Weird_ocean wrote:In Anno's interviews about 2.0, he said that originally Asuka had a bigger role, with more exploration of her relationships with her mother. So, she had a mother.
True. But he had to cut this element of the story before the film was released due to time constraints. In other words, in the final version of the film she no longer had a mother. Well, at least not in the literal sense of the word. A lot of things had to be cut. He said that he thought about keeping Naoko and Asuka's relationship with Kaji, but he didn't have time either.
Cuts like this make sense when you remember that a media switchover took place. The films simply would never have had the time to develop so many characters.
Weird_ocean wrote:I read somewhere that it was Miyamura herself who proposed Shikinami being a different character from Soryu. But i need to look it up to confirm.
Well, Miyamura herself said that Anno and Tsurumaki told her that Shikinami would be a different character and that she should play her differently. That happened during HA's production by the way.