The reason why Evangelion 4.0 is renamed Evangelion 3.0+1.0

Hameyadea said:
Other possible explanation, albeit not so plausible, is that in Japanese, the number 4 (four) is pronounced "shi" (し), which is also the pronunciation of the word "death" (死). Now, either a superstition or the unwillingness to associate "death" to the last Evangelion movie, take your pick.

SailorStarDust said:
Theories on the 3.0 + 1.0 title by Minna no Eva Fan (Japanese Eva blog) here: http://forum.evageeks.org/post/741147/Lamp-Festival-with-Anno-drawings/#741147

The whole 4 = death thing is the Chinese reading, not the Japanese reading, of the word. Really doubt that's the reason why they're not calling it 4.0.

johnknight648 said:
As we all know Evangelion 4.0 is the final film of the reboot evangelion series called rebuild of evangelion will be released on 2015 (the year where the series took place) however the title of the films is renamed as Evangelion '3.0+1.0' and i think i know why I think it will be a time traveling plot thing where the main characters from evangelion 3.0 will go back in time where evangelion 1.0 takes place to convince their past selves to stop the earth from total destruction before their fates that happened in the 3 previous films would happen .

That is my possible theory

Amitch1991 said:


I severely doubt that will happen and to be honest it sucks as a plot, i'm not saying that i have a better one, but i really think that would be a bad movie

SolviteSekai said:
or maybe Anno is trolling again.

DeamonLordZack said:
Well this is just a guess but the reason might be because of a superstition relating to the numbers 4 and 9 that the Japanese have, and that is that the numbers 4 and 9 are unlucky numbers so the people making the movie might think its a bad idea to have a movie with a unlucky number in its title. The guess is based off of something I read from a book I have that's meant to teach you how to speak and read/write in Japanese and has a bit about there culture as well and it mentioned that.

johnknight648 said:


'Okay' that kind of a weird reason. and i heard the creator of evangelion is considered almost a nut with delusions and was interested in tokusatsu series.

Protaku94 said:
lol wut
Please no time traveling

DeamonLordZack said:

Well unless the creator of evangelion tells us its all guesses and that's all it will ever be, also have you seen some of the stuff that comes out of Japan so why wouldn't the creator use that superstition as a reason to change the movie title.

bunny1ov3r said:
apparently from a recent interview hideano said that this movie will be aired anytime in 4 to 6 years time from last movie... which means sometime between 2016-18....

Omega_Therion said:
My thoughts?

I believe this new "rebuild" to not really be a rebuild at all...

After the first series Shinji decided to repeat it all after destroying it all including Asuka in the brutal ugly ending to EOE I think that maybe he had remorse and decided to rebuild the world to go "back to how things were before" it sounds like a total Shinji logic.

Then the world only sort of rebuilds.... Some things are left evident of the previous version of the end of the world. (blood in all oceans instead of just the antarctic)

So now the whole world relived all of history... went through all the same wars etc and then after the first impact repeated itself as life does Then they built EVAs again and Shinji is rebrought into this again... but since SMALL details had changed it inevitably changed things as they barrel rolled into the future... ie the new and other pilots etc...

So now we have the end of the world approaching again... but will it just keep going on and on and on forever?

Will it be inevitable and Shinji destroys the world and then regrets his decisions(as he tends to do a lot and then whine about it) Then he asks to start over again and hope to get it right next time...

Sort of a Buddhist reincarnation take on the Gnostic Christian Biblical Book of Revelations and the Qabalah

abystoma2 said:
Or is it just Anno enjoying fucking with fans?

RinaKawaiSan said:
This sounds like...Akemi Homura's plot?

twoheadedmona said:

In an unsuspecting plot twist Mari is a Mahou Shoujo.

twoheadedmona said:

In an unsuspecting plot twist Mari is a Mahou Shoujo.

Hameyadea said:
Other possible explanation, albeit not so plausible, is that in Japanese, the number 4 (four) is pronounced "shi" (し), which is also the pronunciation of the word "death" (死). Now, either a superstition or the unwillingness to associate "death" to the last Evangelion movie, take your pick.

Oddyeus said:

This. Anno said he wanted Rebuild to have a happy ending.

BatoKusanagi said:
My theory is alternate realities. We think 3.0 happens in the future after Gendo's plan fails, but actually it's happening in an alternate reality occurring simultaneously with the events in 1.0. And Shinji... HAS TO GO BACK!

domdom said:
Obviously Anno is fucking with the time loop theorists.

Grimmjow1952 said:
The new "teaser" until You come to me, leaves little to speculation, it's really obvious that rebuild is a sequel to the original NGE, it's a world Shinji created, so, the +1.0 means he's going to reboot again?

Nae_Gevurah said:
I've suspected for quite some time (wrote a MAL blog post about it) that the Rebuild universe is an event that occurs before the TV series and subsequent End of Evangelion ending, however in "until You come to me" it hints/implies that the TV, End of Eva, Rebuild (2015), and Rebuild (2029) versions of Asuka are all in the past in that order. I'm partial though to the theory that the chronology is Rebuild-TV-End of Eva.

Aside from the strange "3.0+1.0" notation, which may imply that some information from 1.0 might have hinted at this film's content, the fact that there's a shadow "N" in the "EVANGELION" hints at a story overlap between original/rebuild worlds at the very least.

Also it's worth noting, though pretty obvious, that the fully animated scene at the end of "until You come to me" is a direct parallel to the first scene of End of Evangelion. My greatest hope is that 3.0+1.0 is as amazing and crazy as End of Eva, or maybe even surpasses it. Anno is unpredictable like that.

LoomyTheBrew said:
There's a lot of good theories on here and they all sound interesting, but I just have this feeling that it's nothing more than just a "different" and more "unique" way of saying 4.0 haha.

I don't think there will be any time loops and time travel, I believe this will be a direct sequel to 3.0 and nothing more.

But that's just me =/

SailorStarDust said:
The whole 4 = death thing is the Chinese reading, not the Japanese reading, of the word.

yatnami said:
How 'bout this guys:

Its meant to be a combination of the subtitles to both of the movies

"You can (not) redo, but you are (not) alone"

Makes sense, has a bit of symbolism, seems like what Anno would do.

johnknight648 said:
As we all know Evangelion 4.0 is the final film of the reboot evangelion series called rebuild of evangelion will be released on 2015 (the year where the series took place) however the title of the films is renamed as Evangelion '3.0+1.0' and i think i know why I think it will be a time traveling plot thing where the main characters from evangelion 3.0 will go back in time where evangelion 1.0 takes place to convince their past selves to stop the earth from total destruction before their fates that happened in the 3 previous films would happen .

That is my possible theory

Slades said:
I think sequel theory is the best explanation behind why the final rebuild movie would be titled in such a way.

For this naming system to be effective, one must assume that Evangelion 1.0 is a sequel to the film The End of Evangelion. The ending of EoE and the beginning of 1.0 have some remarkable similarities, things that only make since if one assumes that these things can only be result of EoE. Things like the red ocean, outline markings of what is assumed to the fallen prototype Evas, Kaworu hinting that this isn't his first time meeting Shinji, the "blood" stained moon, etc. You can find a more detailed breakdown of this stuff online.

As for the possible reason why 3.0+1.0 would be named in such a way, think about what EoE gave us: an end which was the beginning of a new. It's the combination of a beginning and an end. Maybe this is what we can expect from the final rebuild movie (an ending that doesn't actually end). Perhaps Eva is stuck in a loop event-wise.

I quite like this number-line visual to help think about what could be going on.
1.0 2.0 [3.0 1.0] 2.0 [3.0 1.0] 2.0 [3.0 1.0] 2.0 [3.0 1.0] 2.0 3.0...

Obviously, this is all speculation and shouldn't be taken as fact or that I'm trying to call it fact. Just a little fun.

P.S. I know this is a common theory but I like sharing it.