I came to a sudden realization about Rebuild of Evangelion today and felt that I needed to share it with someone. I would suspect many on this forum to know of the "Rebuild sequel theory" (http://i.imgur.com/QUhma.jpg). That Rebuild is somehow a sequel to NGE. I'm not sure how this theory holds up, if it has been dismissed by the producers, or if it is Annos intention to make Rebuild a sequel. If this is the case, I have made a theory about Asuka Langley Sohryu or rather Shikinami.

Let us say that the sequel theory is somehow true and that after Third Impact, something happened to reset time for the characters returning them to how they were before the series. Most of the original characters are the same, Shinji is frightened by life, Rei is emotionless and cold and Misato is drunk and full of energy. We see however a difference in Asuka in Rebuild. She has a new last name, new hair color and her personality is different. She is more bitter, does not seek love/sex, is not in love with Kaji and does not seem as desperate for attention and achievement. More than anything, her relationship with Shinji is far more cold and distant (that such a thing would be possible).I always wondered what was the reasoning behind this? Artistic choice, or is Anno trying to say tell us something?

Before Third Impact, Asuka was broken and dishearted and wanted to give up on life due to all the pain she was feeling. When she finally was able to pilot the Eva again and reunite with her mother, it was taken from ehr shortly after. WHen she at the firts time in years experienced true hapiness, all ehr dreams are once again crushed. I would suppsoe this would leave anyone quite bitter.

Looking back at Third Impact. Everyone gets melted together and has their own perosnal struggles solved. Though Asuka, before, during and after Instrumentality is quite bitter and angry (I don't want to do it. Least of all with you! How disgusting. etc.) By this point, she had no hope to ever have any of her dreams fulfilled. Her mother is dead and gone, her eva is destroyed and Shinji is struggling to much to care for her. Asuka has been faced with her past and forced to accept it as part of her, but she really has got nothing she can build a future on. What's left would by all probability be bitterness. She has suffered so much and lost so much that she simply doesn't care anymore.

What I was thinking, and I'm really grasping at straws here (prepare for a "perhaps" rattling gun), the differences in Shikinami and Sohryu are meant to represent how Asuka was following instrumentality. If, and that's a strong if, time was somehow reset, Asuka came back as how she was after EoE.

For example, Shikinami has no problems with dolls. In Rebuild 2 she is seen playing with one. Perhaps to symbolize that she is no longer afraid of dolls. She also uses the doll to tell herself in a mocking tone that "She's the best". This could mean that Shikinami or the Asuka after Instrumentality looked back on how she was an saw her struggle towards being the greatest as pathetic. She has gotten over that.

Her bitterness towards Shinji may come from how he "treated" her and her heavily reduced libido comes of as a result fo her no longer seeking/needing a man in her life (Shinji or Kaji). She woudl seemingly have overcome her problems, or maybe fled from them, making her immune to the pain she once felt.

She was reduced to her lowest state in EoE, then came over it and rebuilt herself in Rebuild to be stronger and able to handle the pain (in difference from Shinji as Kawouro noted in Rebuild "Never changed"). She has even a new last name, perhaps to symbolize the change and the "new Asuka". In the words of Nietzsche "How can you rise again if you have not first become ash?" Perhaps the name of the series is even a hint "Rebuild". Though this bases itself entirely on the notion that there is a deeper meaning in Rebuild and not just Anno trolling us (which could very likely be the case).

What do you think? is it lausible at all, or is the sequel theory just the lovechild of wishful thinking and Anno trolling the fans.

The Soryu -> Shikinami stuff has been brought up before in this thread: http://forum.evageeks.org/thread/8064/Soryu-vs-Shikinami/

The sequel stuff is all over the place if you want to try to read more about it:

http://forum.evageeks.org/thread/6022/A-remake-or-a-sequel/
http://forum.evageeks.org/thread/9474/Rebuild-not-a-sequel-but-perhaps-an-alternate-reality/
http://forum.evageeks.org/thread/10973/What-does-sequel-mean-to-you/
http://forum.evageeks.org/thread/13416/Remake-Sequel-Discussion/
http://forum.evageeks.org/thread/13212/Sequel-theory-once-again/
http://forum.evageeks.org/thread/4369/The-Sequel-Theory-Thread/
http://forum.evageeks.org/thread/12673/Why-do-people-hate-the-Sequel-Theory/

I think the general opinion around here is that it's wishful thinking, a lot of the "evidence" are visual queues that are obviously supposed to make us think of the original, are obviously taken from the same shots of the original show, and have an in-universe explanation without having to involve time-travel wizards, world resets, or any other gymnastics required for the new movies to be a sequel of the old TV series.

Anno never hide the fact that the characteris in Rebuild are changed and somehow improved characters

If, and that's a strong if, time was somehow reset, Asuka came back as how she was after EoE.

Hell, no, there is not time reset because the start point is not the same. There is no groundhog day, rebuild doesn't start at the same year, day, hour, minute and second NGE : it's a different setup with a different set of rules. You could talk about reincarnations, about loops, about history repeting itself or alternate universes but time reset NO. "Groundhog day" is a time reset and NTE has nothing to do with that concept. And seriously, with your theory I would despise Anno forever, because it would make the ambiguous ending of EOE useless and stupid, it would lose all it's meaning. "Hey, great god, these doesnt seem to work so reset time so we start again, ok?" Sorry but no, no place for time-travel wizards here. AND EVEN TIME LOOPS COULD MEAN THEY ARE JUST LIMITED TO NTE Universe,

Her bitterness towards Shinji may come from how he "treated" her and her heavily reduced libido comes of as a result fo her no longer seeking/needing a man in her life (Shinji or Kaji).

Did we watched the same movie?? Seriously In 2.0 she is more openly attracted to him than in NGE.



This crap is still out there?? If people want the believe in the sequel theory, trust kaworu's words, stick to that, I'll respect that choice, but there is nothing more. And never a direct sequel, god. Everything resets excepts 3I?? Misato was a witness of NTE I with four adams 14 years before. Fabricated memories?? BS.

NTE 2I is EOE 3I in disguise : wrong. There were four Adams in that impact, so no MP Evas here. The giant in the moon which looks like Lillith is one of the the "white skin" is just rubber. Another one is the chalk figure, which is also a callback to the chalk figure in...ep4?? I don't remember. And those Aadams exist : EVA 06 and 13 are two of them.

The blood stain in the moon?? A geyser that propelled the Adam to the moon

1.0 cloning shots from the series?? It's a fucking remake of the first six chapters!!!!!

The black egg?? WRONG!!! 2I takes place in Antarctica

The music?? They are new music themes for Rei, it would have no sense to title them the same if they are not the same themes.

The waves and the beach??? An obvious callback not only to the movie, but the series too. Just that, same goes for Asuka's suit. The same thing 99,9% franchises do. It seems Evangelion is not allowed to do the same, it must mean "something" . If people want to support the sequel theory, whatever it means, do it, but do it with arguments, not callbacks and fighting common sense,

Did we watched the same movie?? Seriously In 2.0 she is more openly attracted to him than in NGE.

I didn't get that from the movie. Perhaps she was a bit more openly attracted, ut the original, sublte romance in NGE was more powerful. Sure she was attracted to him, but she wasn't that invested in it. It seemed mroe like a schoolgirl romance than her actually wanting/needing Shinji like Sohryu. Sohryu for example tried teasing him with thermal expansion and even kiss him in order to make him attracted to her. Shikinami made food once or twice and, at least I, didn't see an actual reason for why Shikinami would be attracted to Shinji (unless sequel theory is true and Asuka stillholds some remnants of feelings for Shinji )

Valla wrote:I didn't get that from the movie. Perhaps she was a bit more openly attracted, ut the original, sublte romance in NGE was more powerful. Sure she was attracted to him, but she wasn't that invested in it. It seemed mroe like a schoolgirl romance than her actually wanting/needing Shinji like Sohryu. Sohryu for example tried teasing him with thermal expansion and even kiss him in order to make him attracted to her. Shikinami made food once or twice and, at least I, didn't see an actual reason for why Shikinami would be attracted to Shinji (unless sequel theory is true and Asuka stillholds some remnants of feelings for Shinji )

That's because Soryu and Shikinami are different characters. Sorry, but If we don't see her attraction to him in 2.0, we've not seen the same movie, and it has nothing to do with sequel theories and things like that.

Jäeger wrote:Anno never hide the fact that the characteris in Rebuild are changed and somehow improved characters (snip)

Though there are alternative explanations to what they could mean, I think the fact that these scenes even exist is a callback to previous Evangelion tie-ins. That's my two cents.

Plus, and I mentioned this in another thread(though I don't think I got any attention): exactly and only 4 MPEs are shown descending to earth at the end of EoE, with one of them shown to have 5 faces in it's head stub. So yeah, no MPEs and 4 adams, but 4 MPEs were actually shown coming back to earth in Eoe.

unitM wrote:Plus, and I mentioned this in another thread(though I don't think I got any attention): exactly and only 4 MPEs are shown descending to earth at the end of EoE, with one of them shown to have 5 faces in it's head stub. So yeah, no MPEs and 4 adams, but 4 MPEs were actually shown coming back to earth in Eoe.

If you mean this scene, I only saw 3

unitM wrote:Though there are alternative explanations to what they could mean, I think the fact that these scenes even exist is a callback to previous Evangelion tie-ins. That's my two cents.

Plus, and I mentioned this in another thread(though I don't think I got any attention): exactly and only 4 MPEs are shown descending to earth at the end of EoE, with one of them shown to have 5 faces in it's head stub. So yeah, no MPEs and 4 adams, but 4 MPEs were actually shown coming back to earth in Eoe.

I wont deny it.....because callbacks are what 99,9% franchises do. But just that, callbacks. And I'm happy to watch them, it's what the fandom expects. Still, there were 9 MP Evas during 3I, obviously Anno is not gonna show us each one falling to earth.

Ornette wrote:If you mean this scene, I only saw 3

That is the scene I'm describing. There are only three shown. The fourth that I'd be referring to would be 01, which was sent out to space at the end of EoE. Those would make 4 "Evas" from the past timeline.

The MP Evas all looked like their core was intact, and so did 01, and there was some talk about the person in an Eva being able to remain preserved for all of eternity. Well in one of the MP evas, there's four "faces" at the nub of the head.

@Jaegar Like I said dude. Feel free to rewatch EoE. The part with them falling back down to earth was pulled out pretty long, and throughout the scene, you can only see 3 MPEs falling to earth. (Moments ago, prior to that scene, many of the MPEs were "blasted away" from Lilith, so some actually might not have returned. Some died, but like my post in the other thread, 3 remained with cores in tact...)

Edit here's the MP Eva with four Rei faces in it and one young happy child(boy?) face:


I don't think we've discussed the stuff I'm talking about now by the way. Like I said in the other thread, I was showing EoE to a friend and this stuff came up. But really. 4 Reis in an MPE??

Man, sorry but I'm tired of this. Your's is a first order manipulation. It's like we've been watching different movies.

Ahhh, FYI.....I watched the movie three weeks ago.