Konja7 wrote:When has Anno said that the interpretation of Shinji and Mari as a couple is wrong?

I mean, we see Shinji and Mari flirting in the Epilogue. I doubt the creators wouldn't expect that interpretation.

I mean, the whole OP is about that lol but not Hideaki Anno himself, but Mari's VA, Shinji's VA and the sound director all said that there were no romantic intent or undertones at all in the scene - and honestly, I also can't see how so many people see that as flirting per se, at least not the kind of romantic flirting so many people are kinda forcing themselves to see. As it happens, what Shinji says is completely normal to say as a friend and it's said to highlight his growth as a person and his newfound maturity - Mari doesn't get flustered by his response, but surprised, as pointed out by her VA herself.

Axx°N N. wrote:Agreed.

Ambiguity retained doesn't mean all interpretations are wrong. It means it's expecting (and encouraging) many interpretations.

It's worth pointing out none of them ever said that shipping them is wrong, just that everything was done in a purely friendly way that leaves a margin for people to ship them in the future AKA they canonically end the movie as nothing but friends but everyone can picture them as a couple in their version of what happens after the ending - just like Asuka, Rei, Kaworu and whoever else you ship him with. The problem isn't shipping them, it's affirming such shipping to be canon based on the debunked interpretation that they ended the last movie as a couple. The sound director points that out himself btw.

PS: thinking about Hideaki Anno himself, knowing what he thinks and how he feels about waifu wars, he prob gotta be quite pissed at how he tried to make everyone happy by canonically not pairing Shinji with anyone and end up having people bashing him for the erroneous notion that he paired him with one of the least popular ships in the franchise - afaik even Mana has more shippers than Mari.

Konja7 wrote:I would need to know the source for that original idea too. I've never read that idea from the interviews to staff or VA's.

As pretty much everything being pointed out, most of it can be found either in the wikia or evageeks, especially https://evangelion.fandom.com/wiki/Statements_by_Evangelion_Staff. Obviously head to the last movie's section or simply search for references in the movie page's footnotes.

I think I have nothing more to add on the thread

EzioAuditore1456 wrote:As it happens, what Shinji says is completely normal to say as a friend and it's said to highlight his growth as a person and his newfound maturity - Mari doesn't get flustered by his response, but surprised, as pointed out by her VA herself.

Man, this is so counter to pretty much every live reaction I've seen among those I've watched NTE with. Partly because, at last among my crowd, a lot of good will was exhausted by the gratuitous fanservice, and so no one was liable to find demeaning boob talk either mature or what one would say as friendly conversation, but more like just an unrealistically written wish-fulfillment convo.

My first reaction when I saw the ending was shock, and while watching I was really grasping for how it fit the themes of Evangelion as I understood them. I'm not sure I've made any progress, but I have softened my reaction and recognize the ending scene's intent as ambiguous.

But quite frankly, I don't think it stuck the landing of actually being functionally ambiguous. Many of my friends took the ending as just "Mari and Shinji are together now," and cared so little about the rest of Shin that they wrote it off and didn't think about it any further. It's wrong to judge an artwork based on its popular reception (or misconception), but there's so many elements at play that get in the way of an ambiguous read.

First of all, the very notion of the time-skip occuring (if that's what it is) is setting people up to make wild assumptions, or interpret the fact Shinji looks older as instructive in the sense of "Oh, I guess they just got together in the interim, the movie wants me to just accept that surprise. They're a couple now."

Second is that there's no confirmation Shinji isn't writing his friends off, and regardless the visual is that he leaves them behind without a word, hand-in-hand with just one of the girls into a weird metaphorical reality-change.

Third is it just goes so quickly.

I think people are missing the intended ambiguity to assume MariShin, but I blame them less than I blame Anno, because if he truly wanted to avoid this interpretation, there were many, many different possibilities with what to end on as a last image. Shinji holding hands and running off with someone is on the bottom of the list, methinks.

I think it might be Shin's version of the eternal "how gay is 24?" debate. There are plenty of good arguments to be made that Shinji and Mari aren't together, I don't even want them together, but they just feel like they are.

EzioAuditore1456 wrote:I mean, the whole OP is about that lol but not Hideaki Anno himself, but Mari's VA, Shinji's VA and the sound director all said that there were no romantic intent or undertones at all in the scene - and honestly, I also can't see how so many people see that as flirting per se, at least not the kind of romantic flirting so many people are kinda forcing themselves to see. As it happens, what Shinji says is completely normal to say as a friend and it's said to highlight his growth as a person and his newfound maturity - Mari doesn't get flustered by his response, but surprised, as pointed out by her VA herself.

Honestly, I'm not forcing myself to see that scene as romantic flirting. I just see the scene and it conveys a romantic flirt to me.

If I'm not mistaken, the sound director said the music doesn't have romantic intent in that scene. However, he doesn't denied the interpretation of Mari and Shinji as a couple.

I think Ogata doesn't like the idea of the couple, but she doesn't make Shinji's voice in the Epilogue (and she is a little salty for that). I don't think the VA of Shinji in the Epilogue has said something.

EzioAuditore1456 wrote:As pretty much everything being pointed out, most of it can be found either in the wikia or evageeks, especially https://evangelion.fandom.com/wiki/Statements_by_Evangelion_Staff. Obviously head to the last movie's section or simply search for references in the movie page's footnotes.

Could you tell me who said one of the original ideas was to have them contact each other via smartphone? It would help me to look.

Axx°N N. wrote:Man, this is so counter to pretty much every live reaction I've seen among those I've watched NTE with. Partly because, at last among my crowd, a lot of good will was exhausted by the gratuitous fanservice, and so no one was liable to find demeaning boob talk either mature or what one would say as friendly conversation, but more like just an unrealistically written wish-fulfillment convo.

My first reaction when I saw the ending was shock, and while watching I was really grasping for how it fit the themes of Evangelion as I understood them. I'm not sure I've made any progress, but I have softened my reaction and recognize the ending scene's intent as ambiguous.

But quite frankly, I don't think it stuck the landing of actually being functionally ambiguous. Many of my friends took the ending as just "Mari and Shinji are together now," and cared so little about the rest of Shin that they wrote it off and didn't think about it any further. It's wrong to judge an artwork based on its popular reception (or misconception), but there's so many elements at play that get in the way of an ambiguous read.

First of all, the very notion of the time-skip occuring is setting people up to make wild assumptions, or interpret the fact Shinji looks older as instructive in the sense of "Oh, I guess they just got together in the interim, the movie wants me to just accept that surprise. They're a couple now."

Second is that there's no confirmation Shinji isn't writing his friends off, and regardless the visual is that he leaves them behind without a word, hand-in-hand with just one of the girls into a weird metaphorical reality-change.

Third is it just goes so quickly.

I think people are missing the intended ambiguity to assume MariShin, but I blame them less than I blame Anno, because if he truly wanted to avoid this interpretation, there were many, many different possibilities with what to end on as a last image. Shinji holding hands and running off with someone is on the bottom of the list, methinks.

I think it might be Shin's version of the eternal "how gay is 24?" debate. There are plenty of good arguments to be made that Shinji and Mari aren't together, I don't even want them together, but they just feel like they are.

Ironically my impressions were pretty much the exact opposite, I liked the fanservice precisely because it detracts a bit from the previous work and I love ass. I watched the new theatrical editions hoping to see something new, something that we normally wouldn't have, and fanservice, for example, was one of those things. I must agree that several people, maybe even you and your crew included, felt like they were going to watch something more heavily based on the original series, like a lot of drama and depression and whatever, so the poor reaction can be explained by the twisted expectations. It's hard to blame someone for that though, since they explicitly wanted to do things differently but they also knew they could lose some appeal due to those changes. I for example while watching the first movie I wondered if that's how they'd do things because I expected rebuild to be more lighthearted, less serious and overall not a modern copy of the same we had years ago, so pretty much all the changes were welcomed by me - the 14 year gap kinda set me off at first but I eventually got along with it just fine.

Maybe that's why it was so easy for me to properly understand pretty much all of the points they wanted to convene that most people seemed to miss - like Kensuke not being romantically involved with Asuka and Mari and Shinji being nothing but friendly. I went in expecting something completely new, disregarding pretty much everything that got me into the series, like the psychological themes, conflict and ambiguous concepts. I went in to watch a bunch of extremely well made movies, and that's what I got - the only expectation I had for being evangelion was to be good, not to be evangelion as we knew it.

It's really unfortunate that so many people were incapable of seeing things that way and went in expecting pretty much more of the same in HD, leading to all those erroneous notions and thwarted expectations. Maybe the marketing should have focused more on lowering people's expectation to see nothing but a remastered version of evangelion but, considering the changes we had in the middle - let's not forget, quite a lot of people weren't fond of 3.0 - we can't really blame them for expecting people to see this as an almost completely new work.

Konja7 wrote:Honestly, I'm not forcing myself to see that scene as romantic flirting. I just see the scene and it conveys a romantic flirt to me.

If I'm not mistaken, the sound director said the music doesn't have romantic intent in that scene. However, he doesn't denied the interpretation of Mari and Shinji as a couple.

I think Ogata doesn't like the idea of the couple, but she doesn't make Shinji's voice in the Epilogue (and she is a little salty for that). I don't think the VA of Shinji in the Epilogue has said something.

Not necessarily you but a lot of people are jumping to conclusions - many due to bandwagon - and pretty much forcing themselves to interprete the scene the way they see other people interpreting. Also, it had nothing to do with music, it was about the voice acting - how the voice actors are instructed to act - and as I pointed out, he denied they were a couple but not the viability of them eventually becoming a couple. As I said before, shipping them isn't wrong, claiming they are canonically a couple is. Also, I must remind you yet again, but Megumi Ogata is Hideaki Anno's confidante and she has a lot of influence in pretty much everything Shinji related - let's not forget he literally asked her for input towards what to do with him, ironically because Anno wasn't being capable of identifying himself with Shinji anymore and was more connected to Gendo of all people. She never showed any sign of discomfort and her words are just what they are, that they aren't lovers and that's all there is to it. Picking someone else for half a dozen lines said by a grown up version of your character didn't make her despise the character she spent 25 years voice acting or her close friend that confides with her. Also worth pointing out that the very same thing was said by Mari's VA, so according to your logic she also must've been salty lol

Konja7 wrote:Could you tell me who said one of the original ideas was to have them contact each other via smartphone? It would help me to look.

Unfortunately I don't remember but you could always ctrl + f it, but if I'm not mistaken - and I could very well be - it was Mayu Sakamoto, Mari's VA.

EzioAuditore1456 wrote:Not necessarily you but a lot of people are jumping to conclusions - many due to bandwagon - and pretty much forcing themselves to interprete the scene the way they see other people interpreting. Also, it had nothing to do with music, it was about the voice acting - how the voice actors are instructed to act - and as I pointed out, he denied they were a couple but not the viability of them eventually becoming a couple. As I said before, shipping them isn't wrong, claiming they are canonically a couple is. Also, I must remind you yet again, but Megumi Ogata is Hideaki Anno's confidante and she has a lot of influence in pretty much everything Shinji related - let's not forget he literally asked her for input towards what to do with him, ironically because Anno wasn't being capable of identifying himself with Shinji anymore and was more connected to Gendo of all people. She never showed any sign of discomfort and her words are just what they are, that they aren't lovers and that's all there is to it. Picking someone else for half a dozen lines said by a grown up version of your character didn't make her despise the character she spent 25 years voice acting or her close friend that confides with her. Also worth pointing out that the very same thing was said by Mari's VA, so according to your logic she also must've been salty lol

I've never said Ogata despise the character she played for 25 years.

I said Ogata is a little salty, because she doesn't seem to be happy to not play Shinji in the Epilogue. She has said that she felt Evangelion could not conclude for her. That's another reason why I don't think Ogata has so much influence in Anno.

In itself, it has been mentioned that VA's don't know so much about the direction (especially scenes they don't play).

EzioAuditore1456 wrote:Unfortunately I don't remember but you could always ctrl + f it, but if I'm not mistaken - and I could very well be - it was Mayu Sakamoto, Mari's VA.

I've read the interviews of Maaya Sakamoto, but I don't find anything about a smarthphone conversation. I guess I will continue to read more.

I should mention that Maya Sadamoto knows the reaction that people would have for Mari (a newcomer) holding Shinji hand. So, I doubt Anno doesn't know the impression that scene could convey.

Also, Maaya Sadamoto doesn't exactly deny Marishin interpretations for the Epilogue.

EzioAuditore1456 wrote:I must agree that several people, maybe even you and your crew included, felt like they were going to watch something more heavily based on the original series, like a lot of drama and depression and whatever, so the poor reaction can be explained by the twisted expectations. It's hard to blame someone for that though, since they explicitly wanted to do things differently but they also knew they could lose some appeal due to those changes.

Eh, I'm not sure that's quite it. Everyone I know has a pretty broad taste--they like art films as much as they like John Carpenter movies. For myself, I would have been up for something novel and not typical of Evangelion--I like the idea of a lot of what Shin is trying to get across, I just don't feel that there's enough pacing or character development for it to land. The main criticism among my friends was that Shin was schizophrenic and never slowed down. If it were paced differently and weren't so disjointed, a lot of my problems would cease. I'm not against Mari conceptually, for one, but I'm against how little she was built-up and how lacking in nuance her character is. It's not that she needs to be troubled, it's that I wish she were more multi-faceted. The best example I can think of is the film Wild Strawberries, which has a supporting cast of really eager, sincere, friendly hitchikers. They're positive and they have positive impacts on a depressed main character. But they're not one-dimensional, and the film spends enough time on them for them to matter. Clearly this is subjective though, I'm not trying to push against your enjoyment--just clarifying, what didn't work for me wasn't just that it wasn't depressing, because that's not all I care about in fiction.

Konja7 wrote:I've never said Ogata despise the character she played for 25 years.

I said Ogata is a little salty, because she doesn't seem to be happy to not play Shinji in the Epilogue. She has said that she felt Evangelion could not conclude for her. That's another reason why I don't think Ogata has so much influence in Anno.

In itself, it has been mentioned that VA's don't know so much about the direction (especially scenes they don't play).

I've read the interviews of Maaya Sakamoto, but I don't find anything about a smarthphone conversation. I guess I will continue to read more.

I should mention that Maya Sadamoto knows the reaction that people would have for Mari (a newcomer) holding Shinji hand. So, I doubt Anno doesn't know the impression that scene could convey.

Also, Maaya Sadamoto doesn't exactly deny Marishin interpretations for the Epilogue.

Apparently you insist on your completely baseless view that VAs are just clueless about production and simply do as they're told, so why bother reminding you one more time that, besides everything I've explained about how the anime industry works, Ogata happens to be Anno's confidante. I mean, if you're really gonna ignore that fact and claim she doesn't have any kind of influence on him why should I even bother lol

Just keep believing whatever you want to believe since you won't bother thinking further than "lol she mad"

EzioAuditore1456 wrote:Apparently you insist on your completely baseless view that VAs are just clueless about production and simply do as they're told, so why bother reminding you one more time that, besides everything I've explained about how the anime industry works, Ogata happens to be Anno's confidante. I mean, if you're really gonna ignore that fact and claim she doesn't have any kind of influence on him why should I even bother

I've read interviews where VAs of Evangelion have said they are totally surprised about scenes or they aren't told what is happening in the story. Not to mention that VAs have mentioned they don't even see the scenes when they record.

So, I don't think VAs have so much influence in the story. I am not saying that staff can't consult some things with the VAs, but they do not share as much information with them.


PS: In anime industry, it's extremely common to not share information with the VAs.

Konja7 wrote:I've read interviews where VAs of Evangelion have said they are totally surprised about scenes or they aren't told what is happening in the story. Not to mention that VAs have mentioned they don't even see the scenes when they record.

So, I don't think VAs have so much influence in the story. I am not saying that staff can't consult some things with the VAs, but they do not share as much information with them.


PS: In anime industry, it's extremely common to not share information with the VAs.

You seem confused about the definition of influence and the difference between knowledge and total control. Yeah, there are some things that they ain't told about and things they'd rather make a surprise, doesn't change the fact that some VAs, especially Ogata of all people, have a huge amount of influence in pretty much everything regarding their own character - like Hideaki Anno literally delegating Shinji's future to Ogata, unless you think the creator of the franchise giving the VA authority over the main character doesn't count as influence lol. Funny how those same interviews you seem to miss, so can't tell whether you're not finding them or simply didn't bother reading.

Also, you seem unaware that both things can apply - a show can have VAs vetoing creative decisions, another can have VAs who are not even sure who they're voicing, quite literally. Claiming that it's "extremely common" not to share information is extremely useless when talking about a show that's proven to not be the case. But I won't bother mentioning all those instances again because apparently you're incapable of finding those interviews, even though I sent several links as source, several times

jedi_spectre1 wrote:It depends a lot on your interpretation of the time and place of the final scene. If it is a timeskip, then yes, they probably are together in my opinion. But if they are still in the Anti-Universe or just got isekai'd into "Neon Genesis," then it is more ambiguous. I personally don't think its a timeskip, since the DSS Choker and the dialogue seem more to indicate little time has passed. Why would Shinji wear the DSS Choker if he was living for the past fourteen years in a world without Evangelions?

I personally don't view Shinji and Mari as romantic, but I understand the interpretation that they are. I think it is unclear enough that any number of views on it can be held. Also, I am biased, since I find a romantic relationship between Mari and Shinji to be pretty weird and creepy, since she seemed to be present for his literal birth.

Yes right, love relationship is a strange, out of nowhere Shinji loves Mari

I was genuinely expected Mari to end up with Asuka, I mean they spend way more time together then what Mari spended with Shinji.

Luigi Shinji wrote:I was genuinely expected Mari to end up with Asuka, I mean they spend way more time together then what Mari spended with Shinji.

I agree with that as it makes way more sense.

Heteronormativity is one hell of a drug.

ppl will see "girl & boy standing next to each other" and instantly think couple - they also did it in EoE but at least in that case Shinji and Asuka were actually portrayed to have some degree of sexual tension between them.

Mari is basically there so Shinji can talk to someone, the scene is all about him & about concluding his character arc, showing off that he's more confident now etc. Someone needs to rescue him to show his attempts at redeeming himself were appreciated, and to say "welcome to the club of grownups".

It baffles me how many people seem to be purposefully choosing to interpret it in a way that makes them as angry as possible and then getting mad about it though there's no need to interpret it that way at all.

That said, I don't think it's correct to say that Mari is "pushing Shinji & Asuka together"; She just wants her to find closure & be emotionally honest for her own peace of mind.(and also just to screw with/tease her) - though in any case, it's as a function of caring about Asuka as someone she has a particular bond with.

The big point here is that Asuka finally got some friends (Mari & Kensuke) who can see through her bristly demeanor to the more sensitive person underneath, & that Mari can tell she's more conflicted than she acts. There wasn't really anyone like that in the OG show, everyone was kinda fooled by Asuka's confident facade until she spiralled into a full breakdown.

The spacing of the characters in the poster (Mari-Shinji, Gendo-Yui, Misato-Kaji, Toji-Hikari) is indicative of what the pairing are. No amount of poorly hidden backtracking done with extra media and interviews can change what the movie strongly hints.

Luigi Shinji wrote:I was genuinely expected Mari to end up with Asuka, I mean they spend way more time together then what Mari spended with Shinji.

Sorry no gays in the Rebuild, only Shinzo Abe's breeding propaganda.
Every meaningful female character is either a mother, a motherly figure, desires to be a mother or laments in a cut scene how they can't engage in sexual activities.

@ Kendrix: The thing is that it's not at all just "boy and girl standing next to each other," the back half of Shin is extremely pairing-coded in a way that, if that wasn't the goal, there were endless opportunities to avoid it outright.

Asuka and Shinji bid a seeming farewell in a romantic context. Asuka admits to a crush, and Shinji, in response, brings up Kensuke. Due to the nature of the way this is written and directed, it's not hard to view the scene as a kind of shipping ping-pong. Enter Shinji, "we're not meant for each other, say hi to Kensuke," Asuka ball in Kensuke court. Yes, you can choose to read Asuka and Kensuke's relationship in any number of platonic ways, but when the discourse and context here is front-loaded with romantic subtext, it's not hard at all to read everything as antecedent.

Then we have the train station--it's not Mari and Shinji standing upright, stiff, contextless, neutral, sexless. They outright flirt. Breasts and smells are mentioned, hands are held. You can choose to read it as platonic flirting and hand-holding, but as an argument there seems to be less tangible evidence.

Not only that, another instance of pairing-off occurs; Rei is seen standing next to Kaworu, no additional context for this development is given, and is immediately followed by the male & female hand-holding of Shinji and Mari.

To claim that people reading the pairings as romantic are the heteronormative ones, and not the film itself, seems really absurd to me. It's not Shinji & Mari's proximity in a vacuum, it's a glut of elements, not least of which Shinji & Mari's beachside reunion, coded in the elements and cliches of many a romantic film scene ... clearly playing off the famous EoE beach scene in which Shinji was just unambiguously separated, unambiguously romantically, from Asuka.

For a franchise that has long had room to read queerness, famously so, beforehand ... Shin might be the least queer entry in the entire franchise, and retroactively makes it harder to apply those readings to past material. Maya was unambiguously shown to have same-sex romantic feelings in EoE, but nothing close to that exists in NTE.

Instead, what NTE does is unambiguously resolve the vagaries of the Kaworu & Shinji relationship, the most central potentially queer element, and in disregarding if it's homosexual in nature or not, unambiguously states it to anyway be one-sided and best moved on from ... followed by Shinji holding the hand of a female character and Kaworu visually paired with a female character.

There's no ambiguity to the way that NTE resolves (and disengages from) several prior longstanding potential pairings. To see Shinji & Mari together as the next step of that formula, as a new (or in the parlance of shipping, winning) pairing, doesn't seem at all wrong-headed to me. Shin is a film that makes it harder to read into the material in any way you would want, compared to the prior status quo, so to read that as the film not being interested in ambiguity, or the "this relationship is impossible" overtures as set up for "but this one is" for the new perceived pairings (Shinji & Mari, Asuka & Kensuke) ... doesn't seem bonkers to me. If the film was truly concerned with not giving shippers ammo it would have clarified what Kaworu and Rei are up to--instead, whatever they might be up to is the only thing with room to wonder about because a thick line was drawn between Shinji and Kaworu using 100% exposition.

I'm not saying there's zero room for ambiguity in Shin, or that a platonic read is wrong. I just really bristle at framing anyone who reads it otherwise as delusional or a stupid shipper or whatever, and find it to be really disingenuous to the reality of the material.

Speaking as a queer viewer myself, I feel as if I don't have footholds into the material anymore. I'm not saying I should, that's Anno's prerogative, I'm saying I felt like I used to and now I don't. Yes, I can tell myself Shinji & Kaworu's thing was still romantic, and Mari is just a friend. Regardless, Shinji commenting on her big breasts and running off holding her hand (in a business suit!) is the exact opposite of a visual that resonates with me. Every prior ending did not leave me with this feeling. To be frank, it would be extremely unlikely that you could task someone to think up an ending that feels less open-ended to me in this way.

EDIT: To clarify, I don't have any contention with the ending because it can be read in a heteronormative manner, but moreso that the ending doesn't conjure anything in me under either reading. Even if it's platonic, the choice to focus so much of the dialogue on sex is offputting, as "Shinji is mature and has found confidence now" could have been done in any manner of ways.

I don't think Asuka and Kensuke are supposed to be a pair necessarily, but Shinji and Mari in the last scene are pretty clearly portrayed as being in a relationship imo.
But I don't think that scene is really about that.

Joseki wrote:The spacing of the characters in the poster (Mari-Shinji, Gendo-Yui, Misato-Kaji, Toji-Hikari) is indicative of what the pairing are. No amount of poorly hidden backtracking done with extra media and interviews can change what the movie strongly hints.

There was no backtracking, unless you consider official interviews such as the one from 3.0+1.0's VA Director who said that the final scene wasn't directed in a romantic manner. Regardless though, even when considering just what's shown in the final product, a non-romantic interpretation is also valid, but much less strongly backed as say, Kensuke and Asuka sharing a parent-child relationship.

Sorry no gays in the Rebuild, only Shinzo Abe's breeding propaganda.

How quickly have people forgotten 3.0, the mainline entry with the most overtly gay themes in the franchise... And Rebuild is "breeding propaganda" because it makes two couples that were either dating (Kaji/Misato) already in both the original and prior movies, or were heavily hinted to have feelings towards each other (Toji/Hikari) have a child after 14 years of having been together? Sure...

Every meaningful female character is either a mother, a motherly figure, desires to be a mother or laments in a cut scene how they can't engage in sexual activities.

Asuka was the only meaningful female character in Eva that really went against these themes. Even in Rebuild, she wasn't even remotely shown to be interested in becoming a mother. With that being said, and assuming cut content has any bearing whatsoever in the first place, because she laments about how she's not able to have sex, then that must be because she wants to have a child? I don't think so...

Joseki wrote:Sorry no gays in the Rebuild, only Shinzo Abe's breeding propaganda.
Every meaningful female character is either a mother, a motherly figure, desires to be a mother or laments in a cut scene how they can't engage in sexual activities.

The last one isn't like the others. Asuka lamenting she couldn't have sex due to "Eva curse" (which also prevents you from eating or sleeping) wouldn't she wants to be mother.

In fact, Asuka in NGE wanted to have sex (to show she was an adult), but she doesn't want to be a mother.

ChrisTamv wrote:There was no backtracking, unless you consider official interviews such as the one from 3.0+1.0's VA Director who said that the final scene wasn't directed in a romantic manner. Regardless though, even when considering just what's shown in the final product, a non-romantic interpretation is also valid, but much less strongly backed as say, Kensuke and Asuka sharing a parent-child relationship.

I've never understood the idea that Kensuke and Asuka could have a parent-child relationship. The closer hint is the scene in Asuka's instrumentality, but even that could just be interpreted as Kensuke being family for Asuka (not really a parent).

A parent-child relationship doesn't even make sense in-story. Asuka and Kensuke are the same age (and met when both look the same age). Not to mention that Asuka and Kensuke would look the same age at the end of 3.0+1.0.

ChrisTamv wrote:How quickly have people forgotten 3.0, the mainline entry with the most overtly gay themes in the franchise...

To be fair, although 3.0 clearly gave fanservice to Kaworu x Shinji fans, the thing is even Kaworu's feelings aren't never confirmed to be romantic.

Even Kaworu saying he was drawn towards Shinji in the Instrumentality is ambiguous about whether it's romantic or not. Even the kanji used is for an ambiguous meaning.

That said, Rei Q "confession" to Shinji was really ambiguous in Japanese (it just turns clearly romantic in English sub). So, Anno/Khara may just like to mantain ambiguity.

but even that could just be interpreted as Kensuke being family for Asuka (not really a parent).

Perhaps that's a better way to put it, but calling it a parent-child-like relationship isn't far off either. They both might be the same age physically, but the difference in mental maturity is stark.

In any case though, pretty much everything in the movie supports an interpretation along these lines regarding Asuka's and Kensuke's relationship. The only point I can think of that doesn't is that scene when Asuka blushes at Kensuke when he points his video camera at her as the Wunder was readying to disembark.

On the other hand though, you have the whole dynamic with Kensuke being a mature, respected man who doesn't get flustered even a tiny bit when he sees Asuka naked, on the contrary he takes care of her, gives her a towel to cover up and tries to instill some logic and understanding into her from time to time like a parent would to their child. There's also child Asuka talking about how both her parents aren't around during her flashback, only for Kensuke to coincidentally show up as an adult and metaphorically uncover himself as the person who's been inside her doll this whole time, and therefore, just like her doll, always by her side.

To be fair, although 3.0 clearly gave fanservice to Kaworu x Shinji fans, the thing is even Kaworu's feelings aren't never confirmed to be romantic.

Even Kaworu saying he was drawn towards Shinji in the Instrumentality is ambiguous about whether it's romantic or not. Even the kanji used is for an ambiguous meaning.

Just the fact that there are heavy romantic implications between Shinji and Kaworu in 3.0 and not only is evidence that the Rebuilds aren't pushing some supposed anti-gay agenda like the user I replied to was suggesting. That's all I'm saying.