Was it Yui? Gendo? Did Yui perhaps consult a 4-year-old Shinji on what he thought the coolest color for a giant robot would be?

Hell, who decided Unit-00’s colors? And who decided to CHANGE the color from blue to yellow after the repairs? Somehow I don’t feel like Rei would’ve cared about the color of her giant robot.

With Unit-02 (and 08 in the Rebuilds) it’s pretty obvious that the pilots chose their own colors, but for the other units it’s a mystery.

“Realistically”, it likely does serve a strategic advantage for the Evas to be brightly colored, so that they can stand out from the environment and be easily distinguishable both for the pilots and for mission control. After all, they’re designed for close combat with giant monsters that may or may not even have eyes and likely sense their targets by detecting AT fields. With that in mind, visual camouflage would be pretty useless . Thus, it’s possible that the colors were simply chosen to be bright and distinctive. Under these assumptions, the black paint on Unit-03 can be rationalized as an undercoat/primer before the final color has been applied, and the shiny metal look that Unit-04 is sometimes depicted with is likely just the raw unpainted steel plate armor.

... Yes, this is a dumb question. But I like coming up with in-universe rationalizations for things that we understand obviously exist just to look cool.

Archer wrote:Hell, who decided Unit-00’s colors? And who decided to CHANGE the color from blue to yellow after the repairs? Somehow I don’t feel like Rei would’ve cared about the color of her giant robot.

Probably not, and I'd doubt she'd make an unprompted suggestion, but maybe when it was time for EVA 00 to be repainted, Misato went & asked her.
Her pillowcases is also blue.

The reason it's orange to start with is I think cause it's common for all kinds of prototypes to be bright orange... idk if it was for wind canal tests or so you'd see damage to the paintcoat easier but I recall some engineer on reddit posting about it.


As for EVA 01, the options we have are Gendo, Yui and Some Rando At NERV's Planning Division. Yui does wear a purple shirt a couple of times. Either she picked it cause she built it, or Gendo picked it cause she'd like it.

Though that idea that Yui consulted baby Shinji (probably while he way playing with action figures or watching some giant robots on TV) does sound like something she would do. Of course Teen Shinji is long over his purple phase by the time he shows up in Tokyko 3.

Maybe it's egotistical on someone's part? Like Purple is the of royalty and maybe the green is representing Yui's eye color?

Maybe Gendo did it or Yui? Perhaps it becoming God is to say it is King?

You know, I never noticed this, but almost all the Evangelion units use colors of the rules of heraldry. Two 'metals': gold (depicted as yellow) and silver (displayed as white). Four main 'tinctures': red, blue, green, and black. Three rare tinctures: purple, tawny (a kind of orange), and sanguine (a kind of red.)

Unit 00 is silver and tawny, later silver and blue.
Unit 01 is purple and green.
Unit 02 is red and tawny.
Unit 03 is blue and black.
Unit 04 (based on production art) is silver and black.
The MPEs are silver and black.

Granted, they do break the rules of heraldry in that you're not supposed to have two tinctures together, but still kind of interesting that they all slot into those boxes. Maybe a coincidence, maybe not! Incidentally, the colors of Mari Gras are purple, green, and gold, with purple representing justice, green representing faith, and gold representing power. Could there be room to interpret the orangey color on Unit 01's knees and thumbs as gold? Who knows!

Archer wrote:Did Yui perhaps consult a 4-year-old Shinji on what he thought the coolest color for a giant robot would be?

No shit, I had this exact idea in my head at some point but forgot about it until I saw this post lmfao