I really feel I have to watch NGE again! your analyses are so rich and intriguing, and they make me feel excited all over again about how weird the story is
also, I laughed a lot at this: “In a classic Evangelion combination of emotional resonance and cheesecake…” (and also the observation that every day in a basement is a Tuesday; I am kind of in the eternal-Tuesday confusion rn too, but I don’t even have a basement as an excuse!)
haha well the real reason for eternal Tuesday is that I am unemployed (sorry—I am "working" on a "book") but it's more fun to blame the basement….
I think episode fourteen is when the show starts kicking into weird gear, since it's like half a recap episode and half a reminder that whatever the Eva units are, they're alive and creepy as hell. But I've had a lot of internal arguments with myself about it (and haven't watched past fourteen yet… the way I'm doing this is staying a little ahead on a first rewatch and then rewatching week of and taking notes). There's a definite point at which the fun is over, but it might not come until somebody dies.
also loved this observation: “Gendo cannot abide multiplicity—a sterile and dead but homogenous and sinless world is preferable to a messy living world where things live and die.”
Part of the problem with reading these recaps having not watched the episodes in a couple of years is that I keep wondering if my impressions of characters are accurate or misremembered/misattributed/hallucinated (this is compounded by having immediately followed the show with the subtly different "redo"). Its funny I apply this level of scrutiny to TV characters and not, say, the people I went to high school with.
Anyways: I feel like Misato doesn't just have similar daddy issues to Shinji, her original instinctive response to trauma is the same as well, which is to pull away from people and retreat inward, and she's overcome that over time. We'll see if that gets backed up later or if I've missed the mark, but regardless I've always felt like she is a little extra-performative around Shinji, precisely because she relates to what he's going through and is trying to show him there is another way to be.
On a metanarrative level, I'm never sure how far ahead of the story Anno was actually working when these episodes were being produced and I would love to see someone's sources to clarify it. I know that animation traditionally has long-lead times, but I'm not sure if that's as much of a thing in Japan, and all of Anno's work has this seat-of-the-pants energy that makes it feel like it was being made up on the fly based on the mood he was in and the budget he had left. Which, perhaps not coincidentally, mirrors the energy of Nerv itself, with Misato devising plans and the pilots executing them on the fly, and it all works right up until the moment it doesn't. Which is just to say, its possible that when this episode was being created, Anno still hoped it was going to have more a traditional arc where Shinji reconciled with his father, which would mean it is not intentional misdirection.
Also, based on what I've just written, new bullshit theory: Shinji is based on the parts of Anno he does not like about himself exaggerated to the extreme, and Misato is more of a classic wish-fulfillment projection character that represents the kind of person he wishes he was/maybe feels like when he's actually doing a good job keeping all of the pieces of his life balanced. Probably not true, but I'll work with it for now, if only because it makes it interesting to ask why the wish-fulfillment part of his personality is a 20-something woman with legs for days.
Well, I suppose the thing about TV characters is that they are what they are forever, whereas a person you once knew would not be the person you knew then if you encountered them now etc—in art there is a finite amount of information that exists, so you can get things wrong or right.…
I have a bunch of "making of Eva" stuff a friend sent me that I'm deliberately not reading yet (I think I will go to it whenever this series reaches End of Evangelion). However there's so much in the opening credits that goes on to matter later I do think he must have had it mostly plotted out.
When they’re at the party and Shinji says he doesn’t understand why they always have to get worked up and be loud, god I’ve never related to him more.
This is probably one of the most visually beautiful episodes I think. There’s that shot when the pilots are in the lift and they’ve finished talking and we see the three of them from behind, evenly spaced, and then they reach the top and their bodies are thrown into darkness and we see the three giant Eva heads past them. Just breathtaking
yes, that shot stood out to me too! and the episode is put together in such an interesting way, weaving around in time (even though she and Shinji must have had the conversation about her father after the party, we see it later, etc).
Misato is the character I most relate to. Like you mention, much of her personality is a choice. She's had a troubled past and is working to make the world better for and keep a cheerful face. Though she breaks from time to time, she's working to do the right thing most of the time and she's got the most relatable flaws. Sometimes I feel we see Eva through her eyes.
She knows the kids, Nerv, and any reveal includes her. As she gains rank and knowledge so do we. Often she knows the right thing to do tells others and just like us the viewer is completely ignored as events occur. She invites the story into her home, just as we do as viewer. And just as she'll leave everyone to their own devices while she's trying to work on more important things we do the same.
Anyway I've been enjoying these and I'm rewatching along since it's been years since I had last watched.
I am slightly talking through my hat here because I don't have like… encyclopedic knowledge of 70s and 80s anime… but to me Misato feels like a character that hadn't really been done before—everybody else in Eva has clear antecedents of some kind, but she feels new to me. She's certainly one of anime's most convincing "adult women"—she makes her own money and pays her own bills, she has a history, she drives her terrible car, etc. She understands there are things she should not put on the children (though she slips up sometimes). The scene where she breaks down sobbing over Kaji's phone message (which is obviously a ways off) has really stuck with me over the years even though I haven't rewatched the episode yet… such a deep and raw expression of grief in a show where people often either don't have time to grieve or, like Gendo, live in denial of grief.
I really feel I have to watch NGE again! your analyses are so rich and intriguing, and they make me feel excited all over again about how weird the story is
also, I laughed a lot at this: “In a classic Evangelion combination of emotional resonance and cheesecake…” (and also the observation that every day in a basement is a Tuesday; I am kind of in the eternal-Tuesday confusion rn too, but I don’t even have a basement as an excuse!)
haha well the real reason for eternal Tuesday is that I am unemployed (sorry—I am "working" on a "book") but it's more fun to blame the basement….
I think episode fourteen is when the show starts kicking into weird gear, since it's like half a recap episode and half a reminder that whatever the Eva units are, they're alive and creepy as hell. But I've had a lot of internal arguments with myself about it (and haven't watched past fourteen yet… the way I'm doing this is staying a little ahead on a first rewatch and then rewatching week of and taking notes). There's a definite point at which the fun is over, but it might not come until somebody dies.
I am also unemployed (“working” on…??? but it ends next Tuesday which will probably be of huge huge benefit to my awareness of time!)
next "Tuesday," you say? "Tuesday"? hmmmmmm
also loved this observation: “Gendo cannot abide multiplicity—a sterile and dead but homogenous and sinless world is preferable to a messy living world where things live and die.”
Part of the problem with reading these recaps having not watched the episodes in a couple of years is that I keep wondering if my impressions of characters are accurate or misremembered/misattributed/hallucinated (this is compounded by having immediately followed the show with the subtly different "redo"). Its funny I apply this level of scrutiny to TV characters and not, say, the people I went to high school with.
Anyways: I feel like Misato doesn't just have similar daddy issues to Shinji, her original instinctive response to trauma is the same as well, which is to pull away from people and retreat inward, and she's overcome that over time. We'll see if that gets backed up later or if I've missed the mark, but regardless I've always felt like she is a little extra-performative around Shinji, precisely because she relates to what he's going through and is trying to show him there is another way to be.
On a metanarrative level, I'm never sure how far ahead of the story Anno was actually working when these episodes were being produced and I would love to see someone's sources to clarify it. I know that animation traditionally has long-lead times, but I'm not sure if that's as much of a thing in Japan, and all of Anno's work has this seat-of-the-pants energy that makes it feel like it was being made up on the fly based on the mood he was in and the budget he had left. Which, perhaps not coincidentally, mirrors the energy of Nerv itself, with Misato devising plans and the pilots executing them on the fly, and it all works right up until the moment it doesn't. Which is just to say, its possible that when this episode was being created, Anno still hoped it was going to have more a traditional arc where Shinji reconciled with his father, which would mean it is not intentional misdirection.
Also, based on what I've just written, new bullshit theory: Shinji is based on the parts of Anno he does not like about himself exaggerated to the extreme, and Misato is more of a classic wish-fulfillment projection character that represents the kind of person he wishes he was/maybe feels like when he's actually doing a good job keeping all of the pieces of his life balanced. Probably not true, but I'll work with it for now, if only because it makes it interesting to ask why the wish-fulfillment part of his personality is a 20-something woman with legs for days.
Well, I suppose the thing about TV characters is that they are what they are forever, whereas a person you once knew would not be the person you knew then if you encountered them now etc—in art there is a finite amount of information that exists, so you can get things wrong or right.…
I have a bunch of "making of Eva" stuff a friend sent me that I'm deliberately not reading yet (I think I will go to it whenever this series reaches End of Evangelion). However there's so much in the opening credits that goes on to matter later I do think he must have had it mostly plotted out.
When they’re at the party and Shinji says he doesn’t understand why they always have to get worked up and be loud, god I’ve never related to him more.
This is probably one of the most visually beautiful episodes I think. There’s that shot when the pilots are in the lift and they’ve finished talking and we see the three of them from behind, evenly spaced, and then they reach the top and their bodies are thrown into darkness and we see the three giant Eva heads past them. Just breathtaking
yes, that shot stood out to me too! and the episode is put together in such an interesting way, weaving around in time (even though she and Shinji must have had the conversation about her father after the party, we see it later, etc).
Misato is the character I most relate to. Like you mention, much of her personality is a choice. She's had a troubled past and is working to make the world better for and keep a cheerful face. Though she breaks from time to time, she's working to do the right thing most of the time and she's got the most relatable flaws. Sometimes I feel we see Eva through her eyes.
She knows the kids, Nerv, and any reveal includes her. As she gains rank and knowledge so do we. Often she knows the right thing to do tells others and just like us the viewer is completely ignored as events occur. She invites the story into her home, just as we do as viewer. And just as she'll leave everyone to their own devices while she's trying to work on more important things we do the same.
Anyway I've been enjoying these and I'm rewatching along since it's been years since I had last watched.
This is very well put!
I am slightly talking through my hat here because I don't have like… encyclopedic knowledge of 70s and 80s anime… but to me Misato feels like a character that hadn't really been done before—everybody else in Eva has clear antecedents of some kind, but she feels new to me. She's certainly one of anime's most convincing "adult women"—she makes her own money and pays her own bills, she has a history, she drives her terrible car, etc. She understands there are things she should not put on the children (though she slips up sometimes). The scene where she breaks down sobbing over Kaji's phone message (which is obviously a ways off) has really stuck with me over the years even though I haven't rewatched the episode yet… such a deep and raw expression of grief in a show where people often either don't have time to grieve or, like Gendo, live in denial of grief.