Pluto wrote:It's seems there's a lot of information about the intentions and to what extent things were planned in the newtype interviews. I haven't read the article yet but here's some snippets from this eye's only video
here.
Tsurumaki said that they planned to destroy the world of Eva after “Ha”
Tsumaki said
I think I came up with the idea that "another person" is needed in the story in order to end it in a different way from the End of Evangelion.
Tsurumaki also talked about the relationship between Kaoru and Kaji
About 14 years have passed between “Ha” to Q and during production, and the episodes during that time were considered to some extent.
One of them was the idea that Kaoru and Kaji would be the Commander and the Vice Commander.
I thought that I would make an episode with this idea, but what happened was that Q’s story was drawn from 14 years later without warning
Please do not quote entire posts, but only what's most relevant to your post.
-Zusuchan Wait a second, when Tsurumaki said that they "planned to destroy the world of Eva after Ha”, does he meant that it was planned from the beginning to completely depart from NGE's story from Q onward, or that the idea to break everything came after Ha was released?
Because the way he talks about how he thought that he would make an episode with the idea of Kaworu and Kaji as commanders of NERV implies that they actually intended at first to have Q cover the events shown in the next time preview, which goes completely against what they said in the Q booklet where they say that they planned the timeskip from the beginning!
This also confirms that Kaji and Kaworu were the leaders of NERV Japan (and not another branch), which means that NERV was still functional between N3I and A3I.
Xiel wrote:By the way do the VAs get interviews in this magazine? I keep seeing over twitter Ogata claimed Shinji never recovered so much that was actually broken by despair that obtained some sure of Buddha-like Enlightenment and became like Kaworu (as trying to obtain his own happiness by making other people happy) from her perspective. I need the source because I kinda interpreted it in a similar way lol.
Oh, so I'm not the only one who thinks that! That was a little weird thought that could had been born from me only having the script, so I didn't talked about it yet, but I too had the feeling from what I read that despite regaining hope and all the time he spent at Village-3, Shinji didn't... let's say "connect" with anyone. In contrast, in her short time there, Rei Q completely integrated herself and found a place in the village (to the point that it's heavily implied that Rei II will go back living there after Instrumentality), while Shinji goes with Kensuke or Toji when they ask him to go with there, and then seemingly spends the rest of his time back in the ruins of the NERV building.
I get the feeling that instead of finding a place to belong, he learned that there were still people dear to him that are alive, and thus decided to cast away all his bonds to them (as if he's undeserving of it) in favor of dedicating his entire life to atone for the harm he caused, he even point blank tell this to Toji ("I'll have to make amends for what I did. I want to take responsibility. That's how I'll live.").
Or how he seemingly lacked any curiosity about what exactly happened 14 years ago: when Kensuke said that Kaji sacrificed himself to stop Third Impact, did Shinji actually know that there was another Third Impact after his Near Third Impact, and that his N3I was stopped by Kaworu? Because it could be interpreted that Shinji thought that Kaji died to stop
his N3I. Also how in the end he never learned that Asuka's eyepatch was indeed a direct consequence of the 9th Angel infection (he probably suspects it, but never confirms it), that she's still infected by said 9th Angel, as well as what this Curse of Eva is actually about (especially since Asuka hints that Shinji is on his way to be affected by it), which is weird because an important step of accepting responsibility is learning what exactly did you do and how it affected the people you hurt, yet (again, from what I understood of the script) it looks like Shinji decided "this is all my fault and I must repent for
everything" and that the details are superfluous, so he must dedicate his entire life to his atonement.
Which is probably why he was ready to kill himself without hesitation to repair the world.
In short, I have the feeling that by the time he recovered, he became a Misato 2.0.
It's a chance that the next time he had the opportunity to act on it was the final battle and that it presented an opportunity to fix
everything, because that's the kind of mindset that can very easily become self-destructive. (like, if he had a combat role somewhere or even a slightly dangerous thing to do, he won't hesitate to put his life in danger)