MISATO:“Eva-02 and its pilot depart from Wilhelmshaven in Germany and head straight for Japan.”
Kendrix: Wouldn't that place(Wilhelmshaven) be very much underwater? Of course, maybe they used some futuristic technology to keep it (and hopefully, the Netherlands) from sinking. It would certainly fit into a cynical setting if the countries that were already rich pre-impact had the means to save their butts while the poorer places on the southern hemisphere had no such luck so that even a great catastrophe that affected the whole world wouldn't affect everyone equally. Japan is of course remarkably disaster-proof due to needs of its location. I'm not too worried about the Swiss either.
It's certainly unusual to have one of us used as the "hot foreigner", seeing as we're about the one major country in Europe whose stereotypical description doesn't include the word "hot". Turn on the radio and you'll hear "Paris!" "Havanna!" "California!", but there has never been a single French person who felt compelled to pick up their guitars because of some mysterious stranger they encountered in Hamburg or Düsseldorf.
Of course, Anno may simply not be aware of that, a lot of people in Asia just lump everything together as "the West" even though I'd argue that there are some large cultural differences between the US and Europe, despite some commonalities (to be fair, many of us are not much better/ don't know anything about the long & rich history of Asia).
Or perhaps Anno's use of German for flavor texts constitute a distant remnant of our pre-war reputation as bold intellectuals - see the occasional loanwords in math, philosophy and art theory, (imagine my laugh when i found out that the English term is also 'Eigenvektor') or the Character of Otto Lidenbrock in 'Journey to the Center of the Earth', whom I love as some Mexicans supposedly love Speedy Gonzalez. He's supposed to be nuts but its a flavor of nuts I can get behind.
A lot of people over here were just glad to get a character who wasn't some trite predictable supervillain stereotype. Better yet, she's not blonde! (which is more of a Scandinavian thing anyways - sure, we have the occasional one, but the snow-white/pale.skinned-brunette look is way more common. ) Incidentally, there's a little medieval legend explaining the increased prevalence of redheads in certain parts of the southwest, owing to Emperor so-and-so, who owed his own red hair to his mother having been a British princess, having had a bit of reputation as a philanderer. As it's a recessive trait this does not quite work out in reality, but still, it's a cute story, and the idea of Asuka lapsing into Swabian accent when incensed is very hilarious.
