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i-was-a-teenage-eldritch-horror · 3 years ago

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okay so how do u feel about how the main female characters were handled in 4.0

This is going to be loooooong.

Firstly, I want to say that the fanservice was just godawful. Pedophilic, hamfisted, gross, and just plain annoying. The only adult characters who were subjected to anything resembling the female pilot's treatment were Midori and Sakura (who are in their early 20s if my math checks out). None of the adult women were subjected to the same type of fanservice as the pilots. It raises the question of...well, who's the intended audience here? It's especially jarring since there was like, almost none in 3.33. So I won't be discussing the fanservice in each of the character sections. Just know that I hate it universally. Also, people who fervently deny that asuken and marishin were romantic in this movie are on nuclear levels of copium. Obviously you don't have to (and shouldn't, to be frank,) ship it, but it's clear that hetero endgames were intended.

1. Ritsuko

I don't have any complaints here. I guess I wish she had more screentime. I liked her scenes with Misato, but their conversations felt a bit more stilted that how you would think friends of 25 years would speak to each other. I liked that she got to shoot Gendo.

Her new VA wasn't much to write home about. It was still a good performance, but Mary Faber's rendition of Ritsuko wasn't as deep or womanly a voice as Sue Ulu or Colleen Clinkenbeard's were. It took some adjusting, but she's definitely growing on me.

2. Misato

Kaji junior, as a concept, was actually genius and makes perfect sense. Tons of parallels were drawn between her and Gendo even in the original series so it's apt that she would become a deadbeat parent like he was. It's tragic yet fitting. Her being devoted to Shinji over her own son sadly makes a lot of sense. Additionally, it fucking sends me to think that she was pregnant at the end of 2.22!

I don't like how she swapped back to her old hairstyle during the climax, though. It doesn't make a lick of sense.

Also, her turning into the Spear of Gaius was dumb and misogynistic as hell. It's the "boy gets rewarded with woman's body" trope taken to its logical extreme. Like Soul Eater if it was unimaginably, violently misogynistic.

3. Mari

For the most part, I liked Mari in Thrice Upon a Time. She was the closest to an actual 3D character as she's ever been, and I found myself really liking her and getting excited when she was on screen. Her fight in Paris at the beginning of the movie was exciting and fun, probably the best part of the movie.

VERY weird, however, that she knew Shinji when he was a baby and then became his love interest. Like genuinely what the hell was that. The reveal that her given name is Mary Iscariot was also weird, but honestly I liked it. It was cheesy and bad in a fun way, unlike the rest of the movie. Obviously her surname being "Iscariot" is a reference to Judas and how she betrayed Gendo and Fuyutsuki, but I looked it up and apparently Iscariot is an actual surname. However, according to one website I looked at, it's so rare that only four people in the entire world are documented as bearing it.

It's also funny that Mari being British is like, never explicitly confirmed or referenced in these movies. Outside of cursory references to British folklore (her first eva being a quadruped, wielding a jousting lance, and slaying a reptile-like creature), it literally doesn't matter and is never brought up. In 2.22 there's this scene where she's like "wow it's such a shame that I have to use these adults for my agenda," and it's like...girl, what's your agenda?!?! Explain!

4. Asuka

The asuken thing was offensive on every level. I would be able to buy that they were just buddies IF Asuka wasn't walking around naked in front of him and if he wasn't in the doll at the end. As it stands, though? The vibe is definitely shippy, and it's disgusting. I mean, swap out Kensuke for Mari in the doll scene and everyone would recognize it for what it is. Speaking of asumari...

The asumari bait in this movie is also gross. Not because it's asumari, but because it's bait. We have all these scenes of Asuka and a flirtatious Mari, and for what? For Marishin to be endgame? For Kensuke to be a pedophile? For Asuka to be alone at the train station at the end? Fuck, I don't even like asumari. It makes me feel like I'm losing my marbles. But still. They got done dirty in this movie.

Moving on, Asuka's death in this movie actually shook me a lot more than I thought it would. It's way spookier and eerie than her death in eoe. To be honest, I've always been a "Bardiel is in Asuka's eye, and that's why she has the eye patch" theory denier because, to be frank, I didn't have faith in these movies to actually make sense, so that was a pleasant surprise.

I liked the revelation that Asuka was actually also a clone series like Rei. It was unexpected yet made a lot of sense. Asuka clamoring to be loved, for the affection that's been denied to her because she's just another fly in the swarm; a military weapon, ultimately. However, I gotta say that like...Mari was out here giving Asuka the affection and love she explicitly admits to wanting in the movie. The scenes of her training in Germany were cool to watch. That's something I wish we'd seen in the original anime.

The reveal that Asuka's older than Shinji and was in her early 20s during 2.22 (she looks about 10 to be in the flashback with Gendo, Yui, and baby Shinji) was weird but after the Mari thing I didn't mind.

5. Rei

Firstly, I was super happy to see Amanda Winn Lee back!

This movie came so close yet still ended up missing the mark when it came to Rei. The concept isn't the issue at all. "Rei gets accepted into the village and learns to truly live" is amazing, actually! The problem is the cutesification of Rei. Here's a really good quote about why this is a problem. In 3.33 she was depicted pretty neutrally, all things considered, and a few scenes with her drifted into the familiar eerie, tragic territory of the original show. So this change is both deliberate and jarring.

Another issue is that Q!Rei's characterization, especially in this movie, has always seemed to me like that of a semi-verbal, high-support autistic person. That in and of itself isn't the problem at all. With very few exceptions, such as the Angelic Days manga, Rei has always been heavily autistic coded. Y'all know how I feel about this. The way the "camera," for lack of a better word, perceives Rei, how she's drawn, and how other characters react to her (cooing and giggling about how cute and naive she is), all rub me the wrong way when you take that into consideration. Autistic people are infantilized and cutesified in real life. This heavily contributes to the ableist abuse and neglect that we deal with as a population. In 2.22, Rei's seen reading Oscar Wilde, and in this movie she's reading a picture book for kids, even though she can read the esoteric technobabble in an eva's UI. She also gets Hikari's old school uniform as a hand-me-down, immediately codifying and signaling that she's eternally a cute little kid. Obviously the curse of eva still applies to the other pilots, but it's on a whole new level here. Her feelings for Shinji are fantastically mishandled as well.

I love the scene she shares with Asuka, because it's basically Asuka telling Rei that she's experiencing comphet -- these feelings are not organic, nor are they her own. They were planted by Gendo. In a better movie, this would've been a pivotal moment of questioning for Rei. Instead, she just says "whatever" and leaves. She even delegates the job of picking a new name to Shinji, not because she herself is incapable of it, but because she doesn't think she's fit to. Shinji is also just downright rude to her, not just in this movie, but in 3.33 too. That scene where she returned the walkman to him only for him to push it away would've been a great moment for her to be done with him. Also, Q!Rei even having a crush on Shinji at all in this movie came out of nowhere since in 3.33 there was nothing to suggest that.

Her past abuse and life at NERV are never brought up beyond vague mentions of "orders." Again, Rei's trauma isn't cute or sweet. It's tragic, harrowing, and uncomfortable. She asks what a cat is, why they shrunk a baby, and doesn't know what a bath is. Yes, logically, she might be confused about these things, given her past. But again, the decision to include those things specifically were deliberate. They're cute, easy to digest examples. It reminds me of questions a toddler would ask, excitedly going "mommy, what's that!" upon seeing a new animal at a park, tying yet again into the theme of brutal and gross infantilization. I don't know, I just think that learning that you were abused, neglected, and cloistered for your entire life should be disturbing, horrifying, existential, and a traumatic revelation in and of itself.

Her death didn't bother me that much, since it was foreshadowed in 2.22. In a weird way, I was happy that she died early on so she couldn't get butchered even further. Long-haired Rei was fine. She felt like 2.22 Rei and didn't do much except listen to Shinji. I thought her saying "neon genesis" was cool. Just like the Mary Iscariot thing, it was bad in a fun, goofy way. I like Rei's outfit at the train station at the end. I always knew she'd be a maxi skirt woman. Oh, and those boomer farmer women were great.

6. Hikari

Hikari was fine in this movie. I will say that it felt jarring to see her go from a high-powered, conscientious class representative to a SAHM. That's not a dig at SAHMs, either. Just saying it was weird. Fits with the natalist hell that is this movie, though. Seriously, even the quiverfull nutjobs would think this is too on the nose.

7. Midori & Sakura

Covering these two in the same section since they share most of their screentime. These two behave irrationally, and, forgive me for using a historically loaded term, hysterically. They monologue about their pain and loss while pointing their guns at Shinji, hesitate to shoot, and miss when they finally do. Then Misato tells them that Shinji's going to save them and they change their tune entirely to "zomg Shinji is our savior!" and this all happens within like, a minute and a half, at most?

#anon #anonymous #ask #answered #midori kitakami #sakura suzuhara #ritsuko akagi #misato katsuragi #mari makinami illustrious #asuka langley soryu #asuka langley shikinami #rei ayanami #hikari horaki

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