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:

1. threatening to slap him across the face in 1.0,
   
2. slapping him in the manga,
   
3. screaming at him in episode 6,
   
4. manhandling him in EOE,
   
5. sexually abusing him, not once but twice, as the official eoe film book reveals
   

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. 

rayanamei:

i’ve mentioned this a little before too — while i’m rewatching this time around, i keep noting times where women and girls respond to moments of crisis and decide to assume responsibility. a few episodes in particular i just rewatched, 7 through 9, repeat this pattern pretty strongly.

there’s the corporate dinner to showcase the launch of jet alone, where we watch ritsuko press the company executive about the wide-reaching dangers of nuclear power, as well as assert her own knowledge and come up against public humiliation. later on, during the display of jet alone taking its first steps, we watch as the robot glitches. i’m gonna bring in my favorite analysis of glitch here: “a singular dysfunctional event that allows insight beyond the customary, omnipresent and alien computer aesthetics.” olga goriunova and alexei shulgin describe the glitch as an event — “a mess that is a moment“ — that users receive as unexpected, that may or may not come from a program error.

for jet alone, the program runs just as expected, exactly as told, but quickly its power begins to expand further that of the executive as well as any staffman there. though control of the program extends beyond the control of any personnel present, the robot runs exactly as it should be. like ritsuko reports after observing from the sidelines what we later learn is an orchestrated crisis unfold, “everything was done according to the plan.” and like a glitch does, the moment brings forth the structure of the systems from which it came. we view a montage of phone calls of men deferring responsibility, requiring approval — bureaucracy functioning at its finest as a procedural structure that splinters accountability and sanctions death.

we watch misato get fed up and take on the responsibility of shutting down the robot herself, and i read her stepping up as responding to the moral failure of the bureaucratic process by acting on what she describes as a moral imperative. she tells shinji, “i’ve got to give it my best shot, you know? my conscience won’t let me do otherwise.“

in asuka’s debut, we watch men assert dominance not through administrative processes, but through claiming sovereignty over the sea. when misato requests access to a power socket on deck, the captain states, “we’re in charge of anything on the sea. follow orders without question.“ even in a situation of almost certain death for both others and himself, the captain refuses to hand authority to misato and, by extension, nerv. misato says it best: “who gives a damn about your procedures?! this is an emergency!” here, asuka comes in and decides to take the opportunity to make her debut even grander, disregarding any potential pushback from the captain or even misato. here, we watch a girl decide to bypass any official authorities and clearance and maximize the moment as hers.

going back to the morning of the corporate showcase, we return to misato’s apartment to shinji washing dishes, then turn his head timidly and ask misato if she’s really gonna make his parent-teacher conference. she replies, “of course!” followed by, “don’t worry about that. it’s my responsibility.” he blinks back — “responsibility?”

in this moment, i took him as both receiving misato’s sense of responsibility as negating any care for him and, like many times in the series, grappling with where he fits in matrices of accountability to others, misogyny, and boyhood. it turns out, his training into manhood is running successfully too. in response to asuka voicing frustration about getting ordered to share her first battle in japan with shinji, shinji replies in what i heard as a pretty mellow and chipper tone: “that’s okay! that’s just procedures. you know!” in line with ongoing processes of inducting and training shinji into manhood throughout the series, the approaches he takes in interacting with others morphs to both contort and fit into forces of manhood that in turn shape him. though not (yet) the condescension and reverence for bureaucracy of the company executive, nor (yet) the blunt demands of the fleet captain, shinji, who always does as he’s ordered, attempts to placate a determined asuka, severing possibilities for her intervention by reminding her of and therefore upholding the limitations of their world. that’s just procedure (which is actually, really, misato’s, a person’s decision, as with any procedure and bureaucratic process)!

during this rewatch, i’ve noticed moments where i consider how women and girls respond to the violences of manhood, authority, and administrative forms of governance. i assume in evangelion and in the world around me a constant state of emergency in which accountability becomes dispersed, and women and girls bear the consequences. i take that note as a push to all together carry our responsibilities — to ourselves and each other.

some of my favorite obscure 90s evangelion cameos 

top to bottom: kareshi kanojo no jijou, seikimatsu darling, gasaraki

it’s done! this is a gift i commissioned from the talented vwyn19 to my insanely smart friend @khalayak. it’s a redraw of the petit eva calendar illustration feat. misato, ritsuko, and kaji getting absolutely fucking sloshed at a picnic. in this house, we stan a trio

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, dark skin... 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.

ritsuko, misato, and kaji helping you learn

from the latest official eva spinoff: ritsuko surreptitiously sliding gendo and fuyutsuki the tab as the rest of NERV staff quietly leave the bar scans fantastically like a jerry gag from an episode of parks and rec

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.

i never noticed until recently, but the episodes where ritsuko forgoes her signature red lipstick (ep 5, 8, 12) coincide with the days gendo is off-post, conducting business overseas, or otherwise awol. 

bpdmole:

neon genesis evangelion - ritsuko & asuka