- Half-right: The newest chapter all but confirms it's prequel as Shinra recreates the world, tears the despair from Haumea, turning it into the pure madness we know of Asura before being accosted of the old Death.
- The final chapter reveals that entire series was in fact a prequel for Soul Eater.
One of the chronically reappearing themes, especially after the fire beetle discovery is how easily Shinra is affected by circumstance, and his personality isn't anchored to anything that would prevent him from suffering a crisis of faith.
Tamaki is kind of a weird filter for this: she’s portrayed as a “fan service girl” but her personality seems much more focused on being seen as something beyond that. Hence, her reactions to Shinra are kind of telling. In the 2nd version of the opening credits, it's clear the animators took care to animate her reaction to Shinra bickering with Arthur.
The experienced adults come out and say it in the quiet periodic exposition dumps. While Shinra serves as inspiration, he’s not anchored mentally. His character is defined by reacting.
In contrast: Arthur, although blatantly delusional in many respects, is still anchored to his real-world role as a paladin. This is also thrown into question a bit by him being the first character on the Fire Force to see through the enemy glamours, which suggests a much higher perception than what his casual demeanor suggests.
Tamaki is mentally anchored to the overarching Fire Force order and seeking to define herself within it.
Shinra’s anchor as ‘hero’ is self-appointed with no real world frame of reference. His motivations for getting involved with the Fire Force are largely circumstantial. He’s not goal oriented, nor is he largely incentivized to head in any specific direction.
The villains (maybe?) figured this out and are so confident about their ability to disrupt him, they’re training him before attempting to turn him to their side.
His brother, Shou seems to have a much more grounded view. While Shinra is acting like he’s going to ‘rescue’ Shou, he’s not even sure from what. Once again, this is a largely reactionary approach to what Shinra perceives to be ‘the situation’ without trying to understand the whole situation. Obviously, while Shou appears to be involved in a plot to turn Shinra, he also behaves as if he thinks Shinra becoming a casualty is an acceptable, but not sought-after outcome.
Strategically, this places Shinra in a very vulnerable position. This will become much worse when Shinra takes on fights where he slams into his own vulnerabilities in the middle of a fight. This hasn’t happened yet, which puts him in a position of innocence until it happens.
In contrast, you can easily identify which characters don't have this innocence:
-Tamaki definitely doesn't harbor these delusions after her rescue.
-Obi is an unpowered human, always looking for an edge.
-Maki was forced to prove herself beyond her family connections.
-Vulcan is so aware of the vulnerabilities, he’s practically turned himself into a walking macguffin for preventing Team 8 from getting completely destroyed in any one battle.
-Arthur appears to be an exception, but his training prior to joining Team 8 is a complete mystery.
- Jossed, as Shinra states that Tamaki isn't his type, and in the final Story Arc, she agrees to go out with Juggernaut instead.
- Proven false with the reveal that they were virgin births. That said, it turns out that the boys' mother is a Doppelganger of the Evangelist.
While the Fire Force is taking care of the Infernals, a new version of NERV is taking the fight to the White-Clad, who they know is actually SEELE. While the Evangelions have become fully-robotic, they still need pilots. Currently, only Shinji and Asuka are pilots, as Rei ascended to godhood, Touji never returned from Instrumentality, Kaworu was an Angel, Kensuke and Hikari want nothing to do with piloting, and Mari doesn't exist in this universe. SEELE opposes them with kaiju-sized Infernals and the remaining Mass-Produced Evas serving as a Psycho Squad, though without Synch Rates or the Spear of Longinus in play anymore, they're much less effective than before.
