What do you think of the OG zeruel fight?

For serious and at times in-depth discussions only, covering the original TV series, the movies End of Evangelion and Death & Rebirth.

Moderator: Board Staff

Forum rules
By visiting this forum, you agree to read the rules for discussion and abide by them.
orcot
Ramiel
Ramiel
User avatar
Posts: 305
Joined: Jul 01, 2020

What do you think of the OG zeruel fight?

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby orcot » Wed Jan 05, 2022 1:47 am

So what do you think of the OG zeruel fight?

How would you place it compared to other fights?

As a kid I tought it was easly one of the better (more brutal fights) fights.

That said as a adult it no longer holds up that well.

THe fight starts with Shinji being Shinji and running away and we see both Asuka and Rei fighting it trying to give a feeling of despair, that said arguibly Asuka did nothing wrong and went down a bit easy, whilst you could argue it was to portray the hopelessness of the situation in gives Asuka a bid of a point when she said why she is even hear just put in wonderboy as she didn't really have any need to risk her life, it would probably have worked better if Asuka asked for help. Doing this would give her rant against Shinji a double meaning as her literally asking him for help.
Also it would have been nice if she took the arm that Shinji would eventualy use, just to show she is actualy capable of anything.

Yui refusing Rei ad the worst possible moment smels weird her being okay with destroying the world just in the hope Shinji will come in the last moment, it's a mist opportunity to put Gendo in the right and perhaps delf a bit deeper in his relation with Rei.

Rei Charging Zeruel with a bomb in stead of the spear was dumb Offcourse her actualy hitting Zeruel would have ended the fight, so Rei tripping and impaling herself would have worked better, perhaps with Shinji apearing at that moment (seen as Shinji can basickly teleport in the OG episode) she could be fidling with the Nuke but not setting it off. As having faith in Shinji pulled of right as opposed to wat Yui did.

Shinji being hit and doing the arm thing just no, some points of cool sure but it sounds like a indian chinese action movie where the hero is on the floor as is shot dead blank in the face however he catches the bullet in mind flight with his finger tips and trows it back killing the opponent.

Personaly I would not have made this the episode where Shinji got the S2 engine I would have either make Leliel give it to him willingly (proving sometimes communicating works and having Yui Seduce Leliel could have actual worked and be used to tell lore) otherwise him eating bardiel (and Toji) could have done the trick it allows for Toji's death as Toji would still be inside of unit 01 allowing again for some lore).

Basickly I would have Unit 01 reach the surface activate it's S2 engine (no fight in central dogma) either attache Zeruel arm like in the series or preferable one of Asuka's arms, reattach unit 02 head and then just kill zeruel in some epeleptic seizure stuff.

(I got no idea how to fix Yui decisons)

So yeah I used to like it, now not so much anymore

OutlawThirds
Embryo
User avatar
Posts: 37
Joined: Nov 22, 2021
Gender: Male

Re: What do you think of the OG zeruel fight?

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby OutlawThirds » Wed Jan 05, 2022 8:37 pm

It's the second best animated fight in the whole series, especially Shinji's expressions and the fluid, unsettling movement of Unit 01 when Yui gets going. Zeruel staring down the Senior Staff is a great high stakes moment because though you think the pilots will survive all bets are off for the bridge bunnies.

Asuka did nothing wrong and went down a bit easy


By this point in the series it's clear that if you want to hurt an Angel you need to get up close to it and crack it's AT Field. Rei clearly understood this. Asuka was just wasting ammo. But I wouldn't put the blame on her: it was HQ's job to plan an operation to take down the angel and they just sort of fell apart trying to activate Unit 01 instead. It would have been cooler for Asuka to put up a real fight but I don't think they had the budget/time at that point for two major showdowns.

Anyway, getting trounced was important for her character arc.

Rei Charging Zeruel with a bomb in stead of the spear was dumb


Rei threw together that plan on her own under duress with a busted Eva. She may not have been briefed on the Spear's Angel-killing abilities beyond 'try not to poke your Eva with that while you carry it, ok?'

Doing a hail mary run like that was also important for Rei's character-it had to show that she totally disregarded her personal safety and not in like a cool heroic way but like a 'hey, come on, let's be reasonable here' way.

EvaChero
Ramiel
Ramiel
User avatar
Posts: 332
Joined: Mar 09, 2021
Location: in the midst of ID town......
Gender: Male

Re: What do you think of the OG zeruel fight?

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby EvaChero » Thu Jan 06, 2022 11:07 am

You are spot on Outlaw!...It has always bugged me how easily Asuka was defeated but she WAS working from quite a distance...I missed the obvious
as per usual...
who doesn't want to kick back with Misato and have a few beers?

orcot
Ramiel
Ramiel
User avatar
Posts: 305
Joined: Jul 01, 2020

Re: What do you think of the OG zeruel fight?

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby orcot » Thu Jan 06, 2022 12:52 pm

View Original PostOutlawThirds wrote:It's the second best animated fight in the whole series, especially Shinji's expressions and the fluid, unsettling movement of Unit 01 when Yui gets going. Zeruel staring down the Senior Staff is a great high stakes moment because though you think the pilots will survive all bets are off for the bridge bunnies.


It is a nicly choreograph you won't hear me talk negativly abouth that, that said Shinji is moving rather fast from the melon fields to the eva hanger, similarly the Senior staff makes it outside pretty fast how many seconds did Shinji had and he took a elevator fast enough to see sparks flying off. So setting up the set pieces simply don't work without giving the scene some slack.

Similarly zeruel hitting unit 01 does not portray the same strength as hitting unit 02 making it confusing until unit 01 went out of power every hit took at least a limb of, whilst at the end it hit unit 01 at least 6 times without doing any damage, so it isn't consistend on strength either.


Unit's 01 unsettling moves I totally agree to but would have worked even better if it was against Bardiel then Zeruel (it would have been even more brutal as wel as Toji was a friend and Zeruel is a unnamed monster).

Yui refusing Rei for shits and giggles was also needed to let the fight happen like it did,
... so yeah nicly choreograph and animated but it seemed fundammentally wrong, especialy afther unit 01 catching Zeruel blade with it's fingers and ripping it apart.
View Original PostOutlawThirds wrote:By this point in the series it's clear that if you want to hurt an Angel you need to get up close to it and crack it's AT Field. Rei clearly understood this. Asuka was just wasting ammo. But I wouldn't put the blame on her: it was HQ's job to plan an operation to take down the angel and they just sort of fell apart trying to activate Unit 01 instead. It would have been cooler for Asuka to put up a real fight but I don't think they had the budget/time at that point for two major showdowns.

Anyway, getting trounced was important for her character arc.

I think the start of the fight had to portray a sort of hoplessness that set Zeruel up as a strong opponont, it needed to foreshadow Asuka's mental breakdown, and Rei's detonation.
Many angels get mowed down Ramiel and Matriel being the obvious ones, but Asuka inability to do anything...
Eva and Shinji get praised because it shows how a normal kid would react in placed in such a situation the thing is Shinji is basickly a god to the point you wonder why he not simply fought Zeruel without a eva, having Asuka do some damage would show she is not actualy useless and pointing out that if they had all 3 worked together they could have probably "easily" beat him.
And Asuka playing some part in defeating Zeruel would Shinji still make the victor but not the god like being. Also Asuka communicating with Shinji pre battle would give Shinji some time to get from point A to B.


View Original PostOutlawThirds wrote:Rei threw together that plan on her own under duress with a busted Eva. She may not have been briefed on the Spear's Angel-killing abilities beyond 'try not to poke your Eva with that while you carry it, ok?'

Doing a hail mary run like that was also important for Rei's character-it had to show that she totally disregarded her personal safety and not in like a cool heroic way but like a 'hey, come on, let's be reasonable here' way.

Rei's premature detonation was obviously ment as a set up for her actual detonation 2 episodes further along.
Nothing more. That said I think Rei at this point should have had a build up on how to aquire a nuke and how to handle it one handed. For the spear she would actualy need a reason why not to use it. We see Rei storing it and using it in previous episodes she knows where it is, has acces to it, and can retrieve it in her eva (she did so in the past). Having Rei accidentaly stab herself, keeps her enough in the game to maybe consider setting off the nuke and maybe have Rei "wake up" to some degree setting in motion some break up with Gendo in the near future. But she won't, yet still perform the hand gestures but has faith in Shinji to pull it off.
Also having her perform it right afther Yui (her sort of mom) rejected her for now and forever (this will never work again [Rei pilotting unit 01]) make it sort of look she tried to commit suicide because of that, this also wasn't the intention of the scene.

(also if stabbing herself seems stupid it's a 1 armed crippled 14 year old girl in a high stress enviroment it will make her seem somewhat human and she will have no mayor scenes anymore until armisael anyway)

OutlawThirds
Embryo
User avatar
Posts: 37
Joined: Nov 22, 2021
Gender: Male

Re: What do you think of the OG zeruel fight?

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby OutlawThirds » Tue Jan 11, 2022 8:47 pm

Many angels get mowed down Ramiel and Matriel being the obvious ones


Matriel is the only one that gets shot to death with conventional weapons, right? They spent a whole episode describing how badass the positron weapon they used to kill Ramiel was. If they had one of those maybe they would have had a chance against Zeruel. They tried a portable one in a later episode against Arial so maybe some engineers where watching the Zeruel fight and kicking themselves.

This also addresses why sometimes stuff cuts up an eva and sometimes it doesn't: it's AT Fields all the way down. Jack up your sync rate enough and you're unstoppable (unless someone has a spear of Longinus which is designed specifically to disable Angels/Evas.)

orcot
Ramiel
Ramiel
User avatar
Posts: 305
Joined: Jul 01, 2020

Re: What do you think of the OG zeruel fight?

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby orcot » Thu Jan 13, 2022 1:40 am

View Original PostOutlawThirds wrote:
Many angels get mowed down Ramiel and Matriel being the obvious ones


This also addresses why sometimes stuff cuts up an eva and sometimes it doesn't: it's AT Fields all the way down. Jack up your sync rate enough and you're unstoppable (unless someone has a spear of Longinus which is designed specifically to disable Angels/Evas.)


well the problem with that is however low's Asuka's at field was at the time it was high enough to move, however Shinji was literally without power unable to move , I'm not sure it had any ATField when Zereul was hitting it dozens of times whilst each hit should if not kill unit 01 take of a limb.

My opinion When unit 01 first popped up at HQ zereul had the equivalent of a heart attack.

OutlawThirds
Embryo
User avatar
Posts: 37
Joined: Nov 22, 2021
Gender: Male

Re: What do you think of the OG zeruel fight?

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby OutlawThirds » Sun Jan 23, 2022 5:52 pm

View Original Postorcot wrote: Shinji was literally without power unable to move , I'm not sure it had any ATField


In that case the Eva's core was exposed and Zeruel was about to smash it to pieces. Similar to how Shinji has difficulty with Shamshel's core and his prog knife.

orcot
Ramiel
Ramiel
User avatar
Posts: 305
Joined: Jul 01, 2020

Re: What do you think of the OG zeruel fight?

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby orcot » Thu Jan 27, 2022 2:23 pm

View Original PostOutlawThirds wrote:
View Original Postorcot#933742 wrote: Shinji was literally without power unable to move , I'm not sure it had any ATField


In that case the Eva's core was exposed and Zeruel was about to smash it to pieces. Similar to how Shinji has difficulty with Shamshel's core and his prog knife.


So you don't feel that Zereul would
a) simply ignore unit 01 like he previously did with unit 02 and 00
b) simply decapitated/disarm (in the literal way) unit 01 in a single blow
c) each of zereul blows would have gone straight through unit 01 even your shamshel example the prog knife went right it it just took a while to crack it open
d) the way unit 01 stopt and broke zereul blade with the inside of it's fingers is a appropriate way to stop a blade?
e) reactivation without a S2 core is sortof cheap (something similar happened with leliel but that might warrant a other thread in the future)

I feel Zereul was portrayed to strongly and needed to be dialed back the moment Shinji arrived. When deconstructing tropes and zereul being one of the later angels he should obviously be one of the strongest the story might have worked better if he was one of the weakest.

Also theirs some nepotism that seems inappropriate

Zoop
Sachiel
Sachiel
User avatar
Age: 39
Posts: 243
Joined: Jul 13, 2010
Location: the Netherlands
Gender: Male

Re: What do you think of the OG zeruel fight?

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby Zoop » Fri Jan 28, 2022 4:12 am

Dont agree at all.

Zeruel was the biggest, baddest and toughest angel. Im under the impression that this was conveyed pretty well, easily defeating 00 and 02, and easily dismembering 01 too.
Then 01 reactivates in a sort of berserk state, and then manages to beat back Zeruel fairly easy.

All this really underlines how scary Eva's are supposed to be when they aren't under control.
Even a badass like Zeruel stood no chance to the "true form" of an eva. At this point in the series, it's really warranted to be more afraid of the eva's than the angels.

Blocking the blades with it's bare hands just shows the powerlevel distance at that moment, once one controls their at-field to the fullest (which 01 does here) and if it triumphs the enemy at-field, pretty much anything becomes possible. I most certainly had no problem with 01 simply wrecking the blades with it's fingers, it just makes it pretty clear that this is a "holy shit"-moment, that 01 is going to show what it really can do.

Leading up to EoE, it shows that you were right to be scared of eva's. They are creepy apocalypse machines that can decide on their own when they are done fighting.

@Orcot, have you seen the same fight in Rebuild? Might be worth for comparison, if you havent. They made 01 even more epic.

orcot
Ramiel
Ramiel
User avatar
Posts: 305
Joined: Jul 01, 2020

Re: What do you think of the OG zeruel fight?

  •      
  •      
  • Quote

Postby orcot » Sat Jan 29, 2022 2:53 am

View Original PostZoop wrote:Dont agree at all.

All this really underlines how scary Eva's are supposed to be when they aren't under control.
Even a badass like Zeruel stood no chance to the "true form" of an eva. At this point in the series, it's really warranted to be more afraid of the eva's than the angels.


And was this what the story needed?

@Orcot, have you seen the same fight in Rebuild? Might be worth for comparison, if you havent. They made 01 even more epic.

Zereul in the movie is a mix between zeruel and armisael and is if possible even more heavely focused on Shinji.
If I had to mix the 2 I would have gone closer to Armisael design to finaly end up to something like john collier's lilith. That said the final design used was beautiful aswel. That said I have problems believing a angel that is a child of adam would be able to absorb liliths soul, it's akin to Shinji absorbing unit 01. If the angel would try it it would be Rei/lilith being the dominant one.

I'm not sure unit 01 should have to be epic before it consumes the S2 engine tough.
do we agree unit 01 never does anything more epic afther it consomes the engine and becomes a god?
(personaly I would have made Leliel simply give unit 01 it's S2 engine in episode 16 but never use it, finally making a deal with leliel for power, to use it's S2 engine in episode 19 (Zeruel) with most of episode 16 focusing on how lilith came to earth and met adam. Shinji being either unconscious or if theirs to little material Shinji get's ejected and worries a bid on how he no longer has a eva).


Return to “Evangelion TV Series + EoE Discussion”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 9 guests