END OF EVANGELION MANGA FREE FROM DEATH

2009вЂ™s Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance soon followed, re-released with minor adjustments as Evangelion 2.22. Rebuilding EvangelionAnno kicked off his Rebuild film project in 2007 вЂ” a decade after The End of Evangelion вЂ” with Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone (and the slightly expanded version, Evangelion 1.11). It involves going back to the beginning, where it all began for Shinji: his painful relationship with his father, and the way it took hold of him in version after version of the Evangelion story.

For instance, for the films, Anno changes the surname of ShinjiвЂ™s NERV teammate Soryu Asuka Langley (Miyamura YЕ«ko) to Shikinami Asuka Langley. They feel like PandoraвЂ™s Box waiting to be opened once more as the Rebuild series unfolds, and the story makes significant departures from the TV show, departures which culminate in a long-awaited confrontation between father and son.These changes are often uncanny. In the meantime, these ideas linger through subtle hints and glances. For instance, the films donвЂ™t explain the extent of GendoвЂ™s perversions in the show вЂ” like the fact that he cloned his late wife Yui to create ShinjiвЂ™s teenage teammate Ayanami Rei (Hayashibara Megumi), or that YuiвЂ™s biological form exists, in some fashion, within the enormous biomechanical Evangelion piloted by Shinji вЂ” until well into the third film.

End Of Evangelion Manga Free From Death

While having Asuka pilot Unit 03 seems, at first, like a way to streamline the showвЂ™s plot so it involves more important characters, the domino effects of this alternate story become apparent soon after.The first film speeds through ShinjiвЂ™s TV arc of willingly piloting his Eva. In the second film, though, itвЂ™s Asuka who ends up gravely injured during this event. (His passive presence is necessary for his Eva to function.) In the show, Unit 03 was piloted by ShinjiвЂ™s classmate Suzuhara Toji (Seki Tomokazu), a minor character who ends up losing his leg in the process, and who ends up dead in the manga. The series is steeped in Biblical imagery, but its central struggle to break free from death and rebirth feels fundamentally Buddhist.These differences in AsukaвЂ™s backstory first manifest as her confident decision to pilot the new Eva Unit 03, which becomes possessed by the spirit of an Angel, and which Shinji is subsequently forced to destroy вЂ” or rather, which his Evangelion is forced to destroy on autopilot, with him trapped inside it. For the first time, it seems as if this character might have a shot at being liberated from her cycle of suffering, in which she seems destined to pilot an Evangelion forever.

The problem for Shinji isnвЂ™t that his triumphs donвЂ™t stick. Returning to the same dramatic well so many times might seem like falling back on the familiar, but it soon becomes apparent that for Shinji to keep making heroic returns, he has to abandon the team in the first place. While the Rebuild films form a cycle of repetition in an overarching sense, by retelling the story of Neon Genesis, they also present repetitive character cycles within the film series itself, where Shinji attempts to break free from his emotional solitude, but is constantly rewarded with pain and alienation.The second filmвЂ™s climax begins similarly to that of the first, with Shinji once again rejecting his role as an Eva pilot before overcoming his cowardice and deciding to rescue Rei. Shinji has a similar affection for the warmer Asuka of the film series, which leads him to run away from NERV after his father manipulates him into harming her in Evangelion 2.22, thus resetting his character to who he was when the first film began.

However, in the scope of the franchise, it also represents Gendo harnessing ShinjiвЂ™s repressed anger and loneliness. Shinji finally springs into action, and his grief sends his own Evangelion вЂ” the iconic purple Unit 01 вЂ” into a transcendent rage, until it transforms into a divine being, glowing in the sky.In the context of the mecha genre, itвЂ™s a spectacular power-up. In ShinjiвЂ™s absence, Rei is forced to confront the invading Angel, which devours her, along with her Eva. But as the series explores, the core factor under his story of overcoming cowardice is that he always has something, or someone, to run away from in the first place: his father, Gendo.The climax of Evangelion 2.22 finally sets the film series on a new course.

Its streets and buildings are blood-red, bearing the stain of his failures, and they remain largely empty.Asuka, who was gravely injured in the previous film, now wears an eyepatch, and while sheвЂ™s 14 years older, she remains trapped in her teenage body, a cursed side effect of piloting an Eva. (Similarly, about 14 years passed between the Second and Third Impacts at the start of Neon Genesis.) The world is radically different from the one Shinji knew. When it begins, it feels like mere moments have elapsed for Shinji, but 14 years have passed since the events of Evangelion 2.22, as if to kick off yet another new cycle of the story. A new beginningEvangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo (and its updated release, Evangelion 3.33) departs from its predecessorsвЂ™ 16:9 aspect ratio, in favor of a more cinematic 2.35:1. During this unthinkably horrifying moment, the second film ends, and the Rebuild series diverges from Neon Genesis Evangelion for good. ShinjiвЂ™s love for Rei, the first person in the series with whom he shares a genuine connection, is corrupted by Gendo вЂ” since Rei is a mirror image of Yui, itвЂ™s as if Gendo is corrupting his own love as well вЂ” resulting in billions dead.

(Rei, too, seems destined to be reborn into GendoвЂ™s employ. Rei, it seems, did not survive the end of Evangelion 2.22 in spite of ShinjiвЂ™s attempts to save her, so his actions may have amounted to nothing.When Shinji returns to the ruins of New Tokyo-3, where he inadvertently caused the cataclysm, his father continues to reject him, and he finds a new version of Rei, implied to be a more recent clone programmed to be even more subservient to Gendo. ItвЂ™s the only way Gendo can be reunited with his wife, who died when Shinji was young.In Evangelion 3.33, the macabre emptiness around Shinji echoes the nihilistic questions heвЂ™s now facing. The last time he did, he nearly caused the end of the world, though the question of whether this was truly his fault eats away at him.Either way, the blame also lies with Gendo, who took advantage of his sonвЂ™s anguish to take one step closer toward вЂњInstrumentality,вЂќ an apocalypse where the walls between individual bodies and egos are torn down, and humanity returns to a primordial form. She leads WILLE, a new organization dedicated to destroying whatвЂ™s left of GendoвЂ™s NERV, and she imprisons Shinji, her former ward, using an explosive collar meant to prevent him from transcending his physical form while piloting his Eva.