Reichu, despite popular misconception, is not actually related to GAINAX nor studio khara. Nor The Eva Monkey, for that matter.

The more you know.

Serious Mode: I added the qualifier that I did specifically to exclude fan-made interpretations of what the Evas might look like underneath.

Nice. Reminded me of the part that I liked in Q when it was just Shinji wandering around in a desolated Nerv base. I wouldn't mind Final just being 2 hours of the kids going S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

Bagheera wrote:Yeah, this honestly reads more like a doujin to me. The animation and character designs certainly aren't consistent with the rest of the film series.

The films aren't consistent. Q introduced the "chin design". The last seconds of this short though, look like something right out of Q.

I.doubt the character designs will change in the last film.

Huh so the the last chapter of the sadamoto version's cover did have something to do with anything.

If shin is anything like this it looks like it will be something of a cross between EoE's looking inward and NTE's storytelling method into something.........new, though im not sure what.

Well im hyped for shin again at least, made me remember why i like eva so much, also i just stopped thinking about the sequel theory and finally passed it off as a "nah" why would you do this anno? now im thinking about it again!

http://fuer0.tumblr.com/post/105599747865/the-disappearance-of-rei-ayanami

Soo... does this allude to a possible disappearance of ReiQ? I mean, it could be totally possible, that her body wouldn't make it too long long without the extended bath in an artificial womb. In 2.22 she said, that she wouldn't be able to live in the outside world, just like fish... Well that line would be twisted foreshadowing, then.

TMBounty_Hunter wrote:

CATS CONFIRMED TO HAVE SURVIVED THE IMPACTS. Shinji CAN STILL BE REDEEMED.

What a beautiful, solemn short. I would love it, if Final happened to be just them three walking for half an hour.

Rei probably will die since like you said, her tank isn't here, its back at NERV, but seriously i want her to have a point other than just to fake out the audience and Shinji, she has the potential for being a cool character so even though i know it probably will happen her dying just seems like a waste.

Bagheera wrote:Yeah, this honestly reads more like a doujin to me. The animation and character designs certainly aren't consistent with the rest of the film series.

Main staff:

Art Director
Tatsuya Kushida

Layout
Hideaki Anno
Tadashi Hiramatsu
Tatsuya Kushida

Key Animator
Tadashi Hiramatsu

Tadashi Hiramatsu:

Neon Genesis Evangelion (TV) : Key Animation (8 episodes)
Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death & Rebirth (movie) : Key Animation (Death & Rebirth), 楽曲テロップアドヴァイザー
Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion (movie) : Animation Director (ep 26), Key Animation (eps 25-26)

Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone (movie) : Key Animation Cooperation
Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance (movie) : Key Animation
Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo (movie) : Key Animation

Tatsuya Kushida

Neon Genesis Evangelion (TV) : Background Art (Studio Biho)
Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death & Rebirth (movie) : Background Art
Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion (movie) : Background Art

Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone (movie) : Art Director
Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance (movie) : Art Director (Biho)
Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo (movie) : Art Director, Background Art

...yeah. Plus that hack Anno!

Can we get some citations on all these disparate claims of who did what (or didn't) for this short?

EDIT: Thank you Reichu.

Monk Ed wrote:Is this the first time we've ever seen completely naked faces of Evas or similar beings drawn by actual staff? In NGE we see helmetless Eva-01 face but all bandaged up.

There's Eva-02's mutilated head in 25'. Sadamoto's manga features a weirdly featureless version of Eva-01, based on Yamashita's weirdly featureless concept drawings.

ChaddyManPrime: The four Adams(?) -- can't imagine what else they're supposed to be, with the Spears and all -- in the short remind me more of the rotting kyoshinhei Ohma from Nausicaa than my own drawings, to be honest.

Monk Ed: The staff is listed right on the page for the short...

Damn, I get out for one week, and this is what happens!

Personally, that short felt like the opening of an anime, being in equal parts a presentation of the setting and main characters and a fest of symbolic (or outright nonsensical) imagery, with sometimes a pinch of foreshadowing to latter events.

Still, I really doubt that something as big as Rei Q dying would be spoiled in a short like that, so her falling in pieces is probably a symbolism of her previous identity as "Rei Ayanami" is falling apart or something like that.
The core erosion disappearing and sea turning back blue could be a representation of Shinji's (and maybe the rest of WILLE) longing to the past when everything was still in one piece.

For me there's one small detail that picked my interest and put me in Wild Speculation Mode:

Notices the blue highlights on the shoulder area of her plugsuit? Normally they are red. And you know who puts blue highlights on most of their attires? WILLE.
So, does that shot subtly hints that Rei Q will join WILLE in Shin Eva and that her plugsuit will be slightly modified to symbolize that?

Nuclear Lunchbox wrote:I'm pretty sure it's an alpha, Ray.

ChaddyManPrime wrote:Yeah, I'm willing to bet that Kaworu had the Omega symbol on his back, Shinji is the beginning and Kaworu is the end.

Shinji has a lowercase alpha, Kaworu has an uppercase alpha, which also corresponds to the designation of their respective entry plugs (13α and 13Α), to symbolize the dual entry system of EVA-13 and the fact the two pilots are in synchronization. (normally)

Reichu wrote:ChaddyManPrime: The four Adams(?) -- can't imagine what else they're supposed to be, with the Spears and all -- in the short remind me more of the rotting kyoshinhei Ohma from Nausicaa than my own drawings, to be honest.

Aren't the four ADAMs supposed to wear a mask? (if the one converted in Mark.06 is any indication)

ElMariachi wrote:Aren't the four ADAMs supposed to wear a mask? (if the one converted in Mark.06 is any indication)

The mask is never explained, so no reason to assume it was there from the start as opposed to being placed by humans.

This also seems like a strange objection to raise to an image that can't reasonably be showing anything other than Adams. :p ("Four berserk naked Eva-like things getting skewered by one Spear apiece." Not exactly Final Jeopardy we're talking here.)

Well, the ADAM mask on the Moon had little craters characteristic of small meteors crashing on its surface, implying that it got that mask for some time.

The image of the four Eva things could also be something symbolic, especially since we know that at least one of the four is now destroyed. (Mark.06)

Notices the blue highlights on the shoulder area of her plugsuit? Normally they are red. And you know who puts blue highlights on most of their attires? WILLE.
So, does that shot subtly hints that Rei Q will join WILLE in Shin Eva and that her plugsuit will be slightly modified to symbolize that?

She's also lacking her headset and the hairstyle doesn't seem to match Yui's anymore, something that was done in Q to stress "lol, Rei is your Mom". Probably means nothing, though.

I take it, at least in the case of Shinji and Rei, the video more or less represents their dilemmas, inner demons and what's to come. The four Asukas is simply there highlight her evolution as a character in this franchise.

BTW, is it just me or do the naked/armorless Evas look more like straight up Yokai, or for lack of a better word, demonic, than they ever did in NGE?

Rei IV wrote:She's also lacking her headset and the hairstyle doesn't seem to match Yui's anymore, something that was done in Q to stress "lol, Rei is your Mom". Probably means nothing, though.

Maybe that's just the angle her head is hanging, but indeed, she seems to have her hair slightly shorter.

Rei IV wrote:I take it, at least in the case of Shinji and Rei, the video more or less represents their dilemmas, inner demons and what's to come. The four Asukas is simply there highlight her evolution as a character in this franchise.

Agreed, although it's possible that some foreshadowing for Shin Eva was sneaking in that short.

pwhodges wrote: I don't see it feeding sequel or loop theory in the slightest.

Somebody rename this thread A River in Egypt.

Rei IV wrote:She's also lacking her headset and the hairstyle doesn't seem to match Yui's anymore, something that was done in Q to stress "lol, Rei is your Mom". Probably means nothing, though.

I wouldn't be surprised if after 3.0 Rei Q was trying to make an effort to be as far away from Yui and Rei as she can, i do not think she was happy with what she saw in lilliths chamber.

kuribo-04 wrote:The films aren't consistent. Q introduced the "chin design". The last seconds of this short though, look like something right out of Q.

I.doubt the character designs will change in the last film.

And to mention that is the only part(maybe exclude Asuka) that looks like Q.

As for Asuka, what is the deal with showing her first scene in episode 8 and also the opening EOE scene when Shinji exposes her?

The 3rd Asuka shown could really be both NTE and NGE as it is just her in the plugsuit, and then the last Asuka is actually quite interesting.

[s]It is Q Asuka, but with her old plug suit, that doesn't have tape over it, like it hasn't been damaged yet, that's a first. If this does turn out to be Canon, that suggest that something happened over the 14 years that tore her suit, unless it could also be from wear and tear too, I mean 14 years is a lot of time.[/s]

Edit- Rewatched, and we don't know that, it is a bust shot of Asuka with just the neck part of her suit that shows.

I wrote this reply in another thread; but to keep things together, I present it here as well:

ElMariachi wrote:A shame that according to the latest short film Rei Q will die during the trip and Shinji will end disemboweled and impaled by two prog-knives!

Those scenes are not literal; Shinji's heart, and the core of his being, has been pierced by what's happened to him and around him - those scenes are a fantasy in his mind, and correspond to his state in the first few scenes of Afterwards. Note, for instance, that he is only wearing a plugsuit at the start and end of the film - in between he has a blanket and later a short-sleeve shirt, and he is even wearing different clothes in his reflection and when shown by the camera panning up. So, not a literal sequence of events at all.

Only something such as this could awake me from my 2 year slumber since Evangelion 3.0


Feels real nostalgic, even peaceful despite the disturbing imagery of Shinji getting his heart penetrated by 3 blades at once.

Anyone notice at 4:06 in the film the reflection of Shinji is him from EOE?

Guy Nacks wrote:The Four Asukas:

SPOILER: Show

Interesting that they would include two from the original series timeline...very interesting.

I think they messed up. Someone should let them know so they can correct it for the Blu-ray.