RE-TAKE

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"I feel sick."

"Didn't you know? One does not 'get' answers... normally, one is forced to recieve them"

RE-TAKE is a multi-volume Doujinshi produced by Studio Kimigabuchi which presents an alternate storyline and ending to Neon Genesis Evangelion (and, by extension, The End of Evangelion). Due to its art and story, RE-TAKE has become one of the most popular fan-created works amongst Evangelion's international fanbase -- it is likely the most famous Eva doujinshi in existence. RE-TAKE is comprised of six volumes, published in the following order: RE-TAKE 1, RE-TAKE 2, RE-TAKE 3, RE-TAKE 0 (which provides the experiences of the first three volumes from a different perspective), RE-TAKE 4, and RE-TAKE After. (This is condensed into three volumes for the All Ages version, which eliminates the doujinshi's sex scenes.)

After seeing visions of a horrible future (which actually happened), Shinji Ikari wakes up just before Bardiel attacks. Armed with the knowledge of his potential fate, Shinji aims to prevent every problem leading up to it -- and his new determination allows him to single-handedly defeat three Angels after his synch-levels skyrocket.

Over time, Shinji falls in love with Asuka and dedicates himself to being with her. Asuka learns to share his affection, and the two plan to spend the rest of their lives with each other. There's one unfortunate problem with this plan: Shinji's seeing visions of a ghost who looks exactly like Asuka -- and the ghost isn't happy to see Asuka and Shinji together.

For a download of the All Ages version, go here ^{[dead link]}.

Tropes used in RE-TAKE include:

• A God Am I: "God", Shinji and Asuka's unborn child.
• All Just a Dream: How the first book starts out.
• Arc Words:
  • "I feel sick." (Less so in the all ages version)
  • "You're going to regret this."
• Awful Truth: Ghost-Asuka to Shinji: "You are an Angel."
• Back from the Dead: Asuka, sort of - turns out she didn't die per se; she just was reduced to a child, intellect-wise. She got better, though. Sort of.
  • This needs a bit more explanation. Right before her Eva self-destructed, she was protected by the AT-Field of another angel, Her and Shinji's unborn child (whom Asuka was pregnant with at the time). The child then instantly transported her to Central Dogma. Though it also took her mind in the process (probably by accident) which caused her to regress back to the mindset of a child. As for the child, the effort caused it to dissipate, becoming a being similar to Ghost-Asuka and Ghost-Shinji (God, mentioned above). When Ghost Asuka and Shinji return to their world, their child leaves too, returning Asuka's mind to her (though she, like Shinji, can't remember anything past the events of the 12th angel).
• Bleached Underpants: The All Ages version, to the original version.
• Break His Heart to Save Him: Poor Shinji.
• Break the Cutie: Shinji, Asuka, Rei, Ghost-Asuka. EVERYONE
• Contemptible Cover / Covers Always Lie: Let's just say that if you went by the covers, this would be simply a pornographic doujinshi. It actually isn't.
• Cosmic Retcon: This is practically the best definition for what happened in the ending.
• Despair Event Horizon: Around once a volume, each with a different character. Rei gets one in book one (she hangs herself). For Shinji, this happens around the end of book 2 (the supposed "death" of Asuka) and book 3 (Ghost-Asuka playing with his mind). In book 0 and 4 (damn ordering), Ghost-Asuka suffers from this, and in the last part of After, Asuka gets this upon realising that she gave up her chance to be happy with Shinji. Swiftly subverted when she opens the door to go to the airport and back to Japan, only to find that Shinji is walking down her street looking for her house.
• Driven to Suicide: Rei does this multiple times.
• Dying Declaration of Love: Asuka, though not necessarily by choice.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: For both Canon!Shinji and Ghost-Asuka, and RE-TAKE!Shinji and his companions.
• Easily Forgiven: In 1.5 and 2, Shinji rapes Asuka and she doesn't hold it against him, though justified since he was bit unstable in both cases since the first was right after seeing Rei dead, and the 2nd was after he was likely Mind Raped and she is told his mind was polluted.
• Fanfic: Well, obviously.
• Filler: RE-TAKE 1.5, arguably, as it adds nothing of real significance to the plot, except for a reveal at the end which RE-TAKE 2 both handles better and uses to invert the significance of a scene from the canon story.
• First-Name Basis: In one of the most TearJerking examples ever, involving Rei and Asuka. The night Rei (II) hangs herself, Asuka falls to sleep promising to start calling Rei by name: "Maybe from now on I should start treating her better...Starting tomorrow, I'll call her by her name, at least...Ayanami Rei" *last words of volume 1* (Not counting Shinji's scream.) Asuka tries later with Rei III, but gets a...cold reaction: "Umm... Rei, are you feeling alright?" "Why?" "You were hospitalized..." "Not that. Why do you refer to me by my first name?" "N...No reason in particular." "Then cease, Second. It is most unsettling."
• Foreign Language Tirade: Asuka After reuniting with the non-possessed Shinji in Germany has a fairly romantic one, which is subtitled for the viewers. Shinji, however, doesn't speak German, and so has to ask for clarification. Asuka provides clarification via a tackle-hug and kiss.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: The ending consists of Shinji viewing an ideal, normal future with Asuka, with barely any reference the EVAs, and then proceeds to shatter the fourth wall and stating that it's a possible future for Shinji. It got extremely weird from there.
• Gainax Ending: There are two different "endings" for each set of Shinjis. While the first is pretty comprehensible, the second goes into this territory.
• Go Into the Light: Asuka.
• Gory Discretion Shot: Kaworu gets eaten, and his remains are actually shown.
• Grasp the Sun: Asuka's "death".
• Half-Human Hybrid: Shinji and Asuka's unborn child, who is part angel and part human. She simply introduces herself as God. Though a scene from After implies that she is also from another universe like Ghost-Asuka and Ghost-Shinji.
• Happily Married: Almost reached in RE-TAKE 2, and apparently reached by the end of RE-TAKE After.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Asuka, Shinji, Ghost-Asuka, Ghost-Shinji (I guess that would be the "correct" definition...), Rei (III), God, Gendo...most everyone, really.
  • Subverted as everyone, save Gendo, survives. In Ghost-Asuka's and Ghost-Shinji's case (and likely God's as well) they simply return to their own world, their past unchanged, but emotionally healed, and they have granted their other selves a chance at a normal life.
• Hope Spot: Rei using the positron rifle on the mass production Evas, they still regenerate from it despite it blasting holes in them.
• Hourglass Plot: Shinji and Ghost-Asuka end up almost exactly mirroring each other's roles in The End of Evangelion.
  • We also have another occur, though it's with Shinji in place of Ghost-Shinji. After the MP-Evas are defeated and Misato is leaving to fight the remains of SELEE, she states she won't go after Kaji saying they haven't the right to be together, but Ghost-Shinji convinces her otherwise. After Ghost-Shinji and Ghost-Asuka leave we have the roles reverse, with Shinji afraid to go after Asuka since all the things that led to the two of them getting together before Asuka lost her memories weren't his doing, but Misato encourages him to go ahead.
• It Got Worse: As they got worse in the main series, they inevitably start getting worse with Asuka nearly dying and the when it reaches the events of End
• Ineffectual Death Threats: Shinji screams that he'll kill Gendo when Gendo orders the destruction of Unit 02 and Asuka. He doesn't. Gendo still dies at the end - surprisingly, while acting like a father to Shinji.
• Intertwined Fingers: The last image of RE-TAKE 4.
• Kid From the Future
• Kill the Cutie: Asuka (sorta), Rei (sorta)
• Live Action Adaptation: Yep. Considered inferior to the original by many a fan though.
• Love Makes You Crazy: Shinji starts hallucinating in 3. having a vengeful "Ghost" constantly messing with his mind probably helped this along.
• Love Makes You Evil:
  • Shinji, very nearly - "I will throw the world into the pits of hell to find Asuka again!".
  • Gendo's Batman Gambit was based off this: force Shinji into a situation where he would initiate 3rd Impact of his own will just to see Asuka again, giving Gendo the opportunity to meet Yui.
• Love Triangle: This is what causes Rei to hang herself in RE-TAKE 1. She then seems to get over it in the later volumes.
• The Masochism Tango
• Mind Screw: Especially after "God" shows up.
• The Multiverse
• My God, What Have I Done?: Shinji after Rei commits suicide, since he knows that it was his fault. He initially seems to try drowning his sorrows by having sex with Asuka, in part because he knew the 3rd Rei had no feelings for him. Eventually he befriends her however.
• Never Found the Body: Asuka, Kaworu or at least his top half; see above.
• Not-So-Imaginary Friend: Ghost-Asuka is neither imaginary, nor (for the first 3-4 books) a friend.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Shinji fights the mass production Evas, and we don't get to see most of the fight. Then when Unit 1 awakens and gets the Lance of Longinus from with Asuka's help, he proceeds to slaughter the Eva series, and we don't get to see it.
• Original Flavor
• Oh Crap: SEELE's reaction to seeing Shinji and Ghost Asuka working together, and takes the Lance of Longinus and Unit-01 getting back in the fight, seeing they completely lost.
• Peggy Sue: Subverted. "The past" is in fact an Alternate Universe, which Shinji experiences by possessing his analogue in that universe. While he is able to change some things in that universe, what happened in his own can not be undone, and in the end, he learns to accept that.
• Pet the Dog: Teased when Gendo changes his schedule to attend Shinji's wedding. Turns out it was all part of the plan.
• Race For Your Love: Done twice: once normally, with Misato chasing down a departing Kaji in a tank, and once as a subversion. Shinji gets there in time (thanks to, among other things, Misato's car and Rei's Evangelion), but Asuka decides that it would be kinder to Shinji to let him keep the image of a strong, self-reliant love in his mind rather than a broken, depressed love physically. It doesn't quite work like she intends it.
• Redemption Equals Death: Pulled off by Gendo of all people.
• Spanner in the Works: No amount of planning by SELEE or Gendo could possibly prepare them what foils their plans this series.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Kaji though it's never made clear if that was a result of Shinji messing with the past or he just survived normally in that timeline.
  • Also Touji, as Shinji knows that if doesn't do anything, Gendo will activate Unit 01's dummy plug, cripples it without killing him, though he's Put on a Bus for the next two chapters since he was still injured during the fight.
• Survivor Guilt: Shinji gets this. Twice. (Possibly thrice, if you count 1) Original End of Evangelion ending, 2) Rei's suicide, 3) Asuka's sacrifice.
• Tank Goodness: Misato chasing down a departing Kaji in one, no less.
• Timey-Wimey Ball
• Tomato in the Mirror: See Awful Truth above. though if you want an explanation, here's an attempt: As explained above by Peggy Sue, RE-TAKE takes place in an Alternate Universe, which canon-Shinji (or rather Ghost-Shinji) experiences by possessing his analogue in that universe. However, by bending the universes in this manner, he has unknowingly created a new kind of alternate human being (i.e. a human possessed by an other-worldly entity), meaning that he is the final angel instead of Kaworu.
• Took a Level in Jerkass:
  • You wouldn't think it possible to make Gendo more of a bastard. They did.. It is indicated that Gendo KNEW that sending Asuka out against Armisael (the 16th Angel -- the floating helix-ring) would result in her death, and did so anyway to make sure that Shinji, when implementing Instumentality, would follow Gendo's scheme to meet their loved ones. Let me just make this clear: Gendo sent his soon-to-be-daughter-in-law (one day later, and it would have been daughter-in-law), and his grandchild to their deaths merely to make sure that Shinji followed Gendo's basic desire in Instrumentality. What. A. BASTARD!
  • Shinji suffers from this a bit, at least in Volume 2: "No, it doesn't really matter. She's the third, anyway."
    • Granted, he knew that one hadn't developed any feelings, though Asuka didn't know that.
  • To an extent, also Asuka...though only Ghost-Asuka, seeing as though she is following Shinji around everywhere he goes just to screw around with his head, though her motivation is somewhat justified considering that she feels Shinji both left her to die in the real world and regards her as nothing more than a sexual fantasy. She gets better, though...
• Victory-Guided Amnesia: After the MP-Eva's are defeated, Shinji and Asuka (the pair from the alternate universe, not Ghost/Canon Asuka and Shinji) wake up but have no memories past the events of the 12th angel.
• With This Ring: The ending to RE-TAKE After.
• What the Hell, Hero?: The general reaction to Shinji EATING Kaworu. Oh, and some people's reactions to Gendo's swift change from nice, almost fatherly figure to an uncompromising, uncaring nigh Complete Monster who orders, without flinching, the destruction of Unit 02and Asuka, on the day Shinji was going to marry her.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Subverted, as Shinji ends his own existence rather than destroy the world. Shinji is still alive, but he loses all the memories of the events in RE-TAKE. ...okay, that explanation sucked.
  • So let's explain it with spoilers! Shinji, who is actually Shinji from Universe A (canon/ghost Shinji), possessing Shinji from Universe B, realizes that if he stays in Universe B, he will be the end of humankind in Universe B because HE (Canon/Ghost Shinji) is the final angel instead of Kaworu. Thus, to ensure survival of the people in Universe B, he relieves his control of Universe-B Shinji, who afterwards has none of Universe-A Shinji's memories (and is no longer an angel). This is about close to as we get to an explanation.
• Would Hit a Girl: Touji. And what a hit!