(If the images don´t render, I left links to each image in order on the first reply.)

While scrolling Reddit I found a post pointing out that, unlike most other Evangelion continuities, nowhere in NTE is the year of the events ocurring mentioned, only shown subtly in 3 scenes (that I am aware of), but with a very bizarre dating system.

-Firstly in the scene where Gendo takes Shinji to visit Yui´s grave, the engraving aparrently states that the year is 2004 (like NGE), however, obscured partly by the flower bouquet, we can see two algarisms, one I cannot distinguish(maybe 1) and 0 written beforehand. Whether this is some weird date arrangement or implication that she somehow died in the year 102,004 I can´t say for certain, but plain 2004 seems fishy.



-When Tohji is showing Rei and Shinji the village, we can see that the manufacturing date of the rail turntable is February -x-th of the year 12001. I am not a Japanese speaker, but through some digging I found that the Japanese characters following the numbers 12001 and 2 indicate year and month respectively, fitting perfectly into the Japanese date system with the day excluded for some reason. Since it is very rusty, we can assume the movie takes place long after this date (rust experts please confirm).



-The manufacturing date of the AAA Busse(later the Wunder), being the 21st of June of the year 11805. The word Kiellegung translates to Keel-Laying, the formal recognition of the start of a ship's construction, Kiel does happen to be the name of Seeles leader, but that seems to not be relevant.



These images show that the Wunder started being built two hundred year before the events of the movies and, more shockingly, the whole of NTE takes place around 10 thousand years in the future.

The Reddit post that discussed this theory, that I unfortunately can´t seem to find, proposed the idea that in NTE humans have adhered to the Holocene calendar, adding 10,000 to the current year in order to encompass more of human history in a regular year system. This is my favorite theory, as it would explain the dates in a simple way and make NTE Yui´s death equal to that of NGE Yui if we consider that the tombstone actually says 12004, with the extra 0 being an error, however I think there is another explanation, based on the cyclical Eva theory and Seeles place in it, that I think is at the very least worth discussing .

(For this argument to work we must assume the cycle theory is true; Gendo, Shinji and Kaworus dialogue in Shins instrumentality, statements from Anno and references to this idea in other continuities lead me to believe this is the case.)

I have not read NGE: Anima fully yet, however what I have already read and the spoilers I have seen show that the loop theory is real in it, with Seele going through the loops together with gathered information from previous humanities, in the process posessing hosts by bombarding them with all this info through Keel´s visor. WIth how many ideas NTE has borrowed from Anima, Seele could very well be part of the list of parallels between both series, or maybe a direct connection between the two if you see Anima as part of the same looping universe of NTE.

Seele in NTE, just as in Anima, are a sect of ancient souls with divine levels of knowledge, in contrast with the group of old men we see in NGE, only sharing some names(KEEL and SEELE) and apparently number of members (I have seen a lot of people talking about a theory that the Seele members in NTE are fusions of two, which would make the original number equal to that of NGE. I would really appreciate if anyone could link me this theory). With their influence over the world and their accumulated knowledge from multiple loops, they perhaps established a calendar accounting for all cycles beforehand.

I have a lot of doubt about this theory, however I think it is still worthwhile to post this as I think the theory include explores interesting ideas. My main problems with it are that:

1. Human history in our Earth alone is longer than 11k years. The only way in which this cycle could accomodate multiple humanities is if the loops only repeat a certain time frame, such as the time between 2nd and 3rd impact, which could be true but requires way more assumptions than the Holocene idea (is Occam´s razor valid in Evangelion discussion?).

2. The universe constantly looping is the type of information that wouldn´t be available to the public. Something I though about to circumvent this is that maybe civilians followed the Gregorian calendar, with 2004 actually being what is written in Yui´s grave, and the looping calendar is reserved to Seele secret projects, but then I remembered the railway turntable date so yeah this reconciliation is a bust.

3. WHY IS THERE A ZERO BEFORE YUIS DEATH DATE, IT DOESNT MAKE SENSE AS A DOT BECAUSE ITS THE SAME SIZE AS THE ZEROS IN 2004 AND IT DOESNT WORK AS A NUMBER BECAUSE THEN YUI WOULD HAVE DIED 2K YEAR BEFORE THE MOVEIS AND EVEN WITNH THE HOLOCENE ITS NONSENse.

Overall I think the Holocene theory is more likely, but I would like to hear other opinions on this really bizarre change in the rebuilds. It could very well be just a nerdy reference to an alternative calendar but it´s such a drastic change that is so well hidden it feels like it has more to it.

This post initially was just to point out the dates but as I have also commented on some Anima theories I think I could shove this theory here at the end just to put it out there:

The visor Gendo wears in Q and Shin does have some similarities to the one Keel wears, and the knowledge and influence he posesses in NTE could be linked to Seele hosting similar to that of ANIMA, although to a lesser extent, judging by his opposition to Seele. This similarity has already been pointed out by others, but I think it gains extra weight under the ANIMA comparison.

pic by reichu

others who have called this out
https://forum.evageeks.org/thread/20167/Nemesis-Ra-Kozo-Fuyutsukis-Possible-Role-in-Shin/20/#p895406
https://forum.evageeks.org/post/904368/Beatdown-on-Gendo/#904368

Here's my topic about dates from a year and a half ago: Have we found all the dates in the Rebuilds? In it, we additionally cover some school and apartment calendar screenshots. I don't think we discussed looping or anima in there, though!

LucAAAs wrote:Image links if you guys also cant see them here:
https://imgbox.com/4bt9LQgD
https://imgbox.com/Pb9eEsJc
https://imgbox.com/ZkaeevJ2
https://imgbox.com/MGZFaERd
I´ve tried 4 different image hosting sites and they still wont render for me, if anyone can help me out i´d really appreciate as I am kind of a noob in bbcode lol.

One way to display imgbox.com images inline on this forum is:

1) Opening your URL https://imgbox.com/4bt9LQgD
2) Right-clicking the image at the URL, and selecting an option like "open image in new tab"
3) The image should open in a new tab with a new URL: https://images2.imgbox.com/66/0e/4bt9LQgD_o.png (Note the .png filename extension!)
4) Copying the new URL into your post in this forum and surround it with img and spoiler tags, like this (quote this post to see my tags):