Misato was no longer a leading female in Rebuild.

Discussion of the new series of Evangelion movies ( "Evangelion Shin Gekijōban", meaning "Evangelion: New Theatrical Edition"). The final instalment made its debut in Japan on March 8, 2021.

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Misato was no longer a leading female in Rebuild.

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Postby Slowpokeking » Sun Mar 07, 2021 10:30 pm

Overall I think the Rebuild new series toned down Misato a lot.

In the old series she was one of the 3 main female leads, had a lot of plot, both her own story, development and interaction with Shinji. She also had a strong influence on him.

The Rebuild series obviously toned down her into a typical supporting "mentor and leader" role. If we judge her by that standards she was handled well, but nowhere close to her old character.

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Re: Misato was no longer a leading female in Rebuild.

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Postby JohnBooty » Mon Mar 08, 2021 3:00 pm

At least we got to know many other characters better!

...wait, we didn't.

Well, at least of course it was a necessary sacrifice because movies have a shorter running time.

...wait, the running time of the Rebuild movies rivals that of the original TV run.

I'm being glib and bitter here. To be fair, I suppose it could be argued we got to know Rei slightly better in the movies. Kaworu definitely has much more screen time in the movies... but do we really learn anything more about him?

At every possible turn it feels like we traded character development for empty spectacle.

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Re: Misato was no longer a leading female in Rebuild.

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Postby Kendrix » Mon Mar 08, 2021 3:07 pm

Movies work differently than TV shows; They more or less had to tighten it all up.

It would do no good to just blindly imitate the TV series without giving it its own structure & through-line (See the horrid avatar live action movie for a good example) and in this case they chose to focus more on the younger batch characters. Shinji was the MC to begin with.
They could have done it the other way around (focussing more on the NERV staff) and that could've been a good set of movies as well but as to which is more EVA-like... it wouldn't have the same context or feel to focus on Shinji's decisions if he's the MC vs. if he's basically Misato's adopted kid and we're looking at this through a parenting lens.

Also I doubt your concern is really feminism if you refer to her as a"female" like that...

We don't get to see as much of Misato's private life, but what she does in the plot is pretty much unchanged - she investigates NERV & SEELE, she sort of gets back with her Ex, she makes all the bold daring plans for Nerv & later Wille & acts like a leader when no one else will...
Asuka & Ritsuko got way more cuts - maybe with them you could say that they've been demoted to side character but with Misato most of the plot beats are intact.

Probably in the Rebuilds the one who occupies the space of the female lead is probably Rei who ended up in that spot mostly out of structure/time considerations - we're focussing on the younger bunch, and Rei is there from the prologue arc while Asuka comes in later. There are a few new elements but mostly it's the old ones presented in a tighter structure again bc movies =/= TV shows.
And then she's barely in Q, though her importance is felt.
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Re: Misato was no longer a leading female in Rebuild.

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Postby BusterMachine4 » Mon Mar 08, 2021 3:40 pm

View Original PostKendrix wrote:Also I doubt your concern is really feminism if you refer to her as a"female" like that...

Come on, ad hominem attacks aren't cool. I thought his use of the word "female" was completely correct, referring to both women and girls at the same time.

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Re: Misato was no longer a leading female in Rebuild.

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Postby Kendrix » Mon Mar 08, 2021 3:44 pm

Well, less experienced English speakers might not get connotations or recent slang developments.

I get that you might be disappointed if that's one aspect you liked in the original.

But in general ppl really seem to underplay the role of structure in the decision making process when it comes to making derivative works... or works at all.

See all the discourse about the Asuka cooking thing & reading all possible things into it...
When the actual reason was "we wanted some high school like stuff before the Big Drama hits"... much more concerned with the structure & overall impression/vibe/flavor than popularity contests or brownie points.
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Re: Misato was no longer a leading female in Rebuild.

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Postby Blockio » Mon Mar 08, 2021 3:49 pm

Let's all calm down a bit, shall we?
I can see why Gendo hired Misato to do the actual commanding. He tried it once and did an appalling job. ~ AWinters
Your point of view is horny, and biased. ~ glitz2hard
What about titty-ten? ~ Reichu
The movies function on their own terms. If people can't accept them on those terms, and keep expecting them to be NGE, then they probably should have realized a while ago that they weren't going to have a good time. ~ Words of wisdom courtesy of Reichu

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Re: Misato was no longer a leading female in Rebuild.

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Postby Joseki » Mon Mar 08, 2021 3:54 pm

If this is the mood in the spoiler section I'm happy to be missing it.

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Re: Misato was no longer a leading female in Rebuild.

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Postby Blockio » Mon Mar 08, 2021 4:38 pm

Nah, it's pretty chill for the most part
I can see why Gendo hired Misato to do the actual commanding. He tried it once and did an appalling job. ~ AWinters
Your point of view is horny, and biased. ~ glitz2hard
What about titty-ten? ~ Reichu
The movies function on their own terms. If people can't accept them on those terms, and keep expecting them to be NGE, then they probably should have realized a while ago that they weren't going to have a good time. ~ Words of wisdom courtesy of Reichu

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Re: Misato was no longer a leading female in Rebuild.

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Postby Joseki » Mon Mar 08, 2021 4:53 pm

Nice, I hope everyone is having their fun ^_^

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Re: Misato was no longer a leading female in Rebuild.

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Postby Slowpokeking » Mon Mar 08, 2021 6:11 pm

SPOILER: Show
View Original PostKendrix wrote:Movies work differently than TV shows; They more or less had to tighten it all up.

It would do no good to just blindly imitate the TV series without giving it its own structure & through-line (See the horrid avatar live action movie for a good example) and in this case they chose to focus more on the younger batch characters. Shinji was the MC to begin with.
They could have done it the other way around (focussing more on the NERV staff) and that could've been a good set of movies as well but as to which is more EVA-like... it wouldn't have the same context or feel to focus on Shinji's decisions if he's the MC vs. if he's basically Misato's adopted kid and we're looking at this through a parenting lens.

Also I doubt your concern is really feminism if you refer to her as a"female" like that...

We don't get to see as much of Misato's private life, but what she does in the plot is pretty much unchanged - she investigates NERV & SEELE, she sort of gets back with her Ex, she makes all the bold daring plans for Nerv & later Wille & acts like a leader when no one else will...
Asuka & Ritsuko got way more cuts - maybe with them you could say that they've been demoted to side character but with Misato most of the plot beats are intact.

Probably in the Rebuilds the one who occupies the space of the female lead is probably Rei who ended up in that spot mostly out of structure/time considerations - we're focussing on the younger bunch, and Rei is there from the prologue arc while Asuka comes in later. There are a few new elements but mostly it's the old ones presented in a tighter structure again bc movies =/= TV shows.
And then she's barely in Q, though her importance is felt.



She is probably my favorite and most perfect anime character. So I prefer the old series much more on her character. She is both mature and had a lot of personal problem which she needs to get over with, which made her so unique and likable. Because as a guy in similar age with Shinji when I firstly watched the TV series. I felt all the care I could imagine from a woman. At the same time I also view her as a great human being for still have a good heart and care about others after suffered such incident. Then as I grew up I could see her personality has so much similarities with Shinji and had development through the interaction. Her character is probably the most complete one after Shinji.

The new movies, each of them toned her down more and more to a pure supporting role and pretty much cut off her deep relation with Shinji. Her overall action in Q was a big meh to me. I don't think the franchise should let us to imagine what happened, but has to show us.

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Re: Misato was no longer a leading female in Rebuild.

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Postby Zusuchan » Tue Mar 09, 2021 12:03 pm

Well, Shin hasn't come out yet, after all, you might review your opinion after watching it.

Also, instead of quoting entire posts, could you instead just quote the parts of the post most relevant to what you're going to say yourself? That way, the threads/conversations will look a bit cleaner. Thank you.

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Re: Misato was no longer a leading female in Rebuild.

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Postby OKOptimistic » Tue Mar 09, 2021 10:22 pm

I hope Shinji and Misato are good buddies again... and i do expect it will and if not this will be is the worst movie ever made.

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Re: Misato was no longer a leading female in Rebuild.

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Postby Slowpokeking » Tue Mar 09, 2021 11:15 pm

View Original PostZusuchan wrote:Well, Shin hasn't come out yet, after all, you might review your opinion after watching it.

Also, instead of quoting entire posts, could you instead just quote the parts of the post most relevant to what you're going to say yourself? That way, the threads/conversations will look a bit cleaner. Thank you.


Sure.

I heard the spoilers, which is part of the reason I post it. Sure maybe watching the movie would be better.

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Re: Misato was no longer a leading female in Rebuild.

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Postby kuribo-04 » Thu Sep 16, 2021 3:00 am

Dunno about that.
I loved her role in the last film, and she was more succesful than she ever was in NGE at fighting Gendo.

Like Kendrix said, films just work differently than a show. I also think like with other characters, previous knowledge of NGE is relevant, and makes the experience richer just bey being able to observe differences and different outcomes for the characters you already knew.
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Re: Misato was no longer a leading female in Rebuild.

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Postby Axx°N N. » Thu Sep 16, 2021 5:55 pm

View Original Postkuribo-04 wrote:... and she was more succesful than she ever was in NGE at fighting Gendo.

Sure, but how much does that really matter outside the bounds of a saturday morning cartoon? Success as a dramatic character can't really be placed in if they're written to win or not, it's how believable the stakes are and what choices they make under circumstance. NTE's writing hands Misato a win, but I don't feel the same emotion whatsoever in any of her scenes than I did as she's consoling Shinji while she's dying in EoE, or even her advisory role in EoTV, simply because those circumstances were believable hardships.

I think someone else mentioned that it would have been more effective if it were Misato at the end, instead of Mari taking over the role of "advising older person," and I tend to agree. As laid out on paper, Misato is prominent in 2 films and then relegated to way less screentime. It's just not smooth structurally.
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Re: Misato was no longer a leading female in Rebuild.

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Postby Blockio » Thu Sep 16, 2021 8:59 pm

Considering that she had one of the biggest moments of glory in the entire movie, sacrificing her own life to thwart Gendo's plan one and for all I'd say that's quite a bit more than "the writing handing her a win". We are talking about the impact and prominence of her actions on the story here, and she sure as hell had both of that.
I can see why Gendo hired Misato to do the actual commanding. He tried it once and did an appalling job. ~ AWinters
Your point of view is horny, and biased. ~ glitz2hard
What about titty-ten? ~ Reichu
The movies function on their own terms. If people can't accept them on those terms, and keep expecting them to be NGE, then they probably should have realized a while ago that they weren't going to have a good time. ~ Words of wisdom courtesy of Reichu

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Re: Misato was no longer a leading female in Rebuild.

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Postby royabr121 » Fri Sep 17, 2021 6:36 am

View Original PostBlockio wrote:Considering that she had one of the biggest moments of glory in the entire movie, sacrificing her own life to thwart Gendo's plan one and for all I'd say that's quite a bit more than "the writing handing her a win". We are talking about the impact and prominence of her actions on the story here, and she sure as hell had both of that.


Not really: she did one thing right since 3.0 and than died. Even that was just to support Shinji once the magnitude of her failure in battling NERV was made clear. Her character was both underused and misused by Anno - in a spectacular display of lack of writing abilities - and then disposed of. Anything else she did in regards to Shinji, Ryoji and herself was underwhelming.

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Re: Misato was no longer a leading female in Rebuild.

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Postby EvaChero » Fri Sep 17, 2021 8:35 am

While I might have wished for Misato's story to have gone differently, Wille felt like the Resistance fighting the Nazis in WW2. Doing the best they could with
what little they had. Unfortunately with the time skip we have to assume a lot and the Misato/Kaji/Kaworu story gets side lined. When we pick her up again in 3.0 she has done what a lot of commanders do, made herself cold and distant. It comes with the territory whether you agree with the leadership style or not. In Shin we get to see her come back to herself culminating when she pulls off the hat and glasses and performs the ultimate sacrifice to give Shinji a chance to set things right. Not the worst way to go in my opinion. It's something I would prefer for myself all things considered.

just my 2 cents, your mileage may vary.
who doesn't want to kick back with Misato and have a few beers?

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Re: Misato was no longer a leading female in Rebuild.

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Postby Blockio » Fri Sep 17, 2021 9:35 am

View Original Postroyabr121 wrote:Not really: she did one thing right since 3.0 and than died. Even that was just to support Shinji once the magnitude of her failure in battling NERV was made clear. Her character was both underused and misused by Anno - in a spectacular display of lack of writing abilities - and then disposed of. Anything else she did in regards to Shinji, Ryoji and herself was underwhelming.

I am going to seriously argue against that. Misato is an excellently written commanding officer. In the situation that Wille was in, someone has to make uncomfortable decisions and unite the crew, even if that means drawing their wrath. Misato did almost everything right that she could have done.
I can see why Gendo hired Misato to do the actual commanding. He tried it once and did an appalling job. ~ AWinters
Your point of view is horny, and biased. ~ glitz2hard
What about titty-ten? ~ Reichu
The movies function on their own terms. If people can't accept them on those terms, and keep expecting them to be NGE, then they probably should have realized a while ago that they weren't going to have a good time. ~ Words of wisdom courtesy of Reichu

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Re: Misato was no longer a leading female in Rebuild.

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Postby Luigi shinji » Fri Sep 17, 2021 3:39 pm

As a Misato fan, her role is a half / half to me

I really liked her in the first 2 movie, tho becouse she mostly was the same as in the OG show.

When she turned into the captain of wunder in 3.33 I was a kinda dissapointed becouse I allways prefered the "agent" side of her character rather then the commander side and also I just can't take her seriously with that hat, especialy when she was this cold and stoic leader character.

In 3+1 I would of prefered if she got more screen time becouse I basicly felt nothing for her. I mean her final moment was pretty much like the generic "one of the heros have to sacrifice her for the main hero to win the final battle" type.
And I was also kinda dissapointed that she wasn't in the final train station scene. If every body got a happy ending then why we can't see her be happy with Kaji and her son?

So yeah overall she wasn't as good as in the OG show but to be fair I didn't expexted the rebuilds to be that good so I'm not that dissapointed.


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