Get in the Simulwatch - Neon Genesis Evangelion [End of Eva - 21/7]

[Deleted member 4555]

A little behind but here's my thoughts on episode 23 directors cut

I like the comparison that up close the angel (to begin with) is a double helix. The ultimate symbol of life from a scientific point of view. It is after all a representation of DNA. Then froma distance is halo. The ultimate representation of faith and religion. Before we look closely and can understand something all we have is faith to explain it. But only by learning and science can we really explain the world and its magic!

The rape and pregnancy of the EVA has already been noted but it was pretty strong that to save Shinji Rei essentially gave herself an abortion. And that she and the Eva went through a holy rebirth, with the eva morphing to look like rei with a halo, and the died. Rebirth and Death. A mirror of the films title that would follow!

The stark black and red (colours for death and blood) in the Reis destruction scene at the end was a very striking image!

Neil is really impressed with your keen observations here, but I'm having to type on his behalf because his fingers and thumbs are sore from typing that massively long post!

"I haven't even written my episode 25 post yet ", he laments.

But seriously, those are some great observations there, dude - well done!

 

[WMD]

But seriously, those are some great observations there, dude - well done!

Thanks! It has been a lot of fun to watch this and be thinking about what you can write about afterwards! Everyone's been astute with their observations and the discussion has been great!

 

[WMD]

Episode 24

Ooof that start with Asuka is real heavy. That pride and hope I her voice, those doors opening I front of her to a new life of purpose and happiness dashed but a brutal reality.

Shinji finally gets to have a nice introduction to someone new who just has a nice conversation with him. No wonder Shinji immediately feels an attachment to Kaworu. I think it's the only good introduction he gets, Misato was in an Eva attack, Rei wheeled around in bandages, Gendo having a go, Toji punches him but Kaworu is just nice to him.

Good to see that Rei immediately knows something is up with the 5th child though.

Interesting how they have Kaworu spell out one of the main themes of the show. You can push people away because you're scared of being hurt but then you still have to endure a different type of sadness anyway.

Also the two conflicting ideologies that human heart holds pain or the heart holds hope. Obviously it can hold both as we see with how strongly betrayed Shinji feels this time.

 

[WMD]

Episode 25 finally caught up!

This episode is a masterpiece as far as I'm concerned.

What struck me was how instrumentality was being framed around each characters relationship with the concept of abandonment. Shinji and Rei fear abandonment. Shinji that he already has been abandoned and Rei that it will happen, and is inevitable once she is no longer useful.

Misato and Asuka on the other hand are full of anger at the idea of abandonment. They rage at the treatment they recieved from their parents and now search for validation in others. They cant stand their lives and resent the way their parents died at the same time.

Some of the visuals in this episode were great. The Eva towering with menace over Shinji before grabbing him in the same way he killed Kaworu was really well done. The ghostly trees in the clouds with a washed out shinji was so haunting.

The Rei section has such a horror vibe to it with the creepy distorted Rei faces floating about and the repeating shot if the clones in the tank turning at the same time.

Then we get to Instrumentality, a resetting of the human soul. I think. I'm not entirely sure yet and I actually burst out laughing when Shinji exclaimed "What the hell is this?! " Apparently total destruction and loneliness is what he wants and with all the betrayals hes had no wonder!

Only one more episode to go tomorrow!

 

[Neil.T]

Episode 25

This is the end of the world, which you yourself led us to.

Spoiler: Exhibit A

(This is honestly one of my favourite shots in the whole series.)

Spoiler: Exhibit B

... off-model, Shinji?

#####

Some of the visuals in this episode were great. The Eva towering with menace over Shinji before grabbing him in the same way he killed Kaworu was really well done.

Oh god, yes.
(See above.)

This episode is a masterpiece as far as I'm concerned.

It's an ingenious way to bring the series to its close, for sure. Necessity or otherwise, it's a very interesting concept. If it was born out of necessity, then... I'm glad Gainax ran out of money!

 

[WMD]

An image my mind keeps going back to this morning from ep 25 is one where we see a child Asuka as a pencil drawing in a side on portrait. The image slowly goes out of focus and then blurred smudge lines appear "crossing her out"
It occurs to me this is a very apt metaphor for her slowly deteriorating mental state and subsequent breakdown she has over the course of the series.

It's an ingenious way to bring the series to its close, for sure. Necessity or otherwise, it's a very interesting concept. If it was born out of necessity, then... I'm glad Gainax ran out of money!

Indeed. In terms of making the most of what you've got I dont think it's ever been done better. If they'd had the budget for one more "normal" episode after the weird ones I think ep 25 and 26 would be almost unanimously praised.

As a brave piece of storytelling it's awesome. I felt I followed ep 25 much better this time round. We'll see how I cope tonight!

 

[ayase]

It's an ingenious way to bring the series to its close, for sure. Necessity or otherwise, it's a very interesting concept. If it was born out of necessity, then... I'm glad Gainax ran out of money!

This is an idea that often proves a bit controversial (once upon a time I had quite a heated debate on here on this very subject) but I'm with you on this 100%, Neil. I feel like the budget issue must have forced them to alter things in ways that were never originally intended which then led to a much more metafictional take on the material which, yes, I think only improved Evangelion. It's why, even though it's still a wonderful piece of animation, I consider EoE to be a bit redundant.

By basically having no animation budget left, Gainax had little choice but to break everything down and directly address a lot of the concepts the show is based around as words, as speech - Easily as powerful as visuals, but a rather different way of telling a story and one that's much more direct. Until this point, could some people have watched Eva as pure (if somewhat dark) entertainment and failed to pick up on a load of the subtext? For sure. But it becomes impossible to ignore once it moves into this final act and I think that is what actually upset a lot of the audience - Being confronted with questions they might not have wanted to ask, particularly of themselves. Would we have gotten this same profound take if Gainax had had the budget to finish the show as originally intended? That is up for debate (not that we'll ever know the answer) but personally I don't believe we would.

 

[Neil.T]

I think that is what actually upset a lot of the audience - Being confronted with questions they might not have wanted to ask, particularly of themselves.

I think that's very valid — beginning with the initial kneejerk reaction of "What happened to my giant robot anime?"

 

[WMD]

@ayase & @Neil.T what's crazy rewatching it is how often we get the weird side of the show in normal episodes with abstract internal dialogue. It's almost like it shouldn't really be a surprise when the show fully commits to it at the end but, on a first viewing, it really is a shock.

Also does everyone think ep 25 is from several characters point of view i.e. Shinji, Asuka, Rei and Misato or just Shinji and the way he views everyone? Theres a quick frame of Misato shot dead at one point and wondering how to interpret it.

• If shes dead are we really seeing her point of view at all?
• Is Instrumentality everyone's souls leaving the body?
• Is it just part of her broken mind, like she thinks things might've turned out better if she had died?

My general feeling was that we saw each character separately, but maybe Shinji is also seeing them. Perhaps everyone's minds/souls are coalesing.
(At the moment I'm ignoring End if Evangelion exists and trying to watch it with the notion that this is the end of the story. )

 

[Neil.T]

Perhaps everyone's minds/souls are coalesing.

This is definitely how I'd interpret it. Hence the "This is the me that exists within you, and also the you that exists within me." It's like everything is stripped of its physical form, I suppose, and melded together — tying in nicely with the series' "AT Field" concept. This is how the world might look without them separating everything.

Theres a quick frame of Misato shot dead at one point and wondering how to interpret it.

I'll watch again to remind myself exactly where this falls within the episode. My idea as I type this is that it was (or still is?) one potential continuation of reality. (This would very much tie in with @ayase's view that The End of Evangelion is not a replacement for TV episodes 25 and 26.)

As we'll no doubt see from today's simulwatch episode, possibilities are a major theme of the finale.

I'm basing my above suggestion on playing along with...

(At the moment I'm ignoring End if Evangelion exists and trying to watch it with the notion that this is the end of the story. )

 

[WMD]

This is definitely how I'd interpret it. Hence the "This is the me that exists within you, and also the you that exists within me." It's like everything is stripped of its physical form, I suppose, and melded together — tying in nicely with the series' "AT Field" concept. This is how the world might look without them separating everything.

I really like this explanation and how it ties in with what we've been watching before.

 

[Professor Irony]

Guess who found a free WiFi point.

Despite having managed to watch them on my phone while still on very limited internet, there is a hell of a lot going on in episodes 23 and 24, so I’ll likely need to rewatch them again once I get back, before I can even attempt the tv finale. I would add too that it was the ADV directors cut version I was watching, so I do want to see Netflix’s script for 24 first hand, get some context for the much maligned changes there.

I’d also like to look more at the games before we do End, but that’ll depend a lot on how the time goes.

Going through them today, what stood out to me was Gendo’s decision to throw Ritsuko to the wolves, so to speak. Him being unmoved by Ritsuko’s subsequent breakdown shouldn’t be surprising, but it did make me wonder, as I can’t remember offhand, were there ever any actual scenes of intimacy between them? I can only recall the shot of Gendo kissing Ritsuko’s mother, while she looks on. If Ritsuko’s apparently near total adoption of her mother’s life were a sign of some deeper mental illness, it possible that her relationship with Gendo was imaginary and merely part of a larger delusion? I suppose it’s unlikely - if Ritsuko so strongly believed she were leading her mother’s life, why would she not let her hair return to its natural colour - but given that the series is already dealing with what it is to try and dub the essence of someone gone into a new container, it doesn’t seem out of the question.

Watching ep24 again, as I said the last time I saw it, it really strikes me how little screentime Kaworu actually has. For all his massive subsequent popularity with the fans, he’s only in a single episode! With hindsight, it also feels amazingly blatant that he is an angel. I can’t remember what I must have made of him when I first saw this episode, but I’d be curious to know if anyone viewing the show for the first time believed he could be anything else. I also didn’t remember him being named as Asuka’s replacement - presumably poor Kensuke would never have been in the running after all (although I believe one of the later non-canon games did finally feature him as a pilot).

 

[D1tchd1gger]

Episodes 23 and 24
Still a MOTW show with a noodle shaped monster psychologically noodling Rei's noodle and a human shaped one doing Shinji's noodle in with noodles upon noodles!

Episodes 25 & 26
Psychological noodling with noodles upon noodles upon noodles.
Noodles, Noodles, Noodles, Noodles, Noodles, Noodles, Noodles, Noodles, Noodles, Noodles, Noodles, Noodles, Noodles, Noodles, Noodles, Noodles.

"I might have been born just so that I could meet you" Just when Shinji is at a new low with all his friends gone Anno kicks him again by introducing him to someone who is interested in him, then confuses the poor soul with a confession offering a different option after lusting after the girls, and finally telling Shinji to kill him just to push him over the edge.
What has poor Shinji done to receive Anno hatred so much, I guess the answer is shown in episode 25, which is Shinji is Anno and he hated himself, but episode 26 is him learning to love himself flaws and all.
It was basically therapy for him!
It didn't really end the story and leaves a load of questions. What caused the Second impact bar some form of human meddling, what was the Spear of Longinus, what was the that on Gendo's hand, have they really prevented the Third Impact, what did Kaworu mean by Lilith and not Adam (clue: Lilith - Wikipedia) Lots of which EoE does go into, although some of it was probably added in to directors cuts to be solved by EoE.
I think I'll still leave it as an 8/10

Theres a quick frame of Misato shot dead at one point and wondering how to interpret it.

And Ritsuko!

(This would very much tie in with @ayase's view that The End of Evangelion is not a replacement for TV episodes 25 and 26.)

Indeed. Flicking through the manga which leaves off at 24 and goes into EoE: Ritsuko is shot by Gendo and Misato is shot protecting Shinji. Although there is no body as she then proceeds to produce a grenade and pull the pin...

By basically having no animation budget left

I've seen it said that it wasn't just budget they ran out of, but time. This comes down to how Anno worked by writing episode by episode, he had a plan over all at the start which had to change months before airing due to the Sarin attack and also changed just over half way through, but still meant what actually happens in each episode wasn't known till a few weeks maybe before each one aired. This can be seen with just storyboards being used in the preview at the end from episode 22 onward.

Wikipedia quotes:

Further changes to the plot were made following the Aum Shinrikyo sect's sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway in March. Azuma Hiroki has said that the original Evangelion story was "too close to reality" from Anno's point of view. Basically, Anno thought that the original scenario was not suitable for broadcasting, and he feared censorship. However, he also criticized Aum Shinrikyo, because "they lost any contact with reality". For this reason, Azuma stated that Evangelion "is an intrinsic critique of Aum".

The development of the Neon Genesis Evangelion series ran close to deadlines throughout its production run. The initial cuts of the first two episodes were screened at the second Gainax festival in July 1995, only three months before they were aired on television. By episode 13 the series began to deviate significantly from the original story, and the initial script was abandoned. The number of Angels was reduced to 17 instead of the original 28, and the writers changed the story's ending, which had originally described the failure of the Human Instrumentality Project after an Angel attack from the moon.

Starting with episode 16, the show changed drastically, discarding the grand narrative concerning salvation for a narrative focusing on the individual characters. This change coincided with Anno's development of an interest in psychology after a friend lent him a book on mental illness. This focus culminated in a psychoanalysis of the characters in the two final episodes. The production ran so close to the airing deadline that the completed scenes used in the preview of the twenty-fifth episode had to be redesigned to work with the new ending.These episodes feature heavy use of abstract animation, flashbacks, simple line drawings, photographs and fixed image scenes with voice-over dialogue. Some critics speculated that these unconventional animation choices resulted from budget cuts, but Toshio Okada stated that while it wasn't only a problem of schedule or budget, Anno "couldn't decide the ending until the time came, that's his style".

That took a while. I'll have to do the manga comparison later, although the one thing I will say is that Kaworu is introduced earlier, has more scenes and is basically more of a character than a plot device!

 

[ayase]

Starting with episode 16, the show changed drastically, discarding the grand narrative concerning salvation for a narrative focusing on the individual characters. This change coincided with Anno's development of an interest in psychology after a friend lent him a book on mental illness. This focus culminated in a psychoanalysis of the characters in the two final episodes.

That's... interesting, but I outright refuse to believe that. There is no way, absolutely no way that Anno went into writing Eva without at least a basic level of knowledge of Freud and psychoanalysis, it's there from the very beginning. If everything prior to episode 16 was put there unconsciously I guess we have to accept Anno was divinely inspired, God is a Freudian and Evangelion really is a new Gospel.

As for the Aum Shinrikyo situation, my suspicion is that it had something to do with the implementation of instrumentality - It's still essentially a mass murder/suicide but perhaps rather than drinking the kool-aid they became the kool-aid.

 

[WMD]

what was the that on Gendo's hand,

I took it to be the real Adam. Kaworu mentioned after discovering it was lilith not adam in central dogma that he was the soul and gendo the body of Adam. I assumed that it was what was in the suitcase Kaji brings him at the start if the series.

Wikipedia quotes:

Those wiki quotes are really interesting about the changes and phases the shown went through. Though hasn't Anno always said the re build was meant to be how it was originally envisioned but theres been way less Angels in it, not anywhere near 28!

 

[D1tchd1gger]

episode 16

I was thinking about this whilst watching this (spoilers for EoE):

There are shots from episodes as late as 21 with the picture of Misato, Ryoji and Ritsuko so maybe they had written and made a lot of the show before it aired, but when he got to 16 and read the book mentioned he went back and added stuff hence a delay in making the later episodes.

 

[Neil.T]

Wikipedia quotes:

Starting with episode 16, the show changed drastically, discarding the grand narrative concerning salvation for a narrative focusing on the individual characters. This change coincided with Anno's development of an interest in psychology after a friend lent him a book on mental illness.

I haven't seen either show, but the very presence of characters called Jung Freud and Elektra in Gunbuster and Nadia: Secret of Blue Water respectively would surely seem to stretch the credibility of that article's claim.

I took it to be the real Adam. Kaworu mentioned after discovering it was lilith not adam in central dogma that he was the soul and gendo the body of Adam. I assumed that it was what was in the suitcase Kaji brings him at the start if the series.

That's all spot-on. What did everyone make of that apparent contradiction where SEELE told Kaworu that "Adam's restored body is within Ikari", yet he's still somehow unaware that the giant on the cross was actually Lilith instead? I mean, Kaworu does respond to SEELE by musing "So, Gendo Ikari... He's the same as me", so he's definitely taken the info in. Just an unfortunate writing blunder?

And yet, I noticed while watching the Director's Cut of Episode 24' that SEELE's dialogue as Kaworu heads down towards Terminal Dogma has been changed completely from the original version. It seems odd that the episode would change SEELE's dialogue to fit the altered scenario, but not Kaworu's. It's all a bit of an enigma.

What caused the Second impact bar some form of human meddling, what was the Spear of Longinus, what was that on Gendo's hand, have they really prevented the Third Impact, what did Kaworu mean by Lilith and not Adam (clue: Lilith - Wikipedia) Lots of which EoE does go into, although some of it was probably added in to directors cuts to be solved by EoE.

That's also absolutely spot-on. The Adam embryo fused onto Gendo's hand, and Lilith regrowing her legs when the Spear of Longinus was pulled out are newer elements that were added to set up the scenario seen in EoE. I'll bring up something else regarding the Spear after we've all watched the film.


This was a big revelation for me, though:

Wikipedia quotes:
. . .
the writers changed the story's ending, which had originally described the failure of the Human Instrumentality Project after an Angel attack from the moon.

That's indeed highly reminiscent of one element of Rebuild!

(Consider that to be more of a teaser than a spoiler, I'd say.)

 

[WMD]

Episode 26

Wow what a journey!

The part where the image of Shinji is coloured by flashing images of other people/evas/angels while speaking about identity and being accepted by others means they are nice but that doesnt bring happiness was quite the moment. So much of his story upto that point is summed up in that moment.

The section where hes being unstable and the animation changes to rough watercolours and then to black and white drawings is an amazing use of visual story telling.

The section of normal school life is really fun. I'd forgotten it was so long! One of the bonus features discusses a theory that the normal school life is actually the real story / life shinji has been living all along and the Eva world is the imagined one he fantasizes about having.

I also like the way he finds self acceptance is by having everyone he knows staging an intervention. I kinda wish his parents had said more than just congratulations at the end but is was nice to finally see his dad be kind to shinji.

 

[D1tchd1gger]

I haven't seen either show, but the very presence of characters called Jung Freud and Elektra in Gunbuster and Nadia: Secret of Blue Water respectively would surely seem to stretch the credibility of that article's claim.

I'm sure a lot of people have heard of Freud and know what he did, but not have a deeper understanding.
He probably also had some personal experience from his battle with depression to call upon and by putting that in the show just happened to hit on the same theories, although as this video

points out the English used as a title for episode 4 is Hedgehogs Dilemma, although the Japanese is more descriptive of the episode Rain, After Running Away.

Here's the articles referenced by the Wiki entry:

Project MUSE - Waiting for the Messiah: The Becoming-Myth of Evangelion and Densha otoko

muse.jhu.edu

Anime or Something Like it:Neon Genesis Evangelion(E)

Neither actually mention "a book from a friend" just that it changed after 16.
So yeah could be rubbish from a half remembered "fact" the editor who added it to Wikipedia put in without checking it.

 

[D1tchd1gger]

The section of normal school life is really fun.

I'd have watched a series of that as a spin-off.
I believe there's a manga that actually does this.