Inconsistencies

So in the case of inconsistencies with the VHS subtitles, how did I choose which variation would be chosen as the standard to override the other variations? Four factors were taken into consideration.

1. The first factor is the most obvious, which is the shear number of times a variation is used. If one type of variation is used overwhelmingly more than others, then I assumed the less frequently occurring variations are errors.
2. But I also paid attention to obvious shifts in which type of variation is favored. For example, if the first 60% of the series favors one type of variation, but the last 40% favors another, I would go with the latter variation, assuming that ADV had picked up on a mistake they had been making and decided to correct it. Or let’s say a variation used 60% of the time only occurs in only one episode. In that case, I would choose the variation used in more episodes even though it only accounts for 40% of all occurrences.
3. And an effort was made to preserve the aesthetic of the VHS subtitles when doing so doesn’t preserve inconsistencies in the subtitles as a whole. So in rare instances, a variation used less frequently was chosen in the spirit of preserving an aesthetic rather than obliterating it. An example is the quotation marks around an episode title when it’s spoken during the Next Episode preview. Fewer episodes have the quotation marks, but there are enough of them so that I thought an aesthetic would be lost by removing the quotes entirely. And since applying this style doesn’t produce an inconsistency when compared to the rest of the subtitles, it was used as the standard for spoken dialog during the Next Episode previews.
4. Lastly—and this was in rare instances, pretty much as a last resort—Evangelion-specific terminology commonly used on the Internet was used as the standard. An example is “B-type equipment” versus “type-B equipment” (where the actual letter used varies based on which of the various types of Eva equipment is specified).

It should be noted that recurring full-screen typography such as episode titles (and the To Be Continued and NEXT EPISODE screens at the end of each episode) has also been made consistent throughout the series, adhering to the design that occurs most frequently in (and in the lattermost episodes of) the VHS tapes. Certain aspects of these special formats (such as fades and colors) have also been changed based on the Platinum Edition, which is a release that features design choices that I expect are closer to the original Japanese episodes.

In a future release, expect to see the data that was used in determining which variation would be used as the standard for correcting inconsistencies (corrections that were then documented in the Corrections.ods spreadsheet included in the download), as well as notes as to why a particular variation was chosen when the answer isn’t evident in the numbers themselves.