from the latest official eva spinoff: ritsuko surreptitiously sliding gendo and fuyutsuki the tab as the rest of NERV staff quietly leave the bar scans fantastically like a jerry gag from an episode of parks and rec
The scribble next to young!Fuyutsuki reads “David Bowie.” Anno seems to have a love affair for British eletropop, what with Q!Ritsuko closely resembling Annie Lennox.
recurring visual imagery: distance + gendo’s office
neon genesis evangelion, dir. hideaki anno (1995)
it’s been a while since i’ve dropped some freebies! here’s all 4 volumes of the official evangelion LINE stickers, full sized and transparent. feel free to use for just about anything.
all 167 stickers are sorted by character/pairing. this post will be updated if any new stickers are released – enjoy!
Anno Hideaki has often admitted to drawing much of his Evangelion inspiration from vintage UK sci-fi and media (check out the character comparisons charts for Gerry Anderson’s UFO or The Avengers British original, to name a few) but this one takes the cake.
it crushes my spirit that the adults of evangelion aren’t talked about more. especially misato; she’s intended to be the secondary protagonist yet is talked of as though she were a supporting character, a sidekick, or a deuteragonist - forever doomed to be a talking point to the extent that her actions motivate shinji’s personal growth
whatever it is that makes evangelion good, misato, ritsuko, kaji, yui, fuyutsuki, and gendo are just as emblematic as the pilot kids. all of these characters have compelling and interesting stories of their own. but there’s nary a whisper when the adults get misinterpreted among casual and serious fans alike; the show goes to great lengths to debunk a lot of popular fandom interpretations that persist to this day (for example, think about how many people assume misato is a slut with a high “body count” when the show explicitly mentions her only having been with one man)
if you’re watching nge, focus on the eva adults! their backstories, their motivations, the parts of themselves they keep hidden or concealed. there’s plenty to learn and love by watching misato, ritsuko, and kaji’s old friendship that you can’t get by watching shinji, asuka, and rei interact with each other. you’re missing out, otherwise
There’s a lot of subtleties in 3.0, one of them being how Anno uses spacials and dialogue to show how the main cast has undergone an implicit generational shift. Misato takes on a role that was originally Gendo’s (emphasized further with her visual upgrade, unfeeling shades and all), and Ritsuko takes on a role that was originally Fuyutsuki’s – others have already pointed out that this “evolution” was quietly alluded to during 2.0. (And by extension, Gendo and Fuyutsuki has taken on SEELE’s role upon SEELE’s demise, Asuka has taken on Misato’s role, Mari has taken on Kaji’s role, so on and so forth.)
It’s hard to say what this means for 3.0+1.0 – especially in reference to Misato and Shinji’s now-broken dynamic – but it’s definitely worth noting (and speculating) on.