Shinji Ikari VS Ultraman Q&A

This Q&A is being handled solely by Kaiser, Flip/Riku, TheCardinalKing and Cyber.

“How does Shinji even get to 1-A (Outerversal) or even has enough scaling to justify that?” / “What about Galactus scaling to Ultraman?” / “Why are people so stingy with the outer args? They seem fine to me…”

Cardinal: So to start off, as extensive as this blog is and as proud of it we are, feel free to disagree! We are absolutely not the end-all be-all word on Evangelion scaling and really recommend people go ahead and do their own research or explain why the arguments in the blog weren’t sufficient for them.

But we’d still like to address one big thing regarding this question: even if Shinji did not get Outerversal scaling, he would have won the blog. For whatever reason a good number of criticisms towards the blog is that Shinji needed Outer tiering to win, when if you actually read the verdict it absolutely isn’t the case. 

Even if AP were equal (as our regular DT arguments for Shinji still matched Ultraman’s or exceeded it), or heck even if Shinji were infinitely weaker, Ultraman would need to get past:

• Shinji’s far, far superior regen & stamina
• Shinji being able to abuse Ultraman’s weakness to being frozen beyond -273 Celsius
• Shinji’s ability to stop time and land any number of hits or wincons on him
• Shinji being able to warp reality higher than, or at absolute worst still equal to, 4-D reality warping which has messed up Ultras before (i.e. Bullton’s reality warping is explicitly at just a 4-D level)
• Instrumentality & Shinji’s ability to manipulate information
• Instrumentality also affecting the collective consciousness, which has been used to take out Ultras like Arc before
• Shinji severing Ultraman’s causality with the Spears
• Shinji striking him across time with the Spears
• Shinji’s omnipresence making it impossible to effectively seal or power-null him

Also for some clarity, we’ll be going through our arguments again for Outer Eva and explaining the thought process on how we agreed Outer was a fair interpretation with what was given across the series. Firstly we have the main crux of R>F, that being seeing lower reality as fiction. This primarily comes from the Rebuild films where Shinji in the Anti-Universe doesn't just see the events of the original show as a film, but he perceives the entire story as having occurred on a film set. The original show also does this actually, as when Instrumentality is triggered in the final episode we have Shinji looking down on reality as if it were just a diorama and later as a stage play being recorded on a camera. When OG Asuka employs the “Shinji Ikari Method” to create new worlds for herself to live in, she is very literally falling asleep and dreaming up new realities and Rebuild Asuka refers to what she’s doing as looking directly into the camera filming the story and literally stating that she is going to alter the plot. And of course when Shinji changes the world to get rid of all Evangelions, we see him affecting the very storyboards of the film to accomplish this. And the one native entity we see in the Anti-Universe is Evangelion Imaginary, a non-existent & fictious entity residing between the lines of fiction and reality. Kaworu as well in ANIMA has referenced that, from his perspective, the events of Evangelion are a stage play and cosmological constructs like the Tree of Life are parts of it like the trap room. This was all our key argument for R>F Eva, that the top tiers of the verse literally perceive their previous reality as literal works of fiction.

But of course that isn’t the end-all-be-all argument so the next bit of the argument for R>F comes from discontinuity, i.e. what argument is there that realms like the Anti-Universe don’t just transcend the rest of the cosmology, but are totally disconnected from it. After all, this can just be a case of a higher-D perspective (hence the 8-D end we mentioned as well). One of our main points in this regard is Gendo’s statement that the information of the Anti-Universe is transcendent over the logic / “Logos” of lower reality, and similarly that the many Spears across the series get their power from higher forms of logic than the higher dimensions of the Tree of Life. The fundamental basis of the Anti-Universe having transcendent logic over the rest of the cosmology directly implies a qualitative superiority and being entirely disconnected from the physicality of the lower world, something repeatedly established in the series as only Adams or their Vessels, who originate from the Anti-Universe, can access the space or that the Spear of WILLE could only pierce Eva Imaginary because it was composed of the same Black Moon material that comprises the other Spears (which again, draw on the Anti-Universe).

A big part of the discontinuity argument as well is the entire Tree of Life and Kabbalistic metaphors scattered across different Eva series. People have just kind of dismissed it even though the series does emphasize that the structure of the Tree of Life is very literal in the series. For example, this is an actual Eva guidebook statement:

“Tree of the Sefirot In Jewish mystical Kabbalah, the "Sefirot'' refers to the various manifestations of God, and is also called the "outflow of divinity.'' The singular form is "sefira" and is expressed as a glowing sphere. The "Tree of Sefirot,'' also known as the "Tree of Life,'' is a symbolic diagram that connects the 10 Sefirot with 22 paths (buses) and systematizes the ideas of Kabbalah.It is said to represent the diversity of all things, as well as the harmony and unity of all beings created by God. Each of the ten Sefirah of the tree has its own unique attributes determined by its vertical "pillars" and its horizontal "world." The vertical direction consists of three "pillars": the "Pillar of Balance" in the center, the "Pillar of Compassion" on the right, and the "Pillar of Severity" on the left, and the horizontal direction consists of four layers: "Atzilut (Outflow World)," "Beria (Creation World)," "Yetzirah (Formation World)," and "Usher (Activity World)." At the top of the tree is Kether (crown), which is said to be the closest to God. It is said that this world first appeared from Ain, a world of complete nothingness, where Ain Sof was born, and Ain Sof Aur was born from Ain Sof, and then Ain Sof Aur was born. The two sefirah placed below it, "Chokmah (wisdom)'' and "Bina (understanding),'' represent the opposing thoughts of God. The following Sefirah were born based on the thoughts of these gods, and are followed by "Hesed (mercy),'' "Gevurah (discrimination)," "Tiphereth (high),'' "Netzach (eternity),'' "Hord (brilliance),'' and "Yesod (foundation).'' The lowest Sefirah below is Malkut (Kingdom), which is said to represent the earthly, material world where humans live.”

Yeah we aren’t the ones pushing a metaphor, Evangelion itself actively emphasizes Kabbalistic concepts as part of its cosmology, especially in regards to how souls ascend following Instrumentality. According to Kaworu himself, he must undertake the journey from Malkuth to Keter after ascending the Tree of Life to reach the Ayin Sof, the Absolute All, an intentional and direct reference to God's self-manifestation that exists before the creation of the physical and spiritual worlds. And from there its ties to the Anti-Universe are simple, where it is the realm treated as the origin for the Seeds of Life and constructs like the Spears and is directly called the "World of God" and is where God resides. Human Instrumentality is directly referenced in the series as the "Path to Adam Kadmon", in which guidebooks directly state that Adam Kadmon is merely an emanation or manifestation of "God". Instrumentality itself being set in motion by "God" for the purpose of the deification of all souls.

So in that regard, given Eva is very heavy handed with its emphasis that the Anti-Universe is disconnected, transcendental analogous to the Ein Sof over the Tree of Life, and multiple characters explicitly have an R>F relationship with the rest of the cosmology upon attaining that level of power/perspective, we felt Outer Eva was a relatively safe argument to push all things considered. And we didn’t really need to go that far out for evidence, as a vast majority of these statements come from guidebooks from the OG series and the Rebuild films. Only several statements from ANIMA, one from the RPG, and one from Legend of The Piko Piko Middle School Students were used as supporting arguments. To be completely frank, this all fit the textbook definition of Outer so well, with so many explicit on-screen scenes + guides & supplementary material backing up we were kinda confused (albeit not surprised) by some of the disagreement with it. 

However another point to be made from that is that perhaps looking at the guides for the original Eva series supporting all this doesn’t hold up when scaling for the OG series. That effectively the aforementioned guide statements were simply using allegories and imagery of Kabbalistic tradition and explaining what they were for the original series and only later entries like the Rebuilds, ANIMA, Piko Piko Middle School, etc… actually run with it meaning this was a retroactive change to the cosmology & scaling. This is probably a valid point in isolation, but again even if you had a matchup using exclusively NGE Shinji he already has a statement of creating a Many Worlds Interpretation-style multiverse at his peak, has wincons like Instrumentality, and still retains his state of omnipresence per the manga that Ultraman can’t counter. It also would not totally affect the R>F arguments because, again, the core of the arguments are from the Rebuild films and the Asuka anniversary special, which we felt had enough weight on its own.

Flip/Riku: There were also follow-ups on why we didn’t account for Ultraman fighting heralds of Galactus and the Big G himself in the Marvel crossover. This was already addressed at the beginning of the blog, but for clarity’s sake the simple answer is that while it’s canon to Earth-616, we weren’t giving crossover scaling to either character. It’s also very much non-canon to mainline Ultraman, as it presents different versions of Man-Niisan & Shin Hayata that aren’t compatible with their original histories, this isn’t remotely similar to other franchises that are actually connected like that and would benefit from scaling to each other. We just gave a bit of softcomp to represent that iteration, but imagine how lame a verdict for EVANGELION VS ULTRAMAN to be about idk Thor vs Simon the Digger scaling. Also, Shinji would still hax stomp even if we used this version of Ultraman and him scaling to higher layers of Outer. Another thing I want to add is that the whole scenario in the crossover with the Avengers is that they are fighting a very hungry Galactus, even Taro and Father of Ultra only get involved because Galactus is hankering for food and tries eating the Land of Light. Of course, a hungry Galactus is still pretty freaking strong, but he's nowhere near his peak, which would be a well-fed Galactus (and probably where those fabulous secret powers you mistakenly thought Ultraman scaled to actually come from).

“Why was Shinji soft composited?” / “Does he need soft compositing in order to win?” / “How strong should EVA-01 and Ultraman be only using their original series (The NGE Animated Series and the Ultraman Live-Action Series)? Who would win then?”

Cardinal: In regards to “soft comp” Shinji for the blog, again we were running off really just using EoS Shinji at the end of the Rebuilds, who not only explicitly is aware of all past iterations of the Evangelion story but we know as well that even just attaining Instrumentality or becoming an Adam causes one to become omnipresent across creation as you fuse with the World Tree. Heck Yui’s circumstances in Campus Apocalypse caused all versions of her to become linked together when she fused with the World Tree (a process confirmed to happen under Instrumentality in guidebooks for the OG series). OG series guides also cite that succeeding in Instrumentality and fusing with the Tree of Life causes one to have complete knowledge over all Creation, including all experiences and possibilities. Therefore Shinji would absolutely know everything that’s occurred across the multiverse and the many iterations of Evangelion that’s occurred, reinforced again by Shinji in the Rebuilds outright stating he now remembers past loops after gaining godhood at the end of the film. We just felt it was straightforward enough to implement.

As for needing it to win? Well… no. Being strict with just the OG series, Yui is still present and can reform him from severe physical damage like being turned into LCL and Instrumentality, even if it directly wouldn’t kill Ultraman and you remove the info-level effects that other entries like the Rebuild films add to it, still grants Shinji the power to control the collective consciousness of all humanity, which as mentioned in the BTVs of the blog is something Ultras are vulnerable to given beings like the Pillar explicitly managed to defeat Ultraman Arc this way, his host Yuma Hize taking unspecified time in this world without Ultras or Kaiju to restore him through his imagination. Adding on the other entries just kinda seals the deal. Of course, restricting Ultraman to only his original show would make it even worse for him.

Also to reiterate what Flip/Riku said, because it’s a trend that people completely forget the previous questions & answers in QnAs like this, even if we gave Ultraman his crossovers with Marvel, which again are non-canon as opposed to Shinji’s case explicitly being canon (or at least canon-adjacent given the acknowledgement of the multiverse & loops) Shinji hax stomps regardless. Hell, opening up wider crossovers would just place both equal in stats and then you’d get Shinji still winning off hax (or if anything a Shinji upscale in AP since he is rarely ever in Impact mode in crossovers like Super Robot Wars meaning later states like Infinite Sync in 3.0 + 1.0 would have AP advantage over Ultraman).

“How would you predict DB would handle scaling Shinji? Do you think they might just use the OG show or would they soft comp him like what they did previously (to other series)?”

Kaiser: Depends on who they choose, but if it's Ultraman we predict it'll be the same as this blog. After Shadow vs Mewtwo there's no reason to be stingy, especially when Shinji has more comp justification than Mewtwo does by a lot. Also like, Simon happened, which was similar logic to Shinji. I see no reason the minimum Shinji needs to beat Ultraman would be withheld in an actual episode, especially since a lot of the appeal of this matchup is to see how strong Evangelion is when you use its auxiliary media and to analyze its legacy and all. 

“What were the roots amongst the team before researching the MU?”

Flip/Riku: Most were rooting both.

Kaiser: That. Personally speaking I entered the blog slightly preferring Ultraman, but by the end and having rewatched EoE I like Shinji more as a character. I still love both, they're the characters that are the most dear to me that we have used so far. 

“How did y'all feel the moment you realized Shinji won?”

Flip/Riku: We ALL thought Ultraman would stomp this blog initially lol, both in AP and resisting every ability, it was kinda funny.

Kaiser: Scared, lol. We were fully aware this would be extremely controversial since Ultraman has been the consensus since forever and most people seemed to be betting on him. On top of that, many people were very adamant on limiting Shinji to nothing outside of the original series. I'm surprised the reception was mostly positive, with only a few people getting upset at the result or trying to poke holes at the logic we used (mind you, with very lacking justification, and often not even having read the blog). Reddit is a silly place, isn't it?

“How long did this actually take?”

Kaiser: 

 

“As a small fun question, what's you guys favorite media for both Eva and Ultraman you went through for the blog?”

Cardinal: Evangelion: Angelic Days, Ultraman: The OG show. I grew up with the original Ultraman dubbed in Filipino and later English, and I ended up being assigned Angelic Days for AsukaAnemone and it was a classic romcom with very soap opera-y vibes with the love triangle with Asuka & Rei with relatively low mecha involved, mostly saved for the last 1/4th of the manga (and even that served more for an emotional relationship with Kaworu)

Flip/Riku: While I revised everything and have watched the OG Show multiple times before, my work on both AsukaAnemone and ShinjiUltraman was mainly handling the main Evangelion manga and the Rebuilds, so I’d say I prefer Sadamoto’s work here. On Ultraman’s side of things, I mainly revised Ultraman episodes that arguments were made on, I would just reply with the OG show, mostly cuz of my memories with my dad. I also watched Ultraman Rising but that shit was pointless for the blog.

Kaiser: I rewatched the End of Evangelion for this, multiple loose Ultraman episodes and Shin Ultraman, so I’d say the movies I rewatched. EoE is still one of my favorite films in general. My favorite Ultra series has gotta be either Seven or Nexus, however.

“From what I understand, the cosmic ends for Evangelion aren't something every character scales, right? The blog seems to make a very big distinction to Shinji's forms and levels of synchronization, so I imagine things like Eva-00 and Eva-02 just wouldn't scale, right? Besides Shinji and Gendo, who else would scale? Does the Crimson Asuka mentioned in Anemone VS Asuka scales to the full cosmology? Or just partially?”

Kaiser: Eva-00 wouldn't scale, no, but it has access to a Lance of Longinus which would scale to the cosmology at least to a certain degree, though she wouldn’t have its crazy reality warping. Normal and Rebuild Eva-02 wouldn't scale, but her version from ANIMA would also scale to the cosmology to a certain extent. Both Lance and Crimson are probably like 5D, scaling above baseline Instrumentality and the Tree of Life. ANIMA Asuka probably beats the shit out of Soft-Comp Great Mazinger.

“If Rei were to get a blog to round up the NGE characters done in these blogs, who would you go for?”

Kaiser: Rei is a curious case because she doesn't exactly benefit that much from side-media outside of scaling because she's a completely different individual in some continuities and is full of nonstandard stuff that isn't exactly interesting in a fight. Personally I'd keep it to Rei II for a blog and only use closely related reasonable material for her and EVA-00, so no Adam fetus, no Evangelion Imaginary etc. About her opponent, the closest I can probably imagine would be Marida from Gundam Unicorn, since she'd scale way above the average Gundam and have a few hax that might be interesting to contrast with an Eva. We threw around doing Suletta as well, and we might, given it's a popular MU and a lot of people want to know where she scales. Not very interested in Lapis. When I was reading the reactions to this blog on Reddit I found out Rei was a matchup for Richard Nixon and Doctor Manhattan, and then I kinda gave up trying to understand this community’s Evangelion matchup takes.

Flip/Riku: On that note, would people be interested in Kaworu VS Ryo Asuka or Homura?

 

“Is there any MU you think benefits from the new meta (with comp)?” / “would Shinji highkey beat Simon-”

Kaiser: Simon for starters would be the pretty obvious pick. Shinji can now keep up in esoteric scale and hax. Under some specific interpretations, you could even push Shinji to win via stonewalling, but ymmv and there’s nothing set in stone. I personally also like Makoto Yuki from Persona 3 for Shinji, and I think it also benefits from the new stuff we found. Godzilla Ultima is also now viable, and Shinji would stomp 99.999…% of other Godzilla incarnations. As for the obvious, using the material we used also vastly improves Ultraman as a matchup and adds a lot of interesting power interactions.

Flip/Riku: I’d like to add how the new meta makes Ultraman a better matchup as well, lol. People kinda forgot how this one was seen as a much bigger stomp in favor of Ultraman compared to the current gap between Shinji and him.

“They're mostly brought up in passing (which makes sense since the matchup focuses on Shinji and Ultraman), but how big a factor would support from NERV or the SSSP be if they were to involve themselves?”

Kaiser: Not much. The SSSP are normal humans with normal human stats and any close-by AoE attack would just disintegrate them. Not to mention an Impact which would just turn everyone on the planet to Fanta. They have some strong weapons, and can maybe keep up with Shinji by using Jack from Marvel comics, but they'd probably just get low diffed and not make much of a difference. As for NERV, they can't do much to Ultraman besides sending EVA-01 its weapons. The Wunder could probably straight up kill Ultraman by ramming into him with the Spear of Gaius, but you'd probably rather give that to Shinji instead.

Flip/Riku: My GOAT Ide would put belt to ass on Shinji, but unfortunately the blog was about Hayata and Ultraman, a shame…

“What are your future hopes involving discussion surrounding this matchup, for me I think with people still debating on the legitimacy of eva's scaling from the blog there could be a back and forth on who would win especially the potential of finding new stuff for Ultraman as a verse due to its 60 years of past and ongoing content”

Kaiser: I don’t really see much “back and forth” as much as I see people outright rejecting the premise for reasons I don’t consider very substantial. “Oh you shouldn’t use the novels and Rebuild because… uhhh… it’s weird…” and similar things. People often disagree with the Outerversal arguments, but they’re not necessary for the verdict at all, as Shinji just massively haxstomps. So unless Ultraman gets buffed to get significantly above 8D, somehow be able to kill or incap Shinji with all his immortality avenues at the same time, manages to get a new insane level of regeneration, AND manages to resist all of the instant wincons Shinji has, I don’t see much changing. Some changes in resistances would have to severely contradict past entries in the Ultra series as well, such as their canon freezing weakness, among others. 

“How much would you bet that the train ride story coming to Tokyo would give some hint of a buff to Shinji?”

Kaiser: It's unironically very possible that it might give even more evidence to the Loop Theory being valid.

“Just curious as to what your favorite alts for Shinji & Ultraman are?” / “Are there alts for both characters yall would like to see if DB doesnt do this MU and if you wanna answer this part are there any least fav mu options for both?”

Cyber: Shinji vs Ayato Kamina from RahXephon or Ao Fukai from Eureka Seven Ao. The former feels like a perfect parallel to Shinji’s entire arc and the latter is a guilty pleasure. Godzilla is my favorite alt for Ultraman.

Cardinal: Shinji vs. Simon, duh. It’s one of the few fights Simon has where someone actually does match him in scale and the misc. shared abilities they have make for a really fun debate. It’s also a battle of the two (former) Gainax poster boys duking it out and you can make a lot of comparisons between OG series Shinji and early Simon as well as Rebuild Shinji and late series Simon. Also some version specific battle of Ultraman vs. Godzilla, unsure which versions yet though but am leaning both Shin vs Shin, strictly Showa era vs Showa era, or full comp for both.

Kaiser: I’m not a big fan of Shinji’s “Death Battle viable” alts such as Heero in the slightest, and I’d not be happy with any of them happening, only Ultraman. It feels incredibly boring and limiting to not use the Rebuilds for a Shinji episode, and they make it impossible for him to fight Wing Zero. I do like Godzilla vs Ultraman, but without Ultima this time because he ruins the dynamic and kinda has no reason to be used. Ultraman vs Green Lantern has been thrown around and you can probably already imagine my thoughts on that.

Flip/Riku: To be entirely honest, I’m not particularly excited with either’s alternate matchups. For example, Godzilla is (obviously) my favorite alt for Ultraman, and while I like that idea in general, I would naturally be very disappointed if they did that instead of Shinji. Everyone's entitled to their own preferences, so I just hope mine can be respected too when it comes to not being particularly interested in other potential MUs for either character. Amongst the popular options for both, not really a fan of the Gundam MUs for Shinji given it’s really hard to sell a fight without limiting Shinji too much, and I’d hate capping his potential. I think Green Lantern is probably my least favorite Ultraman MU, mostly because I'm getting really tired of East vs West matchups that feel more like an excuse to hype up the Western character than to give both franchises equal attention. I also really want Hal VS Nova so being double cucked like that would suck. Though I'm sure there's some even weirder matchup Reddit came up with that I haven't seen yet.

“Any reason in particular in why dimensions like Narak and the real world were excluded in the cosmology section for Man-Niisan? I don't think they'd change the outcome much, if at all, but I do find it slightly odd that something like the real world didn't even get like a paragraph on why its inclusion is nonapplicable (...)”

Kaiser: We know very little about Narak’s place in the cosmology beyond it being a weird pocket dimension that Tartarus can use to travel anywhere and at any time. There's nothing indicating how dimensionally transcendental in the DT sense it is regarding other higher dimensions, and it's too vaguely defined to be solidly considered a Bulk Space, unlike the Waterfall of Time or the Hyperspace. We also have no proof it was affected by the Super-dimensional Eradication Bomb, so mentioning it would just be in the context of “this weird thing exists, we don't know much about it and it doesn't scale to anyone”, thus we decided to just not mention it at all. As for the real world, we just considered it an unconvincing argument that would be kinda irrelevant to the debate, so we decided to link a very thorough debunk for it in the Verdict instead to not bloat things, and the debunk also includes it being a dimensionally transcendental realm. I agree it could have been established as bad better by us, though. By all means, please read it.

 

“ (...) Also I find the debunk on Planet Chaney a little bit odd due to the argument that it resides within the M78 which PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong, is false. The entire Darkclops Zero special resides within another unknown universe which is most represented by the clock of the ZAP team spaceship being frozen because they were in a timeline that is not their own. The clock only resumed only after they returned to their own universe thanks to the help of Ultraman Zero assisting in their escape as Darkclops Zero self destructed and erased the entire universe the special and Planet Chaney took place in. To argue that Planet Chaney is in the same Universe as the World of Light, you'd also have to argue that Darkclops is solely responsible for the complete eradication of every soul within the Land of Light (with the exception of Old Man King of course) which I'm... Semi-Sure is not true. Anyways, yall did fantastic on the blog and congrats to everyone who worked on such a great read. Have a great day!”

Cardinal: The simple answer to this is that their entire universe isn’t destroyed. The Alien Salome had shifted that entire planet into a space between universes. And you don’t need to take our word for it, as the official Tsuburaya Productions site confirms this is set in the space between universes. So the Land of Light and the rest of its native universe wasn’t affected by that subspace’s destruction, and it lines up with the Salome and Zero originating from the same universe as to why neither had to worry about the natural effect of the subspace. In general, it also doesn’t make much sense for the Alien Salome to be from alternate universe versions when A: that’s never implied in the film and we’re meant to already know who they are, and B: they already procured scans to create duplicates of the original Ultra Brothers making it more likely it’s the original Alien Salome.

"ah so the anti feat from planet Golgotha you took Out of context for an anti feat? Even though it’s located in a different universe that isn’t like ours?”

Flip/Riku: Hi. Please actually read the blog! If you read, you will see the blog we indicated it’s in a different universe! It is also not relevant at all for the weakness they displayed, they just get frozen because it's cold and that's it, they even give you the specific number and everything. In fact, databooks explicitly confirm that Ultras are consistently weak to cold and freezing, so there's no context that invalidates the anti-feat presented there.

“Why wasn’t Kyle Stronger, he can scale to infinite higher dimensions, meanwhile Simon was only 11. Also Simon has never performed that regen meanwhile kyle was killed by losing his lower half, SOMETHING THAT LANTERNS (like Guy) can’t die from. Also why did you lowball the life equation? That alone can solo the verse. Answer NOW”

Kaiser: That's the other Gainax guy down the left that killed a space cop superhero, a common mistake but they're not the same.