Sequel theory once again.

[StratoSakuya...AF]

"今度こそ" is a phrase that means "this time/next time" as in "oh well, maybe next time" or "this time I'm gonna beat this game!" Kaworu is just saying "hey, you're unhappy, well now you're not gonna be." It doesn't literally mean "this time around as opposed to last time."

I figured it was less like that and more like "Now, I'll finally make you happy"

[Chroma]

(and a case could be made that Shinji and Asuka had some memory loss on that beach)

How so?

[Son of Lilin]

"今度こそ" is a phrase that means "this time/next time" as in "oh well, maybe next time" or "this time I'm gonna beat this game!" Kaworu is just saying "hey, you're unhappy, well now you're not gonna be." It doesn't literally mean "this time around as opposed to last time."

So that's the phrase that Kaworu used? If so, both of your example phrases seem to imply that there was a previous (or current) time, especially the second example ("this time I'm gonna beat this game!").

[Oral Stage]

How so?

It's a pretty ambiguous scene but I doubt there's anyone Shinji wouldn't have strangled on that beach. He may not have remembered who Asuka was at that point.

[Sailor Star Dust]

From what I've read online, Japanese fans are wondering if New Movie Edition is a loop or not. No idea if anybody's curious but just passing it on.

I'm not big on sequel theory (not so much it'd "ruin" NGE but it's lots of works have done that sort of thing like NGE fanfics) BUT I'd be okay with a self-contained loop as long as it's creative enough. You know, don't just rip off Endless Eight or what have you.

[qu4d]

That would be a Möbius loop :p

No idea how that would fit, but whatever. Less than 8 weeks to go!!111

[Rj123541]

Well in rebuild there is blood on the moon and in the ocean. And that happened in third impact, that made me think that rebuild was a continuation. But we wont know for sure unless Anno comes out and tells us.

[Sailor Star Dust]

Well in rebuild there is blood on the moon

As this thread explains http://forum.evageeks.org/thread/10952/ , the moon's blood stain in NME isn't the same position as the Moon's LCL stain in EoE. Plus the NME Moon's blood stain isn't visible from Earth.

The red oceans were explained as a direct result of NME's Second Impact.

[riffraff11235]

Well in rebuild there is blood on the moon and in the ocean. And that happened in third impact, that made me think that rebuild was a continuation. But we wont know for sure unless Anno comes out and tells us.

I think the most widely accepted explanation for the blood is that it was generated when the black giant that was later made into Mark.06 crash landed on the Moon. This is supposedly one of the four ADAMS that we see in the Second Impact Sequence.

[Son of Lilin]

I think the most widely accepted explanation for the blood is that it was generated when the black giant that was later made into Mark.06 crash landed on the Moon. This is supposedly one of the four ADAMS that we see in the Second Impact Sequence.

Do we see that black giant/angel/eva crash into the moon in Rebuild? I don't remember it, but it's been a while since I watched it again.

[riffraff11235]

Do we see that black giant/angel/eva crash into the moon in Rebuild? I don't remember it, but it's been a while since I watched it again.

No, we don't see that. It's just a theory at this point. But we also see a large splotch of blood on the Earth at the beginning of 1.0, with a giant humanoid silhouette drawn on it. It could be intended as a clue to how the blood on the moon got there.

[Bagheera]

Regarding this topic, I keep thinking of that image of Kaworu and Rei from EOE standing over a vision of the future, as if it's under glass. You see forests, then bodies, and finally a crowd in modern day. It's presumably what happens after we leave Asuka and Shinji on the beach. You can go back and forth about what's exactly happening there, but it shows the cosmic forces at work that could, in my view, allow for a sequel.

What do you mean, "presumably"? Why would you (or anyone else) make such a leap given that we've seen no less than two AUs and innumerable scenes of imagery used to illustrate various points to Shinji throughout the two ends? Why would we take this particular image as an image of the future when the others clearly aren't meant to be taken as such? This strikes me as more a case of confirmation bias than anything resembling evidence that the NME is a continuation of NGE/EoE.

Where did this notion even come from? The endless peggy sue fanfics? Or did it originate in RETAKE?

It's hard to say which. Higher Learning was penned a long time ago, but I don't know whether or not it preceded Re-Take, nor whether either influenced the other. But regardless the notion surely originated with one of them.

Also, as was mentioned by Warren Peace, Leliel can totally manipulate space, and the vagueness of Adam's and Lilith's power could cover "time".

No. Leliel can create (or is) a pocket dimension, but that doesn't mean her powers extend anywhere beyond that. Note also that forming and/or accessing a pocket dimension is nowhere near the same as altering and/or resetting reality; the one involves a localized patch of spacetime, while the other involves the whole freakin' universe. Of course, the Dirac Sea doesn't mean what Anno seems to think it means anyway, but that's neither here nor there for our purposes.

A sequel doesn't require any manipulation of time and space in this case. It's conceivable that when people return from the LCL sea by 'imagining themselves', buildings and civilization would return with them. After all, Asuka generated bandages when she came back and Shinji generated a plug suit when he was tanged in ep 20. Of course every human character in the show would have to lose their memory (and a case could be made that Shinji and Asuka had some memory loss on that beach)

If anything that's even more outlandish than the time travel hypothesis. So you're claiming that because Asuka came back with bandages on her body that means that humanity will not only reconstitute everything it's lost, but will also revive the Seeds, get Yui back to Earth, de-age everyone to at least the point before 2I, wipe everyone's minds clean, change the fundamental metaphysics of the universe (since things work differently in NGE and the NME), and somehow get events to repeat themselves practically stroke for stroke up through the death of Ramiel? Really?

I figured it was less like that and more like "Now, I'll finally make you happy"

Pretty much. By the sound of it the whole last time/this time bit is something you only see in the English translation, and Japanese don't seem to see it that way. If its meaning is as you describe in Japanese the only unresolved bit of the sequel theory goes up in smoke.

From what I've read online, Japanese fans are wondering if New Movie Edition is a loop or not. No idea if anybody's curious but just passing it on.

Oh my, that's a good point! Yes, that's a possibility the sequel crowd has never seemed to consider; even if Kaworu's line is taken as it's rendered in the English dub that might be nothing more than a riff on Haruhi et al and have nothing whatsoever to do with NGE. Just because it's happened before doesn't mean NGE was part of the equation!

(This would have the added bonus of resolving the metaphysics issue, something the sequel theory has never been able to address. But if it's a loop that little problem is nicely tied up!)

[Oral Stage]

If anything that's even more outlandish than the time travel hypothesis. So you're claiming that because Asuka came back with bandages on her body that means that humanity will not only reconstitute everything it's lost, but will also revive the Seeds, get Yui back to Earth, de-age everyone to at least the point before 2I, wipe everyone's minds clean, change the fundamental metaphysics of the universe (since things work differently in NGE and the NME), and somehow get events to repeat themselves practically stroke for stroke up through the death of Ramiel? Really?

Don't twist my words. I'm saying it's conceivable, not that it's demonstrated to have actually happened. As for 'reviving the seeds', they are not dead. Rei is perfectly fine in One More Final Kaworou was involved in the head trips. People return because they 'imagine themselves'. Kaworou could easily imagine himself as four Adams, just as humanity become anything they could imagine themselves to be. Give it some damn thought

[Bagheera]

Don't twist my words. I'm saying it's conceivable, not that it's demonstrated to have actually happened. As for 'reviving the seeds', they are not dead. Rei is perfectly fine in One More Final Kaworou was involved in the head trips. People return because they 'imagine themselves'. Kaworou could easily imagine himself as four Adams, just as humanity become anything they could imagine themselves to be. Give it some damn thought

I have. That's why I noted the problems I did.

[Warren Peace]

Bags, you'll be here a while if you mean to knock down every conceivable way a sequel could take place. Besides, if they're going in this direction, we're unlikely to come up with the same justification Anno does. Why bend over backwards to say there's positively no way, under any circumstances, nuh-uh no how that Rebuild could be a sequel?

If I were betting money, I'd bet against it myself. Still, I hope it happens. That it makes so many people uncomfortable is reason enough. Pull the trigger Anno, live dangerously

[Bagheera]

Bags, you'll be here a while if you mean to knock down every conceivable way a sequel could take place. Besides, if they're going in this direction, we're unlikely to come up with the same justification Anno does. Why bend over backwards to say there's positively no way, under any circumstances, nuh-uh no how that Rebuild could be a sequel?

Because the idea is ridiculous and doing it that way would be immensely boring and uncreative; Anno's capable of much more than that and I expect he'll prove it. But past that, the arguments offered thus far are just bad. I mean, we don't even have to put effort into seeing why they're invalid on their face, so why even bother to entertain the idea?

[Warren Peace]

The concept of how it would play in your head is immensely boring and uncreative. But Anno would likely come up with something completely different than what you or any of us would imagine. The possibilities are endless -- the idea is broad enough that you can't write it off completely like that. There are a multitude of ways to do it right and just as many to do it wrong. I find the possibilities exciting, but I haven't thought of all of them like you have.

[Bagheera]

The concept of how it would play in your head is immensely boring and uncreative. But Anno would likely come up with something completely different than what you or any of us would imagine. The possibilities are endless -- the idea is broad enough that you can't write it off completely like that. There are a multitude of ways to do it right and just as many to do it wrong. I find the possibilities exciting, but I haven't thought of all of them like you have.

The possibilities that are exciting don't involve a sequel.

Look, nobody's saying the two stories can't be connected somehow. Anno said at one point that the new story would have an all new ending, but what did that mean? Was he just saying he'd tell the same basic story and end it differently? Was he saying the original story would wind up getting a different ending? Is that statement even valid anymore given the second movie? We don't know. Speculating about that would be interesting, but instead all we get are lame arguments trying desperately to justify the NME being a sequel. It's boring.

What if we got a Turn-A Gundam type ending, where the two stories are in different continuities but they still wind up being tied together? That might be interesting. What if Instrumentality tricks are in play, where the original story and its ending are an Instrumentality nightmare that's ultimately averted in the new story? That might be interesting as well. What if the two stories resonate thematically even though they aren't technically in the same universe? That could work on many different levels. But nobody's really talking about any of that. Instead it's "oh look, the moon!" or "what about the chalk outlines huh?" or "But Kaworu!" or, more recently, "But the glass floor!" and "Asuka's bandages!" and other prosaic crap that doesn't really amount to anything.

Theme and resonance are what it's all about. Where was Anno 15 years ago, and where is he now? What can he say now that he didn't say then, and how will it build on what came before? What can the story do that's actually interesting? Is Anno still invested in commenting on the state of Anime today, or has he truly moved past that? If the latter, how will that manifest in his work? These are the most basic of questions that hint at something worth talking about in regards to the NME's status as a follow-up work, but even now we've only just barely begun scratching the surface of that endeavor. Why aren't you talking about them?

[Warren Peace]

Dude, sequel discussions are one of the few things keeping the Rebuild forum semi-interesting bereft of actual news. This place is a graveyard most of the time. It isn't as if this is keeping people from talking about whatever they want to (people including you, by the way). Nobody's forcing anyone to do anything. Feel free to post on more "worthwhile" topics anytime you choose.

Theme and resonance are what it's all about.

I agree! I've said this a few times, so I'll go back to the most recent one:

My hopes don't rest on Rebuild being a direct sequel, but if it is, there is rich thematic potential to be mined. As we've said, repetition is at the story's core... "everything in Eva happens twice". It's a narrative of doubles, doppelgangers, shadows selves, fakes, impersonators, clones, halves, multiples. You can even comment on remakes themselves (or Re-Dos). Sequel theory not only fits the series, it's at the core of the series. If Anno's doing this, it's an opportunity to focus these ideas in a new thesis. I find that exciting.

http://forum.evageeks.org/thread/4369/The-Sequel-Theory-Thread/800/?

You pooh-poohed the idea (because that's what you do), but Anno clearly has a fascination with multiples which could be explored in a sequel. Again, I know you've ruled out the possibility that Anno may come at it in an interesting way you haven't thought of, but just maybe he could.

[Bagheera]

but Anno clearly has a fascination with multiples which could be explored in a sequel. Again, I know you've ruled out the possibility that Anno may come at it in an interesting way you haven't thought of, but just maybe he could.

Why should he? Anno doesn't do boring, trite shit, and that's exactly what a straight sequel would be. You keep saying there are interesting ways to do it, but there aren't. And, moreover, Anno doesn't need a sequel to do exactly what you describe here. There are many, many interesting ways to build on what's come before, so why would he limit himself with something so banal as a sequel?