u/SeeleBestAgent

This is perhaps one of the rarest ships that exists in the Eva fandom. I found it really cute and if you think about it, it makes sense how she ended up dating a young man in the Rebuilds, as Hideaki Anno said in the 30th anniversary event.

You see, if you play as Maya, you can follow her scenario and in it we can know more about her as a character, in a nutshell, she is a self-loathing, depressed girl who is desperate for affection and that also drowns her despair with either work or food (which is very implied she suffers bulimia...)

Maya is broken.

This doesn't change unless we follow Maya's scenario in the game, where we start to interact more with Aoba. He starts to tell her to smile more and stuff on how people change when they fall in love, he also gives her his number in case she wants to call him anytime.

I'm not going to describe the entire scenario but basically as she interacts more with him, she starts to fall in love with Aoba and finds a side of herself that she never knew, she stops having the urge to eat and then puking her food, and basically accepts herself.

Then she talks with Ritsuko and explains to her why she was so obsessive with her job, she wanted to be praised and loved as a person and be recognized by that, that's why she chased after her so much, she was so desperate that she created this toxic dynamic with her sempai in a hopeless attempt for getting affection. But she recognizes she wasn't praised by being herself but by her work alone, and simply tells her she no longer needs that.

She'll keep working for her but with a normal boss/employee dynamic, which Ritsuko totally accepts.

In the end she goes on a date with him to the beach, she confesses her feelings while they are in his car, the dumbass didn't listen to it, but it's not that much of a problem to her anyway. Though he tells her about how he noticed her change, and that she's more beautiful and cute.

They didn't say more words. They cheered and laughed as they crossed a tunnel to the beach, she started to reflect on her feelings and the new possibilities that could come. And it is represented by the light at the end of the tunnel and the smell of the ocean.

So, what do you think? I was sincerely surprised at how much depth the developers of this game gave to Maya, and how beautiful the story is in general.

Now I can see how Maya might have fallen in love with a man, lol.

(Also, here are links to the videos with Maya's scenario on YouTube. Sadly one of the videos doesn't have generated English subtitles, so I recommend you take screenshots and translate them to know what they are talking about.)

https://youtu.be/HwqpFmMu0WY?si=OwjZ2rUM1E4jv2Dd

https://youtu.be/u7oi2gxnCzY?si=qmQcXIrHO--Wb8dL

Sometimes, since I watched the 30+ anniversary special I was wondering why Hideaki reused this image in particular despite being non-canon, and I thought of a possible answer.

After taking a close inspection, I noticed that Asuka doesn't wear a necklace like Rei's, which is a remnant of her white plugsuit (image no. 3) according to Shuichi Iseki himself, the animation director of the Rebuild movies and the author of this Kaworei image.

By the context in which the image appears, Shinji offers her a life in a world without Evas and she imagines how a life in that world could be, she not having it makes total sense.

But the important thing here is the thought itself, you see, as Shuichi Iseki said in his tweet that the reason he made this image is because of the vision Hideaki Anno has for Kaworu and Rei, that is as Shinji's ideal paternal and maternal figure. (Image 4 and 5)

In this sense, the image represents the ideal love Kaworu, Rei and Asuka have for Shinji, the only difference is which kind of love they have for him.

In this case, Asuka's love is romantic, as she imagined herself married and having a daughter with him, while Kaworu and Rei's love is parental, that's why they imagine themselves as a family and having a child that is similar to him.

Ultimately the reason why the Director chose to include this in the 30th anniversary special is unknown but if you think about it, it makes sense. Shuichi Iseki's delusion is not delusional after all.

(Edit: I also noted that Shinji and Asuka's daughter wears the same clothes she used when she was a child, when Kyoko took her own life, could this perhaps also represent her inner desire to be the mother she never had? Also, Kaworu and Rei's son is using a copy of Kaworu's clothes, even the shoes, those are visible in the script but I think I will talk more about that specifically in another post in the future.)

I'm going to put the links to his tweets if you want to read them. (If anyone reads this and doesn't like it, please don't harass Shuichi Iseki)

https://x.com/egocoroking/status/1418043677725790214?s=20

https://x.com/egocoroking/status/1417582920919703552?s=20

Time ago, a special edition of Evangelion-themed wedding rings was released as part of a collaboration with U-treasure; they're based on the White and Black Moon of Adam and Lilith.

They're really cool—the White Moon ring even has the Spear of Longinus engraved on it.

Link: https://www.eva-info.jp/1913

Credits to lrk.

Site where I found this:

https://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/144952?q=lrk

Original source:

http://lrk.client.jp/comic/krc-newyear.jpg

I got intrigued by this pairing because of one image I found in Weibo some time ago that I also posted here on Reddit.

Is this perhaps the most rare Eva ship? There's almost no fan art/fanfiction about it, not even in Japanese (that I know of).

I also wanted to post this fan art because it's kinda rare, I found it on Gelbooru but the author is unknown. I speculate it belongs to Irk, an old Asushin/Kaworei Japanese artist who was active 10+ years ago or so.

Yes, this is an Asushin/Kaworei post.

Credits to 素子.

Source:

https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/99562098

I think almost no one has mentioned this in the west (which is not that important anyway, this is more like a fun fact).

When I was watching the 30+ special, I noticed the same arrangement of characters in the movie script was used again (two teenage girls, Asuka/Shinji, an old man and a couple) in the reference to the 3.0+1.0 movie ending, and in this case they used Misato and Kaji in contraposition to Rei and Kaworu.

I've read a lot of people arguing Kaworu and Rei are not "officially" a thing and that they could be brothers or cousins, but in the script, the word (カップル) for "couple" in Japanese is used to describe romantic partners and lovers, so this reinforces it.

What do you think?

Beautiful Kaworei art.

Credits to Type__c.

Source: https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/110953890

I found this image on Weibo, I don't know the source of it but it seems to belong to some British magazine or something.