>>2623430My argument is against the "meme" or common misconception/slander that Rei isn't present in those episodes. I know very well she's less present than she was prior and after, but it's just not true that
>[she doesn't] develop or interact that meaningfully for quite a long stretch of episodesI found all of your examples where Rei is in it to be meaningful and without them, the preceding episodes where the development becomes more intense wouldn't make sense or would become less grounded.
Because NGE had a good and considerate mix of characters. It wouldn't make sense if Rei had high focus all the time, just like it doesn't make sense to have kaworu, asuka or other later-introduced characters there from the start.
NGE is so good that it hardly needs changing, so when you make a remake like the Rebuild series, you need to change something up otherwise it's just a rehash.
I think they were very conscious of that since the beginning, as after all, they are directors and otaku, who no doubt spend their time whining about rehashes of other franchises. So even 1.11 has drastic changes to the story and setting, despite being nearly identical otherwise.
So while Rebuild seems to have gone off the deep end, I don't think either 1.11 or 2.22 handled things poorly. There are differences, but not differences that can't be used to develop a strong story, plot or set of characters. 3.33 is simply irredeemable in this regard. So you need neither more or less Rei (or x character), you need the to be developed in a fairly distributed manner.
Because a four-movie series that is all about Rei but excludes other characters would only hurt the integrity of Rei's development and character, in the same way that a movie series which attacks Rei and spends no time on anything else but that (3.33) is also just baseless masturbation from Anno.
