misato as she features in 3.33 feels right to me. this is the same old misato, without the forced, over the top, cheery veneer of bullshit she labored so hard under throughout her 20s and 30s. i cringe at the suggestion misato’s changed or seen a personality overhaul in Q - in way of evidence most people reference the “cruelty” with which she treats shinji in the movie. i would invite them to remember the myriad of times misato was actually, legitimately cruel to shinji in NGE/1.0/2.0:
in a surprising departure, q!misato behaves comparatively tame, suggesting at least to me that she’s matured enough to realize that bullying shinji, strong-arming him, or forcing her will upon him doesn’t work. it’s ineffective at its best, abusive at its worst.
misato sternly instructed that shinji stay in his lane - you get the sense she wants to create a wide swarth of distance between them, emotionally and physically. it’s as though misato’s come to the realization she’s not good for shinji - not good for his mental health, not good at motivating him, not good at placating him or cheering him up (that’s probably why she allowed sakura to chaperone him - sakura is nice, friendly, and open, aka all the things misato tried to be in 1.0 and 2.0). misato is doing shinji a favor and not subjecting him to her exhausting, overpowering, and often-selfish neurosis. as far as “cruelty” goes, i’d much rather have that then the screaming, slapping, (sexually abusing).
shinji is treated exceptionally well for someone responsible for the deaths of untold millions of people, at least logistically speaking. sakura kindly chaperones him around, he gets to roam semi-freely, he’s not in solitary confinement - he gets to speak to misato and ritsuko, let alone demand questions of them, to which ritsuko answers fully, truthfully, and in good faith. worse things happen to real life kids who get caught stealing from their neighborhood grocery store. some of you all act as if misato/wille threw him in a 5x5 pen and told him to eat his own shit for nutrients. when UN soldiers caught kaji stealing a can of beans from a warehouse post-impact, they proceeded to A) beat the shit out of him B) pin him to the floor with their boots and C) murder his only remaining family and friends in cold blood. compared to that, shinji is living the high life. and any angst he (rightfully, understandably) experiences, is not of misato’s doing.
Stills of a cat, breast, and eye from End of Evangelion. The breast presumably belongs to adult film actress Maiko Yūki, who was popular at the time and credited on the film by name.
According to the original proposal/draft for Neon Genesis Evangelion (furnished in 1993, nearly two years before Eva would be first broadcasted), twelve of the most powerful Angels were positioned to attack the Earth all at once, completely obliterating the United States of America in the process. This was planned for Episode 24. Makes you think.
Moreover, the drafts feature two characters/concepts that were eventually scrapped for NGE: a character named “Conrad Lawrence” and “the ancient ruins of Arka”. Conrad is described as a 67 year old UN member and “Human Complementary Plan” executive - probably an early prototype of Kiel Lorenz, seeing as he is named after the same Nazi doctor. As to who or what Akra is, no one knows, except that Akra is mentioned in the manuscript Legend of the Jews.
evangelion (and its manga series) were committed to realism to the extent that family members actually looked biologically related - in general, this is difficult to achieve in any animation medium, where stylistic convention can contribute to same face syndrome.
shinji is a perfect composite of gendo and yui’s features, but in a natural, effortless way - he’s not a random synthesis of “gendo’s eyes” and “yui’s chin” or whatever. rei looks like a young yui, but again the facsimile isn’t forced - it’s just enough to color naoko immediately suspicious, but not enough to arose suspicion from everyone everywhere. ritsuko and naoko share the same power brow and pointed chin - the show even went out of its way to explain ritsuko’s blonde hair as a result of repeated hair coloring, a slight of authenticity not often broached in anime. in the manga, kaji and his younger brother look so alike yet apart, and you can easily pick them out from a crowd of other nameless kids - this is really impressive, considering the medium.
rebuild isn’t interested in having relatives’ looks cohere. sakura and toji don’t look related - which is especially heinous considering toji’s looks are so pronounced and iconíqq (flat chin, darkskin... compared to sakura’s boringly petite and pale features) anno is on record saying his only goal for sakura was for her to be “cute”, so maybe he thought he couldn’t succeed if she looked too much like toji. trash.
the second half of end of evangelion is titled “magokoro, wo kimi ni” which is the japanese title of the movie charly (1968), which of course, is the film adaption of the 60s sci-fi book flowers for algernon. (par the course for anno; episode 26′s title “the beast that shouted ai at the heart of the world” is taken from the 60s sci-fi harlan ellison novel of the same name, and the final episode of nadia is named after the 70s sci-fi novel inherit the stars by james p. hogan.)
magokoro, wo kimi ni translates into “my purest heart for you”. for those who’ve read the book, flowers for algernon ends with charlie’s dying wish to alice kinnian - that she water his flowers and place them on algernon’s grave. we can probably trace the inspiration from kaji’s dying wish of misato - that she water his flowers - to flowers for algernon as well. (it’s worth noting the book saw immense popularity with japanese audiences, so much that it was adapted into two stage plays in 1987 and 1990, and a j-drama in 2015.)
in my conversations with people regarding evangelion’s anti-semitism, initially they’ll have no idea what i’m talking about only to be horrified and bewildered by how far its reach extends in this show. it’s good practice to be aware/cognizant of certain recycled narratives that nearly always indicate nazi-ism.
it’s impossible to extricate evangelion from the anti-semitism it trafficks in - we have keel lorenz, whose name is an unclever amalgamation of a categorically jewish first name and the surname of the infamous nazi doctor anno named him after, who heads a shadowy, undercover cabal whose influence precedes governments, military, and even alien beings (sound familiar?) much of NGE borrows from the protocols of the elders of zion: seele exploits and is guided by the dead sea scrolls, an ancient jewish text, while simultaneously carrying out apocalyptic charges against unsuspecting innocents. the imagery linked to them by association - the hebrew tree of life, or the judeo-masonic eyes, are borrowed from kabbalahistic myth and tradition.
the stereotypic hooked noses. i wonder where they found this trope.
there is the strange, curious trend on part of anti-semites to insist many nazis were secretly jewish themselves, or otherwise approximate-to-jewry in some form or fashion (think of the obsession with tracing hitler to remote jewish ancestry). one only has to search “keel the wandering jew” to get a glimpse. there is of course, no shortage in characters who are 1) nazi jews or 2) jews influenced by nazis in anti-semitic media. anno clearly drew MUCH inspiration from this canon of thought, and made no effort to hide its influence on him.
anno wanted to kill toji off - he was supposed to die in episode 18 when unit 01 crushed his entry plug. but anno was forced to uphold two conditions on the part of eva’s production company, king records, to ensure his show would get airtime:
Takekuma: Toji lost his leg. Why didn’t he die?
Anno: I couldn’t kill him.
Takekuma: Of course.
Anno: No, um, I made a certain promise, though I think I might have broken it by now. From the start, when we drew up the plot, I met with the producer, from King Records, who told me, “I will approve the plan you submit, whatever it is, because I have faith in you. However, there will be two conditions. The first one is that you will remain with me for five years. You cannot, for example, do a film version with another producer. The additional condition is that you will not kill any children. The adults can die, but I don’t want children dying.” Because of that condition I couldn’t kill Toji. (interview excerpt from schizo/parano by mitsunari oizumi)
as anno alludes, sometime between episode 18 and episode 24 anno went fuck what da teacher said proper and killed off kaworu on a 6:30 primetime weekday timeslot. king records reportedly lost it and demanded to clear all storyboards before subsequent episodes would be aired.
he did! i think it’s important to note that the original anne of green gables is widely considered to be the most adapted story of all time, influencing creators from at least 20 countries since the novel’s release 109 years ago.
i swear this angel encapsulates everything so loathsome about the rebuilds. all the original angels can be reduced to a two or three-word diminutive, ie ‘screaming blue octahedron’, ‘penis monster’, ‘glowing rope’, ‘computer virus’ etc, which is really something remarkable at least from a conceptual design perspective. meanwhile this asshole is so frantically gratuitous IN FORM AND FUNCTION that it escapes adequate description. i couldn’t even begin to explain this angel if i tried. ‘stilt walking clockwork spider with pinpoint ice powers’ (feat. tiny sachiel head?) what’s worse, it took not even 35 seconds to defeat this thing, with a single roundhouse kick no less. sad!
Remember this jarring cut? This is such a bizarre, unnatural perspective to emphasize what looks on its face so painfully benign: Ritsuko leaving a bar. I always wondered if the ice was supposed to resemble floating icebergs; it was only until someone else confessed to having the same thought that I realized that this frame may hope to emphasize more than Ritsuko’s absence. Ritsuko is leaving Misato alone with Kaji, a man who reminds Misato of her father. Their resemblance invokes the terrifying source of trauma Misato must constantly revisit throughout the series. The source of which traces its roots to Antarctica.
I always dismissed this cut as accidental, and unfortunate. Now, I’m not so sure.
