When I was a teenager, a "multimedia comic" called Homestuck was running online. I was about the same age as the main characters when it started, which put me in an ideal position to really like it - and it worked out. I was absolutely entranced by Homestuck. I still maintain that the original comic is impressive and worth reading, but it's hard not to be cynical about it as an overall media franchise. There was supposed to be a video game. It was funded to the tune of over 1 million dollars on Kickstarter like seven years ago, and all that has been released is a 3-hour "first installment" that came out in 2017. There have been a lot of other little projects associated with it since then, but they've all felt kind of creatively empty - at least to me. It's tempting to suggest that the creator try to move on from it.
I watched Evangelion for the first time when I was 16. Like with Homestuck, that probably helped me relate to Shinji more than an older viewer might have. I actually was not as impressed with it as I am now, the first time. I think that's partially because a lot of the characterization and themes are kind of subtle. It's easy to get distracted by the religious imagery and Freudian/Jungian influences although those are largely superficial in my assessment. Anyway, I mention Homestuck because Evangelion is in a similar position. It has become an exceptionally commercial franchise. I remember reading that the Evas were designed to make producing toys of them difficult - their scrawny proportions were meant to make it hard for them to hold together. If that is true, the effort was an exceptional failure. There are tons of Evangelion toys online. I'm thinking of buying a Shinji figure myself. Although I enjoyed the Rebuilds, I still don't think there's much point to them artistically. In any case, I try not to dwell on it when revisiting the originals.
These episodes are about as happy as Evangelion gets. You can definitely accuse the show of tonal inconsistency when you consider the wacky jokes about things like Shinji getting a boner or having to wear Asuka's plug suit in these episodes against the psychological devastation of the late episodes or End of Evangelion. I think it's only really detrimental when it's jarring. You can say episode 2 of Evangelion suffers from that, but the difference between these episodes and End of Evangelion is very deliberate. There aren't any errant dick jokes popping up in episode 23 or something.
At this stage, the characters' lives are getting better. Shinji has befriended Kensuke, Toji, Rei and Asuka, the pilots are learning to work together and getting better at piloting, and even the Angel battles themselves aren't too traumatic. This serves to enhance the feeling of despair in the later episodes. We see the characters grasp at hard-earned happiness only for it to get snatched away forever.
Even these more light-hearted angel fights are creative and praiseworthy. I love the splitting angel battle set to music with no background audio. The silent shot of Misato giving directions on the bridge especially stands out to me, and having a timer in the corner the whole time is a great touch. The underwater and lava battles are great atmospheric sections too. I love how the former takes place above a sunken city but none of the dialog mentions it - it's just subtle background worldbuilding. Asuka's slow descent into the volcano is really tense and gripping. It helps give the viewer a sense of respect for her courage. The shot of acid dripping from an angel's eye is another excellent little detail. In that battle, I like how the power-outage transforms NERV headquarters into a completely different place as far as combat logistics go. The Evas have to tear off their own restraints and arduously climb upward on limited power when normally they'd be easily removed and quickly launched. All of these little details help communicate how stressful the job these kids are tasked with must be, even when the fights themselves are relatively non-traumatic.
I like the early handling of Misato's relationship with Kaiji. They do a good job portraying the conflicted feelings she has toward him. It's pretty subtle - she usually disdains him but will have small moments where she's shown to be happy to see him. I also appreciate that there's more to Kaiji than just a womanizer character. He takes the time to talk with Asuka and Shinji as a kind of uncle-figure and makes significant sacrifices as a figure in the main plot.
I noticed some foreshadowing that I hadn't picked up on before. Gendo's "humanity is its own enemy" line relates to the main theme and has echoes in the battle between NERV and the JSSDF in End of Eva. In the car-ride scene with Shinji and Misato, Shinji remarks that he doesn't understand why it makes Asuka angry when people praise his piloting. This is another example of the difficulty of understanding someone else and forming relationships. It's also an early manifestation of the character flaws that will undo Asuka later on.
Both of the Shinji/Gendo interaction scenes in episodes 11 and 12 are really important. I like to argue for Gendo as a semi-heroic character, but it is hard to justify the way he speaks to Shinji over that phone call. What's going on is that Shinji is using the school assignment thing as a pretense to try and talk to his dad. Whether Gendo understands that or not, he shuts him down for being frivolous. I suppose he does have a point, because he's probably occupied with a lot of very stressful work. This is an example of why Shinji can relate to Misato when she talks about her own father. That relationship is not too developed, since it doesn't get much more time than a couple conversations in these episodes dedicated to it. What it has going for it is that it allows her to relate to Shinji and develop their relationship and that it still contains some of the complexity I like to praise in Eva's parent/child relationships. Misato talks about how she hated her father during his life and laughed in his face when he seemed hurt, and how after he sacrificed himself to save her during the third impact she came to regret that. She also acknowledges that he was weak and afraid of relationships rather than thinking of him as evil.
Just one episode after the rejected phone call business, we have the scene where Gendo praises Shinji for his piloting skill. This piece of dialog, and the subsequent one where Shinji says that "maybe hearing those words is why I pilot the EVA," are excellent because they make artistic use of inconsistency and the difference between a character's words an actions. Shinji goes on to prove that ultimately his motive for piloting is his personal morality - he refuses to let others die in front of him. He sacrifices his relationship with Gendo for that during the dummy plug sequence. But he doesn't understand that himself. This is a small example of how detailed Evangelion's characters are. Shinji is torn between those two motivations. You can also talk about his conflict-avoidant personality and desire to be needed in general as factors in his decision to pilot the EVA. He doesn't just have single one-dimensional motives like a poorly written fictional character would.
↧