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Of Superhero Ethics. Today, myself, Matthew Fox, and my normal co host Riki Hayashi are gonna be talking about the anime from the nineteen nineties Neon Genesis Evangelian or Evangelian. This is I would imagine that in our listenership right now, twenty to thirty percent of you are going, Oh my god, this is one of the best sci fi ever, one of the best anime ever. I love this show. I can't wait to hear you talk about it. Another sixty to seventy percent of you going, what in the world
are you talking about? You may have heard it, you know I have seen it. This is another one of these episodes where this is something Reky knows really well.
I haven't known it well, but Riki has been talking about it for a while and a number of the different topics that it opens up, and so we're gonna do what's probably gonna be the first of an number of episodes on this topic of this show and all the ethical questions that it connects to, both in terms of within the show itself and in the creation of the show. And if you've never seen the show, if you don't know what we're talking about. Don't worry, I
haven't seen most of the show. I've seen the first
five episodes. I've seen a video about the lore of it, and so a lot of today is going to be about us taking me and all of you through kind of what the show is about, but also talking about like the questions that it raises, because again, like the point of this podcast is not as much to say like this character was right, that character was wrong, as much as to say, like, what are the questions that this show or this movie, or this book or whatever is raising for us, and how do we feel about
those things? Because I'm only five episodes in and already I see deep connections to a number of the things we've talked about on this show, everything from cultural appropriation to mecca ideas, to the way sexuality is presented in shows, to the idea of choice and do you get to choose whether or not you are the hero which is a pretty recent episode, to depression and loneliness and how those things manifest in wartime and trauma. There's just so much.
I'm sure there's so much I'm still missing. So Riki, why don't you tell us a little bit about your your feelings about this show and kind of what what made you want it to be something we talked about.
Yeah, thank you. First off, I guess I would say I am by no means an experts. This is not This is actually like not something I grew up watching because it was it wasn't really available to me back then, you know, you would have to go searching for it. I was aware of it because it was such a cultural phenomenon. I believe it came out in nineteen ninety five. Yeah, ninety six was when it was on TV in Japan.
And it is so iconic within anime, within the mecca subgenre that you cannot help if you if you're a fan of those things, you cannot help but have seen the EVAs, the Giant Robots, some of the character models are very iconic and copied, you know, across the industry. But I only watched it, started watching anythink last year and finished it this year because it's been available on Netflix, which is a huge boon for all of us to be able to watch it.
And I will say this marks me as a dirty heretic to some I know, though not you. You can obviously watch it EI the original Japanese with subtitles. One of the things that Netflix did Netflix did is they re recorded a fairly good dub with with good actors. It is not exactly translation. We'll definitely talk about that, but for if you're like me and for ADHD reasons or other things like that, subtitles are hard, there is definitely a good dub version of it as well.
Yeah, I I've said this before, probably on the show, but it bears repeating that I prefer subtitles because I can understand Japanese, right, And I think that, like, especially live action, like acting in live action is kind of different from voice acting, but it's all still acting. And I do think like you lose some stuff if you don't have the original actor like doing the things. But that said, like, I do not fault anyone for preferring the dub for whatever reason. You should watch things in
the way that you can enjoy them best. So I am like fully not into the debate of like which is quote unquote better. Yeah, whatever, whatever is better for you is what you should do to enjoy a product. And like, even though like I don't understand Korean, like
it's it's still the same. Like I still enjoy watching like Korean horror, especially a lot of the a lot of the TV shows and movies in the original Korean with subs, just because I feel like I'm getting more out of it, even if I'm not understanding the words that they're saying, for sure that they emote them. I think is more is more, it's more genuine performance, even though like I do enjoy some of the performances. Patrick Stewart in particular, was on the dub of Naushka The Valley of the Wind.
Oh interesting, it's just such a fun performance.
Anyway, back to this, so you you mentioned the name Neon Genesis. Evangelian is technically the correct name. I know it gets gets pronounced both ways in the Japanese the way it's written, it's Evangelian, so that I feel like that's just how it should be said. But you know, and for me, like if you do, if you are not familiar with this product and you are still interested in watching it, we are probably going to spoil things, like talk about things that happen, and I already mentioned
to you in the pre show. It doesn't it doesn't matter as much like this is one of the least plot driven shows I have ever watched like that. I want to make the argument, like a broad argument, that the plot doesn't matter because frankly, like some of it is just nonsense, Like people have like done deep dives into the lore, and there is a lore and it is arguably consistent within itself, but it doesn't make any sense and there's not you. You can't be like, ah,
like this is why this is happening. No, not really. And then on top of that, there are a multiple endings to this. I don't know how familiar are with that, but the original TV show was twenty six episodes, which is what is available on Netflix right one quote unquote season, and there is an ending to that season. It's a very weird ending, and in fact, it was not very popular in Japan, I would say unfortunately. The creator Hideakiano and his animation studio Gain Acts received a lot of
hate mail, death threads. I've seen pictures of spray painted graffiti like on their studio entrance. So they received a lot of hate for the original ending of the anime run on TV, and I believe a year later released a movie that was like a retelling of the ending of the last two episodes. I believe in a very different way. And so if you're into lore and like a history of a show, like the internal history, like which which one is the real ending? Right is a
question among fandom. And now they have released I believe it's a series of three movies recently, and those also retell the ending in a way, or retell the whole series in some sense. The yeah, it's called rebuild. The Rebuild of Evangelion is the recent movies like one point zero through three point zero. Yeah, so there's three movies
and it's one. One argument I've heard is that it's like that that this universe is multiversal and that it's repeating all the Matrix, okay, and that all of these are real like they happen. But then it's like the you know, the third iteration or the tenth iteration or whatever, you know, like in the Matrix, the architect guys like you're the sixth chosen one or whatever the heck in that scene. I don't know if that's cope, that's kopium
on the on the part of fans. I don't think that the creators have any anything they want to say that they intended. They just want to keep making stuff with this product. It's with these characters because they find them interesting. And that's that's the thing. Like when I said plot doesn't matter, this is all about characters. Yeah,
about about the central characters of this show. So like you started, like, what what do you understand so far of I guess the world and then the characters, and we can we can build off of that.
Sure, well, let me start by just kind of like bookmarking a few things, and I think we'll talk about any more detail at a later point. Yeah, And one is and I think this is an important thing to understand, and it's also try to kind of explain this because I'm kind of like a Joe about it. But I
don't think there's a lot to understand here. The next time that I hear someone as you, as I mentioned, you sent me a long video about the lore of the show and it goes very deep and then at the end it's like, oh, by the way, very little of this matters and almost none of this is in the original series and it's all in like video games and later movies and oh yeah like that. But it is interesting to know all that if you're a lord
fiend like I am. But knowing what the law is, and especially as you said that, because the writers have kind of said that a lot of lor they were
just like, well, this seems fun. Let's do this. The next time I hear a white person, say, particularly a white Christian, or the next time I hear a white person, particularly if they're Jewish or Christian, say, oh, why does it matter that like they named the evil person Shiva or like drew On like Buddhist or you know, Islamic or you know some other kind of like iconography for the show. It doesn't matter, or it's just a show.
I want them to watch this Lord video because it is one of the greatest examples of seeing of a shoe being on the other foot. And I do think there's in a market difference, to be clear, because of the power that Christianity and the Jewish stories that are part of Christianity has. But this is like wildly just taking like, oh, you know what, crosses look cool and they mean something to a lot of people. Let's have
crosses everywhere. The main story begins with the idea of two alien beings named Adam and Lilith coming to Earth, and for those who don't know, according to Jewish not in the Bible itself, but in Russia teachings and other things like that, Lilith has often prescribed to be the original wife of Adam, who wasn't obedient and so therefore Eve was creating. And there's so much to go into there, and I won't.
I won't.
I'm not going to do all that here. There's also a reference to the spear that was used to pierce the side of Jesus he's on the cross. The cross imagery is all over the place, angels, and I didn't feel offended or bothered by it as a Christian in any way. I think, like, you know, you.
Were trying to figure it out, right, Yeah, this what does this mean? And then when the.
Interview being like, oh, this is exactly what happened so often this is not someone who really studied this and like got with a mi Raushic rabbi to like understand, they were just like, oh, this sounds cool, let's throw it in, which again I think, you know, Christianity could use some punching up at it, and I do think it's different when you do that with cultures that are
more often misrepresented. But there was an uncomfortness for me there and like about Oh, like I've always intellectually understood why this is so bothersome to people of other religions and cultures. I've never experienced it quite in the same way, Okay, And and that was just to me, So that was kind of my first real thought about all of it.
This second though, as you said, again, I just want to real quick, Like you mentioned the Adam and the Lilith and then the Prime the antagonists on the show are these monsters, right, and they call them angels in the in the translation.
Yeah, exactly, And and a lot of it's about like the nature of free will. There's a lot of Christian stories. Again, most of these are non biblical, but where there uh And honestly, it's one of the few parts of Christian theology that supernatural gets fairly accurate. Uh No, take that back.
And as another example, there's a lot of stories within Christianity, again non biblical for the most part, but about this idea that angels are perfectly obedient to God and that humans are not, and that there's a real question of which one God loves more. Uh, you know, the kind of the rebellious child who God is proud of versus the purely obedient one. And that comes up in a lot of pop media, everything from like Supernatural to movie Lucifer.
There's a movie in the from the nineties where they all perch and we're all black the angels do and I can't remember the name of it, but the point is, Yeah, there's a lot of like that iconography in this movie that is fascinating. But if you go too deep on, you're gonna get very frustrated with And I'm kind of glad that no one of the Christian right has found this yet because it would be one more source of like massive protests and stuff like that.
Oh well, I'm sure they have people are aware of it, but yeah, I'm trying to think there. I remember there was a movie called Legion. Mm hmm with Paul Bettany. Is that what your thing?
Like?
That? That one like he is an angel and then God has decided to purge humanity and he defies God and like fights against other angels.
That might be it so off the check, but anyway, but to get back to Dean Genesis, I I just had to say that it was such a thing. It came so forward to me.
No, I I think, like this is a very prominent example of cultural appropriation right, right of cherry picking names and lore from Christianity with in my opinion, like i'm not really a depth of understanding mh or respect to the original. Like I wouldn't say that it's like intentionally disrespectful, but I don't think it is done in a way to be like this, this is our understanding of Christianity and how we want to interrivet it. I think they just like took the names.
From Yeah, I mean I usually just kind of throw off example, but like think about Western stories where like the bad person is named Shiva or some other Hindi god, you know, or something like that. You know, because again, like I said, it's like it's not that it's let's make fun of this, it's just, hey, this is in the in the overculture. M hmm. I think another thing that I really recognize about the shit. Oh and here's again, I think you're right, the plot doesn't matter, you know,
think about your basic superhero movie. We're at the point now where there's a well established trope of how a superhero movie goes, and some of them are interesting because they break the trope, but a lot of them are interesting, They say, what if it's a different kind of superhero, but in the same trope, it'll be they get powers, they're reluctant to use the powers, they're convinced to use the powers. They start using the powers, they become really
powerful and good at it. They meet a challenge that actually is the first one who can stop them maybe, and they have doubts, and then something helps them to you know, reassert themselves, and then they defeat the enemy, often by conquering their own inner demon in some way, their ego or their inability to connect to others, or their fear of goldfish, or you know, whatever the hell
it is, in the same way. Three minutes into this show, I was like, Okay, so this young boy is gonna wind up being very reluctant to be the mecha pilot. But he's going to be the Meca pilot, and it's going to be very difficult for him to be the mecha pilot, and at some point he's going to want to stop being the mecha pilot. But then when he sees this other girl who he thinks is kind of pretty try to be an mecha pilot and it hurting her, he's going to decide he has to be the mecha
pilot again. And there's gonna be a shadowy human conspiracy that's running all of this, that has like their own agenda of what's going to happen to humanity, even though they seem to be helping humanity, And at some point our Scooby gang of ragtag teenage heroes are going to
figure all this out and try to stop it. And I know that the ending gets a lot more complicated than that, but very quickly I was like, I don't think there's gonna be many hot points that surprise me, But like you said, I didn't really care because I found the characters so fascinating because I thought it was such a good job of showing trauma and how trauma affects people, especially young people, and also of exploring that question that we talked about just a few episodes of
to what extra do you get to decide? I don't want to fulfill my destiny. I don't want to be the person who has to risk it all in order to save everybody else, because it is very much a show where everyone in the in the show is is, you know, guilting him or straight up bullying him or rejecting him if he won't telling him he's got to be the one to get himself into this mecca and and go and save the day.
Yeah, so let's let's set the stage a little. The main the main character is Shinji i Kari. He's the young boy who is the pilot of the VA zero one and and so the the meccas in the show are called Evangelian short shorthand as EVAs.
Here are a question for you. Some characters refer to him as Shinja, some as Akari.
And name Shinji I Kai.
Right, Well, and I know so well. I'm asking this because I know that I know. I know in a Western sense what it means when someone refers to someone as their first name versus by their last name. And I kind of but I don't know in a Japanese sense, what is what is being conveyed when someone uses the first part of his name or the last part of his name.
I would say, in general, someone who calls him Shinji is closer to him mm hmm, like it's a it's a friendlier way to call someone. And then yeah, because his last name Ikari, like they might you might say Ikayi son, which I don't think they do. I think pretty much everyone calls him ikari kun. The suffix basically
for like a kid, like a young kid, young boy. So, and then his father is in this as well, right like if you met him yep, So his father is a character gendo ikari and they might refer to whoms gendo or ikaii son. Again, son is like the more adult, respectful suffix to the last name. So I think most of the adults probably call him ikari kun. And then the other megapilots or his classmates at school call him, might call him shinji. Yeah, so he you've met him.
You've met uh ray Im the other pilot so far. And she she's a girl, and ray in particular is very iconic within the fantom, and just like anime, she is like the prototype kind of like I guess nowadays we'll call them manic pixie dream girls. Right. She's got the colored hair, it's what she's her hair. And she is mysterious, yeah, like we don't know everything about her.
She's very quiet but also a very good pilot. So she's got like all these qualities that it's set up in the beginning as like, oh, like you would expect that she is going to be his love interest on this show.
And yeah, and when we meet her, she's also very badly injured from the last time she was a pilot, and that's part of why he you know, he's being pushed into it. I found the instruction of her character, especially with the two other young women in his life, very interesting, and I want to kind of ask more about that because so he is supposed to be a young teenager. He's fourteen, and I think Ray is also a similar age.
Yeah, they're classmates, right, like all of this because it's an anime. All of this takes place like partly in this futuristic like military battle station. Oh yeah, there's also a school in this time. See, they expect there.
To be some drama over who asks who to the Japanese equivalent of prom Like, that's the kind of vibe I'm getting from it. But the first two women he meets are older. I think they're supposed to be like also teenage or like very young adults, and they're portrayed like kind of best phrases. Their attractiveness and their sexuality is very forward in terms of their characters, like we see a lot of like the bent over shots and
things like that. We see a lot of like the other boys all being obsessed with how hot those two are, and the two older women kind of joking about, like which one of them is going to try and date Seniyeah. I feel like it doesn't feel inappropriate because that's why do I think they are also in high school with him. But it's like a you know, seventeen year old, fourteen
year old kind of thing. But it's very interesting to me that, like, on the one hand, you have him being bullied by these two very attractive older women, which I'm sure caused a lot of people at young ages to have a lot of feelings still figuring out twenty years later, and nothing wrong with that, but the idea that he has these like two women who are being very kind of sexually aggressive towards him, not necessarily in a hitting on way, but in like he's constantly like
walking into rooms and seeing all their underwear and blushing a lot and feeling uncomfortable. Contrasted with this shy, demure, but incredibly skilled mannic pexy dream girl who seems like he has his actual interest.
Yeah, okay, so you're let's see what you're referring to. The first one I would say is Misato Katsunaibi, right, she is. I guess I would call her the handler for the evil pilots. I'm not sure how old she's supposed to be. She's definitely supposed to be older than them. I would guess like early twenties, but like, okay, old teenager is a possibility.
Well, I saw her as like a senior in the high school, but I could be wrong on that.
So getting into the lore, there was a no event that happened I believe fifteen years ago, and she was a young girl, so she might be like twenty to twenty five. I guess it's probably the age range I have a place her at. Okay, is that the depiction of her in the flashback is definitely not no, No, younger than yeah, like six four or five?
Yeah? Six? That's making okay, yeah, you're right at that.
And then who's the other one? Your friend?
Is it?
Ditsko like the scientist.
Yeah, the blonde woman, and she's the one who's constantly because I'm Masoki, is that correct?
Misato?
Misato Misato, Like the first thing she does is get him to move in with her and talk about how they're going to party and hang out and have so much fun, and at which point the scientist starts teasing her about like the house things with your boyfriend and stuff like that.
And yeah, and Masato's character again is like, this is nineteen ninety five, like anime as a genre is twenty years old, like mecha anime is like twenty years oldish but still like Ray and Misato, like these characters have become archetypes of the genre because they're so iconic. And yeah, she is this the older like caretaker but very flirty.
She I mean, I'm just gonna say she's an alcoholic, right, like she she drinks every night to the point of often passing out or just like being sloppy drunk and so like, I don't I think some aspects of this have not aged well or like are are now things that we would not want to see in our media, like are inappropriate? Right, like her being drunk all the time around a young boy who she's living with and supposedly the caretaker of and is kind of flirting slash
teasing aggressively like in a sexual way. Like I was watching, I was like, yeah, like this is this is what it was like in nineties anime, and I don't think we would do that anymore, right, I mean, and like, although maybe they do, and that's a problem.
Well, and I just want to say, like, I think, I think there's something with the culture of you who shifted, and it certainly was not just Japanese anime. Like, yeah, I was watching music videos like Hot for Teacher in the eighties and nineties, which all about like thirty old get on by adults strippers. We're also their teachers.
I mean, yeah, I grew. I watched Dawson's Creek where there's a storyline where a high school teacher ends up having a sexual relationship with one of her students. Yeah, and it is definitely like a unfortunate fantasy that gets portrayed, hmm.
Yeah, and just even moeing me on that though, But I just did find it very interesting the the contrast of like, as you said, the manic pixie dream girl who's his age and who is even shyer than he is, versus the woman who is like very aggressive in her in her I mean everything, in her drinking and her sexuality and all of it. And it's just a very
interesting contrast. And but I will say though that while like I roll my eyes at how much the camera focuses on some of the shots, you know, the anime camera such as it is, it gets worse, I'm sure it does, but all of them are. I think it'd be easy to think that I'm just dismissing it. I'm more raising it because I think it's an interesting cultural issue of how these things become icons. But they're both
very well developed characters. Like, yes, she doesn't drink, because wouldn't it be funny if the character is drunk all the time. She drinks because, as you said, she was horribly traumatized as a girl, Like in some ways, she's.
Got an impossible job, right to send to send these kids into life or death situations, like this is her coping mechanism, and it is it is played for laughs a lot, like her drinking, But the moments when she has like some moments of self reflection, you absolutely feel the pressure on her and her the depths of her despair over the situation she's in and that she's forced to put these kids.
In, especially because I think I think at this point, Grant of only a couple episodes in she's probably my favorite character in part because although she joins in the like bullying and pushing him to be part of this Mecca program, she's also the only one who shows concern for him and care for and like early on she doesn't want They're kind of like, oh, you just showed up by the way, there's an angel that's attacking You've got to jump in this mecca and go fight it.
Five minutes after you said hello, there's no there's no training montage until like a couple episodes later. And but then once the others make the argument of the whole city is gonna be destroyed unless we kill this angel, she joins in that, and to give people an extent of just how far this goes, as Riki mentioned, the boy's father is part this program. He's kind of leading
up this whole program. He's leading up Nerve, which is this like super secret you know, government funded, even the government doesn't really know what's doing, kind of like science y tech organization, shadowy organization. Which again, if you feel like that's a cliche, you've seen this organization one hundred times. But even the father says, I like he father had spoken to the boy in three years. The father clearly says,
I brought you here to be a mecha pilot. If you are not going to be a Meca pilot, I have no use for you. Like there's no sense of like, oh, by the way, you're my son and I just want to see you and be with you and help raise you. There's none of that, And I think that's part of where her concern for him, where they comes from.
Yeah, Gendo, his father, Gendo is a disgusting character. I don't think there's any way around that. Like his the way he acts towards Shinji, it's just it's not as a father. Like the only time he acts as a father, i'd say, is to manipulate Shinji through their their familial bond,
and otherwise all he cares about is his project. Right, and the situation with Ray too, I believe at this point, like you don't know their full backstory, but you understand that Ray is very important to Gendo, perhaps even beyond just being a pilot, right, Like there's there's more of a sense of affection Gendo has for Ray than for his own son Shinji. And I'm not gonna spoil this point, but there is definitely a reason and a secret behind.
Yeah, I'm I've read a bit in the plot summaries of what that is, but we go we don't need to spoil that because we're not gonna talk on the show a lot. I want to give people a chance to go watch it because I think it is very
enjoyable so far and very thought provoking. The other thing that we learned about the father is that, as I said, he's he's a member of that secret He's the leader of Nerve, and we sort of see these meetings of this like very shadowy secret council that is sort of and they talk about the human fin is it called the Human Finality Project.
So yeah, let's talk. So Nerve is the organization that he run, Gendo runs that's underground where the EVAs are.
They are they report to. It's it could be called Seal where I've also heard it pronounced zeal in like a German pronunciation, and they are they are like the World Council in Avengers, Like there there are no people in Seal that we see, right, Like it's a bunch of I don't even like the like the things from two thousand and one they're just like tablets floating in space that the voices come out of type of thing.
So it's like the secretive Council. And have they mentioned the Dead Sea Scrolls yet?
Those have not been mentioned yet, But I do know that that.
That that is the thing again has nothing to do with like what we the actual Dead Sea scrolls other than like a name, and I guess they're like an
old thing that you can read. And that's that's what they are basing all of this on, is that there are like prophecies on the Dead Sea scrolls, and so what you got, what you got to it is called the translation is called the human Instrumentality project what they are trying to work towards, right, And the interesting thing about this is the Japanese it is called the Jingu hokan keikoku, and uh, the instrumentality part, like the human
and project like those are simple translations. The instrumentality part hokan. I feel like the original English translation of this kind of dropped the ball because hokan has much more of a like meaning of like detection or something like that. Like instrumentality is such a weird word to plug into this, And in one sense, I guess it makes it a little mysterious. But the Japanese, the original Japanese, makes it clear that this is like for the protection of humanity.
Mm hmm, okay, that makes sense. I should mention also that the uh, obviously it sounds like it is pronounced differently in Japanese. The name of the organization though, Zeo, is a German word. It's a German word for soul, which I also plays a lot into the sort of cosmology and theology of this whole, the whole what's going on here, and I think this is appropriate time and also talk about that well, actually let go a little
further than that. And so again I don't want to spoil too many things because I want to give people a chance to watch it. The next episode, we're ably gonna go full spoilers. But the involvement of the Father in that kind of shadowy council that's doing this, I think also really lends itself to the Not only is he completely ruthless in the protect humanity just by killing the angels, but he also has some like other things of like there's this larger project that's not just about this.
I think this is also a good time to mention something we hadn't mentioned. It seems very vital to the show. This is not set in an earth like hours today. It is very much a post apocalyptic dystopian kind of a world where we're slowly learning more and more about
what happened. But there was a great event that people are being taught that it was a meteor that hit the Antarctica and melted the entire polar in polar ice caps, and so like there's been you know, huge flooding and that kind of thing, and the wiping out of a lot of cities. That there's been massive wars back and
forth and including some nuclear attacks back and forth. And one of the things that happens in the first episode that I wanted to talk to you about, and again not asking to be the expert or speak for all Japanese people by any means, but you have more insight in it, certainly than I do. In the first episode, the military like they don't want to work with Nerve.
They're convinced that they can defeat the Angels by themselves, and when all of their normal weapons don't work, they go to what they call the N one mine, and they never say the word nuclear but I think it is the you know, the there's a mushroom cloud, there's a bright light. It's very clear to me, at least this is supposed to be a nuclear bomb.
Yeah, what did.
Just speaking for yourself, like, you know, and I've heard you talk about the the you know, the the effect of having been the victim of a nuclear bombing in Japan and how much that shapes the Gojira movies and things like that. What was the effect of seeing a nuclear bomb exploded by the Japanese on Japanese soil so early in this show, because that felt me like it was a very specific like we are crossing this cultural line to show you just how dystopian we are.
Yeah, I mean at this point nineteen ninety five, we've we've already had Akira, and I can't remember the history of that, but there there were nuclear subsequent nuclear detonations in Japan Tokyo in that one, because they're neo Tokyo, so I don't know. I that's something I don't know about,
like it they're in Japanese media. There's probably definitely a an era of this post apocalyptic future, and I think it's just same with a lot of Western media that to reach that point of where you want this dystopian future, it probably has to be nukes.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Yeah, so you were you mentioned the the asteroid, the what they called an asteroid or meteor. I guess they call it the second impact on the show, and that implies there was a first impact and there's going to be a third impact, like that's that is supposedly what they are trying to prevent is the third impact. And again this is where I where I say, like the plot doesn't matter. I guess I guess they know about
it from the Dead Sea Scrolls. But that's just like verydausex maggiare like, oh we know about this third impact thing from the Dead Sea Squirrels. Don't worry about it. There's nothing like kind of beyond that. Like the thing with the angels, there's no we never really find out
like who or why other than like it's happening. The Dead Sea Scrolls told us that there would be really fifteen angel attacks, so that that that leads to an interesting tension and countdown on the show because every time in angel attacks, like you are told what number it is, right, the audience is told and it leads to the sense of like, okay, like now we're at you know, this number, We're getting closer, We're getting closer, and then like stuff
happens and it's not clear like why or who did it?
Mm hmmm.
So it's going back to your original question about this. I'm I'm not I don't have like a strong sense of like the nuclear explosion at the beginning. I think it feels like at this point in anime, it is kind of like tropy, okay of sense.
It's like that, let's show that even a nuclear bomb won't work. Yeah, exactly, that no human control, yeah.
Right, and so only the Evangelians can stop the angels. And and that's because like the Evangelian technical ology is based off of you know, basically angel technology or angel DNA or whatever whatever it is. And that and that's like something that that happens a lot in anime. Is we see it in Robotech slash Macross where alien technology is like the thing that boosts humanity, like past where it is into like a new more futuristic especially in all these things like military technology.
Yeah, I mean, if you watch the first Independence Day and then the second Independence Day, that's very much the theme of it. That's a theme of you know, everything from enders game, uh to to all sorts of stuff like this. Even what I think is the way a lot of Americans were first really introduced to the Mecca concept, if they didn't grow up watching some of these cartoons,
the specific rim movies. You know, there's very much a sense of like they have developed in part because of what they've learned from not only the technology but the remains of these alien being.
Yeah, reverse engineering.
Yep, exactly exactly.
So what okay? So what at this point? Question do you have like big questions about.
So One of the questions I have is that it seems like there's only this very special group of people who can pilot the EVAs the Evangelians.
Yes, and.
I know by the lore kind of what the explanation is that we're given much later in the show. I think we are given like a very brief one sentence like it has to be a child because like the younger mind can better meld with it. But I don't quite understand why it has to be this one these one of these two particular people, and none of the others, including some of the young adults, none of them could become MECA pilots.
Yeah, it's it's definitely set up in a way where each each unit, like the EVA like zero one, zero two, like they have to be piloted by their pilot, right then they do.
I don't.
At some point they do try to get them to cross pilot because like ones damaged or something, and it doesn't work because there is like a a psychic connection between the pilot and the EVA, like I can't remember what term they use on the show, but there's there's definitely like a you have to be on this this correct wavelength or something, right, But I don't know. Do you want me to get a little spoilery about it, like you no.
Again, I just want to get a sense, like if there's something we were missing early on and I but it's the implication then that this machine was built with the thought that eventually they'd go grab Senji and make him pilot it, Like was that always the plan for this machine? Yes, okay, or.
At least that's where they I don't know if it was the plan, but that's just what happens, right because of the way they are built, right, And that's I guess what I will say about that is that this show presents like we're calling them mecchas, but they are very different from the way Mecca have been presented in pretty much all all of anime, Like this may be the first one to this point. Stuff like gun Dam I mentioned mat Cross, there's stuff like pat Labor in
the same era. They're all just straight robots, right Like they're machines that were built in factories and you pilot them like you would pilot a fighter JED or a tank, and you fight with them and that's it. Year in Evangelian they are biomechanical and they're they're beings like EVAs are alive, and they seem to have a personality of their own.
Yeah. I mean there's a very early scene in which, as part of the attack in that first episode without a pilot in it, Eva a one save Senji from like.
Consciousness.
Yeah, and I mean even before that, before he's gotten in, like it's hand reaches out hitting them on the head.
Yeah yeah, yeah, And that's and that that is like the mystery behind them and the connection with the pilots, right like why because it's a living being even though they never talk like they have a personality they have some some kind of internal motivation, then they can only be piloted by their specific children.
Right and yeah, and again I think about like one things I think about when I think about like robotech or you know, those kind of things are all the way up to the aggres of Pacific rim. They might carry weapons, but also they have like all these missiles and guns that are built into them. And as far as we see this one has like a big spike on its head. It looks more like a kaiju in
that regard. But then yeah, mostly it holds a gun or holds a knife, And I think the visual design of it it's interesting because yeah, it looks much more sleek, it doesn't look boxy. The only thing that throws me is that the color scheme of it is so aggressively like nineties bowling alley carpet. It's just like purple and green that it's just so garish that it hit like
it's hard to watch for me. And I'm sure I'll get used to it, and I'm sure that was very much like the cool color scheme at the time, but I just may even.
Know if it's cool. I think it's meant to intentionally evoke a sense of of biology of monstrousness.
Oh, because for me again, it feels neon. It feels like, okay, nineteen nineties, you know, look how like the kind of like you think of like the neon lights and in nineteen nineties like entertain video game centers and stuff like that.
That's what it gets, fair enough, I mean it, the origin could just feel like it looked cool, right, But there's definitely no sense like an other mecha anime like of them being painted like yeah, you do not get the sense that this is like that they were painted this way. This is just like because they're alive, like they were quote born this way. I don't know, m h.
Yeah, And I'm sure I know we're gonna get a lot more into the origin of them and how it ties into the origin of the angels, and there's a lot of lore coming, and we're i this might be a bonus episode, it might be a regular episode, depending on fan feedback. I'm definitely gonna do a full episode
just on. Let me dive deep into the meaning of all the the well, all of the different Judeo Christian uh you said again, the the iconography of all of the Jewish iconography and of the Christian iconography someone which takes on the Jewish iconography. That's a very complicated subject and the meaning of it and how it appears here, because I do think it's interesting, uh well to the three of the theology geeks who are in our listeners. But yeah, I'm I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes.
And I because so far as as you said, it's not really the plot that matters. There's a fight every couple of episodes, but it really seems to you about how are each of these different people dealing with trauma and how and and the isolation and loneliness that can lead to and then how are they either helping or hurting each other as you know, sort of different people's
traumas bump into each other. And I've talked before about how, you know, I have a lot of trauma in my past and a lot of like mental issues related to that. I think it's very easy to just be like, oh, all people with PTSD are like this, or all people at childhood trauma are like this, or something like that, and the fact that you have everyone is reacting to this same event but in very different ways. Even if you just look at the two women who are kind
of most in his life right now. Like, it's just fascinating to see and I'm really interested to see how this plays out, especially because it's all against this background of human choice and what is the importance of human
agency and or is that not? Because again I don't want to go into too much spoilers, but like what we're going to learn is that a lot of the like attempt to protect human to protect humans or to instrumentalize humans is about removing their agency and that kind of that becomes a major part of the whole story.
Yeah. What I love about this, Like the imagery is all iconic. Yeah, right, the EVAs, Like I mentioned the pilots, they became archetypes for the genre. But the story itself or like the characters, it's just absolutely fascinating because these characters there's not like a hero's journey in the traditional sense it is. It is just about how these human beings react to and are affected by the traumatic experiences
they go through. And it's so it's so real. Yeah, Like one of them, one of the memes for the show, like one of the images that gets reused a lot is shingy sitting in a chair with his head in his hands, just probably crying or just like in total shock. And that's if you don't feel that it is you go through this show like maybe you're not paying attention and you're just watching it as like fun robots, which is fine, But I I had several episodes like I
couldn't binge this. I had several episodes where I finished it, I turned off the TV and basically like did a shingy pos and just like put my head in my hands and just like thought about it and like what just happened? Like what am I feeling? Like thinking about what the characters are feeling as like what what the heck? Like I was devastated watching it on behalf of the characters. And that is such a unique feeling that that we should treasure like in media, like to be able to
watch something and feel something that deep, it's great. Yeah, I'm much dangerous too, like like there are definitely going to be points where if you can't keep watching it, like don't Yeah, no, I think.
That's there were There was an episode I planned to binge quite a lot of it last night yesterday. About the episodes are half an hour. So it's like all told, but like twelve or thirteen hours. And I had to stop because there was one episode that just hit really hard and it was really something I related to quite a lot. And the other thing I think that really is striking me. And again I want to see how this develops. But as you said, like a lot of
these shows, and again this isn't just an anime. Think about like Buffy, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, like any of the other shows, you know, Vampire Diaries, where it's like one half super either fantasy or tech powers that are allowing you to save the world, and one half like will you study for your math test. They've done this very interesting thing of showing that like the kids in his life have much more compassion, because early on he's
getting bullied from two directions. He's getting like all the adults are yelling at him and telling him he needs to like get in the Mecca and save everybody and it's his duty and if they don't do it, they don't want anything to do with him. And then there's a kind of classic high school bully situation he's dealing with, you know, because he is the new kid, but the
bully actually has a reason. The bully's sister was almost killed in the attack that the Eva eventually destroyed the angel, but like broke a lot of stuff on the way to do so, and so the bullies like blaming on him doesn't really make much sense. But if you think about again how people deal with trauma, people blame the
wrong people all the time. And so he does start out bullying Shenji, and it's adding to just his his problems, but then very quickly they wind up in a situation where they wind up like seeing what he's going through, both from outside and then literally from inside the cop the cockpit with him and more one than the other, but they both start to have a lot of empathy for him in a way that we haven't seen from most of the adults. And again I think the like children,
young people, good, adults bad. He is kind of a trope and a lot of these things, but here it just feels so much more developed, And it really felt like the having both of these groups so mean to him and one of them shifting and the other knot feels very intentional in a way.
I really like, Yeah, the character you're talking about is Toji Suzuhara. We'll say he starts off bullying Shinji, but they become friends, and the way that that develops and and where Susuhara's story ends up for I don't even not not even like a top five character on the show, like probably in the top ten barely. That is amazing to me that you could take such a minor character and develop them so fully and give them I don't know if I want to use it words satisfying, but
a good character arc. Yeah, in such a again, like such a short runtime, like you said that these are these were thirty minute episodes on TV, so with commercials, you know, like twenty five or something, twenty six episodes of that. Yeah, like barely barely over ten hours of television. The things they do are just phenomenal, and I'm blown away by it. I know, like we've had our talks about Star Wars TV shows in Marvel and like what
are they doing with their runtime? And this show just like does everything in its runtime and I and still has like a cool mecha battle. But it's how they tell the story within the battles, right, The battles themselves are also part of the story, not because the angels.
Each angel is different and it requires them to figure out how to defeat it, and often that reveals something about the characters themselves and how they they win that fight or sometimes fail to win, and it takes like some other pilot coming in to help them or whatever, like it's the way that they psychologically use the battles is probably I don't know, one of the one of the top three things about this. Yeah, this anime.
We're gonna start wrapping up, so I just want to say one last thing and then make a couple of announcements that are important for listeners. The one last thing. We're else you gonna do a number of more episodes on this because it raises so many interesting questions.
Like I didn't even talk about half the stuff because I was like, well, that's a little bit spoilery.
Oh yeah, but just that whole We literally only a month ago did an episode about should people get to say no when destiny calls? And that was kind of exactly what so much of this epis. I also will say, if if music is important to you, the first song goes the opening song of the credits goes real hard.
Oh yeah, I'd never skip.
It, and in the very kind of classic anime way that for you, this may be different because you can understand the lyrics. For me, this song, like some of the other anime opening music, there's a very sort of discordant aspect to it because the song sounds really it's very like happy and poppy and like, you know, let's all gather together and hold hands and care bear stare and we're gonna win this fight. And then as you're reading the lyrics, it's like a cruel angel has decided
that you have to face death and all. Like it's very dark.
I believe the translation for the title of the song is cruel Angel's thesis, right, Yeah, And it is every part as much of the story as anything else. Like that's again like they pack everything in like the song itself. The flashes during the opening credits are also like telling part of the story to you. And just like every piece of real estate that they use is is not wasted.
Yeah, fair much agreed, much agreed, last thing I would. Just so, we're obviously gonna do a number of more episodes on this. We're also gonna bonus content for members, uh specifically on We're gonna talk a little bit more about what Mecca is, just the whole like Mecca genre and stuff like that, because one that I have very limited experience of Rieki you've talked some about and I want to go a little bit deeper into But I want to and I'll give you the normal membership pitch
in a moment, five dollars, want dollars a year. You can find it all on the website. But I do also wanted to let people know and actually, Wreeky, I realized I had not told you either. This podcast is
going to go into a hiatus during September. We're gonna take a couple of weeks off, in part because I'm traveling a lot, in part because we want to spend a little bit more time kind of planning some things out, being able to do more of the research that we've been talking about doing, wanting to have a little bit more of a plan about how we are advertising and how we are letting other people know about these podcasts and helping get more people into the conversation. I want
to be a lot more intentional about feedback. We're doing it sometimes, but it keeps saying I'm not getting to it as fast as I want to. And as often as I want to, I want to improve that. So you'll still get episodes during September. They're gonna be older episodes, rebroadcasts and things like that, so you can hear all those kinds of things, but there won't be new episodes for a couple of weeks. But don't worry. New episodes will be coming soon and starting in October. So just
want to let people know that. And again, you can become a member and you can send us feedback. We love feedback, we want to hear it, we want to discuss it. All that you can find on the website, the Ethical Panel dot com or in the show notes, So please think it out becoming a member for our members, thank you so much. We'll have morephoene A second and on behalf of myself and Rinki. We have spoken