[EVA] Mari Makinami Illustriated Plug Suit

[V V]

You're a bit behind on the news doug, but then again you were probably aiming spoiler free...

First off, I'm surprised they hid that as a "mature content" thing on sankaku because its what she actually looks like and isn't any more revealing than the old plugsuits.

"Who is Mari?"

Early theories were that, similar to Girlfriend of Steel, Mari would be a "new pilot" introduced as a new school classmate as well, and hog a lot of screentime.

In reality, Mari gets very little screentime; the ads didn't just call her "mysterious girl" because they weren't telling us abuot her in the ads; the movie itself does not reveal who she is or her backstory.

mild spoilers

she only really appears in about 3 scenes of the whole movie

What we know is that she's the pilot of Eva-05.  The opening scene of the movie is a balls-to-the-wall fight between Eva-05 and the "Tunnel Angel", a new Angel that is worming its way into a Nerv branch base.

It's not clear *which* branch base it is though:  it seems to be a joint European/Russian base or something; the base personnel are speaking English during most of the scene, but also speak Japanese.  Russian fans confirm that Russian dialogue can be heard in the scene and indeed, Russian fansites confirm that the credits list Russian language translators (In Russia, fansub comes to YOU!)

However, while Mari speaks English, she sets Eva-05's "neural interface language" to Japanese (much as Asuka switched Eva-02 to German in episode 8) seeming to confirm that her birth-tongue is Japanese (she thinks in Japanese)

Seriously, Eva-05 was an attempt to market action figures; it's destroyed at the end of the opening fight (Mari sets it to self-destruct then ejects in order to kill the Angel)

Personality-wise, if you were expecting a complex character, guess again:  the Gainax and Khara guys said she's actually not based on any psych problems (unlike all other characters) and she's just this battle-loving fighter girl.  Her personality is like Rip from Hellsing OVA 4.

Mari can be best described in the story as.....a teenaged female version of Kaji.  She's a spy like he is.  The reason the tunnel Angel was attacking her base was because it was looking for "Nebuchadnezzar's Key" (which takes the place of the Adam embryo in the story)......but Kaji is already fleeing the base in a helicopter, and then delivers it to Gendo at Tokyo-3.  

this whole scene is actually a *flashback* set slightly BEFORE the beginning of Rebuild 1; they explained why Sachiel was now numbered "Fourth Angel" not "Third Angel"; the Tunnel Angel is the Third Angel.  Which means it attacked the Nerv base and Nerv just never told the public about it; Sachiel then attacked so openly in a major city they couldn't hide the existence of Angels anymore.

Anyway, Mari's 3 scenes are:
1-giant opening fight scene resulting in Eva-05's destruction
2-Mari literally parachutes into Tokyo-3 in order to "enter Japan covertly"; she misses her drop zone and ends up on the roof of the Junior High School, literally landing on top of Shinji.  She talks on her phone in English to unseen superiors (we don't know whose side she is on).  She comments that Shinji "smells nice, like LCL" calls him "Nerv's puppy" then leaves.
3-she's also in the final fight scene.

We won't find out more until Rebuild 3, which I seriously think won't come out until Fall 2011 at least.

-- V

--- On Mon, 7/13/09, Doug Dennis <dennisud2015 at yahoo.com> wrote:

From: Doug Dennis <dennisud2015 at yahoo.com>
Subject: [EVA] Mari Makinami Illustriated Plug Suit
To: "The english-language evangelion mailing list." <evangelion at eva.onegeek.org>
Date: Monday, July 13, 2009, 3:12 AM

Here is the link via Sankoku.com;http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2009/07/12/mari-makinami-illustrious-sexy-plug-suit/
Seems she will be the fifth child in the movies!
Does anyone have anymore background on the character?
dennisud
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