Mari and her Eva

[Jayfive]

Have you noticed that Mari is the only one who makes gestures and stuff using her Eva?

2.0 - she's flexing the arm of Unit 2 just before the Zeruel battle

3.0 - She makes Unit 8 bow in apology to Unit 2 when she bails out of the Unit 1 salvage mission and gives a big hearty thumbs up when Asuka gives the tactics in the final battle.

None of the other pilots (in Rebuild or the original series) do this sort of thing.

Discuss :)

[pwhodges]

She's English - she's polite.

[Giji Shinka]

^I still haven't seen her wearing a top hat, drinking tea and eating biscuits.
AND she's definitely not very civilized person. (Hyper-active, meows ect.)

Yes, she may be somewhat polite, but that's it.

Sorry, she's clearly not from England.

[pwhodges]

Not seen her with her tea? You haven't been paying attention.

And even I don't have a top hat, nor have I ever worn one (though I once wore court dress. when the Queen Mum came to visit my school).

[Giji Shinka]

Not seen her with her tea? You haven't been paying attention.

It wasn't made in England.

[TheFriskyIan]

Discuss :)

I think it's absolutely silly (not in a good way) and takes away from the gritty atmosphere of what's going on in Q. Asuka is in serious danger in space and she's all like "Eh.....sorry?" The Wundar is getting ass ravaged by the Mark 09 while the world is ending and she's all like "....bouncy boobs to the rescue!" You could say that's the whole point of her character, but it just seems way off from reality and every time I see it happen I get a big frown on my face.

When the Mark 09 flies off with Shinji i hand and she's all like "You could at least say hi or something!" Honestly, who says that crap?

[Jayfive]

You could say that's the whole point of her character, but it just seems way off from reality

This is the thing, Mari is almost in a different reality from the rest of the cast - at no point in 3.0 is she face-to-face with another character and there's only where she drops out of the sky and gets to second base with Shinji that she does in 2.0 - her name is only said a couple of times in 2.0+3.0.

It's like Anno and co are emphasising her differences and seperateness from the rest of the eva universe.

[Giji Shinka]

@Jay and Ian
I think that ElMariachi and others were discussing about this in some other Mari related topic.

EDIT: Oh, here it is: [url]http://forum.evageeks.org/thread/15635/Mari-is-irrelevant-not-character-bashing/0/?[/url]

This similar discussion starts @xanderkh's second post.

[qu4d]

At first, I didn't really like her "ROGER " but now it always amuses me. Maybe it's a bit out of place, but whatever.

[ElMariachi]

I think it may come from the relationship Mari has with her Eva : Shinji sees piloting the Eva as a burden and deep down is scared of it, Rei only sees piloting as part of her purpose in existence, and Asuka sees her Eva as a weapon, her instrument of destruction to win the war.

Maybe Mari identify herself more to the Eva, sees it as an extension of her body instead of an instrument, which explain why it mimics her gestures : the others subconsciously suppress these movements because that's not the proper way to use a weapon.
That's why when Mari flex her hands or makes a thumbs up in her entry plug, or when she's waiting for it to recharge with her head in her hand it, her Eva follows.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it's revealed that Mari has the highest synch-rate among the pilot except Kaworu because to this odd relationship she have with her Eva.(and maybe she lowers it belows Asuka's synch-rate on purpose to don't piss her off)

[Jayfive]

Saying all that, it could be Mari stays in her Eva because she can't help herself around Asuka - especially if some of that fan art is anything to go by ;)

[SoryuUberAlles]

Maybe Mari identify herself more to the Eva, sees it as an extension of her body instead of an instrument, which explain why it mimics her gestures : the others subconsciously suppress these movements because that's not the proper way to use a weapon.

It's an interesting set up for ZA BEASTO theme, don't you think?

Ironically, someone's already done this kind of thing before. Shinji uses Unit-01's eyes to watch Rei chatting to Gendo while he sits in the cockpit.

It wasn't made in England.

No tea is. Now you know why the British Empire got started.

[ElMariachi]

Ironically, someone's already done this kind of thing before. Shinji uses Unit-01's eyes to watch Rei chatting to Gendo while he sits in the cockpit.

Actually, he was just using the zoom of his targeting system for that, he's seen doing it on other occasions, for example when he looked at Toji and Kensuke during the Shamshel battle and when he zoomed at Bardiel during 2.0.

[SoryuUberAlles]

Actually, he was just using the zoom of his targeting system for that, he's seen doing it on other occasions, for example when he looked at Toji and Kensuke during the Shamshel battle and when he zoomed at Bardiel during 2.0.

It's more that he's doing it for personal reasons, the way Mari is doing it to express herself. It's taking a "robot" and adding your more human elements to it. In the commentary pages, they compare what Shinji is doing to some sort of voyeurism that happens in Megazone 23 (The link is broken so I don't know exactly what that is?).

[ElMariachi]

But even if it was for personal reasons, he just used a zoom on a targeting system, to stay on that example, if it was Mari, you would probably see her Eva subtly leaning forward as if it was trying to lean closer and squint its eye to better see, because that's what Mari would do if she wasn't in her Eva, and anyway being in or out of the Eva doesn't make any difference for her : the key is that the others pilots are piloting an Evangelion, Mari becomes her Evangelion, therefore has the same body language than if she was outside the entry plug.

[Chuckman]

Mari isn't Shinji and Asuka's kid from the future. She's from the past, from a previous time loop.

[Gendo'sPapa]

It's fun. That's all there is to it.

I like Mari. She's a charismatic personality. At least in my eyes.

[Kendrix]

She definitely has the tendency to be shown in the same pose/motions as her EVA more than the others.

You actually see it back in her first battle, when her arms move in tandem with EVA 05's lances, much like she later does it with EVA 02's clenching hands, it's a call back.

I don't think it's meant to show us anything beyond her "expressive" personality. She just doesn't hold anything of her back, allthough she does take some actions to be left alone with her weirdness.



That, and it might be supposed to show her adeptitude with the EVA/synchronization, that even the smallest gestures get immediately translated withiut her having to conciously will it to reflect every gesture.

Or maybe it's just her style, and she likes to move around along with the EVA to immerse herself in the experience.
For whatever it's worth (technology marched on in the meantime), Asuka remains in her chair while doing beast mode.

---

It's like Anno and co are emphasising her differences and seperateness from the rest of the eva universe.

I'd say that it's more deliberate on her part/more intricate than that. She's a loner as much as the rest of the cast, she's just a lot more aware of her choices in the matter than Shinji or pre-timeskip Asuka are.
Compare/contrast with Shinji, who's willing to bend over backwards so the other's won't hate him, but can't really stop himself from inwardly resenting being oushed around - Mari is, in a way, a similar person coming from the other side of the gulf - She'd rather be alone than bend herself.
She sets the interface to some other language few of the bethany base staff get, she cuts off the communications... That we never see her in civilian garb is no less significant than it is with Kaworu or Rei.
- Even after cooperating with WILLE, she' still doesn't seem to have told them all she knows - Not because she's treacherous or anything, I don't think we need Saakamoto's interview to tell us that, because we've seen enough about what she thinks of life even without a cliched backstory montage, but because that's the way she is.

It's not "sillyness" or a joke, really. It's closer to dissonance, and that trait of hers was obvious from the moment she walzed into her first battle singing.
It's puts her on a fairly unusual place as far as talking to Shinji or seeing her situation goes.

I think ElMariachi is going to far with those postulations, but it's the right direction - she's notably the only one to go and customize her interface in some bright color.

It's a shame we didn't hear her talk to unit eight, althought everything she could have said would have obviously have been said long ago, given the timeskip (and there's a possibility that it might give away too much - for example, if Barrette Woman's soul is in there.), but... it may just be a consequence of her knowing the EVAs are alive and talking to them on the same terms she talks to everyone. ("Hello clone girl! Don't you wanna get out of here?")


Then there's the direction the timeskip took her in, aquiring the technical skills she lacked before (in a sense, there's this implication that her and Asuka learned from each other/took some of each other's attributes. Asuka got a badge on her hat and learnt how to control an EVA without half its limiters.)

As for Mari's nationality, at least the deleted scene sadamoto mentioned has her coming from "a distinguished english family" -(Im sure the welsh and scottish among you must be thrilled...)

[ElMariachi]

Or maybe it's just her style, and she likes to move around along with the EVA to immerse herself in the experience.

I think it's mainly that, which is what I wanted to say : the others pilot an Eva like a weapon, Mari immerse herself with the Eva's senses to increase the experience, she tries to become her Eva as much as possible.

That we never see her in civilian garb is no less significant than it is with Kaworu or Rei.

We do see her in civilian garb :
[wkimg]File:2.22 Shinji-Mari-meeting.png[/wkimg]
Hell, that's her most iconic outfit!

[Kendrix]

We do see her in civilian garb :

That's still an uniform!


It has to be mentioned that Mari just shows such things more often than the others, for example, we can see in eps 11 and 5 that Rei tends to spread her arms abit when she's running - The same happens with Unit 00 when she races to catch Sahaquiel.