Rebuild of Evangelion

Explain Misa's role then?

Heh, heh, bone.

Misa is the female supporting protagonist. She helps Light out and represents his willingness to use that which he detests because it is necessary.

@KSPAM

Oh, I'm aware of that, but it's really not needed in such a ridiculous fashion. What is your point anyway? I'm still going to be annoyed by Fanservice and bland characters in the future... and that's exactly why I abandon most anime after like 3 episodes.

@Scherzo

Misa's character is more than just Fanservice... she's also a plot device.

edited 31st Jan '12 8:43:42 AM by kay4today

Considering she's short, cute, blonde, a model and often wears gothic lolita clothing, it's notable how she's very rarely ever played for fanservice.

For reference, I've read the manga but not seen the anime.

Okay, on the fanservice issue. I'm not going to claim that Eva doesn't have issues or that it's a great feminist work, but on the whole, I think it has FAR stronger female characters then Death Note or Naruto.

Misato, Asuka, Mari, Ritsuko, Rei, even Hikari or Yui, have well defined personalities and active roles in the plot. Where in Death Note, most of the female characters are ether plot devices or non-entities. I've heard plenty of complaints of Naruto's gender politics but... haven't watched much to really give much of a rant.

But yeah, Misa is a grating Harley Quinn clone, Takada's just one of Light's pawns who get's kidnapped and striped naked before dying. Light's little sister is nothing but a prop who also get's kidnapped. The only female characters with any real independence are Naomi, who was cool but get's an early, cheap death just to show off what a Superevilgenuis Light is. Rem, who sacrifices herself for fucking Misa and Wedy, who was also cool but mostly stood around looking fansevcy.

To me that's much more problematic then Misato wearing a low cut tank top.

edited 31st Jan '12 9:32:34 PM by Firestorm

Hey the chicks in Naruto break mountains and spit lava.

....Having superpower != empowering.

Well when it makes you one of the strongest characters in a mostly male cast it does.

The sexism in Death Note is pretty well-documented, yes. And if you doubt the sexism there, I've heard Bakuman, done by the same writer-artist team, has a surplus of it.

No that's not how it works at all but let's not get into that.

edited 31st Jan '12 5:56:42 PM by Sporkaganza

Yeah, no matter how fanservicey the Eva girls get, they will always be better characters than any Naruto or Death Note females (and most of the males in those shows for that matter).

That is the truth. Plus the others don't have Rei.

I refer to your image caption.

Was I that obvious? I just like her so much because she is both mysterious and tragic, considering that she is basically a clone of an angel and human, was raised to feel absolutely no emotion, and over the course of the series, slowly begins to regain her humanity. Her relationship with Shinji was something I felt could have been expanded on, and I was thrilled to see that happen in the Rebuild series.

Plus she's hot.

I always found her character interesting, and background intriguing, but I've never seen her as hot, more so cute and otherwise nonsexually appealing. The two moments I've found her most 'cute' are actually both from Eva 2.0, with her blushing 'it's a secret' line and her looking painfully forlorn before Gendo agrees to her dinner party.

You and me both on the cute moments. Maybe I just find her hot due to her plugsuit. That and her pale skin mixed with blue hair and red eyes.

@Firestorm

That's true. And it's even more of a reason for me to find the Fanservice annoying. Misato was a pretty interesting character, so it annoyed me that she was just being Fanservice material for a lot of episodes. Thankfully, there weren't any Fanservice shots during the Angel fights.

That's probably the reason why I don't like Mari so far... it really seems that she's just cheap pandering to the horny fanboys.

edited 31st Jan '12 11:13:54 PM by kay4today

Her role in the second movie is cheap pandering to everyone. She was written for a role in the third but people wanted more of her from the brief shot in the 2.0 preview. Personally, I reckon she's heaps of fun and am looking forward to her making more sense once I see Q

I don't think people explicitly wanted more of her as the writers decided to give her a bigger role to set the stage for 3. I mean, with the production time of animation I don't think they could write her in after they start showing previews.

Anno: In the first version of the plot I thought of, the new character would have a very active role from the third part on. I didn’t think the character would do any more than make an appearance in the second part.

Translation of Evangelion 2.0 Complete Records Collection interview with Hideaki Anno.

www . gwern . net/docs/2010-crc

edited 31st Jan '12 11:03:12 PM by j1mmy

Yeah, first version. When you're writing a script you can dozens of drafts and versions.

He changed his mind after the reactions of people in the cinema to the Eva 2.0 preview at the end of 1.0.

Uh huh.

I think it was necessary to make the audience more aware of Mari for the third part; that way they don't need to spend time introducing her.

I honestly doubt Mari and Asuka will be in romantic love, but I definitely think they'll have some emotional connection. Unless of course they decide to make Mari like Kaworu or something.

Ooooh, there should be an Eva fight between Kaworu and Mari. That'd be awesome.

It makes a lot more sense if you think about it as one big movie with 4 acts. If a character was going to have a major part in the final act it wouldn't make much sense for them to not show until the finale itself. Granted this all hinges on what role Mari ultimately plays in the final act but I'm guessing it'll be pretty big. Also after 1.0 was basically the first six episodes they probably wanted to deviate more.