Evangelion 3.0+1.0's arduous attempt to say goodbye to not only the Rebuild movies of the seminal anime mecha anime but also the ideas and concepts of the series has a lot of work to do over its long runtime. Its decision to slow down the series' forward momentum and ask its characters if they are ready to process their trauma is a great opening.
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Thrice Upon a Time's final message is that Thrice Upon a Time is a reward for our heroes coming out of their shells and helping others. In a world in which the Evangelions have never existed, the film's opening acts serve as a longing for this seemingly impossible reality in a world that they do exist. If we believe Hideaki Anno, it is also the final message for Evangelion as a whole. The story is intended to end the series' long history of dealing with trauma and identity. It takes almost an hour to watch the film's opening act. This is difficult because it is so long and contains a lot of information. The film is set after the devastating fallout of You Can (Not) Redo which was released nearly a decade before. Thrice Upon a Time, unlike Evangelions previous witnessing of the apocalypse is asking us and our heroes to be with the aftermath for a longer time and to pray for healing.
With You Can (Not!) Redo climaxes with a catastrophic, cataclysmic, event known in Evangelions lore. An Impact is a near-extinction-event of which there have already been three. Eva pilots Shinji and Asuka wander the red-tinged wastelands that are left of their former home of Tokyo-3. Asuka, Rei, and Shinji, who inadvertently started this Fourth Impact, are frustrated by what theyve seen. Shinji, who believed he was undoing the previous cataclysmis, is dragged along with his allies... mute and unthinking. Unfeeling. A shell of the distant, traumatized teenager that he was before this horrible turn of events.
The trio wanders to a pickup point and is then taken to Village 3, which serves as a small, self-sustaining refuge for survivors of the Fourth Impact in Tokyo-3. Village 3's life is described as difficult, but serene and almost idyllic. It is filled with intimate details and vivid colors. We are able to enjoy everything, from the fluttering rice fields at the villages outskirts to the relaxing cats that hide in train carriages, to the giddy sounds of newly-planted rice farms. This is a stark contrast from the sci-fi, urbanized world we've seen in Evangelion. It replaces the harshly angular, high tech, and brutal architecture found in metropolis with the simple, everyday intimacy of rural life. They are still here with the people of Tokyo-3, but they have found peace in an environment that is very different from that city. This is because they still have each others.
Shinji, Asuka and Reis' former schoolmates, Hikari Horaki and Kensuke Aida, have done what the trio could not: grown up, moved on with their lives, far from the daily grind of apocalypses or Evangelions. Toji, not because he is skilled, but because he wants to help others, has married Hikari and has a young son with his high school crush. Kensuke is a former survival and outdoorman geek teen. He now serves as Village 3's watchman, helping to maintain its defenses, finding food and materials, and fixing any faulty tech that they can. All of them are happy and content with themselves. This is something that Shinji, Asuka and Rei find almost impossible to believe. Part of this is baked into Evangelions esoteric worldbuildingintroduced in the prior film is the curse of Evangelion, a peculiar affliction that renders Evangelion pilots unable to physically age beyond being approximately 14 years old, so they literally cannot grow up as their counterparts did. It is partly because the Village 3 residents live lives that are unfathomable to young people whose lives have been ruined by their piloting of bio-organic weapons against unholy abominations trying to destroy the world as it is.
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An Evangelion pilot can't find peace. We are repeatedly shown in the franchise, regardless of its iteration, that being an Evangelion pilot means to accept unimaginable horror within yourself and around your family as a daily fact. To be an Evangelion pilot means to teeter on a edge of cataclysm each time you enter battle, not knowing if you'll fall in or jump in. What if you could live without them? There is a chance for peace in the aftermath. Even trying to achieve such a possibility is almost futile, as shown in the films that preceded Thrice Upon a Time. It's a path down which only more trauma lies. Yet, suddenly, Village 3 Asuka and Village 3 Rei are thrust into this chance of peace.
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Thrice Upon a Times' decision to open in such a languid setting allows us to watch the three teenagers slowly adjust to Village life. As we have learned, Rei, just like she was in the original series, is the latest in a long list of cloned entities. We are able to sit with them as they go through the process of rehabilitation. Asuka, who is always the most outwardly irascible member of the main Evangelion trio takes a more difficult path. She spends quiet moments playing on an old gaming console before turning her anger against Shinji and the world around him. As he goes through the horrible events of You Can (Not) Redo, even Asuka begins to find some calm within herself and with Shinji. His rehabilitation has the greatest impact on him, as he learns to reconnect with people like Toji, Kensuke, then with Asuka and Rei, finding a reason for continuing with his life through the connections he makes with them and the purpose he places in them.
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Its a slow, painful process, and its hard to unequivocally say each of the teens is fixed by the end of itanything but, as well seebut its a powerful view of their healing processes that only really happens because of the world establish in Village 3 itself, a tiny little pocket of the post-post-post-apocalypse where Angels and Evas dont exist. They do exist, and that is the bittersweet climax of Thrice Upon a Times's departure from the village and its thrusting into the setting for its narrative ending. Village 3 may seem idyllic and peaceful at the moment. However, Kensuke must constantly protect it from the red fallout of the Impacts and other roving creatures. The machinery of the world of Evas and Angels is still alive beyond the protective bubble. This world will still need to be created and require the sacrifices of our heroes.
Rei, who has spent too much time without the protective LCL that keeps her clone bodies alive, disappears before Shinjis eyes. She bids Shinji a sad farewell and the village life she longed for is impossible to achieve. Asuka, Shinji and their time in Village 3 are healed. However, they only have enough to be forced back into the curse of Evangelion to fight the fights that only they can. Village 3's world with Evas is, as we are told bluntly and sadly, fragile. If read cynically, it can be seen as a delusion or a temporary fix that will only delay the inevitable.
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Its existence and the sharp focus it displays in Thrice Upon a Time's first hour is crucial. This film and Shinjis final thesis need a catalyst. The young pilot confronts his father in Thrices final battle. He has already put his healing in Village 3 to the test and has been rewarded by being able to help his father understand his trauma. This is the starting point of what Shinji does when he is given the power to create a new universe. It is a world without Evangelions, a place where he can heal those around him.
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It is perhaps understandable that Thrice, in the short glimpse of the world without Evas at its end, leans towards Evangelions love for metatext. The director proposes a compromise between Shinji's two temporary homes by transposing Annos characters into an exact replica of his hometown, Ube in Yamaguchi Prefecture. It's not Tokyo-3's bustling urban megalopolis or Village 3's rural mundanity, but it is a mixture of both. The lives of these teens are now free to move on, let go and live their lives. Thrice Upon a Times opened act offered them a place to heal. It is still peace, at least because Village 3's promise to possible peace was made a reality.
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