u/PsychologicalEgsl

Hey everyone

I decided to write a short post and find out what you think about this scene. (If someone doesn’t understand-this is the scene from Evangelion Rebuild 3.0+1.0 where Rei Q puts on a school uniform.)

I think it’s a pretty good scene, and I call it fanservice because it’s nostalgia. Fanservice is not only about vulgar moments-nostalgia is also a form of fanservice.

We, as viewers, hadn’t seen Ayanami Rei in her school uniform since Rebuild 2.0 (2009). When I first watched this scene, at first I didn’t fully realize it, and then it hit me: the final film came out in 2021, while 2.0 was released in 2009. That’s a 12-year difference. Time flies so fast, and seeing Rei in her school uniform again felt unexpectedly nice.

Ayanami Rei in a school uniform is an iconic look. Of course, you can do without it, but with it somehow it’s better. Although these are more my personal feelings about the scene.

I myself didn’t experience the Rebuilds as they were coming out. I watched them only after all the films had already been released. Before that I had only heard about them. I think for people who went through this long journey from Rebuild 1.0 all the way to the final film, it must have felt especially unusual. Life changed a lot during that time.

Overall, this scene is a pleasant reference, and it turned out well.

What do you think about this scene? Maybe you have different interpretations or your own impressions? Share your opinions and leave comments-I’ll be interested to read them.

Thank you for reading this post

Hey everyone

I decided to share my thoughts (and maybe quite a lot of them) about Asuka from the Rebuild films and hear your opinions. Spoilers ahead!!!

I’ll say right away: I’m not sure it was necessary to change Asuka’s biography and origin for the third time. Let me remind you, in the original she is Asuka Langley Soryu, an ordinary human. In the manga (honestly, I haven’t read it) Asuka is, as far as I know, a specially engineered child through donation and has no father. And in the Rebuild she is a clone.

The fact that Asuka in the Rebuild is a clone didn’t really shock me and, to be honest, didn’t make her better. Instead, it raised a question for me: whose clone is she?

My Assumptions

I think that in the Rebuild universe Asuka is a clone of a character who is the adult version of Asuka. Most likely, this is Kyouko Zeppelin Soryu — an adult female scientist. Or Asuka is a codename, and the donor had a different name, and Nerv gave her the name Asuka. Since this is not confirmed, we can assume different things.

Design

Asuka Shikinami’s design is the same as the original Asuka’s, but after the events of 2.0 she got an eyepatch. And here I have a question: why is it needed?

From the lore perspective, it was explained (if I’m right, it’s a limiter for the Angel capsule in her eye, and they showed us this in 3.0+1.0). But I think the eyepatch was kept primarily for the design.

In the preview for Evangelion Rebuild Q we also see Asuka with an eyepatch (look at the photo 1). I think the idea with the Angel was added later.

Of course, the eyepatch gives Asuka a slightly different vibe. I would describe it like this: Asuka is a veteran who lost an eye and went through a lot. It’s like Nick Fury from Marvel - it looks cool.

But if you think about it, it also looks good for figures. I still don’t understand if she can see without the eyepatch. If yes, then the eyepatch is a limiter and just for the vibe. If you look at Asuka without the eyepatch, her eye becomes blue (photo 2), resulting in heterochromia. But I think that for figure design, an eyepatch looks cooler than Asuka with two eyes of different colors.

To be honest, I feel a bit lacking in drama. A person lost an eye, and I would have liked to see a first-person scene from Asuka’s point of view. Such a scene would have shown how one-eyed Asuka sees the world and would have made the viewer understand that the eyepatch is not just design, but something Asuka now lives with. But, as I said, there was no such scene.

I’m not against Asuka Shikinami’s design, but it wasn’t fully developed. Perhaps that first-person scene could have been beautiful, dramatic, and psychological, but the Rebuild doesn’t go into drama the way the original did.

Relationship with Shinji

Another thing that feels strange to me is that Asuka loves Shinji. If in the original we had time to watch their relationship develop, then in the Rebuild Asuka appears in the second film, and she has, in my opinion, only one normal short conversation with Shinji. It’s the scene where she comes to Shinji, lies next to him, allows him to call her by name, and they discuss why they pilot Evas. It was short but too little.

In general, it seems to me that in the film 3.0+1.0 Asuka could have calmly talked to Shinji in the house in the village, while Shinji was silent at the time. But this is just my fantasies and nitpicking.

I’ll repeat myself: the runtime doesn’t give the Rebuild much time for conversations and drama. There’s more action there.

Conclusion

Asuka Shikinami is not a bad character. In potential she could have been on the level of the original, but the Rebuild failed to do that.

Thank you for reading this post. Share your thoughts, your opinion on my assumptions, and your ideas. I’ll be glad to read them.

Hey everyone

Recently I rewatched the first two Rebuild films and decided to discuss them a bit, comparing them to the original. Spoilers ahead!!!

General Impression

I think the Rebuilds are a rather strange thing. In anime or games, something like this is usually called a remake or remaster, but Rebuild is kind of both at the same time.

The first two films do a good job of retelling the events of the original (especially the first one and partially the second), but they do it very quickly. When watching, you get the feeling: it’s kind of like the original, but not quite. It seems good, but most likely not.

Another thing is that the Rebuilds have less runtime than the original and a different format. The story of Evangelion was convenient for a TV series, but for a feature-length film it had to be reworked.

Examples of Changes

For example, the first battle scene between Shinji and the Angel. If you look at it, it looks good and similar to the original, but there are differences. In the series format it was done like this: at the end of episode 1 we see that Shinji is ready and already in Unit-01, then he falls at the beginning of the second episode, there’s a montage and a hospital scene, and only toward the end of the episode do they show exactly how Unit-01 defeated the Angel. In the Rebuild everything flows more smoothly and we don’t have that intrigue. Although I think it looks worse, for a feature-length film it would have been difficult to do it differently.

Characters

The next thing I wanted to talk about is the characters, specifically Toji and Kensuke. In the original their introduction is done better. We as viewers are shown a little about them, we’re told why Toji is angry at the Eva pilot, and only then, when the whole class finds out that Shinji is the pilot, do we see Toji punch Shinji in the face. In the Rebuild there are no such scenes in the classroom. On one hand these are small things, but on the other hand we as viewers understand both Kensuke and Toji better.

As I mentioned, this is all due to the format and runtime. In general, the original series had many scenes that are missing in the Rebuild. For example, the conversation between Kensuke and Shinji by the campfire, or the moment when Ritsuko came to Misato’s for dinner. Without these scenes the Rebuild doesn’t lose much in terms of plot, but it still becomes weaker.

Conclusion on the First Two Rebuilds

If we talk about Evangelion Rebuild, one of the problems is that it doesn’t quite work as a standalone work, because without the original some things in the Rebuild aren’t so clear.

The events of Evangelion Rebuild 1.0 are a slightly different adaptation of episodes 1-6 of the original. Watching it, you can say it’s a remake of the original, but at an accelerated pace.

My opinion is that initially the Rebuilds were supposed to be a remaster, and judging by the first two, that’s what they were. But starting with the third film everything went differently.

From the preview for Rebuild 2.0 we see a scene similar to one from episode 16 of the original (look at the photo 1 and photo 2), but in the second film itself it’s not there. Unfortunately, we most likely won’t find out the reason for the changes.

Rebuild 2.0 starts with a small but well-made action scene introducing the new character Mari Illustrious Makinami. The scene is good, a new Angel was even created specifically for her, and this slightly expands the lore. Mari also has another good action scene that expands the lore and for the first time shows the Berserk mode for Unit-02. Mari is well introduced in this film, and the action with her is done well.

But if the Rebuild had followed the remake path, next we would probably have had the somewhat filler episode 7 about Jet Alone. Knowing that the Rebuild lacks runtime, they cut it. Although in my opinion they could have inserted a short radio dialogue about them making a robot that isn’t an Eva, but it was cancelled, and so we fans could have understood that it was about Jet Alone.

In the second Rebuild they introduced Asuka, but although it’s spectacular, it’s quick. In the original we had a whole episode 8 with the sea Angel, episode 9 was skipped although in my opinion it was important because it showed the joint work of Asuka and Shinji and was also fun. Episodes 10 and 11 were also skipped.

The next episode shown in Rebuild 2.0 was the battle with the Angel from episode 12, slightly modified. It wasn’t bad, but something was still missing. The events of episodes 13 and 14 were also not shown.

From episode 15 they took the moment when Shinji and Gendo Ikari were at Yui’s grave. In the series this is done better, while in the Rebuild it looks a bit abstract. Another thing they didn’t show us is Shinji’s ability to play the cello. This in the original shows Shinji’s ability to play an instrument. And in Rebuild 3.0 we have a scene of Shinji and Kaworu playing the piano together, and knowing that Shinji can play the cello, we can understand that Shinji has an ability for playing musical instruments. It’s a small detail, but I think it’s useful.

And as I already wrote, judging by the preview, we could have been shown events from episode 16, but they weren’t there.

The events of episode 17 prepared us for episode 18 and the drama of the incident with Unit-03 and Toji, but since in the Rebuild Unit-03 has a different pilot, the events changed.

And so the events of episode 19 are the finale of Rebuild 2.0. Through Mari’s intervention we got a new battle, and the events went differently.

Final Thoughts

In the end, Rebuild 2.0 is a mix from the original - more precisely, moments from episode 15, the events of episode 12, and the events of episodes 18 and 19 + new scenes. There were a lot of new things in Rebuild 2.0, from what can be said - this is the excursion on the ship, the storyline of Rei cooking dinner for everyone, and of course Mari.

Watching Rebuild 2.0, I saw something similar to the original, but with a different execution and events, and it was no longer the same as in Rebuild 1.0.

The first two Rebuilds had a similar structure: if 1.0 was a quick remake, then 2.0 already had changes. Unfortunately, as we know, starting with Rebuild 3.0 everything became completely different, and we most likely won’t see the original version of Rebuild 3.0. From the preview for Evangelion Q we didn’t see anything in the film itself, although the preview itself was interesting. I don’t know why, but I liked these two shots. Here we see some kind of room, and for some reason I think it could have been a new version of Instrumentality, and it could have been something similar to the events of episodes 25 and 26 of the original.

I’ll say this: Evangelion Rebuild is a strange project, but it’s not bad. It’s controversial, but it still has its own charm.

Thank you for reading this post. I’ll be glad to read your opinions and thoughts.

Hey everyone

I often think about different moments and characters in Evangelion, and today I want to talk about Mari Illustrious Makinami. Honestly, I don’t really like her. What I don’t like is how much her potential was wasted.(I like Mari as a character)

They say there are no bad characters, only bad writers. I won’t say the Rebuild script is terrible, but Mari feels somewhat unnecessary in it. The story could have worked fine without her. At the same time, Mari is a very important character for the overall lore of Evangelion.

Design

I’ll say right away that I’m not a professional in this, but I’ll share my opinion.

Mari has a design that is both simple and unusual. Glasses are a simple element that can show she’s smart, but they also carry symbolism, just like her hairstyle.

Mari’s glasses and hairstyle refer us to the Evangelion manga. I don’t remember exactly if it’s canon for the Rebuild, but even if it’s not, it gives us some basis for understanding the character. In the beginning of the manga, Mari walks around without glasses and with loose hair, but at the end Yui Ikari gives her the signature hairstyle and allows her to keep the glasses. So Mari wears them as a tribute to Yui’s memory.

The pilot suit is simply pink, matching the color of her Eva. It’s just unusual, and that’s it.

Character

From what we see, Mari can be called the most mentally healthy Eva pilot. But that’s only what they show us. Now I’ll share my theory about her.

As we know, Mari is active, straightforward, loves giving nicknames, a bit playful, and clearly enjoys piloting the Eva. But if you think about it — how often do we see her not in a cheerful state? What if her joy is just an image she puts on?

People cope with stress in different ways: some drink alcohol, some smoke, some are constantly cheerful. In psychology, when a person is always happy to avoid going crazy, it’s sometimes called smiling depression. We know that Misato seems like a fun woman who loves to drink, but we also know she has trauma. So the question is: what trauma does Mari have?

My thought is this: her trauma is that all her loved ones age, change, and die, while she herself cannot change physically. Mari is stuck in the body of a 15- or 16-year-old teenager. To not completely lose her mind, Mari keeps being cheerful because there’s nothing else left for her. Yui Ikari was her best friend (and possibly a loved one), but she’s gone. Gendo went crazy. Fuyutsuki helps Gendo and is also losing it. All of Mari’s acquaintances have changed a lot, but she herself hasn’t.

Mari is a victim of Eva’s curse — someone who is forever young, someone who has stopped changing. That’s what I think her drama is.

Lore

We know very little about Mari’s lore from the manga and Rebuild. We can say that she is a young genius who at the age of 16 was already working with Yui Ikari, Gendo, and Fuyutsuki. She is one of the people who was at the very beginning of the Evangelion project. This means she is a very useful person and most likely knows almost everything about the Evas.

A genius who started working with Yui at 16 years old must understand almost everything about Evangelion and even more. Mari’s knowledge may even exceed Ritsuko’s. If Mari had been in the original series, she could have told our heroes a lot of what she knows. But this is just fantasy and speculation.

From her lore we don’t know where she was from the time of Yui Ikari’s death until her appearance in Rebuild 2.0. We can only assume that she worked for Nerv Europe and various European countries or organizations. She operates outside of Gendo’s territory, which makes her a dangerous person for him. Also, don’t forget that Mari is British, so she definitely worked a lot in Europe and may have been hiding from Gendo while staying close. It’s even possible that Kaji knows her, since he travels around the world and doesn’t stay in one place.

I notice that we have almost no joint scenes between Gendo and Mari. This may mean that theories about them avoiding each other could be true, or maybe Mari is simply offended at Gendo. We don’t know for sure.

In general, Mari is a scientist character. She knows a lot and could potentially help everyone a lot if she wanted to or if the authors had thought of it. But what did the Rebuild authors do? They didn’t use her to the fullest. Of course, I’m not giving direct examples, but the authors made her mostly for fanservice and to make the Rebuild different from the original. If they had put any other person in a different Eva, it could have changed Evangelion too - whether Hikari or Kensuke - but we got Mari.

Another problem is that Mari has very little screen time. She interacts little with others. For example, we don’t know how she became friends with Asuka, what her relationship with Ritsuko is (they are both scientists), or how she feels about Misato. In the Rebuild, Mari is a functional character, a fanservice character, Asuka’s partner, about whom we don’t know much directly. At the same time, Mari helps Shinji, Shinji talks to her calmly, waits for her, and trusts her. In the end, it is Mari and Shinji who save everyone

I won’t say what I would have done with Mari. I just shared a little about her. Mari is perhaps the best new character from the Evangelion Rebuild, because she is so mysterious and incomprehensible. There is interest in her — who she is. But this charm is not a big plus, because the authors simply didn’t develop her as deeply as the original characters. Now everyone can think whatever they want about her.

Among the other new characters from WILLE, Mari is still more interesting, although I don’t want to offend fans of the others — everyone has different tastes and opinions.

You can talk about Mari for a long time, asking questions: who is she? Is she a human or a clone? But one thing can be said for sure — she had great potential, but the creators couldn’t realize it.

Thank you for reading. I’ll be glad to read your opinions, answers, and thoughts.