Neon Genesis Evangelion Rewatch is a series of essays where Willow Maclay will be covering the streaming release of Hideaki Anno’s landmark anime show.
When Shinji Ikari arrives at Tokyo-3 in the very first episode of Neon Genesis Evangelion the city is in lockdown. The latest Angel, one of the giant, seemingly extra-terrestrial creatures mysteriously attacking a post-apocalyptic Earth trying to rebuild itself, has made itself known on their shores and a military attack is about to begin. NERV operations director Misato Katsuragi was supposed to pick him up, but she’s late. Shinji seems calm, but the city is much too quiet, and far too abandoned for that emotion to be honest. And then he sees a girl standing in the middle of the highway. She’s wearing a seifuku, a typical Japanese schoolgirls outfit, but she isn’t a typical Japanese schoolgirl. She’s still, unresponsive, and seemingly at ease in the nothingness of a city that looks like a ghost town in this moment. If this was a horror film you’d call this a monumental image for everything she’d convey going forward. At this point in the series Rei Ayanami is just a girl who appears in surreal fashion for a brief second on an abandoned highway and then disappears. This image of her is the first fissure in the reality of Neon Genesis Evangelion and the first indication that this show would go to strange, uncomfortable places through this girl. A flock of doves scatter into the sky after she vanishes, leaving the highway completely empty. Who is this girl? This is how Neon Genesis Evangelion begins.
“22 Days Earlier”
The above title card flashes across the screen early in the fifth episode of Evangelion. The title of the episode is “Rei” and the following episode is “Rei II.” If viewers were expecting to learn anything concrete about the girl who appeared like a ghost on that abandoned highway they’d likely be disappointed with the next two episodes which bear her name. She remains a void, but small details about the girl are given in these episodes. Before Shinji ever arrived in Tokyo-3 at the behest of his father, Rei was going to be the savior of the human race. She was going to pilot the giant, bio-mechanical Eva unit and fend off the terror of the Angels. She’s unlike Shinji in rather significant ways, some of which make her better suited for the military operations of NERV, an organization leading the fight against the Angels. While Shinji is isolated, and driven by emotional outbursts and anxiety about the possibility of dying in an Eva unit, Rei is completely internal, but does her job without complaint. She’s more of a military tool than a person, and Shinji’s father, Gendo Ikari, the director of NERV, loves her in ways he has never expressed for his own son. The fifth episode begins with the activation of Eva-Unit 00. Rei is inside and it doesn’t go well. Right before a mental sync, which allows the pilots to command the robots, between Rei and the Eva unit can be made the connection flat-lines forcing the Eva unit to go berserk. Expert scientist Ritsuko Akagi says that the Eva unit rampaged because Rei’s mind was “disturbed.” It wasn’t Rei who was scared of the robot, but the other way around. Ritsuko says offhand that Rei’s mind has been “eradicated” and her history wiped. Rei is a void, and this little exchange between Ritsuko and the NERV military personnel hints at something twisted within Rei. At the very least Rei is a character who cannot be completely understood at this juncture. Before the berserk Eva unit can hurt Rei an ejection capsule separates Rei from the rampaging military weapon. Gendo runs toward her. He’s terrified that this girl may have been hurt in the process. He cares more about her than he does about Shinji. It could be because he sees her as a superior pilot or paramount to his plans at NERV, but that’s too simple an answer for something as complicated as misplaced feelings of paternity. Rei responds to Gendo’s concern with softness. She opens up around him, and only him. Otherwise she’s a blank slate, and this confuses Shinji Ikari. 
The adolescent pilots of Evangelion (only children can pilot Eva units) all have various mental and traumatic problems they’re grappling with, but Rei is more withdrawn than Shinji. She’s so inside herself that she comes off as impenetrable. She feels less than human, and because our first interaction with her as viewers is the image on the abandoned highway we think of her in the context of something supernatural. She seems even more distant when considering that the point of view of this show usually lies with Shinji Ikari. He doesn’t understand her or why his father reacts to her with openness and warmth. Gendo gives her approval. He smiles at her. They laugh. Shinji has only ever received the bitter stares and the pummeling of passed on military ideology that begs Shinji to be cold, calculating, and willing to do whatever it takes for the greater good of the mission. Shinji has anxiety around Rei and it’s made all the more complicated by the fact that he’s attracted to her. He stares at her from a distance when the girls of the high school are lounging around a pool area. He thinks about her all the time, but it isn’t clear if he wants to kiss her or be her. Rei has the approval of Shinji’s father, but she’s also competent at piloting Eva units, which is something Shinji’s still trying to figure out. She does it without the anxiety that Shinji has about living and dying. For her, it’s just something she has to do, but for Shinji it’s an existential nightmare.
Many anime, and even North American television shows, portray adolescence as something comical, or a proving ground where someone can “come of age,” and transform into a fuller version of themselves. It’s a fantasy for teenagers to get that one perfect moment at their high-school graduation or the prom or at summer-camp, but the reality of being a teenager is usually more complicated than these stories end up being. Evangelion isn’t a realistic portrait of adolescence either, but the show is honest in the anxieties of growing bodies. At one point in the fifth episode Shinji has to deliver a new NERV key-card to Rei. He has to travel to her apartment and hand-deliver the key that evening. It’s urgent, because an Angel could attack at any minute, and NERV need everyone waiting on deck. Going to her apartment alone worries Shinji, because she’s a point of obsession for him. Unlike Shinji, Rei lives without parental supervision, and is afforded a privacy Shinji likely covets. But there’s something wrong about where and how she lives. Her apartment is bare, with brown and silver walls. There’s little to no furniture and the vapor coming from the shower she’s taking makes her apartment feel more like a boiler room than somewhere a teenage girl lives. When Shinji enters her bedroom there’s bloody rags and bandages placed everywhere. Rei spent the last few episodes recovering from an injury at the hands of an Angel attack in the first episode. All of this imagery is menstrual in nature, evoking a psychosexual horror for a teenage boy who doesn’t understand the changing body of a teenage girl. He notices a pair of glasses that belong to his father are left on the bedside table and he reaches for them. Rei enters the room when this happens and she asks, in a monotone voice, what he’s doing, and Shinji panics. He turns quickly and trips onto Rei who is wearing only a towel. His backpack strap gets caught on a dresser drawer, which causes bras and panties to fly all over the room. He falls on Rei’s body and there’s silence. They stare up at each other and Shinji can’t say anything. He breathes heavy. He’s stuck. The scene sits like this for an uncomfortable amount of time until Rei finally says, “Can you get off of me?” Shinji does, only realizing now that his hand was on her breast. A lot of shows or movies about teenagers would play a scene like this for laughs or have Shinji talk to his guy friends about the encounter, where he would make up stories of conquest or exaggerate the proceedings into a story of sexual intercourse—but that isn’t Shinji Ikari. He’s ashamed. He doesn’t entirely understand why.
SHINJI IKARI: “I just find it strange I know so little about her, even though we’re both Eva pilots.” RITSUKO AKAGI: “She’s a nice girl, but she’s like your father. She’s just not very adept.” SHINJI:“Not very adept at what?” RITSUKO: “Living.”
The Angel, “Ramiel,” appears at the end of the fifth episode. It’s pyramid shaped and shoots a cannon blast that is triggered by movement, obliterating everything in sight. As vicious as this creature is, it hardly seems like the worst thing that’s happened to Shinji in the last twenty-four hours. Angels are becoming a familiar part of the routine, but girls are new. Shinji gets in the Eva unit and as soon as the Eva rises above ground it triggers the blast of the monster. A hole is blown into the chest of the Eva and Shinji screams. It’s a lingering image of desolation through the pained cry of a teenage boy that works as a cliff-hanger, but it’s only the second scariest thing that’s happened to Shinji today. It couldn’t get worse than falling on Rei’s naked body. Pain can go away, but shame is a tougher beast to kill. By framing the episode in this way creator Hideaki Anno once again asks audiences to dive inward and feel everything that Shinji does, even if those emotions are complicated, painfully awkward and tied up in navigating budding sexuality.
Shinji is taken to a hospital after the blast punctured the Eva unit. He is put on life-support and his heart is defibbed in order to keep him alive following the blast. What’s strange is that even at this juncture a traumatic emergency seems normal. Normal still is the call from Rei and Misato to bring Shinji back into the robot to fight on the same day after he regains consciousness. The episode doesn’t linger on how Shinji feels for very long after this attack other than an obligatory statement that he doesn’t want to get back into the machine anymore. His resistance falls away after Rei persuades him to fight. Maybe he’ll listen to her, because she has the approval of his father and if he can be like the women in his life he can be strong too. There’s a gender-flip happening here. One would be hard-pressed to argue that Evangelion is feminist, but Shinji does want to be like Rei and Misato, and this isn’t common in anime or Western media for that matter. It is somewhat radical to look up to women when you’re a boy, because society teaches young boys at an early age that women are lesser than men. Less strong, less confident, less smart, and to look up to women means that others may perceive you as feminine too. The overwhelming nature of toxic masculinity reinforces these ideas on many boys from a very young age. It’s worse if you grew up in a military family, where structures of power are firm and immovable. Shinji Ikari comes from military.
“You won’t die, because I’ll protect you.”
—Rei to Shinji, Episode 6, “Rei II”
Rei steps in front of a giant blast from Remiel, the pyramid Angel, when it threatens to attack Shinji at the close of the sixth episode. She does this not because she cares for Shinji, but because it’s what she’s been asked to do by NERV. She does this without question. In Episode 7, “A Human Work,” Misato has to shut down a new nuclear-powered robot invented by a scientist who is trying to create something to battle Angels without the use of pilots. She risks her life by being dropped from a helicopter onto the robot so that she can climb inside and shut it down manually before the nuclear reactor inside the robot explodes. She does this without question or hesitation, because she has to. She’s brave, and she doesn’t get bogged down by “what-if’s” like Shinji does so frequently. Misato is the hero Shinji wishes he could be. He desperately wants to be a better version of himself. Even in these heroic acts there is a sense of palpable shame coursing through Evangelion because we experience this show through the eyes of Shinji. In the first few episodes those long stretches of silence and static framing that isolate Shinji carry over here through secondary formal choices. Whenever Shinji shares a scene with Misato she’s framed like a larger than life figure, with the perspective of the image tilting up. Literally looking up to her, but when the image cuts back to Shinji his glance is usually strayed away from Misato and others in charge. He has trouble looking others in the eye. He’s afraid. The images in these earliest episodes of Evangelion reflect a lack of confidence, a submissiveness underneath those Shinji perceives as greater than him. He’s more terrified of people than he is Angels.
Part of the reason why Shinji longs for the bravery of the women he interacts with in day-to-day life is due to their steady relationship they have with his father, something Shinji doesn’t have. In the second episode of the series the relationship between Shinji and his father Gendo is laid out formally in one scene with four shots. The first shows Gendo’s face in extreme close-up, completely dominating the frame and his expression is one of dissatisfaction or disappointment. In Japanese culture it is a question of honor to live proudly in the footsteps of your parents, and in generations past it was not uncommon for a child to take up the same profession of their parent. Shinji is living that situation within that first image. In the second shot there’s a split screen that captures Shinji and Misato looking up to Gendo but the perspective is from the ground-up so that we can only see the shape of their bodies, but not their faces. Due to the first image, we know how Gendo is staring at Shinji, but not how Shinji is looking at his father. The third image gives us that information. Shinji is looking away, defeated, his head turned to the right out of weakness. He can’t even look his father in the eyes. He’s so unsure of himself that he can’t even make eye-contact. The fourth image is an overhead shot of Misato and Shinji still standing where they were, but Gendo has left the frame. Shinji’s staring at his feet. This is how their relationship is introduced and it casts a shadow over how they treat each other with every episode going forward. All of Shinji’s actions are looking for something resembling acceptance. He realizes he has a little bit of that with Misato in the seventh episode. When Shinji moved into Misato’s apartment at the beginning of the show he didn’t understand why Misato was so casual and carefree there, while being so businesslike at NERV. Because his main parental figure is his father, who is cold and firm at all times, it’s strange for Shinji to see Misato interact with him playfully. Misato drops her armor for Shinji. He’s the only person she’ll do that for, and there’s something resembling happiness coursing through his body at the end of episode seven at this realization. She’s comfortable being like an older sister to Shinji. Shinji’s never felt this before. As dark as Evangelion can be at times it isn’t without its moments of optimistic pleasure. It only makes Misato treating Shinji like an actual human being worthy of love that much more impactful by seeing how his father treats him in contrast.
The parental problems of the Evangelion pilots isn’t only an issue of Shinji Ikari’s. Up through the first seven episodes there has been mentions of “another child,” or a third Evangelion pilot. She’s introduced in the eighth episode, “Asuka Arrives in Japan.” Asuka Langley Soryu is a prodigy. She’s the best Eva pilot in the world, and she’s worked damn hard to become everything she could ever hope to be. She’s brash, over-confident, and completely full of herself. She has fire-red hair and every teenage boy in the show is in love with her. She projects an outward confidence that’s intoxicating for people who don’t have faith in themselves, but for Asuka it’s all show. She’s just as unsure as the rest of them. The very first image of herself in the series has her standing with her hands on her hips and her chest jutted out, a power stance, and she tells Misato that she’s ready to pilot anything. But then she asks Misato if she thinks her figure is better than it was six months ago. A chink in the armor. She’s looking for approval just as much as Shinji is, but with Asuka it’s easy to over-look just how much she’s scared because she wears a mask of perfection. The thing about masks is you can’t wear them forever. In this episode, she saves the day, destroys the next Angel (Gaghiel) with relative ease and proves herself to everyone at NERV that she’s the girl everyone should depend on. Through all of this pride, little things don’t add up. She isn’t with her father or mother or anyone other relative. She becomes concerned when she hears that Shinji has had a higher sync rate than her before, and she’s furious when she has to ask Shinji for help. More chinks in the armor. Asuka is a fan favorite, her image is exactly what otaku (anime fans) gravitate towards, but even from her very introduction she’s falling apart. It isn’t entirely obvious in her debut episode, but she struggles with confidence issues. Same as Shinji. They hate each other because they’re too alike.
With the introduction of Asuka Langley the entire cast from now until the end of the show, with one late exception, is here. Asuka’s arrival brings an entirely new dynamic to the show for its protagonist Shinji, but something even bigger is introduced in the closing images of the eighth episode that hints at the larger mythology that will shake the foundations of Earth. In the middle of Episode 7 there’s a meeting between government officials where they discuss the likelihood of a “third impact” that would be catastrophic to human life. Both of these events, these “impacts” are believed to have been cause by meteorites, killing billions in the process, but that’s merely a cover for a greater conspiracy that is beginning to untangle. The United Nations and NERV believe the probability of this happening again is high, but more information is shed on the Second Impact and the nature of the Angels. The Angels are revealed to share 99.9% of DNA with human beings. They are us, and the Second Impact was caused by an Angel that was residing on the moon. For reasons unknown there was an explosion which brought on the Second Impact, and the truth of the matter has been covered-up. Misato is present at this meeting, and is visibly shaken by these words. She hates thinking about the second impact and is visibly disturbed by the path the conversation has taken. She’s triggered by this conversation, hinting at how much she may have lost as a child living through this event.It’s the first time in the series she has shown weakness. In an interview about classic Japanese television series Ultraman (1966-1967), Evangelion creator Hideaki Anno states that he “would not have gone down this career path without Ultraman,” and his hypothetical Ultraman dream project wouldn’t be so much about kaiju battles and monsters, but the bureaucracy of governments in crisis. In Evangelion, and later with Shin Godzilla (2016), he got to do just that, and in the case of the anime series he was able to dive into conspiracies and government cover-ups. In the very final moments of Episode 8 a man who arrived in Japan with Asuka named Ryoji Kaji hands Gendo Ikari a frozen artifact that is revealed to be Adam, the first man. With this, Gendo Ikari can move forward with the Human Instrumentality Project. With this he can bring about the next stage of human evolution. But playing god never goes quite according to plan. 