What’s most interesting about the latest Groundwork release are the corrections made to the initial Misato drafts, largely because Misato Katsuragi is the only character in Q whose precise emotional state is deliberately obscured.
The first draft is very “Pre-Timeskip Misato”, in that it’s fully demonstrative of the extent of Misato’s emotions. But the alterations (adding wrinkles around the eye, clenching the mouth, tightening the brow) really do well in communicating that Misato has now learned to bottle much of her discomforts and fears. A word to describe the first draft would be “anger”, but finding words to describe the finalized expression is a more variegated task — yes, there’s anger, but there’s also fear, exhaustion, tenacity, and maybe a little bit of regret.
Without having the full scope of what she’s gone through during the 14 year timeskip, this change is perhaps the most mystifying and disorienting in terms of character development, which is in part why the conclusion of Misato Katsuragi’s Rebuild arc firmly remains one of my most anticipated moments in Evangelion: 3.0+1.0.
