What do you think Asuka has a degree IN?

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What do you think Asuka has a degree IN?

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Postby Kendrix » Thu Nov 26, 2020 9:10 am

I don't think it is ever mentioned.

I used to think the whole thing was super ridiculous & largely an informed attribute, to the point that I tended to HC it as her telling Shinji some outrageous BS to wind it up but I've since heard of actual teenagers working at NASA so I guess I owe Anno & co an apology

One could that since she is super focussed on her position as a pilot, it might be something to do with military or tech, or maybe your basic MBA for bragging rights & because she seems like she'd want to be a very career-oriented person later on. (insofar as she's even considered anything beyond "save earth, beat up angels, get big parade thrown, marry hot older guy")

What sort of degree do you think she'd be interested in in the first place?
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Re: What do you think Asuka has a degree IN?

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Postby Blockio » Thu Nov 26, 2020 9:40 am

I highly doubt that this is the thought process behind the inclusion of that plot point, but there is one real world explanation that does fit quite neatly. I'm focusing on NTE here since I have forgotten the specifics of how the whole thing was handled in NGE, but with a bit of adjustment to details it should fit as well.

Asuka's rank is stated as Captain of the German Air Force, which at age 14 is rather... baffling, but makes perfect sense if you look at the real world regulations for pilots in the German military: If you fly a combat aircraft, you have to be an officer. This is usually not an issue, since the time it takes to complete pilot training is more than enough to also finish officer school, but in this particular situation, Asuka kinda was the only option, so what likely happened is that the rank is purely honorary to get around administrative restrictions.
and now we get to the degree - to become an officer in the German military, you have to have completed a certain level of education, and since Asuka is still a high school student, that degree is probably also honorary, to qualify her for her rank
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Re: What do you think Asuka has a degree IN?

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Postby Berserker » Thu Nov 26, 2020 9:43 am

There was a fanart where all the eva kids were older and elder characters were younger. Like Asuka was Misato, Misato was the 2nd child. So from that view, if Asuka were to be a major or something in any military services, probably she would choose to be in executive or administrative sector. So maybe strategic intelligence? She would never choose the engineering sector, but even if that's the case then mechanical engineering.
Apart from the military stuff.... can't seem to think of something that'll actually suit her. Wait for Bagheera, he'll make a list.
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Re: What do you think Asuka has a degree IN?

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Postby Mr. Tines » Thu Nov 26, 2020 10:01 am

View Original PostKendrix wrote:I don't think it is ever mentioned.
It isn't.

My guess would be mathematics, as that is the easiest one to power through on raw ability at an early age, and would also tend to pick up things like physics in the background (even if thermal expansion was something we covered when I was about 11-12), but otherwise not be germane to the plot.

View Original PostBlockio wrote:Asuka's rank is stated as Captain of the German Air Force
That's Shikinami, though, rather than Sohryu.
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Postby UrsusArctos » Thu Nov 26, 2020 2:13 pm

Blockio wrote:Asuka's rank is stated as Captain of the German Air Force, which at age 14 is rather... baffling


Asuka Shikinami's supposed to be a Captain of the Euro Air Force. Asuka Soryu trained with Eva-02 in Germany but has no military rank.

And given that Mari is involved with Euro in some way ("Why can't the Euro people sort this out?") I'm guessing that the Euro forces of NTE seem to be fine with using child prodigies and making them officers/secret agents.
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Re: What do you think Asuka has a degree IN?

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Postby Kendrix » Thu Nov 26, 2020 3:30 pm

View Original PostUrsusArctos wrote:Asuka Shikinami's supposed to be a Captain of the Euro Air Force. Asuka Soryu trained with Eva-02 in Germany but has no military rank.

And given that Mari is involved with Euro in some way ("Why can't the Euro people sort this out?") I'm guessing that the Euro forces of NTE seem to be fine with using child prodigies and making them officers/secret agents.


Like the updated technobabble re:superconductors and making the SDAT player a keepsake to explain why it's not an mp3, this seems to me to rather reflect the fact that I there was a bigass science project these days the EU would probably fund it as a whole rather than the individual countries doing something.

Since Sadamoto said that the inclusion of Manga!Mari was "just having fun" & had no connection to rebuildverse canon, we don't actually know if Mari is a supergenius, it would be repetitive anyways, having too many of those rather wears out the specialness of it.

It's more likely that she found (or was deliberately left with, as opposed to how Gendo & Yui kept their kid in the dark about everything) all her mother's top secret notes (her mother, is, of course, that woman in the photo next to Yui) & decided to do something about it; Conveniently for her, all the organizations are in dire need of pilots. Hence why Asuka says that she has "connections"; She seems to be thinking that she is using them (see her lines after the EVA 05 fight; )
Last edited by Kendrix on Thu Nov 26, 2020 3:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What do you think Asuka has a degree IN?

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Postby Mr. Tines » Thu Nov 26, 2020 3:37 pm

View Original PostUrsusArctos wrote:I'm guessing that the Euro forces of NTE seem to be fine with using child prodigies and making them officers/secret agents.
If someone is one of the (few, and generally not interchangeable) people who can use an existing and necessary weapon of mass destruction, giving them a brevet rank to place them officially within a chain of command would be the simplest approach to shutting up the paper pushers.
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Re: What do you think Asuka has a degree IN?

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Postby ErgoProxy » Thu Nov 26, 2020 4:33 pm

I think Asuka actually could begin her career exclusively as German Eva pilot and get her promotion in ranks for the reasons given above by Blockio, and only then became an Euro pilot because of internal EU politics some dreadful, shady business I know I shouldn't discuss here, with her honors preserved due to an obvious outrage and morale drop in the military if otherwise happened.

Kendrix wrote:making the SDAT player a keepsake to explain why it's not an mp3

Thinking of that, Second Impact could hit the world economy and societies hard enough to make governments shift all the power and money to the military sector and state agencies. This would make manufacturing cellphones possible, but not mp3s.

Also - same reason, I guess, why real world Japan still uses fax machines and telephone poles, and has two power grids with different standards in one state: (1) Spirits, (2) stiff postfeudal society and mindset, (3) engineer wisdom ("if it works, don't repair"), (4) Spirits again.

(Yet another reason could be present in Q, but it's a nutjob's shenanigans.)
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Postby dzzthink » Fri Nov 27, 2020 5:10 pm

There doesn't need to be a specific degree for you to become an Eva pilot. Misato and Retsuko happened to be in the same college and ended up at Nerv working in completely different roles, though I imagine Retsuko must have done computer science. We know that Yui Ikari studied bio-engineering and then pursued a research career working closely with Kozo Fuyutsuki, a professor of Metaphysical biology. If I had to guess for Asuka, I would say physics based on her knowledge of thermal expansion.
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Postby UrsusArctos » Wed Dec 02, 2020 11:24 pm

View Original PostMr. Tines wrote:If someone is one of the (few, and generally not interchangeable) people who can use an existing and necessary weapon of mass destruction, giving them a brevet rank to place them officially within a chain of command would be the simplest approach to shutting up the paper pushers.


Yeah, from a military point of view, that makes complete sense. Although I imagine it means that Shikinami was inducted at a very early age into the equivalent of the British Air Training Corps to get her to follow orders and respect the chain of command. From what I understand, most of the school cadet corps really begin inducing kids at 12-13 at the earliest, and Shikinami is only 13-14.
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Postby orcot » Sun Dec 27, 2020 10:27 am

her degree is probably from a Officer Candidate School
It is to train civilians for a specific commision depending on the assigments it can be achieved in 12 weeks.
some link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Officer_c ... ted_States
This would have made her a second lieutenant afther that the general eva testing program could have certified her as a commisiond officer (designated pilot of unit 02).
It basicly involves basic leadership and Soldier tasks it usually involves 71 milestones to reach meaning 1 every day for 5 day weeks.

It's not inpossible and their might actualy be a rule against piloting a craft without a degree

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Postby Blockio » Sun Dec 27, 2020 5:27 pm

At least in the German army, there is. However, a program like that does not exist in real life Germany, so it's probably a honorary thing to get around regulations.
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Postby ChaddyManPrime » Tue Dec 29, 2020 2:57 am

I'm gonna say she has one philosophy, got heavy into Nietzsche at a young age.
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Postby Gekusu » Tue Dec 29, 2020 3:14 am

I always assumed something like engineering. She's Air Force and engineering can be aerospace-oriented. Many astronauts have been engineers and flown for Air Force (e.g., Neil Armstrong, David Scott) and mecha are more complex than spacecraft. It's interesting to hear everyone else's thoughts. Something like math makes sense to me, too.

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Postby IgRAzm » Tue Dec 29, 2020 9:40 am

View Original PostChaddyManPrime wrote:I'm gonna say she has one philosophy, got heavy into Nietzsche at a young age.


Oh, finally. Finally. I'm not all alone in this miserable world. :asuka_sad:
I hoped that there would be someone else who found the analogy between the idea of a perfect-heroic-saviour-mecha-pilot and the ideas about the Ubermensch. I'm actually reading So said Zarathustra now, with breaks, and doing it only strengthened my ideas on the matter - a teenager like herself could've taken away from the philosopher that the person he was talking about could be her.

P.S. Maybe it's weird that I never expressed this here before. I feel like I had reasons. It's hard to explain on the spot.

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Postby orcot » Tue Dec 29, 2020 12:22 pm

same as gendo's perhaps? child development and psychology

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Postby YTPrenewed » Wed Jan 06, 2021 7:00 am

View Original PostGekusu wrote:I always assumed something like engineering. She's Air Force and engineering can be aerospace-oriented. Many astronauts have been engineers and flown for Air Force (e.g., Neil Armstrong, David Scott) and mecha are more complex than spacecraft. It's interesting to hear everyone else's thoughts. Something like math makes sense to me, too.

Yeah, I was about to point this out myself. A number of astronauts have engineering and/or military backgrounds. Asuka's role is already within the in-show military, (Misato's even referred to in terms of standard military officer ranks like "Captain" and "Major") so engineering would probably make the most sense for her. More background in tech than only doing math would have.

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Postby Mr. Tines » Wed Jan 06, 2021 8:06 am

View Original PostYTPrenewed wrote:Asuka's role is already within the in-show military, (Misato's even referred to in terms of standard military officer ranks like "Captain" and "Major")
Soryu is never thus referred to, and she's the one who mentions having graduated when checking Shinji's physics homework. Does Shikinami ever claim to have graduated from anywhere?
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Postby BernardoCairo » Wed Jan 06, 2021 10:49 am

This could easily be a misinterpretation on my part, but didn't she said (during episode 10) that they didn't teach her how to read Japanese in university, implying that she indeed studied some language related material there? Anyway, It could be just an extra class or something. If she was 100% committed to languages, she would probably know how to read and write in kanji.
About her diploma being only a honorary thing, I don't think so. That's because in stage 57 of the manga, when Shinji tries to use Asuka as an excuse for not going to school, questioning why he needed to go and not her, Misato responded by stating that she already had a college degree (in an angry fashion). Basically implying that Asuka is no longer a "student in development" and does not need to go to school if she does not want to.
I know that Sadamoto's manga is a different continuity, but I don't think that minute details like this would be changed.
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Postby BusterMachine4 » Wed Jan 06, 2021 10:55 am

View Original PostBernardoCairo wrote:About her diploma being only a honorary thing, I don't think so. That's because in stage 57 of the manga, when Shinji tries to use Asuka as an excuse for not going to school, questioning why he needed to go and not her, Misato responded by stating that she already had a college degree (in an angry fashion). Basically implying that Asuka is no longer a "student in development" and does not need to go to school if she does not want to.
I know that Sadamoto's manga is a different continuity, but I don't think that minute details like this would be changed.

But in the show, isn't it the polar opposite? Misato shows concern over Asuka's grades, and tells her to adjust to Japanese school life. I always found it to be a plot hole, given that Asuka already graduated from college, but if her degree was just honorary it would make sense. I think it's possible that speaking Japanese is a requirement for joining NERV, given that the headquarters are in Japan, and that's the only class she took in college.


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