Neon Genesis Evangelion A Boys Own Odysseyor

The Dream of Shinji

Beginnings From Space Radish to Atlantean Princess

In August of 1980 a group of science fiction buffs ndash occasional students at universities in and around the Kansai region of Japan ndash were granted approval to mount and manage the 20th Annual Japan Sci-Fi Convention in Osaka Daicon 3 (1981) The conventionrsquos name Daicon is a combination of an alternate reading of the first kanji character of Osaka (大) and an abbreviation of convention For the opening ceremony the group produced a short animated film now known as the Daicon III Opening Animation According to Takeda Yasuhiro most of the work of creating this film was done by Anno Hideaki Akai Takami and Yamaga Hiroyuki[2] Despite the triorsquos total lack of experience in making cel anime and impeded further by insufficient funds to buy professional materials the film was well received as was the conference The same group held the following yearrsquos convention and another filmDaicon IV Opening Animation was produced under somewhat improved conditions

The Daicon III Opening Animation begins with a pun between the conferencersquos title and the Japanese radish daikon ldquoA little girl receives a glass of water from a friendly spaceman with instructions to water a daikonrdquo[3] She does so and the radish flourishes growing into a spaceship while retaining its vegetable shape and burst of green foliage

These two shorts [available on the Web] are the stuff of legend for a number of reasons because amateurs succeeded in producing animations that technically and artistically outshone the work of major animation studios because their themes and materials highlighted the interests of a new generation of SF and animation fans later to be dubbed otaku and because producing these films brought together all the key figures who would go on to found Gainax Studios and to produce such highly popular and commercially successful films and series as Royal Space Force The Wings of Honneamise (1987) Nadia The Secret of Blue Water (1989-90) and Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995-96)[47]

The last anime series produced by Gainax before Evangelion was Nadia The Secret of Blue Water for which Anno Hideaki was the principal director The scenario for the series is a cousin of Miyazaki Hayaorsquos Laputa Castle in the Sky (1986) in that they have a distant common ancestor in Jules VernersquosTwenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and are both based on a treatment written by Miyazaki in the 1970s[48] The series was originally planned for 26 episodes but its commercial success prompted the network (NHK) to demand an expansion of that number to 39 severely straining the studio and especially director Anno

At its philosophical heart Nadia confronts two issues The first is a critical examination of lsquojust warrsquo theory carried out under conditions of actual combat

The girl of the title Nadia is a strict pacifist and committed vegetarian while her romantic partner and occasional antagonist Jean is an engineering prodigy These two 14-year-old children are observers actors and targets in a hot war between Captain Nemo of the Nautilus and Gargoyle leader of the Neo-Atlanteans who are villainous aliens out to enslave mankind In Nadia every death counts even those of the enemy and each moral equation is exhaustively fought over by Nadia (the idealist) and Nemo (the realist) The submarinersquos first mate Electra has her own problems with Nemorsquos acceptance of collateral death and vacillates between love and hate of the captain Jean is often caught in the backwash of these conflicts struggling to stay afloat while inventing one technological marvel after another

Nadiarsquos second core issue concerns mankindrsquos problematic love affair with technology Each DVD opens with grim paintings of storms at sea environmental degradation and beleaguered refugees on the move The year is 1889 and industrial development and exploitive colonialism are competing for the earthrsquos natural resources generating international tensions that will eventually erupt into two world wars We are prompted by this preview of future catastrophes to see conflicts in Nadia as emblematic of mankindrsquos warlike nature and compulsion to invent maximize and misuse technology Once learned the story seems to say technology cannot be unlearned the best we can do is adjust our relationship to it optimizing technology for us not us for technology In her moments of greatest ideological purity Nadia insists that the proper amount of technology is none at all but another part of her cannot be happy without it After she and Jean (plus Marie and the white lion cub King) are washed ashore on a tropical island Jeanrsquos inventiveness supplies the realist trio with food and shelter while Nadiarsquos monomaniacal struggle to live in non-competitive harmony with nature keeps her hungry and miserable

The moral questions examined in Nadia are explicit and unmistakable Lacking any veil of artistic distancing they play out right at the surface But Nadiacannot keep its camera eye on the main event The grand existential contest between humanity and the Neo-Atlanteans is set aside while the focus narrows to a seemingly endless array of petty interpersonal squabbles among the characters After a digression of about a dozen episodes the Neo-Atlanteans return Captain Nemo sacrifices his life to save the children and his crew and the survivors live happilyhellip etc (Near the end of this drama hertears fall on his face A number of other prefigurations of Evangelion can be found including a preserved prototype for humanity called Adam)

During or shortly after production of Nadia something happened to alter Anno Hideakirsquos view of television anime but the details are elusive Thomas Lamarre presents the most thorough account I have found but his comments are not sourced and are therefore unverifiable Lamarre reports that Anno became deeply distressed by what he perceived as fan obsession with Nadia as a sex goddess and a compulsion among members of the youthful audience to notice

classify and explain every object within every frame activity now associated with the word otaku

Both directors [Miyazaki and Anno] would come to see a boyish fascination with technology as a major part of the problem and would associate this fascination with something like otaku activities For Anno the popularity of Nadia its fansrsquo intense erotic attachment to the character of Nadia and the demand to stretch out the series were all surely crucial in his shift of attitude [49]

After a pause of four years Anno returned to television anime with Neon Genesis Evangelion which he gradually forged into a stealth attack on otaku fantasies of futuristic weaponry and adolescent eroticism

Evangelion Strikes Back

If Nadia is clear and forthright in its moral concerns Evangelion is allegorical and elliptical to the point of obscurity[1] Densely packed with Kabbalistic Gnostic and Biblical references technology psychology quiet introspection politics life death love hate admiration envy faithfulness betrayal etcEvangelion appears to give unlimited license to every flavor of otaku ndash symbol detective armaments engineer shōjo admirer conspiracy theorists of every stripe ndash while hinting at theological dimensions on a cosmic scale To further complicate matters at least three endings have been produced so far and a fourth is reportedly on the way Such an embarrassment of informational riches would surely seem to spell otaku heaven but just as the party was poised to explode into data overload the punchbowl was whisked away in a conclusion (or conclusions) that retroactively redefined the entire endeavor Convinced they had been watching a very different story and intensely disappointed by the absence of a slam-bang finale incensed television fans turned their rage into a public scandal Now that the dust has settled (though not the controversy) sober reflection reveals that Evangelion had never been the Manichean clash of absolute good and absolute evil that the mecha genre seemed to promise but something far more challenging and cerebral In her excellent paper on Evangelion Mariana Ortega characterizes the interpretive problem as follows

The showrsquos proclivity for self-referentiality parody pastiche metalepsis and ultimately deconstruction provides us with a general instance of what Umberto Eco has termed opera aperta or ldquoopen workrdquo a piece that allows and even requires multiple interpretations from the reader There is no single or straight interpretation of Evangelion based on its plot sources like many of the esoteric works it references it is layered crowded with riddles arguably overcoded[50]

Professor Ortegarsquos interpretation makes extensive use of material from the Nag Hammadi Library a number of theological writings that comprise a major part of what is commonly known as Gnostic literature written in the first two or three centuries of the Common Era (CE = AD) While I also propose a solution to

classify and explain every object within every frame activity now associated with the word otaku

Both directors [Miyazaki and Anno] would come to see a boyish fascination with technology as a major part of the problem and would associate this fascination with something like otaku activities For Anno the popularity of Nadia its fansrsquo intense erotic attachment to the character of Nadia and the demand to stretch out the series were all surely crucial in his shift of attitude [49]

After a pause of four years Anno returned to television anime with Neon Genesis Evangelion which he gradually forged into a stealth attack on otaku fantasies of futuristic weaponry and adolescent eroticism

Evangelion Strikes Back

If Nadia is clear and forthright in its moral concerns Evangelion is allegorical and elliptical to the point of obscurity[1] Densely packed with Kabbalistic Gnostic and Biblical references technology psychology quiet introspection politics life death love hate admiration envy faithfulness betrayal etcEvangelion appears to give unlimited license to every flavor of otaku ndash symbol detective armaments engineer shōjo admirer conspiracy theorists of every stripe ndash while hinting at theological dimensions on a cosmic scale To further complicate matters at least three endings have been produced so far and a fourth is reportedly on the way Such an embarrassment of informational riches would surely seem to spell otaku heaven but just as the party was poised to explode into data overload the punchbowl was whisked away in a conclusion (or conclusions) that retroactively redefined the entire endeavor Convinced they had been watching a very different story and intensely disappointed by the absence of a slam-bang finale incensed television fans turned their rage into a public scandal Now that the dust has settled (though not the controversy) sober reflection reveals that Evangelion had never been the Manichean clash of absolute good and absolute evil that the mecha genre seemed to promise but something far more challenging and cerebral In her excellent paper on Evangelion Mariana Ortega characterizes the interpretive problem as follows

The showrsquos proclivity for self-referentiality parody pastiche metalepsis and ultimately deconstruction provides us with a general instance of what Umberto Eco has termed opera aperta or ldquoopen workrdquo a piece that allows and even requires multiple interpretations from the reader There is no single or straight interpretation of Evangelion based on its plot sources like many of the esoteric works it references it is layered crowded with riddles arguably overcoded[50]

Professor Ortegarsquos interpretation makes extensive use of material from the Nag Hammadi Library a number of theological writings that comprise a major part of what is commonly known as Gnostic literature written in the first two or three centuries of the Common Era (CE = AD) While I also propose a solution to

the Evangelion puzzle based on Gnostic writings (in the section ldquoGod the Father mdash Father the Godrdquo) my chief interest is in locating Evangelionin a literary tradition of epic journeys of self-discovery and in applying these stories to the psychological development of an early-adolescent boy Ikari Shinji In the next sections we will take a look at some of the literary genres that seem useful in giving shape to Shinjirsquos story then move on to an examination of the Japanese context in which Evangelion arose

The First Epic Wanderers Gilgamesh and Odysseus

Among the oldest known works of literary art is the Epic of Gilgamesh from ancient Mesopotamia Akkadian versions of this poem date between 1300 and 1000 BCE while the earliest known fragments were imprinted on clay tablets another thousand years before that After introductory material that establishes the intimate relationship between Gilgamesh fifth king of Uruk and his friend Enkidu the two set out on a series of perilous journeys of conflict and discovery After the death of Enkidu Gilgamesh struggles with the implications of death immortality and the nature of friendship[7] Gilgameshis still read widely today and occupies a firm place at or near the dawn of written narrative literature

While the Odyssey has the outward shape of a journey of discovery the famous wanderings are entirely unintentional on the part of Odysseus a tired homesick middle-aged man who wants nothing more than to return to his wife and son to live out a quiet life in Ithaca Poseidon enraged at Odysseus for blinding his son the Cyclops Polyphemus delays the travelerrsquos homecoming until Zeus forces him to relent It is to the raging sea godrsquos hostility that we owe a marvelous and almost infinitely influential tale of strange lands and stranger beings

Yet Odysseus is no mere salaryman who has missed the last boat to the suburbs He is a king a warrior and a full accounting of his talents would have to include among others master of disguise and espionage military engineer and tactician facile rhetorician smooth talker among the ladies spellbinding storyteller serial liar cattle rustler and coldly efficient killing machine Skills so disparate and centrifugal do not sit comfortably within the frame of home hearth and family toward which the poem moves

An additional destabilizing element of Odysseusrsquo return story is personified by his son Telemachus who has come of age (or nearly so) in books 1-4 and whose role in the reunited family remains unsettled In the normal course of events there will come a time when Telemachus will displace his father to rule both household and kingdom but we are given no hint of how this might proceed We only know that Odysseus must someday travel to a place where the sea is unknown and make an offering to Poseidon after which in old age a quiet death will come to him from the sea The tensions implicit in Odysseus return are felt most acutely in the poemrsquos conclusion which some critics have found

abrupt and inconclusive[40] Scholars like neatly tied-up bundles with no loose ends but great art like life itself is seldom so obliging

As the ur-text and paradigmatic example of extended life-altering journeys ― whether of the mind through mythic kingdoms or in deadly combat with strange Cyclops-like beings above the streets of New Tokyo-3 mdash the Odyssey can on occasion illuminate and bring order to otherwise difficult material By the end of this paper we will have seen enough correspondences in theme and character between the Odyssey and Evangelion to permit a brief parallel summary of these two epics that will help us understand Ikari Shinjirsquos singular victory in surviving a tragic childhood and give hope for his success in the psychological wars of growing up in a modern society

The Bildungsroman

Novels of personal education and moral development are such a staple of world literature that we barely recognize them as a discrete genre Examples include Tom Jones by Henry Fielding (1749) Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (1884) Siddhartha by Herman Hesse (1922) The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann (1924) The Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger (1951) A Separate Peace by John Knowles (1959) Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murikami (1987)　

The Rise and Fall of the Superhero

For a brief period roughly half a century ago American popular culture was sufficiently optimistic to throw up a number of reasonably uncomplicated altruistic superheroes Superman Batman Captain Marvel and others In post-war Japan the child (or child-like or child-friendly) technological hero burst onto the scene with Tezuka Osamursquos Tetsuwan Atomu followed in due course by Ultraman Doraemon and countless others Teams of five color-coordinated crusaders appeared at least as early as Battle Fever J (1979) However by the late twentieth century these idealistic actors had taken on a distinctly retro look As the destructive potential of technology (both real and fictional) relentlessly multiplied apparently without limit the resulting arms race blurred easy distinctions between good and evil leading not only to more dangerous adversaries but to darker and more conflicted heroes as wellKaneda Shōtarō of Akira (Ōtomo 1988) fairly bursts with loyalty and purity of motive (makoto) but he is a juvenile delinquent the Colonel too shows purity of purpose but he overthrows the government the human WMD Shima Tetsuo is both victim and perpetrator of technological apocalypse InNadia The Secret of Blue Water (Anno 1990) the grand project of saving the planet is repeatedly sidetracked by petty squabbles among the would-be saviors By 1995 the world was (almost) ready for Evangelion and the definitive end of traditional heroism

Inversion

It seems almost standard practice in higher-culture Japanese anime to posit some character type we think we know then confound our expectations Miyazaki Hayaorsquos young girls (shōjo) are endowed with remarkable courage and self-reliance while the three female figures of Princess Mononoke ndash Eboshi-sama San and the wolf Moro ndash are far more inured to conflict and violence than (former) Prince Ashitaka the outlier and peacemaker of the group The 1998 anime series Wolfrsquos Rain depicts a debased post-apocalyptic world in which it is the wolves who most movingly embody those humanistic values of aspiration compassion and group solidarity that we humans claim to admire

The Japanese Cultural Context of Evangelion

The post-war association between children and technology in Japanese manga and anime began with Tezuka Osamursquos Tetsuwan Atomu a nuclear-powered child-like robot created by a scientist as a replacement for his deceased son (manga 1952 anime 1963) Later artists separated child from robot while envisioning a variety of relationships between humans and technological armor that led to Himitsu Sentai Goranger (1975) Mobile Suit Gundam (1979) Bio-Boosted Armor Guyver (1985) and Patlabor (1988) Even color-coded gangs of five heroes became standard fare Tom Gill lists sixteen such ensembles that appeared on television between 1979 and 1994[42] For young Japanese therefore the pattern of children entering huge robotic shells in order to defeat equally huge and demonic enemies was well known if not approaching clicheacute

Given this history one can imagine that the audience that began watching Evangelion in October of 1995 would have felt quite at home ndash for a while Yet as the story played out some vague discomfort must have crept in Why isnrsquot Shinji more heroic Where is all this angst coming from Why canrsquot the pilots just get along

Roughly a century earlier something had happened in Japanese culture that was to cast a long shadow over the art of fiction Late in the Meiji period a literary form that became known as the lsquoI-novelrsquo emerged from some of Japanrsquos most prominent writers These stories told in first person by a narrator intimately involved in the action describe ordinary life in the most excruciating detail on the theory that out of such deeply personal observation and introspection profound truths if there are any will emerge Another Osamu Dazai Osamu was such a writer In 1949 after several unsuccessful attempts he finally succeeded in committing suicide

Sadly Dazai spent his life ashellip an alien unable to follow single-mindedly either the childish path of untroubled selfishness or the mature path of effective personal relationships For better or for worse the Osamu Saga was the result ndash the record of daily confrontation real and imagined with the naked self a self unprotected by either innocence or wisdom[43]

Evangelion is remarkable in merging the intensely personal and psychological I-novel with the child-manned robot Ikari Shinji the ultimate otaku and maximal I-novelist shows us a realm that exists only in his mind and from which he must escape if he is to avoid recapitulating Dazai Osamursquos sorry end There is reason to believe that writerdirector Hideaki Anno was struggling to find a way out of his own I-novel and this confers upon Evangelion the psychological resonance that has kept it continually fresh and terribly real[44] Yet Evangelion is not only a personal statement but plays as well on themes that were and are germane to the Japanese nationrsquos modern identity crisis

In a sense the search for a place in the world which so torments Annorsquos alter-ego Shinji is the insurmountable challenge facing Japan Our relief at finally putting the war behind us was brief for we immediately were confronted by our inability to devise an independent future Japan is now enmeshed in the search for what it means to have a self[45]

In the course of Evangelion the entire ideological basis of the mecha genre ndash its celebration of the enabling and empowering properties of technology in general and robots in particular ndash is inverted and deconstructed The cult of the expert is demolished along with glib assumptions that problems engendered by technology can be solved by more technology The current world-wide recession (which began in the United States not Japan) confirmsEvangelionrsquos dark assessment that a naiumlve belief in the transformative power of engineering ndash whether financial technological or social ndash is a dangerous mirage The twin gods of free-market fundamentalism and faith in the inevitability of progress have been struck a disabling blow and the apostles of the new world order thrown into disarray In our moment of existential peril grownups have failed and ldquoonly children can save us nowrdquo[4]

Reading Evangelion Backward

From the outset Evangelion presents the viewer with a Rubikrsquos cube of puzzles and riddles Fifteen years earlier a mysterious planet-shaking catastrophe known as the Second Impact melted Antarctica flooding great swaths of populated coastal territory including twentieth-century Tokyo Recently horrendous engines of destruction called Angels have begun invading New Tokyo-3 The sole defense against these attacks consists in deploying Evangelions (EVAs) enormous humanoid robots (mecha) that can only be piloted by 14-year-old children Christian and Kabbalistic iconography and terminology abound but religion per se is absent The hierarchy of bureaucratic and governmental authority is shadowy and ultimately unstable DNA analysis shows that Angels are genetically identical to humans and various characters are unexpectedly revealed to be related to one another No one has a living mother Humanity seems deeply in conflict with itself initially in petty interpersonal squabbles later in open warfare Despite the global ndash perhaps cosmic ndash dimensions of the action there is something rigidly contained and claustrophobic

about Evangelionrsquos world In the seriesrsquo most striking inversion the personality of Ikari Shinji the EVA pilot who is the storyrsquos protagonist stretches the heroic mold beyond recognition

Some stories do not come to us complete and in these cases we often feel justified in asking How did we get here where did all this come from This is particularly true of narratives that make extensive use of delayed exposition wherein important information remains hidden until late in the story For instance we do not learn the details of Gendo and Yuirsquos marriage Dr Akagirsquos relationship to the Magi or the circumstances of Reirsquos first death until episode 21rsquo Postponed until episodes 22rsquo and 24rsquo are shattering evocations of Asukarsquos traumatic past But a still greater revelation is delayed until episode 26rsquo (Part 2 of The End of Evangelion) and this changes everything

The 2005 American film Stay William Goldingrsquos 1956 novel Pincher Martin and the 1890 short story An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce have this singular feature in common at the end the events that have filled the main body of the work are revealed to have been fantasies conceived in the subjectrsquos mind in the final moments before death Everything we thought was real ndash the sturm und drang the survivalist melodrama the self-regarding memoir ndash was a dream Evangelionrsquos approach is altogether softer and more hopeful Yes we learn that the epic battles and earth-shaking cataclysms that have so engaged our senses are false the product of an overheated imagination but while 200 pages of Pincher Martinrsquos ruminations teach him nothing that outlasts the moment of his death Shinji can take away from his novelistic epic an expanded consciousness and deeper wisdom He has suffered the meaningless terror of battles that were not his own seen through the incompetence and selfishness of authority and looked on as interpersonal relationships soured and crumbled He has learned that success defined as a zero-sum game is ultimately self-defeating and that true heroism may find its proper place not on the battlefield but in the heart

Yet if this is accepted it leaves a hole in the story Whose fantasy is this Who and where is the real Shinji Answers to this question vary widely ldquothere are many roads to Shinjirdquo[6] and it may make little difference which we choose to envision Perhaps the storyteller in me abhors a vacuum ndash an anonymous placeholder ndash so I assemble and expand the few clues that can be found in the drama into a plausible history for the real-world Shinji whom I call Shinji-1 Once created Shinji-1 fades into invisibility only to reappear at the end as the student and beneficiary of the hard lessons about the fragility of life and love that Evangelion has taught and the irrelevance of technology in securing them The significance of a continuing Shinji-1 is in rescuingEvangelionrsquos Shinji ndash and us ndash from a nihilistic world in which mankind is forever trapped in an endlessly repeating tape loop of transgression and apocalypse He is the bearer of our hopes our bridge to the future

The Sins of the Fathers

Shortly after Shinji is released from the first of several hospitalizations this exchange between Akagi Ritsuko and Ikari Gendo is observed

Ritsuko So how was Rei todayGendo Shersquoll be ready to work again in twenty daysRitsuko It must be so hard on those childrenGendo There is no one else who can pilot the EVAs As long as they survive that is what I will have them doRitsuko With no regard for what they may wantGendo (silence)

Spoken or not the answer is always the same the children will be used It is worthwhile to examine whatrsquos going on here from the perspective of inter-generational politics A group of adults authorized by the United Nations and the national government and led by Shinjirsquos father is systematically sending out fourteen-year-old children to engage in mortal combat with horrendous monsters Ejected directly into the line of fire in a cruel parody of birth they risk death at every encounter and return physically bruised and mentally violated The unavoidable price for saving the world their elders claim But as the drama unfolds these serial abusers of children will admit privately and with growing candor that their actions are motivated not by concern for mankind but by personal and selfish agendas

The subtext is clear the hard work of cleaning up the wreckage left by past generations will be shuffled off onto todayrsquos youth and their children In the hyper-condensed world of Evangelion institutions that have failed to create a world free from warfare poverty and oppression are symbolically subsumed into Nerv and personified by Ikari Gendo and the old men of Seele

In Evangelionrsquos universe of failed institutions (not so different from our own) if there is to be a brighter day it will come not as a gift from the old order but must be created anew by children willing to throw off the self-serving platitudes of arrogant paternalism and formulate fresh definitions of progress The first step in saving the world as Shinji will learn is not in doing ldquowhat he is told to dordquo by those who have made of the world the mess that it is but in recognizing the lies of the past and the hollowness of the present then striking out on a path of his own choosing

But first Shinji will experience the old world at its worst ndash passively and obediently playing by rules handed down from above while trying to convince himself that he is doing something useful Shinjirsquos Evangelion world may be imaginary but it is filled to overflowing with pain and suffering hard lessons about failed interpersonal relationships and punctuated by terror loss and despair These are the real Angels of death and destruction

____________________

On the first trading day of 1990 the Nikkei 225 stock index began a plunge that by early 1995 wiped out more than 60 of its value putting an end to Japanrsquos post-war ldquoeconomic miraclerdquo On 17 January 1995 the Great Hanshin earthquake struck Kobe and the surrounding region The response of the national government was widely criticized as slow and ineffective On 20 March 1995 members of the religious cult Aum Shinrikyo released sarin gas in five separate Tokyo subway trains killing twelve people and injuring hundreds[51] Broadcast of Neon Genesis Evangelion began on 4 October 1995

____________________

The Episodes

The following commentary on the episodes is intended neither as plot synopsis nor plot analysis but rather an attempt to trace certain psychological and literary themes that run through the series Religious symbols especially crosses occur frequently but are redefined requiring an effort on the part of the viewer to ascertain their new meanings With the exception of episode 24 no attempt is made in the Episode sections to trace the meaning of religious symbolism For an example of how this can be done see God the Father ― Father the God near the end of this paper

Episodes 1 and 2

The song and images that accompany the opening titles clearly identify Shinji as the seriesrsquo heroic protagonist and hint at a mythopoetic arena for the action The last three shots of Shinji ndash lasting only about two seconds ndash show him first looking skyward with confident defiance then downward in pain finally outward in simple joy Evangelion is the story of Shinjirsquos long journey in pursuit of that joy The song ends

You who embrace the heavens and shineYoung boy become a legend

The final image of the opening sequence appears to be that of an ancient wall covered with cryptic writing the legend perhaps A comparison may be made with the opening of the Epic of Gilgamesh

I will proclaim to the world the deeds of Gilgameshhellip He went on a long journey was weary worn out with labor Returning he rested then engravedon a stone the whole story[7]

Episode 1 opens in the early stages of an Angel attack Shinji has received a summons from his father Ikari Gendo who abandoned him ten years earlier and is picked up by Katsuragi Misato who transports him to Nerv the semi-

On the first trading day of 1990 the Nikkei 225 stock index began a plunge that by early 1995 wiped out more than 60 of its value putting an end to Japanrsquos post-war ldquoeconomic miraclerdquo On 17 January 1995 the Great Hanshin earthquake struck Kobe and the surrounding region The response of the national government was widely criticized as slow and ineffective On 20 March 1995 members of the religious cult Aum Shinrikyo released sarin gas in five separate Tokyo subway trains killing twelve people and injuring hundreds[51] Broadcast of Neon Genesis Evangelion began on 4 October 1995

____________________

The Episodes

The following commentary on the episodes is intended neither as plot synopsis nor plot analysis but rather an attempt to trace certain psychological and literary themes that run through the series Religious symbols especially crosses occur frequently but are redefined requiring an effort on the part of the viewer to ascertain their new meanings With the exception of episode 24 no attempt is made in the Episode sections to trace the meaning of religious symbolism For an example of how this can be done see God the Father ― Father the God near the end of this paper

Episodes 1 and 2

The song and images that accompany the opening titles clearly identify Shinji as the seriesrsquo heroic protagonist and hint at a mythopoetic arena for the action The last three shots of Shinji ndash lasting only about two seconds ndash show him first looking skyward with confident defiance then downward in pain finally outward in simple joy Evangelion is the story of Shinjirsquos long journey in pursuit of that joy The song ends

You who embrace the heavens and shineYoung boy become a legend

The final image of the opening sequence appears to be that of an ancient wall covered with cryptic writing the legend perhaps A comparison may be made with the opening of the Epic of Gilgamesh

I will proclaim to the world the deeds of Gilgameshhellip He went on a long journey was weary worn out with labor Returning he rested then engravedon a stone the whole story[7]

Episode 1 opens in the early stages of an Angel attack Shinji has received a summons from his father Ikari Gendo who abandoned him ten years earlier and is picked up by Katsuragi Misato who transports him to Nerv the semi-

governmental agency responsible for building and running the EVAs mankindrsquos only effective weapon against the Angels Misato knows something Shinji does not ndash that Shinji has been called to service as an EVA pilot and that piloting an EVA entails risk to life limb and sanity ndash but she covers this dark knowledge with an exaggeratedly gay and breezy manner that Shinji detects and remarks on He thinks shersquos childish she thinks hersquos a cold fish like his father They find that they are both estranged from their fathers While on their way to Nerv the United Nations military force attacks the Angel with its most powerful weapon an N2 mine The attack fails and the top brass call upon Ikari Gendo and Nerv to take over Marduk[8] is reported to have identified the Third Child Ikari Shinji (Third Children in the Japanese script)

Shinji is escorted to the EVA assigned and attuned to him personally Unit 01 but is quite reasonably horrified at the absurd and daunting challenge of piloting an enormous combat engine of which he knows nothing He refuses Gendo is seen through a window far aboveShinji Why are you doing this now I thought you didnrsquot need meGendo I called because I have a need for youShinji Why meGendo Because no one else can

At Gendorsquos command the First Child Ayanami Rei badly injured and still in her hospital bed is wheeled in ostensibly to take Shinjirsquos place Shinji is horrified by his fatherrsquos callous cruelty A direct hit by the Angel on the city far above dislodges several light fixtures which fall toward Shinji Although under no onersquos control Unit 01 breaks its restraints and moves one enormous hand to shield Shinji Gendo smiles grimly ndash he knows something about the EVAs known to almost no on else Shinji reluctantly agrees to pilot Unit 01

At this point the standard procedure for launching an EVA is enacted Each step in the mechanical and electronic process of manning activating telemetering releasing and raising an EVA to ground level is depicted in breathtaking detail specificity and beauty Yet this flashy twenty-first century high-tech maneuver which is repeated (with variations) many times in the course of Evangelion has an exact parallel in Homeric epic In the Iliad each time a major hero prepares for battle the same (or nearly the same) words are used to describe his actions as he straps on greaves breastplate and helmet then hefts his sword spear and shield This highly ritualized act precedes a herorsquos aristeia his moment of brilliance in battle

Unit 01 reaches the surface and Shinji is commanded to walk he in turn commands the EVA to walk Together they take a first step but on the second the EVA trips and falls flat on its face The Angel lifts the stricken EVA and breaks its left arm Shinji screams in pain Over the intercom Misato says

Shinji calm down Thatrsquos not your arm After apparent defeat and a command from Misato to break off the battle Shinjirsquos mind flips into berserker mode giving him complete control of Unit 01 and enabling him to kill the Angel[35] He wakes up later in a hospital bed

By the end of Episode 2 the Angelsrsquo existential threat to the world has been identified and most of the major characters have been introduced The intimate perhaps telepathic rapport between pilot and EVA is now clear as is the stark peril of battle Gendorsquos Because no one else can establishes Shinjirsquos de facto status as the indispensable hero but does nothing to alleviate the agony and terror of piloting an EVA or lessen Shinjirsquos feelings of inadequacy and alienation Shinjirsquos exploration of the highly problematic relationship between himself and his father begun in these episodes continues throughout the series

Crosses to two kinds appear in these episodes and recur repeatedly The Greek cross first seen as a pendant on Misatorsquos necklace is similar in shape to the Red Cross and the cross on the Swiss flag The Christian (cruciform) cross appears in the blast zone of explosions associated with Angels not mushroom-shaped clouds but crucifix-shaped clouds This pattern continues linking the Greek cross to life compassion and love the Christian cross to death and destruction Some lsquoaccidentalrsquo crosses ndash patterns of light and shadow architectural features lines on pavements ndash are intentionally ambiguous

Episodes 3 to 7

Shinjirsquos socialization begins Misato has assumed responsibility for giving Shinji a home and filling the role of legal guardian tasks with which she has had no experience The relationship gets off to a rough start each rubbing the other the wrong way Shinji shows up in school as a transfer student and becomes an instant celebrity when he confirms that he is an EVA pilot Later outside in the school yard classmate Suzuhara Toji calmly explains to Shinji his alpha-malersquos obligation to beat up the new student but afterward Tojirsquos friend Aida Kensuke adds that Tojirsquos sister had been seriously injured in the last battle

In the course of the next Angel attack Toji and Kensuke witness firsthand from within Unit 01 the unendurable stress of piloting an EVA the two are deeply impressed and become Shinjirsquos closest friends Kensuke is initially portrayed as a typical adolescent military-hardware geek and something of a psychological lightweight but Toji is more complicated ndash a deep quiet well of unexpressed emotion His alpha-male persona is the thinnest of defenses as are his tough-guy Osaka-ben dialect and his refusal to wear the school uniform (Later asked by Asuka why she likes Toji Class Rep Hikari says Because of his kindness)

Because he never speaks his innermost thoughts what we learn of Toji is largely gained through his silences and body language which are eloquent

Overwhelmed by the agony of combat and feeling himself in hopeless conflict with Misato Shinji runs away After walking through the sunflower field of Kurosawarsquos Dreams and looking down on New Tokyo-3 from the hills Shinji is spotted and taken in by Kensuke who is camped out on (imaginary) week-end maneuvers Kensuke reveals his sensitive side and the two find they have more in common than they knew In the morning Nerv agents show up to apprehend Shinji and return him to Headquarters Later Toji berates Kensuke for not fighting for Shinjirsquos freedom to which Kensuke sensibly replies that it is pointless to fight when one cannot win

Shinji formally resigns from Nerv and rides to the end of a railroad line as passengers come and go Misato drives out to intercept him and finds him standing head drooping and immobile on a railway platform Welcome home she says after one of Evangelionrsquos characteristic long periods of stasis (50 seconds with train announcements) Shinji replies Irsquom home

Shinji progresses in competence and professionalism as an EVA pilot and his relationship with Misato grows into one of mutual respect and even affection Their effectiveness as an operational team is displayed when they stop and deactivate the runaway nuclear-powered autonomous robot Jet Alone

Despite the brilliant spectacle of halting Jet Alone and deadly combat with Angel after Angel Evangelionrsquos inner movement remains steadfastly on the psychological plane This can be seen in the sensitive portrayal of Shinjirsquos relationships with Rei Misato Kensuke and Toji Shinjirsquos hesitation at thresholds disturbing encounters with Gendo landscapes ceilings Shinjirsquos ever-present SDAT his hand opening and closing and long silences that allow deep emotions to germinate and flower

Episodes 8 to 15

In Episode 8 the intensely irritating Asuka Langley Soryu arrives from Germany Toji drops his drawers faces become cartoonish and Asuka and Shinji go deep-sea fishing At this point Evangelion threatens to topple into slapstick mayhem (Seasickness maybe) Yet Asuka quickly wears out whatever welcome she may have earned as comic relief

In book 12 of the the Odyssey Circe tells Odysseus how to escape the twin horrors of Skylla a man-eating female monster who makes her grisly living in a cliff-side cave and Charybdis a roaring whirlpool Describing Skylla Circe says

In that cavern Skylla lives whose howling is terrorHer voice is indeed only as loud as a new-born puppyCould make but she herself is an evil monster No one Not even a god encountering her could be glad at that sight[9]

It is perhaps no coincidence that both monsters Asuka and Skylla are encountered at sea and that their names are so similar Asukarsquos joining the EVA team is rather as if Odysseus instead of avoiding Skylla had taken her on as his new helmsman This much at least is Tojirsquos opinion The tactless gaijin(as she is called at school) is loud brash arrogant rude assaultive and endlessly insulting Her most characteristic outburst is Shinji yoursquore really stupid Asukarsquos persistence in the series can be seen as a never-ending challenge to Shinjirsquos still tentative self-assurance and dignity rather like the allegorical burden which the Pilgrim must bear on his back As for thy burden be content to bear it as many others have born theirs before[10] Shinji receives these verbal blows with surprising equanimity One only has to imagine how devastating Asukarsquos attacks would have been to the Shinji of Episodes 1 and 2 to realize how far he has come

Though largely played for laughs the choreographed coordinated attack by Shinji and Asuka on an Angel that had twinned itself gives further evidence of Shinjirsquos new professionalism and maturity In Episode 12 all three pilots work together to foil an attack by the largest of the Angels

In Episode 13 Angel-as-hacker nearly disables and takes over the trio of supercomputers known as the Magi upon which all the operations of Nerv depend This is an early indication that Nerv is potentially vulnerable to defeat from within Further evidence of institutional instability appears in Episode 14 as Unit 00 goes berserk when Shinji attempts to synchronize with it

In Episode 15 Shinji asks Rei Say what kind of person is my father I donrsquot know Yoursquove been looking at me all afternoon because you wanted to ask me that Shinji remarks that for a moment earlier in the day Rei had looked like a mother What are you saying

At the grave of Shinjirsquos mother Gendo says Itrsquos been three years since the last time we came here together I ran away then I havenrsquot been back since Gendo observes Man survives by forgetting his memories but there are some things a man should never forget Yui taught me about the irreplaceable things As Gendo walks away Shinji calls out Father Irsquom glad I got to talk to you today

Asuka comes home to find Shinji playing the cello (J S Bach Suite No 1 for Unaccompanied Cello BWV 1007 Prelude) He plays it quite well if a bit slowly Asuka applauds Not bad I didnrsquot know you played In this scene Asuka is

In that cavern Skylla lives whose howling is terrorHer voice is indeed only as loud as a new-born puppyCould make but she herself is an evil monster No one Not even a god encountering her could be glad at that sight[9]

It is perhaps no coincidence that both monsters Asuka and Skylla are encountered at sea and that their names are so similar Asukarsquos joining the EVA team is rather as if Odysseus instead of avoiding Skylla had taken her on as his new helmsman This much at least is Tojirsquos opinion The tactless gaijin(as she is called at school) is loud brash arrogant rude assaultive and endlessly insulting Her most characteristic outburst is Shinji yoursquore really stupid Asukarsquos persistence in the series can be seen as a never-ending challenge to Shinjirsquos still tentative self-assurance and dignity rather like the allegorical burden which the Pilgrim must bear on his back As for thy burden be content to bear it as many others have born theirs before[10] Shinji receives these verbal blows with surprising equanimity One only has to imagine how devastating Asukarsquos attacks would have been to the Shinji of Episodes 1 and 2 to realize how far he has come

Though largely played for laughs the choreographed coordinated attack by Shinji and Asuka on an Angel that had twinned itself gives further evidence of Shinjirsquos new professionalism and maturity In Episode 12 all three pilots work together to foil an attack by the largest of the Angels

In Episode 13 Angel-as-hacker nearly disables and takes over the trio of supercomputers known as the Magi upon which all the operations of Nerv depend This is an early indication that Nerv is potentially vulnerable to defeat from within Further evidence of institutional instability appears in Episode 14 as Unit 00 goes berserk when Shinji attempts to synchronize with it

In Episode 15 Shinji asks Rei Say what kind of person is my father I donrsquot know Yoursquove been looking at me all afternoon because you wanted to ask me that Shinji remarks that for a moment earlier in the day Rei had looked like a mother What are you saying

At the grave of Shinjirsquos mother Gendo says Itrsquos been three years since the last time we came here together I ran away then I havenrsquot been back since Gendo observes Man survives by forgetting his memories but there are some things a man should never forget Yui taught me about the irreplaceable things As Gendo walks away Shinji calls out Father Irsquom glad I got to talk to you today

Asuka comes home to find Shinji playing the cello (J S Bach Suite No 1 for Unaccompanied Cello BWV 1007 Prelude) He plays it quite well if a bit slowly Asuka applauds Not bad I didnrsquot know you played In this scene Asuka is

more complementary to Shinji than on any other occasion Later Shinjirsquos love of Bach will take on increased importance

Shinji-1 tries out some variations on romanticerotic heterosexual relationships Misato Ritsuko and Kaji attend a wedding laying bare a still-simmering romantic triangle Meanwhile Asuka and Shinji engage in a long breathless kiss that turns Shinji first red then blue Asuka is insulting as usual and the results of these experiments are at best ambiguous

By the end of Episode 15 Shinji has achieved a level of skill and self-confidence that would have been unimaginable in Episodes 1 and 2 His relationship with Misato is warm and familial in the domestic setting and coolly efficient at Nerv Rei remains withdrawn and Asuka insulting but Shinji has learned to overlook these quirks and the three work together as an effective team The emotional arc of Shinjirsquos glorious fantasy has reached its peak but the golden apple has a worm at its core Shinjirsquos world is not real

Episode 16

Until this point in the narrative of Evangelion despite the exoticism of Nerv and the horrendous Angels the shape of a classical Bildungsroman is clearly seen Such stories often end in celebration over obstacles conquered andor in sober reflection on the cost of lessons learned Yet Shinjirsquos seemingly upward progress has been entirely illusory instead of facing and overcoming the demons of his damaged childhood he has learned to weave them into the fabric of an elaborate lie ndash a fantasy ndash that clouds his vision and threatens to engulf him The road back to honesty and recovery will be complicated dangerous and painful

New synchronization tests are performed on the three pilots and Shinji scores highest Misato succumbs to an unprofessional temptation to tell Shinji in English You are number one The next Angel arrives in the shape of an enormous black-and-white beach ball casting a correspondingly huge shadow on the ground As usual conventional means fail to destroy the Angel and the three EVAs are deployed Unreasonably buoyed by his recent successes and Misatorsquos careless remark Shinji attacks the Angel without waiting for emplacement of his backup Shinjirsquos Unit 01 sinks into the shadow which Nerv subsequently identifies as the actual form and substance of the Angel Out of communication with Nerv and unable to extricate himself Shinji switches Unit 01 to minimal life support hoping that Nerv will find a way to rescue him

In an intense confrontation Misato discovers that she and Ritsuko have different agendas and that the EVAs may have a more malignant history than she knew

Fifteen hours later as Unit 01rsquos life support systems begin to fail and Shinji nears death he revisits images of his childhood and carries out an ontological

examination of his own innermost being Part of this inquisition consists of questions and answers in contrasting versions of Shinjirsquos voice which can be read as a dialogue in catechistic form between Shinji-2 and a more mature dispassionate Shinji whom I will call Shinji-3

Shinji-2 Whorsquos thereShinji-3 I am you People have another self with themselves The self is always composed of two peoplehellip The self which is actually seen and the self observing that There are many entities called Ikari Shinji The other Ikari Shinji that exists in your mind The Ikari Shinji in Misato Katsuragirsquos mind the Shinji in Asuka Sohryu the Shinji in Rei Ayanami and the Shinji in Ikari Gendo All are different Ikari Shinjis But each of them is a true Ikari Shinji Your are afraid of those Ikari Shinjis in other peoplersquos mindsShinji-2 Irsquom afraid of other people hating meShinji-3 Yoursquore afraid of being hurtShinji-2 Who is at faultShinji-3 Father is the one who is at fault The father who deserted me

Asuka and Rei materialize to further confront Shinji with his weaknesses and faults Shinji recalls that he was once praised by his father but Shinji-3 asks if Shinji will spend the rest of his life ruminating on that happiness

Shinji-2 If I believe in those words I can keep on livingShinji-3 Are you going to continue to deceive yourselfShinji-2 Everybody does it Thatrsquos how everyone survivesShinji-3 Believe that yoursquore fine with the way things are or you wonrsquot be able to keep on livingShinji-2 Therersquos too much hardship in this world for me to keep on livingShinji-3 For example the fact you canrsquot swimShinji-2 Humans arenrsquot made to floatShinji-3 This is self-deceptionShinji-2 I donrsquot care what you call itShinji-3 Yoursquove shut your eyes and turned a deaf ear to the things you donrsquot likehellip See Yoursquore running away again Therersquos no way you can live by linking just the enjoyable moments like a rosaryhellipShinji-2 Irsquove found something I enjoy Finding something you enjoy and doing nothing but thathellip Whatrsquos wrong with that

Nerv Command reports that Shinji is approaching termination Shinji continues to ruminate on his fatherrsquos several betrayals and his own immanent death So this is the end Irsquom tired of it all Shinji is seen naked floating in space A

ghostly image of his mother reaches out to him Suddenly in violation of all the laws of physics Unit-01 reactivates and breaks out of the Angel in a horrendous display of bloody bestial ferocity that sickens even the battle-hardened Nerv staff

Ritsuko What kind of monster have we copied fromMisato I know that the EVAs arenrsquot just copies of the first Angel But what is Nerv going to do with them once all the Angels have been destroyed

A monstrous blood-red apparition strides toward Nerv roaring defiance at its terrorized creators

Misato opens the insertion plug and embraces Shinji in tearful relief I just wanted to see you one more time Shinji says barely alive Rei waits patiently at Shinjirsquos hospital bedside When he regains consciousness she takes her leave finding Asuka outside Asuka is livid that anyone has seen her in a moment of emotional vulnerability of caring Shinji chuckles boyishly and knowingly

Some dreams become nightmares and fantasies can metastasize into compulsive obsessions that threaten to swallow the dreamer As the intrigue within Nerv is gradually revealed and the death toll mounts Shinjirsquos epic world turns steadily darker deadlier and more unstable

Episodes 17 to 20

Toji is seen visiting his sister in the hospital where nurses remark on his brotherly affection and sense of duty Unit 04 along with Nervrsquos Second Branch in the Nevada desert vanishes as Shinjirsquos fantasy world begins its long slide toward disintegration Kaji invites Shinji out for tea Irsquom a boy you know Shinji warns Kaji takes Shinji to his watermelon patch

Kaji Making somethinghellip Nurturing something is really great You can see and learn so many things from the process Like whatrsquos enjoyableShinji And about suffering too rightKaji Do you hate sufferingShinji I donrsquot like itKaji Have you found anything that you enjoyShinji (Silence)Kaji Thatrsquos fine too But knowledge of suffering makes you all the more capable of kindness to others Because thatrsquos different from being weak

Toji is informed of his selection as Fourth Child He tells no one and folds into himself As usual his silences speak volumes An activation test is scheduled in Matsushiro with Toji piloting the newest EVA Misato observes hellipbut nothing

good comes of becoming involved with us and the EVAs Shinji and Toji deliver some papers to Rei and Shinji cleans up the trash Rei thanks him but later realizes she has never thanked anyone before A new synch test shows that Shinjirsquos score is dropping

Staying with Shinji and Asuka while Misato is in Matsushiro Kaji observes to Shinji The word we use for lsquoshersquo literally means lsquothe woman far awayrsquo To us women will always be on the distant shore Basically therersquos a river dividing men and women deeper and wider than the ocean

Infected by the latest Angel Unit 03 (with Toji trapped inside) destroys the test facility at Matsushiro and advances on New Tokyo-3 Units 00 to 02 are launched The Angel disables Asukarsquos Unit 02 and invades Reirsquos Unit 00 Shinji is ordered by Gendo to destroy the Angel but refuses believing correctly that there is a child inside it Gendo cuts Shinjirsquos synchronization with Unit 01 and transfers control to the dummy plug which dismembers the Angel in a bloody rampage finally crushing the insertion plug with Toji still within

Returned to Unit 01rsquos storage bay Shinji still in the insertion plug refuses to relinquish control He expresses disgust at the actions of his father and Nerv in risking Tojirsquos life

Mission Control But Shinji if we hadnrsquot done that you would have been killedShinji That doesnrsquot matterMC But it is a factShinji Donrsquot make me more angry by saying things like that Unit 01 has 185 seconds of power left in its reserves Thatrsquos enough to destroy at least half of HeadquartersMC aside The way he is right now hersquoll do it tooMC Shinji-kun listen to us If Commander Ikari hadnrsquot made that decision everyone could have been killedShinji I said it doesnrsquot matter My father ndash that bastard tried to kill Toji With my handshellip Father yoursquore there arenrsquot you Say something Answer meGendo orders a procedure that renders Shinji unconscious We have no time to waste on a childish tantrum he saysToji regains consciousness in a hospital bed looks over and sees Shinji in another bed then dreams of himself Rei and Shinji riding in a streetcar In the dream Toji is standingRei Ikari-kun why did you do thatShinji Because I couldnrsquot forgive my father He betrayed me I was finally able to have a comfortable conversation with my father but he wonrsquot try to understand my feelings at all

Rei Did you try to understand your fatherrsquos feelingsShinji I triedRei Why donrsquot you try to understand himShinji yells I said I triedRei And thatrsquos how you run away from unpleasantnessShinji Whatrsquos wrong with that Whatrsquos wrong with running away from unpleasantnessToji What are those two arguing about

The foregoing exchange so radioactive that it is twice removed from reality (Shinji dreams of Toji dreaming the conversation) is the central problem and dilemma of Evangelion which as a whole can be seen as an elaborate working out of Shinjirsquos highly fraught and conflicted relationship with his father Within the frame of the story Gendo as top dog of Nerv exerts almost complete control over the shape and content of Shinjirsquos life as Shinji-1rsquos father once did over his at least in principle At this point in the drama it is still an open question whether any accommodation or reconciliation is possible or if Shinji will remain an incomplete person enslaved to his fatherrsquos will Three possibilities can be seen Shinji fails to escape the nightmare of submission to Gendo Shinji and Gendo are reconciled and Shinji moves on Shinji escapes Gendo by symbolically destroying him As long as the thunderhead of this epic father-son struggle continues to darken Shinjirsquos life his relationships with other people will remain tentative and insecure Not since Zeus overthrew his father Kronos (who had castrated his own father Ouranos) has there been such a cosmic father-son faceoff

Class Rep Hikari visits Toji who asks her to tell his sister that there is nothing wrong with him Not true Toji has lost his left leg Shinjirsquos escapist drama is becoming grotesquely destructive bringing pain and loss to those nearest and dearest to him

Shinji is arrested and brought handcuffed before Gendo who accuses him of multiple crimes Shinji says he doesnrsquot want to pilot an EVA any more nor stay at Nerv Gendo tells him to leave

Gendo So yoursquore running away again You disappoint me I doubt wersquoll ever meet againShinji Yes thatrsquos my intent

Kensuke calls Shinji at Misatorsquos apartment and leaves a message on the answering machine regretting Shinjirsquos decision But why Kensuke asks Why are you running away now I wanted to be like you I envied you Yoursquore

different from us Damn Even Toji became an EVA pilot while Ihellip The connection is broken by Nerv security

Misato leaves Shinji at a train station She says If you keep cutting your ties like this yoursquoll have a rough life ahead of you Shinji replies Thatrsquos your philosophy Miss Misato I canrsquot live like you Misato says I was projecting all of my dreams hopes and purpose onto you I also know thatrsquos itrsquos been a huge burden for you Shinji has the last word I wonrsquot pilot an EVA again

While Shinji is waiting on the train platform a new Angel attack begins Unit 01 rejects Rei who is then ordered into Unit 00 which has a defective arm Shinji watches the attack examining his recent decision The Angel descends into the Geo-front and disables Asukarsquos Unit 02 After rejecting Rei Unit 01 rejects the dummy plug as well rendering it useless While crossing Kajirsquos watermelon field in transit to an undamaged shelter Shinji sees Asukarsquos disabled Unit 02

Shinji to Kaji What are you doing hereKaji Thatrsquos my line What are you doing here ShinjiShinji Ihellip Irsquom never going to pilot an EVA again And since I decided thathellipKaji I see (Kaji continues watering his watermelons)Shinji At a time like thisKaji Itrsquos because it is a time like this Between Katsuragirsquos breasts is nice too but in the end I want to be here when I dieReirsquos Unit 00 rises into view without even a rifle She penetrates the Angelrsquos defensive shield and explodes an N2 mine which fails to destroy the AngelKaji Shinji-kun the only thing I can do is stand here and water But you you have something that you can do That only you can do Nobody is forcing you Think for yourself and make the decision by yourself Think about what you ought to do now You know so you donrsquot have any regretsShamed by Kajirsquos lecture Shinji returns to Nerv and appears before Gendo initially in an attitude of submission then demanding to be allowed to pilot Unit 01Gendo Why are you here (Shinjirsquos hand opens and closes then clenches into a fist)Shinji Ihellip Ihellip Father I am the pilot of Evangelion Unit 01 Ikari Shinji

Shinjirsquos decision to leave Nerv in this episode can be seen as an early and unfocused attempt to escape the confinement of his consuming fantasy A parallel can be drawn with Odysseusrsquo desire to end his imprisonment on Calypsorsquos timeless island and break her ownership of his life Hermes has delivered Zeusrsquos edict that she can no longer hold Odysseus by force so she makes one last attempt to detain him through persuasion

Good luck then and farewell But if you only knew in your heart how many pains will fill you up before you reach home you would stay here with me guarding this house and be immortalhellip[9]

Time has stopped in New Tokyo-3 as well There are no seasons and only repetitive battles with Angel after Angel mark the unspooling days lending no more than a quantum of meaning to an otherwise empty existence In the watermelon patch Calypsorsquos gender is inverted and we find Kaji upholding the status quo through an appeal to Shinjirsquos honor and sense of duty lsquoSomething only you can dorsquo is at once moral blackmail and an insidious drug to an empty and drifting soul Shinji returns to his fatherrsquos domain with renewed energy and determination thoughts of escape temporarily banished　HermesKaworu is yet to appear to demand his release instead CalypsoKaji has won this round and Shinjirsquos imprisonment within the Evangelion world continues

The Angel penetrates all shield levels and enters the Command Center Unit 01 crashes through the wall and restrains the Angel while the two are ejected to ground level After a savage attack on the Angel Unit 01rsquos power runs out and the Angel proceeds to trash it Unit 01 reactivates regenerates an arm in human form destroys the Angel and proceeds to eat it The sight is sickening Ritsuko asks Does that mean that shersquos really awakened Unit 01 rises and flexes its muscles breaking its armor plating Ritsuko explains Thatrsquos not armor plating Those are restraints that allow us to suppress the EVAs true powerhellip We can no longer stop the EVA Kaji in his watermelon patch observes Seele wonrsquot stay quiet for this Fuyutsuki asks Gendo Was this also part of your script Commander Ikari Itrsquos begun hasnrsquot it Gendo says Yes it all begins here

This exchange between Gendo and Fuyutsuki echoes a similar line in Akira (Otomo Katsuhiro 1988) which predicts the emergence of the universe (or a new universe) out of the final transformation of Tetsuo Gendo works toward a transformation as well this one called the Human Instrumentality Project whose meaning and implications will be reveled later Gendorsquos role becomes steadily darker

Two EVAs and the Nerv Command Center have been heavily damaged Control is moved to a secondary command facility and repairs to Unit 01 commence Seele (previously referred to as the old men or the Committee) are displeased though their ultimate goal is unclear Shinji remains trapped inside Unit 01 unable to communicate Ritsuko reveals to Misato that EVAs are not passive effectors of the pilotrsquos commands but imbued with a human will and possibly responsible for the recent chaos Do something damn you Misato yells at Ritsuko slapping her You created it didnrsquot you Take responsibility for it

examination of his own innermost being Part of this inquisition consists of questions and answers in contrasting versions of Shinjirsquos voice which can be read as a dialogue in catechistic form between Shinji-2 and a more mature dispassionate Shinji whom I will call Shinji-3

Shinji-2 Whorsquos thereShinji-3 I am you People have another self with themselves The self is always composed of two peoplehellip The self which is actually seen and the self observing that There are many entities called Ikari Shinji The other Ikari Shinji that exists in your mind The Ikari Shinji in Misato Katsuragirsquos mind the Shinji in Asuka Sohryu the Shinji in Rei Ayanami and the Shinji in Ikari Gendo All are different Ikari Shinjis But each of them is a true Ikari Shinji Your are afraid of those Ikari Shinjis in other peoplersquos mindsShinji-2 Irsquom afraid of other people hating meShinji-3 Yoursquore afraid of being hurtShinji-2 Who is at faultShinji-3 Father is the one who is at fault The father who deserted me

Asuka and Rei materialize to further confront Shinji with his weaknesses and faults Shinji recalls that he was once praised by his father but Shinji-3 asks if Shinji will spend the rest of his life ruminating on that happiness

Shinji-2 If I believe in those words I can keep on livingShinji-3 Are you going to continue to deceive yourselfShinji-2 Everybody does it Thatrsquos how everyone survivesShinji-3 Believe that yoursquore fine with the way things are or you wonrsquot be able to keep on livingShinji-2 Therersquos too much hardship in this world for me to keep on livingShinji-3 For example the fact you canrsquot swimShinji-2 Humans arenrsquot made to floatShinji-3 This is self-deceptionShinji-2 I donrsquot care what you call itShinji-3 Yoursquove shut your eyes and turned a deaf ear to the things you donrsquot likehellip See Yoursquore running away again Therersquos no way you can live by linking just the enjoyable moments like a rosaryhellipShinji-2 Irsquove found something I enjoy Finding something you enjoy and doing nothing but thathellip Whatrsquos wrong with that

Nerv Command reports that Shinji is approaching termination Shinji continues to ruminate on his fatherrsquos several betrayals and his own immanent death So this is the end Irsquom tired of it all Shinji is seen naked floating in space A

ghostly image of his mother reaches out to him Suddenly in violation of all the laws of physics Unit-01 reactivates and breaks out of the Angel in a horrendous display of bloody bestial ferocity that sickens even the battle-hardened Nerv staff

Ritsuko What kind of monster have we copied fromMisato I know that the EVAs arenrsquot just copies of the first Angel But what is Nerv going to do with them once all the Angels have been destroyed

A monstrous blood-red apparition strides toward Nerv roaring defiance at its terrorized creators

Misato opens the insertion plug and embraces Shinji in tearful relief I just wanted to see you one more time Shinji says barely alive Rei waits patiently at Shinjirsquos hospital bedside When he regains consciousness she takes her leave finding Asuka outside Asuka is livid that anyone has seen her in a moment of emotional vulnerability of caring Shinji chuckles boyishly and knowingly

Some dreams become nightmares and fantasies can metastasize into compulsive obsessions that threaten to swallow the dreamer As the intrigue within Nerv is gradually revealed and the death toll mounts Shinjirsquos epic world turns steadily darker deadlier and more unstable

Episodes 17 to 20

Toji is seen visiting his sister in the hospital where nurses remark on his brotherly affection and sense of duty Unit 04 along with Nervrsquos Second Branch in the Nevada desert vanishes as Shinjirsquos fantasy world begins its long slide toward disintegration Kaji invites Shinji out for tea Irsquom a boy you know Shinji warns Kaji takes Shinji to his watermelon patch

Kaji Making somethinghellip Nurturing something is really great You can see and learn so many things from the process Like whatrsquos enjoyableShinji And about suffering too rightKaji Do you hate sufferingShinji I donrsquot like itKaji Have you found anything that you enjoyShinji (Silence)Kaji Thatrsquos fine too But knowledge of suffering makes you all the more capable of kindness to others Because thatrsquos different from being weak

Toji is informed of his selection as Fourth Child He tells no one and folds into himself As usual his silences speak volumes An activation test is scheduled in Matsushiro with Toji piloting the newest EVA Misato observes hellipbut nothing

good comes of becoming involved with us and the EVAs Shinji and Toji deliver some papers to Rei and Shinji cleans up the trash Rei thanks him but later realizes she has never thanked anyone before A new synch test shows that Shinjirsquos score is dropping

Staying with Shinji and Asuka while Misato is in Matsushiro Kaji observes to Shinji The word we use for lsquoshersquo literally means lsquothe woman far awayrsquo To us women will always be on the distant shore Basically therersquos a river dividing men and women deeper and wider than the ocean

Infected by the latest Angel Unit 03 (with Toji trapped inside) destroys the test facility at Matsushiro and advances on New Tokyo-3 Units 00 to 02 are launched The Angel disables Asukarsquos Unit 02 and invades Reirsquos Unit 00 Shinji is ordered by Gendo to destroy the Angel but refuses believing correctly that there is a child inside it Gendo cuts Shinjirsquos synchronization with Unit 01 and transfers control to the dummy plug which dismembers the Angel in a bloody rampage finally crushing the insertion plug with Toji still within

Returned to Unit 01rsquos storage bay Shinji still in the insertion plug refuses to relinquish control He expresses disgust at the actions of his father and Nerv in risking Tojirsquos life

Mission Control But Shinji if we hadnrsquot done that you would have been killedShinji That doesnrsquot matterMC But it is a factShinji Donrsquot make me more angry by saying things like that Unit 01 has 185 seconds of power left in its reserves Thatrsquos enough to destroy at least half of HeadquartersMC aside The way he is right now hersquoll do it tooMC Shinji-kun listen to us If Commander Ikari hadnrsquot made that decision everyone could have been killedShinji I said it doesnrsquot matter My father ndash that bastard tried to kill Toji With my handshellip Father yoursquore there arenrsquot you Say something Answer meGendo orders a procedure that renders Shinji unconscious We have no time to waste on a childish tantrum he saysToji regains consciousness in a hospital bed looks over and sees Shinji in another bed then dreams of himself Rei and Shinji riding in a streetcar In the dream Toji is standingRei Ikari-kun why did you do thatShinji Because I couldnrsquot forgive my father He betrayed me I was finally able to have a comfortable conversation with my father but he wonrsquot try to understand my feelings at all

Rei Did you try to understand your fatherrsquos feelingsShinji I triedRei Why donrsquot you try to understand himShinji yells I said I triedRei And thatrsquos how you run away from unpleasantnessShinji Whatrsquos wrong with that Whatrsquos wrong with running away from unpleasantnessToji What are those two arguing about

The foregoing exchange so radioactive that it is twice removed from reality (Shinji dreams of Toji dreaming the conversation) is the central problem and dilemma of Evangelion which as a whole can be seen as an elaborate working out of Shinjirsquos highly fraught and conflicted relationship with his father Within the frame of the story Gendo as top dog of Nerv exerts almost complete control over the shape and content of Shinjirsquos life as Shinji-1rsquos father once did over his at least in principle At this point in the drama it is still an open question whether any accommodation or reconciliation is possible or if Shinji will remain an incomplete person enslaved to his fatherrsquos will Three possibilities can be seen Shinji fails to escape the nightmare of submission to Gendo Shinji and Gendo are reconciled and Shinji moves on Shinji escapes Gendo by symbolically destroying him As long as the thunderhead of this epic father-son struggle continues to darken Shinjirsquos life his relationships with other people will remain tentative and insecure Not since Zeus overthrew his father Kronos (who had castrated his own father Ouranos) has there been such a cosmic father-son faceoff

Class Rep Hikari visits Toji who asks her to tell his sister that there is nothing wrong with him Not true Toji has lost his left leg Shinjirsquos escapist drama is becoming grotesquely destructive bringing pain and loss to those nearest and dearest to him

Shinji is arrested and brought handcuffed before Gendo who accuses him of multiple crimes Shinji says he doesnrsquot want to pilot an EVA any more nor stay at Nerv Gendo tells him to leave

Gendo So yoursquore running away again You disappoint me I doubt wersquoll ever meet againShinji Yes thatrsquos my intent

Kensuke calls Shinji at Misatorsquos apartment and leaves a message on the answering machine regretting Shinjirsquos decision But why Kensuke asks Why are you running away now I wanted to be like you I envied you Yoursquore

different from us Damn Even Toji became an EVA pilot while Ihellip The connection is broken by Nerv security

Misato leaves Shinji at a train station She says If you keep cutting your ties like this yoursquoll have a rough life ahead of you Shinji replies Thatrsquos your philosophy Miss Misato I canrsquot live like you Misato says I was projecting all of my dreams hopes and purpose onto you I also know thatrsquos itrsquos been a huge burden for you Shinji has the last word I wonrsquot pilot an EVA again

While Shinji is waiting on the train platform a new Angel attack begins Unit 01 rejects Rei who is then ordered into Unit 00 which has a defective arm Shinji watches the attack examining his recent decision The Angel descends into the Geo-front and disables Asukarsquos Unit 02 After rejecting Rei Unit 01 rejects the dummy plug as well rendering it useless While crossing Kajirsquos watermelon field in transit to an undamaged shelter Shinji sees Asukarsquos disabled Unit 02

Shinji to Kaji What are you doing hereKaji Thatrsquos my line What are you doing here ShinjiShinji Ihellip Irsquom never going to pilot an EVA again And since I decided thathellipKaji I see (Kaji continues watering his watermelons)Shinji At a time like thisKaji Itrsquos because it is a time like this Between Katsuragirsquos breasts is nice too but in the end I want to be here when I dieReirsquos Unit 00 rises into view without even a rifle She penetrates the Angelrsquos defensive shield and explodes an N2 mine which fails to destroy the AngelKaji Shinji-kun the only thing I can do is stand here and water But you you have something that you can do That only you can do Nobody is forcing you Think for yourself and make the decision by yourself Think about what you ought to do now You know so you donrsquot have any regretsShamed by Kajirsquos lecture Shinji returns to Nerv and appears before Gendo initially in an attitude of submission then demanding to be allowed to pilot Unit 01Gendo Why are you here (Shinjirsquos hand opens and closes then clenches into a fist)Shinji Ihellip Ihellip Father I am the pilot of Evangelion Unit 01 Ikari Shinji

Shinjirsquos decision to leave Nerv in this episode can be seen as an early and unfocused attempt to escape the confinement of his consuming fantasy A parallel can be drawn with Odysseusrsquo desire to end his imprisonment on Calypsorsquos timeless island and break her ownership of his life Hermes has delivered Zeusrsquos edict that she can no longer hold Odysseus by force so she makes one last attempt to detain him through persuasion

Good luck then and farewell But if you only knew in your heart how many pains will fill you up before you reach home you would stay here with me guarding this house and be immortalhellip[9]

Time has stopped in New Tokyo-3 as well There are no seasons and only repetitive battles with Angel after Angel mark the unspooling days lending no more than a quantum of meaning to an otherwise empty existence In the watermelon patch Calypsorsquos gender is inverted and we find Kaji upholding the status quo through an appeal to Shinjirsquos honor and sense of duty lsquoSomething only you can dorsquo is at once moral blackmail and an insidious drug to an empty and drifting soul Shinji returns to his fatherrsquos domain with renewed energy and determination thoughts of escape temporarily banished　HermesKaworu is yet to appear to demand his release instead CalypsoKaji has won this round and Shinjirsquos imprisonment within the Evangelion world continues

The Angel penetrates all shield levels and enters the Command Center Unit 01 crashes through the wall and restrains the Angel while the two are ejected to ground level After a savage attack on the Angel Unit 01rsquos power runs out and the Angel proceeds to trash it Unit 01 reactivates regenerates an arm in human form destroys the Angel and proceeds to eat it The sight is sickening Ritsuko asks Does that mean that shersquos really awakened Unit 01 rises and flexes its muscles breaking its armor plating Ritsuko explains Thatrsquos not armor plating Those are restraints that allow us to suppress the EVAs true powerhellip We can no longer stop the EVA Kaji in his watermelon patch observes Seele wonrsquot stay quiet for this Fuyutsuki asks Gendo Was this also part of your script Commander Ikari Itrsquos begun hasnrsquot it Gendo says Yes it all begins here

This exchange between Gendo and Fuyutsuki echoes a similar line in Akira (Otomo Katsuhiro 1988) which predicts the emergence of the universe (or a new universe) out of the final transformation of Tetsuo Gendo works toward a transformation as well this one called the Human Instrumentality Project whose meaning and implications will be reveled later Gendorsquos role becomes steadily darker

Two EVAs and the Nerv Command Center have been heavily damaged Control is moved to a secondary command facility and repairs to Unit 01 commence Seele (previously referred to as the old men or the Committee) are displeased though their ultimate goal is unclear Shinji remains trapped inside Unit 01 unable to communicate Ritsuko reveals to Misato that EVAs are not passive effectors of the pilotrsquos commands but imbued with a human will and possibly responsible for the recent chaos Do something damn you Misato yells at Ritsuko slapping her You created it didnrsquot you Take responsibility for it

ghostly image of his mother reaches out to him Suddenly in violation of all the laws of physics Unit-01 reactivates and breaks out of the Angel in a horrendous display of bloody bestial ferocity that sickens even the battle-hardened Nerv staff

Ritsuko What kind of monster have we copied fromMisato I know that the EVAs arenrsquot just copies of the first Angel But what is Nerv going to do with them once all the Angels have been destroyed

A monstrous blood-red apparition strides toward Nerv roaring defiance at its terrorized creators

Misato opens the insertion plug and embraces Shinji in tearful relief I just wanted to see you one more time Shinji says barely alive Rei waits patiently at Shinjirsquos hospital bedside When he regains consciousness she takes her leave finding Asuka outside Asuka is livid that anyone has seen her in a moment of emotional vulnerability of caring Shinji chuckles boyishly and knowingly

Some dreams become nightmares and fantasies can metastasize into compulsive obsessions that threaten to swallow the dreamer As the intrigue within Nerv is gradually revealed and the death toll mounts Shinjirsquos epic world turns steadily darker deadlier and more unstable

Episodes 17 to 20

Toji is seen visiting his sister in the hospital where nurses remark on his brotherly affection and sense of duty Unit 04 along with Nervrsquos Second Branch in the Nevada desert vanishes as Shinjirsquos fantasy world begins its long slide toward disintegration Kaji invites Shinji out for tea Irsquom a boy you know Shinji warns Kaji takes Shinji to his watermelon patch

Kaji Making somethinghellip Nurturing something is really great You can see and learn so many things from the process Like whatrsquos enjoyableShinji And about suffering too rightKaji Do you hate sufferingShinji I donrsquot like itKaji Have you found anything that you enjoyShinji (Silence)Kaji Thatrsquos fine too But knowledge of suffering makes you all the more capable of kindness to others Because thatrsquos different from being weak

Toji is informed of his selection as Fourth Child He tells no one and folds into himself As usual his silences speak volumes An activation test is scheduled in Matsushiro with Toji piloting the newest EVA Misato observes hellipbut nothing

good comes of becoming involved with us and the EVAs Shinji and Toji deliver some papers to Rei and Shinji cleans up the trash Rei thanks him but later realizes she has never thanked anyone before A new synch test shows that Shinjirsquos score is dropping

Staying with Shinji and Asuka while Misato is in Matsushiro Kaji observes to Shinji The word we use for lsquoshersquo literally means lsquothe woman far awayrsquo To us women will always be on the distant shore Basically therersquos a river dividing men and women deeper and wider than the ocean

Infected by the latest Angel Unit 03 (with Toji trapped inside) destroys the test facility at Matsushiro and advances on New Tokyo-3 Units 00 to 02 are launched The Angel disables Asukarsquos Unit 02 and invades Reirsquos Unit 00 Shinji is ordered by Gendo to destroy the Angel but refuses believing correctly that there is a child inside it Gendo cuts Shinjirsquos synchronization with Unit 01 and transfers control to the dummy plug which dismembers the Angel in a bloody rampage finally crushing the insertion plug with Toji still within

Returned to Unit 01rsquos storage bay Shinji still in the insertion plug refuses to relinquish control He expresses disgust at the actions of his father and Nerv in risking Tojirsquos life

Mission Control But Shinji if we hadnrsquot done that you would have been killedShinji That doesnrsquot matterMC But it is a factShinji Donrsquot make me more angry by saying things like that Unit 01 has 185 seconds of power left in its reserves Thatrsquos enough to destroy at least half of HeadquartersMC aside The way he is right now hersquoll do it tooMC Shinji-kun listen to us If Commander Ikari hadnrsquot made that decision everyone could have been killedShinji I said it doesnrsquot matter My father ndash that bastard tried to kill Toji With my handshellip Father yoursquore there arenrsquot you Say something Answer meGendo orders a procedure that renders Shinji unconscious We have no time to waste on a childish tantrum he saysToji regains consciousness in a hospital bed looks over and sees Shinji in another bed then dreams of himself Rei and Shinji riding in a streetcar In the dream Toji is standingRei Ikari-kun why did you do thatShinji Because I couldnrsquot forgive my father He betrayed me I was finally able to have a comfortable conversation with my father but he wonrsquot try to understand my feelings at all

Rei Did you try to understand your fatherrsquos feelingsShinji I triedRei Why donrsquot you try to understand himShinji yells I said I triedRei And thatrsquos how you run away from unpleasantnessShinji Whatrsquos wrong with that Whatrsquos wrong with running away from unpleasantnessToji What are those two arguing about

The foregoing exchange so radioactive that it is twice removed from reality (Shinji dreams of Toji dreaming the conversation) is the central problem and dilemma of Evangelion which as a whole can be seen as an elaborate working out of Shinjirsquos highly fraught and conflicted relationship with his father Within the frame of the story Gendo as top dog of Nerv exerts almost complete control over the shape and content of Shinjirsquos life as Shinji-1rsquos father once did over his at least in principle At this point in the drama it is still an open question whether any accommodation or reconciliation is possible or if Shinji will remain an incomplete person enslaved to his fatherrsquos will Three possibilities can be seen Shinji fails to escape the nightmare of submission to Gendo Shinji and Gendo are reconciled and Shinji moves on Shinji escapes Gendo by symbolically destroying him As long as the thunderhead of this epic father-son struggle continues to darken Shinjirsquos life his relationships with other people will remain tentative and insecure Not since Zeus overthrew his father Kronos (who had castrated his own father Ouranos) has there been such a cosmic father-son faceoff

Class Rep Hikari visits Toji who asks her to tell his sister that there is nothing wrong with him Not true Toji has lost his left leg Shinjirsquos escapist drama is becoming grotesquely destructive bringing pain and loss to those nearest and dearest to him

Shinji is arrested and brought handcuffed before Gendo who accuses him of multiple crimes Shinji says he doesnrsquot want to pilot an EVA any more nor stay at Nerv Gendo tells him to leave

Gendo So yoursquore running away again You disappoint me I doubt wersquoll ever meet againShinji Yes thatrsquos my intent

Kensuke calls Shinji at Misatorsquos apartment and leaves a message on the answering machine regretting Shinjirsquos decision But why Kensuke asks Why are you running away now I wanted to be like you I envied you Yoursquore

different from us Damn Even Toji became an EVA pilot while Ihellip The connection is broken by Nerv security

Misato leaves Shinji at a train station She says If you keep cutting your ties like this yoursquoll have a rough life ahead of you Shinji replies Thatrsquos your philosophy Miss Misato I canrsquot live like you Misato says I was projecting all of my dreams hopes and purpose onto you I also know thatrsquos itrsquos been a huge burden for you Shinji has the last word I wonrsquot pilot an EVA again

While Shinji is waiting on the train platform a new Angel attack begins Unit 01 rejects Rei who is then ordered into Unit 00 which has a defective arm Shinji watches the attack examining his recent decision The Angel descends into the Geo-front and disables Asukarsquos Unit 02 After rejecting Rei Unit 01 rejects the dummy plug as well rendering it useless While crossing Kajirsquos watermelon field in transit to an undamaged shelter Shinji sees Asukarsquos disabled Unit 02

Shinji to Kaji What are you doing hereKaji Thatrsquos my line What are you doing here ShinjiShinji Ihellip Irsquom never going to pilot an EVA again And since I decided thathellipKaji I see (Kaji continues watering his watermelons)Shinji At a time like thisKaji Itrsquos because it is a time like this Between Katsuragirsquos breasts is nice too but in the end I want to be here when I dieReirsquos Unit 00 rises into view without even a rifle She penetrates the Angelrsquos defensive shield and explodes an N2 mine which fails to destroy the AngelKaji Shinji-kun the only thing I can do is stand here and water But you you have something that you can do That only you can do Nobody is forcing you Think for yourself and make the decision by yourself Think about what you ought to do now You know so you donrsquot have any regretsShamed by Kajirsquos lecture Shinji returns to Nerv and appears before Gendo initially in an attitude of submission then demanding to be allowed to pilot Unit 01Gendo Why are you here (Shinjirsquos hand opens and closes then clenches into a fist)Shinji Ihellip Ihellip Father I am the pilot of Evangelion Unit 01 Ikari Shinji

Shinjirsquos decision to leave Nerv in this episode can be seen as an early and unfocused attempt to escape the confinement of his consuming fantasy A parallel can be drawn with Odysseusrsquo desire to end his imprisonment on Calypsorsquos timeless island and break her ownership of his life Hermes has delivered Zeusrsquos edict that she can no longer hold Odysseus by force so she makes one last attempt to detain him through persuasion

Good luck then and farewell But if you only knew in your heart how many pains will fill you up before you reach home you would stay here with me guarding this house and be immortalhellip[9]

Time has stopped in New Tokyo-3 as well There are no seasons and only repetitive battles with Angel after Angel mark the unspooling days lending no more than a quantum of meaning to an otherwise empty existence In the watermelon patch Calypsorsquos gender is inverted and we find Kaji upholding the status quo through an appeal to Shinjirsquos honor and sense of duty lsquoSomething only you can dorsquo is at once moral blackmail and an insidious drug to an empty and drifting soul Shinji returns to his fatherrsquos domain with renewed energy and determination thoughts of escape temporarily banished　HermesKaworu is yet to appear to demand his release instead CalypsoKaji has won this round and Shinjirsquos imprisonment within the Evangelion world continues

The Angel penetrates all shield levels and enters the Command Center Unit 01 crashes through the wall and restrains the Angel while the two are ejected to ground level After a savage attack on the Angel Unit 01rsquos power runs out and the Angel proceeds to trash it Unit 01 reactivates regenerates an arm in human form destroys the Angel and proceeds to eat it The sight is sickening Ritsuko asks Does that mean that shersquos really awakened Unit 01 rises and flexes its muscles breaking its armor plating Ritsuko explains Thatrsquos not armor plating Those are restraints that allow us to suppress the EVAs true powerhellip We can no longer stop the EVA Kaji in his watermelon patch observes Seele wonrsquot stay quiet for this Fuyutsuki asks Gendo Was this also part of your script Commander Ikari Itrsquos begun hasnrsquot it Gendo says Yes it all begins here

This exchange between Gendo and Fuyutsuki echoes a similar line in Akira (Otomo Katsuhiro 1988) which predicts the emergence of the universe (or a new universe) out of the final transformation of Tetsuo Gendo works toward a transformation as well this one called the Human Instrumentality Project whose meaning and implications will be reveled later Gendorsquos role becomes steadily darker

Two EVAs and the Nerv Command Center have been heavily damaged Control is moved to a secondary command facility and repairs to Unit 01 commence Seele (previously referred to as the old men or the Committee) are displeased though their ultimate goal is unclear Shinji remains trapped inside Unit 01 unable to communicate Ritsuko reveals to Misato that EVAs are not passive effectors of the pilotrsquos commands but imbued with a human will and possibly responsible for the recent chaos Do something damn you Misato yells at Ritsuko slapping her You created it didnrsquot you Take responsibility for it

good comes of becoming involved with us and the EVAs Shinji and Toji deliver some papers to Rei and Shinji cleans up the trash Rei thanks him but later realizes she has never thanked anyone before A new synch test shows that Shinjirsquos score is dropping

Staying with Shinji and Asuka while Misato is in Matsushiro Kaji observes to Shinji The word we use for lsquoshersquo literally means lsquothe woman far awayrsquo To us women will always be on the distant shore Basically therersquos a river dividing men and women deeper and wider than the ocean

Infected by the latest Angel Unit 03 (with Toji trapped inside) destroys the test facility at Matsushiro and advances on New Tokyo-3 Units 00 to 02 are launched The Angel disables Asukarsquos Unit 02 and invades Reirsquos Unit 00 Shinji is ordered by Gendo to destroy the Angel but refuses believing correctly that there is a child inside it Gendo cuts Shinjirsquos synchronization with Unit 01 and transfers control to the dummy plug which dismembers the Angel in a bloody rampage finally crushing the insertion plug with Toji still within

Returned to Unit 01rsquos storage bay Shinji still in the insertion plug refuses to relinquish control He expresses disgust at the actions of his father and Nerv in risking Tojirsquos life

Mission Control But Shinji if we hadnrsquot done that you would have been killedShinji That doesnrsquot matterMC But it is a factShinji Donrsquot make me more angry by saying things like that Unit 01 has 185 seconds of power left in its reserves Thatrsquos enough to destroy at least half of HeadquartersMC aside The way he is right now hersquoll do it tooMC Shinji-kun listen to us If Commander Ikari hadnrsquot made that decision everyone could have been killedShinji I said it doesnrsquot matter My father ndash that bastard tried to kill Toji With my handshellip Father yoursquore there arenrsquot you Say something Answer meGendo orders a procedure that renders Shinji unconscious We have no time to waste on a childish tantrum he saysToji regains consciousness in a hospital bed looks over and sees Shinji in another bed then dreams of himself Rei and Shinji riding in a streetcar In the dream Toji is standingRei Ikari-kun why did you do thatShinji Because I couldnrsquot forgive my father He betrayed me I was finally able to have a comfortable conversation with my father but he wonrsquot try to understand my feelings at all

Rei Did you try to understand your fatherrsquos feelingsShinji I triedRei Why donrsquot you try to understand himShinji yells I said I triedRei And thatrsquos how you run away from unpleasantnessShinji Whatrsquos wrong with that Whatrsquos wrong with running away from unpleasantnessToji What are those two arguing about

The foregoing exchange so radioactive that it is twice removed from reality (Shinji dreams of Toji dreaming the conversation) is the central problem and dilemma of Evangelion which as a whole can be seen as an elaborate working out of Shinjirsquos highly fraught and conflicted relationship with his father Within the frame of the story Gendo as top dog of Nerv exerts almost complete control over the shape and content of Shinjirsquos life as Shinji-1rsquos father once did over his at least in principle At this point in the drama it is still an open question whether any accommodation or reconciliation is possible or if Shinji will remain an incomplete person enslaved to his fatherrsquos will Three possibilities can be seen Shinji fails to escape the nightmare of submission to Gendo Shinji and Gendo are reconciled and Shinji moves on Shinji escapes Gendo by symbolically destroying him As long as the thunderhead of this epic father-son struggle continues to darken Shinjirsquos life his relationships with other people will remain tentative and insecure Not since Zeus overthrew his father Kronos (who had castrated his own father Ouranos) has there been such a cosmic father-son faceoff

Class Rep Hikari visits Toji who asks her to tell his sister that there is nothing wrong with him Not true Toji has lost his left leg Shinjirsquos escapist drama is becoming grotesquely destructive bringing pain and loss to those nearest and dearest to him

Shinji is arrested and brought handcuffed before Gendo who accuses him of multiple crimes Shinji says he doesnrsquot want to pilot an EVA any more nor stay at Nerv Gendo tells him to leave

Gendo So yoursquore running away again You disappoint me I doubt wersquoll ever meet againShinji Yes thatrsquos my intent

Kensuke calls Shinji at Misatorsquos apartment and leaves a message on the answering machine regretting Shinjirsquos decision But why Kensuke asks Why are you running away now I wanted to be like you I envied you Yoursquore

different from us Damn Even Toji became an EVA pilot while Ihellip The connection is broken by Nerv security

Misato leaves Shinji at a train station She says If you keep cutting your ties like this yoursquoll have a rough life ahead of you Shinji replies Thatrsquos your philosophy Miss Misato I canrsquot live like you Misato says I was projecting all of my dreams hopes and purpose onto you I also know thatrsquos itrsquos been a huge burden for you Shinji has the last word I wonrsquot pilot an EVA again

While Shinji is waiting on the train platform a new Angel attack begins Unit 01 rejects Rei who is then ordered into Unit 00 which has a defective arm Shinji watches the attack examining his recent decision The Angel descends into the Geo-front and disables Asukarsquos Unit 02 After rejecting Rei Unit 01 rejects the dummy plug as well rendering it useless While crossing Kajirsquos watermelon field in transit to an undamaged shelter Shinji sees Asukarsquos disabled Unit 02

Shinji to Kaji What are you doing hereKaji Thatrsquos my line What are you doing here ShinjiShinji Ihellip Irsquom never going to pilot an EVA again And since I decided thathellipKaji I see (Kaji continues watering his watermelons)Shinji At a time like thisKaji Itrsquos because it is a time like this Between Katsuragirsquos breasts is nice too but in the end I want to be here when I dieReirsquos Unit 00 rises into view without even a rifle She penetrates the Angelrsquos defensive shield and explodes an N2 mine which fails to destroy the AngelKaji Shinji-kun the only thing I can do is stand here and water But you you have something that you can do That only you can do Nobody is forcing you Think for yourself and make the decision by yourself Think about what you ought to do now You know so you donrsquot have any regretsShamed by Kajirsquos lecture Shinji returns to Nerv and appears before Gendo initially in an attitude of submission then demanding to be allowed to pilot Unit 01Gendo Why are you here (Shinjirsquos hand opens and closes then clenches into a fist)Shinji Ihellip Ihellip Father I am the pilot of Evangelion Unit 01 Ikari Shinji

Shinjirsquos decision to leave Nerv in this episode can be seen as an early and unfocused attempt to escape the confinement of his consuming fantasy A parallel can be drawn with Odysseusrsquo desire to end his imprisonment on Calypsorsquos timeless island and break her ownership of his life Hermes has delivered Zeusrsquos edict that she can no longer hold Odysseus by force so she makes one last attempt to detain him through persuasion

Good luck then and farewell But if you only knew in your heart how many pains will fill you up before you reach home you would stay here with me guarding this house and be immortalhellip[9]

Time has stopped in New Tokyo-3 as well There are no seasons and only repetitive battles with Angel after Angel mark the unspooling days lending no more than a quantum of meaning to an otherwise empty existence In the watermelon patch Calypsorsquos gender is inverted and we find Kaji upholding the status quo through an appeal to Shinjirsquos honor and sense of duty lsquoSomething only you can dorsquo is at once moral blackmail and an insidious drug to an empty and drifting soul Shinji returns to his fatherrsquos domain with renewed energy and determination thoughts of escape temporarily banished　HermesKaworu is yet to appear to demand his release instead CalypsoKaji has won this round and Shinjirsquos imprisonment within the Evangelion world continues

The Angel penetrates all shield levels and enters the Command Center Unit 01 crashes through the wall and restrains the Angel while the two are ejected to ground level After a savage attack on the Angel Unit 01rsquos power runs out and the Angel proceeds to trash it Unit 01 reactivates regenerates an arm in human form destroys the Angel and proceeds to eat it The sight is sickening Ritsuko asks Does that mean that shersquos really awakened Unit 01 rises and flexes its muscles breaking its armor plating Ritsuko explains Thatrsquos not armor plating Those are restraints that allow us to suppress the EVAs true powerhellip We can no longer stop the EVA Kaji in his watermelon patch observes Seele wonrsquot stay quiet for this Fuyutsuki asks Gendo Was this also part of your script Commander Ikari Itrsquos begun hasnrsquot it Gendo says Yes it all begins here

This exchange between Gendo and Fuyutsuki echoes a similar line in Akira (Otomo Katsuhiro 1988) which predicts the emergence of the universe (or a new universe) out of the final transformation of Tetsuo Gendo works toward a transformation as well this one called the Human Instrumentality Project whose meaning and implications will be reveled later Gendorsquos role becomes steadily darker

Two EVAs and the Nerv Command Center have been heavily damaged Control is moved to a secondary command facility and repairs to Unit 01 commence Seele (previously referred to as the old men or the Committee) are displeased though their ultimate goal is unclear Shinji remains trapped inside Unit 01 unable to communicate Ritsuko reveals to Misato that EVAs are not passive effectors of the pilotrsquos commands but imbued with a human will and possibly responsible for the recent chaos Do something damn you Misato yells at Ritsuko slapping her You created it didnrsquot you Take responsibility for it

Rei Did you try to understand your fatherrsquos feelingsShinji I triedRei Why donrsquot you try to understand himShinji yells I said I triedRei And thatrsquos how you run away from unpleasantnessShinji Whatrsquos wrong with that Whatrsquos wrong with running away from unpleasantnessToji What are those two arguing about

The foregoing exchange so radioactive that it is twice removed from reality (Shinji dreams of Toji dreaming the conversation) is the central problem and dilemma of Evangelion which as a whole can be seen as an elaborate working out of Shinjirsquos highly fraught and conflicted relationship with his father Within the frame of the story Gendo as top dog of Nerv exerts almost complete control over the shape and content of Shinjirsquos life as Shinji-1rsquos father once did over his at least in principle At this point in the drama it is still an open question whether any accommodation or reconciliation is possible or if Shinji will remain an incomplete person enslaved to his fatherrsquos will Three possibilities can be seen Shinji fails to escape the nightmare of submission to Gendo Shinji and Gendo are reconciled and Shinji moves on Shinji escapes Gendo by symbolically destroying him As long as the thunderhead of this epic father-son struggle continues to darken Shinjirsquos life his relationships with other people will remain tentative and insecure Not since Zeus overthrew his father Kronos (who had castrated his own father Ouranos) has there been such a cosmic father-son faceoff

Class Rep Hikari visits Toji who asks her to tell his sister that there is nothing wrong with him Not true Toji has lost his left leg Shinjirsquos escapist drama is becoming grotesquely destructive bringing pain and loss to those nearest and dearest to him

Shinji is arrested and brought handcuffed before Gendo who accuses him of multiple crimes Shinji says he doesnrsquot want to pilot an EVA any more nor stay at Nerv Gendo tells him to leave

Gendo So yoursquore running away again You disappoint me I doubt wersquoll ever meet againShinji Yes thatrsquos my intent

Kensuke calls Shinji at Misatorsquos apartment and leaves a message on the answering machine regretting Shinjirsquos decision But why Kensuke asks Why are you running away now I wanted to be like you I envied you Yoursquore

different from us Damn Even Toji became an EVA pilot while Ihellip The connection is broken by Nerv security

Misato leaves Shinji at a train station She says If you keep cutting your ties like this yoursquoll have a rough life ahead of you Shinji replies Thatrsquos your philosophy Miss Misato I canrsquot live like you Misato says I was projecting all of my dreams hopes and purpose onto you I also know thatrsquos itrsquos been a huge burden for you Shinji has the last word I wonrsquot pilot an EVA again

While Shinji is waiting on the train platform a new Angel attack begins Unit 01 rejects Rei who is then ordered into Unit 00 which has a defective arm Shinji watches the attack examining his recent decision The Angel descends into the Geo-front and disables Asukarsquos Unit 02 After rejecting Rei Unit 01 rejects the dummy plug as well rendering it useless While crossing Kajirsquos watermelon field in transit to an undamaged shelter Shinji sees Asukarsquos disabled Unit 02

Shinji to Kaji What are you doing hereKaji Thatrsquos my line What are you doing here ShinjiShinji Ihellip Irsquom never going to pilot an EVA again And since I decided thathellipKaji I see (Kaji continues watering his watermelons)Shinji At a time like thisKaji Itrsquos because it is a time like this Between Katsuragirsquos breasts is nice too but in the end I want to be here when I dieReirsquos Unit 00 rises into view without even a rifle She penetrates the Angelrsquos defensive shield and explodes an N2 mine which fails to destroy the AngelKaji Shinji-kun the only thing I can do is stand here and water But you you have something that you can do That only you can do Nobody is forcing you Think for yourself and make the decision by yourself Think about what you ought to do now You know so you donrsquot have any regretsShamed by Kajirsquos lecture Shinji returns to Nerv and appears before Gendo initially in an attitude of submission then demanding to be allowed to pilot Unit 01Gendo Why are you here (Shinjirsquos hand opens and closes then clenches into a fist)Shinji Ihellip Ihellip Father I am the pilot of Evangelion Unit 01 Ikari Shinji

Shinjirsquos decision to leave Nerv in this episode can be seen as an early and unfocused attempt to escape the confinement of his consuming fantasy A parallel can be drawn with Odysseusrsquo desire to end his imprisonment on Calypsorsquos timeless island and break her ownership of his life Hermes has delivered Zeusrsquos edict that she can no longer hold Odysseus by force so she makes one last attempt to detain him through persuasion

Good luck then and farewell But if you only knew in your heart how many pains will fill you up before you reach home you would stay here with me guarding this house and be immortalhellip[9]

Time has stopped in New Tokyo-3 as well There are no seasons and only repetitive battles with Angel after Angel mark the unspooling days lending no more than a quantum of meaning to an otherwise empty existence In the watermelon patch Calypsorsquos gender is inverted and we find Kaji upholding the status quo through an appeal to Shinjirsquos honor and sense of duty lsquoSomething only you can dorsquo is at once moral blackmail and an insidious drug to an empty and drifting soul Shinji returns to his fatherrsquos domain with renewed energy and determination thoughts of escape temporarily banished　HermesKaworu is yet to appear to demand his release instead CalypsoKaji has won this round and Shinjirsquos imprisonment within the Evangelion world continues

The Angel penetrates all shield levels and enters the Command Center Unit 01 crashes through the wall and restrains the Angel while the two are ejected to ground level After a savage attack on the Angel Unit 01rsquos power runs out and the Angel proceeds to trash it Unit 01 reactivates regenerates an arm in human form destroys the Angel and proceeds to eat it The sight is sickening Ritsuko asks Does that mean that shersquos really awakened Unit 01 rises and flexes its muscles breaking its armor plating Ritsuko explains Thatrsquos not armor plating Those are restraints that allow us to suppress the EVAs true powerhellip We can no longer stop the EVA Kaji in his watermelon patch observes Seele wonrsquot stay quiet for this Fuyutsuki asks Gendo Was this also part of your script Commander Ikari Itrsquos begun hasnrsquot it Gendo says Yes it all begins here

This exchange between Gendo and Fuyutsuki echoes a similar line in Akira (Otomo Katsuhiro 1988) which predicts the emergence of the universe (or a new universe) out of the final transformation of Tetsuo Gendo works toward a transformation as well this one called the Human Instrumentality Project whose meaning and implications will be reveled later Gendorsquos role becomes steadily darker

Two EVAs and the Nerv Command Center have been heavily damaged Control is moved to a secondary command facility and repairs to Unit 01 commence Seele (previously referred to as the old men or the Committee) are displeased though their ultimate goal is unclear Shinji remains trapped inside Unit 01 unable to communicate Ritsuko reveals to Misato that EVAs are not passive effectors of the pilotrsquos commands but imbued with a human will and possibly responsible for the recent chaos Do something damn you Misato yells at Ritsuko slapping her You created it didnrsquot you Take responsibility for it

different from us Damn Even Toji became an EVA pilot while Ihellip The connection is broken by Nerv security

Misato leaves Shinji at a train station She says If you keep cutting your ties like this yoursquoll have a rough life ahead of you Shinji replies Thatrsquos your philosophy Miss Misato I canrsquot live like you Misato says I was projecting all of my dreams hopes and purpose onto you I also know thatrsquos itrsquos been a huge burden for you Shinji has the last word I wonrsquot pilot an EVA again

While Shinji is waiting on the train platform a new Angel attack begins Unit 01 rejects Rei who is then ordered into Unit 00 which has a defective arm Shinji watches the attack examining his recent decision The Angel descends into the Geo-front and disables Asukarsquos Unit 02 After rejecting Rei Unit 01 rejects the dummy plug as well rendering it useless While crossing Kajirsquos watermelon field in transit to an undamaged shelter Shinji sees Asukarsquos disabled Unit 02

Shinji to Kaji What are you doing hereKaji Thatrsquos my line What are you doing here ShinjiShinji Ihellip Irsquom never going to pilot an EVA again And since I decided thathellipKaji I see (Kaji continues watering his watermelons)Shinji At a time like thisKaji Itrsquos because it is a time like this Between Katsuragirsquos breasts is nice too but in the end I want to be here when I dieReirsquos Unit 00 rises into view without even a rifle She penetrates the Angelrsquos defensive shield and explodes an N2 mine which fails to destroy the AngelKaji Shinji-kun the only thing I can do is stand here and water But you you have something that you can do That only you can do Nobody is forcing you Think for yourself and make the decision by yourself Think about what you ought to do now You know so you donrsquot have any regretsShamed by Kajirsquos lecture Shinji returns to Nerv and appears before Gendo initially in an attitude of submission then demanding to be allowed to pilot Unit 01Gendo Why are you here (Shinjirsquos hand opens and closes then clenches into a fist)Shinji Ihellip Ihellip Father I am the pilot of Evangelion Unit 01 Ikari Shinji

Shinjirsquos decision to leave Nerv in this episode can be seen as an early and unfocused attempt to escape the confinement of his consuming fantasy A parallel can be drawn with Odysseusrsquo desire to end his imprisonment on Calypsorsquos timeless island and break her ownership of his life Hermes has delivered Zeusrsquos edict that she can no longer hold Odysseus by force so she makes one last attempt to detain him through persuasion

Good luck then and farewell But if you only knew in your heart how many pains will fill you up before you reach home you would stay here with me guarding this house and be immortalhellip[9]

Time has stopped in New Tokyo-3 as well There are no seasons and only repetitive battles with Angel after Angel mark the unspooling days lending no more than a quantum of meaning to an otherwise empty existence In the watermelon patch Calypsorsquos gender is inverted and we find Kaji upholding the status quo through an appeal to Shinjirsquos honor and sense of duty lsquoSomething only you can dorsquo is at once moral blackmail and an insidious drug to an empty and drifting soul Shinji returns to his fatherrsquos domain with renewed energy and determination thoughts of escape temporarily banished　HermesKaworu is yet to appear to demand his release instead CalypsoKaji has won this round and Shinjirsquos imprisonment within the Evangelion world continues

The Angel penetrates all shield levels and enters the Command Center Unit 01 crashes through the wall and restrains the Angel while the two are ejected to ground level After a savage attack on the Angel Unit 01rsquos power runs out and the Angel proceeds to trash it Unit 01 reactivates regenerates an arm in human form destroys the Angel and proceeds to eat it The sight is sickening Ritsuko asks Does that mean that shersquos really awakened Unit 01 rises and flexes its muscles breaking its armor plating Ritsuko explains Thatrsquos not armor plating Those are restraints that allow us to suppress the EVAs true powerhellip We can no longer stop the EVA Kaji in his watermelon patch observes Seele wonrsquot stay quiet for this Fuyutsuki asks Gendo Was this also part of your script Commander Ikari Itrsquos begun hasnrsquot it Gendo says Yes it all begins here

This exchange between Gendo and Fuyutsuki echoes a similar line in Akira (Otomo Katsuhiro 1988) which predicts the emergence of the universe (or a new universe) out of the final transformation of Tetsuo Gendo works toward a transformation as well this one called the Human Instrumentality Project whose meaning and implications will be reveled later Gendorsquos role becomes steadily darker

Two EVAs and the Nerv Command Center have been heavily damaged Control is moved to a secondary command facility and repairs to Unit 01 commence Seele (previously referred to as the old men or the Committee) are displeased though their ultimate goal is unclear Shinji remains trapped inside Unit 01 unable to communicate Ritsuko reveals to Misato that EVAs are not passive effectors of the pilotrsquos commands but imbued with a human will and possibly responsible for the recent chaos Do something damn you Misato yells at Ritsuko slapping her You created it didnrsquot you Take responsibility for it

Good luck then and farewell But if you only knew in your heart how many pains will fill you up before you reach home you would stay here with me guarding this house and be immortalhellip[9]

Time has stopped in New Tokyo-3 as well There are no seasons and only repetitive battles with Angel after Angel mark the unspooling days lending no more than a quantum of meaning to an otherwise empty existence In the watermelon patch Calypsorsquos gender is inverted and we find Kaji upholding the status quo through an appeal to Shinjirsquos honor and sense of duty lsquoSomething only you can dorsquo is at once moral blackmail and an insidious drug to an empty and drifting soul Shinji returns to his fatherrsquos domain with renewed energy and determination thoughts of escape temporarily banished　HermesKaworu is yet to appear to demand his release instead CalypsoKaji has won this round and Shinjirsquos imprisonment within the Evangelion world continues

The Angel penetrates all shield levels and enters the Command Center Unit 01 crashes through the wall and restrains the Angel while the two are ejected to ground level After a savage attack on the Angel Unit 01rsquos power runs out and the Angel proceeds to trash it Unit 01 reactivates regenerates an arm in human form destroys the Angel and proceeds to eat it The sight is sickening Ritsuko asks Does that mean that shersquos really awakened Unit 01 rises and flexes its muscles breaking its armor plating Ritsuko explains Thatrsquos not armor plating Those are restraints that allow us to suppress the EVAs true powerhellip We can no longer stop the EVA Kaji in his watermelon patch observes Seele wonrsquot stay quiet for this Fuyutsuki asks Gendo Was this also part of your script Commander Ikari Itrsquos begun hasnrsquot it Gendo says Yes it all begins here

This exchange between Gendo and Fuyutsuki echoes a similar line in Akira (Otomo Katsuhiro 1988) which predicts the emergence of the universe (or a new universe) out of the final transformation of Tetsuo Gendo works toward a transformation as well this one called the Human Instrumentality Project whose meaning and implications will be reveled later Gendorsquos role becomes steadily darker

Two EVAs and the Nerv Command Center have been heavily damaged Control is moved to a secondary command facility and repairs to Unit 01 commence Seele (previously referred to as the old men or the Committee) are displeased though their ultimate goal is unclear Shinji remains trapped inside Unit 01 unable to communicate Ritsuko reveals to Misato that EVAs are not passive effectors of the pilotrsquos commands but imbued with a human will and possibly responsible for the recent chaos Do something damn you Misato yells at Ritsuko slapping her You created it didnrsquot you Take responsibility for it

According to Ritsuko Shinjirsquos body has in effect dissolved into the LCL along with his individual identity His ego continues to exist but in a thinly dispersed attenuated form his plug suit floats lifelessly in the LCL empty and shapeless

Shinji What is this Where am I In the entry plug In Unit 01 But therersquos nobody here Irsquom not even here What is this I donrsquot really understand These peoplehellip Yes theyrsquore people I know people who know me I see This is all part of my world What is this This is supposed to be my world but I donrsquot really understand An image from outside An unpleasant image Thatrsquos right The enemy Enemy Enemy Enemy Our enemies the Angels given the names of heavenly beings They are the targets of the EVAs and Nerv The object of revenge for Miss Misatorsquos father Why do I fight despite all Irsquove been put through What are you stupid asks Asukarsquos voice Strange beings are attacking us If yoursquore going through a fire yoursquove got to brush away the embers of course Maybe I donrsquot need a reason Maybe Irsquom not supposed to think about it Enemy Theyrsquore all my enemies Those that threaten mehellip ushellip they are the enemy Thatrsquos right Whatrsquos wrong with protecting my life our lives Enemy My enemy (Gendo appears) My enemy How dare you hurt Toji and kill my mother Father (Rei appears) Why do you hate your father Of course Anyone would You canrsquot understand your father Of course not Irsquove hardly ever seen him Is that why you hate him Yes my father doesnrsquot need me My father deserted me And am I the substitute Thatrsquos right Thatrsquos got to be it He abandoned me because he had you As if you didnrsquot run away all by yourself Shut up Shut up Shut up Itrsquos all his fault That time I was actually going to tell him I hate him Shinji replays the scene with his father at his first meeting with EVA Unit 01 Are you telling me to get on that thing and put myself in danger Father Correcthellip Because itrsquos impossible for anyone else But Irsquove never even seen or heard of it Therersquos no way I could do it In the present Shinji corrects himself No I knew Thatrsquos right I knew the EVA Shinji sees himself running away from his mother and father

At Nerv the recovery of Unit 01 is proceeding smoothly Shinji meditates on the nature of kindness and warmth and regrets that he has never experienced these from any human being Questioned by Rei he reports that he has learned something about loneliness and happiness he hadnrsquot understood before but concludes that when he is treated well it is because hersquos an EVA pilot Somebody be nice to me Irsquove fought so hard Irsquom fighting with everything Irsquove got Treat me well Be nice to me A succession of female figures ask Shinji if he would like to become one with them

To survive Evangelion and become a secure grounded person Shinji must confront and reject two temptations The first temptation is to believe that respect and love are in the nature of payment for services rendered specifically for successfully piloting his EVA The second temptation is to submerge his ego ndash

his entire being as an independent responsible actor ndash in some warm soft undifferentiated collectivity in essence abdication of personhood and return to the womb The extended excerpt from Shinjirsquos LCL meditation (above) begins with the first temptation and ends with the second Translated into the corrupt malignant language of the Human Instrumentality Project the second temptation will increasingly dominate the conclusion of Evangelion

All of Shinjirsquos friends and colleagues call him back from dissolution in the LCL as recovery continues ndash then fails

Misato Shinji you are here now because you piloted the EVA You are the person you are now because you piloted the EVA You cannot deny it that you in fact piloted the EVA nor can you deny the self that you have been so far which is your past But as for what you will do from now on you must decide for yourself

Shinjirsquos mother is little more than a vague recollection of smell and touch to him now but even in this rarefied state she calls him back to life Shinji pops out of the LCL and lands naked on the deck

Misato quizzes Kaji about the Human Instrumentality Project then the two make love Kaji gives Misato a clue to the future

Episode 21

The plot elements of Episode 21 are described in some detail here because they fill many of the gaps in the complex back stories of Shinjirsquos parents Misato Kaji Ritsuko Fuyutsuki Seele and Nerv

Seele tells Fuyutsuki that because Unit 01 ate the last Angel the EVA has become an absolute being We have no use for an actualized god Gendo Ikari is he a man who can be trusted they ask Fuyutsuki In a flashback to 1999 the story of Gendo and Shinjirsquos mother Yui Ikari is told Back then Fuyutsuki says seasons and autumn still existed in this country When Gendo and Yui are married Gendo changes his family name to hers Misato is revealed to be the only survivor of the Second Impact which melted Antarctica Two years later she has still not spoken The United Nations announces that the Second Impact was caused by a large meteor in truth it was a scientific experiment gone wrong Seele is implicated in the falsehood along with Gendo whose well-timed departure from Antarctica the day before the catastrophe strains credulity Fuyutsuki threatens to go public with the truth about the Second Impact but Gendo shows him a cavern under Tokyo nearly identical to that under Antarctica Deep in the cavern Dr Akagi Ritsukorsquos mother is preparing to bring on line three supercomputers nicknamed the Magi Dr Akagi then shows Fuyutsuki an enormous robot prototype Yes she says it is an

EVA made from Adam by man A prototype for a god Fuyutsuki asks Fuyutsuki work with me to create a new era in the history of mankind Gendo says Fuyutsuki like others before him is fatally tempted by the proximity to power The authority relationship reverses and Fuyutsuki becomes little more than an appendage to Gendo Misato recovers from her aphasia and she and Ritsuko become close friends Misato spends an entire week having sex with Kaji In a scene between Fuyutsuki and Yui we see Shinji at the age of two Fuyutsuki and Yui speak briefly about the organization intended to save mankind from the Third Impact due in about a decade or so Yui indicates that she has agreed to become an experimental subject ultimately for the benefit of Shinji A year later Yui has brought Shinji age three to witness the crucial experiment Yui disappears A week later Gendo reveals to Fuyutsuki his path to godhead the Human Instrumentality Project The shadow of a large Christian cross appears on the wall behind him (By now we know that this is really bad news) Ritsuko joins Gehirn In the year 2010 Gendo brings Ayanami Rei to the construction site of Gehirn (predecessor to Nerv) Gendo tells Dr Akagi that this is a friendrsquos daughter She thinks Rei resembles Yui and later attempts to locate Reirsquos files but they have been erased Dr Akagi finishes work on the Magi computers and prepares to activate them Ritsuko tells her mother that Misato and Kaji have broken up You never know with a man and a woman because itrsquos not logical she says Her mother replies That cool attitude of yours certainly hasnrsquot changed Yoursquore going to let your own happiness slip away Happiness is even harder to define Ritsuko replies She leaves and Rei wanders in Rei insults Dr Akagi by repeatedly calling her an old hag and insisting moreover that the director says the same Dr Akagi strangles Rei then commits suicide Seele dissolves Gehirn and replaces it with Nerv Kaji releases Fuyutsuki from confinement in order to learn more about Seele and Gendo Shortly afterward Kaji is shot dead by an unknown assassin probably a Nerv security agent Misato returns to her apartment where she receives Kajirsquos last recorded message She breaks down and weeps uncontrollably Shinji looks in on her from his room

Shinji Right then all I could do was run away from Misato There was nothing I could do or say I was a child It made me realize that

We should take Shinjirsquos mea non culpa with a measure of skepticism because he is after all the alter ego of the author of everyonersquos grief Shinji-1 In time he will come to understand this but not yet

Episode 22

Asukarsquos synch rate is declining Flashbacks reveal that her mother was insane during Asukarsquos early childhood and committed suicide when Asuka was about

four years old Asuka increasingly sees herself in a zero-sum competition with Shinji and Rei even resenting Shinjirsquos rapid recovery following his emergence from the LCL During a strained elevator ride Rei tells Asuka that the EVAs have souls and will not respond to a closed heart causing Asuka to fly into a rage Why does a weapon need a soul anyway she demands of Unit 02

A new Angel appears in high earth orbit beyond the range of EVAs Asuka disobeys orders and launches Unit 02 As expected her rifle fails to reach the Angel which retaliates by invading her mind The Halleluiah chorus from Handelrsquos Messiah is heard Reirsquos weapon fails as well Further flashbacks force Asuka to relive memories of her motherrsquos suicide and her subsequent attempts to de-fragment and redefine herself The Messiah picks up again a few bars before the end of Worthy is the Lamb and proceeds directly into the Amen chorus

Shinji asks to be allowed to join the ongoing battle but Gendo instead directs Rei to retrieve the Lance of Longinus from Central Dogma and hurl it at the target The attack succeeds in destroying the Angel as the Amen chorus concludes The Lance moves into lunar orbit

Why are we hearing music from the Messiah now At the simplest level itrsquos because the words are right The Lance of Longinus became holy when it pierced the side of Jesus on the cross Jesus is the Messiah of Handelrsquos oratorio At a deeper level the music may be asking us Why are we bothering with all these Angels and EVAs when the bliss engendered by such glorious music is available back in the real world Evangelionrsquos answer is that bliss is not something that can be casually switched on like an SDAT If it were Shinjirsquos story would have ended before it began Instead bliss must be earned sometimes fought for at peril of onersquos sanity and very existence In Shinjirsquos Progress wersquore not there yet ndash Shinjirsquos not there yet ndash but maybe Bach Handel and Beethoven can help him along

Shinji expresses happiness at Asukarsquos return but she is consumed by resentment at Reirsquos successful attack on the Angel and says I wouldrsquove rather died than be saved by her I hate everybody

Episode 23

Misato continues to mourn the death of Kaji while Asuka sleeps over with Class Rep Hikari still obsessed with her rage at the success of others Called before Seele Gendo defends his decision to use the Lance of Longinus

A new Angel appears and Rei is launched to attack it but she is invaded and disabled by the enemy Conversing with another copy of herself Rei acknowledges her loneliness There are so many of us and yet you hate being

alonehellip That is you own heart overflowing with sorrow Gendo lifts the suspension of Unit 01 which launches immediately Asuka finds yet another reason for resentment Unit 01 has been activated to save Rei but had not been sent to rescue her during the previous battle Shinji is invaded in the same manner as Rei Is this my heart wanting to become one with Ikari Rei asks herself No Rei refuses a command to abandon her EVA sacrificing her own life (again) to save Shinji Gendo is seen smiling sadly

Seele observes that only one Angel remains The promised time is nearhellip We need another human sacrifice to counter Ikari And we need someone who knows the truth At home with Misato Shinji says I feel sad but the tears just wonrsquot come He recoils violently when Misato attempts to touch his hand Is he afraid of women Misato wonders No hersquos afraid of being intimate with people A call comes from the hospital Rei is alive but does not remember the recent battle At this point it is not clear how many times Rei has died or how many copies of Rei have died I think Irsquom probably the third one she says At home within earshot of the incessant pile-driver Rei apparently uninjured cries

Ritsuko naked is quizzed by Seele They insult her by claiming that Gendo surrendered her in place of Rei Later Misato prepares to decode Kajirsquos last message Seele reflects The annihilation of New Tokyo-3 will be good material upon which to advance our plans Hurry their completion Pistol in hand Misato forces Ritsuko to reveal Nervrsquos darkest secrets Shinji accompanies them to a dank filthy basement Ritsuko explains that this is where Rei was born At a still lower level the three visit the graveyard of failed EVA prototypes piled in cruciform trenches This is where your mother disappeared Ritsuko says to Shinji I believe you were also watching the very moment your mother vanished Next Ritsuko shows them an enormous tank containing dozens of Rei clones ndash the basis of the dummy plugs Rei replacements and even EVAs People Shinji asks Theyrsquore human Yes theyrsquore human The EVAs do not intrinsically have souls but they have human souls imbedded in them The only vessel that contained a soul was Reihellip These things here that look like Rei have no soulshellip Thatrsquos why Irsquom going to destroy them Because I hate them She presses a button and the Reis disintegrate Misato observes The tragedy of the people possessed by the EVAshellip But that goes for me too

In book 11 of the Odyssey Odysseus travels to Hades to learn from the blind prophet Tiresias how to get home After speaking with Tiresias he meets the shades of Achilles Agamemnon Herakles Sisyphus his mother and several others At the deepest point of Shinjirsquos descent into the catacombs beneath Nerv he meets only silence and death He will have to learn how to find his own way home

Episode 24 The Beginning and the End or Knockinrsquo on Heavenrsquos Door

The main title invokes Revelation I am the Alpha and the Omega the beginning and the end (216) The second title is a song by Bob Dylan in which a man contemplates his own death

In flashback Asuka discovers the dead body of her mother hanging from the ceiling In the present Asukarsquos synch rate has fallen to zero disqualifying her from piloting an EVA Therersquos no reason for me to live now she thinks Nerv agents find her possibly in the act of committing suicide and return her to Headquarters Misato says And today Asukarsquos replacement the Fifth Child arrives She observes that the course of recent events is too convenient and suspects a plot Shinji ruminates on intermingled feelings about Rei and his mother What are you doing Father he asks himself

Gendo asks Ritsuko Why did you destroy the dummy system Not the dummy system she replies what I destroyed was Rei I will only ask you this once Why Because I am no longer happy even when you make love to mehellip You never hoped or expected anything from me to begin with Not anything Nothing

Shinji stands at the edge of a red lake that occupies a blast crater in New Tokyo-3 caused by the latest battle Everyone including Toji and Kensuke lost their homes and left My friendshellip I donrsquot have anyone I can call a friend anymore Therersquos no one I canrsquot see Ayanami I donrsquot have the courage for it I donrsquot know how Irsquom supposed to face her Asuka Miss Misato Motherhellip What should I do Shinji stares into the orange setting sun hoping for an answer

The central event of Episode 24 reenacts the Passion of the Christ[12] re-imagined in Shinjirsquos adopted symbolic language and constituting the entry point into Shinjirsquos own Passion[13] Pivotal to this episode is the densely ambiguous seductive and oddly impassive Kaworu

But before Kaworu there was Jesus As Ivan Fyodorovich Karamazov[14] reminds us Jesus is a troublemaker His miracles and his grant of moral choice are subversive of the Church and his elevation of the powerless and poor are subversive of the State His gospel and character are both deeply ambiguous He curses the fig tree because figs are out of season (Matt 2118-20) He warns I come not in peace but to bring a sword (Matt 1034-36) And yet Honor your father and mother love your neighbor as yourself (Matt 1919) The meek shall inherit the earth (Matt 55) Shinji has been forced to live in the unbearable gaps between his own concept of morality and the increasingly perverse machinations of Nerv Seele and his father Poised at the edge of the abyss he yearns for a savior ndash for an end to equivocation

his entire being as an independent responsible actor ndash in some warm soft undifferentiated collectivity in essence abdication of personhood and return to the womb The extended excerpt from Shinjirsquos LCL meditation (above) begins with the first temptation and ends with the second Translated into the corrupt malignant language of the Human Instrumentality Project the second temptation will increasingly dominate the conclusion of Evangelion

All of Shinjirsquos friends and colleagues call him back from dissolution in the LCL as recovery continues ndash then fails

Misato Shinji you are here now because you piloted the EVA You are the person you are now because you piloted the EVA You cannot deny it that you in fact piloted the EVA nor can you deny the self that you have been so far which is your past But as for what you will do from now on you must decide for yourself

Shinjirsquos mother is little more than a vague recollection of smell and touch to him now but even in this rarefied state she calls him back to life Shinji pops out of the LCL and lands naked on the deck

Misato quizzes Kaji about the Human Instrumentality Project then the two make love Kaji gives Misato a clue to the future

Episode 21

The plot elements of Episode 21 are described in some detail here because they fill many of the gaps in the complex back stories of Shinjirsquos parents Misato Kaji Ritsuko Fuyutsuki Seele and Nerv

Seele tells Fuyutsuki that because Unit 01 ate the last Angel the EVA has become an absolute being We have no use for an actualized god Gendo Ikari is he a man who can be trusted they ask Fuyutsuki In a flashback to 1999 the story of Gendo and Shinjirsquos mother Yui Ikari is told Back then Fuyutsuki says seasons and autumn still existed in this country When Gendo and Yui are married Gendo changes his family name to hers Misato is revealed to be the only survivor of the Second Impact which melted Antarctica Two years later she has still not spoken The United Nations announces that the Second Impact was caused by a large meteor in truth it was a scientific experiment gone wrong Seele is implicated in the falsehood along with Gendo whose well-timed departure from Antarctica the day before the catastrophe strains credulity Fuyutsuki threatens to go public with the truth about the Second Impact but Gendo shows him a cavern under Tokyo nearly identical to that under Antarctica Deep in the cavern Dr Akagi Ritsukorsquos mother is preparing to bring on line three supercomputers nicknamed the Magi Dr Akagi then shows Fuyutsuki an enormous robot prototype Yes she says it is an

EVA made from Adam by man A prototype for a god Fuyutsuki asks Fuyutsuki work with me to create a new era in the history of mankind Gendo says Fuyutsuki like others before him is fatally tempted by the proximity to power The authority relationship reverses and Fuyutsuki becomes little more than an appendage to Gendo Misato recovers from her aphasia and she and Ritsuko become close friends Misato spends an entire week having sex with Kaji In a scene between Fuyutsuki and Yui we see Shinji at the age of two Fuyutsuki and Yui speak briefly about the organization intended to save mankind from the Third Impact due in about a decade or so Yui indicates that she has agreed to become an experimental subject ultimately for the benefit of Shinji A year later Yui has brought Shinji age three to witness the crucial experiment Yui disappears A week later Gendo reveals to Fuyutsuki his path to godhead the Human Instrumentality Project The shadow of a large Christian cross appears on the wall behind him (By now we know that this is really bad news) Ritsuko joins Gehirn In the year 2010 Gendo brings Ayanami Rei to the construction site of Gehirn (predecessor to Nerv) Gendo tells Dr Akagi that this is a friendrsquos daughter She thinks Rei resembles Yui and later attempts to locate Reirsquos files but they have been erased Dr Akagi finishes work on the Magi computers and prepares to activate them Ritsuko tells her mother that Misato and Kaji have broken up You never know with a man and a woman because itrsquos not logical she says Her mother replies That cool attitude of yours certainly hasnrsquot changed Yoursquore going to let your own happiness slip away Happiness is even harder to define Ritsuko replies She leaves and Rei wanders in Rei insults Dr Akagi by repeatedly calling her an old hag and insisting moreover that the director says the same Dr Akagi strangles Rei then commits suicide Seele dissolves Gehirn and replaces it with Nerv Kaji releases Fuyutsuki from confinement in order to learn more about Seele and Gendo Shortly afterward Kaji is shot dead by an unknown assassin probably a Nerv security agent Misato returns to her apartment where she receives Kajirsquos last recorded message She breaks down and weeps uncontrollably Shinji looks in on her from his room

Shinji Right then all I could do was run away from Misato There was nothing I could do or say I was a child It made me realize that

We should take Shinjirsquos mea non culpa with a measure of skepticism because he is after all the alter ego of the author of everyonersquos grief Shinji-1 In time he will come to understand this but not yet

Episode 22

Asukarsquos synch rate is declining Flashbacks reveal that her mother was insane during Asukarsquos early childhood and committed suicide when Asuka was about

four years old Asuka increasingly sees herself in a zero-sum competition with Shinji and Rei even resenting Shinjirsquos rapid recovery following his emergence from the LCL During a strained elevator ride Rei tells Asuka that the EVAs have souls and will not respond to a closed heart causing Asuka to fly into a rage Why does a weapon need a soul anyway she demands of Unit 02

A new Angel appears in high earth orbit beyond the range of EVAs Asuka disobeys orders and launches Unit 02 As expected her rifle fails to reach the Angel which retaliates by invading her mind The Halleluiah chorus from Handelrsquos Messiah is heard Reirsquos weapon fails as well Further flashbacks force Asuka to relive memories of her motherrsquos suicide and her subsequent attempts to de-fragment and redefine herself The Messiah picks up again a few bars before the end of Worthy is the Lamb and proceeds directly into the Amen chorus

Shinji asks to be allowed to join the ongoing battle but Gendo instead directs Rei to retrieve the Lance of Longinus from Central Dogma and hurl it at the target The attack succeeds in destroying the Angel as the Amen chorus concludes The Lance moves into lunar orbit

Why are we hearing music from the Messiah now At the simplest level itrsquos because the words are right The Lance of Longinus became holy when it pierced the side of Jesus on the cross Jesus is the Messiah of Handelrsquos oratorio At a deeper level the music may be asking us Why are we bothering with all these Angels and EVAs when the bliss engendered by such glorious music is available back in the real world Evangelionrsquos answer is that bliss is not something that can be casually switched on like an SDAT If it were Shinjirsquos story would have ended before it began Instead bliss must be earned sometimes fought for at peril of onersquos sanity and very existence In Shinjirsquos Progress wersquore not there yet ndash Shinjirsquos not there yet ndash but maybe Bach Handel and Beethoven can help him along

Shinji expresses happiness at Asukarsquos return but she is consumed by resentment at Reirsquos successful attack on the Angel and says I wouldrsquove rather died than be saved by her I hate everybody

Episode 23

Misato continues to mourn the death of Kaji while Asuka sleeps over with Class Rep Hikari still obsessed with her rage at the success of others Called before Seele Gendo defends his decision to use the Lance of Longinus

A new Angel appears and Rei is launched to attack it but she is invaded and disabled by the enemy Conversing with another copy of herself Rei acknowledges her loneliness There are so many of us and yet you hate being

alonehellip That is you own heart overflowing with sorrow Gendo lifts the suspension of Unit 01 which launches immediately Asuka finds yet another reason for resentment Unit 01 has been activated to save Rei but had not been sent to rescue her during the previous battle Shinji is invaded in the same manner as Rei Is this my heart wanting to become one with Ikari Rei asks herself No Rei refuses a command to abandon her EVA sacrificing her own life (again) to save Shinji Gendo is seen smiling sadly

Seele observes that only one Angel remains The promised time is nearhellip We need another human sacrifice to counter Ikari And we need someone who knows the truth At home with Misato Shinji says I feel sad but the tears just wonrsquot come He recoils violently when Misato attempts to touch his hand Is he afraid of women Misato wonders No hersquos afraid of being intimate with people A call comes from the hospital Rei is alive but does not remember the recent battle At this point it is not clear how many times Rei has died or how many copies of Rei have died I think Irsquom probably the third one she says At home within earshot of the incessant pile-driver Rei apparently uninjured cries

Ritsuko naked is quizzed by Seele They insult her by claiming that Gendo surrendered her in place of Rei Later Misato prepares to decode Kajirsquos last message Seele reflects The annihilation of New Tokyo-3 will be good material upon which to advance our plans Hurry their completion Pistol in hand Misato forces Ritsuko to reveal Nervrsquos darkest secrets Shinji accompanies them to a dank filthy basement Ritsuko explains that this is where Rei was born At a still lower level the three visit the graveyard of failed EVA prototypes piled in cruciform trenches This is where your mother disappeared Ritsuko says to Shinji I believe you were also watching the very moment your mother vanished Next Ritsuko shows them an enormous tank containing dozens of Rei clones ndash the basis of the dummy plugs Rei replacements and even EVAs People Shinji asks Theyrsquore human Yes theyrsquore human The EVAs do not intrinsically have souls but they have human souls imbedded in them The only vessel that contained a soul was Reihellip These things here that look like Rei have no soulshellip Thatrsquos why Irsquom going to destroy them Because I hate them She presses a button and the Reis disintegrate Misato observes The tragedy of the people possessed by the EVAshellip But that goes for me too

In book 11 of the Odyssey Odysseus travels to Hades to learn from the blind prophet Tiresias how to get home After speaking with Tiresias he meets the shades of Achilles Agamemnon Herakles Sisyphus his mother and several others At the deepest point of Shinjirsquos descent into the catacombs beneath Nerv he meets only silence and death He will have to learn how to find his own way home

Episode 24 The Beginning and the End or Knockinrsquo on Heavenrsquos Door

The main title invokes Revelation I am the Alpha and the Omega the beginning and the end (216) The second title is a song by Bob Dylan in which a man contemplates his own death

In flashback Asuka discovers the dead body of her mother hanging from the ceiling In the present Asukarsquos synch rate has fallen to zero disqualifying her from piloting an EVA Therersquos no reason for me to live now she thinks Nerv agents find her possibly in the act of committing suicide and return her to Headquarters Misato says And today Asukarsquos replacement the Fifth Child arrives She observes that the course of recent events is too convenient and suspects a plot Shinji ruminates on intermingled feelings about Rei and his mother What are you doing Father he asks himself

Gendo asks Ritsuko Why did you destroy the dummy system Not the dummy system she replies what I destroyed was Rei I will only ask you this once Why Because I am no longer happy even when you make love to mehellip You never hoped or expected anything from me to begin with Not anything Nothing

Shinji stands at the edge of a red lake that occupies a blast crater in New Tokyo-3 caused by the latest battle Everyone including Toji and Kensuke lost their homes and left My friendshellip I donrsquot have anyone I can call a friend anymore Therersquos no one I canrsquot see Ayanami I donrsquot have the courage for it I donrsquot know how Irsquom supposed to face her Asuka Miss Misato Motherhellip What should I do Shinji stares into the orange setting sun hoping for an answer

The central event of Episode 24 reenacts the Passion of the Christ[12] re-imagined in Shinjirsquos adopted symbolic language and constituting the entry point into Shinjirsquos own Passion[13] Pivotal to this episode is the densely ambiguous seductive and oddly impassive Kaworu

But before Kaworu there was Jesus As Ivan Fyodorovich Karamazov[14] reminds us Jesus is a troublemaker His miracles and his grant of moral choice are subversive of the Church and his elevation of the powerless and poor are subversive of the State His gospel and character are both deeply ambiguous He curses the fig tree because figs are out of season (Matt 2118-20) He warns I come not in peace but to bring a sword (Matt 1034-36) And yet Honor your father and mother love your neighbor as yourself (Matt 1919) The meek shall inherit the earth (Matt 55) Shinji has been forced to live in the unbearable gaps between his own concept of morality and the increasingly perverse machinations of Nerv Seele and his father Poised at the edge of the abyss he yearns for a savior ndash for an end to equivocation

EVA made from Adam by man A prototype for a god Fuyutsuki asks Fuyutsuki work with me to create a new era in the history of mankind Gendo says Fuyutsuki like others before him is fatally tempted by the proximity to power The authority relationship reverses and Fuyutsuki becomes little more than an appendage to Gendo Misato recovers from her aphasia and she and Ritsuko become close friends Misato spends an entire week having sex with Kaji In a scene between Fuyutsuki and Yui we see Shinji at the age of two Fuyutsuki and Yui speak briefly about the organization intended to save mankind from the Third Impact due in about a decade or so Yui indicates that she has agreed to become an experimental subject ultimately for the benefit of Shinji A year later Yui has brought Shinji age three to witness the crucial experiment Yui disappears A week later Gendo reveals to Fuyutsuki his path to godhead the Human Instrumentality Project The shadow of a large Christian cross appears on the wall behind him (By now we know that this is really bad news) Ritsuko joins Gehirn In the year 2010 Gendo brings Ayanami Rei to the construction site of Gehirn (predecessor to Nerv) Gendo tells Dr Akagi that this is a friendrsquos daughter She thinks Rei resembles Yui and later attempts to locate Reirsquos files but they have been erased Dr Akagi finishes work on the Magi computers and prepares to activate them Ritsuko tells her mother that Misato and Kaji have broken up You never know with a man and a woman because itrsquos not logical she says Her mother replies That cool attitude of yours certainly hasnrsquot changed Yoursquore going to let your own happiness slip away Happiness is even harder to define Ritsuko replies She leaves and Rei wanders in Rei insults Dr Akagi by repeatedly calling her an old hag and insisting moreover that the director says the same Dr Akagi strangles Rei then commits suicide Seele dissolves Gehirn and replaces it with Nerv Kaji releases Fuyutsuki from confinement in order to learn more about Seele and Gendo Shortly afterward Kaji is shot dead by an unknown assassin probably a Nerv security agent Misato returns to her apartment where she receives Kajirsquos last recorded message She breaks down and weeps uncontrollably Shinji looks in on her from his room

Shinji Right then all I could do was run away from Misato There was nothing I could do or say I was a child It made me realize that

We should take Shinjirsquos mea non culpa with a measure of skepticism because he is after all the alter ego of the author of everyonersquos grief Shinji-1 In time he will come to understand this but not yet

Episode 22

Asukarsquos synch rate is declining Flashbacks reveal that her mother was insane during Asukarsquos early childhood and committed suicide when Asuka was about

four years old Asuka increasingly sees herself in a zero-sum competition with Shinji and Rei even resenting Shinjirsquos rapid recovery following his emergence from the LCL During a strained elevator ride Rei tells Asuka that the EVAs have souls and will not respond to a closed heart causing Asuka to fly into a rage Why does a weapon need a soul anyway she demands of Unit 02

A new Angel appears in high earth orbit beyond the range of EVAs Asuka disobeys orders and launches Unit 02 As expected her rifle fails to reach the Angel which retaliates by invading her mind The Halleluiah chorus from Handelrsquos Messiah is heard Reirsquos weapon fails as well Further flashbacks force Asuka to relive memories of her motherrsquos suicide and her subsequent attempts to de-fragment and redefine herself The Messiah picks up again a few bars before the end of Worthy is the Lamb and proceeds directly into the Amen chorus

Shinji asks to be allowed to join the ongoing battle but Gendo instead directs Rei to retrieve the Lance of Longinus from Central Dogma and hurl it at the target The attack succeeds in destroying the Angel as the Amen chorus concludes The Lance moves into lunar orbit

Why are we hearing music from the Messiah now At the simplest level itrsquos because the words are right The Lance of Longinus became holy when it pierced the side of Jesus on the cross Jesus is the Messiah of Handelrsquos oratorio At a deeper level the music may be asking us Why are we bothering with all these Angels and EVAs when the bliss engendered by such glorious music is available back in the real world Evangelionrsquos answer is that bliss is not something that can be casually switched on like an SDAT If it were Shinjirsquos story would have ended before it began Instead bliss must be earned sometimes fought for at peril of onersquos sanity and very existence In Shinjirsquos Progress wersquore not there yet ndash Shinjirsquos not there yet ndash but maybe Bach Handel and Beethoven can help him along

Shinji expresses happiness at Asukarsquos return but she is consumed by resentment at Reirsquos successful attack on the Angel and says I wouldrsquove rather died than be saved by her I hate everybody

Episode 23

Misato continues to mourn the death of Kaji while Asuka sleeps over with Class Rep Hikari still obsessed with her rage at the success of others Called before Seele Gendo defends his decision to use the Lance of Longinus

A new Angel appears and Rei is launched to attack it but she is invaded and disabled by the enemy Conversing with another copy of herself Rei acknowledges her loneliness There are so many of us and yet you hate being

alonehellip That is you own heart overflowing with sorrow Gendo lifts the suspension of Unit 01 which launches immediately Asuka finds yet another reason for resentment Unit 01 has been activated to save Rei but had not been sent to rescue her during the previous battle Shinji is invaded in the same manner as Rei Is this my heart wanting to become one with Ikari Rei asks herself No Rei refuses a command to abandon her EVA sacrificing her own life (again) to save Shinji Gendo is seen smiling sadly

Seele observes that only one Angel remains The promised time is nearhellip We need another human sacrifice to counter Ikari And we need someone who knows the truth At home with Misato Shinji says I feel sad but the tears just wonrsquot come He recoils violently when Misato attempts to touch his hand Is he afraid of women Misato wonders No hersquos afraid of being intimate with people A call comes from the hospital Rei is alive but does not remember the recent battle At this point it is not clear how many times Rei has died or how many copies of Rei have died I think Irsquom probably the third one she says At home within earshot of the incessant pile-driver Rei apparently uninjured cries

Ritsuko naked is quizzed by Seele They insult her by claiming that Gendo surrendered her in place of Rei Later Misato prepares to decode Kajirsquos last message Seele reflects The annihilation of New Tokyo-3 will be good material upon which to advance our plans Hurry their completion Pistol in hand Misato forces Ritsuko to reveal Nervrsquos darkest secrets Shinji accompanies them to a dank filthy basement Ritsuko explains that this is where Rei was born At a still lower level the three visit the graveyard of failed EVA prototypes piled in cruciform trenches This is where your mother disappeared Ritsuko says to Shinji I believe you were also watching the very moment your mother vanished Next Ritsuko shows them an enormous tank containing dozens of Rei clones ndash the basis of the dummy plugs Rei replacements and even EVAs People Shinji asks Theyrsquore human Yes theyrsquore human The EVAs do not intrinsically have souls but they have human souls imbedded in them The only vessel that contained a soul was Reihellip These things here that look like Rei have no soulshellip Thatrsquos why Irsquom going to destroy them Because I hate them She presses a button and the Reis disintegrate Misato observes The tragedy of the people possessed by the EVAshellip But that goes for me too

In book 11 of the Odyssey Odysseus travels to Hades to learn from the blind prophet Tiresias how to get home After speaking with Tiresias he meets the shades of Achilles Agamemnon Herakles Sisyphus his mother and several others At the deepest point of Shinjirsquos descent into the catacombs beneath Nerv he meets only silence and death He will have to learn how to find his own way home

Episode 24 The Beginning and the End or Knockinrsquo on Heavenrsquos Door

The main title invokes Revelation I am the Alpha and the Omega the beginning and the end (216) The second title is a song by Bob Dylan in which a man contemplates his own death

In flashback Asuka discovers the dead body of her mother hanging from the ceiling In the present Asukarsquos synch rate has fallen to zero disqualifying her from piloting an EVA Therersquos no reason for me to live now she thinks Nerv agents find her possibly in the act of committing suicide and return her to Headquarters Misato says And today Asukarsquos replacement the Fifth Child arrives She observes that the course of recent events is too convenient and suspects a plot Shinji ruminates on intermingled feelings about Rei and his mother What are you doing Father he asks himself

Gendo asks Ritsuko Why did you destroy the dummy system Not the dummy system she replies what I destroyed was Rei I will only ask you this once Why Because I am no longer happy even when you make love to mehellip You never hoped or expected anything from me to begin with Not anything Nothing

Shinji stands at the edge of a red lake that occupies a blast crater in New Tokyo-3 caused by the latest battle Everyone including Toji and Kensuke lost their homes and left My friendshellip I donrsquot have anyone I can call a friend anymore Therersquos no one I canrsquot see Ayanami I donrsquot have the courage for it I donrsquot know how Irsquom supposed to face her Asuka Miss Misato Motherhellip What should I do Shinji stares into the orange setting sun hoping for an answer

The central event of Episode 24 reenacts the Passion of the Christ[12] re-imagined in Shinjirsquos adopted symbolic language and constituting the entry point into Shinjirsquos own Passion[13] Pivotal to this episode is the densely ambiguous seductive and oddly impassive Kaworu

But before Kaworu there was Jesus As Ivan Fyodorovich Karamazov[14] reminds us Jesus is a troublemaker His miracles and his grant of moral choice are subversive of the Church and his elevation of the powerless and poor are subversive of the State His gospel and character are both deeply ambiguous He curses the fig tree because figs are out of season (Matt 2118-20) He warns I come not in peace but to bring a sword (Matt 1034-36) And yet Honor your father and mother love your neighbor as yourself (Matt 1919) The meek shall inherit the earth (Matt 55) Shinji has been forced to live in the unbearable gaps between his own concept of morality and the increasingly perverse machinations of Nerv Seele and his father Poised at the edge of the abyss he yearns for a savior ndash for an end to equivocation

four years old Asuka increasingly sees herself in a zero-sum competition with Shinji and Rei even resenting Shinjirsquos rapid recovery following his emergence from the LCL During a strained elevator ride Rei tells Asuka that the EVAs have souls and will not respond to a closed heart causing Asuka to fly into a rage Why does a weapon need a soul anyway she demands of Unit 02

A new Angel appears in high earth orbit beyond the range of EVAs Asuka disobeys orders and launches Unit 02 As expected her rifle fails to reach the Angel which retaliates by invading her mind The Halleluiah chorus from Handelrsquos Messiah is heard Reirsquos weapon fails as well Further flashbacks force Asuka to relive memories of her motherrsquos suicide and her subsequent attempts to de-fragment and redefine herself The Messiah picks up again a few bars before the end of Worthy is the Lamb and proceeds directly into the Amen chorus

Shinji asks to be allowed to join the ongoing battle but Gendo instead directs Rei to retrieve the Lance of Longinus from Central Dogma and hurl it at the target The attack succeeds in destroying the Angel as the Amen chorus concludes The Lance moves into lunar orbit

Why are we hearing music from the Messiah now At the simplest level itrsquos because the words are right The Lance of Longinus became holy when it pierced the side of Jesus on the cross Jesus is the Messiah of Handelrsquos oratorio At a deeper level the music may be asking us Why are we bothering with all these Angels and EVAs when the bliss engendered by such glorious music is available back in the real world Evangelionrsquos answer is that bliss is not something that can be casually switched on like an SDAT If it were Shinjirsquos story would have ended before it began Instead bliss must be earned sometimes fought for at peril of onersquos sanity and very existence In Shinjirsquos Progress wersquore not there yet ndash Shinjirsquos not there yet ndash but maybe Bach Handel and Beethoven can help him along

Shinji expresses happiness at Asukarsquos return but she is consumed by resentment at Reirsquos successful attack on the Angel and says I wouldrsquove rather died than be saved by her I hate everybody

Episode 23

Misato continues to mourn the death of Kaji while Asuka sleeps over with Class Rep Hikari still obsessed with her rage at the success of others Called before Seele Gendo defends his decision to use the Lance of Longinus

A new Angel appears and Rei is launched to attack it but she is invaded and disabled by the enemy Conversing with another copy of herself Rei acknowledges her loneliness There are so many of us and yet you hate being

alonehellip That is you own heart overflowing with sorrow Gendo lifts the suspension of Unit 01 which launches immediately Asuka finds yet another reason for resentment Unit 01 has been activated to save Rei but had not been sent to rescue her during the previous battle Shinji is invaded in the same manner as Rei Is this my heart wanting to become one with Ikari Rei asks herself No Rei refuses a command to abandon her EVA sacrificing her own life (again) to save Shinji Gendo is seen smiling sadly

Seele observes that only one Angel remains The promised time is nearhellip We need another human sacrifice to counter Ikari And we need someone who knows the truth At home with Misato Shinji says I feel sad but the tears just wonrsquot come He recoils violently when Misato attempts to touch his hand Is he afraid of women Misato wonders No hersquos afraid of being intimate with people A call comes from the hospital Rei is alive but does not remember the recent battle At this point it is not clear how many times Rei has died or how many copies of Rei have died I think Irsquom probably the third one she says At home within earshot of the incessant pile-driver Rei apparently uninjured cries

Ritsuko naked is quizzed by Seele They insult her by claiming that Gendo surrendered her in place of Rei Later Misato prepares to decode Kajirsquos last message Seele reflects The annihilation of New Tokyo-3 will be good material upon which to advance our plans Hurry their completion Pistol in hand Misato forces Ritsuko to reveal Nervrsquos darkest secrets Shinji accompanies them to a dank filthy basement Ritsuko explains that this is where Rei was born At a still lower level the three visit the graveyard of failed EVA prototypes piled in cruciform trenches This is where your mother disappeared Ritsuko says to Shinji I believe you were also watching the very moment your mother vanished Next Ritsuko shows them an enormous tank containing dozens of Rei clones ndash the basis of the dummy plugs Rei replacements and even EVAs People Shinji asks Theyrsquore human Yes theyrsquore human The EVAs do not intrinsically have souls but they have human souls imbedded in them The only vessel that contained a soul was Reihellip These things here that look like Rei have no soulshellip Thatrsquos why Irsquom going to destroy them Because I hate them She presses a button and the Reis disintegrate Misato observes The tragedy of the people possessed by the EVAshellip But that goes for me too

In book 11 of the Odyssey Odysseus travels to Hades to learn from the blind prophet Tiresias how to get home After speaking with Tiresias he meets the shades of Achilles Agamemnon Herakles Sisyphus his mother and several others At the deepest point of Shinjirsquos descent into the catacombs beneath Nerv he meets only silence and death He will have to learn how to find his own way home

Episode 24 The Beginning and the End or Knockinrsquo on Heavenrsquos Door

The main title invokes Revelation I am the Alpha and the Omega the beginning and the end (216) The second title is a song by Bob Dylan in which a man contemplates his own death

In flashback Asuka discovers the dead body of her mother hanging from the ceiling In the present Asukarsquos synch rate has fallen to zero disqualifying her from piloting an EVA Therersquos no reason for me to live now she thinks Nerv agents find her possibly in the act of committing suicide and return her to Headquarters Misato says And today Asukarsquos replacement the Fifth Child arrives She observes that the course of recent events is too convenient and suspects a plot Shinji ruminates on intermingled feelings about Rei and his mother What are you doing Father he asks himself

Gendo asks Ritsuko Why did you destroy the dummy system Not the dummy system she replies what I destroyed was Rei I will only ask you this once Why Because I am no longer happy even when you make love to mehellip You never hoped or expected anything from me to begin with Not anything Nothing

Shinji stands at the edge of a red lake that occupies a blast crater in New Tokyo-3 caused by the latest battle Everyone including Toji and Kensuke lost their homes and left My friendshellip I donrsquot have anyone I can call a friend anymore Therersquos no one I canrsquot see Ayanami I donrsquot have the courage for it I donrsquot know how Irsquom supposed to face her Asuka Miss Misato Motherhellip What should I do Shinji stares into the orange setting sun hoping for an answer

The central event of Episode 24 reenacts the Passion of the Christ[12] re-imagined in Shinjirsquos adopted symbolic language and constituting the entry point into Shinjirsquos own Passion[13] Pivotal to this episode is the densely ambiguous seductive and oddly impassive Kaworu

But before Kaworu there was Jesus As Ivan Fyodorovich Karamazov[14] reminds us Jesus is a troublemaker His miracles and his grant of moral choice are subversive of the Church and his elevation of the powerless and poor are subversive of the State His gospel and character are both deeply ambiguous He curses the fig tree because figs are out of season (Matt 2118-20) He warns I come not in peace but to bring a sword (Matt 1034-36) And yet Honor your father and mother love your neighbor as yourself (Matt 1919) The meek shall inherit the earth (Matt 55) Shinji has been forced to live in the unbearable gaps between his own concept of morality and the increasingly perverse machinations of Nerv Seele and his father Poised at the edge of the abyss he yearns for a savior ndash for an end to equivocation

alonehellip That is you own heart overflowing with sorrow Gendo lifts the suspension of Unit 01 which launches immediately Asuka finds yet another reason for resentment Unit 01 has been activated to save Rei but had not been sent to rescue her during the previous battle Shinji is invaded in the same manner as Rei Is this my heart wanting to become one with Ikari Rei asks herself No Rei refuses a command to abandon her EVA sacrificing her own life (again) to save Shinji Gendo is seen smiling sadly

Seele observes that only one Angel remains The promised time is nearhellip We need another human sacrifice to counter Ikari And we need someone who knows the truth At home with Misato Shinji says I feel sad but the tears just wonrsquot come He recoils violently when Misato attempts to touch his hand Is he afraid of women Misato wonders No hersquos afraid of being intimate with people A call comes from the hospital Rei is alive but does not remember the recent battle At this point it is not clear how many times Rei has died or how many copies of Rei have died I think Irsquom probably the third one she says At home within earshot of the incessant pile-driver Rei apparently uninjured cries

Ritsuko naked is quizzed by Seele They insult her by claiming that Gendo surrendered her in place of Rei Later Misato prepares to decode Kajirsquos last message Seele reflects The annihilation of New Tokyo-3 will be good material upon which to advance our plans Hurry their completion Pistol in hand Misato forces Ritsuko to reveal Nervrsquos darkest secrets Shinji accompanies them to a dank filthy basement Ritsuko explains that this is where Rei was born At a still lower level the three visit the graveyard of failed EVA prototypes piled in cruciform trenches This is where your mother disappeared Ritsuko says to Shinji I believe you were also watching the very moment your mother vanished Next Ritsuko shows them an enormous tank containing dozens of Rei clones ndash the basis of the dummy plugs Rei replacements and even EVAs People Shinji asks Theyrsquore human Yes theyrsquore human The EVAs do not intrinsically have souls but they have human souls imbedded in them The only vessel that contained a soul was Reihellip These things here that look like Rei have no soulshellip Thatrsquos why Irsquom going to destroy them Because I hate them She presses a button and the Reis disintegrate Misato observes The tragedy of the people possessed by the EVAshellip But that goes for me too

In book 11 of the Odyssey Odysseus travels to Hades to learn from the blind prophet Tiresias how to get home After speaking with Tiresias he meets the shades of Achilles Agamemnon Herakles Sisyphus his mother and several others At the deepest point of Shinjirsquos descent into the catacombs beneath Nerv he meets only silence and death He will have to learn how to find his own way home

Episode 24 The Beginning and the End or Knockinrsquo on Heavenrsquos Door

The main title invokes Revelation I am the Alpha and the Omega the beginning and the end (216) The second title is a song by Bob Dylan in which a man contemplates his own death

In flashback Asuka discovers the dead body of her mother hanging from the ceiling In the present Asukarsquos synch rate has fallen to zero disqualifying her from piloting an EVA Therersquos no reason for me to live now she thinks Nerv agents find her possibly in the act of committing suicide and return her to Headquarters Misato says And today Asukarsquos replacement the Fifth Child arrives She observes that the course of recent events is too convenient and suspects a plot Shinji ruminates on intermingled feelings about Rei and his mother What are you doing Father he asks himself

Gendo asks Ritsuko Why did you destroy the dummy system Not the dummy system she replies what I destroyed was Rei I will only ask you this once Why Because I am no longer happy even when you make love to mehellip You never hoped or expected anything from me to begin with Not anything Nothing

Shinji stands at the edge of a red lake that occupies a blast crater in New Tokyo-3 caused by the latest battle Everyone including Toji and Kensuke lost their homes and left My friendshellip I donrsquot have anyone I can call a friend anymore Therersquos no one I canrsquot see Ayanami I donrsquot have the courage for it I donrsquot know how Irsquom supposed to face her Asuka Miss Misato Motherhellip What should I do Shinji stares into the orange setting sun hoping for an answer

The central event of Episode 24 reenacts the Passion of the Christ[12] re-imagined in Shinjirsquos adopted symbolic language and constituting the entry point into Shinjirsquos own Passion[13] Pivotal to this episode is the densely ambiguous seductive and oddly impassive Kaworu

But before Kaworu there was Jesus As Ivan Fyodorovich Karamazov[14] reminds us Jesus is a troublemaker His miracles and his grant of moral choice are subversive of the Church and his elevation of the powerless and poor are subversive of the State His gospel and character are both deeply ambiguous He curses the fig tree because figs are out of season (Matt 2118-20) He warns I come not in peace but to bring a sword (Matt 1034-36) And yet Honor your father and mother love your neighbor as yourself (Matt 1919) The meek shall inherit the earth (Matt 55) Shinji has been forced to live in the unbearable gaps between his own concept of morality and the increasingly perverse machinations of Nerv Seele and his father Poised at the edge of the abyss he yearns for a savior ndash for an end to equivocation

Episode 24 The Beginning and the End or Knockinrsquo on Heavenrsquos Door

The main title invokes Revelation I am the Alpha and the Omega the beginning and the end (216) The second title is a song by Bob Dylan in which a man contemplates his own death

In flashback Asuka discovers the dead body of her mother hanging from the ceiling In the present Asukarsquos synch rate has fallen to zero disqualifying her from piloting an EVA Therersquos no reason for me to live now she thinks Nerv agents find her possibly in the act of committing suicide and return her to Headquarters Misato says And today Asukarsquos replacement the Fifth Child arrives She observes that the course of recent events is too convenient and suspects a plot Shinji ruminates on intermingled feelings about Rei and his mother What are you doing Father he asks himself

Gendo asks Ritsuko Why did you destroy the dummy system Not the dummy system she replies what I destroyed was Rei I will only ask you this once Why Because I am no longer happy even when you make love to mehellip You never hoped or expected anything from me to begin with Not anything Nothing

Shinji stands at the edge of a red lake that occupies a blast crater in New Tokyo-3 caused by the latest battle Everyone including Toji and Kensuke lost their homes and left My friendshellip I donrsquot have anyone I can call a friend anymore Therersquos no one I canrsquot see Ayanami I donrsquot have the courage for it I donrsquot know how Irsquom supposed to face her Asuka Miss Misato Motherhellip What should I do Shinji stares into the orange setting sun hoping for an answer

The central event of Episode 24 reenacts the Passion of the Christ[12] re-imagined in Shinjirsquos adopted symbolic language and constituting the entry point into Shinjirsquos own Passion[13] Pivotal to this episode is the densely ambiguous seductive and oddly impassive Kaworu

But before Kaworu there was Jesus As Ivan Fyodorovich Karamazov[14] reminds us Jesus is a troublemaker His miracles and his grant of moral choice are subversive of the Church and his elevation of the powerless and poor are subversive of the State His gospel and character are both deeply ambiguous He curses the fig tree because figs are out of season (Matt 2118-20) He warns I come not in peace but to bring a sword (Matt 1034-36) And yet Honor your father and mother love your neighbor as yourself (Matt 1919) The meek shall inherit the earth (Matt 55) Shinji has been forced to live in the unbearable gaps between his own concept of morality and the increasingly perverse machinations of Nerv Seele and his father Poised at the edge of the abyss he yearns for a savior ndash for an end to equivocation

The Fifth Child Nagisa Kaworu is as close to a real angel as Shinji will ever meet ndash in fact too close embodying all the conflicting attributes of angelnessthat constitute the contorted symbolic vocabulary of Evangelion Kaworu appears in the apocalyptic ruins of New Tokyo-3 (described above) seated on the head of a phoenix[15] humming the main theme from the final movement of Beethovenrsquos Ninth Symphony the glorious Ode to Joy[16]

Singing is great Kaworu says Singing enriches the soul Itrsquos the crowning achievement of the civilization that the Lilim [mankind] created[17] Donrsquot you feel the samehellip Ikari Shinji-kun My namehellip Everyone knows your name I donrsquot mean to be rude but I think you should be a little more aware of your position You think so Uhhellip who are you Irsquom Kaworu Nagisa Kaworu One of the Children whorsquore part of the design just like you Irsquom the Fifth Child[18]

While driving to Nerv Headquarters Misato discusses Kaworu with a colleague The Committee sent him directly to us she says Therersquos bound to be something to this During tests Kaworu synchronizes with Unit 02 as if it had been made for him Kaworu meets Rei and asks Yoursquore the First Child arenrsquot you Ayanami Rei Yoursquore the same as me So both of us ended up in the same form as the Lilim while we inhabit this planet[19] Rei scowls Who are you she says Misato asks rhetorically Who in the world is that boy

Kaworu returns from his synch test meeting Shinji in a corridor Hi he says Were you waiting for me Shinji blushes No not really Thatrsquos not what I washellip all I have left is to take a shower and go home buthellip But the truth is lately I donrsquot really want to go home Kaworu says A place to return tohellip The fact that you have a home will lead to your happiness Itrsquos a very good thinghellip Irsquod like to talk more with you May I come with you To take a shower You still need to go take one right In the shower Kaworu says You go to such extremes to avoid first contact Are you afraid of connection with other people If you donrsquot get close to others yoursquoll never be betrayed and yoursquoll never hurt each other But yoursquoll also never be able to forget your loneliness Humans can never banish their loneliness for good because being human means being alone But humans are able to go on with their lives because theyrsquore able to forget this every so often Kaworu places his hand on Shinjirsquos much as Misato tried to do Shinji accepts the gesture The lights go out Yeah Shinji says wed better go to bed Together asks Kaworu Oh no I think therersquos probably a room ready for you A separate one I see Kaworu frowns Humans constantly feel pain in their hearts Because the heart is so sensitive to pain humans also feel that to live is to suffer Yoursquore so delicate like glass especially your heart Me Yes you have my regard for it Regard Shinji asks blushing It means Kaworu says I love you

Mid-episode title The Final Messenger

The old men of Seele complain that Nerv has become the possession of Ikari Gendo and conclude that it must be taken back before the promised daySoon Gendo says standing before Unit 01 the final Angel will appear If we destroy it our wish will come true He displays his burned hand ndash his stigmata Just a little longer Yui

Rei asks Why am I here Why am I alive again For what And for whom The Fifth Childhellip that boyhellip I feel as if hersquos the same as me Why

Kaworu lies on a futon Shinji next to him on the floor Come on Kaworu says Irsquoll sleep on the floor No Yoursquore the one whorsquos doing me a favor by letting me stay over Irsquom fine where I am Kaworu asks What shall we talk about There are things you want me to hear right Shinji tells of living with his teacher of not having to do anything Did you hate people Not really I think it didnrsquot matter one way or the other But I did hate my father Maybe I was born so that I would meet you Kaworu says

Appearing before Seele Kaworu is instructed in what he was made for and what he must do Misato spies on him but cannot read either his words or his thoughts Bowing his head slightly Kaworu says All will be as the Lilim direct it (Compare Yet not my will but thine be done Luke 2242) Come on letrsquos go Kaworu says looking up at Unit 02 Come with me Adamrsquos alter ego and servant of the Lilim

The Passion of Kaworu[20]

Shinji has taken a first tentative step along the path toward openness Yet tragically this is not to be ndash not at any rate with a living Kaworu In what follows it is important to keep two things in mind 1 The god (or king) who must be killed by his own people in order to save them[21] This is a not uncommon myth in ancient cultures and is Christianityrsquos central paradox and miracle 2 Throughout this segment we hear the choral music of Beethovenrsquos Ninth Symphony a starkly ironic counterpoint to martyrdom

Kaworu hijacks Unit 02 yet never enters it and descends to Terminal Dogma (for Terminal Dogma read the termination of all dogma) Shinji in Unit 01 is commanded to follow Kaworu and destroy him as the seventeenth and last Angel (Only selected portions of the dialogue are reproduced here)

Shinji first doubts Nerv Itrsquos a lie Itrsquos a lie Itrsquos a lie That Kaworu ishellip Hersquos an AngelThen he doubts Kaworu You betrayed me You betrayed my feelings You betrayed me just like Father did

Kaworu Irsquove been waiting for you Shinji-kunhellip The EVA serieshellip Born from Adam they are an abhorrent existence for humanshellip The AT field is the wall that everyone has in their heartKaworu reflects The fate of man the hope of man is written in sorrowShinji Kaworu-kun whyKaworu Because itrsquos my destiny to continue to live even if it may result in the destruction of humanity But I can also die here Life and death are of equal value to me Dying of your own free will That is the one and only absolute freedom there isShinji What Kaworu-kun I donrsquot understand what yoursquore saying Kaworu-kunhellipKaworu My last will and testament Now erase me from the world If you donrsquot you will be the ones who are erased Only one life form will be chosen to survive the time of destruction and be given a future And you are not a being who should die Your people need the future Thank you Irsquom glad I met you

Shinji holds the defenseless Kaworu in Unit 01rsquos monstrous grasp Long stasis as Beethoven continues The chorus sings[22]

Brothers ndash over the starry firmamentA beloved Father must surely dwellDo you come crashing down you millions Do you sense the Creators presence worldSeek Him above the starry firmamentFor above the stars He surely dwells[23]

Shinji kills Kaworu Beethoven stops Blackout Torrents of water fail to wash the blood from Unit 01rsquos hand[24] Mankind has been spared yet forever stained by the saviorrsquos martyrdom

Shinji later to Misato Kaworu said that he loved me It was the first time someone told me they loved me He was like me and Ayanami I loved him Kaworu was the one who should have survived He was a much better person than I amhellipMisato Yoursquore wrong Only those who have the will to live get to survive (Phoenix reappears reminding us of Kaworursquos connection with death and rebirth) He wished to die He abandoned his will to live clinging instead to a false hope You did nothing wrong Shinji-kunShinji Yoursquore cold Miss Misato

Misato is certainly cold but she is articulating a common criticism of Christianity that it worships Thanatos that it is a religion of death and that its central symbol is an instrument of torture and execution[25] In addition Misato is pointing to the uselessness and waste of suicide a further implicit criticism of martyrdom Yet Misato is both creature and captive of the Evangelion world and

lacks the wider perspective necessary to understand what has just transpired especially its meaning for Shinji

The bleakness and irony of this episode are unequaled elsewhere in Evangelion and we may wonder at the apparent inadequacy of Shinjirsquos grief Shinjirsquos despairing outcry at the injury of Toji (for which he was not responsible) is consistent with our sense of his empathy and sensitivity His relative equanimity at having killed Kaworu is not Bracing as a pail of icewater in the face Misatorsquos coldhearted reproof of Shinji feels frigidly insensitive to the gravity of Shinjirsquos loss Yoursquore cold Miss Misato is understated to the point of invisibility

Yet there is a deeper dramatic purpose here that this criticism misses By ending quickly and quietly Episode 24 leaves the mind struggling with a far more important image that of Kaworu in Unit 01rsquos grasp suspended time Beethoven and the dread of imminent darkness Shinji will grieve later

Nothing is more devastating to the heroes of Greek epic than the thought of being forgotten Dead or alive without fame (kleos) a man is nameless and to be nameless is to be nothing at all In his first remarks HermesJesusKaworu invokes Shinjirsquos name alludes to his notoriety and extols the soul-enriching virtues of song which in Homeric times was the medium by which fame was broadcast and sustained With these few words Kaworu has given Shinji new hope and lifted him out of a deepening well of purposelessness and non-being

But an integrated and empowered Shinji who knows who he is and is capable of love is not someone who needs to wrap himself in a hermetic self-indulgent fantasy world In the manner of a malignant organism struggling for its life the dreamworld strikes back inducing Shinji to do the most horrendous thing imaginable kill his own savior With this Shinji is plunged back into a chasm of impotence and self-hatred darker than ever

Episodes 25 and 26 (Parts 1 and 2 of The End of Evangelion)

It is appropriate to remind ourselves once more of the central theory of this paper that there exists a real-world Shinji-1 who is the dreamer fantasizer and puppet-master of the drama The fictional Shinji-2 is his creation and avatar and is in all essentials identical to Shnji-1 excepting only that he lives in a fictional parallel universe that includes EVAs Nerv Gendo the Angels etc Yet this simple bifurcation overstates Shinji-1rsquos mastery of his fantasy which has taken on a deadly life of its own and threatens to draw him into a maelstrom of psychological fragmentation and regression Shinji has sunk so deeply into his dream that he cannot simply switch it off but must find his way back through a maze of horrendous complexity alternately hideous and beautiful imagery and portentous iconography In these final two episodes the wall between the living

and the dead and between the lsquorealityrsquo of the Evangelionworld and Shinjirsquos thoughts about it gradually dissolves lsquoOfficiallyrsquo dead people reappear to deliver judgments and messages and the roles of Rei and Kaworu converge as suggested several times in Episode 24

Both Seele and Gendo work to achieve the Human Instrumentality Project (HIP) but for different reasons In either case HIP represents the dissolution of individual human egos into a homogeneous continuum of all life Gendo seeks this as a path to reunion with Yui Seele sees it as the next evolutionary stage of mankind For Shinji it could end the pain of collisions with other people Yet the loss of any sense of identity of the self is operationally indistinguishable from death Shinji must make his choice

Seele Nerv and the national government are in open warfare Elements of the JSSDF attack Nerv Headquarters with soldiers and battlefield armaments Nerv was not designed to repel conventional forces and this new enemy penetrates all the way to Central Command stopped only when CC personnel take up small arms A new level of violence is reached in this battle in which visible people are visibly shot bleed and die in horrifying numbers

Asuka is placed in Unit 02 and hides at the bottom of a lake but is bombarded with depth charges Inspired by a vision of her mother Asuka rises from the lake and in a ferocious battle destroys all the conventional armaments brought to bear against her Seele orders the deployment of nine new EVAs but she disables them as well then runs out of battery power The new EVAs regenerate and eviscerate Unit 02 in a ghastly tableau that is an unholy marriage of the torment of Prometheus with the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian

During much of Asukarsquos battle we hear the sharply incongruous Air from Bachrsquos Orchestral Suite No 3[26] The effect of this music is one of overwhelming sadness a requiem for all of Evangelionrsquos maimed and dead and invites us back to a better world where harmony and beauty are possible

Misato locates Shinji hiding under a stairway intending to send him into battle in Unit 01 Grief and guilt over his killing of Kaworu as well as all the other agony and death his fantasy has entailed have reduced him to a state of apathy approaching catatonia Misato rescues him from JSSDF assassins and drags him to the only remaining access route to Unit 01 Get up Move it Misato says Like it or not yoursquore still alive Get moving and do something You can die later Thrust into the storage bay Shinji finds Unit 01 encased in defensive Bakelite and collapses again Outside Misato dies of gunshot wounds Like Asuka Shinji calls to his mother As it has done once before Unit 01 breaks its bonds and draws Shinji into itself (Or into herself if one buys the theory that Shinjirsquos motherrsquos soul resides in the EVA)

and the dead and between the lsquorealityrsquo of the Evangelionworld and Shinjirsquos thoughts about it gradually dissolves lsquoOfficiallyrsquo dead people reappear to deliver judgments and messages and the roles of Rei and Kaworu converge as suggested several times in Episode 24

Both Seele and Gendo work to achieve the Human Instrumentality Project (HIP) but for different reasons In either case HIP represents the dissolution of individual human egos into a homogeneous continuum of all life Gendo seeks this as a path to reunion with Yui Seele sees it as the next evolutionary stage of mankind For Shinji it could end the pain of collisions with other people Yet the loss of any sense of identity of the self is operationally indistinguishable from death Shinji must make his choice

Seele Nerv and the national government are in open warfare Elements of the JSSDF attack Nerv Headquarters with soldiers and battlefield armaments Nerv was not designed to repel conventional forces and this new enemy penetrates all the way to Central Command stopped only when CC personnel take up small arms A new level of violence is reached in this battle in which visible people are visibly shot bleed and die in horrifying numbers

Asuka is placed in Unit 02 and hides at the bottom of a lake but is bombarded with depth charges Inspired by a vision of her mother Asuka rises from the lake and in a ferocious battle destroys all the conventional armaments brought to bear against her Seele orders the deployment of nine new EVAs but she disables them as well then runs out of battery power The new EVAs regenerate and eviscerate Unit 02 in a ghastly tableau that is an unholy marriage of the torment of Prometheus with the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian

During much of Asukarsquos battle we hear the sharply incongruous Air from Bachrsquos Orchestral Suite No 3[26] The effect of this music is one of overwhelming sadness a requiem for all of Evangelionrsquos maimed and dead and invites us back to a better world where harmony and beauty are possible

Misato locates Shinji hiding under a stairway intending to send him into battle in Unit 01 Grief and guilt over his killing of Kaworu as well as all the other agony and death his fantasy has entailed have reduced him to a state of apathy approaching catatonia Misato rescues him from JSSDF assassins and drags him to the only remaining access route to Unit 01 Get up Move it Misato says Like it or not yoursquore still alive Get moving and do something You can die later Thrust into the storage bay Shinji finds Unit 01 encased in defensive Bakelite and collapses again Outside Misato dies of gunshot wounds Like Asuka Shinji calls to his mother As it has done once before Unit 01 breaks its bonds and draws Shinji into itself (Or into herself if one buys the theory that Shinjirsquos motherrsquos soul resides in the EVA)

Shinji in Unit 01 explodes upwards through Nerv Headquarters but upon finding the grisly remains of Asukarsquos Unit 02 flips into a state near madness Unit 01 appears in the sky as an enormous satanic orange-winged monster Gendo attempts to merge with Rei but is rejected losing his right hand Rei merges with Lilith and a huge white composite of the two rises into the sky to face Shinji Seele intones a chant welcoming the dissolution of all humanity Shinji approaches mental breakdown as Unit 01 is subjected to a stylized geometrical crucifixion ndash but the image of ReiLilith wilts backward to be replaced by a similar image of Kaworu they are joined at the hip Have you been there the whole time Kaworu-kun Shinji asks Kaworu stretches out his ghostly hands toward Shinji whose face melts into a warm puddle of bliss The demonic wings melt away and a lance transfixes Unit 01 forming a three-dimensional cross

Fuyutsuki narrates The fate of mankind now lies in the hands of Ikarirsquos son

It certainly does Only he can destroy the Evangelion world saving himself and ndash by extension ndash us and the rest of humanity

Kaworu and a purified Rei exchange positions This Rei is your heart She embodies all your hopes and your dreams What is it you wish for Shinji sees himself at the age of four in an empty playground Invisible children call to him Come Shinji-kun Letrsquos build a sand castle Illuminated by studio lights and the setting sun Shinji builds a model of Nervrsquos pyramidal headquarters then kicks it apart Shinji giveth and Shinji taketh away Shinji ponders the imponderables of motherhood love and sex Hersquos shocked Does Misato really do things like that Yes this is also me The me when two hearts are joined as one The me that Shinji has never known Reality can be painful but itrsquos something that you must learn to accept Asuka berates Shinji You donrsquot understand anything You just stay away from me I do understand You couldnrsquot possibly you big jerk Rei asks her perennial question Did you ever really try Ikari Of course I did I know all about your little jerk off fantasies about me Asuka says Go ahead and do it like you always do Irsquoll even stand here and watch you The inquisition continues until Shinji cries Please care about me Asuka replies Yoursquore all you have and yoursquove never even learned to like yourself Pathetic In a wild rage Shinji throws the furniture about Donrsquot leave me alone Donrsquot abandon me Help me No Shinji begins to strangle Asuka lifting her off the floor Childish crayon drawings red with pain and anger fill the screen Like an emotional scalpel the relentless examination of Shinji cuts ever more deeply while the world of discrete beings approaches its end

Rei This world is overflowing with sorrow Its people are drowning in emptiness Loneliness fills their heartsSeele The beginning and the end are one and the same Yes all is right with the world

Gendo Irsquove waited so long for this moment to arrive I will finally be with you again Yui When Shinji is near me all I ever do is cause him pain It was better when I did nothing at allYui Were you afraid of Shinji I didnrsquot believe that anyone could love me I donrsquot deserve to be lovedKaworu So you were running away You rejected others so that you would never be hurtYui You were terrified by the invisible bonds that people formRei You were afraid and so you closed your heartGendo This is my retribution Forgive me Shinji (Unit 01 bites off Gendorsquos head Gendorsquos remorse has come too late No reconciliation)

In a storm of painful images all the insults and accusations ever hurled at Shinji fall like acid rain

Bachrsquos Jesu Joy of Manrsquos Desiring[39] accompanies video footage of a bustling city We see the microwave tower and telephone poles wersquove grown to recognize and respect if not love Thousands of people crowd the streets Hey What What are dreams Dreams Yes dreams A theater audience restlessly awaitshellip what perhaps the end of The End of Evangelion Bach continues Shinji I donrsquot understand I donrsquot understand what reality is You canrsquot bridge the gap between your own truth and the reality of others I donrsquot know where to find happiness So you only find happiness in your dreams Then this is not realty this world where no one exists No itrsquos only a dream Then I donrsquot exist here either This convenient fabrication is your attempt to change reality Is that wrong You were using fantasy to escape reality Why canrsquot I dream that Irsquom alone That is not a dream Thatrsquos a substitute for reality So where is my dream It is a continuation of reality But where is my reality It is at the end of your dream

The HIP has melted all identities into primordial soup yet Shinji can still talk with Rei This is the world you wished for she says But this isnrsquot right Shinji objects It feels wrong If you wish for others to exist the walls of their hearts will separate them again They will all feel fear once more Okay then Thank you

Shinji I only felt pain when I existed in that reality So I thought it was alright to run away But there was nothing good in the place I escaped to either because I didnrsquot exist there and so no one existedKaworu Is it alright for the AT field to cause you and others pain again (AT field = hellipthe wall that everyone has in their heart)Shinji I donrsquot mind But what are the two of you within my heart

Gendo Irsquove waited so long for this moment to arrive I will finally be with you again Yui When Shinji is near me all I ever do is cause him pain It was better when I did nothing at allYui Were you afraid of Shinji I didnrsquot believe that anyone could love me I donrsquot deserve to be lovedKaworu So you were running away You rejected others so that you would never be hurtYui You were terrified by the invisible bonds that people formRei You were afraid and so you closed your heartGendo This is my retribution Forgive me Shinji (Unit 01 bites off Gendorsquos head Gendorsquos remorse has come too late No reconciliation)

In a storm of painful images all the insults and accusations ever hurled at Shinji fall like acid rain

Bachrsquos Jesu Joy of Manrsquos Desiring[39] accompanies video footage of a bustling city We see the microwave tower and telephone poles wersquove grown to recognize and respect if not love Thousands of people crowd the streets Hey What What are dreams Dreams Yes dreams A theater audience restlessly awaitshellip what perhaps the end of The End of Evangelion Bach continues Shinji I donrsquot understand I donrsquot understand what reality is You canrsquot bridge the gap between your own truth and the reality of others I donrsquot know where to find happiness So you only find happiness in your dreams Then this is not realty this world where no one exists No itrsquos only a dream Then I donrsquot exist here either This convenient fabrication is your attempt to change reality Is that wrong You were using fantasy to escape reality Why canrsquot I dream that Irsquom alone That is not a dream Thatrsquos a substitute for reality So where is my dream It is a continuation of reality But where is my reality It is at the end of your dream

The HIP has melted all identities into primordial soup yet Shinji can still talk with Rei This is the world you wished for she says But this isnrsquot right Shinji objects It feels wrong If you wish for others to exist the walls of their hearts will separate them again They will all feel fear once more Okay then Thank you

Shinji I only felt pain when I existed in that reality So I thought it was alright to run away But there was nothing good in the place I escaped to either because I didnrsquot exist there and so no one existedKaworu Is it alright for the AT field to cause you and others pain again (AT field = hellipthe wall that everyone has in their heart)Shinji I donrsquot mind But what are the two of you within my heart

Rei We are the hope that people will one day be able to understand each otherKaworu And we are the words I love youShinji But thatrsquos just a pretense A selfish belief Like some kind of prayer It canrsquot possibly last forever Eventually Irsquoll be betrayed and it will abandon me But still I want to see them again because at the time I knew my feelings were realKaworu Reality exists in a place unknown and dreams exist within realityRei And truth lies in your heartKaworu The contents of a personrsquos heart shapes their appearanceRei And new images will change their hearts and their forms The power of imagination is the ability to create your own future and the power to create your own flow of timeKaworu But if people donrsquot act of their own free will then nothing will change at allRei So you must regain your own lost form by your own volition Even if it means your words become lost or confused with the words of others Anyone can return to human form as long as they are able to imagine themselves within their own heartMisato Donrsquot worry All living creatures have the power to be brought back to life and the will to go on living Anywhere can be paradise as long as you have the will to live After all you are alive so you will always have the chance to be happyRei As long as the Sun the Moon and the Earth exist everything will be alrightRei to Shinji Will you be alrightShinji I still donrsquot know where my happiness lies I still think about why Irsquom here and whether or not it was a good thing to come back But thatrsquos just stating the obvious over and over I am myself But Motherhellip What will you do MotherFuyutsuki to Yui When we created the EVAs were we trying to create a clone of GodYui Yes Humans can only exist on this earth but the Evangelion can exist forever along with the human soul that dwells within[33] Even five billion years from now when the Earth the Moon and the Sun are gone EVA will exist It will be lonely but as long as one person still liveshellipFuyutsuki hellipit will be eternal proof that mankind ever existedShinji Goodbye Mother

Title frame One More Final I need you

The setting is the same as that in which Kaworu first appeared pared down to a surreal minimalist Golgotha A red sea laps at the featureless shore fallen telephone poles and ruined buildings are accompanied by two cruciform EVAs leaning outward from a central cross which is not there For a moment Shinji sees a distant silent Rei We can almost hear her asking one last time Have you really tried Shinji rises kneels over Asuka and attempts to strangle her Asuka slowly raises a bandaged hand to gently caress Shinjirsquos cheek then lowers it Shinji relents and cries deeply his tears falling on Asukarsquos face Asuka says How disgusting

Whatrsquos going on here If we accept that Asuka Rei and Kaworu are rejected aspects of Shinjirsquos own personality his return to reality can only be accomplished by reabsorbing into himself those problematic companions This has already been done for Rei and Kaworu but Shinji still resists owning the anger and violence in his nature In an act which is both rejection and performance of his anger Shinji makes one final attempt to exclude Asuka then tearfully accepts her With this Shinji is almost home True to form Asuka is disgusted

One More Final bit of analysis Rei Asuka and Kaworu have returned to Shinji Rounding out the Five Children we must include Toji as well He too appears briefly near the end his arm draped affectionately around Shinjirsquos neck in a snapshot of Shinji-1 and his colleagues Tojirsquos distinguishing traits are his kindness and vulnerability he is totally defenseless in a world overloaded with pain fear and loss Tojirsquos return is silent because silence is his native language ndash and because of all the pilots his personality is most similar to Shinjirsquos and therefore has the least psychological distance to travel

Shinjirsquos recovery has required the reintegration of his full personality but he was in need of some letting go as well Now at the end of his journey he has said a final goodbye to his mother and erased the evil image of his father Henceforth he will no longer need to define himself through the deficiency of his parents who in their separate ways have failed him Not all of his questions have been answered nor all his doubts assuaged buthellip

The dreamer has awakened and a new world opens before him

Epilogue These our actorsAs I foretold you were all spirits and

Are melted into air into thin airAnd like the baseless fabric of this visionThe cloud-cappd towers the gorgeous palacesThe solemn temples the great globe itselfYea all which it inherit shall dissolveAnd like this insubstantial pageant fadedLeave not a rack behind We are such stuffAs dreams are made on and our little lifeIs rounded with a sleep[29]

Further Discussion

The Five Children

It is now possible to summarize the psychological and metaphorical roles of the Five Children Shinji in constructing his fictional self has chosen to lsquorun awayrsquo from parts of his makeup that were painful or in other ways problematic for him However one imagines the process ndash conscious or unconscious ndash it is clear that Shinjirsquos act of exclusion is only partially and temporarily successful Those rejected pieces of Shinji have not vanished but continue to impinge upon him in the forms of the four other Children His final epiphany is that he is incomplete without them The correspondences between traits and Children is clear Rei is apathy and withdrawal from human contact Asuka is rage resentment and self-involvement Toji is sensitivity and vulnerability Kaworu is the capacity to love and the willingness to risk being hurt as a result It is the arrival of Kaworu that precipitates the final crisis and that event is discussed more fully below

Five Short Essays on Nagisa Kaworu

Who is Kaworu

Unlike the other important characters of the drama Kaworu has no past no future no friends no connections no context He steps out of the blue the absolute master of every situation devoid of fear anxiety resentment embarrassment or regret He knows Shinji better than Shinji knows himself because he is free from the distorting effects of strong emotion or indeed any emotion at all Despite Kaworursquos strangeness Shinji warms to him immediately and intimately Ritsuko opines that he is probably the final messenger though this is a odd claim since none of the prior Angels has shown any inclination to convey messages

Are melted into air into thin airAnd like the baseless fabric of this visionThe cloud-cappd towers the gorgeous palacesThe solemn temples the great globe itselfYea all which it inherit shall dissolveAnd like this insubstantial pageant fadedLeave not a rack behind We are such stuffAs dreams are made on and our little lifeIs rounded with a sleep[29]

Further Discussion

The Five Children

It is now possible to summarize the psychological and metaphorical roles of the Five Children Shinji in constructing his fictional self has chosen to lsquorun awayrsquo from parts of his makeup that were painful or in other ways problematic for him However one imagines the process ndash conscious or unconscious ndash it is clear that Shinjirsquos act of exclusion is only partially and temporarily successful Those rejected pieces of Shinji have not vanished but continue to impinge upon him in the forms of the four other Children His final epiphany is that he is incomplete without them The correspondences between traits and Children is clear Rei is apathy and withdrawal from human contact Asuka is rage resentment and self-involvement Toji is sensitivity and vulnerability Kaworu is the capacity to love and the willingness to risk being hurt as a result It is the arrival of Kaworu that precipitates the final crisis and that event is discussed more fully below

Five Short Essays on Nagisa Kaworu

Who is Kaworu

Unlike the other important characters of the drama Kaworu has no past no future no friends no connections no context He steps out of the blue the absolute master of every situation devoid of fear anxiety resentment embarrassment or regret He knows Shinji better than Shinji knows himself because he is free from the distorting effects of strong emotion or indeed any emotion at all Despite Kaworursquos strangeness Shinji warms to him immediately and intimately Ritsuko opines that he is probably the final messenger though this is a odd claim since none of the prior Angels has shown any inclination to convey messages

A personification of the capacity to love Kaworu really is a messenger and delivers his teachings to Shinji by word and example Shinjirsquos old strategy of avoiding pain by avoiding other people Kaworu explains is a dead end that can only result in further pain and alienation Commitment to others entails the risk of being hurt but to avoid involvement is to embrace social death Retreat into a fantasy world of carefully manipulated relationships may work for a while but that too is a path toward death At the moment of Kaworursquos appearance Shinjirsquos Evangelion world is badly out of control and collapsing in on itself loyalties are in doubt truth is falsehood and the Establishment decrees that Kaworu must die by Shinjirsquos own hand The deadliness of the dream world is revealed the messenger becomes the message and Kaworursquos task is completed

Is Shinji in Love with Kaworu

Judging from the conventional cues of anime (blushing hesitation embarrassment) one might think so but the encounter with Kaworu displays even stronger hints of reunion which is its true subject In Platorsquos dialogue The Symposium several Athenian intellectuals among them Socrates and the comic playwright Aristophanes compete in delivering speeches on the nature of love Dramatist to the core Aristophanes proposes that humans were once physically and emotionally whole lacking any need to form dyads with other humans but in their lust for power they challenged even the gods and in retribution Zeus cut each of them in half

Now since their natural form had been cut in two each one longed for its own other half and so they would throw their arms about each other weaving themselves together wanting to grow together[36]

Throughout Evangelion Shinji is far less than half of himself Not only does he lack Kaworursquos capacity to love but as well those other faculties that have reconstituted themselves as Rei Asuka and Toji His program to free himself from strong emotion has reduced him to a bland passionless shell to which he attempts to give meaning by piloting Unit 01 (itself a shell) and destroying Angels Kaworursquos appearance at a time of emotional crisis momentarily awakens in him the tantalizing hope that his emptiness might be filled by affirmation rather than negation by love rather than violence Shinjis love for Kaworu is a first step toward loving himself

When Shinji still not his own person obeys the command to kill Kaworu he commits not only homicide but (partial) suicide as well By the time Misato attempts to rouse him to battle in Episode 25rsquo he is more dead than alive

The Apotheosis of Kaworu

The old men of Seele chant ldquoWe need another human sacrifice to counter Ikari And we need someone who knows the truthrdquo Ritsuko anticipates the final messenger Shinji at the edge of the abyss asks ldquoWhat should I do Martin Heidegger suggests ldquoOnly another god can save us [now]rdquo[5]Conjured out of nothingness by these prayers perched on the head of a phoenix nearly as immobile as the icons of Eastern Orthodox Christianity immersed in a cool nimbus of white radiance Kaworu materializes amid the wreckage of New Tokyo-3 He preaches life and love but chooses death to save mankind

With this striking image before us we might take a moment to reflect on the Passion of Kaworu not as a re-enactment of the crucifixion of Jesus but as a universal symbol of selfless altruism liberated from cross blood agony and centuries of sectarian baggage What we are looking at here is not just the central mystery of Christianity ndash of many Christianities ndash but at the ineffable paradox of life itself that death and life proceed one from the other in an endlessly recirculating stream of loss change and regeneration cyclical yet evolutionary The miracle that Evangelion has wrought is to appropriate this symbolic performance with all its ancient power yet in a refined form that strips away every stain of dogmatism and cant Floating in his shaft of purest light Kaworu is all of us exposed and vulnerable hopeless yet hopeful This is his gift to us ndash not eternal life but the eternal challenge to deserve the gift of life

Yet this picture of humanitarian suicide is deeply disturbing to both Misato and Shinji though for different reasons The ideological manipulation of symbols ndash especially symbols as powerful as this one ndash is examined more critically in the next essay

The Perils of Symbols

In An Essay on Man philosopher Ernst Cassirer has this to say about symbols and myths

Physical reality seems to recede in proportion as manrsquos symbolic activity advances Instead of dealing with the things themselves man is in a sense constantly conversing with himself He has so enveloped himself in linguistic forms in artistic images in mythical symbols or religious rites that he cannot see or know anything except by the interposition of this artificial medium He liveshellip in the midst of imaginary emotions in hopes and fears in illusions and disillusions in his fantasies and dreams[30] (italics added)

Cassirer wrote these words during the last year of World War II having fled a country (Nazi Germany) that had appropriated and redefined a range of mythical symbols or religious rites in the service of constructing a (not entirely) new mythology of the superiority of the Master Race and the inferiority

of everyone else By this process the Jews were reduced to a symbol of Germanyrsquos decay As symbols they could be extinguished without regret along with Communists Gypsies and homosexuals

In appropriating and redefining Christian and Kabbalistic symbols Evangelion (in a sense) plays in the same sandbox as that of Nazi Germanys Ministry of Propaganda and demonstrates an important point redefinition does not necessarily rid symbols of their prior meaning and power On the contrary symbols are most effectively deployed when the emotional weight acquired by them over time is turned in a new direction not lost but focused on something else The emotional power of symbols is therefore fungible Like money once acquired it can be spent to any end

Evangelionrsquos Ikari Shinji is constantly conversing with himself attempting to find meaning and guidance for proper action in many of mankindrsquos most revered totems ndash fatherhood motherhood courage compassion group solidarity loyalty honesty generosity love Among his discoveries is that these qualities are not simple absolutes but context-dependent puzzles As symbols they are not of much use and it is necessary to search backward through mankindrsquos symbolic activity toward the particularity of that physical reality which has been lost or obscured through the misuse of words or the misrepresentations of convention

The Passion of Kaworu is a case in point Shinji is not a literary theorist and truly believes that he has killed someone ndash tragically someone whom he loved and who loved him In his literal-minded refusal to see the world through symbols he has understood the Passion for what it is human sacrifice In doing so he has seen through the symbolic activity to the physical reality of murder and condemns himself accordingly We sophisticates might be inclined to send him back to remedial New Criticism but his is arguably the purer vision Like Ashitaka (Mononoke-hime) Shinji has seen with eyes unclouded and found the world not to his liking Whether he will grow up to be a crusading existentialist hero like Ashitaka is unknown

Kaworu as Trickster

Coyote of Native American legend the Japanese shape-shifting raccoon dog (tanuki = 狸 or タヌキ) and the Greek god Hermes (messenger and agent of Zeus) would seem to have little in common but they are all instances of a figure ubiquitous in world folklore the trickster Displaying nearly the entire catalog of the tricksterrsquos transgressive transformational and chaos-inducing talents Kaworu fundamentally destabilizes the Evangelion world impelling it toward final disintegration As in cowboy lsquoWesternsrsquo of a earlier era a stranger comes to town death and destruction follow in his wake and a new world is born[37]

Unimpeded by passwords or protocol Kaworu steals Unit 02 guiding it through every blast shield and barrier to Terminal Dogma where he confronts and confounds mankindrsquos most fearful dogma the impermeability of the boundary between the living and the dead ldquoLife and death are of equal valuerdquo to Kaworu because he travels easily between them and leads others to do so as well Yui Misato and Rei In Kaworursquos subversively transformed space ldquohellip death shall have no dominionrdquo[38]

Exceptional even for a trickster Kaworu violates the border between male and female occupying two bodies two places and two genders at once I feel we are the same taken literally equates Kaworu and Rei and we realize that ReiKaworu has been moving between life and death ever since Rei was murdered by Dr Akagi if not before (Athena performs this gender-switching trick several times in the Odyssey)

Under the influence of Kaworursquos transformative chaos the outermost shell of the dreamworld is shattered the camera draws back and we glimpse demiurgic Shinji in the sandbox under studio lights the crowded streets of a living city intact telephone poles even ourselves in the theater audience With a final kick that unites Asuka and Shinji Kaworu ejects Shinji from the static world of his fantasy into time change and the possibility of growth

I have just laid out five rather divergent views of the role of Kaworu as Message as Reunification as Messiah as Atrocity as Trickster No doubt there are still more It is the great virtue of Evangelion that it invites us to see the world from so many different points of view and allows us to come to our own conclusions

Evangelion and the Odyssey ndash One Last Time

Stories of the return of a hero ndash successful or otherwise ndash are a staple of ancient Greek poetry and drama but they are seldom without complication Achilles dies before the fall of Troy Ajax goes mad and kills himself Agamemnon is murdered by his wife and her lover Menelaus is delayed in Egypt Odysseusrsquo return takes ten years Return is an essential part of Shinjirsquos story as well but we must take two steps back and start at the beginning

Departure Absence Return These are the three essential elements of the generic herorsquos tale and they are all present in Evangelion Shinji in fact experiences a series of departures The first departure is forced on him he does not run away from home home runs away from him At the age of four his mother dies and his father abandons him In the course of the drama we are reminded of this traumatic break repeatedly in flashback It is the defining event of Shinjirsquos early life and the bitter beginning of the herorsquos wanderings

The next ten years are hidden from us but we can imagine a gray period of loneliness aimlessness and mounting resentment of his father Telemachus Odysseusrsquo son grows up without a father as well but his resentment is held in check by his motherrsquos love and the hope that the absent king will one day return to restore order in the family and in Ithaca

Shinjirsquos second departure takes place on at least three distinct levels and it is necessary to distinguish between Shinji-1 (real-world) and Shinji-2 (imaginary) For Shinji-1 loneliness isolation and self-hatred have made life almost intolerable and he hopes to reverse these misfortunes by escaping into a herorsquos life of mortal combat in a psychologically distant land ndash the imaginary Evangelion world For Shiinji-2 two more departures follow at once He leaves his teacherrsquos home to move in with Misato and he runs away from those aspects of his personality that one by one reappear as the four other Children

Once the parameters of the Evangelion world have been established and the story begins Shinji attempts to appropriate the role of Telemachus who is called to arms by his father to defeat the 108 suitors of Odysseus wife Penelope and reassert the canonical family order As in the Odyssey the objective dangers are great and survival ndash let alone victory ndash is not assured

For a considerable time Shinjirsquos escapist fantasy appears to be working for him His circle of friends expands to include Kensuke and Toji and a bond with Misato develops that promises to go beyond the purely professional Asuka joins the elite pilot corps and Angels are destroyed one after the other Yet in one important respect Shinjirsquos futuristic re-imagining of the homecoming of Odysseus never gets off the ground Gendo unlike Odysseus is incapable of generosity and warmth treating his son as no more than an impersonal tool of his will

Without a plausible Odysseus the Telemachus plot has no center ndash no benevolent protector or role model ndash and so the entire burden of fixing the world falls onto Shinjirsquos shoulders As the agendas of Gendo Seele Nerv and the national government diverge and chaos ensues the tenuous superstructure of Shinjirsquos fantastical dreamworld begins to collapse threatening to take Shinji with it to Gendo and Seelersquos special version of hell dissolution and death of the ego Shinjirsquos absence from the real world has outlived its usefulness and his need for a happy homecoming is urgent Unable to see a future free of pain and death Shinji reaches criticality and cries out for a redeemer

At critical moments of danger in the Odyssey Hermes or Athena appears on the scene to shore up the herorsquos mental and physical resources allowing him to move on to the next stage of his journey The closest analogue to those divine intercessors in the Evangelion world is Kaworu but like the typical trickster he

is he moves by indirection Instead of confirming Shinji in his role as the last indispensible hero of Nerv he attacks Nerv at its very foundation by breaking all the rules especially those that govern life and death The malignant world of Shinjirsquos fantasy fights back by creating corpses on an industrial scale but the carnage is no more than the terminal paroxysm of a dying delusion

A final door is closed and the Evangelion world fades into memory Misato Yui Gendo and Shinjirsquos rejected alter-egos appear in a liminal space between fantasy and reality to talk Shinji back from his dream and prepare him for the inevitable ups and downs of life in the real world But whatever the circumstances of his return it cannot be to the home from which he departed ten years before because that one is irretrievably lost

The Odyssey ends in joyful reunion and Evangelion does as well but subtly and a little out of temporal sequence We see a snapshot of Shinji surrounded by his imaginary friends but then as if in recognition of a neglected duty he returns to a ghostly image of New Tokyo-3 to perform one last act of symbolic reunion With this GendoOdysseus is gone forever but the former power relationship is reversed and ShinjiTelemachus has no further need for him At last Shinji can say ldquoI am myselfrdquo

God the Father ndash Father the God

The abundance of religious terminology and iconography in Evangelion clearly invites a corresponding interpretation and Mariana Ortegarsquos paper My Father He Killed Me My Mother She Ate Me Self Desire Engendering and the Mother in Neon Genesis Evangelion answers the call[50] Here I present a somewhat different account based on one book from the Nag Hammadi Library then address the problem I see with such projects in general

God the Father Mother

In books 1 and 2 of Genesis are found two (conflicting) accounts of the creation of the cosmos by a single supreme God and the subsequent vivification of the world through the addition of plants lower animals and finally humans It is in these aspects as first cause lawgiver divine ruler judge and protector that the Abrahamic religions (Judaism Christianity Islam) envision God the Father Unlike the deities of most other religious traditions the God of the Abrahamic religions is both monadic (singular) and male

In the 3rd and 4th centuries CE after extensive scholarly debate and negotiation a selection was made of which extant written texts would be assembled into the first official canon of the New Testament of the Christian Bible In the year 367

is he moves by indirection Instead of confirming Shinji in his role as the last indispensible hero of Nerv he attacks Nerv at its very foundation by breaking all the rules especially those that govern life and death The malignant world of Shinjirsquos fantasy fights back by creating corpses on an industrial scale but the carnage is no more than the terminal paroxysm of a dying delusion

A final door is closed and the Evangelion world fades into memory Misato Yui Gendo and Shinjirsquos rejected alter-egos appear in a liminal space between fantasy and reality to talk Shinji back from his dream and prepare him for the inevitable ups and downs of life in the real world But whatever the circumstances of his return it cannot be to the home from which he departed ten years before because that one is irretrievably lost

The Odyssey ends in joyful reunion and Evangelion does as well but subtly and a little out of temporal sequence We see a snapshot of Shinji surrounded by his imaginary friends but then as if in recognition of a neglected duty he returns to a ghostly image of New Tokyo-3 to perform one last act of symbolic reunion With this GendoOdysseus is gone forever but the former power relationship is reversed and ShinjiTelemachus has no further need for him At last Shinji can say ldquoI am myselfrdquo

God the Father ndash Father the God

The abundance of religious terminology and iconography in Evangelion clearly invites a corresponding interpretation and Mariana Ortegarsquos paper My Father He Killed Me My Mother She Ate Me Self Desire Engendering and the Mother in Neon Genesis Evangelion answers the call[50] Here I present a somewhat different account based on one book from the Nag Hammadi Library then address the problem I see with such projects in general

God the Father Mother

In books 1 and 2 of Genesis are found two (conflicting) accounts of the creation of the cosmos by a single supreme God and the subsequent vivification of the world through the addition of plants lower animals and finally humans It is in these aspects as first cause lawgiver divine ruler judge and protector that the Abrahamic religions (Judaism Christianity Islam) envision God the Father Unlike the deities of most other religious traditions the God of the Abrahamic religions is both monadic (singular) and male

In the 3rd and 4th centuries CE after extensive scholarly debate and negotiation a selection was made of which extant written texts would be assembled into the first official canon of the New Testament of the Christian Bible In the year 367

Athanasius Bishop of Alexandria circulated a list of the 27 approved books and required further that all other previous candidates for canonization (inclusion in the Bible) be immediately destroyed In a plausible modern reconstruction of events ldquoIn upper Egypt someone possibly a monk from the nearby monastery of St Pachominus took the banned books and hid them from destruction ndash in the jar where they remained buried for almost 1600 yearsrdquo[52] Discovered in 1945 these codices (center bound folded books in the modern style) are now referred to as the Nag Hammadi Library after a nearby Egyptian town

The Nag Hammadi Library together with a few other codices constitute most of the primary[53] source material suggestive of a strain of early Christianity now loosely termed Gnosticism The roots of Gnosticism are multi-cultural and scholars still debate whether these writings are the product of a self-recognized Gnostic movement or simply represent a cross section of diverse points of view within late pre-Christian Judaism and early Christianity

Gnostic texts solve the problem of the existence of evil in the world by a three-step process First ndash in time and in rank ndash they posit a monadictranscendent God The following is an excerpt from the Apocryphon of John one of the books of the Nag Hammadi Library (Apocryphon of John = SecretBook of John hereafter ApJohn)

ApJohn The Monad is a monarchy with nothing above it It is he who exists as God and Father of everything the invisible One who is above everything who exists as incorruption which is in the pure light into which no eye can lookhellip He is immeasurable light which is pure holy (and) immaculate He is ineffable being perfect in incorruptibility[54]

Next the Monad (the transcendent God) creates Sophia (Wisdom) who is androgynous embodying both male and female attributes

ApJohn And his thought performed a deed and she came forth namely she who had appeared before him in the shine of his lighthellip She is the forethought of the All - her light shines like his light - the perfect power which is the image of the invisible virginal Spirit who is perfecthellip she becamethe womb of everything for it is she who is prior to them all the Mother-Father the first man the holy Spirit the thrice-male the thrice-powerful the thrice-named androgynous one and the eternal aeon [emanation of god] among the invisible ones and the first to come forth (Italics added)

Unlike the transcendent God Sophia can make mistakes and does so when she creates Yaltabaoth

ApJohn And the Sophia of the Epinoia being an aeon [emanation of god] conceived a thought from herself and the conception of

the invisible Spirit and foreknowledge She wanted to bring forth a likeness out of herself without the consent of the Spirit - he had not approved - and without her consort and without his considerationhellip And she called his name Yaltabaothhellip This is the first archon who took a great power from his mother

Yaltabaoth the first archon in turn creates additional archons and other beings including 365 angels

ApJohn This [Yaltabaoth] is the first archon who took a great power from his mother And he removed himself from her and moved away from the places in which he was born He became strong and created for himself other aeons with a flame of luminous fire which (still) exists now And he joined with his arrogance which is in him and begot authorities for himself

Yaltabaoth lays claim to the transcendent status of a monadic God but in his choice of words he inadvertently gives himself away as an inferior god

ApJohn And when he saw the creation which surrounds him and the multitude of the angels around him which had come forth from him he said to them lsquoI am a jealous God and there is no other God beside mersquo But by announcing this he indicated to the angels who attended him that there exists another God For if there were no other one of whom would he be jealous

Finally we come to the creation of mankind carried out by Yaltabaoth and his retinue of archons angels and other attendants each individually assigned an organ or other part of the body to work on

ApJohn rsquoCome let us create a man according to the image of God and according to our likeness that his image may become a light for ushelliprsquo He created a being according to the likeness of the first perfect Man And they said Let us call him Adam that his name may become a power of light for ushelliprsquo And all the angels and demons worked until they had constructed the natural body And their product was completely inactive and motionless for a long time

In order to bring life to Adam Yaltabaoth appeals to his mother Sophia who in turn appeals to the monadic God

ApJohn And when the mother wanted to retrieve the power which she had given to the chief archon she petitioned the Mother-Father of the All who is most merciful And he sent through his beneficent Spirit and his great mercy a helper to Adam luminous Epinoia which comes out of him who is called Life And the luminous Epinoia was hidden in Adam in order that the archons might not know her but that the Epinoia might be a correction of the deficiency of the mother (Italics added)

We see here that the monadic God sends the spark of life ldquoluminous Epinoiardquo to Adam by way of Sophia but in a manner that bypasses Yaltabaoth and his retinue The final act of vivification blowing life into Adam is carried out by Yaltabaoth but when he does so ldquothe power of the mother went out of Yaltabaoth into the natural body which they had fashioned after the image of the one who exists from the beginningrdquo[54] At his moment of creative triumph therefore Yaltabaoth loses much of his power and Sophia regains the status lost by her careless creation of Yaltabaoth

Father the God

In episode 4 Shinji travels by rail bus and foot to the countryside but at the furthest point of his journey he finds himself looking down on New Tokyo-3 a ldquolonely cityrdquo that seems only to exist for and because of Nerv In the classroom convenience store movie theater everywhere the talk is of Nerv the Angels and the Second Impact Despite the monumental verticality of the city it appears almost entirely empty empty that is of everything but Nerv At the summit of Nerv the apex of the pyramid sits Shinjirsquos father Ikari Gendo As creator and director of Nerv and sole identified father in Evangelion Gendorsquos position is indeed generative and godlike but he shares power with a shadowy council of old men called Seele (German for soul) and is gradually revealed to be anything but wise and benevolent In the Gnostic hierarchy of deities Gendo is a parallel with Yaltabaoth and Seele with the archons Together they created the decidedly imperfect (Evangelion) world but cannot bring life or lasting order to it

Mother the God

Shinjirsquos vanished mother has been reified in Unit 01 Whenever Shinji takes his place in the entry plug he symbolically returns to his motherrsquos womb submerged in LCL (amniotic fluid) Insertion of the phallic entry plug into Unit 01 has the appearance of sexual intercourse but because it is with his mother the act recalls the transgression of Oedipus for which the punishment was blindness and exile Once inside Unit 01 Shinji has effectively been engulfed by his mother and is totally dependent on her forbearance for his continued existence She is not always careful Absorbed into the Angelrsquos shadow in episode 16 Shinji and Yui gestate within the beach-ball-egg then hatch in a bloody breakout that given the incestuous conception can only produce a monster horrifying and sickening the Nerv staff In episode 20 his mother even digests him then spits him out later (He dissolves into the LCL but is later reconstituted)

Shinjirsquos relationship with his mother is one of radical dependency He remains trapped in the ldquooral stagerdquo unable to bring about the ldquosplitting of the breastrdquo

We see here that the monadic God sends the spark of life ldquoluminous Epinoiardquo to Adam by way of Sophia but in a manner that bypasses Yaltabaoth and his retinue The final act of vivification blowing life into Adam is carried out by Yaltabaoth but when he does so ldquothe power of the mother went out of Yaltabaoth into the natural body which they had fashioned after the image of the one who exists from the beginningrdquo[54] At his moment of creative triumph therefore Yaltabaoth loses much of his power and Sophia regains the status lost by her careless creation of Yaltabaoth

Father the God

In episode 4 Shinji travels by rail bus and foot to the countryside but at the furthest point of his journey he finds himself looking down on New Tokyo-3 a ldquolonely cityrdquo that seems only to exist for and because of Nerv In the classroom convenience store movie theater everywhere the talk is of Nerv the Angels and the Second Impact Despite the monumental verticality of the city it appears almost entirely empty empty that is of everything but Nerv At the summit of Nerv the apex of the pyramid sits Shinjirsquos father Ikari Gendo As creator and director of Nerv and sole identified father in Evangelion Gendorsquos position is indeed generative and godlike but he shares power with a shadowy council of old men called Seele (German for soul) and is gradually revealed to be anything but wise and benevolent In the Gnostic hierarchy of deities Gendo is a parallel with Yaltabaoth and Seele with the archons Together they created the decidedly imperfect (Evangelion) world but cannot bring life or lasting order to it

Mother the God

Shinjirsquos vanished mother has been reified in Unit 01 Whenever Shinji takes his place in the entry plug he symbolically returns to his motherrsquos womb submerged in LCL (amniotic fluid) Insertion of the phallic entry plug into Unit 01 has the appearance of sexual intercourse but because it is with his mother the act recalls the transgression of Oedipus for which the punishment was blindness and exile Once inside Unit 01 Shinji has effectively been engulfed by his mother and is totally dependent on her forbearance for his continued existence She is not always careful Absorbed into the Angelrsquos shadow in episode 16 Shinji and Yui gestate within the beach-ball-egg then hatch in a bloody breakout that given the incestuous conception can only produce a monster horrifying and sickening the Nerv staff In episode 20 his mother even digests him then spits him out later (He dissolves into the LCL but is later reconstituted)

Shinjirsquos relationship with his mother is one of radical dependency He remains trapped in the ldquooral stagerdquo unable to bring about the ldquosplitting of the breastrdquo

that will free him to become a complete and independent person[55] Worse each time he enters Unit 01 he commits an lsquounnatural actrsquo that places at risk his sanity and bodily existence Caught in a vicious cycle of false conception and false birth he desperately needs another vivifying spark from Sophia (Wisdom) to set him free

The tripartite nature of Sophia is clearly indicated in ApJohn as is her polysexuality ldquothe Mother-Father the first man the holy Spirit the thrice-male the thrice-powerful the thrice-named androgynous onerdquo Several trinities can be identified in Evangelion but two stand out The three Magi embody Ritsukorsquos mother in her three aspects as mother woman and scientist Of far greater significance to Shinji is the trinity of Yui Rei and Kaworu The trinity of the Magi is functional and whole from the beginning but the latter trinity appears in stages fully merging only at the end

In episode 24 in response to Shinjirsquos critical need a spark of insight from Sophia ndash luminous Epinoia ndash materializes in the form of Kaworu Bathed in divine radiance and speaking out of the wisdom of his birth Kaworu delivers a sermon on the reflexive paradox of love and pain and the abhorrence of existence within the EVAs Shinji denies Kaworu using Unit 01 to kill him After further trials for Shinji Sophia acts once more Yui Kaworu and Rei return in episode 26rsquo this time as a team to help Shinji break the bonds of Gendorsquos domination and reject the dissolution of his personality (instrumentality heaven nirvana whatever) Rei and Kaworu then combine antiphonally to start Shinji along the road to independent personhood With a final caress Yui takes her leave and Shinji is released alone into the world Bobbing to the surface of a lake of LCL he asks ldquoBut mother what will you dordquo Following a brief final memory of her Shinji can say at last ldquoGoodbye motherrdquo

One dependency remains to be broken Shinji finds himself at Evangelion-Golgotha the crucifying place of EVAs and picks up where he left off in an earlier scene as he was attempting to strangle Asuka for refusing to help him The gentle touch of Asukarsquos bandaged hand (which echoes Yuirsquos gesture) releases him from any lingering delusion that self-realization and self-definition can come from outside the self As Shinji cries and Asuka insults him the children emerge from their long nightmare ndash whole free of the jealous gods they have served and bearing the lsquoglad tidings of a new genesisrsquo promised in the dramarsquos title

The pieces of this Gnosticpsychiatric puzzle fit together well enough to suggest intent rather than accident but such an interpretation leaves uswondering ldquoWhat does this have to do with usrdquo By removing the power of agency from individuals and placing it in the hands of competing gods (or psychiatric complexes) do we not make Shinji and everyone else into mere paper dolls

driven by forces beyond their control If this is Evangelionrsquosstance it is dark indeed If on the other hand the demiurge is Shinji himself (Shinji-1) the story opens into one of enlightenment self-discovery and growth

Acknowledgements

It seems almost a certainty that no character in either anime or live-action film has ever been examined as relentlessly and brutally as Ikari Shinji nor has any character so bared his innermost thoughts and feelings to the viewersrsquo gaze Yet Shinji remains throughout surprising touching fascinating and deeply human This achievement is enormously to the credit of writerdirector Anno Hideaki character designer Sadamoto Yoshiyuki voice actor Ogata Megumi and the animators who have brought him to life The other characters as well embody in abundance the immediacy and universality that is the hallmark of the best amine Despite Evangelionrsquos apparent membership in the giant mecha genre its main movement stays throughout resolutely with the psychological giving intellectual depth and emotional resonance to events that they would otherwise lack In sticking with this agenda and carrying it to completion Evangelion lays claim to new territory As the culmination of a daring effort by a crew of dedicated people expended over a period of years it will live on as an epic masterpiece of psychological drama and a unique examination of the human condition

Special commendation must be given to the sound effects which throughout are astonishing beautiful and utterly convincing

Some readers will object to my theoretical lsquoreal-worldrsquo Shinji Shinji-1 because there is no reference to him in the text I would simply ask in turn who the Shinji is to whom the dream-world Shinji returns as Episode 26 draws to a close Hersquos my Shinji-1 This conceptual device is the literary equivalent of the (usually invisible) vanishing point of geometrical perspective ndash that locus on the virtual horizon toward which lines seem to converge In a similar way the Five Children (five pilots) all point back to a Shinji who has attempted to avoid pain by pushing out from himself the most problematic facets of his psyche Shinji-1 also has the virtue of erecting a firewall against attempts to trace Shinji back to the artists who created him If you wish to avoid a nasty bite on the arm ndash or worse ndash donrsquot press artists too hard on why they do what they do or what it means

I am the farthest thing from a Biblical scholar and certainly not given to finding Christian iconography under every rock so I must thank the Internet and

Wikipedia for help with many of the references to Christian symbolism as well as other supporting material Japanese is not one of my languages so I have relied on the English subtitles and episode titles I apologize for the chaotic footnote numbering but FrontPage has no provision for footnotes Instead its all done by hand and becomes increasingly disordered as deletions and additions are made

The Unknown Odysseus Alternate Worlds in Homerrsquos Odyssey by Thomas Van Nortwick contains a wealth of fresh insights into the Odyssey and was especially helpful to me on the role of the trickster

I highly recommend Susan J Napierrsquos book Anime from Akira to Howlrsquos Moving Castle Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation[31] This excellent account of the forms and themes of contemporary Japanese anime introduced me to many fine productions of which I was unaware including Neon Genesis Evangelion

copy Sheldon Danielson March 2010 December 2011

Footnotes

[0] Footnote

[1] This paper refers to the Platinum Complete edition of Neon Genesis Evangelion substituting the Directorrsquos Cut Episodes 21 to 24 for the originals and substituting The End of Evangelion for the original Episodes 25 and 26

[2] Yasuhiro Takeda The Notenki Memoirs (ADV Manga Wani Books 2002 2005)

[3] Thomas Lamarre The Anime Machine (Minneapolis The University of Minnesota Press 2009) 130

[4] Lamarre The Anime Machine 169 Lamarre is paraphrasing Heidegger Only another god can save us In this citation Lamarre is writing aboutLaputa Castle in the Sky (Miyazaki) and Nadia The Secret of Blue Water (Anno) but his observation applies equally well to Evangelion For more see the next footnote

Wikipedia for help with many of the references to Christian symbolism as well as other supporting material Japanese is not one of my languages so I have relied on the English subtitles and episode titles I apologize for the chaotic footnote numbering but FrontPage has no provision for footnotes Instead its all done by hand and becomes increasingly disordered as deletions and additions are made

The Unknown Odysseus Alternate Worlds in Homerrsquos Odyssey by Thomas Van Nortwick contains a wealth of fresh insights into the Odyssey and was especially helpful to me on the role of the trickster

I highly recommend Susan J Napierrsquos book Anime from Akira to Howlrsquos Moving Castle Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation[31] This excellent account of the forms and themes of contemporary Japanese anime introduced me to many fine productions of which I was unaware including Neon Genesis Evangelion

copy Sheldon Danielson March 2010 December 2011

Footnotes

[0] Footnote

[1] This paper refers to the Platinum Complete edition of Neon Genesis Evangelion substituting the Directorrsquos Cut Episodes 21 to 24 for the originals and substituting The End of Evangelion for the original Episodes 25 and 26

[2] Yasuhiro Takeda The Notenki Memoirs (ADV Manga Wani Books 2002 2005)

[3] Thomas Lamarre The Anime Machine (Minneapolis The University of Minnesota Press 2009) 130

[4] Lamarre The Anime Machine 169 Lamarre is paraphrasing Heidegger Only another god can save us In this citation Lamarre is writing aboutLaputa Castle in the Sky (Miyazaki) and Nadia The Secret of Blue Water (Anno) but his observation applies equally well to Evangelion For more see the next footnote

[5] In an interview with Der Spiegel magazine published in 1966 philosopher Martin Heidegger said Nur noch ein Gott kann uns retten (Only another god can save us) In later commentary this sentence was expanded by the addition of now but that word is not in the German original For more on Heidegger see Lamarre The Anime Machine p 168 and index

[6] This excellent sentiment is expressed by UrsusArctos at httpforumevageeksorgviewtopicphpt=8142

[7] N K Sandars The Epic of Gilgamesh (Penguin Classics 1960 1972)

[8] Marduk is the name of a Mesopotamian god who became the patron deity of Babylon in the second half of the second millennium BCE Because Marduk does not appear in Gilgamesh this is not quite a reference to the epic the text of which had apparently become fixed before the ascent of Marduk

[9] Homer The Odyssey Richmond Lattimore tr (New York Harper Perennial 1999)

[10] From the libretto of A Pilgrimrsquos Progress by Ralph Vaughan Williams

[12] ldquoThe Passion is the Christian theological term used for the events and suffering ndash physical spiritual and mental ndash of Jesus in the hours before and including his trial and execution by crucifixionrdquo Wikipedia Passion Later in this paper the sense of this word is broadened

[13] A dramatic change of direction in a personrsquos life is often described as a kind of death and rebirth In this limited metaphorical sense the evolution of Shinjirsquos painful education particularly as motivated by Kaworu might plausibly be termed a Passion

[14] Dostoyevsky The Brothers Karamazov The Grand Inquisitor

[15] The object on which Kaworu first appears and which recurs twice more is ambiguous When first seen it might be understood as a phoenix (hi no tori) This could be a reference to Tezuka Osamus phoenix of which there is a sculpture near the Osamu Tezuka Manga Museum in Takarazuka Japan In Kaworus scene with Seele the winged creature seems to have arms that suggest an EVA It should be noted that in all but a few close-ups Kaworu is shown immersed in a glow of white light an anime version of an aura or halo (exceptions first appearance and on the synch test monitor)

[16] There is an urban legend that Schiller would have preferred to write An die Freiheit (to freedom) rather than An die Freude (to joy) but was constrained by political circumstances True or not this is an attractive story

[17] Kaworu is here referring to the idea that mankind descended from Lilith andor Adam making them the Lilim by which he means mortal

[18] The spelling Kaworu is used in the visuals and subtitles of the Platinum Complete edition Kaoru is used in the subtitles of The End of Evangelion Thekatakana カヲル arguably supports the transcription Kaoru because the w sound of ヲ is considered obsolete (See Timothy J Vance The Sounds of Japanese2008 p 90) The romanization Kaworu may have been preferred because its easier for non-Japanese speakers to read and pronounce

[19] In other words Kaworu has temporarily taken on human form in order to achieve some purposeful end He implies that Rei has done the same

[20] One of the most problematic and paradoxical (and to some like Misato unattractive) features of Christian theology is the interweaving of love and death in the Passion of the Christ Think too of Tristan und Isolde This excruciating duality is fully represented in the Passion of Kaworu and gives it much of its power

[21] See for instance Mary Renault The King Must Die Frazerrsquos The Golden Bough makes mention of this phenomenon several times

[22] In German

[23] From httpedboydenorgbeet9html Translator unknown Purported quote from Beethoven I will seize Fate by the throat It will not wholly conquer

me Oh how beautiful it is to live - and live a thousand times over This surely is what Shinji would most like to be able to say

[24] Think of Duncanrsquos blood in Macbeth and Pontius Pilatersquos hand-washing ritual

[25] Ie the cross Throughout Evangelion we have seen the Christian cross used as a symbol of death and destruction Misatorsquos cross has the opposite sense

[26] Also sometimes called the Air on the G String The full suite is also called Overture No 3

[29] William Shakespeare The Tempest Act IV Scene 1

[30] Ernst Cassirer An Essay on Man an Introduction to a Philosophy of Human Culture (New Haven Yale University Press 1962)

[31] Susan J Napier Anime from Akira to Howlrsquos Moving Castle Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation (New York Palgrave McMillan 2005)

[33] We neednrsquot take Yuirsquos ldquothe human soul that dwells withinrdquo literally The EVA will be an everlasting artifact of manrsquos intelligence and aspiration his hopes and his dreams In this sense it has a soul

[35] In relation to people berserker mode has the following meaning Now usually as adjective frenzied furiously or madly violent Oxford English Dictionary (online) In relation to the EVAs to go berserk has a meaning closer to violently malfunctioning though the action of an embedded human soul is suspected

[36] Plato Complete Works ed John M Cooper (Indianapolis Hackett Publishing Co 1997)

[37] Here is the original version ldquoA stranger arrives in town and death comes in his wake This pattern recurs frequently in Greek epic and dramatic literature the Iliad all the Orestes plays Oedipus Rex Oedipus at Colonus Medea The Bacchae and many more are based on itrdquo Thomas Van Nortwick The Unknown Odysseus Alternate Worlds in Homerrsquos Odyssey (Ann Arbor The University of Michigan Press 2009) See also If Hermes is involved after a touch of chaos comes a new cosmos Lewis Hyde Trickster Makes This World (New York Farrar Straus and Giroux 2008)

[38] And Death Shall Have no Dominion Poem by Dylan Thomas 1936

[39] In German Jesus bleibet meine Freude This is the tenth movement of Bachs cantata Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben BWV 147 The piano arrangement is probably that of Myra Hess

[40] For instance ldquo[T]he end of the Odyssey reads like a hurried compositionhellip A reconciliation is scrambled together by a hasty and inadequate deus ex machina which ends the epicrdquo[9] By an odd coincidence the same has been said of the original ending of Evangelion This was fixed to the satisfaction of at least some with the production of The End of Evangelion

[41] Thomas Van Nortwick The Unknown Odysseus 2008

[42] Tom Gill Transformational Magic Some Japanese Super-heroes and Monsters in The Worlds of Japanese Popular Culture ed D P Martinez(Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1998)

[43] Phyllis I Lyons The Saga of Dazai Osamu (Stanford Stanford University Press 1985)180

[44] Takashi Murakami ed Little Boy The Arts of Japans Exploding Popular Culture (New Haven Yale University Press 2005) 131

[37] Here is the original version ldquoA stranger arrives in town and death comes in his wake This pattern recurs frequently in Greek epic and dramatic literature the Iliad all the Orestes plays Oedipus Rex Oedipus at Colonus Medea The Bacchae and many more are based on itrdquo Thomas Van Nortwick The Unknown Odysseus Alternate Worlds in Homerrsquos Odyssey (Ann Arbor The University of Michigan Press 2009) See also If Hermes is involved after a touch of chaos comes a new cosmos Lewis Hyde Trickster Makes This World (New York Farrar Straus and Giroux 2008)

[38] And Death Shall Have no Dominion Poem by Dylan Thomas 1936

[39] In German Jesus bleibet meine Freude This is the tenth movement of Bachs cantata Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben BWV 147 The piano arrangement is probably that of Myra Hess

[40] For instance ldquo[T]he end of the Odyssey reads like a hurried compositionhellip A reconciliation is scrambled together by a hasty and inadequate deus ex machina which ends the epicrdquo[9] By an odd coincidence the same has been said of the original ending of Evangelion This was fixed to the satisfaction of at least some with the production of The End of Evangelion

[41] Thomas Van Nortwick The Unknown Odysseus 2008

[42] Tom Gill Transformational Magic Some Japanese Super-heroes and Monsters in The Worlds of Japanese Popular Culture ed D P Martinez(Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1998)

[43] Phyllis I Lyons The Saga of Dazai Osamu (Stanford Stanford University Press 1985)180

[44] Takashi Murakami ed Little Boy The Arts of Japans Exploding Popular Culture (New Haven Yale University Press 2005) 131

[45] Shinjirsquos own identity crisis apparently a reflection of the director Annorsquos own psychological dilemmas epitomized the difficult obstacles faced by postwar Japan a nation that had recovered from the trauma of war only to find itself incapable of creating its own future like Shinji Japan is probing the root cause of its existential paralysis Little Boy The Arts of Japans Exploding Popular Culture (New Haven Yale University Press 2005) 33

[47] Lamarre The Anime Machine 129

[48] Lamarre The Anime Machine 155

[49] Lamarre The Anime Machine 179

[50] Mariana Ortega My Father He Killed Me My Mother She Ate Me Self Desire Engendering and the Mother in Neon Genesis Evangelion inMechademia 2 ed Frenchy Lunning (Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press 2007)

[51] Haruki Murakami Underground tr Philip Gabriel (New York Vintage International 1997 1998 2000)

[52] Elaine Pagels The Gnostic Gospels (New York Random House 1989)

[53] By Primary source material I mean that which was written by (presumed) believers in Gnostic theology in the ancient world The secondary material consists chiefly of arguments against heresy written by Roman Catholic scholars who may or may not have had access to the primary material

[54] All quotations from the Apocryphon of John are from The Gnostic Society Library The Nag Hammadi Library The Apocryphon of John httpwwwgnosisorgnaghammapocjnhtml

[55] Splitting of the Breast is the title of episode 16 Splitting of the breast is a term used by British psychoanalyst Melanie Klein in her account of the emotional life of infants See for instance httpwwwmeridianorgukResourcesIndividualKlein20IIhtm Oral Stage is (part of) the title of episode 20 In Freudian psychoanalysis the term oral stage denotes the first psychosexual development stage wherein the mouth of the infant is his or her primary erogenous zone Wikipedia Oral stage

Bibliography

Note Not all books in this list contain discussions of Neon Genesis Evangelion

Bolton Christopher Csicsery-Ronay Istvan Jr Tatsumi Takayuki eds Robot Ghosts and Wired Dreams Japanese Science Fiction from Origins to Anime Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press 2007

Brown Steven T ed Cinema Anime Critical Engagements with Japanese Animation New York Palgrave Macmillan 2006 2008

Lamarre Thomas The Anime Machine Minneapolis The University of Minnesota Press 2009

Lunning Frenchy ed Mechademia 1 Emerging Worlds of Anime and Manga Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press 2006

Lunning Frenchy ed Mechademia 2 Networks of Desire Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press 2007

Lunning Frenchy ed Mechademia 3 Limits of the Human Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press 2008

Lunning Frenchy ed Mechademia 4 War Time Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press 2009

Lyons Phyllis I The Saga of Dazai Osamu Stanford Stanford University Press 1985

[54] All quotations from the Apocryphon of John are from The Gnostic Society Library The Nag Hammadi Library The Apocryphon of John httpwwwgnosisorgnaghammapocjnhtml

[55] Splitting of the Breast is the title of episode 16 Splitting of the breast is a term used by British psychoanalyst Melanie Klein in her account of the emotional life of infants See for instance httpwwwmeridianorgukResourcesIndividualKlein20IIhtm Oral Stage is (part of) the title of episode 20 In Freudian psychoanalysis the term oral stage denotes the first psychosexual development stage wherein the mouth of the infant is his or her primary erogenous zone Wikipedia Oral stage

Bibliography

Note Not all books in this list contain discussions of Neon Genesis Evangelion

Bolton Christopher Csicsery-Ronay Istvan Jr Tatsumi Takayuki eds Robot Ghosts and Wired Dreams Japanese Science Fiction from Origins to Anime Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press 2007

Brown Steven T ed Cinema Anime Critical Engagements with Japanese Animation New York Palgrave Macmillan 2006 2008

Lamarre Thomas The Anime Machine Minneapolis The University of Minnesota Press 2009

Lunning Frenchy ed Mechademia 1 Emerging Worlds of Anime and Manga Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press 2006

Lunning Frenchy ed Mechademia 2 Networks of Desire Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press 2007

Lunning Frenchy ed Mechademia 3 Limits of the Human Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press 2008

Lunning Frenchy ed Mechademia 4 War Time Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press 2009

Lyons Phyllis I The Saga of Dazai Osamu Stanford Stanford University Press 1985

Martinez D P ed The Worlds of Japanese Popular Culture Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1998

Murakami Takashi ed Little Boy The Arts of Japans Exploding Popular Culture New Haven Yale University Press 2005

Napier Susan J Anime from Akira to Howlrsquos Moving Castle Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation Palgrave McMillan 2005

Pagels Elaine The Gnostic Gospels New York Random House 1989

Sandars N K The Epic of Gilgamesh Penguin Classics 1972

Takeda Yasuhiro The Notenki Memoirs ADV Manga Wani Books 2002 2005