"goat" <goat@goat.goat> wrote in message news:<1062872222.49752.0@echo.uk.clara.net>...
> When I first watched the series, it was only when it was actually said that
> Ritsuko was having sex with Gendo that I realised that she was heterosexual.

So that means she isn't a lesbian per se. Although that doesn't rule
out a third option.

> There are so many hints that she is a lesbian. She says a few times that she
> thinks that relationships between men and women are illogical, that she is
> "the sort of woman who'll never have children of her own" (I thought it was
> pretty blatent that she was into women at that point) and she taunts Misato
> about being the only one of their group of friends not married by the age of
> 30, but doesn't include herself in this. She also hates seeing Misato with
> Kaji (jealous of him?) and thinks that Shinji living with Misato is sick.

None of these point in that direction, however. I find it completely
plausible that someone would consider themselves unfit to bring up
children, or indeed be in a mature relationship at all (Gendo is
definitely not mature), while being, at a very clear level,
heterosexual. Not everyone is meant to be a family person.

> Then there are the stereotypes, which anime is never shy of using. She lives
> alone with a houseful of cats, she has short hair and a gruff voice (you can
> tell there's testosterone there), she dresses in men's clothes when not at
> work and dresses to intimidate men when at work (under her labcoat it looks
> like she's in bondage gear). Her jaw is pretty square which gives her a
> male-looking face and she has an interest in what a lot of ppl would call
> "boy's toys" (you know, computers and electronics and shit). If I didn't
> know better, Id say that Ritsuko was a 'lipstick lesbian'.

I suppose Maya is a foregone conclusion for you then. Misato seems
just as assertive to me as does Ritsu -- and who's the battle
commander?

> Does anyone else think that Anno originally intended for Ritsu to be a
> lesbian, but changed his mind near the end of the series (there are a lot of
> things in Eva that seem to be made up as the story unfolds)? t seems that
> her character does a complete 180 in the last 2 eps and she suddenly decides
> that she is straight after all.

I think she was never intended to have a 'personal life' of the same
sort as many of the other characters. She's a bride of science, in
many ways.

As for EoE, I've never been a fan of the "complementation proves that
at least one of them is a lesbian" theory, though I can't prove it
either way.

--------------------
Drinian: http://www.duke.edu/~amt13/