Evangelion Pictures Thread [2] (Post all images in spoilers)

[Hyper Shinchan]

Rei pic:

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Asuka pic:

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[bobbyfischer's ghost]

Very nice casual wear on both Rei and Asuka.
Though Rei reminded me a little bit of Nagato in this one.

[Tankred]

Well can you blame us? Only clearly platonic relationship in the show was between Misato and Kaji.

Huehuehuehue

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[driftking18594]

Huehuehuehue

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Is it weird that reminds me of Skyrim? I swear I've seen an armour suit like that.

It also reminds me of Loki's robot in Thor, too.

[riffraff11235]

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Is it...wearing...MIKU'S PANTSU?!?!

[bobbyfischer's ghost]

Some Asuka in sweats and additional pic

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Nekomimi hat :3

[Kendrix]

It looks like you've only seen fujoshi-bait yaoi stuff with pretty boys in. The Japanese view the manly-men from American videogames as blatantly homoerotic; and bara doujins have muscular hairy men (round-eyed-devil levels of hairy)..

In case i didn't express myself clearly, that was the very point I was trying to make - different perception of "manliness" -> different gay stereotype.

Classic yaoi is made with a female audience in mind anyway, so they'd design the characters in a way that they think will attract girls - Bara is made by gay dudes for gay dudes, hence the more manly designs - after all, part of being gay is not being heterosexual, so why'd they want "material" that looks like the opposite sex?

There's also that thing called personal taste.


There has actually been some mayor debate about the Kaworu thing in the German fandom - I used to be ambigious about it (you have to deal with the occassional shonen-ai if you want to find good) and sorta support the theory that they were just good friends and that Kaworu meant the "I love you" in a greek-philosopher-y way, but the more I thought about it, the more I came to the conclusion that it hardly makes a difference, especially from Kaworu's side, either way, those two have a deep connection /adoration for the very idea of each other, it makes little difference from the spiritual/emotional angle wether they would've ended up kissing or not, it's not the center of the storyarc, and that's good.

And then I saw the prototype versions of episode 24. (or rather 22 as Anno & co originally planned) which *overflowed* with classic Shonen ai tropes - I prefer the final script because it's more unique, more "etheral" and gives the whole thing more weight (especially after it was moved further back in the story) but the previous drafts sure made it easy to confirm an already likely theory.

The common argument that "human gender stereotypes don't apply to angels" still doesn't defuse Shinji's side of the equation, like all these blushes and especially the* situations* these occur in - like the one shot were they're both under the shower, where Kaworu is just basking in the water and Shinji sneaks a downward glance at him:

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[URL=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/812/85940691.jpg/][/URL]

note that he also seemed to be hesitating to look even tough he comes from a culture where being naked around people of the same gender is considered normal:

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[URL=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/41/94334088.jpg/][/URL]

The scripts (certainly the latter of the drafts, not sure about the finished one, but it doesn't seem like the introduction was changed that much) explicitly discribes Shinji's reaction as "being taken by Kaworu's heavenly beauty", which leaves little doubt that yes, Shinji had that kind of interest in Kaworu.

But in any case, "gay" is certainly not an option for Shinji's orientation, given that "gay" implies no interest in boobies, which obviously just doesn't apply to him, given that he seems to have liked the feel of Rei's mammaries and was easily distracted by the chests of his female flatmates.

Kaworu would probably be better discribed as gaving an odd fetish for humans. Personally, I don't think he would have been detered by Shinji being a girl.


Personally, I have long since held the opinion that genderbender fics would have a much higher chance of actually retaining some of the original characterisation if they "translated" secondary and teriary gender characteristics, ie, make a very manly man out of a very womanly woman, or keep a sorta androgynous character that way - the way how someone conforms or doesn't comform to gender norms says something about their comformance with norms in general, which says something about their personality.
I'd like to see a Mario with early-onset stubble to replace the early-onset big boobs, so to speak.

I would be less upset about this is they made Shinji into a petite, short-haired girl who fails to fullfill the stereotypical expectations people have of girls and is as insecure about her role as a woman as Canon!Shinji is with his role as a man.

Asuka/Oscar tends to work better, because she's practically a genderflip of the archetypical ambitious, brilliant but secretly angsty rival character with the classic envy reversal that happens once the hero surpasses them, so the writers hardly see the need to "change" her much to make her "manly" even tough she's not un-femenine at all in her canon incarnation, and male characters with a Rei-like characterisation are also abundant, but in Shinji's case, being male and the perception that comes with it is very much part of what makes the character work/defy expectations/revolutionary. I think that of the whole cast, (besides maybe Misato) he's the one character who'd be the hardest to do a working genderflip of/ where the gender impacts the characterisation the most.

[Hyper Shinchan]

More fanarts of Asuka from the new trailer:

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No nekomimi and red eye?


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A pair of AsukaxMari pic

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Rei and Asuka pic:

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[bobbyfischer's ghost]

^

The red eye is a bit odd on Asuka but it does make pic look a bit mysterious.

_____
I'll leave the MarixAsuka for driftking.

[Mr. Tines]

note that he also seemed to be hesitating to look even tough he comes from a culture where being naked around people of the same gender is considered normal:

"Is it good manners to stare at someangel's core or other unexpected anatomical features when they're sharing a bath with you?"

[Bagheera]

The common argument that "human gender stereotypes don't apply to angels" still doesn't defuse Shinji's side of the equation, like all these blushes and especially the* situations* these occur in - like the one shot were they're both under the shower, where Kaworu is just basking in the water and Shinji sneaks a downward glance at him:

That looks more like he's looking to the side to me, straight at Kaworu's face.

One thing we tend to overlook is the fact that early drafts of a script were changed for a reason. Early drafts of the show's end had a dozen Angels descending from the moon to do battle with the pilots, but we wouldn't claim this was the intent now. IMO the same applies to Shinji's relationship with Kaworu -- it started off yaoi-esque, but was changed because that wasn't what Anno and crew really wanted to do at that point. Instead they said "we need to look at things that are more basic, to acknowledge the fact that Shinji is horribly damaged and not ready for that sort of relationship with anyone, much less someone who challenges his ideas about his own sexual orientation."

As with the rest of the show they tried to get away for tired tropes and stereotypes in favor of doing something that felt more real. It would be interesting to see Shinji explore that route later on down the line, really sorting out how he felt there and why, but at the time of the show it's somewhat missing the point.

Asuka/Oscar tends to work better, because she's practically a genderflip of the archetypical ambitious, brilliant but secretly angsty rival character with the classic envy reversal that happens once the hero surpasses them, so the writers hardly see the need to "change" her much to make her "manly" even tough she's not un-femenine at all in her canon incarnation, and male characters with a Rei-like characterisation are also abundant, but in Shinji's case, being male and the perception that comes with it is very much part of what makes the character work/defy expectations/revolutionary. I think that of the whole cast, (besides maybe Misato) he's the one character who'd be the hardest to do a working genderflip of/ where the gender impacts the characterisation the most.

I think that holds for Asuka as well, actually. The entire reason she works as a character is because she's the stereotypical hot-blooded pilot except . . . she's a girl. As you note there's nothing manly about her, but she still hits all the criteria with no room for ambiguity there whatsoever. Making her a guy would just make her a cardboard cutout, and boring as hell.

Rei, by contrast, might be very interesting as a guy, just because guys who genuinely lack a sense of self are pretty rare in anime. I'm not talking guys who are quiet/passive/brooding/whatever, as they're a dime a dozen, but that surface crap isn't what makes Rei Rei. What makes her Rei is the fact that she looks all moe and angsty and shit but in fact is genuinely damaged, a person who is lacking essential parts of her basic personality. She's not about angst or drama, but rather the utter lack thereof. I can't think of an example of a guy in anime managing anything similar (can't think of many girls who did it either, at least not ones who aren't expies of Rei to begin with).

[Hyper Shinchan]

IMO the same applies to Shinji's relationship with Kaworu -- it started off yaoi-esque, but was changed because that wasn't what Anno and crew really wanted to do at that point. Instead they said "we need to look at things that are more basic, to acknowledge the fact that Shinji is horribly damaged and not ready for that sort of relationship with anyone, much less someone who challenges his ideas about his own sexual orientation."

You're welcome to ignore evidence and speculate as much as you want about what Anno and crew wanted to do at that point, personally I'll just trust his own words instead:

I wanted to make him someone that could be loved by anyone, an incredibly good person. Almost as though, by the time Shinji saw him, there was nothing he could do but get a complex.

About the "shafted yaoi elements", I vaguely think that I already said it recently but we really can't ignore that they were going to air Evangelion on late afternoon and they necessarily had to be ambiguous about it, anyway Anno said that the general "atmosphere" remained in the last script, if you don't get what he meant with atmosphere refer to this.
I don't know what else we have to find to convince people that they were in that kind of relation, maybe Anno one day will finally say it straightforwardly: "Shinji and Kaworu had sex on that night"...

On topic, Evangelion 01 pic:

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[Xard]

Yeah, Anno is definetly playing with subtexts in ep 24. I don't think it's straightforward either way though - in part Kaworu apparently represents Shinji's "ideal I" and this gets fused with various other parts of his character. As such any reductionistic explanation of what Kaworu is to Shinji ("he's Jesus to him", "he wants to fuck") will be lacking.

Nenvertheless vague gay as fuck vibe is part of that character/ep 24 scenario and intentionally so. As said EGF gets full autistic over this.

This is as much a confirmation one can ask

Interviewer: Who worked on episode 24?

Anno: A person named Satsukawa Akio-san did that. Satsukawa-san is better at—this is bad to say, but—he’s right on the mark when it comes to homoeroticism. *laughs*

Interviewer: He’s good at those types of male friendships.

Anno: Better than I am, I wonder? *laughs*

To be fair I think Shinchan with is fetishization and idealization of Kaworu/Shinji relationship is being just as retarded in opposite way...

[Hyper Shinchan]

To be fair I think Shinchan with is fetishization and idealization of Kaworu/Shinji relationship is being just as retarded in opposite way...

Well, maybe it's exactly in reaction to EGF's autism but it's also possible that it's simply because I'm a fanboy, like most people around here actually.

[child of Lilith]

Asuka pic:

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Pic:

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Rei pics:

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[bobbyfischer's ghost]

Oh Gendo.

[CJD]

Pic:

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I laughed.

[Bagheera]

You're welcome to ignore evidence and speculate as much as you want about what Anno and crew wanted to do at that point, personally I'll just trust his own words instead:

If you read those words more carefully you'd realize Kaworu would have that effect on anyone. IOW it's less "Shinji is gay/bi" and more "Kaworu's just like that." That's his raison d'être -- he's there to reel Shinji in and break him (not necessarily his intent, but certainly his role), and having that sort of magnetic personality is part of that.

I don't know what else we have to find to convince people that they were in that kind of relation,

Something that shows they were actually in that sort of relation rather than simply playing with subtexts.

[bobbyfischer's ghost]

^This.
You can use that same logic for KaworuxAnyone. Kaworu can make anyone open up. In a sense Kaworu is the perfect idealistic friend that Shinji needed, but even Kaworu ends up hurting him even if he didn't intend to.

[Hyper Shinchan]

If you read those words more carefully you'd realize Kaworu would have that effect on anyone. IOW it's less "Shinji is gay/bi" and more "Kaworu's just like that."

It's almost like you're trying to justify his reaction to Kaworu, it's really funny. Anyway Kaworu has exactly that effect on (almost) anyone, I don't know where you're taking this thing about Shinji being gay or bisexual because I didn't say anything like that. Falling in love with a single man doesn't make anyone automatically homosexual or bisexual, I really don't understand why people has always to follow similar oversimplifications, does it make you feel more comfortable if you can draw a clear line between persons?

Something that shows they were actually in that sort of relation rather than simply playing with subtexts.

A typical case of two weights and two measures, Evangelion is all about reading subtexts but in this case you prefer to ignore them or read them in a convenient way.

Kaworu can make anyone open up.

And that's probably why someone decided to pair him up even with Asuka, but this is beyond the point.