asuka, womanhood, and misato’s yellow shirt

So, I recently discovered that the yellow shirt worn by Asuka during Episode 9, 15, and End of Evangelion is not actually Asuka’s shirt. It’s Misato’s. 

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I’m not pointing out this seemingly insignificant fact for the fun of it – because it definitely seems like a trivial, if not somewhat interesting, little detail – but like most things in Evangelion, Anno’s taken steps to imbue it with hidden and revealing character subtext. Eva often uses sequences of recurring, outwardly unimportant visual cues to tie some underlying theme to a character or characters. So why a yellow shirt? Turns out, it’s actually a pretty interesting symbol for womanhood and ill-fitting sexual expression.

More under the cut.

We see Asuka wear this yellow shirt three times throughout the course of the series (normally Asuka’s standard pajama set is a baby blue tank top/short combo, shown here). Let’s take a second to consider the first two instances (Episode 9 and Episode 15) and their pivotal common denominators. Both scenes begin with an establishing shot of Asuka emerging from the washroom, asking where Misato is. Shinji’s response is pretty standard: either Misato’s working overnight (Episode 9) or she’s coming back amply late into the evening (Episode 15). 

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So basically, Asuka is stealing into Misato’s room whenever she’s home alone with Shinji and taking the shirt. It’s actually kind of funny to think that this is all super deliberate on Asuka’s part – especially when you imagine how she must have had to scramble putting it back without stirring Misato’s suspicions in the morning – but it’s not surprising, considering Misato’s implied possessiveness over her personal belongings in general (see: lavender perfume; Kaji). But the parallels don’t stop there. 

Both instances implicate Shinji in some way – more specifically, both instances involve Asuka attempting to make a ‘pass’ at Shinji with varying but fundamentally disappointing levels of success. I use the word “pass” here very loosely, in that they’re each thinly veiled attempts at proving Asuka’s status as a legitimate, sexually viable adult woman in her own right.

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This is where we start getting our feet wet with the deeper symbolism mentioned above. Notice how big this shirt is on Asuka – it’s underscored heavily in the shots of Asuka yelling at Shinji about the Wall of Jericho and when she’s bringing up the kiss, but it could almost pass for a dress. (Think back to Asuka’s introductory yellow sundress for a moment, because it’ll become relevant soon.) In Episode 9, Asuka’s attempts at subtlety, i.e ”The Wall of Jericho”, goes painfully ignored (although Shinji does attempt to kiss Asuka in her sleep; the point being that Asuka “gets what she wants” only after her agency and consent are nullified… an insidious instance of EoE foreshadowing) so she swaps subtlety for directness and goes for a kiss in Episode 15. In both scenes, Asuka leaves disappointed, and in both scenes, Asuka is wearing Misato’s yellow shirt – which should now unambiguously strike us as a symbol for womanhood.

Even belaying her own words, there is something about Misato that Asuka wants to subconsciously emulate. Misato is older, yes, but also sexual – or at least, that’s what Asuka’s led to believe. Womanhood for Asuka designates sexual competency and desirability. And if she possesses both of these things (aka: More like Misato), it follows that she’s not a child anymore – the show goes on to reveal that childhood for Asuka both explicitly and implicitly signify trauma and loss of control. 

After Episode 15, we won’t see Asuka wear Misato’s shirt again until End of Evangelion. Reminder that Episode 15 marks a shift in Asuka’s character arc: Misato’s image in Asuka’s eyes is tarnished after her relationship with Kaji is solidified, Asuka internalizes her failures with Shinji and starts to put increased pressure on her piloting relative to Shinji and Rei, etc. But when the yellow shirt makes its final reemergence in EoE, it’s no coincidence that the setting is the same as Episode 15:

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That visual sequence right there? If you haven’t read any analysis on truncated female bodies, here’s a summarized snippet for brevity’s sake:

There are images that have become so ingrained in media that some of use have become blind to it. […] When women’s bodies are split up into pieces, so we see sexualized images of a woman’s lips of hips or breasts, women’s bodies are not women’s whole selves. When women are valued for their sexual appeal to the neglect of their many capacities, it fragments them. It says that women are primarily for the sexualized parts of them, rather than for their whole selfhood. (x)

Dragging this symbolism back down to character motivation, the implications are pretty clear. What’s more, compare the above sequence to the yellow shirt’s debut, in Episode 2…

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…where Misato perma-invites Shinji to her apartment and makes several joking passes at him in an effort to posture as the overly mellowed, flirty ‘older sister type’. Eva is a story that repeats. Notice also that Misato usually wears the shirt tucked into her shorts with the sleeves rolled up; while the shirt definitely fits Misato better than it does Asuka, it’s still a baggy shirt. This kind of womanhood doesn’t “fit” Misato quite right (as a self-professed eternal woman-child), just as it doesn’t fit Asuka.

Here’s a few more examples of Misato wearing the shirt throughout the series:

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Perhaps most interesting about all of this is that Misato’s and Asuka’s very first appearances on the show have them donning yellow in a way that suggests sexuality through the guise of fanservice; see here and here. Color is very important in Eva, most famously to denote symbolic opposition (Rei and Asuka’s hair/eye colors being blue/red and red/blue respectively; Misato and Ritsuko’s work outfits being red/black and blue/white respectively). But that’s a seperate conversation, and it requires its own separate analysis.

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It’s not for kids. 

The culmination of the hell kitchen sequence, by the way, is a fantastic and haunting way to conclude Asuka’s character. Only when Asuka begins to realize her own self-worth as more than a sum of mere parts, does Shinji come barging in demanding her presence and attentions. Only when Asuka confronts Shinji on his own objectification of her personhood, does Shinji react violently. Asuka evolves from a kind of pre-maturated desperation stage at the very beginning before finally striking out at the end and surpassing Misato’s own development entirely. And only then, does Shinji silence her because of it.

#analysis#nge: look at me!#nge: cycles of hollow joy
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