Konja7 wrote:Honestly, I've never liked episode 25 and 26 regarding Asuka, Rei and Misato, because it abandons their stories in the middle and without resolution to focus on Shinji.
I know it's due to episode and budget limitations, but I still don't like that aspect.
I respect that impression. For me though, I think it worked as a kind of spilling the beans on the inner natures only they're privy to, as in, what deeper parts of yourself you'd blanch at if anyone walked around in your mind. It's not necessarily something that (I think) can be solved like it can in Shin, because I don't believe in discontinuity with the past or true erasure of those things, they linger on even if you can compartmentalize them in healthier ways. When Misato is seemingly back to her old self at the end of 25, a hand on Shinji's shoulder, I don't think that that contradicts that we left off on her experiencing trauma earlier in the episode. I think it's showing she can be both things, and that it switching to Shinji doesn't cut her off from anything. Shin, though, feels like it snubs its characters, I don't get the same dual nature or nuance there. Hikari's line earlier about life being hard times and easier times comes closest, but not that scene, the way she says it, or the Instrumentality scenes give me enough sense that the characters aren't just transformed and everything will be 100% good now.
