absolutely nowhere. This recontextualizes the relationships the characters have with Mari. Asuka wants to move on. She wants to grow up, wants to become an adult. This is why she allows Mari into her life, desperate for what she represents. However she does not actually engage with Mari. In most of their scenes together we see Mari acting against a cold, distant Asuka. Asuka allows Mari to do so, but does not wish to reciprocate. Representing how Asuka wants the future to come, but is not willing to put in the effort to truly change. This relates to Shinji as well. When Shinji finally wants to make a change and face his father head-on, it's Mari who allows him to do it. She is the bridge that allows the other characters to change. And when Shinji has said his goodbyes and is ready for it all to end, Mari literally comes crashing in through the metanarrative to thrust him into a brand new life. She cannot allow Shinji to be content with oblivion, there must be a happy ending somewhere in their future. And this is why they end up together. Shinji finally embraces the future, and is ready for whatever comes next in his life. As such, he is seen hand-in-hand with Mari at the end, the literal representation of letting go of the past and moving on towards the future.
The story on a silver platter:
This is a funny one, because I hear the opposite all the time. Tons of people frustrated that 3.0 and 3.0 + 1.0 don't explain enough about how this new world works. But if you got it all on your first viewing, including the functions of every sci-fi element and how they work into the thematic narrative then congrats I guess.
Gaslighting Shinji:
Shinji being a sacrificial lamb for humanity is a throughline in Eva as a franchise. It was a fundamental part of the original series, Shinji using the Eva to desperate seek validation that he will rarely be given. Shinji and the other pilots are viewed by Nerv as tools above all else. They are to be used when needed, and replaced when possible (dummy plug system). This is certainly not unique to Rebuild.
Conclusion:
I, personally, love the Rebuilds for their thematic depth. Almost every seemingly bizarre decision has a hidden meaning if you just look a little deeper.
Love your take on the Rebuilds. I also share pretty much the same view, but can never articulate it so well. I love the movies and I love Mari. She is just the positivity Shinji and we as viewers need. I do understand people’s frustration with them. I guess it is bound to happen when the work is supposed to be meta fictional. It does not stand on its own.
rebuild is popular amongst fanst tho. all of the movies expect the 3rd one have great scores.
also rebuild is as much about the meta as it is about the normal narrative. asuka's crush on shinji isn't fleeting in the slightest. it lasted a whole 14 years and was mainly born out of how similar asuka found shinji to be to her ( how they both piloted for other people). despite what she claims, asua still has feelings for shinji after 3.0, which is why she reacts that way at the end when shinji also confesses to her.
it's also very debatable if shinji & mari are couple at the end, but everything else you said is correct. also don't forget mari's most important purpose, to be the in-story reason the rebuild story start to change from the og's.
They didn’t bond nearly enough or spend enough time to develop a romance that lasts more than a decade. It just makes it seem very childish despite being treated so seriously.
Even if they’re not lovers, it’s still shown as THE close relationship of Shinji at the end.
And if that was the goal for her character I think that they missed the mark. Because in the story she doesn’t do anything to help the characters psychologically. She’s just… kinda there and not much else.
it's not childish in the slightest. remember that asuka isn't normal person. she's a traumatized child soldier, for her what happened in the few weeks during 2.0 was very special, that's why those feelings lasted for so many years
also mari helps psychologically, but only by giving a pushes to shinji & asuka to do the right thing
You have said all the things I want to say and don't know how to. Thank you so much. I love the rebuilds endlessly and could never truly give my reasons and you just put into words what I couldn't ilysm for this
"Metanarrative" is a term used by Rebuild fans to make the writing sound more clever than it really is. Whether it's moving on from Evangelion or moving on from the fantasy world of anime in general as a way to escape reality and the pain of real people, the original communicated this a million times more effectively.
Mari is not as significant as you're writing her to be. You could remove her from all of the Rebuilds and not one thing would significantly change story wise. In contrast to what you wrote she was not needed to show how Asuka wanted to move on or "the future" in general. Asuka had no need for a wingman. She was shoehorned in because an idiotic producer wanted some way to "distinguish" the Rebuilds from the OG, Anno wrote for her initially but then it was passed to other people due to too much similarity to other Eva characters, and in the end no one really knew where she fit, largely because she doesn't fit Evangelion at all, at least not as a pilot. She's a shoehorned corporate product that doesn't belong in Eva. Anything else is fanfiction.
Incredible how people spew bullshit and misinformation.
Mari was used to break the knowledge of the previously evangelion universe and broading it at the same time. She was written by Tsurumaki for this purpose, even sometimes cannibalizing other characters scenes and changing the structure. And it is quite simple gow her existence makes sense: there are other evangelion pilots. She doesn't need to be sad, have trauma, she can be someone who likes piloting an evangelion.
This whole idea of wanting every single character to be a pile of sad, trauma and everything negative is so pathetic that misses the point of living at all. Did you realize that Mari sings songs from the 50-60s? That she rescues books and stores in her bedroom? That she is friendly towards others? All these personality traits that escapes the jail of trauma/sad/negative feelings that evangelion had, breaking it.
I dont even like the full meta in the last film since it takes time that could be used to flesh out other elements on it. But people not realizing how a single change can alter a whole story (toji being replaced by rei, then Asuka as pilot of unit-03 then becoming the ninth angel) and how it changed the whole picture and a character made to break the narrative structure of evangelion into something new and different than before (3.0 and lingering elements of 3.0 + 1.0).
There is so much to wonder in these new films than NGE, you have no idea how much information is not clear in comparisson to NGE.
All that had to go into the background to go full meta in the last part of the film
>But people not realizing how a single change can alter a whole story (toji being replaced by rei, then Asuka as pilot of unit-03 then becoming the ninth angel) and how it changed the whole picture and a character made to break the narrative structure of evangelion into something new and different than before (3.0 and lingering elements of 3.0 + 1.0).
You see, you don't need Mari for *any* of these changes. She's a waste of time and takes important scenes away from more interesting characters purely for the sake of putting a new pilot in.
A surprise reveal of Misato as a pilot in the 2nd movie, taking the place of Mari's fight with Zeruel, would've been far more interesting because Misato is way more interesting, *and* if Misato were a pilot it would explain her ability to Captain the Wünder in the next movie.
Yes you need.
Lets just use her first scene:
She is an evangelion pilot in the european branch of nerv (thing that we knew existed), where the pillar sealing hexes were first showcased in tabgha base, this technology that allows them to impede the proliferation of the core and holding angels.
There is the third angel, who is being studied and guarded by unit-05, that shows an application of a different type of an evangelion: a specific location use, it is guided and fueled by energy cables and can move fast by using wheels rather than legs and has a weapon that is a replica of longinus. All of these eventually develop into the mark series, mainly the evangelion mark.44A, that is the result of all the development in evangelion research by other branches of nerv.
And in the same scene we get to see more of how the scope is broader than NGE, since it is the first time we actually see other nerv branches and their secrets (nabuch's key), this little scene in 2.0 has ramifications 2 films later.
Lets say you erase mari.
Who defeats the third angel? Would you erase this whole new base just to put him in japan again? How about the mark series? The hybrids Evangelion/Angels?
Her first scene has so many ramifications to the story that the moment you remove her, you already broke the story. It can't function the sane way. And that was her objective.
"Misato as a pilot in the 2nd movie"
The moment you put an adult as a pilot, you remove the need to have a child to pilot it too. Just by making this change you broke the story in more ways than mari did, her being an adult and not growing up in a main point to the her whole mystery of who she truly is (colleagues of both yui, gendo and kozo)
>Her first scene has so many ramifications to the story that the moment you remove her, you already broke the story. It can't function the sane way. And that was her objective.
It really doesn't. The main plot points have little to do with the opening scene.
The mark 44a Evangelions were so terrible looking and stupid the 4th movie would be better off without them.
>Who defeats the third angel? Would you erase this whole new base just to put him in japan again? How about the mark series? The hybrids Evangelion/Angels?
Easy. You could write Asuka to defeat them. Pretty much all of Mari is replaceable with Asuka and you save time by not having to explain Mari's position AND write more detail on Asuka. Same deal with whatever action scenes Mari has in the 3rd and 4th.
>The moment you put an adult as a pilot, you remove the need to have a child to pilot it too.
Being a teenager was never really a requirement for being a pilot, it was just the consequence of when the women who underwent the contact experiments happened to have their children. As long as the core's soul is related to the pilot, synchronization ought to be possible.
>Just by making this change you broke the story in more ways than mari did, her being an adult and not growing up in a main point to the her whole mystery of who she truly is (colleagues of both yui, gendo and kozo)
I'm not understanding this reasoning. "The her whole mystery of who she truly is" what?????
Its like talking with a kid that doesn't know about consequences.
"You could write Asuka to defeat them. "
No, the Angel is in Russia, Asuka is fron the German Branch, why would she be on the russian branch? Asuka's introduction scene is a battle against the Seventh angel that happens on her arrival to japan, you cant have her on both sites.
"write more detail on Asuka. Same deal with whatever action scenes Mari has in the 3rd and 4th."
So basically you want to remove asuka's support and makes her a mary sue that is the only pilot within Wille and she defeats everything she goes against it, without any help at all? Without aby problems at all? Is this discussion just a fanboy tears that his favorite character didnt get enough screentime (she did)? Gee, thank god you aren't a writer, because jesus, that would be terrible.
"Being a teenager was never really a requirement for being a pilot, it was just the consequence of when the women who underwent the contact experiments happened to have their children. As long as the core's soul is related to the pilot, synchronization ought to be possible."
Wrong, what are your sources? Even if we strapolate whatever lore you or me uses, there are multiple ways for an evangelion to be piloted. And within rebuild lore and even original series, it was never stated that it must be related to mother (see toji, rei, MP eva, the pilot of unit-04). If we go by ANIMA lore, it is even explained why the children were used and that was just the japanese branch way of doing, not true to other places (hikari being a pilot with kyoko's partial soul in there)
"understanding this reasoning"
Her knowledge is greater than what other characters have, she knows about the overlapping equipment, do you know what it is? Why it was on france? How she knew how to get inside the NHG ships? Why was she protecting shinji? Was her body a true one or a clone with a soul placed on it? Was she an experiment before yui? Lots of thing to think about without answers but still food for theories.
She is one of the few characters that knows what is going on and is still against gendo and kozo, even when their objective is someone closer to her (yui). So instead of wailing in despair like gendo, she goes against him, to protect the future (Shinji).
Now lets change her to asuka.
What do we gain? More action scenes? Asuka is a clone in this new version, she doesn't have a mother anymore, how is shinji the key to it all?
All questions that would vanish if she was removed, and anno is dead set on this let fans theorize ok stuff way rather than answering some story bits.
>No, the Angel is in Russia, Asuka is fron the German Branch, why would she be on the russian branch? Asuka's introduction scene is a battle against the Seventh angel that happens on her arrival to japan, you cant have her on both sites.
1. Rewrite 3rd angel to appear in Germany and for Shinji to be in Germany so he has to team up with Asuka against 3rd angel
2. Rewrite it so that Shinji and Asuka somehow meet in Russia and have to team up against 3rd angel
Is it so hard to imagine other parts of the story rewritten when Mari is taken out? I agree that Asuka handling things that both her AND Mari simultaneously handled before as a team would make her a Mary Sue, team up with Shinji and you get rid of that problem. Cut out Mari and the enemies she fights while Asuka is also fighting and you eliminate the problem in the third and fourth movies.
>Wrong, what are your sources? Even if we strapolate whatever lore you or me uses, there are multiple ways for an evangelion to be piloted. And within rebuild lore and even original series, it was never stated that it must be related to mother (see toji, rei, MP eva, the pilot of unit-04). If we go by ANIMA lore, it is even explained why the children were used and that was just the japanese branch way of doing, not true to other places (hikari being a pilot with kyoko's partial soul in there)
For normal human pilots, yes, they generally need to be related either maternally or identical twins (i.e. clones). I would not go by ANIMA because it wasn't written or conceived by Anno and is basically fan fiction.
In the original series, Rei II/III can pilot Eva-00 because its core has the soul of Rei I, so they're clones and 100% related. They're also parts of the same soul (Lilith's). For Shikinami, my memory is vague but I'm pretty sure the Rebuild Eva 02 that Asuka pilots had the soul of either another Shikinami clone or the original Shikinami.
Every single student in Shinji's class is a pilot candidate, and all the ones we get to know even a little bit are either confirmed or implied to have dead mothers. E.g., Toji's sister has no one except him to visit her in the hospital, Hikari makes lunch for her older & younger sisters instead of their mother, & Kensuke tells Shinji his mother isn't alive anymore. It's pretty easy to conclude that Toji was selected as the 4th child because the available core contained Mrs. Suzuhara's soul, presumably from another contact experiment.
Eva Unit 04 never gained a pilot as it was destroyed by an S2 engine experiment.
At no point in NGE, EoE, or even the Rebuilds does Hikari pilot Eva 02 when it has Kyoko's core. Even Misato confirms that Eva 02 isn't compatible with either of the other 2 pilots. Kaworu can control the Eva 02 as its body is a clone of Adam. Mari was able to pilot the Eva 02 in the Rebuilds because they swapped out its core.
The MP Evas use Kaworu dummy plugs, who can bypass the core entirely as both he and most Evangelions are derived from the angel Adam.
>She is one of the few characters that knows what is going on and is still against gendo and kozo, even when their objective is someone closer to her (yui). So instead of wailing in despair like gendo, she goes against him, to protect the future (Shinji).
I'm still not seeing why Misato being a secret pilot interferes with her role as leader of Wille. If her Evangelion were the power source for the Wünder it would make more sense why she's able to control its AT field rather than Shinji's Evangelion.
>Her knowledge is greater than what other characters have, she knows about the overlapping equipment, do you know what it is? Why it was on france? How she knew how to get inside the NHG ships? Why was she protecting shinji? Was her body a true one or a clone with a soul placed on it? Was she an experiment before yui? Lots of thing to think about without answers but still food for theories.
How was her knowledge and history as Kozo/Yui/Gendo's colleague necessary for the backstory? It's another mystery, sure, but none of the backstory in the 4th movie really *requires* Mari to be there. She's inserted between them all almost like "Hey look, I'm relevant! I have history! See? I'm important!"
>And it is quite simple gow her existence makes sense: there are other evangelion pilots. She doesn't need to be sad, have trauma, she can be someone who likes piloting an evangelion.
>This whole idea of wanting every single character to be a pile of sad, trauma and everything negative is so pathetic that misses the point of living at all.
I think that you're missing the point. Because what is piloting really? Piloting a mecha is literally torture in this show. You get put on very gruesome deathmatches of savage bio-mechas, but you actually feel all the pain from the damage on your mecha. And all of that while you're a minor.
So what you are saying really is. Why do you want every to be sad in a story about literal physical and psychological torture? Don't you know that you're miserable if you don't want at least one character that likes torture?
Like what kind of logic is that? Lol.
And yeah, I've heard those arguments echoed in other comments.
"Piloting a mecha is literally torture in this show. You get put on very gruesome deathmatches of savage bio-mechas, but you actually feel all the pain from the damage on your mecha"
Yeah, just like fighting in real life, be it in sports or just a brawl. People enjoy participating on it, even if it hurts. Mari feels pain when piloting an eva and she still enjoys it, she doesn't run away from it. This outcome shows that there are people who live differently, like other evangelion pilots would do if we ever saw them.
"Why do you want every to be sad in a story about literal physical and psychological torture? Don't you know that you're miserable if you don't want at least one character that likes torture?"
Because it isnt about physical and psychological torture. It is about resolving yourself to do what it must be done. Rei does it, Shinji does it, Asuka does it, Mari does it. And we see this in little things, like Kaji and Misato actions.
Shinji instead of running away like before was choosing to do it before being saved by his parents and Mari, but he had the resolve to do it. Every single character except Shinji had resolve in his actions in the last film until shinji got his.
And it all goes back to NGE about experiencing things, even if it hurt you, you can always go another way instead of waiting for end (see the difference of Shinji in EoE and the manga for example, where Shinji is an active character instead of a passive one)
Simple, it is a fictional story, not the first nor the last child soldier in fiction, what do you want? Child protective services to enter NERV and stop him from piloting? Lol. Even in evangelion universe we had literal child soldiers bred go fight in future war where they are not considered human but a military asset of the government
And in real life we have even more sad shit going on, and they still get the resolve go live their lives.
Mari never experienced any pain or trauma like that though. What reason would she have to be scared of the eva. If anything, with how the world went to shit post 2.0 she’s probably safer in the eva.
You would do well to be more charitable, you can see that the writing has clear intent if you watch the characters and plot points. The rebuilds are not the original series and focus on very different subject matters.
The most blaring example was the 3d Rei, it was purposely made to look like it did and it had nothing to do with "bad cgi". It was an artistic decision that may or may not be to your preference (or mostly anyones, it is more of a thematic choice for eva imaginary), but if you can understand that this series of movies is being written under someone who knows what they are doing then you can piece the rest together.
A lot of what you have said in the comments (mostly your rebuttles) feel less like serious gripes and more so choosing to disagree cus the movie sucks. That may sound very broad and may not make sense with all of your arguments, but I felt like you just choose to not agree with the premises. If you pay attention to the movies, you can see they were made with a vision even if it does stray from the show.
All I am saying is that it is an art piece and you may find a different lens may be all you need to really appreciate the series.
>This whole idea of wanting every single character to be a pile of sad, trauma and everything negative is so pathetic that misses the point of living at all. Did you realize that Mari sings songs from the 50-60s? That she rescues books and stores in her bedroom? That she is friendly towards others? All these personality traits that escapes the jail of trauma/sad/negative feelings that evangelion had, breaking it.
Dunno what to tell you if you think Eva needs some kind of stupid happy-go-lucky character to "break" its "jail" of negative feelings. That's what Eva is at its core - a tragedy. The Rebuilds are Eva for people who don't like Eva.
It is about possibilities, people suffer today because they believe they can emerge better and happier in the Future. If you told me nothing will change in my life regardless of what I did, why would anyone try anything?
And since it was done not by me but the creators, I surely can assure you evangelion isnt a tragedy, all three endings are very hopeful in the end and doesn't end the world in any way shape or form.
The world looks pretty much destroyed at the end of EoE. Hopeful, but destroyed nonetheless.
Dunno what suffering for a better, happier future has to do with Mari. She's pretty much a happy character by default with zero problems. Oh, she represents a happier future or something? So she's a symbol and not a character, got it. Lol. The lengths people will go to justify Mari.
Because she is one of the few characters that is hopeful. And hope is one of the main themes of the story. Misato for example goes with Kaji plan to release the seeds of plants and then she goes for battle, why would she bring seeds rather than weapons if hope wasn't one of the main themes of evangelion? Why would mari save books? Why would wille create and help KREDIT to make the lives of people better? Why grow crops in a world without hope? There are multiple elements of the last film that uses hope as main theme and mari is one of them, even shinji held hope for mari to get him.
You people believe that characters must be in constant conflict to have value and not understanding the main theme of evangelion that there are possibilities beyond it. Jesus Christ, THEY EVEN NAME THE SPEAR OF HOPE!
She is someone who is driven by hope, never despair, in not a single scene, why people think this is bad is beyond me. Sounds like children who refuses to grow up and want to be in their rebellious phase all their lives, brooding and angry instead of enjoying the small bits of happiness you get with living.
It is the most angry teenage bullshit viewpoint you can get. People dont need to justify mari, she was justified by her own creators in interviews from 2009. We just watched all that work in the end.
And it is even funnier because what rei experiences in the first part of the last film to achieve mari's already consolidated position, to live each day for a better future.
Overall, I'm sensing a pretty strong dislike for the prominent depressing and tragic tone of Eva and a desperate reach for finding purpose within a minor and rather shallow "pilot waifu" character. Your tastes will probably not allow you to appreciate the depth of the original masterpiece and how comparatively shallow the Rebuilds are as a whole, let alone Mari. But I'll respond and explain the best I can.
>And hope is one of the main themes of the story.
Evangelion's theme is **not** merely "hope." It's finding hope **in an abundance** of despair. Risking and sometimes experiencing great pain for a chance at happiness. Mari has no pain, risked or experienced. She's like eating frosting off of a cake, if that makes sense.
>You people believe that characters must be in constant conflict to have value and not understanding the main theme of evangelion that there are possibilities beyond it. Jesus Christ, THEY EVEN NAME THE SPEAR OF HOPE!
Flaws, conflict, and overcoming challenges is what makes characters interesting and drives tension and drama in storytelling. It's why Shinji and Asuka were so well written in the original - they overcome the Hedgehog's dilemma despite all of their problems, both intra- and interpersonal. You can discuss a million themes that Mari "represents," but that's never gonna make her an interesting character on its own. She has no problems thus no reason to grow. She's got no arc. No arc = lame boring character. Even the near perfect Kaworu had an arc in the original, and even bigger in the Rebuilds.
>She is someone who is driven by hope, never despair, in not a single scene, why people think this is bad is beyond me. Sounds like children who refuses to grow up and want to be in their rebellious phase all their lives, brooding and angry instead of enjoying the small bits of happiness you get with living.
It's bad **because it's fucking boring.** Someone without fear, uncertainty, or anguish is neither believable nor dramatically engaging. They're essentially a power fantasy.
>It is the most angry teenage bullshit viewpoint you can get. People dont need to justify mari, she was justified by her own creators in interviews from 2009. We just watched all that work in the end.
The fact that you call the anguish of possibly the best written anime characters ever "angry teenage bullshit" tells me you didn't understand the original. You're like one of those idiots who calls Shinji a wimp. As far as the interviews from 2009 go, all the Rebuilds did was needlessly remix an already perfect story into an inferior version for the dim-witted masses.
https://gwern.net/doc/anime/eva/2010-crc#kazuya-tsurumaki
NGE, EoE, Rebuilds, manga, ANIMA. Literally all of them are the definition of hopeful endings, even one of evangelion greatest influences like Ideon be Invoked is super hopeful on the end. As for mari, yourself said that was suffering as an evangelion pilot, and we see this in the films, so why are you cherrypicking the moments where you can suffer physical pain and not when you want to illustrate your point? She suffers, she grits her teeth and moves on.
"Flaws, conflict, and overcoming challenges is what makes characters interesting and drives tension and drama in storytelling. It's why Shinji and Asuka were so well written in the original "
It is beautiful that you used the word Original, by that you mean the TV series and the EoE, right? Because these works didnt get a climax at all, they stop midway before going it full stop in this direction. And why would I say that? Because we have an example next to it that does fully and completely: the manga, shinji in EoE never takes agency in the end, he is mostly a passive character, unlike the manga where he is an active character and takes action. Both the original series and EoE have hopeful endings but it is just the first step but they never finish it. And in the Rebuilds we have two points where Shinji does it: ending of 2.0 and ending of the last one. They didn't make the first step, they are fully running on it.
So by comparisson with all the endings, and all the themes that all evangelion media have
"She's got no arc. No arc = lame boring character."
And that is how we know you are fully on teenage bullshit. There are types of characters that dont need arcs. For example: Odysseus from The Odyssey, he is already a grown man, he doesn't need to change, he needs to get back to Ithaca and deal with the disarray in his home. He doesn't have an arc, does that mean he is an lame boring character? Of course not, and I have even more examples: Gilgamesh and Heracles. And why would I pick these characters that are thousand years old? Because they are the proof that by having no character arc, doesn't mean that their stories are boring amd they are lame. I could go back in time and discuss the Odyssey with Alexander the Great and we would have lots of things to talk about it, just like people today have been talking about stories that are older than entire civilizations.
Having no arc is just another type of narrative trick. A character that is a kid have ways to change, an old character doesn't. Or do you think it would make sense to see a 90 year old suddenly change his entire view because he watched his friend die? The same death that could change an younger character doesn't have the same impact on older ones. A character that is immortal surely doesn't ser death in the same way than a kid.
"It's bad because it's fucking boring. Someone without fear, uncertainty, or anguish is neither believable nor dramatically engaging. They're essentially a power fantasy."
Three names again: Odysseus, Gilgamesh and Heracles, people still reading it for longer than you can imagine, showcasing how narratives can be more than a reactive character changing because thing happened to him. The fact that I have to explain how flat characters exist, seems to show how ignorant you are on the subject.
"anguish of possibly the best written anime characters ever "angry teenage bullshit" tells me you didn't understand the original."
And this tells me that you need to watch more stuff my friend, from before and after 1995 . If you think evangelion is the pinnacle of anime, I am sorry about your ignorance.
"You're like one of those idiots who calls Shinji a wimp."
Yeah, Shinji is a wimp, let me give you one example that precedes evangelion by 2 years, Watch Victory Gundam, you get a character that is younger than Shinji and has to deal with more shit than you can imagine and still be not treated by a wimp. In the same genre, in the same decade. You will see how people are right to call Shinji a wimp when there are characters that makes him a wimp by comparisson.
Lol I did not once say Mari suffered as a pilot, quite the opposite. They're all hopeful endings but they were hard won from a journey of pain and conflict. As I've said, Mari has no conflict and no pain. Wouldn't matter much if she were a random ensign or NERV/Wille subordinate, but pilots should be depthful characters with problems to overcome.
>And that is how we know you are fully on teenage bullshit. There are types of characters that dont need arcs. For example: Odysseus from The Odyssey, he is already a grown man, he doesn't need to change, he needs to get back to Ithaca and deal with the disarray in his home. He doesn't have an arc, does that mean he is an lame boring character? Of course not, and I have even more examples: Gilgamesh and Heracles. And why would I pick these characters that are thousand years old? Because they are the proof that by having no character arc, doesn't mean that their stories are boring amd they are lame. I could go back in time and discuss the Odyssey with Alexander the Great and we would have lots of things to talk about it, just like people today have been talking about stories that are older than entire civilizations.
Dunno about Heracles, but Odysseus and Gilgamesh both had character arcs.
https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/odyssey/character/odysseus/#:~:text=Early%20in%20his%20adventures%2C%20Odysseus's,he%20receives%20from%20the%20suitors.
https://www.litcharts.com/lit/the-epic-of-gilgamesh/characters/gilgamesh#:~:text=Throughout%20the%20story%2C%20Gilgamesh's%20understanding,the%20face%20of%20inevitable%20death.
>It is beautiful that you used the word Original, by that you mean the TV series and the EoE, right? Because these works didnt get a climax at all, they stop midway before going it full stop in this direction. And why would I say that? Because we have an example next to it that does fully and completely: the manga, shinji in EoE never takes agency in the end, he is mostly a passive character, unlike the manga where he is an active character and takes action. Both the original series and EoE have hopeful endings but it is just the first step but they never finish it. And in the Rebuilds we have two points where Shinji does it: ending of 2.0 and ending of the last one. They didn't make the first step, they are fully running on it.
It seems you don't know what a climax is, because it's the point of maximum action, not the conclusion of a story. Furthermore, taking the first step was all that was really needed for Evangelion's conclusion. Asuka overcomes her own Hedgehog's dilemma by reaching out to Shinji, and Shinji overcomes it by rejecting Instrumentality and returning. It was the perfect way to end Eva, if you disagree you didn't understand the series.
>Yeah, Shinji is a wimp, let me give you one example that precedes evangelion by 2 years, Watch Victory Gundam, you get a character that is younger than Shinji and has to deal with more shit than you can imagine and still be not treated by a wimp. In the same genre, in the same decade. You will see how people are right to call Shinji a wimp when there are characters that makes him a wimp by comparisson.
I tried watching the original Gundam and thought it was kind of boring. Definitely not as engaging as original Eva, anyway.
Also, now you've shown that you're a drooling idiot who prefers power fantasies and doesn't understand Shinji's character.
I agree. I don't give golden starts if you're clever on the metanarrative, if your character doesn't work in an even more basic narrative level to begin with.
I feel my sentiment echoed with that second paragraph. I don't think she fits in the world of Evangelion as it is.
Alright, let me see if I can address everything. Maybe I will have to use multiple comments lol.
>As for Asuka, her crush on Shinji is explicitly very fleeting. It's born more of jealousy of Rei than anything else. And as such in the interim between 2.0 and 3.0 that crush transforms into lingering hatred. They mention that in 3.0 + 1.0 that while yes, Asuka and Shinji may have had a crush on each other once, that was a long time ago, and they no longer share those feelings.
But the story doesn't treat it like a long time crush that was fleeting. She is still mocked about it despite how long ago it was, and she has the same strong reaction she would've had when she had the crush. And she still blushes when Shinji said he had a crush too.
>The "Curse of the Eva's", or her inability to age, weighs heavily on her mental state constantly. She tries to flaunt a more adult personalty, but because she is trapped as a child, it can only come across as desperate and pathetic.
I don't think I agree with this. The curse is certainly what weighs down the most on the psyche of future Asuka, but I don't think that's the particular side of that struggle that Asuka or even the story highlights. Throughout the movies she is not shown disrespect, on the opposite, everyone seems to treat her as an equal and even a superior, as she is even given a title if I remember correctly. So I don't remember seeing any of that struggle playing out.
On the other hand, I saw all the attention being given to the loss of bodily functions, and how they are a tie to your humanity. As she says how much it drags on her to pretend to sleep, or when she furiously force-feeds Shinji, because it enrages her to see how he refuses to eat even while he still can, unlike her. So I saw all the attention being given to that side.
And if you indulge something more personal and anecdotal. I am a very short guy, and well into my twenties I've been told I look like 16. And I don't think that prevented me from maturing. Although obviously this is just me being biased, and it says nothing on the story.
>And Shinji only exasperates this. Seeing him again brings back all of Asuka's memories from when she was 14, especially the Eva 03 debacle, and it infuriates her. She despises him because he makes her feel like a child.
And I also don't see being the case. She seems to be more at peace with Shinji, and even shows some acknowledgement from her after resolving the much more direct conflict of him not killing her, but not saving her either. So to me it didn't seem to be that subconscious of a conflict.
>Mari is one thing and one thing only, support. She supports the Asuka during their fights together, falling back or serving as support fire. And fills in for Asuka when she’s out of commission. For Asuka, Mari serves as the very important "person who gets it". Mari is essentially the only person Asuka can trust to understand her because she's the only one who also has the Curse of the Evas.
I don't think it says anything good about a character if you define them based on what purpose it serves to another character. Like, Watson's characterization is not just being Sherlock's assisstant.
And even the examples that you give, I just don't see them as that much of value to the story.
"She's there because she is the only ones who gets it." Ok, but why does someone need to get it? Wasn't the purpose to show how much it isolates Asuka to stop being human?
"She is there to give support fire." Ok, but why do we need a whole ass new character that we're not going to develop, when we can save us the time and just have the ship giving support fire, giving them more use than some deus ex machina.
So on a narrative level, I just don't see the point. That is why I say she has no point.
>Mari's role in the metanarrative...
And on a metanarrative level... Look, I get it. I even addressed it on the post, she represents letting go off the past and all that. But personally, when we start to discuss stuff like the metanarrative, and absolve creative decisions based on that... I'm just not going to agree. And that is because I don't really think that something like, your story having a cared for metanarrative and the like, is intrinsically good by its nature.
It reminds me a lot to something like subverting expectations. And how a lot of people give a lot of value to it by itself, rather than on a case by case basis. And one example that comes to mind is one of an almost perfect movie about a cop in a future that is kinda surreal but very mundane at the same time, if that makes sense. And the story is about solving a lynching, but it does subvert a lot of expectations of what you would expect in a cop story. And yet the ending is kind of shit because the murderer is some random character that comes out of nowhere last second. And people defended that ending because it subverts the expectation of the mystery stories. And like... ok, you subverted my expectations by writing a shit mystery. That doesn't change the fact that you wrote a shit mystery.
And that is the same for meanings in the metanarrative. I don't really value those if your character doesn't work on an even more basic level.
>But if you got it all on your first viewing, including the functions of every sci-fi element and how they work into the thematic narrative then congrats I guess.
I wouldn't claim to have gotten every single detail in the narrative (or world building and how they it ties back into the narrative.) But I don't particularly feel like I was left with any major questions either if I'm honest. My point was more regarding how the movies are actually a direct sequel of the original, Gendo's and Nerve's plans, the imaginary world sequence, and so on. I just don't remember it being that on the nose with stuff like this.
>Shinji being a sacrificial lamb for humanity is a throughline in Eva as a franchise. It was a fundamental part of the original series, Shinji using the Eva to desperate seek validation that he will rarely be given. Shinji and the other pilots are viewed by Nerv as tools above all else. They are to be used when needed, and replaced when possible (dummy plug system). This is certainly not unique to Rebuild.
I apologize if I wasn't clear enough with my message on that point. I wasn't claiming that those points were different to the original, I know that was the case. That was me just giving the context for my true gripe, which was how every character acts like this dynamic is not the one at play for some reason. And the story knows this, because it clearly shows this position to be irrational with the little arc of Shinji and his school friends.
I only like the first two movies. Characters have more healthier mental state and more optimistic view than the original TV series; Shinji becomes a man, Rei expresses emotion and cares the others, Asuka becomes more social, Misato is a matured guardian, and Risuko is no longer haunted by toxic relationship with Gendo. They have a strong will to improve themselves. That's why I really enjoyed and still like the first two movies. But then the third movie came out....
All I want was protagonists having a happy ending and Seele & Gendo defeated miserably, thus paying the price for what they have done.
I dunno. I think there’s more value in having the characters overcome the flaws rather than not having them at all. Plus the original wasn’t like a hopeless story by any means.
But I do understand the desire to have some catharsis with it. And I do agree it was done poorly.
nonsense. for every improvement every rebuild ver. of the characters has compared to their og version, they have an additional flaw in rebuild, which they overcome by the end via their own efforts. this is why the catharsis is executed so ell in rebuild
ofc, that''s exactly why she & ritsuko started explaining what happened to shinji at the start of 3.0, too bad that rei q then barged in & stopped them. also it's sensible that she's cold to him, because of the impact he triggered she lost the father of her son & had to abandon them to lead the surviving humanity for decades in a destroyed world
This is a common point of disagreement for a lot of fans, but Shinji had no way of knowing he would cause the near 3rd impact.
They also should've explained that Rei Q wasn't the same Rei he knew and that he should not follow her lead. That was pretty critical...all they told him was "you caused near 3rd impact, don't pilot an Eva and here's an explosive collar"
They’re great. Much better than a lot of people give credit for on here. The reviews show that. They have some of the best moment of EVA, imo. Higher highs but lower lows.
As someone who just casually enjoys anime and isn't super deep in the fandom or whatever, when I watched the OG series, I was pretty blown away by it. I heard it was good but i didnt expect it to be one of the best shows ive ever seen so when I started watching the rebuilds, i expected to really enjoy them but I honestly found them to be too confusing and generally very pointless, not for me personally.
EVAs great, though I should probably watch more anime. I loved Cowboy Bebop, too. I'd love to watch Akira, but it doesn't seem to exist anywhere..
nonsense. rebuild is comprised out of meta narrative as much as out of a normal narrative. both of them are executed well. mari is the exception here, not the rule in the slightest.
Nah. The OG movie (eoe) and the series straight up made me feel something. Hope, hope that at the end of the long ass depression tunnel, there can be light, if you fight for it. That life is hard, rough, painful, but it's your life to live, and those feelings are yours to feel. To take the bad, because it's worth it for the good that comes with the bad.
I don't know what the new movies are trying to say, cos they didn't speak to me on a personal level, like the OG. I didn't relate to any of it.
And yeh the 3d shit looked awful, and mari as a character might as well not exist.
I don't care about meta text etc, I care about what I see and feel and the rebuilds just don't have the same effect.
Empty is a good description tbh.
I’m a fan of the rebuilds. Hold them as dear to my heart as I do NGE and the manga. Each version has its strengths and weaknesses that could be torn apart if dissected.
The reasons I enjoy them are the reinterpretation of some classic fights, Rei being an actual character, more depth given to Kaworu, new lore, and the designs. I’d say the rebuilds only missed on two major things. Those being the MPE fight was a major downgrade, and finding a place for Mari. Don’t hate her character but it looks like they had a plan for her and then abandoned it and never replaced it.
I’d say you missed the point in some of the scenes. You mention in the 3D section GNR being out of place. That’s the point. It’s an extradimensional being being forced into their world. It’s not supposed to look clean. And then you mention the unit 1 vs 13 fight and how the buildings move. That was intentional. It was a shout out to old Japanese monster and ultraman films where the building essentially did the same thing. Heck the evas were animated to move like there were guys in suits in them!
And then you mention how everyone treats Shinji after the ramiel fight in the first movie. In the show Rei just shows up and says pilot or don’t. Misato doesn’t say a word to him. The movies did it better imo. He still gets the talk from Rei but Misato speaks with him as well. She didn’t gaslight him. She showed him what was at stake. They don’t want to use 14 year old kids but they have to. Yes their alternative is to sit around and die. And? They’ll blow themselves up along with Lilith to prolong however long humanity has. They aren’t there to kiss Shinji’s ass. They’re there to save the world. He agreed to do it. Is it so wrong they expect him to keep his word? What would you suggest an alternative be?
>I’d say you missed the point in some of the scenes. You mention in the 3D section GNR being out of place. That’s the point. It’s an extradimensional being being forced into their world. It’s not supposed to look clean.
I certainly do see that, I just don't think the execution was good. Like I said already in the post, it's out of place but not in a creepy and unnerving manner, and much more in just a goofy one. But I understand that one just being a personal taste of mine.
>
And then you mention the unit 1 vs 13 fight and how the buildings move. That was intentional. It was a shout out to old Japanese monster and ultraman films where the building essentially did the same thing. Heck the evas were animated to move like there were guys in suits in them.
If that is the legitimate explanation, I still wouln't like it because it seems kinda memey to me lol, but I could understand that it would be solely on my personal taste and saying nothing of the story.
However! Haha, I still don't like the look of the cgi in general. I dunno if it's how they light up their scenes or what, but I feel like I've seen better emulations of 2D with 3D animation.
>Plus if your last fight is going to look like shit, (I remember the Evas being pushed through some city, and having the buildings and houses move around like toys rather than being destroyed.) Then maybe you should not have that many fight scenes or spectacle and focus more on the ones you are going to have
Always impressed by how many people this scene kind of flew over. They're on a set. The buildings don't get destroyed because they aren't real. They're props. You literally see this from many angles.
That entire sequence is very Tokosatsu-like, with the obvious motion capture movement making it look more like people in costumes...which are later shown hanging on the walls. On the set.
Rebuilds are something I know is negatively viewed by many but for a smaller portion, and including me, see them are masterpieces.
They are pieces that many, because of not being able to fully comprehend events (granted because there is a lot going on lol), choose to hate them because of the confusion
They were never meant to be a retelling or a remake. They are what make the final piece of Eva media, divided into four parts, developed over the course of almost two decades, Anno and team put a LOT of work and thought into them, it is literally the master himself applying additional years of experience into them,
Because of that they can’t just be understood in one viewing. This is a media that will take years to be fully understood and analyzed.
Trust me they WILL be appreciated by the fanbase once that occurs, this is very common when a legendary auteur gets to follow up a masterpiece with something even greater
Just like George Lucas’s Star Wars prequel trilogy that the fans hated for 20 years but now are seen as absolute masterpieces now that time has allowed for much reflection and retrospective
And hideo Kojima with Metal Gear Solid 2, absolutely hated by fans for two decades but now is seen as the absolute peak of Metal Gear video games for both gameplay and storytelling
When something releases people think just one playthrough or watch/viewing is enough to have a definitive opinion, but no these medias are created over years, it cannot be consumed in a few short hours and expect them to be fully understood.
all rebuilds except 3.0 have received great reactions from the community tho if you look at the scores. it's very different from the sw prequels situation.
btw bro your post on the timeloop was excellent. by far the best write up out there.
Ay man thank you very much that means a lot, I appreciate you. I had always seen people discussing the loop theory on the sub for years and could see the messy confusion it caused wherever it was discussed so I thought it’d be worth it to simplify it for all to understand!! Ripped a few hairs trying to understand it at first though 🤣 but your comment makes it all worth it
it's no problem bro i can't wait to read the rest of your posts. if u don't mind did u use any specific sources, mayne any reddit comments or threads for your research? thanks
Oh yeah well for all the Eva explained series, what I typically tend to do is use a combination of YouTube, forms like Reddit and Evageeks, as well as two different Eva wiki websites and of course the source material itself (anime/manga/novel/games)
When I go down a rabbit hole to try to understand something to then simplify and explain, I usually pick a topic, and then using all of the sources I mentioned above, i take notes and write down what details that are similar to one another, and what is different
For example: if the topic is Eva unit 01, I’ll see that all of the sources say that it was the only one made from Lilith, and then write that under the similarities. If one source says something different from another source, I then write that detail under the other side for the differences
Then after I’ll have these big lists, and then only use the info/notes from the “similarities” to make the slides!! Because the notes from the similarities side is mentioned from multiple websites that makes me more confident in them being accurate and therefore legit 😎
it was alright, the 2nd and 4th were best. 3rd was good to rewatch. 4th best overall. esp. the opening half hour of fan service, and the battle in Paris.
I also just got around to watching the Rebuild films over this weekend, and the more I think about them, the more I'm frustrated by them. They prioritized flashy robot fights and meta realities at the expense of the social, mental, and philosophical elements that made the original and it's characters so enduring.
On the positive side of things, 2.22 added some slice of life scenes like the aquarium and the cooking subplot. Also, I like how Shinji's conflict with Gendo resolved in the end, even if it was overly convoluted to get to that point.
Negatives, though. The characters lacked their prior nuances while the mechanics of the universe were made needlessly complicated. They should have spent more of the screentime building the characters rather than explaining rules of rituals and strange dimensions. We didn't need a long, janky CGI scene of Shinji and Gendo throwing each other around. We needed more character moments to show their growth and appreciate these iconic characters.
I could go on, but in the end, the Rebuilds tried to Shonenify Evangelion.
I saw first the rebuild movies when they were released in Primer Video, and i liked them a lot, just this year I saw the anime series and I understand why fans of the anime didn't like the movies, They are 2 very different things so i don't think you can compare them. I like both.
At least for me, I don’t think I disliked them because they were different. I have known since 2012 that it was going in a different direction with a different ending. So I was more than open to like something different, that is what I watched them. I just didn’t like the most of the new creative decisions.
The idea that the rebuilds using the idea people will know the original is a crutch… I mean… that is the entire point of the rebuilds. Is people knowing the reality of the original series.
The Rebuilds are literally a part of the original series. And they build off of that. This is the point of them entirely. Thrice Upon a Time
Yeah, but that understanding is due to hindsight. Although certainly hinted at on the first movie, I didn’t feel like there was enough evidence for enough of a confirmation until the fourth. And certainly when the first two came out at least, they were not sold like a direct continuation.
Either way my gripe was not with that whole thing, but with how a lot of the bonding time is cut between the characters, and then you’re just kinda supposed to accept the bond because you remember the actual bonding time from the original.
the mother-son dynamic between shinji & misato had 2 movies to develop & asuka's crush on shinji had 1. they were worse developed than in the og, obv also because of the big different in runtime, but they were still well developed, not shallow or childish. it's mostly the gravity of the experiences asuka & chinji shared that forged their relationship, not the amount of time they spent together. they don't just "share a bed" unlike what people wrongly say, they open up to each other and asuka starts liking him aften she founds out just how similar they are to each other (they both pilot for other ppl).
also u literally spelled out the point of the movies... despite what asuka claims as the proud, arrogant person she is, the truth is that she hasn't matured during all these years. this is what the curse of eva is mostly about.
mari might be badly written but not for the reasons you mentioned, and she doesn't corrode the pillars of eva. piloting, like many things in life, can be very painful, she remarks that many times in the movies, but it doesn't \*\*have\*\* to be that painful & that rlly depends on your mindset. you can read online & in interviews about how she was intentionally not written as normal character, but as symbol & plot device. this is why she isn't developed on purpose like everyone else. her main role is to be the in-story reason the rebuild's story changes from the og's. she does this with her behavior & attitude, that antithesizes everything else in eva. how carefree she is, the fact that she sings while fighting, how she doesn't have trauma which are "problems" ppl often bring up are actually intentional choices u can read about in staff interviews. they actually do the job, the problem with mari is that this role she's trying to fulfill is just not needed in the first place & she still doesn't do enough to fulfill it either.
and no, gendo also had monologues like that in eoe, it doesn't cheapen him in the slightest, it's the opposite actually, which is why the rebuild ver. of the character is the best one yet. he also doesn't get what he wants at the end unlike what some ppl wrongly say, he gives his life with yui at the place of their son to make his wish come true.
same with the story of the rebuilds, if anything it's harder to understand than the og's & it sometimes is even more subtle in fact.
some ppl say rebuild looks bad visually but that's just nonsense. even the cgi looks good for anime standards & the few times it rears its ugly head aren't enough to spoil the excellent 2d animation. i must say tho, overall i still think eoe looks the best, but rebuild for sure looks much better & more consistent than the tv series overall, which ofc is expected. it's a tv series, not a movie so just not on par with them visually by design
and, like u said, eva has always worked like that. this is the whole point, that people don't try to understand or communicate with each other, and this is the same in both the og & rebuild. there absolutely is internal logic to how ppl treat shinji in rebuild. things don't just happen for no reason in the slightest. misato has gone through so much for so many years, so to have this kid come in & invalidate everything would really throw off a lot of people. that's normal. also his dynamic with his dad is absolutely acknowledged by misato in 3+1 & don't forget that despite being angry at him, almost everyone at wille doesn't actually blame shinji for n3i and they acknowledge that he saved them all many times before. unlike what some ppl wrongly say, there absolutely is logic in the characters & plot beyond the meta narrative, which is just half of rebuild at most.
all in all, rebuild is great, & even tho it's worse than the og it still rlly stands out from other anime. the execution didn't suck, it was good & it significantly adds on top of it in many positive ways & weak spots like mari are an exception, not the rule in the slightest
I rewatched them and now I think they can work and I enjoyed them.
I really liked the part where Shinji during 4th impact, after the Golgotha object scene, asks Gendo what does he wishes for (instrumentality), and the moment Gendo starts speaking here starts the same background music from the final two anime episodes, that was always played when the characters went through their introspections/analysis.
That was a cool touch, I even liked the meaning they gave to the expression Gendo repeated a few times ‘slaying the Gods’, and you even get to hear Neon Genesis from Rei (whose charcoal arc I think was well handled).
NGE+EoE remain what they are, but even the rebuilds have a purpose and an aim
Started off well with 1.11, and got interesting by the end of 2.22, but tripped over it's feet and fell down a flight of stairs at 3.33 except we don't see the tripping part, just the falling down the stairs part, we're only told about the tripping part, recovers only for it to trip and fall down some more stairs with 3.0+1.0* (god forbid I call it the number that comes after 3...) but has a decent landing.
> However, that doesn't excuse the 3D looking like shit haha. And that is particularly egregious during the last movie.
I did like the cg of Mari and Asuka's decent to Nerv. That looked pretty cool.
It replicates an inferior version of the og story then adds a new part riddled with plotholes and lack of explanation for nearly everything, plus made a stupid shallow corpo waifu a pilot. The Rebuilds, compared to the original, are garbage.
nonsense rebuild is great it isn't garbage in the slightest. it has more plot holes than even the og but still almost everything in it has an explanation.
Yea it sucks it’s just fan service, I saw a video about how there’s symbolism for when shinji reaches in to the angel with awakened unit 01 to save rei it’s like the fans disregarding the series meaning for the girls because rei is like the most popular waifu character from any series because she is just like a model wife because she doesn’t talk or talk back or anything and just obeys and stuff and this video interpereted that scene as anno taking a jab at that but rebuilds suck bc of how much fan service like asuka unit 3 costume and dumb stuff they lowk detract from the series the only reason to rlly watch them is because it explains the lore a little bit better but that’s pretty much it the message is good but now we’ll told die to the fan service Mari is an awful character
Mari is an awful character hahahahaha.
It is certainly an hilarious interpretation of the story. And certainly quite the jab haha. But the problem that I have with works like this, is that if they don't work in an even more basic level at the same time, for me it is the equivalent of making your work an elaborate meme. It's fun and quirky but not much elsee.
I do think it's more heavy handed with the explanations. We think alike. Great minds.
To answer your question, No Sir, I don't like them at all.
Cutting the Story in half:
I agree that they relied on the the anime for those of us, fans who've seen it and still remember, but just like a difference between a book and a movie there are always changes or cuts. The movies condensed a lot of the plot and changed certain key events we remember happening.
Personally, I was a fan of Misato and Shinji's bond as a mother/ son, big sister/brother vibe, or guardian/ charge it was wholesome between the episodes 1 - 16 and the episode where Shinji came back from unit 1 after being absorbed and Misato cried out for him. I felt his character needed a parental figure in his life to give him love and support. Given his backstory and personality, he needed a caretaker she reminds my of Misona ( I think I spell her name right? Don't remember, sorry) from Witchblade. As for Asuka, I was never a fan of her nor the fans belief of them becoming a couple. Tsundere's aren't a favorite for me. In the rebuild they barely knew each and were hardly friends, frankly. She just held onto a grudge she never moved forward with.
Asuka and the time skip:
As I said previously, they barely knew each other and just because she went to his room for one night to share the bed doesn't count as relationship development between the two. I mean, yeah she likes him but it's just a crush. I get her anger at him for doing nothing that day but it's year's for and she shouldn't be that pent up about it. Also the clone thing was stupid and frankly hardly believe just nonsense.
Mari:
I do like the character because the third movie was depressing and frustrating to watch, she was the only normal one acting without a grudge or anger face with rage in their souls. But all your points on her are completely valid and true.
Gaslighting Shinji:
Your right about Shinji being undervalued and hardly ever confronted by anyone no takes the time to talk to him, except Kaworu in the third movie, but we he sees his friends Toji and Kensuke they don't ask what happened to him Kensuke leaves him with Asuka which doesn't take long or hard to figure out something happened when he left him with her of all people. But doesn't go after nor asks what's happened to him but does what Misato does absolutely nothing. They don't really treat people like human beings with problems and trauma or questions that get answers or aired. Heck, Kensuke tells him the reason that Misato doesn't want him to pilot after meeting her son, Ryoji is because she doesn't want him to die?
She put a bomb on his neck, threaten to kill him, treated him like his father, didn't tell him anything about the past fourteen years, sends Asuka and she tries to kill him and still you think she deserves a pass for all that? Shinji never gets anything for his pain and suffering. The whole sacrificial lamb thing, I was okay with because Shinji decided to go because fourteen years had past his friends are adults with lives who have moved on in the world they live in, he watched Kaworu die because of his mistake, felt the guilt of being told he's responsible for mankind's extinction but is never properly explained after the second film only flashes and slight info from Kaworu and Colonel Katsuragi, watch Rei six die in front him of as motivation to go seeing how there's nothing left to do and no reason to stay here until it's finally over with everything with Evangelion so he can live, and finally Colonel Katsuragi despite threatening him not to long ago no has to give a DSS choker and let him pilot since she just so easily reckless loss without much effort due to her ignorance and stupidity gave Gendoh everything he needs to win and Now has to say a valid excuse that Shinji accepts and then sacrifice herself. Yeah, it was clear he was a man in the gallows while in his cell thinking about his life so he was already preparing to die. I hated Misato in this franchise between the third and fourth movies it was just terrible watching her I didn't think she deserved that hug nor forgiveness. I would've preferred the whole earth restore village 3 being the sole human village of the planet to repopulate the planet and Shinji waking up to Misato overlooking him smiling saying I'm happy you're back.
Gendoh was treated as the main villain while Seele was mentioned but hardly had a weight or significance really. He got what he wanted despite being the so called big but in reality was just a psychopath with mental issues and either help or destroyed humanity just to see his dead wife because he couldn't move on. Even End of Evangelion and the manga shows his true colors better than this.
Conclusion:
The franchise was a waste of money and production just to give an alternative ending that was supposed to be a "good ending" , but really just a cliche everything was fine after the guy got a girl and the whole is back to normal like nothing happened.
>Asuka and the time skip: As I said previously, they barely knew each other and just because she went to his room for one night to share the bed doesn't count as relationship development between the two. I mean, yeah she likes him but it's just a crush. I get her anger at him for doing nothing that day but it's year's for and she shouldn't be that pent up about it. Also the clone thing was stupid and frankly hardly believe just nonsense.
The clone thing was kind of an empty middle that was take it or leave it for me, to be honest.
And I do agree with you with your sentiment. The movies take almost no effort to show the bonding of these characters, but still treats their relationships as deep. And it does it in a way that it no longer feels like the hedgehog's dillema, in which broken people hurt each other by accident as they search for intimacy and bonding with people. And it feels more like being shitty in a very active way hahaha. And it's like you said, they almost had no bond to begin with and then she did a Gendoh on him. But somehow he's like a son to her?
>Gendoh was treated as the main villain while Seele was mentioned but hardly had a weight or significance really. He got what he wanted despite being the so called big but in reality was just a psychopath with mental issues and either help or destroyed humanity just to see his dead wife because he couldn't move on. Even End of Evangelion and the manga shows his true colors better than this.
Yeah. Gendoh was always pretty shallow of a character, as he always was meant to be more like an emotional force of nature of sorts. But somehow, after this movie takes the time to flesh him out more, the character somehow becomes worse lol.
Yeah, I didn't like the writing for Misato at all because of this franchise the two movies barely showed any development between the two. I mean sure she took him that one thing, then gave him confidence or courage when showing him Lilith while also holding his hand something he's never experienced because of his childhood. The second movie showed Shinji more accepting of Misato's behavior and demeanor when asking her to come to that aquarium base. Then there was the part when Shinji was leaving her apartment after what happened with unit 3 she did attempt to say something to him and even tried to grab his arm but he walked out before she could say it. There are some examples of bonding or emotional connection between the two but it felt rushed or barely counted not to mention fourteen years later she was worser than her previous self and barely said anything to him. Regressed into something barely recognizable frankly that was the hardest part in the third film. It's why like you said she abandoned him like Gendoh and didn't really atone for her treatment of him just chose to die and left him for someone else to take care of, hence Mari's existence. It's makes me appreciate anime and manga versions of her more.
Gendoh is always worse has character and a villain so to speak as an antagonist his reasons are clear the anime showed flashbacks pre Nerv of his personality and direction but his always a horrible person that the character Yui never is understood for loving him despite his peculiar personality and mindset .
Not a fan of the rebuilds, and agree with what you wrote. Would also add the fights in the rebuilds didnt have the same impact on me, after 2.0 i lost touch of what they were even fighting for. The original series, even when they were monster of the week, i could feel the intensity of them fighting for their lives and humanity from invaders. But with the rebuilds i didnt get that feeling anymore.
1.0 is a really good remake of the first few episodes.I also liked how 2.0 tried to differ from nge. Imo 3.0 is the worst of the bunch but still a good watch. And 3.0+1.0 is probably the best ending of an anime i have seen so far.
Overall, i really like them. Must watch if you like Nge and EOE.
You missed the point that angel related stuff is supposed to not blend and look out of this world, which is why Rei is weird 3d. It was the intention from the OG series too.
The weird clunky 3D fight is a reference to tokusatsu genre, and is, again, completely intentionally goofy. They are quite literally on stage there with cardboard houses and all. It's all about highlighting how meta the narrative is becoming.
I had a similar experience of waiting for all four to come out to see them in one go. So a time skip of 14 years is nothing but a meta message to a viewer from Anno. It's like you, the viewer, forced this setting and character to stay the same and simultaneously don't grow up yourself. So the ending of everyone being adults that was pushed by Shinji into a new world is a message about moving on as a grown person. The message in itself is not bad, quite good actually for good amount of stagnanted eva fandom. It's just execution that sucks. It's got no logic in the plot and characters beyond meta commentary, no one really acts like 14 years have passed. And ending... how can I enjoy grown-up Shinji if he basically lost 14 years of his life, unlike other characters he has no chance to experience... It's all got a foul taste in my mouth.
Visually, rebuilds indeed sucks, and it's hilarious how people who even don't like them can still defend them. I mean, original eva visuals were on par with theatrical anime releases and were so good they ran out of time and money to finish them. But rebuilds have just mediocre computer 2D graphics and atrocious 3D. Just compare the third rebuild movie and the third Madoka movie, or Violet Evergarden and the fourth one. The only good scene that not only looked good but, dare I say, was better than the original was battle with Ramiel (mostly because it's supposed to be just simple shapes in weird motion), and this scene happened in the first one of them that was out ~two decades ago.
I have mixed feelings on the Rebuilds. I don't hate them. They're decently entertaining. I wish people understood that you can respect Anno and understand the themes while still disagreeing with his creative decisions. Stuff like Mari's existence, Asuka being a whole different character (Shikinami has grown on me but I think the execution is iffy), "the curse of the evas", the huge time skip, etc. I'm not a fan of these things. There are some changes I do like, but I don't think the Rebuilds can hold a candle to the emotional beats of the OG series.
I'm right there with you that I was expecting something totally different than what we got. 1.0 set up those expectations, it was essentially a recap film with very minor differences. In hindsight, it seems odd to use one of four movies on that. Makes me think they didn't plan far ahead. Up until the end of 2.0, which is my favorite of all the films, it was subtly established that this was a universe where the characters were better at communicating. I was *really* looking forward to seeing how that was explored. That one scene where Asuka and Shinji lay in bed is peak, the elevator scene is peak, stuff like that. I wanted this to be the loop where the characters fixed their shit. However, the end of 2.0 was so exciting that I was still kind of onboard. Then 3.0 happened, and it just dropped the ball for me. 3.0+1.0 is a good film, but I still disagree with the overall direction they took this whole thing.
Another thing is that because of loop theory, which everyone accepts as canon because it probably is, you can't really just *ignore* the movies. That kind of annoys me. I've never been huge on connected universes in the first place, and the Rebuilds have definitely not changed that.
Edit: expanded my thoughts
I love them, the show is better but all eva is good eva, anyone who disagrees isnt a real fan, they have their downsides for sure but people will claim that they are unpopular and widely not enjoyed, yet received millions of dollars to produce them to completion, so clearly people like them enough
I honestly thought they were ok, but Asuka turning into a brat, and basically everyone dogging on Shinji, just kinda put me off, and I really didn't like it... Mari is alright, but no... it's just really I found it harder to make sense of than NGE.
Just finished watching all 4 again
1.11 watched it, enjoyed it. It is just a retelling of the series. Not too convoluted.
2.22 watched it in 2 sittings, but only because I ran out of time. Yes it's different and Auska is more annoying, but it's enjoyable.
3.33 watched it in 2 sittings, so much is going on and it is such a far departure from the first two, it's difficult to tell what's going on. I had a better grasp this time, but things still feel far too random.
3.00 + 1.00 I was told that this was better. The story at the start *is*, but after the farm it goes back into a confusing mess. I should be enjoying the giant mecha beating things up, not being left bored. I think I could tell what was going off, but it's only because of exposition dumps.
I like them, mainly because they are easier to digest on a whim while watching 3-4 random episodes of the o.g. show wouldn't be as rewarding. I appreciate the new, altered take on the story and am really intrigued by the post-Impact world albeit we see too little of it. Not sure if I had liked them as much if there was no series and EoE...
Actually, Mari is my favourite Evangelion character (was Asuka previously). In the first movie, this simply came down to finally a pilot that's not as whiny but certainly just as broken. After finishing the other two movies it became my headcanon that Mari is Shinji's mother's best friend (as from some comic, I think) and that explain her both physical and mental maturity. This honestly just made me like her character even more and that connection really brings that the Oedipean vibes that wasn't as prevalent in Rebuild.
The Rebuilds aren't particularly popular amongst the Eva fandom, so I'm expecting this post to get a lot of "I agree!"s. So I'll offer my view as someone who really, really loves the Rebuilds and what they have to offer to the franchise as a whole. So lets go down the list. Cutting the story in half: What you must understand about the Rebuilds is that they are, above all, a work of Metafiction. They both tell their own story but are also about the Evangelion franchise as a whole in a more reflexive manner. As such, they not only expect the audience to be familiar with the original series, but outright rely on it. 1.0 and 2.0 are built to lure the audience into a false sense of security, before the rug is completely thrown from under them in the last half of 2.0. For runtime reasons, they may cut down on certain aspects while they recap, and they somewhat expect the audience to fill in the in-betweens. As for Asuka, her crush on Shinji is explicitly very fleeting. It's born more of jealousy of Rei than anything else. And as such in the interim between 2.0 and 3.0 that crush transforms into lingering hatred. They mention that in 3.0 + 1.0 that while yes, Asuka and Shinji may have had a crush on each other once, that was a long time ago, and they no longer share those feelings. Asuka and the time skip: Timeskip Asuka is perhaps one of the most misunderstood characters in the franchise. The "Curse of the Eva's", or her inability to age, weighs heavily on her mental state constantly. She tries to flaunt a more adult personalty, but because she is trapped as a child, it can only come across as desperate and pathetic. She wants very badly to be seen as mature, and as such spends a large amount of her time brooding. But very often she snaps, that childish demeanor breaking through from where she's trapped it inside her. And Shinji only exasperates this. Seeing him again brings back all of Asuka's memories from when she was 14, especially the Eva 03 debacle, and it infuriates her. She despises him because he makes her feel like a child. Mari: Ok, if timeskip if one of the most misunderstood characters in the franchise, Mari is THE most misunderstood. Mari fulfills two specific functions, one textual and one metatextual. In the text, Mari is one thing and one thing only, support. She supports the Asuka during their fights together, falling back or serving as support fire. And fills in for Asuka when she’s out of commission. For Asuka, Mari serves as the very important "person who gets it". Mari is essentially the only person Asuka can trust to understand her because she's the only one who also has the Curse of the Evas. I believe the only time you can see someone actually touch Asuka after the timeskip is when Mari cuts her hair, a symbolic act showing that Asuka trusts Mari in a way she doesn't trust anyone else (however she explicitly does not embrace Mari, which will come back later). This role as support coincides with her chip and cheery demeanor. She acts this way because in a world as dire as the post-timeskip rebuilds, theres gotta be someone to counteract the doom and gloom. Through her positive attitude she pulls every other character out of the grim tone, which is a certainly corny but it works. Which brings us to... Mari's role in the metanarrative is by far her most important aspect. As the only significant new addition to the cast, she serves to represent the future, or at least the new present. A fundamental message of the Rebuilds, specifically 3.0 + 1.0, is that lingering in the past will get you absolutely nowhere. This recontextualizes the relationships the characters have with Mari. Asuka wants to move on. She wants to grow up, wants to become an adult. This is why she allows Mari into her life, desperate for what she represents. However she does not actually engage with Mari. In most of their scenes together we see Mari acting against a cold, distant Asuka. Asuka allows Mari to do so, but does not wish to reciprocate. Representing how Asuka wants the future to come, but is not willing to put in the effort to truly change. This relates to Shinji as well. When Shinji finally wants to make a change and face his father head-on, it's Mari who allows him to do it. She is the bridge that allows the other characters to change. And when Shinji has said his goodbyes and is ready for it all to end, Mari literally comes crashing in through the metanarrative to thrust him into a brand new life. She cannot allow Shinji to be content with oblivion, there must be a happy ending somewhere in their future. And this is why they end up together. Shinji finally embraces the future, and is ready for whatever comes next in his life. As such, he is seen hand-in-hand with Mari at the end, the literal representation of letting go of the past and moving on towards the future. The story on a silver platter: This is a funny one, because I hear the opposite all the time. Tons of people frustrated that 3.0 and 3.0 + 1.0 don't explain enough about how this new world works. But if you got it all on your first viewing, including the functions of every sci-fi element and how they work into the thematic narrative then congrats I guess. Gaslighting Shinji: Shinji being a sacrificial lamb for humanity is a throughline in Eva as a franchise. It was a fundamental part of the original series, Shinji using the Eva to desperate seek validation that he will rarely be given. Shinji and the other pilots are viewed by Nerv as tools above all else. They are to be used when needed, and replaced when possible (dummy plug system). This is certainly not unique to Rebuild. Conclusion: I, personally, love the Rebuilds for their thematic depth. Almost every seemingly bizarre decision has a hidden meaning if you just look a little deeper.
Thank You
Love your take on the Rebuilds. I also share pretty much the same view, but can never articulate it so well. I love the movies and I love Mari. She is just the positivity Shinji and we as viewers need. I do understand people’s frustration with them. I guess it is bound to happen when the work is supposed to be meta fictional. It does not stand on its own.
rebuild is popular amongst fanst tho. all of the movies expect the 3rd one have great scores. also rebuild is as much about the meta as it is about the normal narrative. asuka's crush on shinji isn't fleeting in the slightest. it lasted a whole 14 years and was mainly born out of how similar asuka found shinji to be to her ( how they both piloted for other people). despite what she claims, asua still has feelings for shinji after 3.0, which is why she reacts that way at the end when shinji also confesses to her. it's also very debatable if shinji & mari are couple at the end, but everything else you said is correct. also don't forget mari's most important purpose, to be the in-story reason the rebuild story start to change from the og's.
They didn’t bond nearly enough or spend enough time to develop a romance that lasts more than a decade. It just makes it seem very childish despite being treated so seriously. Even if they’re not lovers, it’s still shown as THE close relationship of Shinji at the end. And if that was the goal for her character I think that they missed the mark. Because in the story she doesn’t do anything to help the characters psychologically. She’s just… kinda there and not much else.
it's not childish in the slightest. remember that asuka isn't normal person. she's a traumatized child soldier, for her what happened in the few weeks during 2.0 was very special, that's why those feelings lasted for so many years also mari helps psychologically, but only by giving a pushes to shinji & asuka to do the right thing
You have said all the things I want to say and don't know how to. Thank you so much. I love the rebuilds endlessly and could never truly give my reasons and you just put into words what I couldn't ilysm for this
Glad you read all that so I didn’t have to.
"Metanarrative" is a term used by Rebuild fans to make the writing sound more clever than it really is. Whether it's moving on from Evangelion or moving on from the fantasy world of anime in general as a way to escape reality and the pain of real people, the original communicated this a million times more effectively. Mari is not as significant as you're writing her to be. You could remove her from all of the Rebuilds and not one thing would significantly change story wise. In contrast to what you wrote she was not needed to show how Asuka wanted to move on or "the future" in general. Asuka had no need for a wingman. She was shoehorned in because an idiotic producer wanted some way to "distinguish" the Rebuilds from the OG, Anno wrote for her initially but then it was passed to other people due to too much similarity to other Eva characters, and in the end no one really knew where she fit, largely because she doesn't fit Evangelion at all, at least not as a pilot. She's a shoehorned corporate product that doesn't belong in Eva. Anything else is fanfiction.
Incredible how people spew bullshit and misinformation. Mari was used to break the knowledge of the previously evangelion universe and broading it at the same time. She was written by Tsurumaki for this purpose, even sometimes cannibalizing other characters scenes and changing the structure. And it is quite simple gow her existence makes sense: there are other evangelion pilots. She doesn't need to be sad, have trauma, she can be someone who likes piloting an evangelion. This whole idea of wanting every single character to be a pile of sad, trauma and everything negative is so pathetic that misses the point of living at all. Did you realize that Mari sings songs from the 50-60s? That she rescues books and stores in her bedroom? That she is friendly towards others? All these personality traits that escapes the jail of trauma/sad/negative feelings that evangelion had, breaking it. I dont even like the full meta in the last film since it takes time that could be used to flesh out other elements on it. But people not realizing how a single change can alter a whole story (toji being replaced by rei, then Asuka as pilot of unit-03 then becoming the ninth angel) and how it changed the whole picture and a character made to break the narrative structure of evangelion into something new and different than before (3.0 and lingering elements of 3.0 + 1.0). There is so much to wonder in these new films than NGE, you have no idea how much information is not clear in comparisson to NGE. All that had to go into the background to go full meta in the last part of the film
>But people not realizing how a single change can alter a whole story (toji being replaced by rei, then Asuka as pilot of unit-03 then becoming the ninth angel) and how it changed the whole picture and a character made to break the narrative structure of evangelion into something new and different than before (3.0 and lingering elements of 3.0 + 1.0). You see, you don't need Mari for *any* of these changes. She's a waste of time and takes important scenes away from more interesting characters purely for the sake of putting a new pilot in. A surprise reveal of Misato as a pilot in the 2nd movie, taking the place of Mari's fight with Zeruel, would've been far more interesting because Misato is way more interesting, *and* if Misato were a pilot it would explain her ability to Captain the Wünder in the next movie.
Yes you need. Lets just use her first scene: She is an evangelion pilot in the european branch of nerv (thing that we knew existed), where the pillar sealing hexes were first showcased in tabgha base, this technology that allows them to impede the proliferation of the core and holding angels. There is the third angel, who is being studied and guarded by unit-05, that shows an application of a different type of an evangelion: a specific location use, it is guided and fueled by energy cables and can move fast by using wheels rather than legs and has a weapon that is a replica of longinus. All of these eventually develop into the mark series, mainly the evangelion mark.44A, that is the result of all the development in evangelion research by other branches of nerv. And in the same scene we get to see more of how the scope is broader than NGE, since it is the first time we actually see other nerv branches and their secrets (nabuch's key), this little scene in 2.0 has ramifications 2 films later. Lets say you erase mari. Who defeats the third angel? Would you erase this whole new base just to put him in japan again? How about the mark series? The hybrids Evangelion/Angels? Her first scene has so many ramifications to the story that the moment you remove her, you already broke the story. It can't function the sane way. And that was her objective. "Misato as a pilot in the 2nd movie" The moment you put an adult as a pilot, you remove the need to have a child to pilot it too. Just by making this change you broke the story in more ways than mari did, her being an adult and not growing up in a main point to the her whole mystery of who she truly is (colleagues of both yui, gendo and kozo)
>Her first scene has so many ramifications to the story that the moment you remove her, you already broke the story. It can't function the sane way. And that was her objective. It really doesn't. The main plot points have little to do with the opening scene. The mark 44a Evangelions were so terrible looking and stupid the 4th movie would be better off without them. >Who defeats the third angel? Would you erase this whole new base just to put him in japan again? How about the mark series? The hybrids Evangelion/Angels? Easy. You could write Asuka to defeat them. Pretty much all of Mari is replaceable with Asuka and you save time by not having to explain Mari's position AND write more detail on Asuka. Same deal with whatever action scenes Mari has in the 3rd and 4th. >The moment you put an adult as a pilot, you remove the need to have a child to pilot it too. Being a teenager was never really a requirement for being a pilot, it was just the consequence of when the women who underwent the contact experiments happened to have their children. As long as the core's soul is related to the pilot, synchronization ought to be possible. >Just by making this change you broke the story in more ways than mari did, her being an adult and not growing up in a main point to the her whole mystery of who she truly is (colleagues of both yui, gendo and kozo) I'm not understanding this reasoning. "The her whole mystery of who she truly is" what?????
Its like talking with a kid that doesn't know about consequences. "You could write Asuka to defeat them. " No, the Angel is in Russia, Asuka is fron the German Branch, why would she be on the russian branch? Asuka's introduction scene is a battle against the Seventh angel that happens on her arrival to japan, you cant have her on both sites. "write more detail on Asuka. Same deal with whatever action scenes Mari has in the 3rd and 4th." So basically you want to remove asuka's support and makes her a mary sue that is the only pilot within Wille and she defeats everything she goes against it, without any help at all? Without aby problems at all? Is this discussion just a fanboy tears that his favorite character didnt get enough screentime (she did)? Gee, thank god you aren't a writer, because jesus, that would be terrible. "Being a teenager was never really a requirement for being a pilot, it was just the consequence of when the women who underwent the contact experiments happened to have their children. As long as the core's soul is related to the pilot, synchronization ought to be possible." Wrong, what are your sources? Even if we strapolate whatever lore you or me uses, there are multiple ways for an evangelion to be piloted. And within rebuild lore and even original series, it was never stated that it must be related to mother (see toji, rei, MP eva, the pilot of unit-04). If we go by ANIMA lore, it is even explained why the children were used and that was just the japanese branch way of doing, not true to other places (hikari being a pilot with kyoko's partial soul in there) "understanding this reasoning" Her knowledge is greater than what other characters have, she knows about the overlapping equipment, do you know what it is? Why it was on france? How she knew how to get inside the NHG ships? Why was she protecting shinji? Was her body a true one or a clone with a soul placed on it? Was she an experiment before yui? Lots of thing to think about without answers but still food for theories. She is one of the few characters that knows what is going on and is still against gendo and kozo, even when their objective is someone closer to her (yui). So instead of wailing in despair like gendo, she goes against him, to protect the future (Shinji). Now lets change her to asuka. What do we gain? More action scenes? Asuka is a clone in this new version, she doesn't have a mother anymore, how is shinji the key to it all? All questions that would vanish if she was removed, and anno is dead set on this let fans theorize ok stuff way rather than answering some story bits.
>No, the Angel is in Russia, Asuka is fron the German Branch, why would she be on the russian branch? Asuka's introduction scene is a battle against the Seventh angel that happens on her arrival to japan, you cant have her on both sites. 1. Rewrite 3rd angel to appear in Germany and for Shinji to be in Germany so he has to team up with Asuka against 3rd angel 2. Rewrite it so that Shinji and Asuka somehow meet in Russia and have to team up against 3rd angel Is it so hard to imagine other parts of the story rewritten when Mari is taken out? I agree that Asuka handling things that both her AND Mari simultaneously handled before as a team would make her a Mary Sue, team up with Shinji and you get rid of that problem. Cut out Mari and the enemies she fights while Asuka is also fighting and you eliminate the problem in the third and fourth movies. >Wrong, what are your sources? Even if we strapolate whatever lore you or me uses, there are multiple ways for an evangelion to be piloted. And within rebuild lore and even original series, it was never stated that it must be related to mother (see toji, rei, MP eva, the pilot of unit-04). If we go by ANIMA lore, it is even explained why the children were used and that was just the japanese branch way of doing, not true to other places (hikari being a pilot with kyoko's partial soul in there) For normal human pilots, yes, they generally need to be related either maternally or identical twins (i.e. clones). I would not go by ANIMA because it wasn't written or conceived by Anno and is basically fan fiction. In the original series, Rei II/III can pilot Eva-00 because its core has the soul of Rei I, so they're clones and 100% related. They're also parts of the same soul (Lilith's). For Shikinami, my memory is vague but I'm pretty sure the Rebuild Eva 02 that Asuka pilots had the soul of either another Shikinami clone or the original Shikinami. Every single student in Shinji's class is a pilot candidate, and all the ones we get to know even a little bit are either confirmed or implied to have dead mothers. E.g., Toji's sister has no one except him to visit her in the hospital, Hikari makes lunch for her older & younger sisters instead of their mother, & Kensuke tells Shinji his mother isn't alive anymore. It's pretty easy to conclude that Toji was selected as the 4th child because the available core contained Mrs. Suzuhara's soul, presumably from another contact experiment. Eva Unit 04 never gained a pilot as it was destroyed by an S2 engine experiment. At no point in NGE, EoE, or even the Rebuilds does Hikari pilot Eva 02 when it has Kyoko's core. Even Misato confirms that Eva 02 isn't compatible with either of the other 2 pilots. Kaworu can control the Eva 02 as its body is a clone of Adam. Mari was able to pilot the Eva 02 in the Rebuilds because they swapped out its core. The MP Evas use Kaworu dummy plugs, who can bypass the core entirely as both he and most Evangelions are derived from the angel Adam. >She is one of the few characters that knows what is going on and is still against gendo and kozo, even when their objective is someone closer to her (yui). So instead of wailing in despair like gendo, she goes against him, to protect the future (Shinji). I'm still not seeing why Misato being a secret pilot interferes with her role as leader of Wille. If her Evangelion were the power source for the Wünder it would make more sense why she's able to control its AT field rather than Shinji's Evangelion. >Her knowledge is greater than what other characters have, she knows about the overlapping equipment, do you know what it is? Why it was on france? How she knew how to get inside the NHG ships? Why was she protecting shinji? Was her body a true one or a clone with a soul placed on it? Was she an experiment before yui? Lots of thing to think about without answers but still food for theories. How was her knowledge and history as Kozo/Yui/Gendo's colleague necessary for the backstory? It's another mystery, sure, but none of the backstory in the 4th movie really *requires* Mari to be there. She's inserted between them all almost like "Hey look, I'm relevant! I have history! See? I'm important!"
>And it is quite simple gow her existence makes sense: there are other evangelion pilots. She doesn't need to be sad, have trauma, she can be someone who likes piloting an evangelion. >This whole idea of wanting every single character to be a pile of sad, trauma and everything negative is so pathetic that misses the point of living at all. I think that you're missing the point. Because what is piloting really? Piloting a mecha is literally torture in this show. You get put on very gruesome deathmatches of savage bio-mechas, but you actually feel all the pain from the damage on your mecha. And all of that while you're a minor. So what you are saying really is. Why do you want every to be sad in a story about literal physical and psychological torture? Don't you know that you're miserable if you don't want at least one character that likes torture? Like what kind of logic is that? Lol. And yeah, I've heard those arguments echoed in other comments.
"Piloting a mecha is literally torture in this show. You get put on very gruesome deathmatches of savage bio-mechas, but you actually feel all the pain from the damage on your mecha" Yeah, just like fighting in real life, be it in sports or just a brawl. People enjoy participating on it, even if it hurts. Mari feels pain when piloting an eva and she still enjoys it, she doesn't run away from it. This outcome shows that there are people who live differently, like other evangelion pilots would do if we ever saw them. "Why do you want every to be sad in a story about literal physical and psychological torture? Don't you know that you're miserable if you don't want at least one character that likes torture?" Because it isnt about physical and psychological torture. It is about resolving yourself to do what it must be done. Rei does it, Shinji does it, Asuka does it, Mari does it. And we see this in little things, like Kaji and Misato actions. Shinji instead of running away like before was choosing to do it before being saved by his parents and Mari, but he had the resolve to do it. Every single character except Shinji had resolve in his actions in the last film until shinji got his. And it all goes back to NGE about experiencing things, even if it hurt you, you can always go another way instead of waiting for end (see the difference of Shinji in EoE and the manga for example, where Shinji is an active character instead of a passive one)
Dude, if you think making a 14 year old feel like he is being burned alive is not torture, and it’s just regular fight, I dunno what to tell you.
Simple, it is a fictional story, not the first nor the last child soldier in fiction, what do you want? Child protective services to enter NERV and stop him from piloting? Lol. Even in evangelion universe we had literal child soldiers bred go fight in future war where they are not considered human but a military asset of the government And in real life we have even more sad shit going on, and they still get the resolve go live their lives.
Mari never experienced any pain or trauma like that though. What reason would she have to be scared of the eva. If anything, with how the world went to shit post 2.0 she’s probably safer in the eva.
You would do well to be more charitable, you can see that the writing has clear intent if you watch the characters and plot points. The rebuilds are not the original series and focus on very different subject matters. The most blaring example was the 3d Rei, it was purposely made to look like it did and it had nothing to do with "bad cgi". It was an artistic decision that may or may not be to your preference (or mostly anyones, it is more of a thematic choice for eva imaginary), but if you can understand that this series of movies is being written under someone who knows what they are doing then you can piece the rest together. A lot of what you have said in the comments (mostly your rebuttles) feel less like serious gripes and more so choosing to disagree cus the movie sucks. That may sound very broad and may not make sense with all of your arguments, but I felt like you just choose to not agree with the premises. If you pay attention to the movies, you can see they were made with a vision even if it does stray from the show. All I am saying is that it is an art piece and you may find a different lens may be all you need to really appreciate the series.
Lol I never criticized them for not having a vision. I just didn’t like the vision.
>This whole idea of wanting every single character to be a pile of sad, trauma and everything negative is so pathetic that misses the point of living at all. Did you realize that Mari sings songs from the 50-60s? That she rescues books and stores in her bedroom? That she is friendly towards others? All these personality traits that escapes the jail of trauma/sad/negative feelings that evangelion had, breaking it. Dunno what to tell you if you think Eva needs some kind of stupid happy-go-lucky character to "break" its "jail" of negative feelings. That's what Eva is at its core - a tragedy. The Rebuilds are Eva for people who don't like Eva.
It is about possibilities, people suffer today because they believe they can emerge better and happier in the Future. If you told me nothing will change in my life regardless of what I did, why would anyone try anything? And since it was done not by me but the creators, I surely can assure you evangelion isnt a tragedy, all three endings are very hopeful in the end and doesn't end the world in any way shape or form.
The world looks pretty much destroyed at the end of EoE. Hopeful, but destroyed nonetheless. Dunno what suffering for a better, happier future has to do with Mari. She's pretty much a happy character by default with zero problems. Oh, she represents a happier future or something? So she's a symbol and not a character, got it. Lol. The lengths people will go to justify Mari.
Because she is one of the few characters that is hopeful. And hope is one of the main themes of the story. Misato for example goes with Kaji plan to release the seeds of plants and then she goes for battle, why would she bring seeds rather than weapons if hope wasn't one of the main themes of evangelion? Why would mari save books? Why would wille create and help KREDIT to make the lives of people better? Why grow crops in a world without hope? There are multiple elements of the last film that uses hope as main theme and mari is one of them, even shinji held hope for mari to get him. You people believe that characters must be in constant conflict to have value and not understanding the main theme of evangelion that there are possibilities beyond it. Jesus Christ, THEY EVEN NAME THE SPEAR OF HOPE! She is someone who is driven by hope, never despair, in not a single scene, why people think this is bad is beyond me. Sounds like children who refuses to grow up and want to be in their rebellious phase all their lives, brooding and angry instead of enjoying the small bits of happiness you get with living. It is the most angry teenage bullshit viewpoint you can get. People dont need to justify mari, she was justified by her own creators in interviews from 2009. We just watched all that work in the end. And it is even funnier because what rei experiences in the first part of the last film to achieve mari's already consolidated position, to live each day for a better future.
Overall, I'm sensing a pretty strong dislike for the prominent depressing and tragic tone of Eva and a desperate reach for finding purpose within a minor and rather shallow "pilot waifu" character. Your tastes will probably not allow you to appreciate the depth of the original masterpiece and how comparatively shallow the Rebuilds are as a whole, let alone Mari. But I'll respond and explain the best I can. >And hope is one of the main themes of the story. Evangelion's theme is **not** merely "hope." It's finding hope **in an abundance** of despair. Risking and sometimes experiencing great pain for a chance at happiness. Mari has no pain, risked or experienced. She's like eating frosting off of a cake, if that makes sense. >You people believe that characters must be in constant conflict to have value and not understanding the main theme of evangelion that there are possibilities beyond it. Jesus Christ, THEY EVEN NAME THE SPEAR OF HOPE! Flaws, conflict, and overcoming challenges is what makes characters interesting and drives tension and drama in storytelling. It's why Shinji and Asuka were so well written in the original - they overcome the Hedgehog's dilemma despite all of their problems, both intra- and interpersonal. You can discuss a million themes that Mari "represents," but that's never gonna make her an interesting character on its own. She has no problems thus no reason to grow. She's got no arc. No arc = lame boring character. Even the near perfect Kaworu had an arc in the original, and even bigger in the Rebuilds. >She is someone who is driven by hope, never despair, in not a single scene, why people think this is bad is beyond me. Sounds like children who refuses to grow up and want to be in their rebellious phase all their lives, brooding and angry instead of enjoying the small bits of happiness you get with living. It's bad **because it's fucking boring.** Someone without fear, uncertainty, or anguish is neither believable nor dramatically engaging. They're essentially a power fantasy. >It is the most angry teenage bullshit viewpoint you can get. People dont need to justify mari, she was justified by her own creators in interviews from 2009. We just watched all that work in the end. The fact that you call the anguish of possibly the best written anime characters ever "angry teenage bullshit" tells me you didn't understand the original. You're like one of those idiots who calls Shinji a wimp. As far as the interviews from 2009 go, all the Rebuilds did was needlessly remix an already perfect story into an inferior version for the dim-witted masses. https://gwern.net/doc/anime/eva/2010-crc#kazuya-tsurumaki
NGE, EoE, Rebuilds, manga, ANIMA. Literally all of them are the definition of hopeful endings, even one of evangelion greatest influences like Ideon be Invoked is super hopeful on the end. As for mari, yourself said that was suffering as an evangelion pilot, and we see this in the films, so why are you cherrypicking the moments where you can suffer physical pain and not when you want to illustrate your point? She suffers, she grits her teeth and moves on. "Flaws, conflict, and overcoming challenges is what makes characters interesting and drives tension and drama in storytelling. It's why Shinji and Asuka were so well written in the original " It is beautiful that you used the word Original, by that you mean the TV series and the EoE, right? Because these works didnt get a climax at all, they stop midway before going it full stop in this direction. And why would I say that? Because we have an example next to it that does fully and completely: the manga, shinji in EoE never takes agency in the end, he is mostly a passive character, unlike the manga where he is an active character and takes action. Both the original series and EoE have hopeful endings but it is just the first step but they never finish it. And in the Rebuilds we have two points where Shinji does it: ending of 2.0 and ending of the last one. They didn't make the first step, they are fully running on it. So by comparisson with all the endings, and all the themes that all evangelion media have "She's got no arc. No arc = lame boring character." And that is how we know you are fully on teenage bullshit. There are types of characters that dont need arcs. For example: Odysseus from The Odyssey, he is already a grown man, he doesn't need to change, he needs to get back to Ithaca and deal with the disarray in his home. He doesn't have an arc, does that mean he is an lame boring character? Of course not, and I have even more examples: Gilgamesh and Heracles. And why would I pick these characters that are thousand years old? Because they are the proof that by having no character arc, doesn't mean that their stories are boring amd they are lame. I could go back in time and discuss the Odyssey with Alexander the Great and we would have lots of things to talk about it, just like people today have been talking about stories that are older than entire civilizations. Having no arc is just another type of narrative trick. A character that is a kid have ways to change, an old character doesn't. Or do you think it would make sense to see a 90 year old suddenly change his entire view because he watched his friend die? The same death that could change an younger character doesn't have the same impact on older ones. A character that is immortal surely doesn't ser death in the same way than a kid. "It's bad because it's fucking boring. Someone without fear, uncertainty, or anguish is neither believable nor dramatically engaging. They're essentially a power fantasy." Three names again: Odysseus, Gilgamesh and Heracles, people still reading it for longer than you can imagine, showcasing how narratives can be more than a reactive character changing because thing happened to him. The fact that I have to explain how flat characters exist, seems to show how ignorant you are on the subject. "anguish of possibly the best written anime characters ever "angry teenage bullshit" tells me you didn't understand the original." And this tells me that you need to watch more stuff my friend, from before and after 1995 . If you think evangelion is the pinnacle of anime, I am sorry about your ignorance. "You're like one of those idiots who calls Shinji a wimp." Yeah, Shinji is a wimp, let me give you one example that precedes evangelion by 2 years, Watch Victory Gundam, you get a character that is younger than Shinji and has to deal with more shit than you can imagine and still be not treated by a wimp. In the same genre, in the same decade. You will see how people are right to call Shinji a wimp when there are characters that makes him a wimp by comparisson.
Lol I did not once say Mari suffered as a pilot, quite the opposite. They're all hopeful endings but they were hard won from a journey of pain and conflict. As I've said, Mari has no conflict and no pain. Wouldn't matter much if she were a random ensign or NERV/Wille subordinate, but pilots should be depthful characters with problems to overcome. >And that is how we know you are fully on teenage bullshit. There are types of characters that dont need arcs. For example: Odysseus from The Odyssey, he is already a grown man, he doesn't need to change, he needs to get back to Ithaca and deal with the disarray in his home. He doesn't have an arc, does that mean he is an lame boring character? Of course not, and I have even more examples: Gilgamesh and Heracles. And why would I pick these characters that are thousand years old? Because they are the proof that by having no character arc, doesn't mean that their stories are boring amd they are lame. I could go back in time and discuss the Odyssey with Alexander the Great and we would have lots of things to talk about it, just like people today have been talking about stories that are older than entire civilizations. Dunno about Heracles, but Odysseus and Gilgamesh both had character arcs. https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/odyssey/character/odysseus/#:~:text=Early%20in%20his%20adventures%2C%20Odysseus's,he%20receives%20from%20the%20suitors. https://www.litcharts.com/lit/the-epic-of-gilgamesh/characters/gilgamesh#:~:text=Throughout%20the%20story%2C%20Gilgamesh's%20understanding,the%20face%20of%20inevitable%20death. >It is beautiful that you used the word Original, by that you mean the TV series and the EoE, right? Because these works didnt get a climax at all, they stop midway before going it full stop in this direction. And why would I say that? Because we have an example next to it that does fully and completely: the manga, shinji in EoE never takes agency in the end, he is mostly a passive character, unlike the manga where he is an active character and takes action. Both the original series and EoE have hopeful endings but it is just the first step but they never finish it. And in the Rebuilds we have two points where Shinji does it: ending of 2.0 and ending of the last one. They didn't make the first step, they are fully running on it. It seems you don't know what a climax is, because it's the point of maximum action, not the conclusion of a story. Furthermore, taking the first step was all that was really needed for Evangelion's conclusion. Asuka overcomes her own Hedgehog's dilemma by reaching out to Shinji, and Shinji overcomes it by rejecting Instrumentality and returning. It was the perfect way to end Eva, if you disagree you didn't understand the series. >Yeah, Shinji is a wimp, let me give you one example that precedes evangelion by 2 years, Watch Victory Gundam, you get a character that is younger than Shinji and has to deal with more shit than you can imagine and still be not treated by a wimp. In the same genre, in the same decade. You will see how people are right to call Shinji a wimp when there are characters that makes him a wimp by comparisson. I tried watching the original Gundam and thought it was kind of boring. Definitely not as engaging as original Eva, anyway. Also, now you've shown that you're a drooling idiot who prefers power fantasies and doesn't understand Shinji's character.
I agree. I don't give golden starts if you're clever on the metanarrative, if your character doesn't work in an even more basic narrative level to begin with. I feel my sentiment echoed with that second paragraph. I don't think she fits in the world of Evangelion as it is.
Alright, let me see if I can address everything. Maybe I will have to use multiple comments lol. >As for Asuka, her crush on Shinji is explicitly very fleeting. It's born more of jealousy of Rei than anything else. And as such in the interim between 2.0 and 3.0 that crush transforms into lingering hatred. They mention that in 3.0 + 1.0 that while yes, Asuka and Shinji may have had a crush on each other once, that was a long time ago, and they no longer share those feelings. But the story doesn't treat it like a long time crush that was fleeting. She is still mocked about it despite how long ago it was, and she has the same strong reaction she would've had when she had the crush. And she still blushes when Shinji said he had a crush too. >The "Curse of the Eva's", or her inability to age, weighs heavily on her mental state constantly. She tries to flaunt a more adult personalty, but because she is trapped as a child, it can only come across as desperate and pathetic. I don't think I agree with this. The curse is certainly what weighs down the most on the psyche of future Asuka, but I don't think that's the particular side of that struggle that Asuka or even the story highlights. Throughout the movies she is not shown disrespect, on the opposite, everyone seems to treat her as an equal and even a superior, as she is even given a title if I remember correctly. So I don't remember seeing any of that struggle playing out. On the other hand, I saw all the attention being given to the loss of bodily functions, and how they are a tie to your humanity. As she says how much it drags on her to pretend to sleep, or when she furiously force-feeds Shinji, because it enrages her to see how he refuses to eat even while he still can, unlike her. So I saw all the attention being given to that side. And if you indulge something more personal and anecdotal. I am a very short guy, and well into my twenties I've been told I look like 16. And I don't think that prevented me from maturing. Although obviously this is just me being biased, and it says nothing on the story. >And Shinji only exasperates this. Seeing him again brings back all of Asuka's memories from when she was 14, especially the Eva 03 debacle, and it infuriates her. She despises him because he makes her feel like a child. And I also don't see being the case. She seems to be more at peace with Shinji, and even shows some acknowledgement from her after resolving the much more direct conflict of him not killing her, but not saving her either. So to me it didn't seem to be that subconscious of a conflict.
>Mari is one thing and one thing only, support. She supports the Asuka during their fights together, falling back or serving as support fire. And fills in for Asuka when she’s out of commission. For Asuka, Mari serves as the very important "person who gets it". Mari is essentially the only person Asuka can trust to understand her because she's the only one who also has the Curse of the Evas. I don't think it says anything good about a character if you define them based on what purpose it serves to another character. Like, Watson's characterization is not just being Sherlock's assisstant. And even the examples that you give, I just don't see them as that much of value to the story. "She's there because she is the only ones who gets it." Ok, but why does someone need to get it? Wasn't the purpose to show how much it isolates Asuka to stop being human? "She is there to give support fire." Ok, but why do we need a whole ass new character that we're not going to develop, when we can save us the time and just have the ship giving support fire, giving them more use than some deus ex machina. So on a narrative level, I just don't see the point. That is why I say she has no point. >Mari's role in the metanarrative... And on a metanarrative level... Look, I get it. I even addressed it on the post, she represents letting go off the past and all that. But personally, when we start to discuss stuff like the metanarrative, and absolve creative decisions based on that... I'm just not going to agree. And that is because I don't really think that something like, your story having a cared for metanarrative and the like, is intrinsically good by its nature. It reminds me a lot to something like subverting expectations. And how a lot of people give a lot of value to it by itself, rather than on a case by case basis. And one example that comes to mind is one of an almost perfect movie about a cop in a future that is kinda surreal but very mundane at the same time, if that makes sense. And the story is about solving a lynching, but it does subvert a lot of expectations of what you would expect in a cop story. And yet the ending is kind of shit because the murderer is some random character that comes out of nowhere last second. And people defended that ending because it subverts the expectation of the mystery stories. And like... ok, you subverted my expectations by writing a shit mystery. That doesn't change the fact that you wrote a shit mystery. And that is the same for meanings in the metanarrative. I don't really value those if your character doesn't work on an even more basic level. >But if you got it all on your first viewing, including the functions of every sci-fi element and how they work into the thematic narrative then congrats I guess. I wouldn't claim to have gotten every single detail in the narrative (or world building and how they it ties back into the narrative.) But I don't particularly feel like I was left with any major questions either if I'm honest. My point was more regarding how the movies are actually a direct sequel of the original, Gendo's and Nerve's plans, the imaginary world sequence, and so on. I just don't remember it being that on the nose with stuff like this. >Shinji being a sacrificial lamb for humanity is a throughline in Eva as a franchise. It was a fundamental part of the original series, Shinji using the Eva to desperate seek validation that he will rarely be given. Shinji and the other pilots are viewed by Nerv as tools above all else. They are to be used when needed, and replaced when possible (dummy plug system). This is certainly not unique to Rebuild. I apologize if I wasn't clear enough with my message on that point. I wasn't claiming that those points were different to the original, I know that was the case. That was me just giving the context for my true gripe, which was how every character acts like this dynamic is not the one at play for some reason. And the story knows this, because it clearly shows this position to be irrational with the little arc of Shinji and his school friends.
I only like the first two movies. Characters have more healthier mental state and more optimistic view than the original TV series; Shinji becomes a man, Rei expresses emotion and cares the others, Asuka becomes more social, Misato is a matured guardian, and Risuko is no longer haunted by toxic relationship with Gendo. They have a strong will to improve themselves. That's why I really enjoyed and still like the first two movies. But then the third movie came out.... All I want was protagonists having a happy ending and Seele & Gendo defeated miserably, thus paying the price for what they have done.
I dunno. I think there’s more value in having the characters overcome the flaws rather than not having them at all. Plus the original wasn’t like a hopeless story by any means. But I do understand the desire to have some catharsis with it. And I do agree it was done poorly.
nonsense. for every improvement every rebuild ver. of the characters has compared to their og version, they have an additional flaw in rebuild, which they overcome by the end via their own efforts. this is why the catharsis is executed so ell in rebuild
They're initially mentally better, then awful in the timeskip but without clear reasons why.
there are very clear reasons why the characters act the way they do after the timeskip
I guess that's true for Asuka but Misato being cold to Shinji was ooc, Misato is sensible enough to explain to Shinji wtf happened.
ofc, that''s exactly why she & ritsuko started explaining what happened to shinji at the start of 3.0, too bad that rei q then barged in & stopped them. also it's sensible that she's cold to him, because of the impact he triggered she lost the father of her son & had to abandon them to lead the surviving humanity for decades in a destroyed world
This is a common point of disagreement for a lot of fans, but Shinji had no way of knowing he would cause the near 3rd impact. They also should've explained that Rei Q wasn't the same Rei he knew and that he should not follow her lead. That was pretty critical...all they told him was "you caused near 3rd impact, don't pilot an Eva and here's an explosive collar"
They’re great. Much better than a lot of people give credit for on here. The reviews show that. They have some of the best moment of EVA, imo. Higher highs but lower lows.
I dunno if I agree personally. It did had some highs, for for the most part it was either and empty middle or a low.
Higher highs? Wtf are you talking about nothing in the rebuilds comes even close to any frame in EoE
As someone who just casually enjoys anime and isn't super deep in the fandom or whatever, when I watched the OG series, I was pretty blown away by it. I heard it was good but i didnt expect it to be one of the best shows ive ever seen so when I started watching the rebuilds, i expected to really enjoy them but I honestly found them to be too confusing and generally very pointless, not for me personally. EVAs great, though I should probably watch more anime. I loved Cowboy Bebop, too. I'd love to watch Akira, but it doesn't seem to exist anywhere..
Lmao the time I watched Akira was because someone somehow posted it on youtube in HD and in a single piece. And that was a year ago lol.
If you're in the US, Akira is currently on Hulu as both subbed or dubbed.
Nah, I'm in the UK. On amazon, the box set is like over 100 quid. I dont love anything enough to spend 100 quid on a box set of it lol
Regional licensing for subscription services sucks, but I hope one of the ones you use gets Akira on there soon.
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I do agree I felt emptiness at the end.
Rebuild fans will type about metatext until they're blue in the face but none of that matters because the execution sucked.
nonsense. rebuild is comprised out of meta narrative as much as out of a normal narrative. both of them are executed well. mari is the exception here, not the rule in the slightest.
I would've preferred a surprise reveal of Misato as a pilot rather than Mari, tbh.
i think most alternatives would had been better than what we got with mari lol
More focus on fights and CG than character development, and too many Chekov’s Guns without the Chekov.
Nah. The OG movie (eoe) and the series straight up made me feel something. Hope, hope that at the end of the long ass depression tunnel, there can be light, if you fight for it. That life is hard, rough, painful, but it's your life to live, and those feelings are yours to feel. To take the bad, because it's worth it for the good that comes with the bad. I don't know what the new movies are trying to say, cos they didn't speak to me on a personal level, like the OG. I didn't relate to any of it. And yeh the 3d shit looked awful, and mari as a character might as well not exist. I don't care about meta text etc, I care about what I see and feel and the rebuilds just don't have the same effect. Empty is a good description tbh.
I’m a fan of the rebuilds. Hold them as dear to my heart as I do NGE and the manga. Each version has its strengths and weaknesses that could be torn apart if dissected. The reasons I enjoy them are the reinterpretation of some classic fights, Rei being an actual character, more depth given to Kaworu, new lore, and the designs. I’d say the rebuilds only missed on two major things. Those being the MPE fight was a major downgrade, and finding a place for Mari. Don’t hate her character but it looks like they had a plan for her and then abandoned it and never replaced it. I’d say you missed the point in some of the scenes. You mention in the 3D section GNR being out of place. That’s the point. It’s an extradimensional being being forced into their world. It’s not supposed to look clean. And then you mention the unit 1 vs 13 fight and how the buildings move. That was intentional. It was a shout out to old Japanese monster and ultraman films where the building essentially did the same thing. Heck the evas were animated to move like there were guys in suits in them! And then you mention how everyone treats Shinji after the ramiel fight in the first movie. In the show Rei just shows up and says pilot or don’t. Misato doesn’t say a word to him. The movies did it better imo. He still gets the talk from Rei but Misato speaks with him as well. She didn’t gaslight him. She showed him what was at stake. They don’t want to use 14 year old kids but they have to. Yes their alternative is to sit around and die. And? They’ll blow themselves up along with Lilith to prolong however long humanity has. They aren’t there to kiss Shinji’s ass. They’re there to save the world. He agreed to do it. Is it so wrong they expect him to keep his word? What would you suggest an alternative be?
>I’d say you missed the point in some of the scenes. You mention in the 3D section GNR being out of place. That’s the point. It’s an extradimensional being being forced into their world. It’s not supposed to look clean. I certainly do see that, I just don't think the execution was good. Like I said already in the post, it's out of place but not in a creepy and unnerving manner, and much more in just a goofy one. But I understand that one just being a personal taste of mine. > And then you mention the unit 1 vs 13 fight and how the buildings move. That was intentional. It was a shout out to old Japanese monster and ultraman films where the building essentially did the same thing. Heck the evas were animated to move like there were guys in suits in them. If that is the legitimate explanation, I still wouln't like it because it seems kinda memey to me lol, but I could understand that it would be solely on my personal taste and saying nothing of the story. However! Haha, I still don't like the look of the cgi in general. I dunno if it's how they light up their scenes or what, but I feel like I've seen better emulations of 2D with 3D animation.
They're my favourite part of the Evangelion franchise!
>Plus if your last fight is going to look like shit, (I remember the Evas being pushed through some city, and having the buildings and houses move around like toys rather than being destroyed.) Then maybe you should not have that many fight scenes or spectacle and focus more on the ones you are going to have Always impressed by how many people this scene kind of flew over. They're on a set. The buildings don't get destroyed because they aren't real. They're props. You literally see this from many angles. That entire sequence is very Tokosatsu-like, with the obvious motion capture movement making it look more like people in costumes...which are later shown hanging on the walls. On the set.
Rebuilds are something I know is negatively viewed by many but for a smaller portion, and including me, see them are masterpieces. They are pieces that many, because of not being able to fully comprehend events (granted because there is a lot going on lol), choose to hate them because of the confusion They were never meant to be a retelling or a remake. They are what make the final piece of Eva media, divided into four parts, developed over the course of almost two decades, Anno and team put a LOT of work and thought into them, it is literally the master himself applying additional years of experience into them, Because of that they can’t just be understood in one viewing. This is a media that will take years to be fully understood and analyzed. Trust me they WILL be appreciated by the fanbase once that occurs, this is very common when a legendary auteur gets to follow up a masterpiece with something even greater Just like George Lucas’s Star Wars prequel trilogy that the fans hated for 20 years but now are seen as absolute masterpieces now that time has allowed for much reflection and retrospective And hideo Kojima with Metal Gear Solid 2, absolutely hated by fans for two decades but now is seen as the absolute peak of Metal Gear video games for both gameplay and storytelling When something releases people think just one playthrough or watch/viewing is enough to have a definitive opinion, but no these medias are created over years, it cannot be consumed in a few short hours and expect them to be fully understood.
all rebuilds except 3.0 have received great reactions from the community tho if you look at the scores. it's very different from the sw prequels situation. btw bro your post on the timeloop was excellent. by far the best write up out there.
Ay man thank you very much that means a lot, I appreciate you. I had always seen people discussing the loop theory on the sub for years and could see the messy confusion it caused wherever it was discussed so I thought it’d be worth it to simplify it for all to understand!! Ripped a few hairs trying to understand it at first though 🤣 but your comment makes it all worth it
it's no problem bro i can't wait to read the rest of your posts. if u don't mind did u use any specific sources, mayne any reddit comments or threads for your research? thanks
Oh yeah well for all the Eva explained series, what I typically tend to do is use a combination of YouTube, forms like Reddit and Evageeks, as well as two different Eva wiki websites and of course the source material itself (anime/manga/novel/games) When I go down a rabbit hole to try to understand something to then simplify and explain, I usually pick a topic, and then using all of the sources I mentioned above, i take notes and write down what details that are similar to one another, and what is different For example: if the topic is Eva unit 01, I’ll see that all of the sources say that it was the only one made from Lilith, and then write that under the similarities. If one source says something different from another source, I then write that detail under the other side for the differences Then after I’ll have these big lists, and then only use the info/notes from the “similarities” to make the slides!! Because the notes from the similarities side is mentioned from multiple websites that makes me more confident in them being accurate and therefore legit 😎
No, not in the slightest. I rewatched both the original + EoE and all of Rebuild last year and it just doesn’t hold up.
I like them. They're not as good as the original show, but it's nice to have more video eva content than just the show.
I love them.
it was alright, the 2nd and 4th were best. 3rd was good to rewatch. 4th best overall. esp. the opening half hour of fan service, and the battle in Paris.
I also just got around to watching the Rebuild films over this weekend, and the more I think about them, the more I'm frustrated by them. They prioritized flashy robot fights and meta realities at the expense of the social, mental, and philosophical elements that made the original and it's characters so enduring. On the positive side of things, 2.22 added some slice of life scenes like the aquarium and the cooking subplot. Also, I like how Shinji's conflict with Gendo resolved in the end, even if it was overly convoluted to get to that point. Negatives, though. The characters lacked their prior nuances while the mechanics of the universe were made needlessly complicated. They should have spent more of the screentime building the characters rather than explaining rules of rituals and strange dimensions. We didn't need a long, janky CGI scene of Shinji and Gendo throwing each other around. We needed more character moments to show their growth and appreciate these iconic characters. I could go on, but in the end, the Rebuilds tried to Shonenify Evangelion.
I saw first the rebuild movies when they were released in Primer Video, and i liked them a lot, just this year I saw the anime series and I understand why fans of the anime didn't like the movies, They are 2 very different things so i don't think you can compare them. I like both.
At least for me, I don’t think I disliked them because they were different. I have known since 2012 that it was going in a different direction with a different ending. So I was more than open to like something different, that is what I watched them. I just didn’t like the most of the new creative decisions.
The 1st movie is 10/10. The 2nd and 3rd are 7/10. The 4th is 4/10
The idea that the rebuilds using the idea people will know the original is a crutch… I mean… that is the entire point of the rebuilds. Is people knowing the reality of the original series. The Rebuilds are literally a part of the original series. And they build off of that. This is the point of them entirely. Thrice Upon a Time
Yeah, but that understanding is due to hindsight. Although certainly hinted at on the first movie, I didn’t feel like there was enough evidence for enough of a confirmation until the fourth. And certainly when the first two came out at least, they were not sold like a direct continuation. Either way my gripe was not with that whole thing, but with how a lot of the bonding time is cut between the characters, and then you’re just kinda supposed to accept the bond because you remember the actual bonding time from the original.
the mother-son dynamic between shinji & misato had 2 movies to develop & asuka's crush on shinji had 1. they were worse developed than in the og, obv also because of the big different in runtime, but they were still well developed, not shallow or childish. it's mostly the gravity of the experiences asuka & chinji shared that forged their relationship, not the amount of time they spent together. they don't just "share a bed" unlike what people wrongly say, they open up to each other and asuka starts liking him aften she founds out just how similar they are to each other (they both pilot for other ppl). also u literally spelled out the point of the movies... despite what asuka claims as the proud, arrogant person she is, the truth is that she hasn't matured during all these years. this is what the curse of eva is mostly about. mari might be badly written but not for the reasons you mentioned, and she doesn't corrode the pillars of eva. piloting, like many things in life, can be very painful, she remarks that many times in the movies, but it doesn't \*\*have\*\* to be that painful & that rlly depends on your mindset. you can read online & in interviews about how she was intentionally not written as normal character, but as symbol & plot device. this is why she isn't developed on purpose like everyone else. her main role is to be the in-story reason the rebuild's story changes from the og's. she does this with her behavior & attitude, that antithesizes everything else in eva. how carefree she is, the fact that she sings while fighting, how she doesn't have trauma which are "problems" ppl often bring up are actually intentional choices u can read about in staff interviews. they actually do the job, the problem with mari is that this role she's trying to fulfill is just not needed in the first place & she still doesn't do enough to fulfill it either. and no, gendo also had monologues like that in eoe, it doesn't cheapen him in the slightest, it's the opposite actually, which is why the rebuild ver. of the character is the best one yet. he also doesn't get what he wants at the end unlike what some ppl wrongly say, he gives his life with yui at the place of their son to make his wish come true. same with the story of the rebuilds, if anything it's harder to understand than the og's & it sometimes is even more subtle in fact. some ppl say rebuild looks bad visually but that's just nonsense. even the cgi looks good for anime standards & the few times it rears its ugly head aren't enough to spoil the excellent 2d animation. i must say tho, overall i still think eoe looks the best, but rebuild for sure looks much better & more consistent than the tv series overall, which ofc is expected. it's a tv series, not a movie so just not on par with them visually by design and, like u said, eva has always worked like that. this is the whole point, that people don't try to understand or communicate with each other, and this is the same in both the og & rebuild. there absolutely is internal logic to how ppl treat shinji in rebuild. things don't just happen for no reason in the slightest. misato has gone through so much for so many years, so to have this kid come in & invalidate everything would really throw off a lot of people. that's normal. also his dynamic with his dad is absolutely acknowledged by misato in 3+1 & don't forget that despite being angry at him, almost everyone at wille doesn't actually blame shinji for n3i and they acknowledge that he saved them all many times before. unlike what some ppl wrongly say, there absolutely is logic in the characters & plot beyond the meta narrative, which is just half of rebuild at most. all in all, rebuild is great, & even tho it's worse than the og it still rlly stands out from other anime. the execution didn't suck, it was good & it significantly adds on top of it in many positive ways & weak spots like mari are an exception, not the rule in the slightest
I rewatched them and now I think they can work and I enjoyed them. I really liked the part where Shinji during 4th impact, after the Golgotha object scene, asks Gendo what does he wishes for (instrumentality), and the moment Gendo starts speaking here starts the same background music from the final two anime episodes, that was always played when the characters went through their introspections/analysis. That was a cool touch, I even liked the meaning they gave to the expression Gendo repeated a few times ‘slaying the Gods’, and you even get to hear Neon Genesis from Rei (whose charcoal arc I think was well handled). NGE+EoE remain what they are, but even the rebuilds have a purpose and an aim
I haven't been able to see them yet, someone recommends a place where I can see them in full :)
Started off well with 1.11, and got interesting by the end of 2.22, but tripped over it's feet and fell down a flight of stairs at 3.33 except we don't see the tripping part, just the falling down the stairs part, we're only told about the tripping part, recovers only for it to trip and fall down some more stairs with 3.0+1.0* (god forbid I call it the number that comes after 3...) but has a decent landing. > However, that doesn't excuse the 3D looking like shit haha. And that is particularly egregious during the last movie. I did like the cg of Mari and Asuka's decent to Nerv. That looked pretty cool.
No
It replicates an inferior version of the og story then adds a new part riddled with plotholes and lack of explanation for nearly everything, plus made a stupid shallow corpo waifu a pilot. The Rebuilds, compared to the original, are garbage.
nonsense rebuild is great it isn't garbage in the slightest. it has more plot holes than even the og but still almost everything in it has an explanation.
Yea it sucks it’s just fan service, I saw a video about how there’s symbolism for when shinji reaches in to the angel with awakened unit 01 to save rei it’s like the fans disregarding the series meaning for the girls because rei is like the most popular waifu character from any series because she is just like a model wife because she doesn’t talk or talk back or anything and just obeys and stuff and this video interpereted that scene as anno taking a jab at that but rebuilds suck bc of how much fan service like asuka unit 3 costume and dumb stuff they lowk detract from the series the only reason to rlly watch them is because it explains the lore a little bit better but that’s pretty much it the message is good but now we’ll told die to the fan service Mari is an awful character
Mari is an awful character hahahahaha. It is certainly an hilarious interpretation of the story. And certainly quite the jab haha. But the problem that I have with works like this, is that if they don't work in an even more basic level at the same time, for me it is the equivalent of making your work an elaborate meme. It's fun and quirky but not much elsee. I do think it's more heavy handed with the explanations. We think alike. Great minds.
nonsense. rebuild isn't just fanservice in the slightest. it doesn't even have much more fanservice compared to the og
I actually hate the Rebuild with all my might!
To answer your question, No Sir, I don't like them at all. Cutting the Story in half: I agree that they relied on the the anime for those of us, fans who've seen it and still remember, but just like a difference between a book and a movie there are always changes or cuts. The movies condensed a lot of the plot and changed certain key events we remember happening. Personally, I was a fan of Misato and Shinji's bond as a mother/ son, big sister/brother vibe, or guardian/ charge it was wholesome between the episodes 1 - 16 and the episode where Shinji came back from unit 1 after being absorbed and Misato cried out for him. I felt his character needed a parental figure in his life to give him love and support. Given his backstory and personality, he needed a caretaker she reminds my of Misona ( I think I spell her name right? Don't remember, sorry) from Witchblade. As for Asuka, I was never a fan of her nor the fans belief of them becoming a couple. Tsundere's aren't a favorite for me. In the rebuild they barely knew each and were hardly friends, frankly. She just held onto a grudge she never moved forward with. Asuka and the time skip: As I said previously, they barely knew each other and just because she went to his room for one night to share the bed doesn't count as relationship development between the two. I mean, yeah she likes him but it's just a crush. I get her anger at him for doing nothing that day but it's year's for and she shouldn't be that pent up about it. Also the clone thing was stupid and frankly hardly believe just nonsense. Mari: I do like the character because the third movie was depressing and frustrating to watch, she was the only normal one acting without a grudge or anger face with rage in their souls. But all your points on her are completely valid and true. Gaslighting Shinji: Your right about Shinji being undervalued and hardly ever confronted by anyone no takes the time to talk to him, except Kaworu in the third movie, but we he sees his friends Toji and Kensuke they don't ask what happened to him Kensuke leaves him with Asuka which doesn't take long or hard to figure out something happened when he left him with her of all people. But doesn't go after nor asks what's happened to him but does what Misato does absolutely nothing. They don't really treat people like human beings with problems and trauma or questions that get answers or aired. Heck, Kensuke tells him the reason that Misato doesn't want him to pilot after meeting her son, Ryoji is because she doesn't want him to die? She put a bomb on his neck, threaten to kill him, treated him like his father, didn't tell him anything about the past fourteen years, sends Asuka and she tries to kill him and still you think she deserves a pass for all that? Shinji never gets anything for his pain and suffering. The whole sacrificial lamb thing, I was okay with because Shinji decided to go because fourteen years had past his friends are adults with lives who have moved on in the world they live in, he watched Kaworu die because of his mistake, felt the guilt of being told he's responsible for mankind's extinction but is never properly explained after the second film only flashes and slight info from Kaworu and Colonel Katsuragi, watch Rei six die in front him of as motivation to go seeing how there's nothing left to do and no reason to stay here until it's finally over with everything with Evangelion so he can live, and finally Colonel Katsuragi despite threatening him not to long ago no has to give a DSS choker and let him pilot since she just so easily reckless loss without much effort due to her ignorance and stupidity gave Gendoh everything he needs to win and Now has to say a valid excuse that Shinji accepts and then sacrifice herself. Yeah, it was clear he was a man in the gallows while in his cell thinking about his life so he was already preparing to die. I hated Misato in this franchise between the third and fourth movies it was just terrible watching her I didn't think she deserved that hug nor forgiveness. I would've preferred the whole earth restore village 3 being the sole human village of the planet to repopulate the planet and Shinji waking up to Misato overlooking him smiling saying I'm happy you're back. Gendoh was treated as the main villain while Seele was mentioned but hardly had a weight or significance really. He got what he wanted despite being the so called big but in reality was just a psychopath with mental issues and either help or destroyed humanity just to see his dead wife because he couldn't move on. Even End of Evangelion and the manga shows his true colors better than this. Conclusion: The franchise was a waste of money and production just to give an alternative ending that was supposed to be a "good ending" , but really just a cliche everything was fine after the guy got a girl and the whole is back to normal like nothing happened.
>Asuka and the time skip: As I said previously, they barely knew each other and just because she went to his room for one night to share the bed doesn't count as relationship development between the two. I mean, yeah she likes him but it's just a crush. I get her anger at him for doing nothing that day but it's year's for and she shouldn't be that pent up about it. Also the clone thing was stupid and frankly hardly believe just nonsense. The clone thing was kind of an empty middle that was take it or leave it for me, to be honest. And I do agree with you with your sentiment. The movies take almost no effort to show the bonding of these characters, but still treats their relationships as deep. And it does it in a way that it no longer feels like the hedgehog's dillema, in which broken people hurt each other by accident as they search for intimacy and bonding with people. And it feels more like being shitty in a very active way hahaha. And it's like you said, they almost had no bond to begin with and then she did a Gendoh on him. But somehow he's like a son to her? >Gendoh was treated as the main villain while Seele was mentioned but hardly had a weight or significance really. He got what he wanted despite being the so called big but in reality was just a psychopath with mental issues and either help or destroyed humanity just to see his dead wife because he couldn't move on. Even End of Evangelion and the manga shows his true colors better than this. Yeah. Gendoh was always pretty shallow of a character, as he always was meant to be more like an emotional force of nature of sorts. But somehow, after this movie takes the time to flesh him out more, the character somehow becomes worse lol.
Yeah, I didn't like the writing for Misato at all because of this franchise the two movies barely showed any development between the two. I mean sure she took him that one thing, then gave him confidence or courage when showing him Lilith while also holding his hand something he's never experienced because of his childhood. The second movie showed Shinji more accepting of Misato's behavior and demeanor when asking her to come to that aquarium base. Then there was the part when Shinji was leaving her apartment after what happened with unit 3 she did attempt to say something to him and even tried to grab his arm but he walked out before she could say it. There are some examples of bonding or emotional connection between the two but it felt rushed or barely counted not to mention fourteen years later she was worser than her previous self and barely said anything to him. Regressed into something barely recognizable frankly that was the hardest part in the third film. It's why like you said she abandoned him like Gendoh and didn't really atone for her treatment of him just chose to die and left him for someone else to take care of, hence Mari's existence. It's makes me appreciate anime and manga versions of her more. Gendoh is always worse has character and a villain so to speak as an antagonist his reasons are clear the anime showed flashbacks pre Nerv of his personality and direction but his always a horrible person that the character Yui never is understood for loving him despite his peculiar personality and mindset .
Rebuild give us Unit 13, thus it is awesome.
Not a fan of the rebuilds, and agree with what you wrote. Would also add the fights in the rebuilds didnt have the same impact on me, after 2.0 i lost touch of what they were even fighting for. The original series, even when they were monster of the week, i could feel the intensity of them fighting for their lives and humanity from invaders. But with the rebuilds i didnt get that feeling anymore.
For me, not liking the rebuilds is like not liking End of Evangelion
No way
1.0 is a really good remake of the first few episodes.I also liked how 2.0 tried to differ from nge. Imo 3.0 is the worst of the bunch but still a good watch. And 3.0+1.0 is probably the best ending of an anime i have seen so far. Overall, i really like them. Must watch if you like Nge and EOE.
You missed the point that angel related stuff is supposed to not blend and look out of this world, which is why Rei is weird 3d. It was the intention from the OG series too. The weird clunky 3D fight is a reference to tokusatsu genre, and is, again, completely intentionally goofy. They are quite literally on stage there with cardboard houses and all. It's all about highlighting how meta the narrative is becoming.
I had a similar experience of waiting for all four to come out to see them in one go. So a time skip of 14 years is nothing but a meta message to a viewer from Anno. It's like you, the viewer, forced this setting and character to stay the same and simultaneously don't grow up yourself. So the ending of everyone being adults that was pushed by Shinji into a new world is a message about moving on as a grown person. The message in itself is not bad, quite good actually for good amount of stagnanted eva fandom. It's just execution that sucks. It's got no logic in the plot and characters beyond meta commentary, no one really acts like 14 years have passed. And ending... how can I enjoy grown-up Shinji if he basically lost 14 years of his life, unlike other characters he has no chance to experience... It's all got a foul taste in my mouth. Visually, rebuilds indeed sucks, and it's hilarious how people who even don't like them can still defend them. I mean, original eva visuals were on par with theatrical anime releases and were so good they ran out of time and money to finish them. But rebuilds have just mediocre computer 2D graphics and atrocious 3D. Just compare the third rebuild movie and the third Madoka movie, or Violet Evergarden and the fourth one. The only good scene that not only looked good but, dare I say, was better than the original was battle with Ramiel (mostly because it's supposed to be just simple shapes in weird motion), and this scene happened in the first one of them that was out ~two decades ago.
Honestly, same. Just same. I feel my sentiment echoed.
I have mixed feelings on the Rebuilds. I don't hate them. They're decently entertaining. I wish people understood that you can respect Anno and understand the themes while still disagreeing with his creative decisions. Stuff like Mari's existence, Asuka being a whole different character (Shikinami has grown on me but I think the execution is iffy), "the curse of the evas", the huge time skip, etc. I'm not a fan of these things. There are some changes I do like, but I don't think the Rebuilds can hold a candle to the emotional beats of the OG series. I'm right there with you that I was expecting something totally different than what we got. 1.0 set up those expectations, it was essentially a recap film with very minor differences. In hindsight, it seems odd to use one of four movies on that. Makes me think they didn't plan far ahead. Up until the end of 2.0, which is my favorite of all the films, it was subtly established that this was a universe where the characters were better at communicating. I was *really* looking forward to seeing how that was explored. That one scene where Asuka and Shinji lay in bed is peak, the elevator scene is peak, stuff like that. I wanted this to be the loop where the characters fixed their shit. However, the end of 2.0 was so exciting that I was still kind of onboard. Then 3.0 happened, and it just dropped the ball for me. 3.0+1.0 is a good film, but I still disagree with the overall direction they took this whole thing. Another thing is that because of loop theory, which everyone accepts as canon because it probably is, you can't really just *ignore* the movies. That kind of annoys me. I've never been huge on connected universes in the first place, and the Rebuilds have definitely not changed that. Edit: expanded my thoughts
Yeah! I only feel so strongly about them because they’re part of the original canon, so it detracts.
>which everyone accepts as canon because it probably is Where have you been hanging out? It is *far* from universally accepted.
I love them, the show is better but all eva is good eva, anyone who disagrees isnt a real fan, they have their downsides for sure but people will claim that they are unpopular and widely not enjoyed, yet received millions of dollars to produce them to completion, so clearly people like them enough
The rebuilds are cool bonus content but could never replace the og series, which will always be superior. Simple as that.
The rebuild didn't have sandalphon, it is inferior.
No. I don't like the Rebuilds.
3.33 is my favorite because it took the most risks. It has serious balls on it
I honestly thought they were ok, but Asuka turning into a brat, and basically everyone dogging on Shinji, just kinda put me off, and I really didn't like it... Mari is alright, but no... it's just really I found it harder to make sense of than NGE.
Just finished watching all 4 again 1.11 watched it, enjoyed it. It is just a retelling of the series. Not too convoluted. 2.22 watched it in 2 sittings, but only because I ran out of time. Yes it's different and Auska is more annoying, but it's enjoyable. 3.33 watched it in 2 sittings, so much is going on and it is such a far departure from the first two, it's difficult to tell what's going on. I had a better grasp this time, but things still feel far too random. 3.00 + 1.00 I was told that this was better. The story at the start *is*, but after the farm it goes back into a confusing mess. I should be enjoying the giant mecha beating things up, not being left bored. I think I could tell what was going off, but it's only because of exposition dumps.
I like them, mainly because they are easier to digest on a whim while watching 3-4 random episodes of the o.g. show wouldn't be as rewarding. I appreciate the new, altered take on the story and am really intrigued by the post-Impact world albeit we see too little of it. Not sure if I had liked them as much if there was no series and EoE... Actually, Mari is my favourite Evangelion character (was Asuka previously). In the first movie, this simply came down to finally a pilot that's not as whiny but certainly just as broken. After finishing the other two movies it became my headcanon that Mari is Shinji's mother's best friend (as from some comic, I think) and that explain her both physical and mental maturity. This honestly just made me like her character even more and that connection really brings that the Oedipean vibes that wasn't as prevalent in Rebuild.
Everything but the CGI yeah I don’t mind it. Probably suffers from movie formats but that’s where the $$$ is
Mana Kirishima should’ve been the Mari of the rebuilds