Shinji Ikari Expy wrote:You can dislike it if you want (I have some problems with the movie and I agree that the supporting cast was much more interesting in the original series) but Anno & Co. did not abandon the original "message" of Evangelion and it's simply incorrect to say they did.
I'm actually a little on the fence about how NTE handles the supporting cast.
For example, I
really like how Anno handles Asuka's arc in NGE. It's one of the things that really resonated with me emotionally. But, Asuka's arc is really there to highlight the mother complex themes that is also within Shinji's arc, which is needed because his arc is spread across 26 episodes and a movie, approximately 11 hours of storytelling. When NTE is all said and done, it'll probably clock itself in at about 6-7 hours of storytelling. When your story is so short, you don't really need a supporting cast to highlight the main character's arc with their own. The pacing it set so well to Shinji's arc that having Asuka's arc interrupt every so often just to highlight it becomes superfluous. So, on a structural narrative level, this isn't really detrimental to NTE. In fact, this approach to NTE's shorter run time strengthens the overall flow of story.
....But I still like Asuka's arc in NGE better, so....
This argument can really be applied to almost any supporting character in Eva that was cut down in NTE. Ritsuko highlights aspects of Shinji's mother complex in a way that contains more exposition about female scientists who are also mothers. (And have had sex with Gendo.) Aspects of Ritsuko's arc even present it in a slightly different angle. Toji's arc highlights Shinji's anxieties as they relate to the responsibility of piloting an Eva. Kaji presents a way how Shinji could grow up to become different from his father. These are all wonderful characters whose sole purpose was to highlight or present different aspects of Shinji's arc, but they aren't needed in a shorter story. Anno couldn't completely remove the characters either, since Nerv needs that many warm bodies performing those roles in order to believably function. So the supporting cast still need to be there, they just don't have to highlight Shinji's arc in NTE like they did in NGE.
Basically, a lot of people are complaining because they have to focus more on Shinji, the main character, in order to fully understand his arc, and those complaints just don't sit well with me.
....But I still like Asuka's arc in NGE better, so....