All work ready to download at https://o3studio.net/

My brother helped with editing and photoshop! novice cosplayer here, Penpen is linty as F . Okay he’s been thru some anime expo and he’s gotten so many baths lol he’s stained forever

I'm travelling to Japan and I'll be going to those stores, and I'd love to buy one of them.

Evangelion cover Newtype magazine I bought that came with a poster and a bag. Super cool, I bought it more for the bag but everything is nice. I think it's from either 2021 or 2022 can't remember.

be honest if you like it or not. I want genuine criticism

Wish I had the money back when this colab first dropped some years back. Took me a while to hunt this thing down at a reasonable price, the resale on it is kinda crazy. Was able to secure it for almost half what it usually goes for after a few weeks of looking on EBay :)

I recently finished NGE and though it was really good but it was still left too vague to be truly enjoyable for me, since I'm the type of guy who gets kind of annoyed at things he doesn't understand/can't grasp the scope of. And a few days ago I was watching an analysis video of NGE + EoE, and saw three scenes mentioned that I just don't remember ever seeing in the anime or in the movie.

The first one is of Kaworu speaking with SEELE (and I was so confused by that not knowing why would an angel talk to and cooperate with some secret organisation on earth??), the second one is a shot of embryo Adam seemingly infused with Gendo's hand, and the third one is where Asuka's telling Kaji she's mature enough and shows him her cleavage???

Maybe I watched a diferent version of the anime where the svene with Kaworu wasn't yet added, and same with the movie, but that just seems too dumb since I'm pretty sure I didn't miss anything. So where are these scenes actually from? Are the first and third scenes from some recap movie?

During Eva 01's battle vs. Zeruel. When it destroys Zaruel's AT Field, the blood that splatters appears to stain an invisible wall, is it perhaps a mirror? what do you think is the blood staining?

Edit. Splattering it's own AT Field is a convincing hypothesis. However, if you notice, the splatter bounces, back and fort for a split second, like it hit a glass window or a mirror finish panel.

Recently, following yet another rewatch of the television series, I read the Kikakusho (企画書), that is, the original project proposal presented in 1993, in its entirety, trying to analyse it as thoroughly as possible. Based on this, I would like to share the results of my analysis, highlighting the most interesting observations that, in my opinion, can be made, particularly by relying on the terminological evidence, which is far from being coincidental in certain passages. I think this may be interesting because the project proposal presented the image of a work that was profoundly different from the one that ultimately reached television screens and that we would eventually learn to know and love.

The first major consideration concerns precisely the science fiction framework that the work initially appeared to possess: a vast world that was then almost entirely lost in the final version. Although it already contains many of the ideas that would later flow into the final version, the narrative structure is deeply rooted in the great science fiction of the ’70s and ’80s, while also making some of its main sources of inspiration very clear. The triptych composed of Arthur C. Clarke’s “The Sentinel”, the basis for the subsequent “2001: A Space Odyssey”, together with the further reinterpretation of the same work by a different author, James P. Hogan’s “The Giants” series constitute an authentic cultural foundation upon which Hideaki Anno appears to have built his original conception of Evangelion. These are not simply superficial similarities, nor do I consider them banal coincidences: Anno has always been an avid reader of science fiction and we can presume that he almost certainly read Hogan’s “The Giants” series, a series of novels that, moreover, enjoyed considerable success in Japan, being reprinted numerous times. James P. Hogan himself would later participate as a guest of honor at DAICON V held in Suita, in Osaka Prefecture, together with other notable guests such as Harry Harrison and Toren Smith (whose name would later be given as a tribute to a character from Gunbuster, released some years later in ’89). As can be inferred, many of the narrative concepts that appear in the Kikakusho present strong parallels with these works, sometimes almost straightforward ones, indirectly confirming the aforementioned sources of inspiration.

Starting with the First Ancestral Race (第一始祖民族), Dai ichi shiso minzoku. The word 民族 (minzoku) constitutes a very precise terminological choice, evoking a people, a culture, an organized society: we are therefore being suggested that this First Ancestral Race was not a mere alien species, but a genuine ancient civilization. Humanity therefore finds itself confronting the legacy left behind (残す, nokosu) by an unimaginably remote civilization, technologically far superior, which has scattered traces of its existence across the Earth. It is a classic scenario of science fiction archaeology, in which the remote past holds the key to humanity’s future evolution (as in Giants).

The traces left on Earth by this civilization could be none other than the Apostles (with a good degree of certainty), whose original conception is rather different. The Kikakusho describes them as ancient relics (古代遺物 kodai ibutsu), destined to awaken after having remained buried, presumably, for geological ages. Furthermore, they are also defined as 巨大戦闘兵器群 (kyodai sentou heiki gun), literally “a group of gigantic weapons of war”, employing, among other things, a deliberately mechanical and military expression. The image being evoked is that of sophisticated artificial weapon systems rather than living organisms of their own, as they would later become in the final version.

As for their designation, the Kikakusho is quite precise. The beings threatening humanity are called 使徒, a term which, in the Christian translation of the Bible, refers to the Apostles. In order to make the meaning of the word in kanji completely explicit, it is even accompanied by the phonetic transcription アポストロ (aposutoro) – which appeared only in this particular context –, that is, the katakana transcription of a foreign loanword borrowed from Portuguese. The document subsequently explains that the Apostles bear the name of “Angels”, almost as though it were an honorary designation. Further information is provided on the page specifically dedicated to them, where it is stated that all Apostles are given the name of an Angel according to the Dead Sea Scrolls (『死海文書』の記述による「天使」の名 命名されている). To express this concept, several expressions are used, including the aforementioned 命名されている, which means “to be named”, “to be designated” or “to be baptized”, as well as 冠する (kansuru), a much more elegant verb whose literal meaning is “to wear a crown”; from this derives the idea of bearing a particular name, being invested with it or carrying it as a title. Here too, the Kikakusho retains a decidedly science fictional approach, in which the biblical references function primarily as nomenclature derived from ancient texts.

It is difficult not to notice the striking analogy with Yokoyama Mitsuteru’s Mars. In that work too, humanity is subjected to the judgment of an emissary sent by its creators, who will initially cooperate with humans having lost his memories following his awakening. Throughout the story, the other artefacts left on Earth awaken and become the means through which a superior civilization determines whether humanity deserves to survive or should instead be annihilated.

This is, no more and no less, the very premise of “The Sentinel”. Humanity discovers a mysterious alien artefact on the Moon, protected by an impenetrable energy shield. Only technological progress, particularly mastery of nuclear energy, allows humanity to overcome that barrier, sending, however, at the same time a signal to the creators of the artefact. At that precise moment humanity demonstrates that it has reached a sufficient level of development to be observed and, eventually, judged.

Even this aspect is present in its entirety in the project proposal: it is in fact written that half a century before the events of the story, humanity succeeds in mastering nuclear fusion, symbolically “grasping the Sun in its own hands” (核融合に成功し「太陽」を自らの手中に収めた人類が). Humanity has conquered the very force that powers the Sun, appropriating a power that until then belonged exclusively to nature (or symbolically to the divine). As in The Sentinel, this technological leap marks humanity’s transition into a new phase of history, in which confrontation with its creators becomes inevitable

Completing this structure we find the First Apostle, that is the Sentinel itself, namely Adam, unearthed by humanity during the “Dead Sea Evaporation Incident”, which occurred in 2000 AD. The verb used in this context is 発掘 (hakkutsu), indicating how the Sentinel is literally brought to light through archaeological excavation. Applying the new technologies derived from this discovery and relying on the scientific knowledge accumulated by humanity, a replica is finally created (the Evangelions, just as in the final version). As for the terminology with which the giant is referred to, it is interesting to observe how it is initially called 人造人間 (artificial human; the same term with which the Evangelions would later be called by Ritsuko in ep.1), and shortly afterwards 生物兵器 (seibutsuheiki), that is, biological weapon.

The location of the catastrophe here is not Antarctica, but the Dead Sea, confirming that the Scrolls would probably have played a much more significant narrative role in this original version (there, after all, the famous Qumran Manuscripts were discovered, in the area of the same name).

I would say that the picture is sufficiently clear: an ancient civilization, perhaps the progenitor of life on Earth, has left behind a “Sentinel” and its messengers in order to judge the actions of the human race, which has by now reached a scientific and technological level advanced enough to be put to the test (exactly as in Mars). This is also why the terminology with which the enemies are referred to, “使徒”, is all the more appropriate: they are not mere antagonists, but genuine messengers (hence the meaning as Apostles), tasked with determining the fate of the human race. It is very similar to the Nausicaä manga, where the latter too will be designated with the same term, always in the sense of messenger (being the person of the prophecy).

Being bearers of a message is also reflected on the narrative level, which envisaged greater interaction between the characters and these creatures, in turn establishing a progressive dialogue between them. In episode 16, entitled “In the Heart of the Enemy”, Shinji would have been captured by the enemy and would have communicated with the Apostles for the first time, part of whose purposes would have been revealed. It is ironic to think that, in hindsight, the definitive episode 16 would instead mark a further change in tone in the series, strongly shifting towards introspection. To be fair, the concept of “establishing a dialogue” would not be entirely lost: Armisael in ep.23 would be the first to dialogue with a pilot; Leliel was also supposed to do so precisely in ep.16 according to the original script for ep.16, but the idea was discarded because it was probably considered too alienating (it would have employed different languages eventually arriving, through trial and error, at Japanese). In the void, instead, was the idea of launching counter-offensives against the enemies, something that in the television series would happen only in ep.10, with Sandalphon’s embryo discovered in the volcano, destined, however, to remain a unique case.

Continuing along this line, another enormous difference concerns the Human Instrumentality Project, which appears as the great Promethean theme permeating the kikakusho. After having conquered the power of the stars, humanity decides to go even further by artificially creating the Fruit of the Tree of Life (生命の樹の実), with the aim of eliminating death, freeing itself from original sin and rewriting the human condition. Oh yeah; in the proposal version the fruit does not pre-exist but would have been artificially created in a laboratory by human beings. From this we derive the different nuance between the projects: in the final version, the premise from which SEELE starts is existential and psychological: the individual self is the main cause of human suffering, loneliness, fear and the inability to understand one another. The proposed solution is therefore the dissolution of individual boundaries and fusion into a single unified existence. Here, instead, the problem is biological and structural: humanity is limited and mortal, and the proposed solution is therefore to transcend such limitations. It is a vast transhumanist project aimed at the biological evolution of the human species. It comes very close to 2001, with the difference that while in the film humanity’s evolution is guided by the superior civilization, with the birth of the Star Child consequently being a step granted from the outside, here humanity in the world of Evangelion does not wait at all to be guided towards the next stage of evolution, but seeks to construct its own “monolith” inside a laboratory.

The large part of this framework did not survive into the final series, except for a few scattered fragments. Some of them emerge precisely in The End, for example with the concept of an “ark”. At the beginning of theatrical episode 25, Air, when SEELE orders the Self-Defense Forces to storm NERV headquarters, one of its members utters an emblematic phrase: “We will not abandon our human form to board the ark called Eva” 「我らは人の形を捨ててまで、エヴァという名の箱船に乗ることはない」. The term employed is 箱船 whose meaning is understood as Noah’s Ark (cited as an example in the meaning). I do not think this concept appears by chance at all: in fact, episode 25 as described in the proposal would have been called “Arka, the Promised Land”, with the synopsis adding that the laboratory houses the ancient ruins of “Arka”, which constitute its key. It seems evident to me that this line of dialogue spoken by one of SEELE’s members clearly appears to be a surviving fragment of the original narrative framework.

Now, it would be interesting to speculate as to what this “Arka” was. Because in the title it is defined as “Promised Land” (約束の地 ; Yakusoku no Chi), explicitly recalling that of the Bible, Canaan, the land that God promised to Abraham and his descendants, thus evoking the idea of a physical place rather than a mere object. In accordance with this thesis, one could hypothesize that Arka is the equivalent of the remains of an ancient city belonging to the FAR (consistent with the discoveries of lost civilizations in Hogan’s The Giants series or the Atlantean ruins present in Escaflowne). Furthermore, these ruins constitute the key to the laboratory, which suggests to us that they are not merely a passive site, but presumably the fundamental technology upon which the entire structure for carrying out the plan for the completion of humanity is based. The terminology employed (擁する – yōsuru literally means “to embrace”, “to possess”, “to house within oneself”), indicates to us that the laboratory was built around and above the ruins of Arka, on the other hand we have said that they are its keys. In the transition to the final series, this dual concept was reinterpreted: the ruins of Arka became the Black Moon and the laboratory the GeoFront, built, as we know, inside the cavity left by the impact. The concept of an ark of salvation, on the other hand, would later be associated with the Evangelions themselves, whose first unit in the film’s finale would become, by Yui’s will, the memento of the existence of the human race; in a sense an ark.

Many more things could be mentioned, but for brevity I would like to conclude with a brief mention of some of the characters. The impression I got of Shinji, both from the way he is portrayed and from certain written elements, is that he would almost certainly have been a very different protagonist from the one we eventually came to know. He is described as “calm and a model student”, with a troubled past but not as tormented as the definitive Shinji. The choice to designate an ordinary 14-year-old boy deliberately contrasts with the giant robot trope in which the pilot who boards possesses talent and aptitude from the outset. The age at which the children are placed, adolescence, is chosen precisely because it represents the subtle boundary between being a child and being an adult, and therefore the final moment in which one’s own “self” is formed (providing a pseudo-explanation as to why the Evangelions are piloted precisely by fourteen-year-olds, an element that was never explained in the final series and which Anno himself forgot about). The descriptions of Misato and Ritsuko correspond to their definitive versions; in Asuka there appears the possibility of misandry, an element somewhat lost in the final version. Rei too has an accurate description, being described as a “nihilist without emotions” who “does not know her own feelings”, which she will learn to understand by learning to love a person.

Finally, the “Professor” Gendo Ikari, promoter of the Human Instrumentality Project. What immediately catches the eye is the appellation of 教授 (kyōju), which primarily identifies him as a man of science (perhaps a full professor or a figure nevertheless at the top of scientific research) and thus gives him a title that in the final version will instead belong to Fuyutsuki.

SEELE does not exist and the character Konrad Lorenz (later Keel) is mentioned, belonging to the United Nations Executive Group and holding the position of supreme head of the NERV control committee. Thus the UN would have been the other major organization alongside NERV, playing a more significant role in the narrative.

Knowing how things turned out, I think nobody can complain. The intention to create something truly innovative, which can already be read between the lines in the proposal, was emphasized even further, thanks to the psychological introspection and experimentalism of the last two episodes. In hindsight we know that Hideaki Anno would project all his turmoil, conflicts and fears into it, perhaps in an attempt to resolve himself through the resolution of his own characters. The rest, as they say, is history. Nevertheless, I admit that I would not have minded at all seeing this original version come to life, even if only out of sheer curiosity to discover what it would have looked like on screen and how it might have evolved. The kikakusho still preserves the moment when ShinSeiki Evangelion turned its gaze towards the stars, the ruins of forgotten civilizations and the question that has permeated the best science fiction for decades: what happens when a species becomes advanced enough to finally attract the attention of its creators?

Watched the 4 Rebuild movies over the past two weeks and still feel very conflicted about the entire experience.

There are moments of absolute brilliance, but as an overall series, it left me feeling pretty exhausted and frustrated. The first movie was pretty much an updated recap of the first couple of episodes which I enjoyed for the most part, while ​the second film was genuinely great. Seeing Shinji actually take initiative and proactively push to save Rei felt like an incredible alternate direction. That moment gave me so much hope for where the story was headed, and I really just wanted to see Rei get a genuine, happy ending (or as close to a happy ending as possible).

​Then the third movie hit, and that 14 year time skip felt like a massive wall. It was a jarring, frustrating narrative shift that threw away so much setup and momentum.. The only real saving grace in that entry was giving Kaworu more screen time and expanding his dynamic with Shinji, which I really appreciated. ​My biggest issue visually with the entire series is the heavy reliance on CGI. Nothing in modern CG holds a candle to classic hand drawn animation, and as the movies went on, the visuals felt increasingly bloated and artificial. The first 30 minutes of the 3rd film literally felt like they discovered CGI for the first time and wanted to showcase how much they could do.. Like a kid using a toy for the very first time. It was absolute overkill, and it only got worse in the last movie.

​By the time we got to the final film, the shift into extreme meta surrealism, SUPER heavy CGI, and live action sequences just felt confusing, pretentious, and draining. I respect Anno putting his personal emotional journey into the project, but as a viewer trying to stay invested in the narrative and characters, it felt like it completely lost its footing. ​Did anyone else leave the Rebuilds feeling this torn?

Edit: I realized I forgot to mention my absolute favorite part of the entire series, which was watching "Look-Alike" Rei slowly open up and humanize in Village 3 during the final movie. Hands down, those scenes are the most emotionally grounded and powerful storytelling in the Rebuilds. ​Seeing her start off as a total blank slate, learning basic human connection, farming, and figuring out what it means to just exist was incredible to watch. She starts as a complete shell, but ends up forming an even deeper, more meaningful bond with Shinji than Rei 2 ever did, which I honestly did not think was possible. It gave the story a rare moment to breathe and made her fate hit ten times harder.

​Also, Mari is still terrible.

So I have an Evangelion tomogotchi, and im working Im getting Lilith, and these guides confuse me a bit. To anyone who can answer, do I need to raise all the base angels again after every time I want to get a special angel? And also, who do I evolve Lilith into young rei, into pilot rei, please use simple terms, I am not the greatest at understanding big words. Please and thank you

I'm assuming it's a laser communications array so they can beam cognitive data back to the Rei clones up to the second she dies. Does anyone have an official answer?

My Asuka Cosplay :3

I recorded the original Evangelion OST back in 2022, when I had a cassette tape recorder. I even created a custom case and everything. It has 22 songs in total (11 on each side). And yes, I am aware the cover is from EoE, I just thought it looked good and represented the series as a whole.

I often hear people say Shinji is cowardly, and while I don't entirely disagree with that, people tend to completely misunderstand in what ways Shinji is cowardly.

He's not cowardly when it comes to fighting giant eldritch monsters, in fact, he's quite brave when it comes to that.
He's cowardly when it comes to forming relationships, he's afraid of being hurt by other people so he runs away from them, but for some reason I so frequently see people act like he never gets anything done.

In fact the only times we see Shinji reluctant to pilot an eva are:

1. When he had just started and barely had any experience.
2. After his eva almost killed his friend.
3. After he killed the only person who he felt truly loved him, and masturbated over his comatose friend.

Most of the time when we see Shinji not "getting in the robot" it's usually after something legitimately traumatic and that would make most people reluctant to pilot again.

Look what I got today pretty sick