ChaddyManPrime wrote: One-eyed, you don't have to defend me brother, I appreciate the effort though.

I also went through this situation. Sometimes, I write something as a joke and it ends up looking like I'm attacking someone. A silly joke is just that, a silly joke without intention to offend and without malice.

Kendrix wrote: It says something about the state of the world that these days enough ppl say outrageous stuff seriously do that we've now shifted to treating it as serious by default...

The day will come when flame wars will start with a typo.

Joseki wrote:Also I'm generally against making a character so intrinsecally linked to another (Asuka to Shinji) if that doesn't end up being relevant to the endgame. Once again I feel like this is 2.0's fault who both gave us too much Asuka-Shinji and too little Asuka.

We discover a lot about Asuka in 3.0+1.0.

I think it's relevant, because Asuka (regardless what she said) is still "trapped" in her feelings for Shinji. So, she needs to let Shinji go and "move on".

Asuka seems to return from the Instrumentality in an adult body and close to Kensuke's house.

Joseki wrote:Granted, there is a lot of nuance in the final scene with Mari, and there is no explicit confirmation of them being a couple, but to me, if the final scene has to be in any way romantic it has to be between a couple that I think has chemistry, past experience, a reason to exist, and ultimately I get the feeling the pairing was chosen more because of their "out of universe" meaning than because it made sense in universe.

I think Mari represents a "new beginning" for Shinji at the end. Therefore, I think it works that they have almost no interactions.

Mari is not a new beginning, she was deep in the Evangelion world far more than Shinji ever was, she knew her parents before he knew them. In universe she is connected to the old baggage of Shinji as much as every other character if not even more.

The real "new beginning" for Shinji, if we want to interpret the ending like that, should have have been a complete no one. Someone who never piloted an Evangelion, someone who didn't work in crazy projects, someone that spectated everything that happened from far aways met on a very boring day years after the world was at peace. A perfectly normal girl with absolutely nothing special about her.

When I say that chosing Mari at the end over any other character makes sense "out of universe" is because 1. Mari arrived at the very end of the last movie being the only pilot who did not have a meaningful bond with Shinji 2. Mari's characterization better fit a "bright future" than all the other characters. This however are not reasons for Shinji as a character to end up with Mari.

This is why I came back to 2.0 needing to be a sensibly different movie for this ending to make sense. I feel like the problem all lie in that movie not doing enough with Asuka and Mari because of the limited runtime.

The intent was to have the "new character" be the catalyst for the "new outcome" I think, but the character wasn't integrated enough in the scenario.

In a way I feel like Mari was a change in Anno's life, but that didn't really translate into the story as a whole.




My focus on the very ending is mostly because that's the only part I didn't like, because it's well, the last Evangelion ever, and because the entire project was born as an attempt to create a 3rd ending to Eva. This ending in particular seemed to be all about leaving fans at peace and happy about the characters (adult, happy Shinji is extreme fanservice), so I'm really sad the ending doesn't really make me happy lol, I feel like I'm not getting what the authors wanted me to get.

The "characters X and Y that you know got a brand new relationship in the span of 2 minutes because of timeskip" is something I don't like in general.

What I would have liked more, keeping everything the same as much as possible, is 3 scenarios (no order): 1. Shinji is alone at the train station, he salutes everyone 2. Shinji is with everyone at the train station 3. same scene but replace Mari with a new character.

Assuming the intent for the ending was to make the viewer happy, I think the best option was simply not committing to any relationship. They are grown up adults, they can be whatever they want to be and they will be what the viewer think it will make them happier, the reason why the OG ending is still the one I consider to be the "happiest".




Alternatevely, the absolutely cynical answer, Anno wanted to make the new character more popular by making her the main love interest, Persona games style.

Thanks for sharing your reactions, Joseki! Some very good points in there, which I haven't seen expressed so clearly before.

Mari is still paradoxical for me. Yes, she's connected deeper than almost everybody else to the Evangelion world, yet she remains firmly an outsider; a Yankee at King Arthur's Court, if you will. Like you said, she works very well as a meta-character, and the ending works well on a meta-level, but from a Watsonian perspective, she's still simply too mysterious to really work in the role she has in the ending. The only well established relationship she has is with Asuka, not Shinji.

And I totally agree that adult, happy Shinji is extreme fanservice. A lot of the movie feels like Shinji-fanservice to me. It doesn't really connect well to what came before, at least for me.

(Oh, and: funny that Asuka and Kensuke are as far apart as they can be on the poster ... I'd only say that Fuyutsuki isn't part of a trio with Rei and Kaworu, but stands alone.)

Regarding Mari and Asuka specifically, I also don't like the epilogue splitting them in a way. Asuka not only loses her old/new love but also her best friend for basically a lifetime. Mari is clearly far more attached to Asuka than to Shinji.

I feel like the less I interpret the ending as "Shinji and Mari as a couple go their own seperate way from all the other characters" the best for me. I need my own interpretation however, but I'm waiting for the final movie for that.

Joseki wrote:Regarding Mari and Asuka specifically, I also don't like the epilogue splitting them in a way. Asuka not only loses her old/new love but also her best friend for basically a lifetime. Mari is clearly far more attached to Asuka than to Shinji.

Valid and relevant. They wrote themselves into a corner. It would have been better if the ending had given concrete proof that they are all still friends regardless of who is shipped with who.

Derantor wrote:(Oh, and: funny that Asuka and Kensuke are as far apart as they can be on the poster ... I'd only say that Fuyutsuki isn't part of a trio with Rei and Kaworu, but stands alone.)

They couldn't have put them together without running the risk of spoiling it. As it is Yui and Gendo plus Hikari and Touji and Misato and Kaji are indicative of the general pattern but they are also established in canon and publicly known going into the movie, so they are ambiguous signals that only matter in hindsight - but you could infer what was probably going on if you wanted to, and your guess would be right. Ritsuko doesn't have Maya though they are clearly a couple in Rebuild canon. Rei and Kaworu are also ambiguous even if you've seen the movie (talking to someone on a train platform is not proof that you are their lover). They just decided not to run the risk I guess.

shinryujimikihiko wrote: Ritsuko doesn't have Maya though they are clearly a couple in Rebuild canon.

Where are you getting THAT from?

Nuclear Lunchbox wrote:

shinryujimikihiko#922644 wrote:
Are we even aware of what minus space is? Sounds like something Anno made up but the Dirac Sea was also a real theory in physics for a while...

Like so many things in Anno's creations, it's an ultraman reference. "Minus Space" or "The Minus Universe" (depending on the translation) is the location of Planet Golgotha. (Sound familiar?)

Oh wow, thanks for connecting those dots. NGE had its Ultraman inspiration but naming a climactic plot point and dimension after it? Seems so Rebuildy to me.

Joseki wrote:Regarding Mari and Asuka specifically, I also don't like the epilogue splitting them in a way. Asuka not only loses her old/new love but also her best friend for basically a lifetime. Mari is clearly far more attached to Asuka than to Shinji.

I also questions Mari-Asuka's relationship. They're so attached and at some points even seems intimate, yet in the end Mari just say "goodbye & be good )" in a split second, and the next Asuka's just a barely seen character without any hints about their relationship of whatsoever, or as someone that she used to know *i'm writing this while singing Gotye's*

They could at least make them, let say, Asuka finally treats Mari in a more kind and affectionate way as a besties and say goodbye. That'll also show that Asuka's also being more mature in the end.

I'm a fan of Mari, i like the design, personality, but not a fan of her being ship with any character. Ending her up with any of them or even with the MC actually made me feel like reducing her grand role (If the ending interpretation was couple though).

Joseki wrote:Note: I didn't see the movie yet, I expect my opinion to change substancially when I see the movie myself and localized (I write this more for the people reading this post years in the future who are going to go "look how clueless this dude was"

No shit, bro. I wanted some variation of Asuka/Kaworu or Asuka/Touji to have happened during the timeskip, because the whole idea that she should have waited 14 years for him was ridiculous. So she didn't. Okay. She got over him... except she kinda didn't, revolves around him, has her most tsundere scenes in the main canonicity, ever. Tons of shipbait and her ultimate resolution doesn't feel definitive at all except by the plot hamfistingly trying to say it is, and not really succeeding. She has had a relationship with a third party that makes some sense... except she kinda has, there is clearly a wedge around them, the father-figure ambiguity, her isolation from humanity, Asuka clearly not being happy yet, and quite lonely still. I wanted a friendly, positive resolution to their relationship that doesn't devalue it. No shipping necessary. No wedding planned. So that happens... but it also kinda doesn't. You almost get the feeling they were going for it at some point but chickened out. Or if Anno just knew he needed to give them a vaguely romantic resolution and hamfisted it in the laziest way possible with the EoE reference. That scene has no value to the characters, only to the audience. If they actually committed to these pairings I could have bought it. Actually give an unambiguous Asuken and Marishin route with more than 3 minutes of development... but they don't. It's all just vaguely inferred. Worse, you are required to have background knowledge from Anno's life and the whole Moyoco thing. That's terrible. A film should stand on its own. It's like fucking Dornie Darko, lol. If the film had an unambiguous resolution for these or a completely open-ending, all five of them running in the station or whatever, that would have worked. But it's just so lame. Uggh. I almost wonder if they just didn't want to avoid closing things off for future works.

Mr. Tines wrote:"I went outside today, but no big-titty gf fell on me from the sky."
"Sounds like a you problem, bro. Have you tried being a millionaire?"
"T-thanks, Anno."

Thematically I completely understand it, I applaud Anno for it, but narratively it's rather contrived and lazy. Like Anno knew what he wanted to do but didn't commit to it, or didn't even know and just had to rush it at the end. There are several interesting sources surfacing and I'm wondering about the latter. He clearly felt burned out over Eva and wanted to move on. And I understand that, but maybe he should have just let Tsurumaki handle it like he initially wanted. I'm not mad, but I'm pretty sure 3.0 is gonna remain my favorite movie of the Rebuilds. That one had some balls.

I also agree about Mari. That might have been the initial intention, but she feels like the most Eva-esque of all things. At one point it feels like just pairing Shinji with the most fapbait, bland character you could imagine to satisfy fans, but of course her dearth of fans (though sure enough she's getting more now) doesn't quite fit that goal. The 2.0 CRC mentions some plans to have her more developed. If they went all-in with her from the beginning, even if they did outright replace Asuka, that would have been more respectable than what we got. They are under no obligation of bringing unsung hero Jet Alone Guy back, but Rei and Asuka and worst of all, Misato, feel like they got consumed by the movie's shorter screen-time, (inevitable) focus on Shinji and the need to give Mari something to do, which turned out to have happened all in the last act of this film. I should mention this is something noted even among the most uninvolved normal reviews in Japanese media right now, so it's not just fan backlash.

Either way, as you know, Eva as a franchise isn't ending and before long they'll pull something new. Probably without Anno, though I don't entirely expect him to keep away. I still want to see more from him, I'm sure I'll still love the movie, but you know, maybe he should have let go of Eva long ago already.

shinryujimikihiko wrote:

Joseki#922795 wrote:Regarding Mari and Asuka specifically, I also don't like the epilogue splitting them in a way. Asuka not only loses her old/new love but also her best friend for basically a lifetime. Mari is clearly far more attached to Asuka than to Shinji.

Valid and relevant. They wrote themselves into a corner. It would have been better if the ending had given concrete proof that they are all still friends regardless of who is shipped with who)

It's annoying to quote this yet again, from Mari's VA:

I thought it was nice that they spent a long time coming back to the ‘smell’. I feel that Mari just really likes people. She likes Shinji, but I think Asuka is special to Mari. Even though Asuka treats her coldly, Mari always calls her "Princess" and respects and protects her as a special person. In addition to the battles, they have together, the scene where she cuts her hair is very quiet and calm, and it has a nice sentimentality to it. I thought the contrast between the two was well-drawn.

It was a heavy burden for me, wondering if the fans would scold me for having such a newcomer hold hands with Shinji at the end (laughs). However, there have been many ways to portray "Eva" in the past, and if you can think of this as one of the possible endings, I'll be saved.

Poor thing.

bogusman wrote:, yet in the end Mari just say "goodbye & be good

Actually what she says is "take care of yourself"/"Be well" (might or might not be the same phrasing as the ep 25 title - can someone confirm or deny?)

I don't think she's actually there (she doesn't get in there until she collects Shinji later) - she's probably a memory, like Kensuke & Kaji, representing the meaning behind the above phrase probably - as she was someone who looked after Asuka in a supportive fashion.

In the sequence, Asuka is looking at interactions with ppl who were being supportive toward her & really seeing & internalizing the meaning, in a meaning that she hadn't before.

I presume being in the 'instrumentality space' has a shrooms-like effect of making you see things from different sides outside of your usual fixed patterns.

Mari is Jar Jar, she's the key to everything, but everything is shit.

Kendrix wrote:Actually what she says is "take care of yourself"/"Be well" (might or might not be the same phrasing as the ep 25 title - can someone confirm or deny?)

O yes i think you're right, I was kinda mixed up with Shinji's goodbye in that scene.

It would also be better if we see how Asuka changes in her attitude as a result after instrumentality/ matured, especially toward others, rather than just being an NPC playing handheld console.

Kendrix wrote:I don't think she's actually there (she doesn't get in there until she collects Shinji later) - she's probably a memory

Not saying you are wrong, but why would a memory say goodbye to her? And yeah, she says "Be well", but that's also a goodbye, I think.

Something just occurred to me since in this continuity Maria Iscariote (original template for Mari clon series / or mom / or herself but immortal) was a friend of Gendo, what if the glasses she wears are a gift from him something similar to glasses that Rei kept in her apartment after Gendo rescued her from the entry plug of unit 00. Also, Mari changes glasses between Eva 2.0 to Eva 3.0 but reverts to using her old glasses un Eva 3.0+1.0 when she meets Shinji on the beach right after Gendo has his redemption taking with yui the place of Shinji in the final impact. does that mean anything?

Glasses don't work like that (this rly pissed me off in the manga, too)


Though it's probably significant that she went back to the schoolgirl outfit when she reappeared in 'the real world' - I mean as per existing lore it would be related to how she imagines herself.

This was also an instruction that went into her character design: "Give her an English schoolgirl vibe"
The simplest explanation is that she went to a real English boarding school (either right before 2.0, if we go with the clone theory, or in the distant past) & that this was a formative experience for her.


Though this might be one of those things we're while they were immersed into production & having their pile of ideas it seems obvious enough but from the PoV of the audience could have been better communicated - for example, if they had included that flashback/scene of Mari at her house with her pets after all.

It was kind of the same with Asuka where it seems a bunch of scenes got cut & so they didn't establish her solidly enough before having her start to change, or how they didn't show us their rivalry/friendship actually gradually developing.
You shouldn#t have had to read through the drafts to appreciate her...


Then again, a lot of what she's there for is accomplished just by having her be there & have contrasting reactions to the others; still, she ended up being almost entirely static.

I want to make a comparison about this translation:

Reichu:

Kitakami: I'm fine with us picking up Lt. Commander Shikinami. But why the hell is the jinx with her?

Aoba: Give it a rest. Better he's with us than getting used by Nerv again.

Tama: Soon as the pilots are in their Evas, all personnel are granted unconditional use of firearms. I'm not worried this time around.


Nuclear Lunchbox:

Kitakami: "It's a good thing we got Major Shikinami back. But why'd we have to take that disease along with her?"

Aoba: "Just leave it alone. Better than Nerv still being able to use him."

Tama: "If he tries to get into an Evangelion, all hands have permission to shoot on sight. There's nothing to worry about this time."


The translations are pretty similar, but I noticed more hostility towards Eva's pilots from WILLE in Reichu's translation.

The section in question is from line 916. Now that I've seen the movie three times, I'm pretty confident with how I rendered my version here, with maybe one tiny tweak or two. Hell, let's take it line by line.

916:
式波少佐の回収はいいですよ

Kitakami: "It's a good thing we got Major Shikinami back."

You could also render this as "I'm glad we got Major Shikinami back." Midori's speaking casually and uses common emphasis at the end of her sentence, which could be taken to mean she's stating authoritatively that it's a good thing, or that she personally thinks it's good to have Asuka back on board. Germany does not have Lieutenant Commanders in their ranks of commissioned officers, and Japan only has it as a rank in its navy (Maritime Self-Defense Force, technically); Asuka is in the air force. Both, however, have Majors in their air forces, hence my decision.

917:
けど なんであの疫病神も一緒なんですか？

Kitakami: But why'd we have to take that disease along with her?"

Kitakami is using a word that literally means "god of pestilence", but is more colloquially understood to mean a person whose presence invites misfortune. Jisho, Rikaichamp, and other online dictionaries recommend words like "jinx" and "pest", both of which are perfectly acceptable. I was personally inspired by James Spader's line in Age of Ultron, where he says "Don't compare me with Stark! It's a thing with me. Stark is... He's a sickness!" Calling Shinji a disease kept elements of the original in a way I liked. (Trivia fact: in Japanese, Ultron's line is, "Don't compare me with someone like Stark! I can't stand the sound of his name!")

There's also a も in the middle of her sentence, which I interpret as being connected to the verb in the previous sentence where she says "got Major Shikinami back", which is why I translated it as "take that disease along with her" instead of "why was that disease with her". If it were が, then I'd have likely opted for the other reading.

918:
放置して またネルフに利用されるよりはマシだろう

Aoba: "Just leave it alone. Better than Nerv still being able to use him."

放置する is a more formal form of 放っておく, the latter being to leave something be or to ignore it. Instead of rendering his line as "Forget about it" or something more casual, "Just leave it alone" maintains that formality in a way I like. The second part of his sentence involves a passive される, referring to Shinji being used by NERV. The third part of his sentence uses マシ, a word meaning "more" or "extra" as well as a colloquialism that means "better" or even "less objectionable". More formal first part of the sentence, less formal second and third part.

There's nothing wrong with "Better than him getting used by NERV again". It's a more word-accurate translation. Because WILLE isn't planning to use Shinji for anything, I went with a potential "being able to use him" to allow more of a parallel to the situation: better for him to be with WILLE (confined away) than to be with NERV (being used to pilot).

919:
エヴァ搭乗を画策時には総員に無条件発砲許可が出てます

Tama: "If he tries to get into an Evangelion, all hands have permission to shoot on sight."

The line is more literally, "In the event he schemes to board an Evangelion, unconditional permission to shoot is given to all hands." This line is long and clunky and I don't like it, particularly given the casual way in which Tama talks. The function of "schemes" is taken care of by "tries to", since they can't telepathically tell what Shinji is thinking. 時に is what means "In the event", but that is contextually obvious in "If someone does XYZ, shoot on sight". You can't exactly shoot on sight if you're not in the moment! Speaking of shooting on sight, that's how I've rendered "unconditional permission to shoot", since that's a more familiar English expression for having permission to fire quickly and without gaining additional authorization or confirmation.

I'm not sure where "As soon as all the pilots are in their Evas" came from. XYZを画策 means to plan out XYZ, so an alternate reading for that is puzzling to me.

920:
今度は安心じゃないすか

Tama: "There's nothing to worry about this time."

Honestly, I could have gone even more casual with this one. すか is a super casual, slangy way to end a sentence, and asking the question in the negative (じゃない) adds to that. Something like "Everything's gonna be fine this time, right?" would probably be how I'd tweak this to fit that better.

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This is all stuff that goes through my brain in a matter of seconds when I'm working, and it takes a lot of time to really think about it and type it out! There are loads of things to consider when you're speaking or when you're writing, and we probably can't explain half the reasons we form specific sentences the way we do. Language is a complex tool, beautifully imprecise, which makes it all the more important you have an understanding of how to handle it when you're doing something as tricky as moving meaning from one language to another.

Nuclear Lunchbox wrote:The section in question is from line 916. Now that I've seen the movie three times, I'm pretty confident with how I rendered my version here, with maybe one tiny tweak or two. Hell, let's take it line by line.

Thank you very much for all your clarifications. It's pretty interesting.

Besides, having the authorization to shoot "as soon as the pilots are in their Evas" would be meaningless, since by then there wouldn't be any Eva for Shinji to pilot (01 is supposed to be sealed inside the Wunder's engine), and if it's to wait that he's effectively in an Eva to be able to shoot him... well, they can shoot the 80 meter tall armored cyborg with their sidearm, but it won't be very effective.