Re-watching EVA

Episode 1

First encounter with Unit-01

Misato is still shielding Shinji here, arguing with Ritsuko.
Shinji is caught in the middle—new in town, he just met his father and is told to fight a monster; Gendo won’t see him when he isn’t needed, but summons him when he is—“because no one else can.” Fear. “So I really am someone nobody needs.”

He only decides to pilot after seeing Rei in such a bad state, I guess.
Don’t run away, don’t run away, don’t run away

The entry plug fills with LCL

Episode 2

An unfamiliar ceiling

They mention fifteen years ago again—what happened fifteen years ago? “Disaster always arrives without warning.”

The Human Instrumentality Project—already stated in episode 2 as Gendo’s current priority

Couldn’t agree more.

Agreed.

This angle is odd, but thinking about it there probably isn’t a better one

Love this kind of transition—burst of white light out of the tunnel, then the scene changes. The elevator scene with the three of them later is classic too

That beast (THE BEAST)

So cute

This angle is interesting too—when it cuts to Shinji there’s a low hum, probably the fridge; in Misato’s scenes that sound isn’t there.

So cute.

Two hints dropped here

This view from behind the potted plant is really interesting

LMAO iconic moment

Probably referring to how forced Misato’s over-the-top warmth feels when she brings Shinji home? Being that enthusiastic on her own without considering how Shinji feels?

Melancholy playlist hours

Transferred schools—into another unfamiliar environment

MP3

Touching Shinji scares them—they don’t know how to deal with him, only treat him as a tool; here it’s probably “tool for promotion”

Another unfamiliar ceiling

A.T. Field

This is what an EVA really looks like

Those eyes are genuinely scary.

Episode 3

He’s still just a kid…

“Hedgehogs want to share warmth, but the closer they get, the more their quills hurt each other—humans are the same. Shinji has grown timid somewhere inside because he’s afraid of being hurt.”

“Growing up means going through countless partings and reunions until you find a distance that doesn’t hurt each other as much.”

Second Impact
In the last year of the 20th century, a giant meteor from space struck Antarctica; the ice sheet melted in an instant, sea levels rose, the Earth’s axis tilted, and abnormal weather threatening life spread worldwide. Thousands of species and half of humanity vanished forever. (That’s what the history textbook says—it isn’t really true.)
Second Impact

Rei, what are you thinking?

Last time it was fifteen years; this time only three weeks between Angels. This is the second Angel.

Apostle (Ancient Greek: ἀπόστολος; English: Apostle), originally meant someone entrusted with a mission, someone who delivers a message. In Christianity it is a special religious title; in Catholic Chinese it’s translated as apostle or disciple, first used for the twelve disciples personally chosen by Jesus. After the church (Ecclesia), the name was applied to those chosen by the Holy Spirit in Scripture for a special mission—similar to prophets.

Shinji screaming in rage—I choked up watching too…

Rei!

Episode 4

So cute

Shinji is too kind.
A couple making out in the movie theater—Shinji’s eyes light up; not sure what that’s meant to convey…

“He’s only fourteen—bearing the fate of humanity is still too heavy.”
“But we can only entrust the EVAs to fourteen-year-olds.”

Love this shot

Misato’s voice is already breaking here.

Unfamiliar ceiling, familiar power lines. Cicadas in the background.

Is this the only way feelings can be expressed…

Episode 5

I’m dead

Rei!

Such a heartthrob~

Shinji’s shocked face LMAO

I’m screaming.

Still no expression.

Love this shot.

Love this one too.

Rei!

Iconic moment!
An Angel appears—they send Unit-01, not Unit-00; Shinji really is the commander’s golden child…

Episode 6

Misato.

Asuka!

Rei!

The Rebuild films’ style feels a lot like this.

Shinji passes out and his father doesn’t even come look—Gendo, emotionally stunted waste of space.

Rei!

Piloting the EVA because of bonds with everyone.
“I have nothing else.”

Rei!

Rei!

Episode 7

What is an EVA?
Second Impact
The textbook says a giant meteor impact; the truth is usually hidden.

Pen Pen is adorable.

Nice legs.

The battle plans are reckless, but Misato is bold and has nerve.

The real culprit behind the password tampering and loss of control.
Yeah—the messy side of her only Shinji gets to see; they’re already family. That’s a kind of happiness too, though it feels different depending on your mindset.

Episode 8

Asuka!

LMAO “viewing fee.”

Only 163 cm tall, huh…

Kaji!

I’m dead.

Love this shot.

Chance!

lolololol

Sounds unreasonable, but it really is like that LMAO

The first human—Adam.

Episode 9

Asuka’s so popular I’m dying.

Scumbag!

So cool!

Love this shot.

Not a single shot wasted… the moving truck…

Asuka!

I’m dead.

Why is that?

Mom?

Scumbag!

Love this shot.

What’s the music during Asuka and Shinji’s fight here?

Episode 10

Love this shot.

Same.

Love it.

Shy Shinji.

What does this line mean?

Why is Asuka so hostile toward Rei?

Shinji!

??????????????????????????????

Scars!

Episode 11

That expression looks like she wants Kaji to get on the elevator…

Gendo, emotionally stunted waste of space.

Speechless…

Good question. What is an Angel?
Still don’t like how Asuka trashes Rei here……

Sting operation!
Asuka still steps up—takes the pain from the corrosive fluid alone.

Episode 12

They finally explain the Second Impact—wait, what was the First? I looked it up; I’ll paste it later.

Ah…

This radio voice sounds like Faye’s.

Right now you’re chewing on happiness—you’re in a very good era, understand?

Ah…

I’m dead.

Heartbreaking…

The classic question.

Best transition.
Yeah—it’s a kind of escape, weakness that runs from family and responsibility.
Isn’t Gendo the same.

So cool!

Asuka!
Poor Shinji—he only wanted praise from his father. But I’ve been in Gendo’s shoes too: when someone needed comfort I couldn’t say a word.

Episode 13

It’s C~

MAGI is Ritsuko’s mother? How much plot did I forget…
Addendum: Oh, her mother built it…

A naked EVA—no restraining bolts.
Addendum: Seems like a simulator kind of thing…

Gendo, you idiot!
Personality transplant OS!
Used in EVA control too!
MAGI is Ritsuko’s mother’s three selves: herself as scientist, as mother, as woman.

Episode 14

The first half of this episode feels like a recap.
Dead Sea Scrolls—seems like the first mention.

Here we go…

Let me get a whiff.

Swapping bodies.

Jealous!

Mental cleanliness is still cleanliness.

???
Asuka is partly putting on a show here to get Shinji’s attention, right.

I’d be mentally contaminated too.

Unmoved even as the mountain collapses!
Unit-00 trying to kill Rei? There’s no reason…

I think so too.

Raises the question.

Adam Project!
Spear of Longinus!
To be carried out by Rei?

Episode 15

Dummy plug… I remember everything going downhill after that…
Adam Project, EVA Project, Human Instrumentality Project…
Rei… seems outside the plan…

The Marduk Institute was set up to find EVA pilots.

Kaji investigating NERV in secret…

Mom!

She’s blushing!

Bro, is that supposed to be a compliment…

Asuka!
If you don’t take the first step yourself, nothing will change.

Agreed.

Rei’s on the plane too…

A kind of escape…

The BGM is Fly Me to the Moon.

Here it comes!

Shinji holds his breath until he can’t, then steps back; Asuka pauses, then goes to the restroom.

The First Angel—Adam!

Episode 16

Asuka with a bruised ego.

Tsundere sharp-tongue Asuka…

What does this mean…

There’s another you inside your mind—the “self” is always made of two: the self seen by others, and the self that watches. Everyone has a Shinji Ikari in their heart; you’re afraid of the Shinji in others’ hearts. I’m afraid of being hated. Actually you’re afraid of getting hurt. Who’s wrong? You think you can’t do anything. Keep lying to yourself. Everyone’s like that—everyone lives this way. Then keep telling yourself that’s fine, or you won’t survive. Because to live, there’s too much pain in this world. That’s self-deception. Say whatever you want—I don’t care. Haven’t you lived by covering your eyes and ears to what you hate? See—you’re running away again. Stringing only happy moments like beads isn’t enough to live—especially for me. I found something happy—is it wrong to only do that?

Rei’s voice really sounds like Yui’s.

Berserk!

Episode 17

Fourth Child: Toji

Blushing!

The Marduk Institute doesn’t exist—NERV is pulling the strings behind the scenes.
Do you hate painful things? I just don’t like them. Have you found something happy? That’s okay too—people who know pain can be kinder to others; that’s not the same as being weak.

Asuka!

Episode 18

Swinging her feet—does that mean she’s saying the opposite of what she feels?

Toji’s gentleness has me dying.

Why didn’t they say who the Third Child is? Why does everyone look so sad and disappointed when they find out?

A conversation between a man and a boy!

Reminds me of a talk with a senior—joking casually with peers in public, but alone in a cab together, a different side came out.

Don’t get it.

Gendo isn’t human!

Shinji’s truly hopeless.

Gendo is emotionally useless—infuriating.

Dad betrayed me. I finally felt happy talking to Dad, and he wouldn’t try to understand me. Did you ever try to understand your father? I did. Then why not try now? I already did. You always run from what you hate, don’t you. What’s wrong with running from what you hate?

Episode 19

If an Angel touches Adam sleeping underground, humanity will be wiped out—the Third Impact.
Only Shinji Ikari can do it—but everyone has something only they can do.

Shinji went so hard.

Berserk!

Unit-01 wakes up and breaks free!

Both times Ritsuko got slapped it was because of Shinji.

Episode 20

Shinji’s still looking for others’ care and attention.

You can’t deny this, or the fact you pilot an EVA, or who you’ve been until now. But how you change from here—you decide.

If all you think about is surviving, anywhere can be heaven. Because as long as you’re alive, there’s always a chance for happiness, right?
Boy’s name Shinji, girl’s name Rei.

Radio background here:

I see—whether you can call this an oral-stage fixation, psychologists have said that before; in other words, wanting to stay with Mother forever often means someone who needs to lean on others.
Lover, mother, and little sister all at once—that many roles in one person would exhaust anyone.

Episode 21

Yui!
Yui Ikari and Faye share the same VA—Megumi Hayashibara!

I don’t get what she sees in him!!!

“I want this child to see a bright future.”—Yui’s last words.

Rei!

So that was Yui, not Shinji.

So rude of Gendo to call someone an old hag.

I’m just a kid who can’t do or say anything else.
Shinji can barely keep himself together too…

Episode 22

Using a cat to cope isn’t a bad method either.

The long silence!

I’m dead.
Shinji can hit the highest sync maybe because he’s brutally honest with his own feelings.

Don’t. Though it reminds me—when my mom washed my little niece’s hair I heard the niece keep saying “don’t,” so cute.

The Spear of Longinus is gone…

Episode 23

“Whatever you want to do, Asuka, I’ll support you—so I won’t say anything. I think you’re already doing great.”

Sad but can’t cry.

The third Rei Ayanami…

Why is she crying…

Soul salvage: fishing human souls dissolved in LCL and implanting them in a vessel.
Only Rei has a soul-bearing vessel.

Terrifying.
The tragedy of those bound to EVAs.

Episode 24

…

There he is!

If you don’t know anyone, you won’t be betrayed or hurt—but then you can’t escape loneliness. Humans can’t erase loneliness forever; people are alone. Because we can forget, we can keep living.

Foul, foul—saying that is such a foul.

A.T. Field—a sacred domain no one may violate, the light of the soul.
The A.T. Field is the heart-wall everyone has.
Not Adam but Lilith?

Episode 25

The idea of “living for others” is itself an easy way to live.
Shinji, you’re so lonely.
That’s just dependency—a symbiotic relationship.
You only want to be needed, don’t you?
You’ve just been waiting for someone to hand you happiness—fake happiness.

Contact with others made me who I am; touch with people and the passage of time gradually reshape my heart.

That’s what made the Rei Ayanami until now, and what will make the Rei to come.

What you feel in your heart becomes memory, and that becomes your truth.
Truth that changes over time exists too.

You want a closed world where you alone are comfortable. To protect your fragile heart, your little happiness—you end up here: in a closed space, a world of one, a human can’t live. Yet you want the world—the world around you—to close. The wish to shut out what displeases you and build a more isolated world led to this small peace in your heart—this form is one of the endings. You guided it—the end of this world.

Final Episode — The Beast That Shouted “I” at the Heart of the World

Twisting again into thinking you’re worthless—do you think clinging to that and doing nothing keeps you from getting hurt? You sustain your existence through others’ praise; “no one will accept me”—you only believe that yourself. So I have to pilot the EVA—that’s just you believing from the start you have no worth; “I have no choice”—not true.

Unit-01 really is part of your mind. But if you lean on the EVA forever, the EVA becomes you—the EVA will be your everything, and the real you will vanish without a trace.

You have to admit your own worth yourself.
Only you can comfort and understand you—so cherish yourself.
Of course it’s scary: you now, the people around you, the environment—nothing stays the same forever; your time flows; your world is made of continuous change; more than that, as your heart shifts, they can all change anytime.
“If I don’t think about it, it isn’t there.” Right—if you don’t think about it. What should I do—I don’t know. You feel uneasy; you don’t know your own image. Too vague—a world you can’t grasp—that’s freedom; a world you can shape as you wish.
If you want, you can even change where the world sits—and the world’s position isn’t fixed; it keeps shifting with time; you can change too. What shapes you is your heart and the world around you—after all it’s your world, the reality you recognize—that’s reality.
You know your shape by seeing others’ shapes; you imagine yourself by seeing the walls between you and them—without others you can’t see yourself. Because others are there, you exist, don’t you? No matter where you go you’re still alone—isn’t the world only me? You shape yourself through difference from others—the first “other” is Mother; Mother is someone other than you. Yes, I am me—but others really do shape how my mind looks.
The possibilities in my heart—the me now isn’t all of me; there should be many mes.
What hates reality as bad is your heart; your heart takes reality as truth—the angle you see reality from, what you project—shift that slightly and your heart changes hugely. There are as many truths as people, but your truth is only one: born from a narrow worldview, information edited to protect yourself, distorted truth. Still, one person’s worldview is tiny—yet people can only measure things with their small yardstick, only see through the truth others hand them.
People who hate themselves can’t like or trust others.
I’m cowardly, timid, cunning, weak—if I understand that, I can be kinder, right? I hate myself—but I might come to like me; maybe I can stay here. Yes, I’m only myself; I am me; I want to be me; I want to stay here; I can stay here.
The final fantasy sequence is so beautiful LMAO.

To all the children—congratulations.
I’ll open another Page; this one got super laggy from too many images…