lord_breetai

No, the second one won't be about E Honda, it'll be about Dee Jay's time on the Jamaican bobslet team!

I'd pay good money to see hollywood try to tackle Sakura with the genki! Japanese school girl and rich Zaibatsu rival.

Well, at that point Marie was going to end up with either Sanson or King, and they went the less disturbing route.

As for future Eva isms, the one that stood out most to me was Adam, as well as Neo Atlantis's setup barring a striking resemblance to Seele. Perhaps I was a little vague, but much of what went into Nadia evolved into Evangelion. Red Noa/Blue Noa being the arc's that brought life to Earth share a lot in common with black & white moon eggs of Lilith. Full scale assault of the Nautilus & same on Nerv. Many story element parallels between the shows. But Gargoyle turning out to be human was one of the alltime great plot twists. And it's just too bad Ritsuko couldn't shine as brightly a character as Electra.

I just wish Nadia had gotten the 4 brand new movie remake treatment instead of Eva, as Nadia really could have benefitted from story streamlining & updated animation.

Yeah well you had me expecting some mutant hybrid of Eva and Laputa here. I was expecting in the end for Nadia to be hooked up to some Atlantean Super Computer, that would ask "Princess do you want to wipe the world clean?" and than have her angsting over her whole life and how much she hates herself and how much she thinks humans are decietful hurtful creatures... well you know the rest.

Yes Adam struck me too... and the fact that they exprimented with different life forms before settling on humans.

I don't really see the attack on the Nautilus as being the same because Nerv was supposed to be working for Seele, and both sides knew it would eventually boil down to something like that.

Though one superficial connection is the fact that Neo's power cord seemed a lot like an Eva's, and that he could still move with no power to protect the one he loved seemed kinda Eva-esc too.

The revelation that Gargoyle was a regular Earth human took me by suprise, I should have seen it coming in retrospect given how many times he refuted that fact (though he of course believed he was true Atlantean). And it's rare when I don't see something coming so it's pretty nice in that respect.

What I do see, is a carried over theme about how flawed humanity is, and how it should be wiped out or free will should be taken away... but in the end despite that it may be worth saving.

In Gunbuster it was really subdued, a scientist mentioning that the Uchuu Kaijuu were antibodies and that the human race was a disease and garbage... and Kazumi debating if humanity had a right to even try to fight back while heading to Buster Machine 3 (and in the end, she still didn't know if it was right only that they had to do what they could)

In Nadia it becomes a theme embodied by the warring ideals of Nemo and Gargoyle... and to a lesser extent the internal conflict of Nadia.

In Evangelion, it again becomes a conflict between Seele and Nerv (to some extent) and an over-arching theme in Shinji's thought process and the focus of the finale. In Eva it explores much more what it means to be human, to be alive, to have free will where the other series foccused more on the morality of the issue.

I don't know if I'm making sense here...

heh I kinda liked the one episode that was one character theme after another.

So I finished the series, and I gotta it was very very good... but I still don't see it as totally being on the same level as Eva. Yes it had themes of "should humanity be allowed to exist, or have free reign over itself." but so did Gunbuster, it's a common theme in a lot of Anno's work. Also well Nadia did spend a lot of the series waffling over liking or hating humanity, by the end she had pretty much made up her mind.

Yeah I can see how ideas from Nadia were brought over to Eva, but I see it as being more of a progression and evolution of those ideas from Gunbuster to Nadia to Eva rather then any of them being rehashes of the same arguements for and against humanity.

Certainly scenes like when Electra pulls the gun on Nemo would be mirrored in Evangelion... but yeah.

Really it turning out that Gargoyle was just a human after all and only the royal family were true Atlanteans was a pretty effective ending... at the end all of Gargoyle's ambitions were only greed he was was no more capable then any human being (well maybe a bit... but he wasn't superior). It's a good commentary on any kind of racial theory.

I hate epilogues where "everyone goes their own seperate ways and this happened to this person, and this happened to that"

Overall this has become one of my top series of all time... probably standing along side Sakura Taisen for steampunk works for me... as a high adventure story it was really top notch.

I will have to buy the DVDs.

Because rather than fudge in 10-11 episodes of filler, Anno walked out on Gainax (first time, second time was after Kare Kano), and others were left to stitch them in. Just be glad he finished planning work on the rest of the series first, you'll see the switch back to mainline episodes.

yeah that explains the bad chaterization but unless they wern't paying attention, they should know Nadia would know that Africa isn't her home.

Okay I've hit the island episodes... umm I think they're entertaining in their own right but it's a bit of a C-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-ombo breaker in this series. As a steampunk take on the whole castaway cliche' I still enjoy it. But characterization is crap compared to before.

Why does Nadia still want to go to Africa so much anyway? They still talk about Africa like it's her homeland when she should know from Electra's speech that her homeland is Atlantis.

I think the final Island episode (#31) was the only one that had any actual value to the plot. Even Hideaki Anno admitted that he would have saved only that particular episode (in addition to #30) but completely leave out eps. 23-29 and 32-34 if he had more creative control over the plot. Considering the messy results of the second half, I honestly can't blame him. It's no wonder that most reviewers and fans suggest skipping past these episodes. As for the movie... Anno had nothing to do with it, just like those aforementioned filler episodes. That explains its quality.

Okay well I'd like to watch it all just to see what was actually going on. so maybe I'll skip them then watch them after I finish the rest of the series?

While those episodes take place on Islands, they are not "the" Isladn episodes. Those don't start until ep 23.

We were taking about this a year ago and my opinion stands - Boring show is boring.

Ah I thought perhaps it was islands in general maybe the people liked it because they loved the nautical combat...

And that part I find kinda boring sometimes... Nautical combat with tense moments as they wonder if the Torpedo will hit them or not. just arn't my cup of tea. In small doses they're okay but episode after episode it's kind of grating so I like the land based episodes that break it up. Though ones like the mine-field are really fun.

The main appeal is the steampunk and the characters for me, sometimes I get a little bored with the underwater battles but over all it's keeping my interest.

So I've so far watched the first 14 episodes of this Gainax series and I am very much enjoying it. It's steampunk setting is very much my cup of tea (it also doesn't hurt that Jean, Nadia and Electra's seiyuu would later play members of the Paris Kagekidan Group De' Fleur which really kinda helps me with the setting since I've heard those voices in similar context [For the reference Jean is Hidaka Noriko who plays Erica in ST as well as Noriko in Gunbuster, Nadia's seiyuu was Hanabi in ST and Electra was Kikuoe Inoue of Bellandy fame who would become Lobelia in the ST Paris group)

So here are my impressions, I've avoided spoilers on this. It seemed to me pretty obvious that Nemo is Nadia's father (and if not father then uncle or something) from the first episode he showed up in, before even that we saw the Orihalcon stone he has that Blue Water was cut out of.

As for the Eva parallels Keith keeps mentioning... I'm only seeing a couple... the use/misuse of biblical imagery (The Tower of Babel is a Superlaser... WTF?), the idea that because of the tree of knowldege and original sin humanity hurts each other as much as it helps, Nadia internalizing that, thinking people are awful for killing animals and each other... and her very black and white perspective on people resulting in confusion when those who she thinks are bad, or as has seen do bad things later show her or others kindness... And her confused feelings towards Jean, fighting with her desire to remain independent. I can see her becoming a slightly less messed up version of Shinji, in that she like Shinji has to choose to either hide from the world and shut it out to avoid pain or to embrace the positive aspects of being around fellow humans.

And I've heard much about how bad island episodes are... and so far I'm not seeing that, some of the best episodes have taken place on Islands. I was really chocked up when Nadia couldn't tell Marie her parents were dead, and Marie was saying she wanted to go to heaven. And the whole Tower of Babel arc was very, very exciting. Likewise the hunting episode really brought Nadia's conflicted feelings about the human race to the surface, and even Run, Marie Run... which seemed like a total filler episode at first (after the montage of play time set to the opening and several minutes straight of walking/running along a train track) really served to advance several key characters, particularly Nemo and Nadia's perspectives towards the neccesity of killing, in a do or die situation.

Cutest quote for the series so far has to go to Marie, on seeing the train track branch three ways and exclaiming in English "OH MY GOD!"

I also enjoyed the Gunbuster reference in episode 14 (they visit a place called Reef 64, which pronounciation wise in Japan is exactly the same as Leaf 64 the star where the discover the Space Monster Eggs in Gunbuster). Also is it just me or does the Nautilus look like a Buster Machine?

Music reminds me of Eva too.

Anyway I'll update as I watch more.

Idiomatic how? In Japanese or the English translation?

お風呂の水とか部屋に入り時全然言わへん。ほとんど別の階で言うやな。言う時から「お風呂に入り」はイディオムかな・・・

それは分かっています。もちろん、佐渡先生も分かっている　だから、へんですね。

Really I have no idea where she gets the idea it's Idiomatic from... she's not only a native Japanese speeker she's a trained linguist. I think sometimes she gets weird ideas about English though.　

Just wanted to add, another failings of professional subs just encountered when i'm watching Right Stuf's translation of Irresponsible Captain Tylor. Episode 09, around 3:54 "Sassen Nado, Sassen" translated as "The Drop, I'll Stop" and the crew sighs. It was obviously a japanese lame pun, with the funniness totally lost after the translation. If it was a fansub, the pun would've been explained.

Reminds me of Fushigi Yuugi... Miaka tries to lighten the mood by saying she brought along a nice walking stick and using the adjective Suteki which sounds like Stick... in the English version she says "Cain you believe it?"

on the flip side the english DUB of Koko Wa Greenwood keeps a pun intact in one episode that's a bit odd.

The main character is standing by a Koi pond and reflecting on if he's in love or not says "Koi, maybe it is koi" then his friend comes up and asks "hey how are the koi?" That's the dailog in the english dub... it sounded quite odd.

I remember that in the last season, i think the writers knew they weren't going to get a third season so they just started going nuts with over the top plots and technology. The first season was awesome, and i felt wrapped itself up really well. If this show decides to come back with a better animation company, i hope someone makes more accurate toys in the same scale with no spring-loaded parts.

Well I'd hope they'd still have spring loaded projectiles but with different mechanims (IIRC) JT Marsh's E-frame launched it's missiles when you fully opened the wings... which kinda sucked if you wanted them in with the wings open.

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yeah... so someone made a soda whose selling point is being a parody of Hentai... umm... that's deffinitly the weirdest thing since the off-broadway "anime" musical.

Hmm...if that's the case, then "Kusuri o nomu" ("drink medicine" as opposed to "take medicine") would be idiomatic, too...in both languages, because neither means what you actually DO with the medicine (ingest it).

Depends on the medicine... sometimes you do drink it. It's just one of my Sensei's quicks though.

Maybe she just thought we'd remember it better if she said it was idiomatic.

It is somewhat pointless to keep trying to find more and more arcane and remote idioms with which to try to demonstrate to me that their literal translation will not always make immediate sense, because I never denied this. My only point was to say that I prefer a literal translation of idioms which does not make sense and therefore compels me to ask "what is the sense of this idiom for the particular language that it comes from" rather than having the idiom translated into some english language equivalent which is immediately perceptible.

Okay that's understandable there was some tl;dr in there so sorry if I missed that... just to let you know in that context I'd be saying you're hard headed.

Slightly off topic but it seems my Sensei at college has a very odd idea of what is idiomatic and what is not. For example she think that お風呂に入る (to enter a bath) is Idiomatic because it does not litterally mean "Take a bath"... even though entering is a more litteral description of the action. She's actually Japanese too... it's kind of odd.

Exosquad is probably one of my favorite American TV shows period (I really loved the music) it captured my imagination and I loved it as a kid... I never got to see much of after they took the war to Earth though.

I had Marsh's and Phaton's E-frames and played the heck out of them.

For American Cartoons I think only Gargoyles, Reboot (actually Canadian), Batman TAS and Avatar would compare for me.... (but here's hoping on GI Joe resolute).

DVD release? Not terribly likely, hell, I'd be surprised if a full set of the show still exists anywhere at universal.

All this talk of late 80's, early 90's cartoons has been drudging up memories though. Does anyone remember Bucky O'Hare. I remember the show itself as being pretty cheesey, but it had a catchy theme song.

Yes I certainly remember it... you might want to check out the original comics by Larry Hama, they were a bit more military orientated then the cartoon and less cheesy and dummed down (Toad Borg also didn't exist in the comics).

But a very fun show.

Did you seriously just ignore my blatant ripping off of Terminator and Robocop and say it sounded like Gundam? I've never watched a single episode of Gundam but I'm hoping it's a bit more unique than that.

Pretty sure he meant the full complete introduction here http://www.doukeshi.net/valkyrion/introduction.htm . Take out the alien factor and it sounds like gundam (robots built for space construction become the new weapons of the future Earth Gov't has to fight power wanting indepdendence)... that's Gundam then throw in the Macross/Robotech derviving stuff from crashed alien space ship then aliens arrive later.

yawn. Wake me when it's over.

What anime DO you watch?

Well the current anime TV shows that I watched to completion since 2003 are Haruhi, Lucky Star, Macross Frontier and Full Metal Alchemist. I've also completed some older shows... I also don't mind violence or sex or swearing in movies... but when it becomes a sundae with 80% violence-fat in the ice cream and heavy coverings of swearing and sex toppings... I dunno it doesn't offend it just gets dumb.

To be fair, Twilight just hit not that long ago. Underworld's already had 2 released movies.

(Daydreams a bit on Kate Beckinsale in that skin tight outfight)

If a 3rd one is due soon, it's been in the works long before Twilight released and became a hit.

I'm really surprised Twilight did this well, TBH.

But I think Twilight went into development before the new Underworld (which only wrapped up production on nov 3 according to imdb http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0834001/) and considering the Twilight books are such a hit with young girls already...

I do kinda expect a few more Vampire movies over the next couple years.

Whats to say that they didn't bring back every human who had ever lived to join in instrumentality? I think its entirely possible thats what happened. AND, I think that a lot of this has to be more up to individual interpretation. I think that the various Rei's were appearing over those dead people for a reason, not just 'having a look around'.

AND, Rei was also there in a similar way when Kaworu died in the TV series.

Taksraven

I thought that was actually Rei... and not Grim Reaper Rei.

Okay, that's better. Yeah, if you don't like over the top movies, you definitely won't like Heavy Metal. But that makes me wonder why you like anime.

I don't watch much anime either and most of the ones I do arn't full of titties, swearing and violence just for the heck of it. Just saying.

Now THAT is a good reason. But it wasn't available on home video for 15 years and was only in the last few years made available again, so hey!

I'd seen it before too... I still hate it. Over the top violence and titilation don't do much for me... sorry.

Holly shiznat a lot of heated debate here.

Before I throw in my 2 cents, let me start by saying I love both language and history... for a while I was doing fan translations of the Sakura Taisen manga... and I learned a lot of new idioms, and historical tidbits which I would have felt cheated had Tokyopop's translation of the manga existed before mine... since they threw most of that out the window. I'm someone who when Oogami is told to meet his contact by "the statue of Lord Saigo Takamori in Ueno Park", I need to look up who Saigo Takamori is when I'm reading in the original Japanese and I come across a term like 大根役者 Which litterally means "Raddish Actor" it's important for me to not only know that it's equivalent to "ham actor" but also find out why.... (though on that one I still havn't been able to find out and I have a friend who's a Japanese linguist).

The same Tokyopop manga really glossed over things, like there's a part where Oogami and Ookata are out on the town and Ookata points out someone and says "See that guy that's an up and comming new novelist Yasunari Kawabata", little things like that really help flesh out the altered history of Sakura Taisen (the guy mentioned was the first Japanese writer to win the nobel prize for literature). Seeing many things like that deleted just irked me... when I've learned a lot of history by expanding on things mentioned in passing in the manga but seeing them deleted for the sake of expeidency in the English version really makes me sad.

I delite in learning how the words are formed... so my views may be slightly skewed.

That said (and I think you'll agree with me here), I find the on-screen fansub notes to be generally distracting. While it's nice to have a note in Macross Frontier episode one explaining the "smoke and idiots both rise" proverb, I really don't need Shinsen Subs telling me that "Fold Sickness" is like motion sickness. First, because that information isn't in the original work, and second because, well...how the hell do they know?

Hmmm...I think you have a very good point here, and I more or less agree with you, except for one thing: not everyone wants to be a linguist; sometimes people just want to sit down and enjoy a good anime without working too hard. I can understand enough Japanese that getting the gist of what was going on in Frontier didn't cause THAT much of a problem (a lot of the more detailed stuff passed me by, though), but it's tiring to watch it that way. I know it's good for me, gets my mind working, imprints more Japanese on my brain, blah blah blah...but it's not fun. And that's what anime is for, right? It's not like they deliberately put it in Japanese to force English speakers to confront cultural and linguistic differences, it's there to be enjoyed. And I think that a too-literal translation leaves the average viewer without an understanding of the work, and consequently, less enjoyment.

Oh god that was the second funniest translation note either... it became my personal joke for months... I watched most of Macross F raw but I'm glad I got to see that put into their fancy translator note box.

The only translator note I ever saw that was funnier explained what the word farce meant... thanks for treating us with respect fansubbers.

And I dunno I hate leaving things untransated but, but I love explanations (see above) if you don't give them to me I'll just find them on my own.

See this is quite interesting... there is no such thing as what you just said. Literal translation is just wrong, plain and simple. I'll give you a perfect example: idioms. In your world of literal translations, Japanese idioms simply would not make sense whatsoever in English when translated literally. I'll cite an example:

「晴れているのに雨が・・・まるで狐の嫁入りだね。」

Raining even though the sun is out... just like a sun shower.

狐の嫁入り literally means "a fox becomes a bride". So your version of a "beautiful literal translation" would be something like... "Raining even though the sun is out... just like a fox becoming a bride." Hah, I think not. I suppose quite a few people are "confused" by the act of translation, so I'll clarify some things based on a recent presentation I did:

I prefer "raining even though the sun is out...just like a fox becoming a bride" to "raining even though the sun is out...just like a sun shower."

Why?

Because the second rendition sounds pretty banal, whereas the first - literal - rendition gives you food for thought - and actually DOES make sense. A fox is cunnin and dangerous and can eat you - and often times this is the nature of women, and yet men take them to be brides, because women can often manipulate men into looking away from their fox-like nature, and not seeing the risk involved.

This is like "raining even though the sun is out" because the presence of the sun makes you almost inclined to forget the rain, like the persistence of a woman makes you almost forget that she could be manipulating you and be dangerous as a fox.

The fact that it sounds "wierd" in english is all the more reason to give the literal translation; it's funner then to think about the relations between foxes and women and sun and rain. Otherwise, with the "dumbed down" translation - all you get is a pretty banal idiom, and clearly the comparison is more sophisticated than that.

As someone who doesn't know Japanese; I would be more interested in getting that more sophisticated strange translation and thinking about how Japanese culture looks on foxs and women, then getting the banal translation that has a seemingly more "normal" ring to it.

hmm there was a very long and sophisticated translator note on this expression in one of the xxxholic books I'm trying to find it... I think you're missing the point of the expression kind of.

But on idioms, some just DO NOT WORK... and I'll give you one that you'd need a translator note or you'd have to gloss over it.

鯱 Shachihoko it is a mythical carp with the head of a lion and the body of a fish, you see them on Japanese castles. NOW if I were to in exasperation call someone this, what would I be saying abou them? I'll let you puzzle that one out and tell you if you're right.

Gad, there's tons to reply to here...this thread is eating up my time off...

僕は行くつもりだ。

Literal: I TOP NOM go intend COP. (I go intend.)

Actual: I intend to go.

TOP = topic marker

NOM = nominalizer

COP = copula

The same can be said for contextual situations. If I were to say 僕はうなぎだ。I'm saying (literally) "I am an eel." That's your literal translation. But, given the context of the situation it's more of "I've decided on eel" or "I want to order eel." The translation range is vast an infinite when the sentence is stand alone, but in your situation you want literal, so you'll get "I am an eel." which does not fit into a NORMAL conversation if you are watching something subbed.

I suggest rereading what I said earlier since you seemed to have glossed over it. But then if translation is a lie then if I said to you 「お前は相変わらずアホだし」, then it wouldn't mean "And you're just as retarded as always" then would it?

So basically if I were to translate something from English into Japanese, the Japanese would be a falsification of the original?

This, sir, just blows every argument you have out of the water. All of your points are hereby moot. Quit arguing for something that you clearly have no basis or background in yet claim is correct.

I think you obviously need to take syntax into account you're just getting silly...

The 1st trailer is up

surprisingly doesn't look as horrible as I thought it was going to be

definitely better looking than dragonball

well I think the fact that we only heard one line of actual dialog from the film and the rest was an over-hyper Japanese Video-game commercial type announcer made it seem better then it's probably going to be.

Still I think Kristen Kruek is pretty cute, I'll watch this... though I still think they should have cast a full blooded chinese person for the movie.

She should have a TV spin off... they could bring in David Carridene to be Gen and everyone could talk about Kristen and David and their Chineseness.

"you won't get away with this China man!" ohhhh I miss Kung-fu.

Bummer. Perhaps Warner should try putting out a good movie from a promising franchise instead of pulling the plug on anything categorized as "remake". Why not judge the damn thing on its own merits? Instead, Speed Racer and Clone Wars will be the standard by which any future remakes are measured. Pffft!

Just wait till another big nostalgia movie does well... if you ever noticed hollywood likes to jump on the bandwagon of other films success

If a musical does really well at the box office there will be a slew of musicals until one or two high budget ones flop. Is it a coincidence that a new Underworld movie is coming out so soon after Twilight? I don't think so.

I think this depends on the Japanese understanding of "God" - and what that entails.... Which I don't know anything about - but we'd certainly have to know what the concept means to them to get a grasp of what Fuyutsuki was saying...

As for whether Misato and everyone else who was killed prior to the onset of Instrumentality can "come back" (aka prior to the transformation of everyone into LCL)... I don't know.... but I think that not really.

LCL is simply the primordial liquid form of a human being as he is "now." Aka - if a 15 year old who is healthy is turned into LCL he can come back/be brought back (barring any malfunctions/failures) and will return as a healthy 15 year old.

Being turned into LCL is NOT the same as dying.

Transformation into LCL is the evolution of life towards something more perfect.

Death is simply death - and - barring the existence of an afterlife - it is finite.

Ergo - I conjecture that - sadly (because I loved her) - Misato is simply dead. As is Ritsuko and all of the other people who died in the battle prior to LCL transformation. This also goes for people who, for instance, died of natural causes the day before.

After all - people in their graves are not turning into LCL and suddenly chosing to be reborn.

And - the choice to return to individuality from LCL is not coequal with immortality. Shinji and Asuka, who returned from LCL, will eventually die of old age or other causes - just like the rest of us.

Pete

First off on the Japanese I'll have to listen again, does he say Kami or Kami-sama? cause there would be a big difference there. If you use Kami as a proper noun as in kami-sama it's usually being used in conjection with the Judeau-Christian perspective of God... but if we look at shinto-ism some kami are big and mighty (such as the Sun Goddess Amaterasu) but most are very local and specific in their tasks.

But Evangelion obviously takes it's symbolism from Judeau-Christian beliefs thus I would propose that God in this case would mean an all powerful diety... it's also consitent with what Fuyutsuki says, that the seed of wisdom and the seed of life had been combined. When the Serpent offered Eve the forbidden fruit it was with the promise that one would become like god... but without the fruit of the tree of life you were missing another aspect of God (also the whole power and holyness thing but thats another matter).

Gubaba - I hate to burst your bubble - but there was a Rei the size of the planet Earth over every human being - living and dead - and unless we accept that every single person whose bones were buried in the ground since the first homo sapiens walked the Earth was harvested into LCL and now gets to choose to come back or not, then we have to accept that...

Misato is dead

Hate to be the bearer of bad news - but it just seems logical to me... sad, but logical.

Pete

1 Corinthians 15:52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

if you think about it the 3rd impact would be the rapture of Evangelion, the changing of all humanity (we see both the living and the dead) changed into LCL and brought into "paradise" if being within the Egg was the same as being in the garden returning to the egg would be the same as going to heaven no?

Since in Evangelion the AT field is what holds you together as a distinct and seperate identity... I would guess that possibly as you start to decompose your AT Field gives way untill you naturally become one with everything "ashes to ashes, dust to dust". So maybe only the recent dead can come back...

But since we see Misato and Fuyutsuki in instramentality I would argue that they both still existed as seperate egos.

Also a big difference between TV and Movie endings is that in the TV show Misato freaked about Shinji seeing her screwing Kaji but in the Movie she's like "yup that's me".

But Rei was shown with Misato just BEFORE the explosion, and just before she died.

But, more to the point, there IS an example of someone dying and coming back: Asuka. I think it's pretty clear that she was killed when the Eva series ate Eva-02 (when the Lance of Longinus hits Eva-02's eye, blood starts pouring out of Asuka's eye, when the Eva's arm is split, her arm is split...what would the Eva being ripped to shreds do to her...?), and yet...she's there at the end.

I do think Misato and Ritsuko coming back would be something of a cheat, but I have to say that the movie seems to leave it open as a possibility.

I don't think it's really a cheat at all, since it's not shown. Really the story ends on that beach because everything has been accomplished... wether it's better to choose to shut out all the many opposing voices so no one can hurt you, or let them in so you can build relationships and maybe find love (even if it is an illusion) had already been decided. And Yui's choice to become immortal so that she could be a testiment to humanity's existance had been fullfiled. the story was over, we didn't need to see who came back and in what form.

Just like in Gunbuster, we didn't need to know what Noriko and Kazumi found waiting for them on the new Earth it was enough to know their sacrifice had kept Earth safe for at least 10, 000 years.