Neon Genesis Evangelion Forum

I actually like how little we saw of the pillow talk scene. I did find it more sensual how little was seen. It seems like in anime the manner you take to get away with nudity is to not show nipples. As if there is something offensive about nipples. At least on women they serve a purpose.
 
I think when it comes to Misato and her personality. She is very well meaning. Probably the only person who genuinely cares about Shinji when his life isn't on the edge. She's also the only one who ever expresses any sort of real emotion toward him. Rei is a near automaton and Asuka is too tsundere. Where the problem comes in is that I believe Misato too often connects emotional comfort with physical comfort, and isn't able to easily separate the two. 
 
To watch how passionately Misato cried over Shinji when she thought he was dead and holding him when he returned (the previous time). You would almost mistake him for her own child or even her lover. In this episode how she refers to him as "- my Shinji.". There were other people around, but it was her that was there demanding he be returned. I'm leaning more toward a maternal relationship though.
 
It does come across as a bit jarring how quickly she seems to go from nearly losing Shinji to in the bed of Kaji.

  " Either I've got a dirty mind or SHE does. "

Can't it be both?

1 - well, technically, Shinji's not talking to "an Angel" -- we're not sure who he's talking to, but its implied to be more than a hallucinatory product of his own mind.  Short answer is "he's merged with Eva-01, and sort of talking to Eva-01" ...and Evas are Angel clones so...yeah....
 
 
2 - rewatch episode 2's "don't worry I won't put the moves on him" joke from Misato to Ritsuko...
 
3 - that's just how they animate nudity in this show; if you notice, Rei is animated this way when she's naked in episode 05.    Surprising that so many people comment on this (I just watch enough cartoons to know that this is how some choose to artistically represent nudity).  The Rebuild movies, however, DO have much more explicity nudity levels.  
 
4 - The one-two-three punch of "Eva-03 gets violently dismembered, nearly killing Toji", then the violence in episode 19....combined with *a sex scene* (even though its artistically done, off-screen but you hear it)........nearly got the show cancelled.  
 
one of the reasons production quality drops of is because they were ALREADY behind, but then basically the Japanese PTA complained; they didn't get yanked from the air, ultimately, but they did have most of their advertisers pull out.
 
And I'm happy you notice that:  it kind of only HELPS what they were trying to do;  the internal introspection stuff doesn't need great animation, and they just really really cleverly used recycled animation.
 
***Oh, the thing is, Misato isn't running off to have sex with Kaji; that's what they want Ritsuko to think; its really that Misato has stopped trusting Ritsuko, and having sex is an excuse to meet with Kaji; notice that he passes her a computer chip, which she will use in a later episode.
 
Overall, though, I'm happy your enjoying the "hallucinatory examination" scenes:  a lot of people get confused that End of Eva has a lot of these, but...they were an established part of the show already!

Mr. Pinchuk, we've now reached the day we always said would come:   episode 21 is the first of the "Director's Cut" episodes, but you said you only have the "Perfect Edition" DVDs;   Director's Cut comes with the *Platinum* Edition DVDs.
 
Check out the part of my Eva guide that explains why they're so important:  
http://revolutionofevangelion.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page#The_.22Director.27s_Cut.22_episodes
 
 Basically, you could tell they were running out of animation funds, right?  Well Gainax felt so bad about original 21-24, that they went back and completely redid them.
 
There *are not* just 22 minutes of new scenes:  I mean the entire episode was completely re-animated...AND 22 minutes of new scenes were scattered across 4 episodes.
 
What got re-animated?  Well you can tell just how slap-dash the originals were because the...facial expressions are often very rough and show little emotion;  non-verbal emotion counts a lot in upcoming episodes.
 
So for example, in Director's Cut, we can now clearly see that Ritsuko is frowning at Gendo in a certain scene; and this completely changes the meaning of the scene (you have to see it to understand, but it really makes a difference)
 
Also, the plan sort of was to showcase Shinji earlier in the series, then gradually show how nuts he is.  With Asuka it was the reverse:  show how nuts she is...then at the end, gradually humanize her.
 
Tiffany Grant, voice of Asuka, has repeatedly said that you don't really understand who Asuka is until you see all of the Director's Cut episodes, and that people who hate Asuka end up sympathizing with her after seeing all of these scenes.
 
Are the Director's Cut episodes "cut"?  well obviously they weren't cut for TIME, but you can tell there was a massive drop in animation quality, and that this is what SHOULD have happened, they were planning this.
 
The problem with the Director's Cut English dubs:
 
The series was dubbed in 1997...they dubbed the Director's Cut episodes in 2004.  Seven years of waiting meant that the returning English dub voices got really, really good at it;  the Director's Cut dubs are arguably the career high-points of Tiffany Grant and Spike Spencer.  
 
But it was very mixed; because at the same time, through no fault of ADV's....a lot of the third-tier character voice actors had moved on to other projects or out of anime entirely in seven years; that's a lifetime for a VA.  They *did* manage to find MOST of them.  But some voices got changed; now the school characters don't show up that much in later episodes so you wouldn't notice that.
 
The "big changes" in 21-24 were Gendo, Aoba, Maya, and a new character who only appears in episode 24, "Kaworu" 
 
The technician voices were...a bit unusual (its Vic Mignogna and Monica Rial) but given only 4 episodes, how could we expect them to "get into it"?  ***Either way, these aren't really big epsiodes for Aoba and Maya (they had more to do in episodes 11 and 13, to be honest) so no big deal there.
 
The Gendo voice is different, but not as bad as the technicians.  John Swasey also returned to voice Gendo in Rebuild of Eva (the original Gendo got into a fight with ADV over some rights issue).  He's...OKAY.
 
We'll discuss this more as we approach episode 24, but the problem is that they recast Kaworu with *Greg Ayres* for the Director's Cut episodes....and he had no frakking idea how to play the character.  It was like listening to a poorly made fandub.  Problem is, Greg is *obsessed* with playing Kaworu, to the point that *unsolicited* he will introduce himself at panels saying "Hi, I'm Greg Ayres; you may remember me as Chrono from Chrono Crusade...and Kaworu from Evangelion!"
 
So the question is:  should you watch the Director's Cut episodes?  Absolutely.  If you have time, watch the original for each, first, so you can see the changes.
 
but if you're only watching one....you can actually watch the Director's Cut English dub of episodes 21-23 without much trouble, 
 
but I implore you sir, IMPLORE you....listen to the ORIGINAL English dub of Episode 24 FIRST, if only this once, to hear what Kaworu *should* sound like....then watch the Director's Cut and see how odd Greg Ayres' take on the character is.
 
 
Anyway, next episode is the long-promised "flashback episode that reveals lots of secrets"
 
My advice:  DO NOT BLINK.  A *lot* of info gets conveyed in this one episode, often just by implication. 

@hitsusatsu11:   the infamous "Black Hyuga" is from End of Eva; End of Eva had a few voice changes too, and on the whole they weren't that bad, but their Hyuga was awful.
 
Basically, 6 characters had significant voice changes.  This doesn't count the school characters (you wouldn't notice because they don't do much) or Yui or Pen Pen, etc.
 
These 6 characters are the 3 technicians, Gendo, Fuyutsuki, and Kaworu.
 
There were different name changes in End of Eva (2002) from Manga Entertainment, and then the Director's Cut episodes (2004) from ADV Films
 
You see the Director's Cut episodes come chronologically first, but got dubbed later (licensing fight)
 
Gendo's VA refused to work with ADV again due to an internal dispute....and because ADV didn't make End of Eva, he did come back for that.  But not the Director's Cut.
 
They couldn't find the guy who played Fuyutsuki to come back for End of Eva....but DID find him two years later for the Director's Cuts.
 
Kaworu....didn't have a lot of lines in End of Eva so while recast again for that I don't mind.  The big travesty was Greg Ayres' Director's Cut Kaworu.
 
As for the technicians....Maya has the dubious honor of being the cast member has been played by the most people; four significant different VA performances:  Kendra Benham (original), Monica Rial (the awful Director's Cut performance), Amy Seeley (the decent job done in End of Eva), and now Caitlin Glass (an A+ stellar performance in Rebuild of Evangelion; FUNimation had the foresight to cast an A-list VA for the role)
 
original Aoba stuck around for End of Eva (giving his best performance ever; Aoba is badass), but didn't return for the director's cut episodes.
 
As I said, I don't seriously think Monica Rial and Vic Mignogna really had much to work with using Maya and Aoba in the Director's Cut:  it was only four episodes that didn't feature them prominently.  They don't sound that good....but then again, they don't do anything too big, so you can overlook it.
 
As for Hyuga...well, he's voiced by ADR director Matt Greenfield; so of course he came back for the Director's Cuts from ADV.  Problem was that Manga Entertainment's End of Eva dub....I don't know the full story, but I think that out of a desire to be different....or simply REVENGE....they 1 - didn't hire him on, and 2 - cast someone who sounds absolutely nothing like Matt Greenfield, and indeed, nothing like what Hyuga looks like;  Hyuga is clearly a nerdy bespectacled guy, right?  Why would you cast a deep voiced heavyset black man, Keith Burgess, to play the role?  And I LIKE Keith Burgess in other projects.   It was as if you cast say...Crispin Freeman doing the Alucard voice as Hyuga.  It just didn't fit. 

@hitsusatsu11:   Sometimes I wonder if they cast someone who sounds nothing like original Hyuga as a calculated insult against Matt Greenfield; but they're still friends, apparently, so I think it was just an attempt to sound "different".  similar to how they pronounce things funny in the movie.
 
If they don't bring back Tiffany Grant, it will be torches and pitchforks time, torches and pitchforks.

1 - John Swasey is actually a veteran voice actor from ADV;  the irony of ironies is that in the ORIGINAL dub, he played *Asuka's* father! (in episode 22 flashbacks)....he was also Kurama in Elfen Lied.  He's been with ADV since the late 1990's, he's a real ADV mainstay.   So by no means is he a "bad" actor, his Gendo is kind of different.  It must be remembered that ****the original English dub Gendo actually doesn't sound that much like the Japanese Gendo;   Japanese Gendo is NOT that much of a scheming, ruthless, brilliant devil, but sounds like a tired world-weary man who's just stopped caring about morals....ironically, Swasey sounds closer to this (Swasey does sound better in Rebuild than he ever did in the Director's Cuts, though; 6 years of experience and all)
 
2 - I, too, was confused that MacAvery didn't come back, given that it wasn't ADV.  I mean, he's still around.  Maybe its an internal dispute.    Well, Swasey worked a lot more closely with FUNimation already.
 
3 - Overall, Rebuild-Gendo was not a significant problem.   The bigger problem was...through no fault of the VA for Gendo or Fuyutuski, FUNimation cast two guys who sound FAR too similar; actually, chalk this up to ADR directing; even directing the same actors they should sound more different;  I think the problem stems from that dubbing is usually done individually; they need to have the Gendo and Fuyutsuki VA's *in the same room* so they can play off of each other.
 
To be honest, the biggest downright "disappointments" in the Rebuild dub were Toji and Kensuke.  But they aren't prominent enough to be a problem.
 
Rebuild-Ritsuko....was good but different.  She has the most lines of a new character.   On the one hand....she's in "tough commander mode" ALL the time; so she seems less "flighty" than original-Ritsuko, as if she's trying to give off an outer air of "I'm in control" (when really she's as screwed up as the rest of them)....problem is, original-Ritsuko realized that Ritsuko talks noticeably different when only Misato and Maya are around; a sign that she can turn her emotions on and off like a lightswitch, because she's a manipulative b*tch.  
 
Of course, even in the original series....ritsuko just didn't get much to do yet  by episode 6.  but rebuild 2.0 cutout most of the important Ritsuko scenes so...we don't know.
 
There are some scenes where I go "wow, that's such a great Ritsuko that Clinkenbeard did"...and others where I'm going "Ritsuko should be a bit more relaxed if only Misato is in the room"