NTE's interpretation of the characters

[Blockio]

It really isn't, no. I do like NTE, but its handling of Shiki in particular does leave things to be desired

[RussianRiz]

Unfortunately, the major flaw of NTE is that it is too Shinji-centric. Any additional character development is diminished by this narrative construction. It's not that there isn't a story without Shinji, but it's far from being in the same level in the plot.

[FelipeFritschF]

What I always liked the most about NGE was that it didn't feel like the world revolved around Shinji, how Misato, Asuka, Rei and others had their whole lives independent of Shinji. Then in EoTV and EoE both one of the central conflicts is Shinji having to realize these other characters are separate individuals and he has to learn how to deal with their individuality, their separation of him even if this gap is bridged by Instrumentality. This isn't really a thing in NTE anymore, which saddens me greatly. I don't like how Shikinami acts like a bit of a plot resolution device for Shinji, but she's still not nearly as affected by this in comparison to her NGE self as Misato is. I feel she lost the most characterization.

[Archer]

^ Asuka is by far the most egregious example of this, I HAVE to believe that the “curse of Eva” also kept her mentally stunted because the alternative proposition is that this 28 year old woman still has hang-ups over some boy she knew for a couple months 14 goddamn years ago.

[kuribo-04]

^ Asuka is by far the most egregious example of this, I HAVE to believe that the “curse of Eva” also kept her mentally stunted because the alternative proposition is that this 28 year old woman still has hang-ups over some boy she knew for a couple months 14 goddamn years ago.

You probably shouldn't take it too literally.

[The Killer of Heroes]

I don't think its fair to frame Shinji just as some random high school crush Asuka never got over (There's uh, kind of a lot of near-apocalyptic and outright apocalyptic events that relationship is all tied up in!), and I never really got the impression that Asuka had spent the whole 14 years pining over Shinji or anything. I always figured its that Shinji suddenly being back in her life is what caused old feelings and frustrations to bubble back up to the surface much like with Misato and Kaji, particularly in the original series.

[FelipeFritschF]

I think that, much like Episode 22 before the DC, this was a more reasonable interpretation. Regrettably, -120min, I think, made her character way more attached to Shinji.

Even now, however, I think we can generally think that Shinji meant a lot to her because he influenced her life so much and her sole friendship with Mari clearly didn't fill the void completely. In NGE Sohryu was also not all that close to Misato, and I always found it interesting how she did try to get close to Sohryu but ended up kinda giving up in later episodes. Shikinami seems much more distant from "the colonel" in comparison, so she is even more dependent on Shinji for her development and it seems Mari doesn't do much on her own. I'm not satisfied with it frankly, I think Asuka's character deserves independence.

[Blockio]

Yeah, -120 really does not do Asuka any favors. A shame, really

[kuribo-04]

I don't really take -120min into account when thinking about Rebuild.
It's a fanservice short by someone other than Anno. It was fun for what it is and very pretty but that's about it.

[Blockio]

Dito. It came up elsewhere the other day, and the more you think about it, the less sense it makes. Ah yes, Asuka has to wear her old plug suit for this mission because clearly, Shinji would not recognize her otherwise. Because that makes sense.

[BernardoCairo]

It's a fanservice short by someone other than Anno.

If these are the reasons why you don't take it into account, I have bad news for you... XD

[FelipeFritschF]

It's authored by the co-directors Tsurumaki, Anno's right hand and likely candidate for a new Eva thing, and Maeda, a very notable director Anno specifically brought on the NTE project with 3.0 and Matsubara, the new character designer who apparently supplanted Sadamoto after his noodle incident, and it was Anno's personal idea and initiative.

https://webnewtype.com/report/article/1041222/

Anno is still credited with "planning, original story and supervisor" but that might just be the usual attribution of him within the larger franchise.

https://www.evangelion.co.jp/news/210607-2/

He at the very least told them to do it, which is less involvement than he had with some NGE episodes, particularly 4, which Satsukawa worked on alone (and his absence from NTE has left a void, possibly). Eva is not just Anno, including NGE, but especially not NTE where he had to ask Ogata for her opinions on how to end it, and yet he was still involved in it. And that was before they elevated it and chose to re-release it as an OVA alongside - 48h, deliberately removing any ambiguity because of it being originally included in the EEE fanservice pamphlet. So whether you like it or not (and I don't), we can't discount it.

[Axx°N N.]

Yeah, if Asuka's characterization being penned by Tsurumaki makes it secondary canon ... so would her writing in NTE, which Tsurumaki has largely (almost exclusively) been attributed.

[Blockio]

Personally, I don't really care who wrote it; it's a badly thought out, badly executed afterthought of a sidestory, so I treat it the same way as I treat the equivalent sidestories in Gundam: Ignore its existence unless absolutely necessary. We've been blessed in that regard that we didn't have many of those for Eva, but I strongly recommend adapting some variation of that maxim; it makes navigating ever-expanding stories so much less of a pain to deal with