gothmaoist

ritsumaya2

hylean asked:

what are nerv's (specifically, gendo's) and seele's actual goals in eva, and how exactly do they oppose each other? how do these goals differ in the eva movies?

ritsumaya-deactivated20160612 answered:

Ah, all right. I think that I did talk about this briefly in one analysis, but I’ll go more into depth here. I’m writing this on mobile, so apologies for the lack of pictures and formatting and double apologies if autocorrect fudges anything up!

In Neon Genesis Evangelion, SEELE believes that Instrumentality and the return to Lilith is the correct path for humanity to take. In NGE2, the second-tier canon video game that was heavily influenced and partially written by the Project EVA staff, we witness SEELE’s version of Instrumentality, wherein they utilise Tabris/Nagisa Kaworu/Adam (as opposed to Ayanami Rei/Lilith) as the quantum messenger. Under SEELE’s command, the souls are harvested, with the souls of the members of SEELE surviving as immortal beings while the rest of humanity dies. In the anime, Ikari Yui opposes their goals and intends for an Instrumentality for everyone, which suggests that SEELE did it not plan to include all of humanity, which in turn supports NGE2’s explanation of SEELE’s intentions to be canonical. However, SEELE’s dialogue in End of Evangelion appears to suggest otherwise; the film portrays SEELE as a deeply religious organisation who sincerely believed in Instrumentality, perhaps because the members’ own hearts were empty and desiring death/escapism. I view SEELE as a combination of both: Given Yui’s commentary, I think that either SEELE initially intended the selves-as-gods Instrumentality and later changed their minds (after Yui’s death), OR that SEELE intended the selves-as-gods Instrumentality but recognised that plans had shifted as of End of Evangelion, prompting SEELE to simply be content with being tanged themselves.

The director’s cut of the twenty-fourth episode includes a very misleading conversation between Kaworu and SEELE. During the conversation, SEELE claims to support the angels as the true successors and assures Kaworu that the members do not plan to utilise Unit 01 as their private ark. Yet SEELE is lying blatantly to Kaworu in an attempt to manipulate Kaworu into taking out Gendo (re: NGE2). Kaworu, of course, listens very patiently to them, nods, smiles, and proceeds to dive into Terminal Dogma because the Fifth Children is suicidal and intends to return to being one with Adam because of that heart, overflowing with sorrow, as Rei puts so eloquently in End of Evnagelion. Anyway, the reason that I bring this up is because SEELE lies directly to Kaworu about the support of the angels and Gendo’s purpose. Hence, it is reasonable to interpret that SEELE likewise lied about not wanting to use Unit 01 as a private ark to ride out Instrumentality. Ikari Yui actually ends up using Unit 01 as an ark and becomes immortal in End of Evangelion, but I’ve already commented on Yui’s grey morality.

Now, Gendo. Gendo intended to use Rei to control Instrumentality; that’s why he implanted Lilith’s soul into the body and raised the First Children to be perfectly obedient to him. That’s also why he split Lilith’s soul in two, because a partial soul is less responsive and volatile than a full soul, hence, obedience. His specific goal was to reunite with Yui and spend eternity with her. This implies that he only wanted partial Instrumentality, so that he could still conceptualise the difference between himself and Yui. In any case, Rei III more or less gave him the metaphorical finger, took in Adam/Kaworu’s soul, and returned to Lilith.

In the Rebuilds/new theatrical versions, SEELE is implied in the third film to no longer have corporeal forms and to have somehow watched over humanity for quite a while. While the Illuminati nature of SEELE may explain the latter, the former is a bit more questionable. SEELE does not seem to be antagonistic and appears to wish for Instrumentality again, this time genuinely believing that Instrumentality and/or infinity is the way to go. It’s unclear if SEELE would prefer the former or the latter, but based upon the anime, it’s most probably the former.

Regarding the latter: The third film revealed that the Third Impact caused the proliferation of EVA-based life, being the combination of the Fruits of Life and Knowledge possessed by the angels and lilim, respectively. Because the Third Impact was stopped, the remains of the failed Impact are known as the failures of infinity.

As for Gendo’s plan, all we know is that he intends to reunite with Yui, that he lied to SEELE and purposefully interfered with both SEELE and Kaworu/Shinji’s plans in order to take out SEELE and Kaworu, and that he will put his true plan in motion in the fourth film.

(Kaworu/Shinji, by the way, intended to use the Lances of Longinus and Cassius to in some manner reverse or undo the effects of Third Impact. The most likely explanation is that Kaworu wanted to use Shinjiwielding the Fruit of Knowledgeto cause another Impact, this time lilim-based, since Impacts also terraform the planet. The effects of the Lance of Cassius are unknown at this time. Basically, Kaworu decided to give SEELE and NERV metaphorical middle fingers and fly away with Shinji in the sunset. Except that Kaworu was grossly misinformed, both on the Lances and on Shinji’s status as a F.A.R.)

We won’t actually be able to answer these questions until the fourth film comes out. So ask again then, and I’m sorry for being inconclusive!

ritsumaya2

skywhaler-deactivated20161127 asked:

Wait, you hate 2.22? Mind if I ask why? I got into eva because I saw the fight scene with zeruel from 2.22 on youtube and was like "I NEED to watch this", so all of my eva experience was constructed around building up to understanding and appreciating that one scene, and it became my favorite movie ever made because of it. My judgement mightve been clouded because I wanted to enjoy it too much. So is there something problematic about it?

ritsumaya-deactivated20160612 answered:

Ahh! Okay, allow me to clarify: I don’t hate 2.22. When I speak of fandoms about which I’m passionate I often use words to distinguish between my feelings for various iterations/aspects of EVA. 2.22’s a fantastic film; however, 2.22 is also my least favourite Rebuild, because frankly they tried to do too much and ended up doing too little.

I should write up a full review/analysis of 2.22, but let me just list some of the things that I loved and hated about the film (my personal favourite film ever made is End of Evangelion, with the Hell Kitchen-plus-“Komm, susser Tod” sequence more or less mirroring your feelings on the Zeruel scene).

I also haven’t seen 2.22 in a couple months, so if I say anything incorrect/miss something important, sorry.

realdomdom

Evangelion 2.22 was Evangelion as written for people who didn’t like Evangelion.

Sick of that boring interiority and psychological focus? Toss it! Tired of all the kids being so emo all the time? Let’s make Asuka perkier… and give her a crush on Shinji! Hell, give everyone a crush on Shinji – he’s supposed to represent the audience, right? And that’s what we do to the audience – we give them what they want. Speaking of things the audience wants – explosions! And another female character – hey, let’s have her fall on Shinji’s face! What’s her backstory? Doesn’t matter. Explosions! And you know what, screw sad-sack Shinji – now he’s the hero! Let’s make him save the girl! EXPLOSIONS!

Evangelion 2.22 was very popular. Finally, the Evangelion people had always wanted! No more tempering your praise with caveats and troubled ellipses – Evangelion was pure! Everything the audience wanted, they received. Everything that had made Evangelion “difficult” was sanded off. It was grim and wacky and charming and expensive and pretty and full of big, dramatic setpieces – all that stuff the original was minus everything the original actually said. Evangelion 2.22 was the least post-Evangelion film imaginable – an Evangelion designed to miss the point of Evangelion. And boy oh boy were people excited for Part 3.

Part 3 was excited for them, too.

kuribo4indahouse

But doesn’t that make 2.22 good? It’s really like the NGE action arc, and later your expectations are subverted. (Like Shinji saving Rei lol, didn’t work that well).

I talk a lot about the Rebuilds on imdB. A user I talk with came to the conclusion that 2.0 and 3.0 critizice a new trend in anime in series like RahXephon. (Spoilers for RahXephon):

“It basically boils down to both series having protagonists randomly get glowing red eyes in an effort to save a love interest while piloting a mecha, both compeletely failing to save said love interests, WILLE’s uniforms looking similar to Ayato’s, and lastly Ayato successfully using magical time travel *beep* to undo all of his problems, while Shinji attempts the same thing only to completely and utterly fail.

My own guess would be that Anno is criticizing modern anime that uses resetting time as magical problem solver. It totally strikes me as the kind of thing that Anno would see as running away from problems too.”

The thing I disliked about 2.0:

2.0 is the worst. It’s still amazing, but it has some problems…
First, I think Anno didn’t know where the Rebuild was going. That’s OK when you are doing a 26 episode series, but with 4 films…
Second, Evangelion is very centered on human drama. If we are supposed to believe that Shinji cares about Asuka, show us. Asuka doesn’t really have a lot of screen time.
I’d separate NGE episodes in two types: Episodes that show an event, for example something happens to some character, it messes with Shinji’s head. Then there are the “less important” episodes (action arc) that show us how these characters meet, how Shinji actually makes friends for the first time, etc. So yeah, they are important.
2.0 nails the first type of scenes, but the second type, not so much. However I think it says a lot about Anno that the Bardiel scene in 2.0 was freaking sad. 2.0 just could have been better. Still I think the whole cook subplot worked.

ritsumaya

I agree with what realdomdom was saying. In fact, my point is that if 2.22 is your favourite aspect of the EVA franchise, I want you to at least think about why that is. If you love 2.22, that’s fine. I’m more about spreading awareness. 2.22 sold ridiculously well; 3.33 sold better than 1.11 but less than 2.22, as expected. I agree that 2.22 works within the RoE framework, but I can still criticise 2.22 as the weakest film.

However, kuribo4indahouse: It's not like the original action arc, which had Shinji slowly gaining false confidence and Asuka seeking validation and being herself even while the cracks in her armour began to show. You are correct in that 2.22 acted as an analogue, but the action arc of the anime was concerned with giving us positive character development that would then be undercut during the backwards slide over the second half, and the distinction worked. 2.22, like I said, doesn’t give us any character development to work save for Rei, and that character development goes nowhere due to Rei Q. Now, I’m certain that both Rei Q and Rei are going to factor in 4.44, so I’m going to hold my tongue for now, but as it stands Asuka received minimal (barely-believable) development and Shinji received nearly none at all until the sudden “shounen protagonist!” bit in the last fight, which doesn’t segue as smoothly as the character development did in the original anime. They stuffed 2.22 with so much that they couldn’t actually dig into the essentials of the EVA action arc. As realdomdom mentioned, that was purposeful: Anno hates his fanbase. But that doesn’t stop me from criticising 2.22.

The bento subplot didn’t work because instead of actually giving us character development, the bento subplot served as waifu pandering, and you know it. The bento subplot definitely worked for the whole “haha EVA is totally about Shinji’s harem!” thing, but I’m criticising why 2.22 is the weakest part of RoE, specifically.

ritsumaya2

Anonymous asked:

Hi, I've read some of your analyses, and while I agree with most of them, I really don't get why you label Shinji as misogynistic trash, yes, he does pretty shit stuff to Asuka in EoE but it looks like it comes out as a product of his selfishness and frustration (after all, he's looking for a Kaworu-esque figure in her), he's afraid of Rei after the whole Rei III events, and probably finds Misato's attitude questionable, his actions don't really need misogyny to be explained, can you elaborate?

ritsumaya-deactivated20160612 answered:

(Reminder that I’m mobile posting, that I can’t upload images, and that I apologise in advance if autocorrect screws anything up!)

First of all, I need to specify that I will absolutely defend Shinji to the death in terms of avoidant personality disorder, depression, his passivity and perceived weakness, his selfishness, etc.etc.etc. I also identify heavily with Shinji, so calling Shinji trash is pretty difficult for me. However, Shinji is absolutely misogynistic trash. Surprisingly enough, characters are complex, and while I might adore certain aspects of a character, I hate others. My friends are well aware of much I like Shinji. Unfortunately, whenever I end up discussing him, I typically end up doing so within the context of misogyny, simply because I’ve been mostly doing Asuka analysis recently (on the other hand, my analysis of Shinji in my Hedgehog’s Dilemma post is much more positive, precisely because I’m analysing it from his perspective rather than from Asuka’s.)

(In fact, it’s Shinji’s flaws that make him interesting. But it’s the misogyny that I cannot forgive.)

Shinji more or less views the women in his life as sexual objects. From his initial encounter in Rei’s apartment (clenching the hand that held Rei’s breast and glancing towards Rei when the First Children dresses; certainly, he looks forward again, but it’s with this sense of desperately wanting to look back, tied down simply because that’s not societally appropriate) to his actions with Asuka, wherein he consistently focuses on her breasts and other feminine assets (there’s that sequence in End of Evangelion where we cut between flashes of Shinji’s eyes to extremely objectifying shots of Asuka, while Asuka yells at him and he completely ignores her; you can see my full analysis of it in my Asuka masterpost), Shinji suffers from male entitlement issues. Hell, the entire Hell Kitchen in End of Evangelion is Asuka trying to give Shinji as advice (in her typical brusque manner, which is also a character flaw on her part) and Shinji choking her to get her to shut up because he refuses to listen.

I mean, there’s also the whole scene on the train where we see Shinji visualising Misato, Asuka, and Rei naked and smiling, as Shinji angrily accuses them of keeping things vague behind smiles, which sounds like typical friendzoned dudebro rhetoric, as he tells them to speak to him because he feels awkward and later one when he responds to all of Asuka’s legitimate criticisms of his behaviour with, Then try being nice to me. That speaks, to me, of male entitlement and misogyny, to a point where Asuka calls him out on it.

That’s not even beginning to breach the whole masturbate over a comatose teammate whose entire arc concerns not being seen as a human thing. Saite da, orrete indeed. (This also isn’t even counting Shinji’s whole combat is a man’s job! stuff in the sixteenth episode, since that’s a result of his false confidence and he doesn’t really bring that kind of stuff up again.)

I used to be fourteen, anon. I used to be as misogynistic and shitty as Shinji, actually, and I know how easy it is and how good it feels to be misogynistic. I’ve gotten better. A lot better. People change. I went from trash to not-trash. So can Shinji, and post-Instrumentality, he probably will. Shinji in the new theatricals isn’t misogynistic at all from what I can tell, either, so please don’t confuse my yelling at anime Shinji for my lack thereof at Rebuild of Evangelion Shinji.

I love Shinji a lot, anon. But he is misogynistic and he is trash in that respect and I will call him trash for that specifically. He is a wonderful character, and person, in other respects. His selfishness, his filtration of reality, all of his flawsthey’re what make him an interesting, realistic, complex character. Misogyny, however realistic, is something that I can and will call him out on. I’m sorry if that bothers you, anon. Just wait until my character analysis of Shinji!

ritsumaya2

Anonymous asked:

im sorry if uve already gotten this question, but in ur explanation of the moment in end of evangelion where misato kisses shinji, u mentioned that there was evidence suggesting shinji attemtped #suicide before the beginning of the movie. would u mind talking about that a little bit more?

ritsumaya-deactivated20160612 answered:

Certainly! I’m mobile posting because the internet does not work whatsoever on my computer (hello crappy summer job!), so I can’t include any pictures as I usually do, but I’ll try to describe the scenes in question (also, apologies in advance if autocorrect screws anything up; I’ll try to upload pictures but sorry if they don’t work).

Some background: in an interview regarding Shinji, Anno described Shinji as someone who wants to commit suicide but is unable to do so, probably afraid of the pain. Shinji is passively suicidal, a feeling which I can certainly appreciate. In other words, if someone were to give him a button that would allow him to disappear/die painlessly if pushed, he’d push it (and he does, in End of Evangelion).

End of Evangelion picks up, chronologically, on the morning after the twenty-fourth episode. At the end of the episode, Shinji and Misato are sitting by the shore of the lake; Shinji tells Misato that Kaworu should have lived, because Kaworu was a good person, until Shinji, who views himself as a murderer (and who hates himself in general, considering himself a coward, a weakling, etc.etc.).

During the first half of End of Evangelion, Shinji consistently refuses to move. He literally does not so much as cower when SEELE personnel hold a gun to his head; if anything, when Misato saves him, he seems to look exhausted down to the marrow of the bone. I imagine that he, horrifically enough, wanted for the SEELE agent to take the decision of suicide out of his hands. Likewise, Shinji mumbles to Misato that he wants to die and has to be physically dragged around by Misato. When he arrives to find Unit 01 encased in bakelite, he does absolutely nothing and gives up immediately.

Shinji is absolutely a passive individual who would prefer not to fight, but even he does not typically act in such a manner. He’s more than given up; if someone were to die in front of him (as is obvious happened while SEELE was gunning down NERV personnel left and right), he would not assist in any manner. This is a far cry from the Shinji of, say, episode three, who rather heroically waited until Toji and Kensuke were safely in the plug prior to tearing the angel Shamshel apart with his own hands. Quite a far cry indeed. This is a Shinji who has completely given up on everything. He’s ready to die. And when Adam-Lilith gives him a chance to die, he takes it, smiling, crying tears of joy, for at long last his weary fight with life is over.

End of Evangelion opens with the shot of the water followed by Shinji standing at the shore of the lake, with his head/hair completely soaked (and his clothing appearing dry, as far as I remember). Some argue that this was perspiration, but what would be the purpose of this shot? We already know that it’s deathly hot in Tokyo-3. As well, his clothing appears dry, which doesn’t bode well for the perspiration theory, and mere perspiration isn’t really enough to make one’s hair that entirely drenched. One could also argue that he was dunking his head in the water to wake himself up, but that doesn’t seem to make sense given his passivity through the rest of the film.

To recap: Shinji spent the night by the shore of the lake, alone, after murdering Kaworu. Misato was with him for some time, was unable to cheer him up, and eventually gave up and left. Shinji. By himself. The following morning: drenched hair. Passively suicidal throughout the entire film until his big moment during Instrumentality.

It seems to me that the most obvious solution to that chain of events is that Shinji attempted to drown himself (by keeping his head underwater or by drowning himself entirely, depending on whether or not you think that his clothing is dry [there aren’t any water droplets on it and so on]) and was unable to do so. If anyone has any alternate interpretations or disparate comments, do let me know.

(Also, thank you for tagging #suicide. I’d toss you the Mari thumbs-up gif but I’m on mobile, bluh bluh.)

ritsumaya2

Anonymous asked:

First off, that Asuka post was beautiful and I understand the series so much better now, especially that crazy ending. But my question was, do you believe everything did go back to normal? Life flourished again and people came back? And did Asuka and Shinji ever change?

ritsumaya-deactivated20160612 answered:

Thank you so much for the kind words! I’m glad that you enjoyed it, and I encourage you to read my other analysis posts.

As for did everything go back to “normal”, I certainly hope not. The surreal ending of End of Evangelion points out, very truthfully, that once we reject our mothers, resolve the Hedgehog’s Dilemma, and cease to filter reality, true reality is much harsher, but true reality also gives us a chance to become truly happy and accept ourselves as we truly are.

However, if you’re asking more from an “EVAscience” perspective, then Lilith-Adam did inform Shinji that all creatures with the will to live and/or the capability to visualise themselves from the LCL will be able to come back. Okay, now there are two different ways in which we can interpret that statement.

We can interpret that statement to mean that only beings capable of visualising themselves/who have a concept of the self can return. This means that the vast majority of animals and, as far as we know, all plants/protista/bacteria/etc. will be unable to return. The humans would be able to subsist on LCL/extract sustenance from it, but it would be a true apocalypse scenario. The survival of humanity would depend greatly upon the ingenuity and tenacity of the survivors that return one by one.
We can interpret that statement to mean that all beings with the will to live will return. That includes the vast majority of life on Earth, given the programmed will to live that exists evolutionarily speaking. In this scenario, things would eventually go back to “normal”, as you said, or at least almost to normal.

Of course, there’s another explanation: Perhaps only humans were tanged! It may well be that, while the rest of the ecosystem has been heavily compromised by the apocalypse, the ecosystem will recover as nature would from any natural disaster. After all, we only see the quantum Rei appearing to human beings, and I don’t think that we ever see any animals in Instrumentality (sorry, Pen-Pen).

We can somewhat synthesise these disparate interpretations: Since this world is one based upon Shinji’s wishes and Shinji has rejected death, it’s going to be a world in which Shinji and the rest of humanity survive. In fact, some people who argue for anime/Rebuild sequel/loop theory explain the death of sea life as explainable by the fact that most species of fish most likely are unable to conceptualise themselves. So the world is horrible and filled with the suffering that Shinji thinks he deserves, but it still allows for humanity to survive and one day thrive.

Can Asuka and Shinji change? Yes, absolutely. That’s the cruel angel’s thesis of Evangelion. Now that they have been “born” and resolved the Hedgehog’s Dilemma, they can slowly heal, grow, and become better people. As I’ve said before, I personally think that it would be best for them to separate and grow up separately, because they have a tendency to hurt and lash out at one another. As Kaworu says to Shinji in 3.33, Shinji needs to find a place of peace and contentment. The same to Asuka. Once they have bettered themselves, I think that they would be able to come back together as friends and equals, because they do care about one another.

If you have any other questions, let me know!

(Side note: Please refrain from using the word “cr*zy”, as that is ableist language and really gross [unless you’re in a position to reclaim it]. Thank you kindly!)

ritsumaya2

skywhaler-deactivated20161127 asked:

Wait, you hate 2.22? Mind if I ask why? I got into eva because I saw the fight scene with zeruel from 2.22 on youtube and was like "I NEED to watch this", so all of my eva experience was constructed around building up to understanding and appreciating that one scene, and it became my favorite movie ever made because of it. My judgement mightve been clouded because I wanted to enjoy it too much. So is there something problematic about it?

ritsumaya-deactivated20160612 answered:

Ahh! Okay, allow me to clarify: I don’t hate 2.22. When I speak of fandoms about which I’m passionate I often use words to distinguish between my feelings for various iterations/aspects of EVA. 2.22’s a fantastic film; however, 2.22 is also my least favourite Rebuild, because frankly they tried to do too much and ended up doing too little.

I should write up a full review/analysis of 2.22, but let me just list some of the things that I loved and hated about the film (my personal favourite film ever made is End of Evangelion, with the Hell Kitchen-plus-“Komm, susser Tod” sequence more or less mirroring your feelings on the Zeruel scene).

I also haven’t seen 2.22 in a couple months, so if I say anything incorrect/miss something important, sorry.

Keep reading

ritsumaya2

Things I loved:

Asuka’s revamped introduction. Asuka’s introduced as the best EVA pilot, but until the MPE fight sequence in EoE, we never actually see her “best piloting skills” in action. RoE in general slams you in the face with the fact that she’s absolutely the best pilot.
Mari’s intro fight was so good. So good. I love Mari. Bestial Mari who is willing to do anything for her own ends. What a fantastic(ally underused) character.
“Pokapoka” Rei. I enjoyed the accelerated character development and the entire “Take care of Shinji” overlay with Yui floors me to this day.
Streamlining the Bardiel fight to remove the awkward “Rei and Asuka stand around basically doing nothing until it’s Shinji’s turn” shenanigans.
The whole aquarium scene is just chock-full of amazing
The visuals. The music. [wipes brow]
The ending fight with Zeruel and the Near Third Impact were brilliant. I loved the Third Impact, especially after we saw the aftermath in 3.33. Like. Hello thank you.
The overall film direction? High production values. Beautiful fight sequences.

Things I hated:

Waifuism pandering. The entire “bento cookoff” with Asuka versus Rei. Because we don’t have a “Kaji on the boat” sequence in RoE, the layout of the scene makes it clear to the audience that Asuka is supposed to be in love with Shinji, to the point of being willing to burn her hands cooking for him (Sohryuu > Shikinami in terms of character complexity and general interest). I don’t like haremshit. I don’t like girls being pitted against one another in love triangles (changing the elevator scene from a charged Asuka-Rei interaction to revolve around Shinji made that entire sequence suffer dramatically). What does Asuka see in Shinji? Unlike with Sohryuu, wherein I would argue that her interest in Shinji is more validation oriented than any actual romantic feeling, Shikinami never watches Shinji “prove himself” to her the way that Sohryuu does over the course of the action arc. Shikinami’s feelings for Shinji come out of nowhere and serve to portray her much more like a generic tsundere than like the deconstruction and actual Living Breathing Human Being that Sohryuu was.
Asuka’s character development over two conversations. What the hell. No, seriously. I know that RoE is almost exclusively Shinji-focused, but then why waste time on half-assed development that doesn’t seem to amount to anything?
And speaking of waifu pandering, unfortunately “pokapoka” Rei falls under this somewhat. The whole concept of Rei burning her fingers to cook for Shinji goes right up the waifuist alley. I know about character development, but we have to judge the film in context. The fan reaction was overwhelming. While the waifuism increased Rei’s character development, the waifuism tossed Asuka’s into the trash can.
I wanted to see Gendo and Shinji interact. Honestly, I did. Gendo caring about Rei and caring about Shinji is so rare. I wanted to explore that. Instead we got shit all.
Mari’s introduction. While I love the concept of Mari’s character, I assumed that she would lay low for 2.22 and then figure more significantly later. Instead, she was there for some fanservice (e.g. crashing into Shinji on the rooftop) and then ultimately Beast Mode Unit 02 doing basically nothing to Zeruel except giving us more fanservice followed by forcing Shinji’s hand*? Why. What’s Mari’s motivation? She’s supposed to be mysterious, but this is ridiculous.
(By the way, we still don’t have an explanation for Mari being able to pilot 02. What the fuck.)
Really awkward character set-up. Take out the bento cook-off and give us some actual relationship development. What if Mari had crashed into Asuka/Rei and actually offered some character development, instead of just existing for Shinji to stare at her awkwardly? What if Asuka and Rei had retained their developing conversation in the elevator instead of “Shinji makes me feel warm inside/baka that means you love him (and that implies that I do, too)”? etc. Shinji didn’t get that much character development, honestly; he received way more in both 1.11 and 3.33. 2.22 Shinji seemed to exist mostly to receive these fanservice scenes.
The test plug suit. No, seriously. I don’t mind fanservice (I’d be a fucking liar if I said that I didn’t enjoy it), but a fourteen-year-old character stand around essentially naked makes me extremely uncomfortable as a viewer (because the scene did affect me and I don’t want to be staring at a fourteen-year-old’s objectified body, especially if said fourteen-year-old has been reduced to a cute tsundere waifu). I mean, Asuka displayed her discomfort with it. Honestly, if Asuka had been okay with the test suit, I wouldn’t mind, but Asuka is wearing the damn thing against her will and the thought of all these figures and posters being sold is just. Eeeurgh.
Violence against women. The latter fights in the film both have “Shinji” (Unit 01-dummy-plug/Unit 01-Pseudo-Evolved-Form, but coded to represent Shinji) being exceedingly violent against “Asuka” (I understand why they switched Toji to Asuka, but more Asuka strangulation and abuse/taking out Asuka for the rest of the film is bullshit) and later against an explicitly dfab-coded “Rei”. While Shinji’s violence against women was portrayed as horrific and worthy of making Shinji hate himself for his actions in the anime, RoE rewards Shinji twice, showing him to have done the “right thing” and saved the day by enacting violence on women under the guise of saving them.
(I know that Unit 01 also strangled Toji in the original, but it’s very different when coded with an objectified female character who is associated with strangulation, often erotically, because the Fanbase Is Garbage.)
The unnecessary panty shot/etc. with Asuka. No, really. Someone sat down and said, “Let’s animate this fourteen-year-old girl’s panties for an extended and obvious multi-second shot of her rolling over to reallybring to mind that thigh gap and the focus of the entire screen being on her sexual organs.” Okay.
Taking out Asuka and Mari piloting Unit 02 together (Asuka forcibly piloting with someone else is so crucial to her development); taking down Asuka having a Leliel-like moment with Bardiel in the plug (and thereby taking out a significant portion of Asuka-centric weight over the Bardiel sequence, converting it to an exclusively Shinji-centric moment); taking out some of the other moments that would have really turned 2.22 into my favourite EVA thing ever.
Again with Asuka: Removing Asuka’s inherent issues (histrionic, etc.) to render her another Shinji-like hedgehog, just a crueler version. if anything, RoE Shinji in 2.22 isn’t a hedgehog (re: aquarium food scene), but Asuka is (*Asuka is a hedgehog, but she was a distinctly different type of hedgehog, which is part of what made the show so fantastic). Shikinami hates attention; she pushes away people who try to talk to her and stands off on her own, her smartphone a clear analogue to Shinji’s SDAT, and it actually makes both Shinji and Asuka more boring characters, because Asuka lifted Shinji’s issues to use them to fuel her tsundere-Shinji-is-the-special-one and Shinji ended up being surprisingly well-adjusted without the false confidence of the action arc that made that development work in the anime. How do you fuck up your thematic base that badly?
Basically, character development that went nowhere, character interactions that weren’t nearly as effective as they could have been, and gross fanservice for no purpose.

You’re welcome to like 2.22! These were just my personal opinion/thoughts on the film. This isn’t edited or anything. I just kind of spewed words.

*This is actually also a criticism against the anime, which often set up Rei and Asuka as failing such that the task would have to fall to Shinji. That’s explained in-universe that the Adam-based EVA could never hold a candle to the Lilith-based Unit 01, but it’s certainly a valid criticism because you could more or less figure out how the action arc would end up, until things got serious from episode twenty onwards.

ritsumaya2

skywhaler-deactivated20161127 asked:

Wait, you hate 2.22? Mind if I ask why? I got into eva because I saw the fight scene with zeruel from 2.22 on youtube and was like "I NEED to watch this", so all of my eva experience was constructed around building up to understanding and appreciating that one scene, and it became my favorite movie ever made because of it. My judgement mightve been clouded because I wanted to enjoy it too much. So is there something problematic about it?

ritsumaya-deactivated20160612 answered:

Ahh! Okay, allow me to clarify: I don’t hate 2.22. When I speak of fandoms about which I’m passionate I often use words to distinguish between my feelings for various iterations/aspects of EVA. 2.22’s a fantastic film; however, 2.22 is also my least favourite Rebuild, because frankly they tried to do too much and ended up doing too little.

I should write up a full review/analysis of 2.22, but let me just list some of the things that I loved and hated about the film (my personal favourite film ever made is End of Evangelion, with the Hell Kitchen-plus-“Komm, susser Tod” sequence more or less mirroring your feelings on the Zeruel scene).

I also haven’t seen 2.22 in a couple months, so if I say anything incorrect/miss something important, sorry.

See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

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