Neon Genesis Evangelion – 21/22 – Throwback Thursday

Welcome to this weeks episode of Neon Genesis Evangelion, as presented by the History channel. This week we get into the history of one major character and multiple tertiary characters. Touching on everything from the origin of Angels to Asuka’s family! So without further ado, lets dive in.

Starting off, we have an infamous scene I want to look at this week. You know it, I know it, everyone knows it, it’s the elevator. And my opinion is… it’s not as bad as people joke. I understand what Anno was going for here, portraying the awkward silence between these two characters. Showing rather than telling, until eventually Asuka cracks, since Rei never would. That makes sense. However, it’s not near as brilliant as the supporters say, it serves its purpose. The issue though is that this was an incredibly dull 50 seconds of a mostly static image. Nothing really happened to break it up, excluding Asuna coughing once. There was no elevator music to keep someone even slightly invested. It just say there, until the viewer checked their stream/video to make sure it hadn’t froze. So from a narrative standpoint it works, but entertainmentwise it fails miserably.

As for the episodes content, let’s start with episode 21, The Birth of NERV. I don’t know what I was expecting when I started up the episode, but backstory wasn’t it. Typically this is the kind of thing you have earlier on in the series. So I assumed Evangelion wouldn’t just dump it all on us near the end. How wrong I was, as we get large chunks of multiple secondary characters backstories, and as a whole I was… meh on it. It’s not that the content was bad, but rather the structure wasn’t conducive to understanding. Evangelion hops between multiple times, all of them out of order, all to deliver specific scenes after each other. As appreciative as I am of the content, and how it ties into the political B plot we will talk about, I don’t think it worked. Let your audience understand first, be artist second.

Outside the complaints though, what about the actual content? Well I think there was a lot of interesting stuff in here. For instance we met both Ritsuko and Shinji’s mothers, all the way up to their deaths. For the first, I am not entirely sure what happened. I can’t tell if Gendo planned her suicide, dragging her along in a relationship for the Magi Project only to push her away at the end, or if it was an accident. Regardless, we saw both her and Rei die and yet… Rei lives in the present. More proof she’s a clone. Meanwhile Shinji’s mother opened up a lot of questions about the Eva Units. Both in where they came from, what is in them and their history. However one stands out above all else to me: Is Shinji’s mother inside Eva Unit 01?

I ask because she seemingly dies in an experiment in the episode, in NERV headquarters. NERV is without a doubt working on the Eva Units at this time, and we know from the Magi that they can upload human minds. Was this an initial attempt at the Plug Suit projects that resulted in her getting stuck/fused with Eva Unit 01? It would explain a lot of the imagery Shinji has seen inside of the unit. As both times he has been stuck inside of it, both with the Orb Angel and just recently, he has experienced motherly visions. I always interpreted that as his own desires/the Angels, but could it be the Eva Unit’s? It gets even clearer when you look at how he has escaped each time, both littered with Birth imagery, even explaining why Rei can’t use it. I hope Evangelion explores this more moving forward.

Meanwhile in all of this, we learn a lot about the 2nd Impact and what caused it. Previously we were lead to believe that an Angel touched Adam, or that the Angel’s cause it. But this episode makes it pretty clear that isn’t the case. Rather it was Gendo and Stele who did so, most likely during their initial Eva Unit testings. Perhaps they were trying to clone it, triggering the 2nd Impact and ruining the world? However that doesn’t answer how Adam got from the South Pole to underneath NERV, apparently in a very similar domed cavern that wasn’t made by man. I am rambling here, but this makes me wonder, was the one under the South Pole actually Adam? Or was/is there an “Eve” somewhere? A 2nd original Angel that they failed experimenting on, and they plan/are trying again with Adam? Once again, some interesting stuff.

Theorycrafted ramblings aside, we can finally get to the other half of the episode, the political B plot. Personally, I think this suffered just as much, if not more so, from the episodes off structure. It was difficult to follow what exactly was happening as it aired, requiring me to really go back and analyze the order of events just to get a handle on it all. Meanwhile the actual politics of the whole situation just aren’t that interesting. We have Seele, basically the Illuminati, with some secret plan for the Eva Unit’s we know nothing about. Gendo, who works for them, but clearly has plans of his own involving Rei, Adam and the Eva Units. Then we have Kaji, who works for Gendo (?), getting him samples of Adam among other things, who dies rescuing Fuyutsuki from a… meeting?

Simply put, Evangelion gives the viewer nothing to work with on the political B plot. It only ever builds more and more on the mystery, never really revealing enough to let the viewer guess what is happening. Only really name-dropping things and projects, like the Dead Sea Scrolls, or the Human Instrumentality Project. Neither of which actually mean anything because they haven’t been talked about or revealed in any meaningful way. Compared to the Angel plot, it has been a 2nd almost non-existent fiddle throughout the story. There is no doubt in my mind its going to come up soon, whether it be Gendo manufacturing Angels or trying to merge all of humanity into their own “Adam” ala Mass Effect and its Reapers. But whatever happens, I don’t think it’s going to land all that well, because of how poorly this political side plot works with the main Angel one.

Moving on, we have episode 22, At Least, Be Human. This was another episode of primarily backstory, however I enjoyed this one quite a bit more, for a number of reasons. First up, it was about Asuka, one of our lead characters, making it inherently more interesting than Fuyutsuki, Gendo and Ritsuko. 2nd though, I personally think this one was structured much better. Now this may seem an odd claim, since both are very similar in their presentation, but here is the difference to me. Last episode, Evangelion gave us specific dates, a timeline, and basically told us to connect the dots. All the while presenting the dots out of order. Here though, Evangelion is giving us a character, Asuka, and feeding us bits and pieces of her past to build up that character, culminating in the Angel attack. Narratively and structurally, I think it works far better than 21.

As for the contents of the flashbacks themselves, I enjoyed them for the most part. I think Evangelion did a good job her of expanding on her character. As up until now we have known Asuka is very prideful and places a lot of her worth in other peoples opinions of her. Early on in this watch, I said she was rather similar to Shinji, starved for attention and reaching for/holding onto it any way she could. This episode shows that it’s not the attention Asuka wants, but rather to be viewed as independent. She want’s to be seen as not a child/doll, but as an independent adult, and she tries a number of methods. Whether that be getting Kaji/Shinji to see her as one sexually, on part with Misato, or as one in action via her skills as an Eva Pilot.

So when both of these start to fall apart at the same time, Shinji usurping her with the Eva’s and Kaji dating Misato, it becomes to much for her. It is at this point that I want to correct something I said in an earlier episode review, where I criticized the “fanservicey” kiss scene between Asuka and Shinji. At the time I said it didn’t make sense, Shinji isn’t a competitor for Misato and it won’t make her jealous in any way. Now however it becomes clear this was just another ploy on Asuka’s part to be viewed as an adult. To be seen as desirable, if not by Kaji then by Shinji, who was starting to earn the respect she herself wants. So while at the time I had issues with it, I feel comfortable now saying that scene did it’s job. My mistake Evangelion, we all make them.

Retrospectives aside, now that Asuka has been established we can get into the Angel battle proper. I say “battle” of course, but there wasn’t much of that. Instead it was primarily an attack on Asuka’s psyche. I am not entirely sure what happened here, and Evangelion isn’t very clear I don’t think. But it appears as if the Angel is mostly just probing her mind, looking into it and bringing her memories to the fore. Forcing her to confront the her past just like the previous Angels did to Shinji. Except where Shinji seemingly accepted and moved past it all, being born anew from both of the Angels, Asuka seems to succumb. Falling inert and almost dying if it wasn’t for Rei coming in to save the day. Based on the final scene though, we can hope that Shinji is able to help her out of her slump.

For the physical side of the confrontation well… HALLELUJAH. I was expecting a lot of things, but that wasn’t one of them. Jokes and orchestral’s aside, I do think the battle itself was good. It was the perfect opponent to throw against Asuka who was looking to prove herself in a physical battle. And while all of that is big and important for her character, story wise it was Rei who made the big plays. Pulling the Lance of Longinus from Adam and not triggering a 3rd Impact like Gendo said, showing he lied. We shouldn’t be surprised really, we saw Rei pull/walk with the Lance earlier in the series and the world didn’t explode. At the same time, it shows us just how powerful this lance is, seemingly preventing Adam’s recovery and easily piercing the Angel’s AT field. So you have to wonder, how did Gendo get it?

Here is my current running theory: There were two Adams, or maybe an Adam and an Eve, that landed on earth. Eve was the one in the South Pole that caused the 2nd Impact when they woke her up, though in what way I don’t know. This explosion either created or summoned the Angels, possibly of the same species or ancestors/progenitors of Adam/Eve, to earth. It is at this point that things start to get a bit fuzzy though, as I try to work out where the Lance of Longinus came from. At this point we only really have 2 options, either Gendo made them or they came with Adam/Eve. Maybe competing for the planet, who knows, but they clearly affect them which makes me wonder: Does Gendo have more Lance’s? If he can make them, he should. If he can’t… Then at most he has one.

Finally, one last theory before we close out based on a throwaway line early on in episode 22. Apparently, Seele is making more Eva Units, 13 of them, and I have no doubt this is a bad thing. For one, they are clearly trying to take Gendo’s power as the only person with currently operating Eva Units. And two, Eva on Eva combat is awesome and it would be a shame for Evangelion to waste that, so the odds they are evil is astronomically high. All this to say, I am kinda excited for the ending, because I am expecting some kind of big blowout fight. Whether it be with Angels or Eva Units, all the pieces are in place for some kind set piece battle with giant robots, and I love it.

So all in all, how were these two episodes of Evangelion? Content wise, I think they both worked well, telling us a lot about Asuka and the world. Storyboarding/Direction wise though I think that they are night and day. With one of them watching like a barely legible essay reads and the other being a much more solid production. If you ever needed a good sample of the highs and lows of Anno’s style, these two episodes effectively fill both of those gaps. Beyond that though, I did leave episode 22 having enjoyed this weeks pair. I think it ended on a strong note with Asuka and did a good job of setting up her and Shinji’s ultimate struggle as characters. So long as Evangelion can manage to work the political B plot in well in the remaining episodes, the series should be fine.