Evangelion Stuffs

more asuka in plugsuit

this is his initial concept by sadamoto, if i remember correctly, he was first to be designed like shinji becuz he represents who shinji wants to be and looks up to. they reflect each other. as u can see, theres a black cat in the concept. thats becuz the original outline had kaworu being possesed by a real angel disguised as a cat and akio seemed to be a bit diverged from that while writing the scripts teehee

sadamoto even put that black cat in official art

the recent official news (Kayou Card Collection) also have the black cat included. im glad there is still some references to the early drafts

i think his core problems are still there, they were just toned down for the official release. just like rei, he grew up in a seele lab, and i just think they didnt raise him very well (actually i was making a small comic about it but got dropped again. hope i could finish what i have left T^T). hence his depression and internal crisis. if i remember correctly, there was a scene from a ps game (probably nge 2) of kaworu sitting on a chair just like shinji and questioning his life choices. he was lonely and craved real relationships instead of being seen as a tool or a vessel. the main problem revolving around kaworu is fighting against his set up destiny and real nature, this is why he was called angel of free will. but his suicidal intents were always there so... its a shame that he was born to look like a human but couldnt live like one.

i think the reason why they decided to change the direction, aside from being rushed at that time, was to have a character that wasnt so depressed like everyone else once we got to know them (°▽°). besides, he was introduced very late in the series so they cant just expect us to immediately sympathize with yet another gloomy character, it would have felt like a trope. hes like a spark at that time when everything else is depressing and hopeless despite him also being one of them. he just got another way to cope with his problems.

beside the manga, asuka and kaworu did interact with each other in the tv series timeline but it was in a drama cd, called episode 27 after the end, which was depicted almost like nge behind the scenes and even predicted some moments that likely to happen in rebuilds too. i know it was just for fun and probably not canon but u can visualize how they would interact. yeah they would hate each other's guts

but then again, i found this pic online (probably from a databook of the ps game). it looks like his relationship parameters towards asuka are not so bad as they are equal towards rei and even hikari

and then again... (from battle orchestra btw ✌️)