I found the Rebuild of Evangelion series last year. Of course, like any anime fan I was already aware of Evangelion, though when I first heard of it, I must say I was not into "Robot anime". However, I later decided to try it out on a whim and bought the first two movies (3.33 has on;ly just released here in the West on home media).
This got me to look into the original series, and I now have a couple of those DVDs as well as the full manga.
The Rebuild of Evangelion series is billed as a retelling of the original Neon Genesis Evangelion, with a new ending and no relation to the previous series. However, upon further inspection, can this really be considered the truth? What if Rebuild of Evangelion is not a reboot, but a time loop sequel? I will present a few points in favour of this, per-film, starting with evidence in Evangelion 1.11.
Evangelion 1.11
Let's start at the start. The film starts off with us looking at the waves of a red ocean lapping at the sands... exactly how End of Evangelion, the true ending to the original series, ended. In fact, the whole ocean is red, like the ocean is at the climax of EoE. We see shots of Tokyo 3, and amongst those... there's an Evangelion-sized marking on one of the hillsides in the city, with its arms outstretched. It looks startlingly like the silhouette of the ptrified Mass Produced Evangelions from EoE.
The rest of the film carries on almost exactly the same as the first few episodes of the original series. There is a slight deviation when Shinji is worried about facing up to the Sixth Angel. Here, to strengthen Shinji's resolve, Misato takes him to Central Dogma (not named Terminal Dogma) where we see Lilith, pinned to the cross with the Spear of Longinus in its chest. Some of Lilith's details have changed but what matters here is the deviation in that Misato is fully aware that this is Lilith, not Adam, who makes no appearance, or even a mention, in this film.
SEELE has gone down in membership, now standing at seven members. In the original series they had almost double that membership at 12.
The last piece of evidence comes towards the film. You see the Moon, which has a blood stain across it. This blood stain is very similar to the one left when Lilith died at the end of EoE. The moon has nine coffins on it, with Kaworu Nagisa awakening from the fifth, four already being opened. Remember this: this will be significant in the next section. What we need to focus on is what Kaworu says:
"The third again, huh? You never change, do you?"
Why this is significant is because this shows Kaworu has known Shinji before. Given prrevious iterations of the character only ever had him meet with Shinji much, much later, it suggests he remembers previous versions of events.
Evangelion 2.22
Remember what I said above about the four open chests? Well, the movie has a scene showing a crucial change from the original series. In the original series, Adam, the First Angel, was awoken when the Spear of Longinus was pulled from it and he brought about Second Impact. A flashback in the film shows not Adam, but four giants of light, and four Spears of Longinus. You also see a difference in how Second Impact is portrayed: there is a black hole with four crosses in the centre of it, with a multicoloured circle extending out. Remember this, because it comes into the next section.
At the end of the film, before the preview for the next one, Kaworu in Evangelion Mark.06 hurls the Spear of Cassius (not seen previously) at an Awakened Unit 01. As Mark.06 descends to Earth, Kaworu remarks "The promised time has come, Ikari Shinji-kun. This time, at least, I will make you happy." It's a curious choice of words that suggests Kaworu has tried to make Shinji happy previously. If the time loop theory is true, perhaps Unit 01 carried out a full Third Impact in the previous timeline that caused something similar to EoE to occur.
Evangelion 3.33
The film primarily centres around the Shinji/Kaworu relationship. Kaworu gives Shinji the idea to fix the damage caused by Third Impact (damage that appears to have been done off-screen between this film and the last - debate is open as to whether Near Third Impact, triggered by Unit 01 caused this damage or whether there was a later continuation of Third Impact) by siezing the Spears of Longinus and Cassius and using those to reformat the world. Clearly, Kaworu knows the power these two Spears hold, yet when Shinji and Kaworu arrive in Central Dogma to retrieve them in Evangelion 13, they find two Spears of Longinus in their place. Shinji foolishly siezes them and triggers Fourth Impact. Here, we see into the vortex created by Fourth Impact. There, we can see a distant, moon-like object or the end of the tunnel created by the vortex. And just inside the vortex, you can see four crosses like the ones left behidn by the Adams in Evangelion 2.22.
During Fourth Impact, Kaworu dies, remarking that he will one day see Shinji again. As Shinji's Entry Plug is pulled from the awakened Evangelion 13, we see Kaworu zoom away. This could be metaphorical, but remember, there were four chests open already.
So here's where I make the point that the Impact votexes are actually time portals. Perhaps ones created solely through the Spears of Longinus cause the devastation seen in the films but the Spear of Cassius might balance that out to prevent damage while keeping a portal open. Somebody theorised that the Four 'Adams', as the four giants of light at Second Impact are called, are the remnants of previous attempts at Instrumentality, or the remnants of previous versions of Kaworu. I'm not sure on that (for how would it explain more than one Spear of Longinus?) but I'm fairly certain the whole lead-up will have Shinji go back in time to a point before Third Impact to undo the damage.
Evangelion 3.0+1.0 etc.
As my last piece, I'll point out the title of the movie is Evangelion 3.0+1.0 etc. This is curious title for a movie as opposed to 4.0, some have theorised this means to connect the fourth movie to the previous movies rather than just be a sequel. Of interest, however, is that the Japanese subtitle for the film ends with the musical symbol of an end repeat, which tells a musician to go back to the start.
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