And what's more, why keep rebuilding the city when it's located above the Geo Front? I understand that that a lot of rebuttals to idiotic details is "It was predicted in the Dead Sea Scrolls/Seele planned it this way", but they can't honestly want millions of dollars worth of collateral damage every couple of weeks due to Angel attacks, especially when they complain about the cost of repairing Evas. And the city's population only finally moves out after Rei self destructs and floods half the city, even though at least 5 angel fights have actually taken place IN the city.
This is even worse in Rebuild 2.0 when Sahaquiel and Zeruel practically level the city.
Isn't it hinted in the teaser at the end of Rebuild 2.0, that they won't rebuild after Zeruel's attack?
It's not exactly a normal city, but a fortress-base used against Angels. Everybody who lives there either works for NERV or knows what they're in for. As for your average civilian... somebody needs to run the infrastructure.
Something that is often missed in Sahaquiel's attack is that there appears to be a gigantic dam against the tide of blood around the central (read: important) part of the city. Only the outskirts of Tokyo-3 got destroyed. Whoever was in charge of building that city was one of the most Crazy-Prepared people in fiction, if they could predict and plan for a tidal wave of blood coming their way.
It seems like the safest place on Earth if you look at it one way. It has more defenses than any place on Earth probably, with the tradeoff that it holds the Macguffin that all the angels are trying to get to. If Tokyo-3 falls, everyone on the planet is fucked anyway, so why NOT live there?
Of course they also bring their children to the (very) dangerous city and even if the Angels do get beaten the damage caused means that you could very well get killed regardless.
But in Rebuild, we know for sure that angels are also attacking other places in the world. It's never made clear in the original series, but Marie was somewhere else fighting SOMETHING at the start of Rebuild 2. So just moving to another city doesn't mean you won't have to put up with angel battles.
Nope, the Third Angel was just trying to escape. They were experimenting on it. It didn't attack Bethany Base at all.
In the first movie it is mentioned by several civilians that people have been leaving. Apparently just not enough to close down things like schools or stores.
Just an interesting note... why did the jews stay in Germany until it was locked up even though they KNEW some shit was going down? Because it's their home.
To expand on this a bit, there are any number of practical and sentimental problems with leaving your home in long-term dangerous situations like this. The local housing market is presumably in the toilet (because nobody wants to move there), so you are gonna have to lose all the money you spent on the house and sell it for peanuts if you want to find a buyer at all. You lose your job. Your children are taken away from their school and into a new one, forcing them to adjust. You have to convince all your friends and family to come with you, or you have to decide to leave them behind to the horrors you are escaping. And so on. It wasn't just the Jews in Germany, look at any population in a dangerous place (like the Londoners during the blitz) and you will see that, while some may leave, a large number stay.
In fact, forget short-lived man-made crises; the fact that places like San Francisco, Tokyo, and New Orleans still have large populations despite being regularly hit by things like earthquakes and hurricanes prove that humanity in general is extremely hard to root out of a particular spot.
The shelters seem safe enough and the evacuation procedures seem to work given that there is no people on the streets by the time an angel comes. Also many of the new buildings are elevated and viceversa at will. You may risk loosing your car or losing your house but personal safety doesn't seem to be thaat low for civilians.
Remember in one of the earlier episodes in the series Shinji is reading a screen that talks about the wars that happened after Second Impact. The rest of the world may be a terrible place to live with parts of Japan being one of the only stable areas. Even if countries such as the USA and Germany are capable of producing Evas, they might be terrible places to live.
What's with the red water?
Second Impact flooded the entire world instead of just Antarctica in this continuity.
Some people consider it as evidence of the series being a continuation from Eo E, rather than just a retelling of the original series. Alternatively*
And this fits perfectly with the above troper's explanation
Spoilers galore, but this bit really just bugs me:
Mari piloting Unit-02. No, I'm not talking about the fact that she could actually use it or knew the cheat code for "Beast Mode". Rebuild is a different kind of animal, so let's suppose that the Evas themselves work differently. No, my gripes are much more nitpicky. Namely: How the hell did she get into the Entry Plug? Who started up the nervous connections? Who started up Unit-02 itself, for that matter? Who flooded the cockpit with LCL? Who electrolyzed it? Last time I checked, these things were done by a large technical staff under the supervision of Ritsuko. And the pilots couldn't do these things from inside the entry plug. It's all an externally guided process. Further, how the hell did Unit-02 get put on that elevator platform that carried it out to the battlefield? The only person who might have done these things is Kaji... so he could do ALL this alone? Honestly, I have the creeping suspicion that the writers just didn't care. And to be frank, the lesser rules of the universe like logistics being ignored when something cool needs to be done is one of the main Mary Sue indicators in my book. This turned into something of a rant, but it really Headscratchers.
The process of entering the Eva and starting it up isn't that complex. Ritsuko was absent at the end of episode 19 and 2.0; Shinji got into the Eva and came in to save the day à la Big Damn Heroes fairly quickly. Save for location and the issue of the elevator platform, Shinji and Asuka did just about the same thing as Mari in episode 8, with Asuka issuing all of the commands from inside the entry plug.*
It raised the question of how the hell Shinji managed to sync with 02—considering that it's said to be the first Eva made specifically for combat, it's possible that it doesn't have the same mess with souls and synchronization as 00 and 01. Maybe this was 2.0's way of getting that point across?
I agree that there's the issue of the elevator platform and transportation, but overall it's not that contrived.
It's not implausible that most of it can be done automatically too, in case the majority of the staff are indisposed somehow. Hell, Shinji got into his Evangelion in End without any support, and with the plug emplacement system completely non-functional.
In both those cases however 01 was already prepped for launch ahead of time. Gendo already had staff prepping but with a dummy plug that didn't want to function, so all he had to do was switch the plug. In End, (ignoring the fact that 01 had the S2 engine which mean it no longer needed to worry about any external power source or outside maintaniance) Misato orders both Eva units readied as soon as the attack begins, it just takes her about 20 minutes to actually get Shinji to it.
...wait, what are you complaining about? She didn't hijack the Eva, the NERV European branch took over control of Unit-02 and she was sent in to pilot it.
Indeed: she did have support staff, they just were on the other side of the globe.
In fact, it's a bit of a Chekhov's Gun. The only reason that Asuka got sidelined earlier was because the European branch still had complete control over the operation of Unit 02.
Another nitpicky bug... how is Kaworu supposed to pressurize/clingwrap/whatever his plugsuit IN SPACE?
Why does it even billow and baloon out when there is no air in or surrounding it? Unless that suit (and any other plugsuits for that matter) is made of Unstable Molecules I just can't see it happening on the Moon (and on lesser scale, on Earth... shrink-wrapping doesn't quite work that way).
I take it is because he is a angel,he is more or less a Demigod so he could if he want,grown the plug suit out of his body.
How do you know there's no air trapped in it? We don't know where he put it on, even if he's in vacuum right now.
Because the plugsuit is baggy, baggy means not a good seal, which means that the air in it should have escaped the moment that he hit vacuum. A possible explanation is that the plugsuit does not actually vacuum-wrap itself but does some sort of electro-shrinkage thing.
I agree with this; I think that they actually expand and contract rather than being filled with air. When they're put on in an environment with air, the air just wooshes out, and when they're put on in an airless environment they shrink to fit.
I always assumed that the plugsuits got rolled into the hardparts, such as at the wrists, neck, waist, etc.
I think its a memory material, like the fibre the Bat cape is made off in The Dark Knight. And it doesn't need to behave as in the moon, remember Kaworu can use his AT Field at will, and its pretty obvious the AT Field can generate a gravity field.
Why did Gendo have to maximize the LCL pressure after Shinji threatens to destroy the headquarters?
Why couldn't they just keep the Dummy Plug active until the power shuts down?
Dummy Plug has limited activation time. They mention it before they activate it. That's how Shinji got control back.
Because he is shall we say, kind of a dick.
Also God only knows what the Axe Crazy dummy system might decide to do if it got bored waiting to shut down.
Because Shinji was well, threatening to crush HQ, and Gendo was trying to keep himself and his employees safe from Shinji's rampage, but whoever previously applied to this one is right, he was being rather cold about it.
In Rebuild, the Second Impact affected all the oceans in the world, so how can people breath? I mean, microscopic blue algae are the main generators of atmospheric oxygen (no, the Amazon Rainforest is not the lungs of the world), so if they all died, that means the oxygen supply in the entire world is comprised. And for that matter, how come the rivers and lakes weren't contaminated by the Second Impact, even if they have a direct link with the seas?
Kaji explains that there was a lot of work done off-screen just to make sure that humans could survive post-Second Impact. As for the second question, not all lakes have a direct link to the sea, and the rivers wouldn't necessarily be contaminated, for the same reason rivers are fresh water and the ocean is salt water.
Your second answer doesn't answer the question; freshwater algae isn't enough to keep the atmosphere oxygenated enough even for a post-second impact population size, only saltwater algae is enough to keep the earth breathing. So even if the rivers aren't contaminated, everyone should still be gasping for breath like they had just climbed the Himalayas all the time at the very least. Maybe what the answer is that the algae isn't affected by the red ocean water, or, if Rebuild is a sequel, LCL preforms the same function of oxygenating the atmosphere and somehow acts like a desiccant, but only for CO 2. Or something...
... the second answer isn't to the oxygenation question. It's a response to why the rivers and lakes aren't red while the oceans are.
I'm literally going to guess this one got completely forgotten by our dear friends at Gainax. The best thing to do is to recite the MST3K Mantra if you can and try to enjoy it, though now I'll be staring at the red water too and going "that's not right."
...Kaji explains that there was a lot of work done off-screen just to make sure that humans could survive post-Second Impact. There's also a few mentions about artificial food. It's all said during the field trip in 2.22.
Hey remember in the original series where they said Second Impact was caused by a meteor crashing into the earth, but we find out it really wasn't? Nerv has lied to the public before, perhaps there's really another reason for the oceans being red that they don't want the public to know about.
The red water is all angel blood. Given angels have similar molecular structure as humans (see neon genesis - DNA is a 99.9% match), and given the red water is bright red, rather than dark red, it's oxygenated blood. So although it killed all normal marine life, there's plenty or oxygen which can be released by decomposition (whether by humans or by wild organisms) of the blood. And even if oxygen levels drop to 10%, that's equivalent to living in Bolivia. Annoying to get used to, but perfectly survivable to humans in the long term. Only at 6% or so does it start to get deadly. Also note that blue algae absorb red light (using Phyococyanine), which is not absorbed by the red waters. Therefore they would be less affected than green plants in a red environment.
Another thing to note is that, after Second Impact, something like 90% of all life on Earth was annihilated. I dunno what that means in a strict scientific sense, but a hand-wavey explanation could be that there's less stuff breathing so they don't need as much oxygen in the atmosphere to survive.
The Vatican Treaty
Okay, I get 3 Evas per country. Makes sense, these are powerful weapons of mass destruction. However, why hasn't other countries sent their evas piloted by their troops? I may be wrong here, but after WWII, America disbanded Japan's army, so they are responsible for them too. Why aren't there American evas running around? I'm kinda thinking about how in Stargate they had some Russian troops running around in the later series for political shenanigans.
Unit 02 is European. The American Evas tend to have horrible things happen to them. Anyway, that's how Mari took over Unit 02, Europe sent her over as reinforcements. At least, that's one way to look at it, we haven't found out her deal yet.
Which, uh, just goes to show how nonsensically the Vatican Treaty was written into Rebuild 2.0. It's a law that allegedly exists so no single country can create a monopoly over Evas, yet it's implemented in such a way so Europe shuts down its only Unit so Japan can run the three that they fully own. The Vatican Treaty is really just a plot contrivance Studio Khara invented specifically so Mari would wind up in Eva-02's cockpit, and for no other reason. You guys did notice that, right? ...right?
Yeah, but the entire idea of the Vatican Treaty is stupid, also in the sense that, you'd think that repeated Angel attacks at [1] Tokyo]]-3 would cause the world authorities to be like, "Hey! Let's develop the EV As IN JAPAN, FOR JAPAN!". But no. So, every country is limited to three EV As, even though they'll never even use them and will probably end up shipping them to Japan anyways, because of EVA-00 and 02's lack of Plot Armor.
...what. The Europeans had seconded Eva-02 to the Japanese branch, which means that for all intents and purposes it's operating under the Japanese flag. When NERV HQ decided to attempt activation of Eva-03, they had to deactivate one. How is this difficult to grasp?
The movies also never make it clear how various nations have actually fared post-2nd Impact. For all we know, America could be a third world hellhole at this point.
It possibly has to do with avoiding a third impact until "when planned". In this continuity duing the second impact flashback we see four adams (or giants of light), which could mean that in this continuity to trigger the third impact four EV As or something along are needed instead of the MP Evas (which would explain why gendo got impressed when Shinji nearly triggered third impact for Rei. (I actually took this theory from Evageeks btw).
It's at least implied that, due to Second Impact, the destruction of Tokyo, and the resulting chaos that Japan gave up on the "War is abolished forever" clause in their constitution (the JSSDF seems to be its own branch of the JSDF and acts very much like a real military rather than the extension of the national police it serves as IRL). This is actually something that has been (very controversially) discussed at certain times in Japan. It may have taken an event like Second Impact to make it feasible, however. As well fanfics (based on logic) like to point out that some countries have the majority of their population on their southern shorelines facing Antarctica. This is why it's pretty much canon that India and Pakistan didn't recover by 2015 and that some fics joke that Australia isn't a country anymore. The initial tidal wave would've wiped them out before anyone realized what was happening. A new world order with old countries destroyed, new ones established, and many militaries and governments completely changed forever, that the geopolitics of the world may be very different from what we're used to IRL.
What does Kaworu mean with "the third again"?
Seriously. It's been bugging me since I watched 1.11. It ended with him saying "the third again" or something along those lines, as if this is actually a reset version of the original Neon Genesis Evangelion. It would fit, if you watch End of Evangelion, because the oceans have turned red by the end of Eo E, and there's a white outline of an MP EVA in the beginning of 1.11. Is this going to turn out like Battlestar Galactica ("All this has happened before, and all this will happen again.")?
It certainly is possible, and it wouldn't surprise me to find out that time had reset itself (at least to some extent) after the events of End of Evangelion. Though it's impossible to be sure. For all we know this could be an Alternate Universe too.
This also might be something of a Canon Immigrant deal, as in the Super Robot Wars games Kaworu is hinted to be some kind of dimensional traveler that moves between the various SRW parallel universes.
That would have fit with the other Angels and looked freaky cool.
Or they would have looked Uncanny Valley. Also, those two are partially-human, and are supposed to be able to pass for human without incident. Making them CG would have totally defeated that purpose.
How is Mari still alive?
So Mari evajacks Unit 02 and has a high enough sync rate to control it. Then she enters Beast Mode, which appeared to drive her further into Unit 02 and enhances the sync rate before fighting Zeruel. And then Zeruel went out on the town with her and partially lobotomized Unit 02. Shouldn't she be dead?
Asuka was pretty damn into it in the original series against Zeruel, though Unit-02 didn't go berserk. And 02 got dismembered and decapitated after she failed. Her shots of rage cut off after the decapitation, so sync ratio comes into it - however, it's probably only the massively-high sync ratio Asuka managed to achieve against the MP-Evas in End and Shinji's own saving of Rei in 2.0 that would cause literal physical damage to the pilot, and note just 'phantom' pain or the illusion of suffering the same damage as the EVA.
That's true, and I didn't really think about EOE and Asuka. But I'd still expect the "phantom pain" of getting patially lobotomized/de-eyed would be pretty damn shocking. Plus, if I remember corectly, Mari's eye was bleeding. And have you ever heard how some people die in dreams due to the shock that their brain actually thinks they're dying? I'd assume the same could happen to the pilots.
Err... it's not possible for a healthy person to die from a dream. And I've gotten the impression that Mari is insane and a bit of a masochist, so the phantom pain wouldn't be that terrible, but maybe that's just me. Why her eye was injured and not anything else? I don't know. Maybe she cut her eye on something in the entry plug? Maybe her eye had gotten injured before and the wound... reopened? I'm just guessing though.
When she pushed the berserker mode, her glasses shattered. I always assumed she got cut by shards flying around/floating in the lcl in the cockpit.
How is Evangelion: 3.0 going to start?
For all the people who've never watched 2.22, but only 2.0, it's going to cause a lot of confusion if suddenly, Shinji is no longer on the verge of annihilating mankind. If I recall correctly, 2.0 didn't have the 30-second round-up that 2.22 had, where Kaworu descends and throws a lance at EVA-01, so odds are they will have to start 3.0 with these 30 seconds.
It'll probably start with a flashback from Misato or Ritsuko or something. If not, it'll definitely be referenced by a flashback at some point during the movie, or explained while Shinji and Rei are being "saved".
It starts with Asuka and Mari recovering Unit 01 and its prison from space and fighting an Angel after a 14 year time skip.
What is Mari doing?
She shows up in Japan, jacks Unit 02, and fights that Angel, then brings Shinji to his Eva. Why is she doing this? Why did Euro Branch send her to Japan, and order her to enter the country covertly?
Would you like us to tell you how the next two movies are going to end as well?
Spoiler: The third movie doesn't tell us either.
Shinji out of the loop?
Does nobody bother to tell Shinji he didn't kill Asuka after all? He repeatedly yells that Gendo killed her, and acts as if Rei is the sole remaining friend he has left in the world to the point of not caring if he destroys the world so long as he can save her. He basically acts like he does in End of Eva when the MP Eva's take her apart. Was Gendo trying to trick him in order to break him further or something? Heck they even pack her stuff up, like they aren't expecting her to ever come back.
Classified information, considering the potential complications with her status. When he was first going off, they still wouldn't have known if she was going to survive or not. Afterwards, he was under arrest then expelled/resigned from NERV so they wouldn't tell him anything. As to why Misato didn't say anything... maybe she didn't know either?
In the dub, it's hinted that he knows. There are two lines. When stomping on HQ, Shinji yells "That bastard tried to kill Asuka, and he used my hands to do it!" And then, before Shinji leaves, Misato says "You haven't even asked about Rei or Asuka. Apparently, FUNimation thought he should have known too. . .
What's the deal with Asuka's GBA?
Yeah, yeah, I know it's a very trivial thing to ntipick about when there's so much to especulate about Rebuild... But, the GBA-like haldheld Asuka L. Shikinami seems to be so devoted to, is it an analogue to Shinji's sentimentally-upgraded SDAT Player? And, more importantly, why the hell does she holds it sideways? She doesn't know how is that supposed to be used? (Of course, the last one brings the inevitable Fridge Logic about Shinji having no problem with his tape player)
It's not a GBA, it's a Wonderswan. Look it up, it's a neat little game system from the inventor of the Game Boy that you can hold two ways.
It can also be a reference to the original series in episode 23 where Asuka is seen playing Seca at Hikari's house as a means of escapism.
About Rei...
Is Rei II truly dead? As far as I can tell, she is still stuck inside Unit 01. Yet, everybody makes it out that she is gone for good.
It has been 14 years since she disappeared. Given the circumstances, it is probably logical to assume she is gone for good.
Yet the same could be said for Shinji, yet after 14 years, he was retrieved. Why was he able to get out and not Rei?
If we go by the rules set by the original series, only one Rei can exist at a time because they share the same soul between them. Rei Q sees a brief vision of Rei II while in the LCL tank, further supporting this. As she experiences fear and self-doubt near the climax, she clearly isn't just an Empty Shell, so she definately has the potential to develop a fuctional personality and perhaps even regain the memories of her former self.
Neo-Nerv staff...
...or rather lack thereof. Seriously, where the hell are they? Gendo, Fuyutski and Rei can hardly maintain the Evas they possess themselves, and it's not like they blew the support staff budget on security personnel given how easy Asuka and Mari got into Terminal Dogma...
By the looks of it they are all dead, and NERV indeed only has the personnel of four. But the systems have become so far automated that it's not much of an issue, any more, either. The EV As that we see can shift shape and function perfectly even with their heads blown off. We can safely say that routine maintenance has become a non-issue.
But all of the facilities are decrepit and ruined on top of being abandoned! Even if the production automation works perfectly fine with no human input, popping out EV As and Nemesis drones and the like, supplies would still need to be delivered so the factories can make stuff. I suppose it's possible that the four people we see at NERV manage with the help of very complete environmental automation so the hundreds of things that they need to do in order to keep the base running mostly do themselves(such as manage plumbing; where does Rei Q get her water?), except the base is blasted wreckage in most places. And there's a gazillion teeny little things that make no sense without some kind of support staff. For instance: how (and, more perplexing, why) Shinji's clothing is folded when freshly laundered. Or how Gendo's dramatic lighting cues work out perfectly.
Robots. Off-screen. Most of the base probably doesn't need repairs for what is functional to work properly. It's doubtful that New NERV HQ is the only NERV base in existence, either.
But if there are other NERV bases, are they also unstaffed? If not, why is the headquarters, tasked with organization and direction, not have enough people to organize and direct the rest of NERV? If the other bases are unstaffed, how did this come to be in the fourteen years since the world ended (again) and most of the staff rebelled (as in, who did the grunt work to set up the whole automated shebang)? It would be less jarring, except that 1) everything is so specifically labor-intensive in 1.0 and 2.0 (and even for Wille) with lots of infrastructure and comm chatter and work, then 2) NERV HQ is dead quiet, visibly containing five people (including Shinji), none of whom apparently do anything besides have cryptic conversations or play the piano; yet NERV is nonetheless a nefarious organization capable of deploying weapons of mass destruction, may well be bent on the end of humanity, and is somehow a viable, credible threat. It's possible, I suppose, for this to make sense in itself, but (sans visible support) is too thematically inappropriate, or at the very least highly unexpected, not to grate on my nerves.
All the other bases are probably automated like One's containment cocoon. You don't need staff if your entire industrial base is automated and self-repairing. It's been 14 years, WILLE did not break off immediately after Near-Third Impact and Gendo looks like a cyborg now who just sits at his desk and gets his robots and drones to work. How else do you think he turns on the stage lights? It's entirely dehumanizing; mankind has no place in NERV's future.
It occurred to me while writing an earlier entry that NERV doesn't follow any of the rules that human organizations follow; it instead follows the rules that angels follow. So perhaps it's not as thematically inappropriate as I initially thought it was.
Unsecured NERV??
Considering that Wille is a highly-motivated and well-equipped organization with obvious amounts of material support, why don't they drop a nuke (or an N2 mine) on NERV HQ and be done with it? During 3.0, Asuka and Mari demonstrate no problems whatsoever in penetrating what used to be the most secure, fortified place in the Geo Front, so it can't be NERV HQ's defensive supremacy, abandoned, decrepit ruin that it is. Even if the bombing accomplished nothing else (NERV personnel could evacuate to a hardened shelter or find some other protection), destroying NERV's industrial facilities would be priceless. And it's not like Wille can't cover the distance without its Cool Ship; prior to the Wunder's having an engine, Wille manages to get two EV Asinto space. The sleeping Eldritch Abomination at the bottom of Terminal Dogma happens to be sealed off by an impenetrable barrier, so it can't be worry that they'll somehow disturb the twelfth angel. For serious: why not have Asuka or Mari hand-deliver an obscenely powerful explosive to NERV HQ's tenderest parts? They wouldn't even be hurt; they have AT fields, which buildings, machinery, and unattended EV As, sadly, do not.
Probably the fleets of NEMESIS drones hunting them before Wunder's final activation. I doubt the Wunder was just flying around and doing nothing during the Geofront incursion mission either. Also, don't underestimate whatever that inverted pyramid is made of; it appears to be part of the Black Moon's structure and survived Fourth Impact entirely unscathed. It's also unknown if New NERV HQ is the sole industrial base NERV has.
If Gendou cares for Rei why is she treated so poorly?
Just...look. Is the idea to keep her beaten down so that she doesn't maybe get a clue that his plans are wrong and interfere?
