[EVA] Concurrency tangent (WAS: Alternate Rei on DVD cover)

[Gwern Branwen]

On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 10:30 PM, V V <frumious99 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> "
>
>>>>Their motives are self-absorbed. SEELE will have no truck
> with any
>
> 'god' which they didn't make or control. They certainly will have no
>
> truck with a genuine monotheistic Western-style God! (Such a God might
>
> inconveniently order them to stay alive and do good works.)"
> Verily.  Seele aren't really fanatic servants of a god or belief system:  they want to BECOME gods....--- that's a good point.

> ">>>Hm? When does Asuka mechanically play video games? I know
> it's been
>
> too long since I watched the TV series but the only video game I
>
> remember her playing was for fighting the twin Angel."
> Oh
> this was very intriguing:  in the original outline of the series
> shopped around to networks as a pitch-package of sorts, "Evangelion
> Proposal", it mentions that Asuka plays video games alot:

Hm, interesting.

     "Specially educated and trained from the beginning as an
exclusive operator. A determined girl who is apt to stretch herself
depending on the situation. Hobby is playing video games. Hates to
lose and hates boys. Aspires only to be like Kaji. Quarter Japanese,
also has German-American blood. Step mother lives in Germany (her
father passed away)."
<http://wiki.evageeks.org/Resources:Neon_Genesis_Evangelion_Proposal_(Translation)#Page_13_.28Human_Instrumentality_Project.29>

> so this was
> an idea from the early days of the project...however, it didn't really
> come into the series that much.Still...bits of
> it filter in:  most prominently of course, is when Asuka starts falling
> into depression after losing the Zeruel fight (classic Narcissistic
> reaction to confirmed failure...)...anyway, you'll remember that she
> hangs out at Hikari's house...mechanically playing video games and refusing to sleep.

Well, she doesn't refuse to sleep.

HIKARI (MONO):
She won't go to school and she won't go back home.
She just keeps playing games.

ASUKA:
Hikari?

HIKARI:
What is it?

ASUKA:
Wanna go to sleep?

HIKARI:
Okay...

But I see what you mean.

> So
> this WAS an idea for Asuka they had all along since the early planning
> days, and it seems that Rebuild decided to refocus on it:  Asuka plays
> video games alot in Rebuild.Basically...just as Shinji "zones out" with his headphones, Asuka has a hand-held, basically Nintendo DS video game system
> which she just whips out whenever she's bored.

I found one trailer of 2.0 that has a brief shot of her playing with a
handheld. I look forward to seeing how much that angle is worked in
the movie.

> It's a parallel Rebuild
> draws between the two:  BOTH have a way they "zone out" and
> basically..."self-medicate"Now at first this
> seemed like a brand new addition to Asuka...until you realize it's
> actually an idea from the early planning days of the original series
> that got basically cut for time, etc. but which *is* present in the
> final storyarc (at Hikari's house).If you rewatch the episode, you will notice that in the future of 2015, the Sega Saturn will dominate home electronic console entertainment.

Well, that's not hard to explain.

Remember your _Notenki Memoirs_: the usual toy manufacturers passed on
the NGE license and patronized Otsuki in the process; it was Sega that
finally licensed NGE merch.

You don't go insulting your licensees by putting forth Nintendo or
Sony as the future winners, even if you had worked with Sony before
(the _Princess Maker_ games), and it's not obvious pandering: Sega was
a great console manufacturer*.

(On a side-note, I wonder if the Proposal is discussed in NM? 'They
went on a retreat to Matsumoto in Nagano and before you knew it, they
had a project plan all drawn up. Still, it would take over a year to
go from project start to broadcast.' It would be nice to have a hard
date for the Proposal.)

* I still have my Dreamcast. What a console that was!

-- 
gwern