“Director: Hideaki Anno” Telop ~ EVA-01 spreading her arms, with Shinji overlapping on top.
Reichu: Hey, where did those kanji come from!? If you've seen NGE exclusively via ADV's pre-Platinum releases, you've also been deprived of seeing Anno's credit in the OP as it was intended. Rather than try to replicate the neat way that EVA-01 “cuts into” the kanji (with them showing through the black on her arms), ADV simply painted the kanji out and displayed Anno's English credit in a far more mundane manner. Pity. This is only one small reason I'm a big fan of leaving the OP and ED sequences of anime intact in domestic releases. Purists — go fig.
Gundampilotspaz: I find this cut interesting. It shows Shinji and EVA-01 combined as one being at first, but then it seems that Shinji is being expelled by the Eva, since he is moving forward and she is stationary.
Reichu: EVA-01 continues to float away, while Shinji falls to Earth below … Foreshadowing the end of #26′, perhaps?
MDWigs: This sequence is similar to 010 stylistically, and it could also be seen as a continuation of 017 (without the wings).
Reichu: It's worth noting that the frenetic, abstract moving backgrounds characteristic of anime — and displayed in these two cuts — is a convention seldom employed in NGE. Similar anime visual clichés are refreshingly rare, in fact.
On a pointless side note, the idea of Shinji having the same torso-leg proportions as an Eva disturbs me. ::p
