[EVA] Evageeks (Dreadfully [META])

[Gwern Branwen]

On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 8:46 PM, R_J_N <r_j_n at btopenworld.com> wrote:
>> When the phantom Rei/Ritsuko
>> embraces Ritsuko during the film, The End of Evangelion, Maya lets a gasp of
>> "ecstacy" escape (as described by Anno).'
>
>> <http://www.evaotaku.com/html/evafaq.html>
>
>> (I'm still looking for the source of the 'ecstacy' [sic] Anno quote.)

> IN the NT book there are love hearts interspersed with Maya's words.
> Also in the Raising Ikari PC game (not on console, why?), there is a
> communal bathing scene. Misato, Asuka, Ritsuko & Maya completely naked. Maya
> is beside Ritsuko & has a nosebleed (there was actually that scene's
> screencap in a Megami magazine advert for the game).
> RJN

I don't doubt that Maya is lesbian, or at least we're supposed to
seriously wonder whether she is; but I meant that specific Anno quote.
(I assume you don't mean that in the filmbook her last line is given
surrounded in 'love hearts', and that's the citation; obviously it's
something of a stretch to call that 'ecstasy' or 'as described by
Anno'.)

On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 9:39 PM, Peter Svensson <sun1jack at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Note what the outline for episode *17* is:
>>     "Episode 17: Asuka's 1st date: Asuka goes to an amusement park for
>> the  first time.  Misato's past. A romance comedy."
>>
>> This is of course nothing like what episode 17 actually was, Eva-04
>> going boom;
>
> Though Asuka alludes to the events of said planned episode as happening off-screen at one point. It's actually kinda interesting to think about.

Maybe. We do get Misato's past, though, and we do sort of get a
romance comedy later in the imaginary world.

I suppose the real casualty of that episode being cut is that we have
less depiction of Asuka & Shinji interacting normally and having fun;
it makes things like his EoE statement 'Still... I want to meet them
again, because I believe my feelings at that time were real.' just a
little harder to believe. (Someone more jaded might exclaim, '*What?*
After all that shit we saw in NGE TV, you want to go back? Did we ever
see you happy with Asuka?' No, not really, thanks to that episode
being lost...)

> The Newtype 100% guide isn't the same as the filmbooks, though I agree that both seem to have had direct information from Gainax. As for disparaging the Confidential Information, I don't really see why. Sure, it's not entirely the best written backstory, nor does it 100% mesh with the evidence in the series, but I never really expected an official document from the folks who actually worked on the show to do so.

I disparage the CI because I'm not sure our translation is trustworthy
(it seems more incoherent than the filmbook plot outline), it was
written long after even EoE (and Lucas is actually a good example here
- Lucas has been retconning for decades to make his Saga of Darth
Vader tragedy idea work, when there was no such thing early on, and so
all his statements and material are deeply suspect), by who knows whom
- supposedly Anno helped, but who knows how much that was? - for an
independent work (is the game its own continuity?).

To me, the CI smacks of someone trying to pull together all the loose
threads and patch up the obvious holes, while I'm interested in what
Eva means or was supposed to mean. The holes offer insights into what
they started with, where they ended up, and what they were doing on
the way. So patching up holes is just pulling the wool over my eyes.

> There was a point some years ago at a con where the question of "Whose soul was in Unit 03" came up, and the director of the episode was just totally clueless.

Cite pls?

> Peter Svensson

-- 
gwern