At 10:42 PM 5/11/98 +1000, you wrote:

I just thought I'd point out in the interest of versimilitude that the
word for angel (as in winged-messenger-from-heaven-etc.) is
"tenshi", whereas the word use in Evangelion to describe the
enemy creatures is "shito", pronounced "shto", which means
"disciple".

I've learned more about ins and outs of Japanese language and culture from
David...

In contrast to this statement, though, a lot of the plot of Evangelion
depends on this confusion. I'll be the first to admit that I've only seen
one episode of Evangelion in original Japanese, but in a few places it's
important that the skyscraper sized attacking nasty things are confused
with 'messengers of God' as Shinji puts it. (In the dub at least).

There's a lot of confusion about the issue in the Anime, and I assume in
the manga as well, even though I've only got my hands on one issue. The
angels, as the Seele committee puts it, are named and described in the Dead
Sea Scrolls. This, IMHO, lends a little bit of legitimacy to the semantic
confusion that David mentioned. There's not a lot of differences between
'Disciples of God' and 'Messengers of God'. 

I think also, that director Anno's intent (I can't comment about Sadamoto's
intent since I've only read one issue of the manga) that the Angels *were*
in a  way messengers from the heaven, in much the same way as some of the
darker angels described in the Old Testament. (I'm not a biblical scholar
either, so don't string me up)

Some proof for this comes from the title, as well. As Andrew put it, in
'Evanjellydoughnut', "Did anyone notice that there's an 'Angel' in
'Ev*Angel*ion'." ^_^ Whether it's intentional or not is another matter...

I think that, while David makes a good point, that there is room for
semantic discussion of this difference in fanfics. Let us also not forget
that, and I beleive this is in 'Revelations', that Lucifer took one third
of the creator's angels when he defied God. 'Shito' in Evangelion might not
be referring to disciples of the Almighty.

I rather like the idea of a fic in which an Evangelion unit and it's pilot
*count* as a dark, Old Testament style angel, and the enemy 'Angels'
represent  the forces of Satan.

Any takers? 
* * *
Chris Jones - hamster@arn.net

The Ranma 1/2 Gallery: http://cyberwheel.simplenet.com/ranma