Are the female school uniforms in the Evangelion franchise based on Chinese communist uniforms

[Ong Seng Keong]

This will sound very out-of-nowhere but I’ve stated to notice that the school uniforms worn by Asuka, Rei, Hikari, and all the other girls in the Tokyo-3 First Municipal Middle School eerily resemble some of the uniforms worn by female members of the Communist Youth League of China.

I’m curious if this was a deliberate design decision or just pure coincidence?


Above: First girl on the left wealth the Communist Youth League of China uniform


Above: Compare first image with what Asuka, Rei, and Hikari are wearing in the image just above this caption

[Axx°N N.]

Interesting. It wouldn't be the first time communist aesthetic was used in a popular franchise; Akira Toriyama drew several of his Dragon Ball characters in uniforms reminiscent of both Chinese communist and Soviet military, and even drew himself in the same garb in the afterwords of the manga volumes.

[FelipeFritschF]

Not that I know, though I do know some suits were modeled on Soviet cosmonauts. Sadamoto had an interview on it, and one on seifuku in general. I'll edit it in later.

EDIT: Right, so a while ago I found that interview and put it on the wiki, gwern's only had incomplete snippets from one interview (there are several) since the page went down so I had to dug through archived versions at the time.

https://wiki.evageeks.org/Statements_by ... .2F2010.29

Looking at it he doesn't seem to mention any specific influences, I'm afraid.

In here he talks about the cosmonaut inspiration:

https://gwern.net/doc/www/gainax.forumf ... 5124b.html

For Mari's old plug suit, I combined a rich green that seemed to me very reminiscent of British clothing with the design aesthetic of the space suits the Soviets were using around the time of the Cold War. The Soviet space suits are the reason for the checkered pattern of the lower half of the suit

[Blockio]

Huh, that's fascinating, I was not aware of that. I wouldn't think much of it, since it is still a pretty generic school uniform, but there is very likely a co-development in the real world uniforms that the character designs were based off