Kaiser Wilhelm's Ghost
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Nov 12, 2018
Do you mean the character or as a romantic foil to Misato?
In terms of being a romantic foil, I don't think it would quite work just because neither of them seem to express any level of confusion or indication that they'd be interested in that sort of relationship. Obviously they have a good history together, and it's likely that at one point her and Kaji were if not sexually involved at least bordering on it from the way that they flirt in that one episode. It's likely that Ritsuko never took that further because she was a good friend to Misato in spite of everything.
Now in terms of her character, I think she actually had a great level of character development for an obviously secondary character. She knows Misato and they've obviously known each other for a long time due to their involvement with Nerv.
It's a shame that there isn't more indication of Ritsuko being Gendoh side girl until the end, but it was enough to drive the plot along and feed into her motivation. She has a tragic element in the fact that she like her mother chased after the same man who in the end used them and left them with nothing.
It's a point made when Misato and her are fighting that she is ostensibly a crazy cat lady, and when the cat dies it's one of the few times that Ritsuko outside of the Magi being hacked actually lets more of her feelings out.
It's not much and only a few passing lines, but it conveys a lot in the context of her relationship or lack there of.
Now her death in terms of poetic justice is fitting because it ultimately makes her both a martyr and a sympathetic villain. Having known all along about the Instrumentality project, and having been the willing accomplice of Gendoh's machinations, despite knowing about her mother, despite her friendships with Misato, despite everything. (Gendoh must be hung like a horse or something. He's not wooing chicks with his personality.)
I was happy with her story in Evangelion because it had a good conclusion for a secondary character. I felt ultimately sorry for the Bridge Monkeys as one of you put it, because they were idealists, and the only one that showed some outside characteristics was the one who was willing to set off the self destruct sequence on Misato's order. (Another missed opportunity and romantic person for Misato.)
Who knows, it had a good opening in Japan and the box office returns have been good. I thought it was odd that they made those three Beserk movies, but Omnibus updates of old series seems to be a popular move at the moment. Also Anno has gone on record saying that the newer film updates were made to make the series story more accessible for new audiences, so who knows.
I do know that while the animation is cool the CGI Evangelions look shit to me. That might be because I recently watched the original and enjoyed the animation, or the fact that I don't like the current fusion of cheap CGI into anime properties in order to save budgets, but it looks a bit shit.
Still need to watch them, but I might wait for the final film to come out and see how the new ending has been decided upon, as far as I understand, the first and parts of the second film are mainly remakes, and then it really goes off the original cannon in the third. (I had the opportunity to watch one the other day, but it was in Brazillian Portuguese, so I politely declined.)
It will be interesting to see if they go for the instrumentality project again, or if that has already been the case and the world is reforming. Either way the world as we know it was pretty much fucked up beyond all repair after the first impact, so there isn't anywhere to go but either full on apocalypse or redemption.
I was interested to see that they kept Asuka losing her left eye in the new one? Was that from something different or End of Evangelion when she gets eviscerated by the the other Evangelions and has it pushed in?
I'm happy that you agree.
The irony being that Misato is merely the drunk loose older woman stereotype, but it's a fun contrast with her personality when she needs to be serious.
