So after watching the series twice now, both Neon Genesis and Rebuild, I've noticed some pretty crazy dialogue in the newly dubbed 3.0 movie that completely changed my view on what the real secret behind the series is. And yes I know, some of which I state is brutally obvious.
I will try my best to make this short and easy to read so it's not a Tengen Toppa wall of text.
Neon Genesis Evangelion
-Has a lot to do with Christianity with biblical references/symbolism and stuff.
-Title is both Greek and Latin for "New Birth Gospel" or "New Generation Gospel"
-"Gospel" refers to either the Death, Rebirth, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ or just a general religious song. (Music is a very key thing here!)
-Shinji sees Rei at the start of the series for a brief second as if she lept back through time to see him
-Shinji continues his music and cello practicing
-Shinji always listening to that cassette player
End of Evangelion
-Blood was splattered all over the moon and the seas turn red
Rebuilds
-The title Rebuild means to "reconstruct" or "restart"
-Many odd similarities to End of Evangelion
1.11 You Are (Not) Alone
-Starts out with the red sea and blood soaked moon but everything else appears to have moved backwards in time to the very beginning
-Shinji appears to be a more stronger character overall (may just be taken as face value shounen, or maybe not?)
-Still listening to the cassette player
2.0 You Can (Not) Advance
-Misato encourages Shinji to do what he wants to and make his own changes/desicions, even if it costs the world to do so
-His first real decision changes the whole world
-Loses cassette player momentarily but receives it back from Rei
3.0 You Can (Not) Redo
-Kaworu tells Shinji how to practice piano and get good "By playing the same piece over and over again until you're satisfied with the outcome."
-Gendo states to his partner (or vice versa, forgot) that destroying is easy, it's rebuilding that's the hard part
-Before Kaworu dies he quotes to shinji, "Even after a soul is gone, it's wishes and curses still cling to this world. It's will will hue to the world's information and transform it. In time we rewrite the very nature of who we are."
-Cassette player was returned to him and he still listens to it
4.0 - 3.0 + 1.0
-The original title for it was not 4.0 or 3.0+1.0, it was the Repeat Bar in sheet music. In music, the Repeat Bar means to restart the whole song or to a specified point.
Lastly, I saw a comment on Youtube about someone who said they noticed that the cassette only changes it's song when Shinji fails to save someone or anything in general. Also he has a tendency to reset the song on his cassette player quite a bit. I have not noticed the song changing part myself but I plan to rewatch the series and I will DEFINITELY keep an eye out for that, but we all for sure remember him restarting the songs on it all the time.
It appears Neon Genesis and Rebuilds may not be alternate/unrelated stories and are canon to the main plot. It seems that Shinji, via running away from reality, keeps hitting the restart button and trying again and again to get the outcome he desires, which (i believe will be shown in 4.0) is to save Rei and accept and be happy with himself.
What do you guys think? Do you think that's all just coincidence?
4/11/16 EDIT
Okay I think I've finally come to the end of the line on this theory and overall goal of the series. Here goes!
Everyone sees this show differently. The way I see it, it's a paradox. Something that contradicts itself and it's own principles. This show does that everywhere, contradicting themes, hell even this OP contradicts itself over and over again with the lyrics. You can never fully understand 100% of anything as Kaji himself says and that's really the only few pieces of uncontradictable truth they have here. Contradictions encourage critical thinking and since there's a lot of that here, it's an endless cycle of thought.
To me, this show has a lot to do with the idea behind "Infinity" and shines light on it with it's two themes: Ignorance and understanding. You can only understand so much before it slows you down and becomes more weight than it's worth (Shinji) and you can only look forward and ignore everything else so much before you become nothing but an inhumane machine (Gendo). This series has a lot to do with infinity and endless cycles of thought(Understanding) and learning how and when to cut them off and do something else(Ignorance). That's why this series puts so much emphasis on "restarting songs" and "repeating the same piece over and over again until you're satisfied with the outcome" and that's why the title of the series is New Birth Gospel (Neon Genesis Evangelion) and Rebuild 1.11 2.22 3.33 (repeating numbers).
Everyone's brains works differently and we all see reality in different ways. The true reality of the universe is that everything is infinite and never ends. The human mind cannot comprehend reality so we use ignorance to find cut-off points at different levels and it's through that that we all can't help but live in, nor escape, our own fantasies and escapism behaviors. The best we can do is try to be happy. |
