On the flip side of Death and rebirth: they (the narrators ir the
voice of rei and a couple of other members) indicate that ist is a
translation issue.

If I remeber what little jap[anese I know there are situations where
there either is no singular form of the verb or no plural form of the
verb.

The same thing applies to tense for verbs (in some cases there is  no
past present future tense as we understand it) and as a result Child
and Children become one in the same.

On Mon, 12 Aug 2002 08:47:54 +1000, "Michael Wignall"
<wigs@evangelion.com> wrote:

>"Richard Liang" <rhliang@interchange.ubc.ca> wrote in message
>news:3D56D6A3.4020906@interchange.ubc.ca...
>> Michael Wignall wrote:
>> >"nickay420" <removethisnickay@charter.net> wrote in message
>> >news:ulbjti6qrbiq4f@corp.supernews.com...
>> >>if shinji is the third child, rei the second, and asuka
>> >> the fourth.. then who was the first?
><Snip>
>> >There is no such thing as a "Child" title designating
>> >a pilot in the original Japanese version of Evangelion.
>> >They use the English word "Children" and they use it
>> >on purpose (ie it is not a mistake).
>> >
>> Is there an official explanation to this?  I had heard
>> that it was  because collectively the Rei clones were
>> considered the "First Children"  and to keep people
>> from catching on they designated them all "children".
>
>That is the theory, but no there has never been an
>"official explanation" given as far as I know. It is
>known however that the use of the English term
>"Children" was intended, and there was meaning
>behind it.