The more civilized RahXephon comparison, 3.0+1.0 edition

[Ark Area]

Hello. Yes, this is a new account daring to mention a contentious issue. Please bear with me.

There's a long history of painting Rah as an Eva ripoff. I hope at least most of us are more mature and more discerning than that. This awful claim came to be because a lot of the very impressionable people from the days of Eva were not mature or discerning, and they will often tell you that this is why Eva spoke to them personally. Fortunately, I am not here to beat on that dead horse.

It is very wrong to call Rah an Eva ripoff, period. The main character is completely different. The "enemy" and what they mean to the world is completely different. The majority of motivations for characters are completely different. At the same time, it is wrong to think that Eva is not an important part of Rah's makeup. There are not similar characters, but there are similar themes, and there are indeed homages. I was always to believe that quite a few people involved with Eva, not just Izubuchi, left for Bones, so this all makes sense. It would be fair to call Rah a "loose followup" to Eva because of this.

But what do I mean by "loose followup"? Well, this happens a lot in gaming, especially whenever people who worked on a particular game leave for another company to make other games. A lot of people think that Eva and Rah are like Symphony of the Night and Bloodstained, where a major player in the development of the first game (IGA is not the only major player behind SotN folks!) reappears with a new team to make something very similar.

Nah. We can do better. Both Eva and Rah deserve better than that.

I'm a shooting game kind of person, so I've got a shooting game example. In 1992, an individual by the name of Shinobu Yagawa was a major player in the project that produced Recca, a very nice NES game that really pushed the boundaries of what the NES could do. Eventually he and I believe some others left their developer KID, to join the developer Raizing. There, he and others put together another project, Battle Garegga. This game had some things in common with Recca, but was largely a unique game that also had the flavor of what Raizing had been doing at the time, as well as other influences like the otherwise unrelated Gun Frontier.

Eva and Rah are actually like this.

Garegga was popular, so it got some sequels. Of course, these actually played like the original game. A few years after Battle Bakraid, the second sequel, Yagawa left again, for the developer CAVE. Here he was again a major player in the project that created Ibara. Unlike Garegga to Recca, this was a game that was very heavily modeled after "what the developer had been doing at the previous company", though it had some new mechanics of its own. Some CAVE employees had really wanted to see such a thing happen, because they had a lot of respect for Garegga and its developer. There's also Pink Sweets, a strangely cutesy sequel to Ibara that, uh, has some Recca mechanics, but I have never been sure what to make of that game, it's very weird.

Again, a lot of people think Eva and Rah are like that. What a shame.

Have another example: I like Fire Emblem. Shouzou Kaga is a major player in all the pre-GBA Fire Emblems. After the release of Thracia 776 in 1999, Kaga left Intelligent Systems to do his own thing through a company he created called Tirnanog. He was also able to bring along the artist for the later SNES Fire Emblems and likely others. His goal was to make a game that was an explicit followup to his Fire Emblem work, to the point that Nintendo had every right to come after him for it. Like, "the damned thing was called 'Emblem Saga' until the very end" explicit followup, "the game is set in a different continent in the same world" explicit followup. There was a crazy legal battle and names had to be filed off, but the resulting game, TearRing Saga, is very clearly "the sixth Fire Emblem" before that game actually released (that was Roy's game, the first GBA title and the first reboot of the series). It plays exactly like the later SNES Fire Emblems.

Imagine actually believing Eva and Rah are like that.

Some years after that, Tirnanog decided to do something completely different, to avoid any more trouble. The result was Berwick Saga, a game similar in concept to Fire Emblem, but very different in execution to it, in the same way that other great SRPG series like Shining Force or Langrisser are. Berwick Saga is a particularly incredible game that is quite different from basically every other SRPG out there. Again, same people behind what was meant to be an explicit Fire Emblem sequel!

This is the kind of relationship Eva and Rah have.

You're probably wondering why I'm being so annoying about this. Well, it has to do with 3.0 and the now-released 3.0+1.0. Really, I'm glad that there are at least some people right here in this forum who are more discerning about this. Here is a fairly important thread, and I thought this comment by an admin of the site was pretty wise. "Loose followup" indeed.

I particularly want to call your attention to that first thread. Even then people had noted that 3.0 seemed to be making some small references to Rah... in the same way that Rah had been doing to Eva. I know of at least one Rah person who got involved with Rebuild; Tomoki Kyoda was a fairly major Rah player who was part of some Bones+Khara collab that resulted in 1.0. He is only credited for storyboards in 1.0, though, uh, storyboarding is pretty important, and I would love to see the various storyboards for Rebuild, my goodness. Perhaps he had some small role to play in (at least some early version of) all the others? What other Bones, and especially Rah, people worked on Rebuild? Did any Rah people leave Bones outright for Khara at any point? Can't help but wonder...

Well, after seeing 3.0, I feel like there's quite a bit to this collab. And now we have 3.0+1.0...

As someone who's followed Eva and Rah (wish I could find Rune Masquer, I love me some magical fantasy mecha) for many years, this new movie is very interesting. It seems the team felt that it would be good to have a Rah-style ending. Quite a bit plays out similarly: the main character has to fight for the right to Reset. Said main character wins, and is able to do The Reset (one of the big things Eva and Rah actually do share) on his own terms. We then see some of the main characters as adults, seemingly at peace, showing that after so many battles, finally we get something resembling a happy ending. Obviously it hits different because Eva is coming after two separate series and with there being almost a decade since the previous film, combining to create almost 30 years of suffering for these kids and their adults. But what the 3.0+1.0 team wanted to do is there and very obvious. I think it might be a bit much to say that this is just "some robot anime trope". This whole chain of events takes up quite a bit of the movie, and it's a bit too specific. I'm sure there are other nods throughout the movie too. I still want to know what they were up to with that black Lilith...

Of course, just as obvious is that I am not saying that 3.0+1.0 is trying to rip of Rah. That is actually dumber than the original "Rah is an Eva ripoff" nonsense. What I am saying is that the people over of Khara likely treat Rah with a lot more respect than Eva fans do. And is that really surprising? To the best of my knowledge, Rah was never treated as some "ripoff" over in Japan, like poor old Brain Powerd was. There is also some commentary to be made about some Bones people also being from Sunrise, which some Gainax people were from as well, etc. That Anno/Izubuchi interview about Rah just treats them as separate "giant robot" series like so many other giant robot series. Maybe that's just stereotypical "Japanese politeness" talking, but... on one hand, I've seen some pretty vicious outcomes from Japan, while on the other, creators in Japan are pretty candid about what they're influenced by. You'll see game developers go on about manga or anime references they snuck in, or what music they like, things like that. God knows Eva is filled with that...

I don't know. I'm worried that for those who managed to get past the topic title, this is going to come off as trying to connect dots that aren't meant to be connected. I'm really not putting that kind of effort into this, because it isn't necessary. I'm the kind of person that enjoys seeing these kinds of connections, yet rarely have I ever had a reason to scream "ripoff" from the tops of buildings like so many do. I dunno, what do you think? Please don't hurt me. I did nothing wrong!

(What I think is that I still want to see a series with the original Izubuchi Eva designs...)

[Blockio]

I'm not terribly familiar with the video game examples you mentioned and only know Rah in passing, but from all I can tell that was a very well-founded post!
The whole mecha genre in general is rather... incestuous for lack of a better term (not meaning this in a derogatory way, just in terms of how circular a lot of the inspirations are), a lot of ideas get bounced back and forth between installments and genres, so I find it perfectly believable that the flow of inspiration between Eva and Rah was both ways.

Hell, for another example of this just look at Getter Armageddon; it very outwardly evokes Eva in a lot of its more horror-esque elements, and almost 15 years later Q's Lilith bears a very strong reminiscence to the crawling, pale-with-square-patterns Shin Dragon.
It's all connected back and forth, and I'm very happy that not all observations on this are the usual bad faith "iTs JuSt A rIpOfF tHeReFoRe It SuCkS" nonsense, but some people like you are actually engaging in some thoughtful observation of how and why it happened

[Mr. Tines]

Of course, just as obvious is that I am not saying that 3.0+1.0 is trying to rip of Rah. That is actually dumber than the original "Rah is an Eva ripoff" nonsense.

The back and forth started earlier than that, with the new-for-2.0 angel nicknamed "Clockiel" being akin to the dolem Forzando.

The AnimeNation link in my comment is long gone, but it alluded to the RahXephon characters matching to NGE ones in the same way that Star Trek TNG characters did to the OG characters e.g. as Kirk -> Picard + Riker, so you had Misato -> Elvy + Haruka, Asuka -> Kim + Megumi, and so forth.

[Jäeger]

As a gamer, I'm only gonna say that nobody cares if a game is a rip off, as long it is a good game. It's only peyorative when it's a bad one.

Survival horror fans know one thing or two about that. Still, I wouldn't mix the works of a same creator with products that ride a trend.

I remember reactions to Rahxephon like it was something born from an executive meeting that have analyzed Evangelion's success and wanted to emulate it. A western view? Maybe A good series? Yeah. But denying the influence? No. This is not a SF2/FF development at the same time, but FF2 emulating SF2.

[hui43210]

Excellent post. Evangelion, Rahxephon, and Fire Emblem are three of my favorite franchises, so this was a very interesting read for me at least. Mech Anime definitely tread a lot of similar ground, and that goes back to the first Gundam and Ideon.

You mentioned that Brain Powered was treated as a rip off in Japan. I've not seen it, I've been warned by the internet and irl friends not to watch it, but Tomino was quite upfront that the show was meant as a response to Evangelion. I gather he wasn't a fan of Eva, saying that it made it look like everyone was horribly depressed or something like that. There's a clip somewhere where Tomino flat out states he wanted to defeat Evangelion with Brain Powered. Personally, sounds like the overall message of Evangelion went over his head.

Again, never seen Brain Powered, but I gather one of the messages was families were falling apart because woman were focusing on work. That's probably an exaggeration, but it sure sounds like garbage to me lol.

[Blockio]

Excellent post. Evangelion, Rahxephon, and Fire Emblem are three of my favorite franchises, so this was a very interesting read for me at least. Mech Anime definitely tread a lot of similar ground, and that goes back to the first Gundam and Ideon.

If you want to be really anal about it, it actually goes back even before that, pretty much to the inception of the genre with the likes of Mazinger and Getter Robo

There's a clip somewhere where Tomino flat out states he wanted to defeat Evangelion with Brain Powered. Personally, sounds like the overall message of Evangelion went over his head.

Again, never seen Brain Powered, but I gather one of the messages was families were falling apart because woman were focusing on work. That's probably an exaggeration, but it sure sounds like garbage to me lol.

Honestly; pre-Turn A Tomino completely missing the point of Eva sounds so perfectly on brand that I'm willing to believe it in a heartbeat

[Ark Area]

Wow. I was totally expecting to get slaughtered over this. Thank you.

Did I mention that in both the Rah and 3.0+1.0 ending conflicts, the main character very specifically has to fight one of his parents? Again, the context is completely different, but... yeah. Shame Unit 13 does not have more black in it, that would really hit it home. Perhaps that might have been the thing that crossed the line, though...

I'm not terribly familiar with the video game examples you mentioned and only know Rah in passing, but from all I can tell that was a very well-founded post!

The whole mecha genre in general is rather... incestuous for lack of a better term (not meaning this in a derogatory way, just in terms of how circular a lot of the inspirations are), a lot of ideas get bounced back and forth between installments and genres, so I find it perfectly believable that the flow of inspiration between Eva and Rah was both ways.

Hell, for another example of this just look at Getter Armageddon; it very outwardly evokes Eva in a lot of its more horror-esque elements, and almost 15 years later Q's Lilith bears a very strong reminiscence to the crawling, pale-with-square-patterns Shin Dragon .

I mostly brought those up because they're the best examples I know. I tried to make the names clickable. Of course, you'd have to play the games yourself to get the best picture, but... I tried! I swear...

Yes, unfortunately, that is a great term, maybe too good of one. I have seen this kind of back and forth before, and I think it's important. It seems wise to study influences and things like that, do comparisons, etc.

The back and forth started earlier than that, with the new-for-2.0 angel nicknamed "Clockiel" being akin to the dolem Forzando.

The AnimeNation link in my comment is long gone, but it alluded to the RahXephon characters matching to NGE ones in the same way that Star Trek TNG characters did to the OG characters e.g. as Kirk -> Picard + Riker, so you had Misato -> Elvy + Haruka, Asuka -> Kim + Megumi, and so forth.

Wow, I totally forgot all about the business with the 7th. Figures... that would implicate Kyoda and any others a bit more, that far back. Of course, there are only so many ideas for big scary abstract horror monster things.

This is not a SF2/FF development at the same time, but FF2 emulating SF2.

Hm, this comparison is a bit odd to me. FF2 is entirely too close to SF2 in execution. Yes, there are various unique things about it like supers and SNK-style ground projectiles, but FF2 has some very explicit inclusions, like the "Four Kings" mechanic with eerily similar character concepts. Rah has substantially more difference from Eva, from start to finish. I'd say there's maybe 10% of Eva in Rah, maybe even 20% if I'm being generous. Conversely, I'd say there's at least 70% of SF2 going on in FF2. Rah is not necessarily a series that would be approached by people who like Eva because that largely depends on how those people approached Eva. But the kinds of people who approach SF2 are largely the kinds of people who approach FF2, and Special is often billed as an interesting alternative to SSF2T.

Obviously, again, this does not make FF2 a "ripoff", and honestly that's just a really bad term. Real ripoffs are things like outright bootlegs, like those janky mobile games that occasionally swipe assets from the game they're trying to bootleg, or all those weird old NES bootlegs. Things like that.

And really, that's what I'm getting at. When people call things like Fatal Fury or RahXephon "ripoffs", it tears at my soul. There is too much time, effort, and passion put into these series to write them off as mere "ripoffs", as if these creators are trying to cheat people. I'm pretty sure the world is a better place for having FF and Rah around, at least a little bit.

Hmm... for fighting game comparisons... imagine if the developers of the Marvel games and the Darkstalkers games had split off from Capcom before releasing anything. Those games were often called "flashier Street Fighter" when they released, but we know better now of course. That almost happened, with Guilty Gear, said to be made by some ex-Capcom and SNK people. I'd say Guilty Gear is pretty sufficiently different from most else that came before. The Last Blade is the only game that really resembled it at the time, I think, and both of those came out in 1998.

You mentioned that Brain Powered was treated as a rip off in Japan. I've not seen it, I've been warned by the internet and irl friends not to watch it, but Tomino was quite upfront that the show was meant as a response to Evangelion. I gather he wasn't a fan of Eva, saying that it made it look like everyone was horribly depressed or something like that. There's a clip somewhere where Tomino flat out states he wanted to defeat Evangelion with Brain Powered. Personally, sounds like the overall message of Evangelion went over his head.

This is a fair point and I may be conflating it with his statement. Awful of me to do that, because Brain Powerd in the west is definitely treated a lot like RahXephon in the west. Sigh...

Honestly; pre-Turn A Tomino completely missing the point of Eva sounds so perfectly on brand that I'm willing to believe it in a heartbeat

Honestly, I can't even be mad at Tomino for wanting to challenge Eva. It's such a clear picture in my head. You've got this "kid" who comes in and works on a big Gundam project. He goes off to do a series that resembles something you made a while ago that was very important to you, but that didn't do well, yet this "kid's" series is this huge phenomenon. It's all very "who does this upstart think he is?!", and I'm pretty sure I'd be mad too, in that situation.

[Zusuchan]

I've never seen RahXephon, but have heard a lot of talk about it being a "rip-off" and I think your post makes a lot of sense.

As for Tomino's NGE dislike, there's this quote:

I was very upset when I saw Evangelion, because it was apparent to me that the people who made it weren't thinking at all about making fun for or gaining the sympathy of the audience. Instead they tried to convince the audience to admit that everybody is sick, practically in the middle of a nervous breakdown, all the time. I don't think you should show things like that to everybody. It's not entertainment for the masses--it's much more interested in admitting that we're all depressed nervous wrecks, I thought. It was a work that told people it was okay to be depressed, and it accepted the psychological state that said if you don't like the way the world works, then it's okay to just pick up a gun and attack someone. I don't think that's a real work of art. When people see that, they begin to realize they are the same way. I think that we should try to show people how to live healthier, fuller lives, to foster their identity as a part of their community, and to encourage them to work happily until they die. I can't accept any work that doesn't say that.

Now, I think Tomino kind of has a point that works that try to make people better can be better than just those that are generally pessimistic, but, then again, I feel that's first of all a strange thing to say in criticism of Eva when EoTV ends with Shinji experiencing a positive epiphany and even EoE can genuinely be argued to have a cautiously optimistic ending and secondly, I don't think "optimism" has ever been truly necessary for good art and saying it is is, in my opinion, dangerously close to arguing fake hope is better than real understanding.

So, anyway, Tomino's a weird fellow-but I think everyone understands that anyway.

[Axx°N N.]

As for Tomino's NGE dislike, there's this quote...

Now, I think Tomino kind of has a point that works that try to make people better can be better than just those that are generally pessimistic, but, then again, I feel that's first of all a strange thing to say in criticism of Eva when EoTV ends with Shinji experiencing a positive epiphany and even EoE can genuinely be argued to have a cautiously optimistic ending and secondly, I don't think "optimism" has ever been truly necessary for good art and saying it is is, in my opinion, dangerously close to arguing fake hope is better than real understanding.

Yup, I was just going to post that quote. I would have figured everyone here was more familiar with it. There's an old thread here for anyone interested.

As someone who admires a lot of Tomino's works, his thoughts on Eva have always baffled me. Perhaps he felt that EoTV and EoE's more positivie conclusions didn't make up for everything that came before. And there might be something to the "generational tension" or "jealousy" others have speculated further up.

According to recent Tomino quotes, he seems to have turned a page on this kind of feeling; I remember him saying something like, "in my old age, I've humbled and learned to stop being so contentious with the younger generation."

But I wonder what he would think of Shin's ending? It seems to be the extreme opposite to how he framed NGE, and weirdly sits more in line with what he would have preferred. I've seen many a negative take on the Japanese chansites that the ending is an instruction to be socially responsible in a conservative and normative sense. A common topic is actually a renewed interest in comparing Shin to Tomino's quote and in comparing NGE to Brain Powerd; given that Brain Powerd was concerned then with plummeting birthrates, and that the national attention on them has only grown since, there's been many a post where Shin is reduced to "don't have bad thoughts anymore, don't be gay, get a job, get a girl, have a baby," and a lot of people wondering if Anno (being the immense fan that he is) did after all take Tomino's above quote to heart. To me the ending reads as more strictly personal and Anno himself doesn't even have kids, so it just strikes me as the chans being warped like usual, but I thought I'd share.

[hui43210]

Yeah, having re-read Tomino's full thoughts, it feels like Shin is excatly what he wanted lol.

I certainly didn't get a homophobic vibe from reading Shin's end. I guess that's because he doesn't end up with Kawrou and gets a hetro-normitive life with Mari? While I definitely partook in K/S shipping in my younger years, you can see that in my earliest posts in 2012 I would imagine, I don't think I ever could take Shinji as legitimately queer within the context of NGE/NTE seriously. The first thing he does after Kawrou dies is jerk off over Asuka! Not really a great role model in that regard.

[Axx°N N.]

That's pretty much it, yeah. I think that particular point is coming from disappointed Kawoshin shippers, honestly. Personally I don't read heteronormative subtext into Shin because it also "benches" Rei & Asuka, and Shinji "getting over" Kaworu isn't about how they aren't good for each other because they're both boys, but because they aren't good for each other as people.

Even being gay myself and finding it easy to identify with Shinji (or certain things he does and feels) partly because of that, I agree, I've never read him as legitimately queer at the end of the day. And I mean, if you really wanted to you can still just say that even in Shin he's bisexual.

[Pluto]

Great post. I really enjoyed the connections you've made in regard to the references and staffing. I've seen Rah but unfortunately, I didn't make it to the end. As a SHMUP fan myself, I can totally relate to the comparisons you're making.

[Blockio]

I find it rather amusing that Tomino of all people says something like THAT, but considering that the interview was from 2000 as far as I'm aware it does make sense; he did change quite a lot during the production of Turn A.

Full quote for those interested:

SPOILER: Show

Tomino: For instance, Brain Powered came out after Evangelion did, so I am often asked questions similar to yours about the connection between them, but in reality the plans for Brain Powered and the overall story had all been completed before Evangelion came out. I never meant Brain Powered to be an antithesis to Evangelion. I knew when I saw Evangelion that Brain Powered would be called an antithesis to it, but I didn't want to change my plans any, so I just resigned myself to that.

This is connected with my wish for more animators to see themselves as entertainers. I don't think I succeeded with Brain Powered, and I don't think it was very good with entertainment--but there was one thing I did try to do with it. If 100 people come to see an anime with giant robots, then chances are are that not every one of those 100 people will be a huge fan of robot anime. What I wanted to do was to make an anime that had a truly interesting story that wouldn't cause the people who watched it to have a nervous breakdown. I also tried to make a story that would tell anime fans that there were often other things out there better than anime. That's the goal I challenged myself to do. I don't think the series itself was a success, though, I have to admit that.

So I was very upset when I saw Evangelion, because it was apparent to me that the people who made it weren't thinking at all about making fun for or gaining the sympathy of the audience. Instead they tried to convince the audience to admit that everybody is sick, practically in the middle of a nervous breakdown, all the time. I don't think you should show things like that to everybody. It's not entertainment for the masses--it's much more interested in admitting that we're all depressed nervous wrecks, I thought. It was a work that told people it was okay to be depressed, and it accepted the psychological state that said if you don't like the way the world works, then it's okay to just pick up a gun and attack someone. I don't think that's a real work of art. When people see that, they begin to realize they are the same way. I think that we should try to show people how to live healthier, fuller lives, to foster their identity as a part of their community, and to encourage them to work happily until they die. I can't accept any work that doesn't say that.

Animerica: Is that different from your downbeat endings?

Tomino: I make sure my audience knows it's fiction and that what happens to my characters doesn't necessarily say anything about their own lives.

Anyway, as fun as this tangent was, back on topic. I wish I could add more to the analysis at hand. you raise some very interesting points, and a lot of your stuff sounds like there is tons of more depth to go into with it, but alas I have not seen Rah.

[UrsusArctos]

Coming in late to this discussion. I found a little something from the past that could be of interest - the image links are broken, unfortunately.
post/596712/Willes-Designs-and-RahXephon/#596712

The AnimeNation link in my comment is long gone, but it alluded to the RahXephon characters matching to NGE ones in the same way that Star Trek TNG characters did to the OG characters e.g. as Kirk -> Picard + Riker, so you had Misato -> Elvy + Haruka, Asuka -> Kim + Megumi, and so forth.

This was one of the factors that made me go overboard about the "Rah is an Eva ripoff" idea back in 2007, although I've long since come to realize that this is not the case at all.

Shin Eva's reset struck me as being the opposite of Rah's reset in more ways than one, but more on that in a follow-up post.

[hui43210]

Coming in late to this discussion. I found a little something from the past that could be of interest - the image links are broken, unfortunately.
post/596712/Willes-Designs-and-RahXephon/#596712

Funny thing is, that's the thread that I learned about Rahxephon and decided I had to watch it. "If it's like Eva, then I'll like it for sure" was my thought process, and I was right. Also, I recall the image compared Sakura to Quan. Looking back, I think Sakura is more of a reference to the nurse in Nadia. The entire Wunder is a Nadia reference, don't think Rahxephon had much to do with it.

Also, probably an unpopular opinion on this forum, Hemisphere > A Cruel Angel's Thesis.

[Registration]

Hell, for another example of this just look at Getter Armageddon; it very outwardly evokes Eva in a lot of its more horror-esque elements

There is literally nothing of Evangelion in Shin Change Getter Robo, it literally as the director always does (See his adaptations of Mazinger and Giant Robo), references the author other works, in this case, Ken Ishikawa's which always had a bit of horror in it.

And Buchi did work for evangelion before and after NTE. He did two designs for evangelion by Anno's request (but asking something onilike) and later he would redesign SEELE logo.

And the main influence of RahXephon is and always will be Brave Yuusha Reideen (The first part), just like Eva is influenced greatly by Mazinger Z. And guess who was the director of the first part of Reideen? Tomino. So it is a giant circle in the end that keeps rotating. (Even more when Buchi's RahXephon designs were going to be Brain Powerd designs until it was decided that it was going to be all designed by Mamoru Nagano, who Buchi was hired to replace him in CCA designs, which Tomino, Buchi, Anno and Nagano worked on at some point)

[UrsusArctos]

Bu-chan (as Anno calls him) is a genuine master of mecha designs, so it makes sense Anno would ask him for help there.

That Wunder is a reference to New Nautilus is something I've never doubted - but look at the Wille and Terra crew uniforms with their sleeveless jackets. Not very different, are they?

Also, probably an unpopular opinion on this forum, Hemisphere > A Cruel Angel's Thesis.

De gustibus non est disputandum. To be fair, Hemisphere's opening segment is beautiful and atmospheric but the overly high pitch at the start of the word "Savannah" grates on my ears - and there are a couple of times when it is too high-pitched for me.

Regarding the "reset" endings of Rah and Shin Eva, the reset ending of Rah seemed rather self-absorbed to me when I watched it, seeing that it allowed Ayato to create the perfect world he wanted for himself, while apparently removing the entire Mulian civilization except for the two individuals (Mamoru and Quon) who mattered to him. That, to me, did no favours at all where RahX was concerned, and it felt like the show had copped out of finding a meaningful resolution to the human-Mu conflict. After all, unlike the Angels, the Mu are essentially humans with advanced technology and blue blood and are indistinguishable from red-blooded humans except for when they bleed, and we barely get to understand their obsession with dominating the Earth in the first place. Shouldn't they have been served better by the plot?

And even if my understanding of 3.0 + 1.0's ending is second-hand, Shinji decides to start the Neon Genesis and get rid of all the Evangelions - the very instruments by which an individual's will is written on the world. While we get to hear that Ayato is living his dream life, happily married to his beloved, the situation is somewhat ambiguous for Shinji. We know he wears the DSS choker until Mari removes it, and even if he's satisfied there's no indication that he's living in the world of his dreams. Rather, he has chosen to make his life in the real world - our world - with all the limitations that brings with it. Shinji has come to accept peace in OUR reality while Ayato is in the world of his dreams. Ayato is no longer merged with the RahX because he no longer needs it - he has turned into the God of the New World (Light Yagami would be fuming) and can peacefully retire into a human existence. Shinji has gotten rid of godhood itself, which is a different matter.

[hui43210]

Bu-chan (as Anno calls him) is a genuine master of mecha designs, so it makes sense Anno would ask him for help there.

That Wunder is a reference to New Nautilus is something I've never doubted - but look at the Wille and Terra crew uniforms with their sleeveless jackets. Not very different, are they?

I was looking on MAL, and it states Yutaka Izubuchi did the costume design for 3.0. If that's true, that really does explain it doesn't it lol.

[Axx°N N.]

Regarding the "reset" endings of Rah and Shin Eva, the reset ending of Rah seemed rather self-absorbed to me when I watched it...
*snip*
Shinji has come to accept peace in OUR reality while Ayato is in the world of his dreams.
*snip*
Shinji has gotten rid of godhood itself, which is a different matter.

The full jury is out until the film is out, but my current problem with the Shin ending conceptually, and why I can't help but feel it's its own kind of self-absorption, is this:

By undoing what has been the distinct setting of Eva up to this point, and landing it firmly in our reality ... isn't it essentially preventing the viewer's ability to see anything in the Eva setting as meaningful? It turns from being metaphor, where characters are feeling things that we can relate to and assume are meant to adhere to or reflect real things (at least rhetorically) and turns everything into feelings and behaviors attached strictly to the fantasy setting.

Compared to NTE's oppressive setting, our world and its problems are practically a paradise.

Because this retroactively makes all character struggles contingent upon the Evangelion Units existing and the hellish effects of the Impact fallout, in contrast to NGE+EoE where psychology itself seemed to be the dilemma, it means that NTE (in retrospect) never once explores the real world and posits what its challenges are. I look at Shinji & Mari running off and can't imagine what difficulties it is they're going to be facing, unless it's the constant struggle to always be confident and energetic, but we're not shown anything that would lead us to believe that that's not simply the easiest thing in the world for them. Mari's underdevelopment as a character, or more accurately, her lack of an expression of even the smallest range of emotions, doesn't help. The sense one gets is "Shinji is like this now, done deal."

I can't imagine either of them going into the real world and what it is they'll find there, or how they'll apprehend or counteract real problems; doesn't it just seem like Shinji is going to get (or already has) an office job, perhaps for some rando company that's destroying the environment? There's no time spent positioning either adult Shinji or Mari as distinct people with distinct values or goals, or what their entering into reality is even supposed to mean other than "they're happy because the old setting is gone."

The reason EoE worked in terms of tone and message was because it felt like the beginning of a process. Instrumentality was a traumatic, horrific experience, much the same as coming to real, deep understandings between people can be--it was like some kind of defiling, forced understanding, as growing up often is. Nonetheless, you're left with the sense that it was necessary pain, and that it's going to allow the pieces to be picked back up and slowly fitted back together.

But in Shin, I find it hard to believe that Shinji will face any kind of realism at all, that there might be any hardship from putting his new understanding of others into practice--a long road same as ever, but one he now accepts--because instead, he seemingly abandons everyone he came to an understanding about at the train station. There's no sense anything he learned is going to be be put into practice, just that his outward visible attitude is now more extroverted.

Even the village from the first half of the movie, which seems like it's championing banding together in a wholesome collective, still strikes me as oddly divorced from reality. Because their numbers are so restricted, it's just the right size for nothing negative to be organically developing and thus explored. Rei is there and her body is falling apart, but it's because she's a clone. Asuka is there and causing some problems for Shinji, but it's because she's wearing a choker and is also a clone. It's sad Kaji Jr. is parentless, but it's becuause of the Impact.

As for the village itself, on a purely human level not tied to Eva, nothing is bad. Everyone happens to want things to be super nice, so it is. They're immediately open to Rei as an outsider, they're super compassionate to Shinji, it's almost like a fantasy. But in reality, once they grow past a certain point, reach a certain saturation, very real problems are going to rear their head--they'll eventually modernize, industrialize, and pollute--in fact, they could conceivably have all the modern problems of real Japan. So what then?

It's like each half of the movie is suffering from its own different blindness--the village is ideal, there's nothing negative--and Shinji discards it anyway and it's replaced by modern Japan, but nothing of modern Japan's qualities, positive or negative, are even alluded to. We're left divorced from the prior setting but withheld from the new one.

I can't help but feel that this is just as much a reset button, with just as many negative implications, and with just as much of a confused point. It seems that it falls in line with the above Tomino quote, and that it's a rather severe divorce from reality which leaves us only really able to regard it as entertainment that has nothing to do with reality, not even in terms of emotional tone or theme.

[Zusuchan]

NGE and EoE portrayed reality as a tough place, but still something one should accept. NTE seems to do the same, but by revealing the inherent "fiction" of NTE as a whole-as such, Shinji is not escaping so much as he is an audience surrogate escaping from an indulgence in fantasy to the real world. The film seems to go more into territories of "real" as time goes on, from giving us bad CGI to black-and-white sketches to ending the film with live-action shots. So NTE is about growing up and maturing by revealing itself as fiction and giving the MC an opportunity to become "real", thereby allowing the audience to ruminate on their own relation to reality.

As for your criticisms that Shin is a bit too optimistic, then, well, I don't think NTE is really about the horrors of the current world as much as it is about personal problems and overgrowing them. I understand your frustrations with the world, but I feel it's a bit wrong to accuse a series about growing up, maturing, fantasy, humanity's relationship to fiction and fiction (those are all my opinions, of course) as a whole to be bad because it doesn't address environmental concerns, even though those concerns are not the point of NTE nor are they explicitly related to it.

Of course, I've not seen Shin, so this idea might very well be entirely wrong, but to me that seems a plausible explanation based on what little I know and can glean from NTE's thematic facets.