EoE Live Sequence and Alternate Endings

Taken from an AnimeBoards post of mine: See This Thread. It is a little dated now but most of the information is still accurate.



First a basic introduction. The majority if this information was first discussed in the beginning of 2000 on the japan.anime.evangelion newsgroup. Olivier Hagué the resident Eva expert there at the time (and he still is, though he hasn't been posting as much lately) informed us of a cache of information he had gotten his hands upon.



If you want to check the original threads then do a google groups search for Olivier and "Good appetite", because that is what started it off because Olivier had asked an upstart newbie a rather challenging trivia question.



"Who's the Eva character "24 years old Asuka" was supposed to sleep with in the removed live action sequence of "the End of Evangelion"?"



Well the answer is Touji.



Well we all went "WHAHA" to which Olivier replied.



quote: She wakes up and realizes they spent the night together. Then she goes to the bathroom and realizes she has some *** left in her mouth.



Good appetite, everyone. ^^; And so it began ^_^



Now some of you may have see the theatrical trailer for "The End of Evangelion". It is a live action trailer, and the scenes shown are excepts of what was supposed to be a much longer live action sequence for episode 26'. For some reason (that Olivier wasn't aware of, and till this day I still haven't discovered) Anno couldn't make/edit it correctly, so all you get to see are a few live shots of Tokyo including the one of the "live" Asuka(Miyamura Yuuko), Misato(Mitsuishi Kotono) and Rei/(Hayashibara Megumi) standing in the crowd with Shinji and Rei talking in the background.



Anyway the scene with Asuka in the bathroom was just the beginning of the much larger complete live action sequence.



According to Olivier:



quote: After that, we get to see Misato (Asuka's neighbour) talking at phone with her friend Ritsuko...

And also Asuka going to work (she's an office lady, it seems) and talking about love with her "senpai", Rei. Anyway we bugged Olivier about his sources and he said that the only thing he could find in official documents about the live sequence was an interview with Anno where he said that he couldn't do what he had first planed for with that sequence (ie what we saw as opposed to the larger sequence).



Then (and this is what got us most excited) Olivier revealed that he managed to get the original scenario's of episodes 25' and 26'. These have never been published officially, and he was really lucky to get a hold of them. Well in this scenario, other than a different lead up to the ending we eventually saw it was revealed that it featured two other different endings.



Over a great deal of posts spanning quite a lot of time we managed to get Olivier to translate the sequences for us. So from where we left off before...



quote: Anyway this live sequence ends with Asuka walking in the streets of the city (called Tokyo-2 in the scenario).

We hear Shinji calling her name. Asuka stops and turns her head toward the camera (this scene is seen from Shinji's point of view), but the camera hides itself behind a pole. Asuka doesn't seem to see anything and leaves. The camera follows her.

Shinji then says "I'm not here", and the image suddenly stops, as if somebody had pressed "pause".



Shinji says this is not the reality, just a world without him. It doesn't change anything, except that nobody knows of him here. Then, he begins to talk with Rei, and the contents of their conversation is pretty much similar to that of the "theatre audience live action scene" of episode 26'. When Rei says that "that's not a dream, just a phantasm. A

compensation for reality.", the image disappears, as if the tape had been cut.



We're in "celluloid world" again. ^^



Shinji looks in his left hand and sees Misato's pendant.

Misato: "Are you just going to give up now!?" (<- episode 25')

Shinji suddenly wakes up (like in the "hospital scenes" of the series).



Back in "real world"! ^^;



On a TV screen flows the "hospital scene" of episode 16, with Shinji and Rei talking. We barely hear what they're saying because of "real world noises" offscreen.

Shinji: "Where is the true reality?"

Shinji (?? it's just weird, here... I'd say it's Rei, instead of Shinji, but?... ^^; ): "At the end of the dream"

We then see Misato (Mitsuishi Kotono), Rei (Hayashibara Megumi) and Asuka (Miyamura Yuuko) standing still in the street, looking directly at the camera (this shot remained in episode 26').

Shinji's voice: "I'm sorry, Ayanami.

I'll return to where I used to be.

There may be nobody there, by now, but I'll return.

I guess there is nothing good for me, there, never was and never will

be, but I'll return.

Because it's the place I belong and I have to live in."

Rei's voice: "If you really don't like it, you can give up."

Shinji's voice: "That's fine."

Yui's voice: "So, you'll be okay, now?"

Shinji's voice: "Yeah. That will be okay for now."

Rei's voice: "I see."



Back in "anime world again".

Shinji wakes up (same "hospital scene" but with orange-like colours)

Shinji: "Where am I?"

Image of an empty entry-plug (like in episode 20, without the plug suit).

Shinji: "The entry plug of Eva-01?"

Shinji: "But I'm not here."

"This is the sea of LCL... The primordial soup of life. A world without AT Fields... Without your own shape."

"An ambiguous world where it is impossible to tell where you end and other people start."

"A fragile world where you exist everywhere, and thus exist nowhere."

"You must recover you lost self on your own."

"When you'll be back on Earth, if you succeed to imagine yourself, everybody will be able to recover."

"Back on Earth?"

"Yes, go back to Earth."

"If you don't try to imagine any evolution yourself, nothing will ever change."

"It is the hearts of people that create their appearance."

"And new images will change peoples' hearts and appearances."

"The power of humans is the power of imagination."

"All living things have the ability to return to their original form. As long as the Sun, the Moon and the Earth exist, everything will be all right. "



Rei and Kaoru are standing in front of Shinji.

Rei: "Only Angels can break the walls of an Angel heart."

Kaoru" And only humans can break the walls of a human heart."

Rei: "This is a possibility."

Kaoru: "The possibility that people can understand each other, sometimes."

Rei: "That they can understand each other without relying on words."

Shinji: "But that's just a make-believe."

Shinji: "Just a wish."

Shinji: "Just a prayer."

Rei: "But that instant is sincere."

Lots of people grow from Rei's body (!!?!? like with Lilith and her human legs?!? ^^;;; )

Rei: "Do you want to be, even if it may hurt somebody?"

Shinji: "I'll get hurt too."

Shinji: "But I can't do a thing if I keep fearing. I can't live."

Rei: "You protect yourself by hurting others, don't you?"

Shinji: "Maybe. But I'll hurt them in order to be myself. And I'll expiate as well."

Shinji: "For being alive."

Shinji: "But I find it harder to hurt others."

Shinji: "I'm just realizing this again. And I'll keep doing this over and over."

Shinji destroys the Spear of Longinus.

"Why are you crying?"

"Because you're alive, Ayanami. Because you're here."

"I'm sorry. I don't know what to do at times like this."

Second Rei: "You should smile."

Shinji: "I just feel like I finally understood. I can't. I and the others aren't the same. I'm nothing but one. Even why I pilot Eva, even when I don't, I'm nothing but I. That's all."



The Rei-faced Eva series begin to take out their Spears of Longinus.

Their Cores are chipped, then destroyed.

The Eva series become darker, like petrified, and fall on Earth one after another.

Then follows the destruction of Lilith and the Black Moon seen in episode 26'.



(I found an (interesting?) note from Anno, though.

When the Evas are shown descending on Earth, he insisted that we could see them all around the world, at different times of the day. Morning, noon, evening. But _not_ during night. He clearly stressed that point.)



Eva-01 is then shown attracted by the Moon.

Shinji pulls the induction lever, and the plug cover is released by the security device.

Then flows the flashback with Yui and Fuyutsuki talking about the purpose of Eva. This scene remained the same.

The entry plug is ejected from Eva-01.

Yui's hand go away from Shinji's cheek.

You know this one, it's in the finished episode as well. ^^

Yui: "You'll be okay, now."

Shinji "Yes."

Shinji: "Good-bye, mother."

The entry plug falls in the LCL ocean (but Anno adds "maybe we could get rid of that?").

Fade out (Anno: "is there another way?") So there it is. That is the lead up. After that we were all drooling for me, Olivier helped us out though by promptly posting his summaries of the two different endings (called "Last A" and "Last B" in the scenarios).



quote: Last A



You already know the beginning of this one (a beach, petrified headless Evas, etc).

Thew, we see the graves Shinji made (it's stated by Anno it was _he_ who made them). The names of all main Eva characters are written on them, except for "Ayanami Rei".

We then see Asuka's grave.

And Asuka's foot kicking it to the ground. ^^;

(you can still see these graves in the actual ending... no names, but there is Misato's pendant nailed on one of them, and an other has been kicked down ^^ )

We then see Shinji and Asuka on the beach... and you know that scene, too (but this draft demonstrates that Shinji and Asuka didn't just wake up there after Third Impact... they've been living here for some times... meaning they _could_ be the two only humans willing to return, after all... ^^; )

When Shinji starts crying, Asuka was supposed to say something like "Idiot. No way I'll let you kill me" ("idiot" was removed in the storyboards... and the whole line was modified, eventually).



Then, the ending music (so, there was one... ^^ ) was supposed to begin, and the staff credits were to appear (Anno suggests a horizontal scrolling, like in GunBuster, I guess).

We were to see Eva-01 lying on the Moon, and woman's hair showing from its broken mask (but her face remains unseen).

Behind Eva-01, you could see Earth, entirely red.

And the Black Moon, destroyed.

The camera goes to the sun, then to the stars.

Credits end.

"Shûgeki" ("the end"). Now the true ending is based upon Last A. Last B is slightly different.



quote: Last B



It begins like the previous one, but Asuka doesn't show up in the "graves scene".

We then see Shinji lying on the beach.

His right hand is holding a white one.

"I'll never see them again."

"It's better to think of it this way."

"I'm still alive, so I'll keep on living."

He squeezes the hand harder.

Then, he sees Rei (like in the actual episode and Last A).

We eventually see that there is nobody lying near Shinji. Just a white arm without the rest of the body.

The camera then shows the full moon.

The ending credits are the same as in Last A.

(that one was rather sick... ^^; )

So there you have it.



We have discussed the original last line here before. At that time EvaOtaku posted this picture:







Which is a scan of the Story Board Collection page for 'Magokoro wo Kimi ni' from the Japanese boxset. Highlighted in yellow is the original alternate line "...Anta nanka ni korosareru no wa mappira yo".



Unfortunately Olivier doesn't have a scanner, we know, we asked, so I can't post any images of the original scenario he translated these descriptions from. However it all checks out and I hold Olivier in the highest regard so I consider this information to be practically canon material.



(Edit: Actually it turns out that Olivier didn't have the originals, the scans were in references to scenes from the storyboard book, one such scan by EvaOtaku is posted above. EvaOtaku has kindly pointly me to This site which contains the original Japanese of these scenarios.)



I hope you guys enjoy it ^_^