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.
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
so, shouwa genroku rakugo shinjuu - if like me you were impressed with the evangelion seiyuus and the compelling performance they brought to their roles, rakugo features a whopping 5 members of the evangelion cast - in fact i don’t think i’ve seen an anime feature so many evangelion seiyuus together. what’s more, the entire main cast is made up entirely of evangelion seiyuu:
kikuhiko by akira ishida (kaworu), sukeroku by koichi yamadera (kaji), miyokichi by megumi hayashibara (rei and yui and pen pen), and yotaro by seki tomokazu (toji)
outstanding cast aside, the show is incredible, embroiling itself with showa-era history, storytelling, and adult drama involving a salient gay romance between two rakugo performers. watch it!
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.)
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.
some things to keep in mind about nge’s very own the man, the myth, the legend, spending time on volume 7, stage 43 of the manga ‘verse. super rough, but i’m enjoying thinking about him more, even if just in sketches. i mean, come on, just look at him, that sweet baby k:
Part 1: “Let Me Appeal To Your Intellect”
this post is meant to suggest that manga vol. 7, no. 43 tells us all we need to know about what ryoji thinks about himself and his relationships, and therefore his own motivations; he explains this quite literally to shinji in the chapter, and it’s an incredibly useful backstory (courtesy of sadamoto) for this reason, but let’s backtrack to figure out why all the things he doesn’t say matter even more
