Play. Pause. Rewind.
Shinjis tape player is pretty much the only absolute constant in the entire franchise. From the original show to its re-appearance in 3.0, the tape player has literally always been there. Much has been made of the track numbers on the tape player, with many claiming in the original show it never plays past track 26, whereas in the rebuild films it is seen to be playing track 27. Whether or not you buy that particular theory, there’s no denying Anno is telling us something with its consistent presence. I, ilke many Eva fans, have my own theory.
I believe the tape player represents Shinjis control over the new world. In the original series it acted almost like a safety blanket; something he always turned to when he was upset which comforted him. In 2.0, Mari knocks the tape player out of his hands upon her arrival. Assuming Shinji has created Mari to succeed where he had failed, this act is incredibly symbolic. She does however hand it back, implying that while she is gonna be taking care of business in this world, Shinji is still ultimately in control. In 3.0, Shinji wakes to a world that makes no sense to him. He is completely lost and confused with no control over his situation whatsoever. It isn’t long after Ritsuko returns his tape player to him that Rei shows up forcing Shinji to make a tough decision. He does, crucially, get to decide though. This is the first instance of control that Shinji has felt since his awakening. Unfortunately the tape player doesn’t seem to be working and Shinji is only back at the geofront ten minutes when his dad starts freaking him out, he discovers Rei is not the Rei he remembers and he’s given the shirt of one of his dead school friends. He is, understandably, upset.
Having grown close to Kaowru, Shinji asks him if he could perhaps fix the tape player. Kaowru is happy to help and successfully repairs it at which point Shinji’s confidence skyrockets and he and Kaowru put their plan into action. Even when Kaowru later loses faith in the plan, Shinji refuses to yield his control, carrying out their scheme which results in Kaowrus death. At the end of 3.0, Shinji is broken and defeated, having lost his only friend and being dragged off by Asuka. Rei finds the tape player in the rubble of their fight, but it’s left ambiguous as to what happened to it.
I don’t believe these instances to be coincidental. I think it’s pretty obvious that the tape player is at least symbolic of the fact that Shinji is in charge, even if he only believes he is in charge.
So What Now?
Which all leaves us with a lot of questions, the biggest of which being ‘what the hell is going to happen next?’. The fact of the matter is that as of 3.0 there are fourteen years left completely unaccounted for. In that 14 years the geofront was destroyed and Wille was established. Other things changed too, Lilith clearly came to life temporarily as her corpse is seen on its hands and knees, impaled by spears as opposed to hanging from a crucifix like it was in 2.0. It’s also missing it’s head. Some image comparisons between Lilith in 3.0 and Lilith in EoE lend some credence to the idea that the universes of the past and present are more connected than they initially seem even if all the blanks haven’t been filled in yet.
With fourteen years worth of blanks to fill, it’s pretty much impossible to know where we’re going to end up. All we know for sure is that Shinji and Rei (or at least a version of her) are going to be brought back to Misato at Wille, SEELEs ace in the hole has been taken care of and Gendos plan, whatever the hell it is this time, is still good to go ahead. The ominous title of the fourth film ends with a musical notation symbol, but even that is the subject of some debate. The symbol in question usually denotes the end of a piece, which would mean Evangelion 4.0 will be the final movement. However, when prefaced with a colon, this same symbol becomes an instruction for the player to begin the piece again, which ties in perfectly with Sequel Theory and the cyclical nature of the plot. There is a colon in the title, but whether it’s part of the musical notation or whether the notation is itself the subtitle for the film, is intentionally unclear. When it comes to trolling, Anno is the king.
If the rebuild films are not sequels, they are turning out to be an incredibly fresh take on a terrifyingly deep story and are deserving of admiration for that. But if they are sequels, this is storytelling on a whole different level. Only time will tell which way Anno has gone, and its possible even then we’ll be left unsure, but one thing is for certain, to paraphrase Anno himself, in the years since the original show there has been no new anime newer than Eva.
Where Are We Now?
As seen in the article posted above, the world is a strangely different place when we arrive in Evangelion 1.0 and although there appear to be numerous nods to what has gone before, the events actually play out remarkably similar, almost identical, to the original show. It’s not until 2.0 that the divergent strands begin to emerge and more strange, subtle differences start to sew the seeds of doubt in the minds of viewers. By the end of 2.0 Asuka has been hospitalized having been crushed by Eva Unit 1 under Gendos orders (this is probably the strangest difference as it is Toji who is killed in the show and Asuka ultimately survives), Shinji has unwittingly unleashed Third Impact on the world in an attempt to rescue Rei causing them both to become trapped in the recently awakened Unit 1 and everyones favorite messiah, Kaowru has descended to earth in Unit 6 to pause third impact for the time being for reasons unknown.
In a move so typical of Hideki Anno that we should all be ashamed of ourselves for not seeing it coming the whole time, 3.0 begins 14 years after the events of 2.0 and holy shit things have changed. The film opens with Asuka, still a little worse for wear, and newly unveiled mystery woman Mari Illustrious Makinami (more on her later), performing a rescue operation on Unit 1 (and fighting off an angel in the process because why the fuck not?) which results in Shinji’s recovery with no sign of Rei whatsoever. Shinji awakens and finds himself as confused as we are, convinced he successfully saved Rei and completely oblivious to whatever he’s done to earn everyones disdain and because this is a Hideki Anno film, they naturally offer no explanations.
Shinji, tiring of the passive aggressive behavior of his former NERV comrades is eventually and sort of voluntarily taken back to the geofront where he is re-united with Rei, Gendo, Fuyutsuki and introduced to the charismatic, young pilot Kaworu Nagisa. While most of the details are glossed over so comprehensively they could reflect sunlight, Kaowru does share with Shinji some important exposition. Shinjis attempt to save Rei resulted in Unit 1 becoming self aware (possibly due to adam coming into contact with lilith) beginning the Third Impact. Although Kaworu managed to stop it by impaling Unit 1, considerable damage had already been done; enough to destroy the geofront and cause Misato, Ritusko, Asuka and Mari to branch off from NERV to form Wille.
Yeah, we’re not in Kansas anymore.
As friendship develops between Kaworu and Shinji, Gendo and Fuyutsuki have their usual ominous conversations about SEELEs plan and Gendos plan and how they differ but are actually pretty much the same. Eventually Kaowru suggests retrieving the spears of longinus and cassius from the corpse of lilith (still held as far as I can tell, it what would have been known as terminal dogma, although no longer crucified. As for how the spears got there, don’t hold your breath, I’m personally stumped), which will give them the power to rebuild the world the way they want, instead of following the plans laid out for them by SEELE and Gendo. When faced with the spears however, Kaowru claims to have been mistaken about their identity (not the first time he’s gotten something like that wrong in this exact location) and completely bottles it. Asuka and Mari intervene, an epic fight ensues and Kaworu gracefully accepts death for the sake of Shinjis happiness.
Gendo expresses his satisfaction that SEELEs child has been dealt with and that now the path is clear for his own plan to unfold. Rei, beginning to understand the echoes of relationships created by her former self, begrudgingly accompanies Asuka and a beaten, broken Shinji back to Willes suped up, Eva powered ship, the Wunder.
‘Wow. That was some awful simplification and glossing over you did there, Andy’, I hear you cry, ‘but how does this all relate to sequel theory?’, well stop crying and I’ll tell you.
