misato as she features in 3.33 feels right to me. this is the same old misato, without the forced, over the top, cheery veneer of bullshit she labored so hard under throughout her 20s and 30s. i cringe at the suggestion misato’s changed or seen a personality overhaul in Q - in way of evidence most people reference the “cruelty” with which she treats shinji in the movie. i would invite them to remember the myriad of times misato was actually, legitimately cruel to shinji in NGE/1.0/2.0:
- threatening to slap him across the face in 1.0,
- slapping him in the manga,
- screaming at him in episode 6,
- manhandling him in EOE,
- sexually abusing him, not once but twice, as the official eoe film book reveals
in a surprising departure, q!misato behaves comparatively tame, suggesting at least to me that she’s matured enough to realize that bullying shinji, strong-arming him, or forcing her will upon him doesn’t work. it’s ineffective at its best, abusive at its worst.
misato sternly instructed that shinji stay in his lane - you get the sense she wants to create a wide swarth of distance between them, emotionally and physically. it’s as though misato’s come to the realization she’s not good for shinji - not good for his mental health, not good at motivating him, not good at placating him or cheering him up (that’s probably why she allowed sakura to chaperone him - sakura is nice, friendly, and open, aka all the things misato tried to be in 1.0 and 2.0). misato is doing shinji a favor and not subjecting him to her exhausting, overpowering, and often-selfish neurosis. as far as “cruelty” goes, i’d much rather have that then the screaming, slapping, (sexually abusing).
shinji is treated exceptionally well for someone responsible for the deaths of untold millions of people, at least logistically speaking. sakura kindly chaperones him around, he gets to roam semi-freely, he’s not in solitary confinement - he gets to speak to misato and ritsuko, let alone demand questions of them, to which ritsuko answers fully, truthfully, and in good faith. worse things happen to real life kids who get caught stealing from their neighborhood grocery store. some of you all act as if misato/wille threw him in a 5x5 pen and told him to eat his own shit for nutrients. when UN soldiers caught kaji stealing a can of beans from a warehouse post-impact, they proceeded to A) beat the shit out of him B) pin him to the floor with their boots and C) murder his only remaining family and friends in cold blood. compared to that, shinji is living the high life. and any angst he (rightfully, understandably) experiences, is not of misato’s doing.
it’s done! this is a gift i commissioned from the talented vwyn19 to my insanely smart friend @khalayak. it’s a redraw of the petit eva calendar illustration feat. misato, ritsuko, and kaji getting absolutely fucking sloshed at a picnic. in this house, we stan a trio
evangelion (and its manga series) were committed to realism to the extent that family members actually looked biologically related - in general, this is difficult to achieve in any animation medium, where stylistic convention can contribute to same face syndrome.
shinji is a perfect composite of gendo and yui’s features, but in a natural, effortless way - he’s not a random synthesis of “gendo’s eyes” and “yui’s chin” or whatever. rei looks like a young yui, but again the facsimile isn’t forced - it’s just enough to color naoko immediately suspicious, but not enough to arose suspicion from everyone everywhere. ritsuko and naoko share the same power brow and pointed chin - the show even went out of its way to explain ritsuko’s blonde hair as a result of repeated hair coloring, a slight of authenticity not often broached in anime. in the manga, kaji and his younger brother look so alike yet apart, and you can easily pick them out from a crowd of other nameless kids - this is really impressive, considering the medium.
rebuild isn’t interested in having relatives’ looks cohere. sakura and toji don’t look related - which is especially heinous considering toji’s looks are so pronounced and iconíqq (flat chin, dark skin... compared to sakura’s boringly petite and pale features) anno is on record saying his only goal for sakura was for her to be “cute”, so maybe he thought he couldn’t succeed if she looked too much like toji. trash.
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
Remember this jarring cut? This is such a bizarre, unnatural perspective to emphasize what looks on its face so painfully benign: Ritsuko leaving a bar. I always wondered if the ice was supposed to resemble floating icebergs; it was only until someone else confessed to having the same thought that I realized that this frame may hope to emphasize more than Ritsuko’s absence. Ritsuko is leaving Misato alone with Kaji, a man who reminds Misato of her father. Their resemblance invokes the terrifying source of trauma Misato must constantly revisit throughout the series. The source of which traces its roots to Antarctica.
I always dismissed this cut as accidental, and unfortunate. Now, I’m not so sure.
i never noticed until recently, but the episodes where ritsuko forgoes her signature red lipstick (ep 5, 8, 12) coincide with the days gendo is off-post, conducting business overseas, or otherwise awol.
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.
Some insight into the guns used in Evangelion and the obscene amount of detail that goes into them.
Gendo carries a CZ-75 pistol. As its name implies, this is an old gun, designed in 1975 under a secret patent. Currently, this the most popular handgun in the Czech Republic, where it was first designed.
Misato carries a Heckler & Koch USP, a personal handgun distinguished from the standard issue Glock 17s all NERV personnel carry. The H&K is a German gun, implying that she’d obtained it during her military stay in Germany.
Ritsuko carries an R-92 revolver, an obscure conceal carry originally intended for Soviet security in the 1990s. It’s not widely distributed, and has been put into disuse after the advent of the Udar revolver, so it’s uncertain as to how Ritsuko acquired such a rare gun in the first place.
In the show, Kaji’s gun is never actually revealed even though he is shown adjusting it in Episode 15. In Rebuild, Kaji pulls out a Heckler & Koch USP at an unknown assailant. Because Eva is so painstakingly detail-oriented and because of Kaji’s uncharacteristic show of fury, this leads many Japanese fans to speculate that this H&K is actually Misato’s gun that Kaji is using temporarily for whatever reason.
