Neon Genesis Evangelion

I've just been reading Mari's profile on Characters.Rebuild Of Evangelion, and I must ask: Has Mari truly given the impression of being a Double Agent in Rebuild 2.0? AFAIK she's only been implied to be spying on Nerv for another organization, which may or may not be Seele (or, alternatively, answer to them), whereas there was no implication that she was simultaneously spying for Nerv on this other organization and playing both against each other for her own ends, unlike Kaji (who incidentally took it straight to Double Reverse Quadruple Agent territory). In other words, she's only implied to be simply The Mole.

Your thoughts?

edited 3rd Mar '18 8:57:40 PM by MarqFJA

She's clearly operating outside of NERV's command, and given that Kaji of all people was seemingly her handler it hints pretty damn hard that she's an agent for a third party.

Doubt it's SEELE though, or in Rebuild 3.0 she wouldn't be fighting on the side of WILLE.

Speaking of which, though, Rebuild 3.0 pretty well crushed any potential "spy" plotline she might have had, since it's clear whatever organization she did work for, it doesn't exist anymore by the time of 3.0.

edited 3rd Mar '18 11:44:58 PM by DarkHunter

... So you're agreeing that she's just implied to be The Mole rather than Double Agent, on the grounds that at no point is she implied to have become a Reverse Mole while still acting as The Mole, right?

As for the identity of the group she was working for... Well, it could've been Seele, with Mari having quit being The Mole once she realized that neither they nor Nerv (under Gendo, specifically) were working for the good of humanity like she had believed. If it's a third party, my bet is on it being a British intelligence agency, since she's from the UK.

On a related note, this makes her another kind of Child Soldier in addition to the kind that is represented by being an Eva pilot, right? She's not a Teen Superspy since she lacks all the super-gadgets and other Wish-Fulfillment-y elements.

edited 4th Mar '18 7:52:03 AM by MarqFJA

I'm just waiting for when they reveal she's the other woman from the photo of Yui and baby Shinji since the Eva manga even included a one off chapter with her and Yui.

That woman looked like an adult. My guess is that it's just laziness-induced reusal of an existing character design.

On a different note, Mari's trope list includes Faux Paw. When did she ever do anything that makes her qualify for the trope?

Also, I'm thinking that we should move the tropes that are common to the Eva pilots (e.g. Child Soldier) into a single list that precedes the individual profiles, since they're a Cast Herd. Same with the Nerv staff, incidentally. This approach would prevent needless repetition, especially in the case of tropes that involve multiple characters at the same time (e.g. Red Oni, Blue Oni, Blonde, Brunette, Redhead).

edited 4th Mar '18 4:57:09 PM by MarqFJA

Eh, all we see in the picture is the side of her face. Enough for people to argue either way, and pretty much nothing else to go on. As for the Faux Paw thing, maybe some obscure art piece released by Khara? There's kind of a shit ton, and I don't feel like watching the movies right now to check them; so if its a Zero Context Example I'd say you're clear to cut it.

I'm doubtful we'll ever learn what the truth is behind Mari; at least, not in the films anyways. Anno deliberately has pretty much nothing to do with her character other than how much she's intergrated in the plot; IIRC its Kazuya Tsurumaki and Yoji Enokido who are responsible for her.

Now if say, Khara decides they want to do an OVA series for the 14 year timeskip where we learn get some real knowledge on what the fuck is going on, that would be great.

edited 4th Mar '18 5:13:35 PM by TheAirman

On that topic, you know what I'd like an OVA on?

The story of how Yui and Gendo, the well-connected honor student and the troublemaking delinquent, hooked up.

If they do so, I hope they take care on how they present the younger Yui and Gendo. They have to take care of not making them too sympathetic that we forget the hell they brought on the world and their son nor too detached to make you wonder how those two could ever function socially.

Suit yourself.

For me, someone caring after all is more interesting than someone never having cared.

I agree. Seeing the humanity in people who do bad things, is far more interesting than people who just don’t care.

edited 5th Mar '18 7:23:28 PM by BlazingTrolls

This might have been asked before, but what episode does the picture on the Heroes Gone Fishing come from? Or is it from some of Eva's many, many supplemental materials? The show was really bizarre at times, but the imagery of Rei, or whoever it is in the Unit-00, fishing is just plain goofy.

Girlfriend of Steel.

The last Trident unit was hiding underwater in Lake Ashi and NERV were trying to lure it out. When that didn't work, Gendo decided to get serious and dangled Mana in a cage out in plain sight of the lake to force Musashi's hand, which did the trick.

I guess Eva-sized folding chair and fishing basket are there to provide a Visual Gag of sorts? GoS wasn't a very serious VN, was it?

It indeed wasn't... until Keita disappeared from the hospital. Then things started going downhill: JSSDF plainclothes agents started shooting in the hospital and engaged the kids in a shooting car chase, then Mana was captured by Section Two, then the JSSDF N2 bombed Musashi's Trident to keep it out of NERV's hands and Mana pulled a Break His Heart to Save Him with Shinji and seemingly got killed.

Then even when it turns out she's alive, she has to disappear anyway because the JSSDF considers her a deserter and a traitor and whatever she knows isn't enough for NERV to worth antagonizing the government over.

... OK, I'll bite: Why did the JSSDF agents go as far as to start shooting inside a hospital and even chase the kids via car while also shooting at them? That's seems way too public as an approach for a supposedly secretive operation... whatever the hell said operation was.

edited 2nd May '18 8:10:32 AM by MarqFJA

The JSSDF built the Tridents as an anti-Evangelion countermeasure just in case NERV became uncooperative after the Angels were gone. Then Mana, a former test pilot and thus someone who knows critical technical data about the Tridents, tries to defect to NERV and harbors a deserter who hijacked one of the Trident prototypes because the JSSDF refused to let him walk out due to knowing too much.

She's not just a mere deserter, but a traitor who'd compromise national security for love. Of course they'd try to kill her with extreme prejudice. She's the absolute worst case scenario as far as Honey Pot agents are concerned.

edited 2nd May '18 11:59:43 AM by amitakartok

... And is there any plausible explanation for why they resorted to putting children in the mechs instead of professional adult soldiers whose loyalty, obedience and sense of judgment would be much less questionable? Hell, why did they even do the Honey Pot scheme? What use could they get out of Shinji? Did they really believe that a secretive control freak of an asshole like Gendou would tell his own son — whom he abandoned for 10 years and hasn't so much as tried to do anything remotely fatherly for him ever since he dragged him to Tokyo-3 to pilot a giant robot against alien kaiju — anything that would be of value to his enemies/rivals/competitors?

And even putting the meaningfulness of a Honey Pot scheme targeting Shinji, why did they have to do it with one of their mech pilots? What, did they just not think of raising any dedicated Honey Pot agents to be sent against an enemy's teenaged child before?

edited 2nd May '18 3:49:46 PM by MarqFJA

Yeah, at least NERV is forced to put kids in charge because of tech constraints.

The reason why they set up the Honey Pot is to get technical data out of Shinji regarding how Evas handle the extreme G-forces during combat without killing or injuring the pilot (LCL). Tridents notably do not have any kind of G-force dampening beyond standards G-suits, which injured Mana pretty badly back in the day.

I'm thinking that they used Mana in particular because although she couldn't pilot anymore, as an ex-pilot she had the technical knowledge to ask Shinji the proper questions, meaningfully interpret his answers and pass the thusly-gathered intel on to the Trident development team to copy. After all, it is stated that aircraft test pilots are engineers first, pilots second: they have to know how their ride works better than anyone in order to properly stress-test it in search for undesirable behavior. We just don't see that with the Eva pilots because for them, ground control does all the technical stuff remotely so that the pilots can focus on combat.

edited 2nd May '18 4:27:59 PM by amitakartok

Bit off topic, but this is (no joke) exactly how the users on Eva Geeks proudly describe themselves.

They do feel that anything Anno makes is a million times better than anything the MCU puts out.

... Huh. That's interesting. The comic, that is.

edited 3rd May '18 1:56:48 PM by MarqFJA

I love the third and I enjoy the way that girl seems to takes masochistic joy in the delays.

Indeed. We Eva fans are gluttons for punishment.

I think that’s a guy, but yeah.

My attitude is: it’ll be out when it’s out, and judging by the previous stuff I’ll probably love it. We know why it was delayed, and it is being worked on now, so why waste time being upset when I’ve all this other great stuff to consume in the meantime?

edited 4th May '18 8:28:58 AM by TheAirman

So, I guess this is more of a Gainax thing than an Eva thing, but...

Has anyone thought about making a page for Uru in Blue?

That one Gainax project about knights and fighter jets that keeps getting stuck in Development Hell that got brought up last year?