(Note: This has probably been asked before but it never hurts to ask a question twice so...)

I've never really understood this...I mean Unit 01 has 2 eyes and Unit 00 has one (or I think that's what that's suppose to be, Wiki says it's an optical lens so ) but then all of a sudden we get 4 on Unit 02?? Is there a meaning behind this or is it the animators having fun?? I looked on the wiki but there was really anything about it there about it. (It just says it has four eye, nothing else )

I imagine if there's a canonical reason it's just explaining away the fact that it looks awesome

Unit 00 actually has two eyes, it's just that there's only one viewport in the helmet. As to why Unit 02 has four - technically speaking the green things aren't its eyes, just the cameras the pilot normally uses to see with. However, whenever it berserks or semi-berserks it can be seen to have four eyes (resembling Unit 01's eyeslits in form) underneath the four cameras...so I don't know. I guess someone at Gainax (or Nerv-Germany if you like) thought it looked cool.

Azathoth wrote:As to why Unit 02 has four - technically speaking the green things aren't its eyes, just the cameras the pilot normally uses to see with. However, whenever it berserks or semi-berserks it can be seen to have four eyes (resembling Unit 01's eyeslits in form) underneath the four cameras...so I don't know. I guess someone at Gainax (or Nerv-Germany if you like) thought it looked cool.

Yeah and the fact that they confirm it in EoE when the Mass Production Eva's rip it to shreds...

It's been occasionally suggested (with no actual evidence) that the number of eyes has something to do with the Seele emblem:

Unit-00 (1 eye) + Unit-01 (2 eyes) + Unit-02 (4 eyes) = 7 eyes, the same number as on the Seele emblem. Short of someone on the Eva staff confirming that this is intentional, there doesn't seem to be any way of proving it.

thewayneiac wrote:Short of someone on the Eva staff confirming that this is intentional, there doesn't seem to be any way of proving it.

Then I now declare this thread: THE "WHO CAN COME UP WITH THE BEST THEORY BEHIND UNIT 02'S FOUR EYES" THREAD!!

POST AWAY!

cd603 wrote:Then I now declare this thread: THE "WHO CAN COME UP WITH THE BEST THEORY BEHIND UNIT 02'S FOUR EYES" THREAD!!

POST AWAY!

it has two eyes but wears glasses

thewayneiac wrote:It's been occasionally suggested (with no actual evidence) that the number of eyes has something to do with the Seele emblem:

Unit-00 (1 eye) + Unit-01 (2 eyes) + Unit-02 (4 eyes) = 7 eyes, the same number as on the Seele emblem. Short of someone on the Eva staff confirming that this is intentional, there doesn't seem to be any way of proving it.

I suppose, but how do Unit-03 and Unit-04 fit into that?

KnightmareX13 wrote:it has two eyes but wears glasses

glad to see someone caught that...

I feel like it's probably the same reason they decided to make 01 purple and 00 white. That is, none in particular aside from cool looking designs.

But if you want to fanwank it, I suppose you could say that they made each Eva differently to test all kinds of different designs and make future units better, or something like that.

rhfxz1s wrote:I feel like it's probably the same reason they decided to make 01 purple and 00 white.

I've often wondered if the decision to make 01 purple was just serendipitous, considering that purple is the color you get when you mix blue and red, which just happens to be the colors associated with Asuka and Rei, and, metaphorically, the choice that Shinji is forced to make. The theme of being stuck in the middle between two streams is a general motif in the series.

Eva Yojimbo wrote:I've often wondered if the decision to make 01 purple was just serendipitous, considering that purple is the color you get when you mix blue and red, which just happens to be the colors associated with Asuka and Rei, and, metaphorically, the choice that Shinji is forced to make. The theme of being stuck in the middle between two streams is a general motif in the series.

It also gives you Misato's hair color - an early hint as to Unit 01's relationship to Shinji. And Yui, as the idealized mother figure, also strikes something of a middle ground between Asuka's other and Rei's false mother.

Sadamoto comments in Der Mond how he originally drew the various Eva designs in white, but thought it made them look like Gundams or Patlabors no matter how interesting the designs were. So that's where the concept of a different colour for each Eva comes from. Don't ask me what that means for the MPEs.

Everything looks unique with a dick head.

Azathoth wrote:It also gives you Misato's hair color - an early hint as to Unit 01's relationship to Shinji. And Yui, as the idealized mother figure, also strikes something of a middle ground between Asuka's other and Rei's false mother.

Eh? Misato has black hair. The intent (or so it appears) was to render her with blue-black hair, which shows up on real people. If you catch it in the right light it actually does look kinda blue (do a Google image search, scroll past the obvious dye jobs, and you'll see a few good examples. There's a wikipedia page on the topic, too).

And people should go watch 21' again (around the 14'46" mark in my copy). Unit 00 has far more than one eye; looks like five in front and four on top to me, with lenses covering both groups.

Edited with screenshots.



Gendo refers to it as Unit 00, but I'm not entirely sure it's not one of the failed prototypes, which are shown with various different lens configurations in EoE.

Azathoth wrote:It also gives you Misato's hair color - an early hint as to Unit 01's relationship to Shinji. And Yui, as the idealized mother figure, also strikes something of a middle ground between Asuka's other and Rei's false mother.

I think you're taking this a bit too far...

Kodaemon wrote:

Holy crap, I'd never noticed the skull one before. That is incredibly, incredibly creepy

esselfortium wrote:I suppose, but how do Unit-03 and Unit-04 fit into that?

They don't need too. We never actually see Unit 04, and Unit 03 is only around for 2 episodes (though I think we only actually see it in the 2nd) and is becomes an angel and is destroyed before it does anything.

For all intents and purposes, Unit 00-02 are the only true Evas we see throughout the TV series, so it makes sense that the artist might slip in the whole 7 eye thing. It doesn't mean it has any relevance whatsoever to the narrative. It's just a clever aesthetic choice by the artist IMO.

I made up an explanation to cover the four eyes, blue skin, and indigo-colored blood in one go -- for no reason other than to amuse myself, of course.

Basically, Kyoko was some sort of ultra-eccentric bioengineer who was designing completely artificial proteins and having trouble finding takers. A military deal fell through, and she ended up at Gehirn instead, "improving" the Eva genome with her delightful creations. The proteins were basically targeted toward optimizing particular physiological processes -- the sorts that would have made awesome soldiers even better, and presumably would work just as well on a cloned super-human intended for combat.

While Kyoko had more or less perfected the integration of her proteins into standard animal test subjects, the Eva genome didn't respond quite as well to tinkering, and every single attempt to grow Eva-02 was plagued by weird mutations like body parts splitting all over the place. The most usable clone had four eyes, and the other mutations were amenable to simple surgery.

One of Kyoko's creations was an enhanced blood cell with an artificial blue protein (not IRL copper-based hemocyanin -- but damned if I know how the Kyoko version functions), which existed alongside the usual erythrocytes (RBCs) and gave Eva-02's blood its distinctive indigo color. The Eva's bluish-gray skin doesn't seem to be a direct result of the blood (or else those huge vulva eyes would look more purply than pink; who the fuck knows), so maybe whatever pigment colors the blood is in the skin, as well. Yeah, sure, why not.

As pointless as that all sounds, indigo-colored blood with unpredictable bioengineered properties has all sorts of interesting applications. For instance, did you know that routine administration via the alimentary canal can result in pituitary dysfunction, nymphomania, and sterility?