Category: Evangelion

Evangelion Session 4: E11-12

Almost normal mecha show episodes: NERV HQ is shut down by unknown attackers by unknown means so everyone has to infiltrate the base and do a launch manually. Security really isn't very good when the power's down, three children are able to break into NERV. And then the orbital bombardment… Accurately understands the kinetic power of dropping things from orbit. The "miracle" of holding your hands up and wishing (OK, with an AT Field) is a little cutesy.

Maybe the NSA shut NERV down with STUXNET. You know in this setting the US espionage services would be incredibly perturbed at Japan having such an essential resource, we've seen "UN" ships with very obviously US-supplied Naval officers being pissy about it.

Misato's backstory and damage, similar to Shinji's and Asuka's, leaves her easy prey for Gendo's schemes. All the awkward people are excluded at the party, while the noisy ones make a mess. The phone call with Shinji and Gendo is just terrible, "Don't put him through ". Then later, all Shinji notices is that this is the first time his father's ever praised him. He can't even notice Asuka's abuse. There's long stretches of Asuka screaming at people I just tune out (and I know perfectly well why I react that way from my own psychological damage).

The Angel designs in this one are very goofy, the Johnny Quest-looking spider with dripping eye-chor, and the orbital happy-face thing. As we'll see later, there's not a universal leader behind the Angels, Adamic life doesn't seem to be able to coordinate or communicate with each other (and only occasionally with the Humans), they're just trying to reach Adam or Lilith, so each one comes up with its own plan and carries it out.

While sailing to the Antarctic recovering the Spear of Longinus, Gendo & flunky muse that Humans survive because of Science. I think it's more that a swarm of Humans collaborate, which beats the vastly superior solitaire Angels.

Evangelion Session 3: E08-10

Asuka strikes! The terror of the show. The worst Human who could possibly be one of the Children. Great T&A fanservice as long as you don't mind her terrible shrieking voice or brutal abuse of everyone around. So, the kind any project attracts. "Why is she so bossy?" "Why are guys always so stupid and horny?!" Gee, Asuka, I dunno, maybe it's because you strip-tease in front of them and then get mad when they look? It's impressive how Rei just shuts her down, though: "I'll be your friend if I'm ordered to."

Once there's more than one of the Children, the expression "First Children", "Second", "Third" seems weird; it's literal English in the Japanese script, but should have been "Child" or "of the Children" and then you'd ask "whose children? Why Gendo's?!" And speaking of, Gendo spends no time in the base; Rei would be lonely if she knew what that was. Shinji's used to his absence.

Dance Dance Evangelion ep is ridiculous, reminds me very much of the comedy filler episodes of Slayers. Synchronized tooth-brushing and dancing just so they can hit a target at once. But it does start to humanize Asuka, which Rei still hasn't had.

Magma bath has Asuka behaving slightly less awful. She's still a bossy prima donna, and her crush on Kaji is ridiculous but nobody's yet called her on it, but she actually steps up and does her job for once with a minimum of screaming hissy-fit. It won't last.

But here and the first Asuka ep we finally get to see the lifecycle of the Angels, or more accurately Adamic life, starting as Human-like fetuses but almost instantly developing according to genetic programming. Interesting parallel to the Perfect Being in The Fifth Element; designed to look like a person, but she's far far more than that, and can be regrown from just a few cells.

Back in the day, this is where the first sequence of bootleg tapes ran out, and there was a long interregnum, I think most of a year, before we got more. So there was an over-analysis of these, which isn't really helpful because so much more backstory was written later.

(I got the toy in a LootCrate. Obviously, I would much rather have had Misato or Rei; this one keeps yelling at me.)

Evangelion Session 2: E05-07

Stopped just short of Asuka. That's too much to leave as a cliffhanger for one day.

Rei's early appearances are even more stiff and awkward with everyone except Gendo than I'd recalled. She is an utter robot, not even autistic or depressed and withdrawn, but just not there. That weird smile is almost worse than nothing.

Misato in a towel, and Rei in a towel or nothing at all, the fanservice was a little heavy still, but less than the first few eps. Misato's morning ritual is how I lived my 20s, too, but sooner or later that catches up with you. Just coffee now.

The "Human weapon" ep… if you wondered how cold and calculating Ritsuko and Gendo are…

If you're missing the old ED music instead of Rei's theme, because the songwriter and 26 artists couldn't make a deal with Netflix:

  • Every "Fly Me to the Moon": I recommend watching it now, maybe youtube-dl if you want to keep it. (minor annoyance: It's in webm, so I now have 4 CPU cores on fire[^1] trying to convert it to mp4)

The reviews are in!

Netflix isn't providing subs for some of the text screens, but they're usually duplicated later in English (at second commercial break?). I can read enough kana to recognize things like the roommate chore board being all シ (Shi, for Shinji) and just a few ミ (Mi, for Misato), which is funny because she won't even do those days. This is really motivating me to get back to learning Japanese properly, because just reading nonsense words is frustrating. I accept that my calligraphy will always be shit.

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Evangelion Session 1: E01-04

In the distant future of 2015… after the Second Impact in 1999… SIGH. Those seemed like plausible "future" times when this came out, really.

Netflix defaulted to JP/subtitles for me, but I tried the EN dub for about 15 minutes. It's OK, maybe better/more literal than the old one? Nobody sounds goofy, Shinji's very mild, as he should be. But I went back to JP, at least for this first time thru. Might do a dub watch second run.

This is the Netflix English dub actors list:

Looking some of these up, they're interesting choices. Several also appear in the new Gundam dubs. The Shinji actor Casey Mongillo being a transwoman is very appropriate, given Shinji's gender ambivalence.

It's weird that Netflix changed the "Fly Me to the Moon" cover from the end credits, it's just incidental music now. Rights problems? I never felt it was really appropriate, but I only sit thru the end credits to see the "next episode" bit, which is A) Not very spoilery, and B) sometimes contains in-jokes. "More fanservice" is not so much a joke as self-awareness; there's a lot of T&A from Misato and even scientist Ritsuko in early eps.

I am just as much in love with Misato as I was when I first saw her. When she kicks her clock and wakes up looking like a storm hit. Whoo.

Get in the damn robot, Shinji. And follow Misato's orders, ya little creep. I'd forgotten about the blackout/flashback structure of E01-02. The dumbass schoolkids are great for illustrating how weird Shinji is, but they're an annoying distraction the rest of the time, and they mostly get dropped later.

The constant SDAT rewinding of tracks 25 & 26…

Only goes up to 22, so I dunno how he's listening to the last two eps (yes, I know Shinji doesn't have the OST to his own show on his SDAT. OR DOES HE?!)

Neon Genesis Evangelion

There's lots of theories about what order to watch. Just watch it straight through, maybe no more than 2-4 eps per day because this is some heavy shit for what's ostensibly a "mecha anime". Definitely watch eps 25 & 26 and then the movie, End of Evangelion. Evangelion Death(True)² is a recap/remake which is entirely optional, but fine afterwards; I barely recall Death & Rebirth.

If you're very confused, that's fine, that means its working. Keep watching.