AWTY 142 - The OC Dilemma (Neon Genesis Evangelion)

But yeah, so dick bug. Back to dickbug. Hello and welcome to our weed there yet in exploration and education and anime. I'm your anime idiot, patrick dugan.

I'm an anime expert, D hollander.

And I'm brenda mccullough. Your anime kind devil's proof.

I don't get it.

Give it a minute. Give it a minute.

No, I'm sorry. I can't do it today.

You lost me.

D is in my rare position of just being completely sleep deprived.

I've wiped it. My brain is empty.

Oh, boy. Next week's, my turn to wake up at 03:00 A.m. For no reason.

Yeah, see, here's the thing. I think I cursed you because I, too, woke up at 03:00 A.m. And was like, okay, here we go. I was up for an hour, but then I was able to fall asleep. So I believe I pushed my curse onto you somehow. I don't know how it worked. The runes I read are the usual runes I usually read at 03:00 a.m., but sorry I transferred that vibe to you.

That's okay.

I can't afford that. I was up till 03:00 A.m. Playing digital dodgeball. I can't wake up at that time. That's when I stopped.

I am essentially running on fumes. The fumes of the coffee that I ingested that I really should not have.

That will be good for this week's episode. that'll be great for the show. Just real incoherent and delirious.

It's incoherent hours, baby.

Yeah. We've just been on a real run. I was in this sunken place for cowboy bebop. Then I went grandpa mode last week, and here we are dee taking on the role. What an exciting time. Who's going to be ailing next week? Place your bets. Yeah. Tweet at us your bets on who is going to be suffering. whoever's closest will. I don't know. venmo you just kidding.

We will not.

I'll put you as a dependent on my insurance.

I'll put you as a beneficiary on my will.

I'll give a listener a little insider scoop here. I'm supposed to be moving in two weeks and still don't know where I'm going to be living. It'll probably be me wink.

Oh, God.

Hedge your beds.

Anyway.

So the stakes are very low this week. So what are we watching?

We're watching a big one. We're watching a pillar of the anime community.

Figure.

We're doing something special. It was a listener recommendation that we listened to on this day. So for our father's day episode, we're celebrating anime fathers by watching neon genesis even go in. That was obviously going to be my opening.

There's a joke in there somewhere.

My opening is just going to be me screaming that beat. Let me do a play on cruel angels thesis, which is the theme song which is that theme song title.

Okay, I get it. All right.

Right. There it is. We got there. We work together.

Next ones are the ones where you have to spell it out.

Yeah, I was going to say we are there, but you had to explain.

We are 142 episodes into this podcast. If you think I have any degree of wit or clever left, you're out of your goddamn mind.

We left it all on the field.

130 episodes ago that died in the four kids month. I'm never going back anyway because Neon Genesis evangelion Just eva is so monumental, so colossal in the anime community. I'm sure you have both seen it already.

Correct?

I've heard about it and I've seen memes.

Okay.

I've heard about it and seen discourse about how the new dub sucks.

Oh, boy. I've also just watched it, like, last year. So I'm new to this camp, so I'm very far from, like, a purist.

But still 100% more educated than both of us combined.

Yes, true. I was actually considering bringing back friend of the show abby, who actually did a college thesis paper about this show. And I was like, wow, you know what? That's too smart for this podcast. We can't bring that in. We only got three episodes to cover. Sorry, abby. I know you.

Listen, I'd love to read it.

So as one might expect, the show has a lot of weight to it, and we're only doing three episodes. So to get out in front of that bus early listeners who are going to say we did it wrong or listen to the wrong episodes, there's only so much we can do the first three episodes.

Yeah, it's always rough when people are like, hey, this show is great. You have to watch all of it in its entirety in succession to fully get it. It's like, I'm not committing that much time and energy to a thing I don't know. And hey, that's the premise of the show. Hey, that's me not watching any of these shows. Yeah.

Here we go. How many animes have you actually finished since we started The Spot?

Oh, stop.

We're watching the first Green episode. Where was the show when I was an emote teen? I mean, it was there, but 1130.

A Saturday night cartoon. This was this was definitely one I would catch, like, snippets of on tunami and go, I don't know what the fuck's happening. And now, 15 years later, go, God, 15 years later, I've watched all of it and go, I don't know what the fuck's happening. I probably go to watch. Boys got problems. It's about as much as I still understand. Okay, as is tradition, we started episode well, not trade. There's not one piece episode anyway. We're starting at episode one. It opens with a big old creature swimming through some water, and it looks like the flooded remains of a ruined society. That's Japan. That's where we are in the story. It's not post apocalyptic, but it's like, post devastation of the colossal events.

Surprise. We're watching Blue submarine number nine again.

Oh, fuck it's, right?

But I completely forgot about that.

Jeez, and as this creek just swimming through the water, we hear a loudspeaker kind of just an evacuation siren alarm telling everyone to go the city, evacuate to a shelter, flee the area. And we see one lady drive around her car in the abandoned city. And then we cut to a young boy on a payphone trying to call from somebody. We see him looking at a photo of a lady saying, like, Meet you soon.

Sit.

Shinji wink. It like, written on the photo. And then we see the colossal monster walking over the mountainside. We see a bunch of airships flying around it, trying to attack it. Then we cut to a command center where they confirm, yes, the Angels are back. That big old monstery thing, that's an angel. And we see its name is sasha sasho, all right? And they're all named after actual Angels from, like, the Bible. It just makes them sound sillier. And we see the airships attacking the angel, but it does nothing but it's doing absolutely nothing to him. And then we see the Angels start tearing its way through the city, destroying this place and knocking over buildings and stuff right next to Shinji. He's real close to it. We don't find out their names until, like, halfway through. But it's like, Shinji everyone knows Shinji the memes. And so the angel is destroying all the buildings around him. And right as he's about to be crushed by it, the lady shows up in her car and picks up Shinji and pulls him in. And they barely escape the destruction as they drive out of the city. Back at the command center, we see they're throwing everything they got at the monster. This angel is just too powerful and nothing's working. And then we see a guy with, like, a chin, sharp beard, and little round classes and gloves hands, and just a real smug piece of shit attitude.

Dad of the year.

Dad of the year.

Best anime dad ever.

Happy Father's Day.

Here's this asshole. Happy Father's Day. We got you a mech and baggage.

Get inside.

Get in. And he says conventional weapons are useless against the Angels. At Field. The Angels just got a force field around them. It's got an at field. I'm sure some nerd can tell you the details of why that's important. It's just a force field. And we see, I think, at this point, they say it's masato and Shinji. masato is the lady who picks them up, and they're driving away. And we see them on kind of like a road on the side of a mountain side, and they're watching the angel still fighting in the city, quite far away. And massage is looking out with binoculars and is like, oh, fuck, they're dropping an end to mine. And she covers Shinji. And sure enough, the plane drops just it's an end two mine. I don't know what the specifics is. Let's just say for the visual of the mind. It's a nuke. It's just a huge bomb that just, like, detonates, like, the whole city. And even the car that's really far away on the mountain side gets blown back and rolls over a few times. So it's just a devastating explosive. So we see them get out of the car. They're safe, but they have to flip the car over, which is now totaled. And, yeah, then they introduce themselves as Shinji and masato. And then back at the command center, they're amazed that the angel is still alive and fine. Like, it looks a little burnt, and it hits a little misleading. It's grown another head for some reason, but, yeah, it's still going. That didn't stop it.

I can take it. Give me more. It says, Give me all you got.

And while they're driving, Massachusetts in her head kind of worried about her dress got all dirty and her cars all beat up, and she's got, like, 33 payments left, and now she has to pay the repairs and, like, you know, worrying about the car and all this stuff while they're escaping a giant, you know, kaiju destroying their city. And while they're in there, Shinji looks back and say, hey, what's all these car batteries for in the backseat? Did you steal these out of the abandoned cars? She's like, hey, shut up, kid. And they just move on. And meanwhile, we see the Angels, like, healing itself. We see, like, the small wounds that the bomb did to it. It wasn't a ton. So it's already healing itself. And massata tells Shinji that they're going to Nerve, which is a big organization that she works for with his dad because his dad summoned him there.

So here I I did watch all three of the new dub of this, and I don't know if it's in the original too, but they definitely call it Nerve the entire time. And it's so visually, Nerve is, like, on their chest piece at all times, but they really commit to calling it Nerve. And it bugged me. I was like, okay, do you make, like, hair removal products? Is that your goal here?

Removed robot parts?

We are a robust company. We love corporations here.

Yeah, I watched episodes one and three with the original dub, and I watched episode two with the Netflix dub just to see how it was, and it matches up. So back at the command center, all the army or military guys say, like, we're not doing anything. We're giving control over to Mr. akari. gendo. akari. Shinji's. Dad. Shinji. akari's. Father. gendo. And he says he's got, like, a second in command. He's like, all right, what do we do now? He's like, activate Unit One. It's what we were always going to do. We got our spare pilot on the way. He's like, we see masaka. We see Masata gives Shinji just this big book, like, a debriefing of what Nerve is, and she's like, Here read up and he doesn't. And it's like, Why would he? There's a lot going on right now.

We had this whole car ride, and you throw it at me in the parking lot. You clearly forgot.

Pretty much, yeah. And Shinji is wondering, why is he being summoned now? Why was he contacted now? I think it happens later in the episode, but we find out. shiji and his dad have been estranged for, like, three years. So it's like, why now? Why all of a sudden?

I couldn't tell.

There's such a familiar relationship there with bonding. And as they're going down the elevator, they see the neo base underneath the city. It's a shelter for all of mankind. It's pretty much just an underground city, but it's like a gigantic cavern, like, hollowed out and stuff. And this is where the Nerve headquarters is. That's where they all do secret government robot agency shit. I don't know what Nerve does. And on the way there, masato gets lost within the base. So she calls up her friend Ritzko to help her out. Ritzko is the head scientist of Nerve, sort of. And she meets up with Shinji, and masato says, yeah, we're here, and I brought the Third Child.

What?

Yeah. That won't pay off for a long time. Anyway, misatto and Fritzko are talking about Unit Ones being repaired after some field test. It got damaged up, so it's getting worked on. And the bass are in, starts going into battle station mode. So they bring Shinji to yvonne jelly in Unit One. Just this big old purple mech. Real iconic. Even if you haven't seen the show, you've seen this, and it's just a real lanky looking gundam. Real?

Yeah. What if gundams were made in the yugio world?

That's what we got here, with some.

Real Dark magician energy coming off of it.

Oh, God, it does. I didn't even consider that. And as they're looking at Unit One, Shinji's dad appears, like, way up onto this balcony ledge. He's like, hey, it's me. And massata says, like, well, what do we do? We don't have a pilot for Unit One. Race still injured, and richko says, Shinji will do it. It's like, cool. He's been here five minutes. Why? And he's still on the table of.

Contents on the book you gave him.

He's been reading the same paragraph over and over again for the past half hour.

I have been wandering through a facility. I'm trying not to fall off the unguarded railings that just plummet down to the surface of the cavern.

It's fair. It's hard to read and walk at the same time. She says Shinji just has to sit in it. He doesn't even have to really pilot it. He just has to sit inside of it. And that is the only way that they'll be able to stop the angel, so they don't have many other options. And Shinji's dad says that's why he called him here. And shinji starts yelling at him like, Fucking cool. The only reason you got back in contact with me is so he can use me for your weird Mech experiment. shiny is like, yeah, why else would I even talk to you?

Cool, dad.

Great.

Love your dad. And I got used a box of.

Candy at the airport, but I guess it's mine now.

I'm dumping into this weird red fluid below me since he starts yelling and freaking out, being like, there's no way I could pilot this. I'm like a 15 year old kid. I don't know what this base is. I don't know what the hell this is. Why do you think I can pilot this gigantic robot? And it's like, that's fair. He is actually a child and doesn't know what's happening. And kendall says, do it or leave. That's the only reason you were brought here. So if you're not going to do it, just get that all out. And meanwhile, we see the Angels getting closer and closer to the base, and it seems like it's not destroying the city. It seems like it's actually trying to find something. And misunderstand tells Shinji to get in, but he can't. So this is where the meme of just get in the meg Shinji comes from. And we see gender say, well, Shinji is not doing it. Wake up, Ray. And then we see some people a little concerned, and we see them wheel and a girl that's in a hospital bed, and she's all bandaged up and really injured. And she was the previous pilot, and clearly something went very wrong, so well, ginger won't do it. She's the only other one who can. So bob her in there.

She's down for it.

She'll do it. She's not complaining.

I mean, down for it is a relative Term episode about the pilot's ability to disobey orders.

And then we see the angel attacks up on the surface, and we see down in the base that knocks some debris loose, some lights or something from the ceiling of the mechanism they're in. And as the debris falls down, it's about to hit Shinji. Oh, no. And then all of a sudden, we see Unit One rip out of its restraint to cover Shinji with its hand to protect them from the falling debris. And everyone's kind of freaked out because it's like, that mech just moved on its own. Like, no one's in it. What the hell? And soon, she immediately runs over to Ray, who fell off the hospital bed and is now all of her wounds just reopen. So she's just, like, pouring blood out of her body now. It's like, all right, I'll pilot it. She can't do it. I'm not going to make her do it. So I'll get in, and he climbs inside the neck. We see him inside the cockpit and starts filling up with this weird water. And shiny's freaking out. And they're just like, Calm down, Nerd. You can breathe. It's like, why the fuck would anyone assume they can breathe in the water? No one told him this. And we see the Command Center is filled. The Command Center is amazed by how well they're harmonizing and sinking together on their neural wavelength. mumbo jumbo sciencey bullshit. Duck. But it seems like the Mac suit isn't rejecting Shinji as a pilot. So they're like, all right, he's ready to go. Let's just throw him up there and see how well he does. So they remove all the locks, and we get a little montage of them getting it ready and shooting it up this giant elevator shaft that they show a lot. And I see masato ask endi if she thinks that they can really do it. He says, Unless we defeat the Angels, we have no future. And the eva is launched up to the surface and it's time for Shinji to fight. Yeah, also didn't mention it opening. Very iconic. Most people probably heard it trilogy, Angels, Thesis at least seen the opening or at least heard the song at some point. The ending is also pretty iconic. It's Fly Me to the Moon, which Netflix could not get the licensing rights for change. It just is a very melancholy piano song, which I will say does not have nearly the same impact as Fly Me to the Moon does. So that's an unfortunate thing that they couldn't get the rights to that song.

That's the version I watched, and I was like, yeah, it's whatever. I know. There's the fly me to the moon. I've seen the memes. I'm familiar with it, but I get it. This isn't as nearly as good.

Yeah. So in episode two, it's big robot fighting time. But first, Shinji's got to figure out how to pilot the thing he didn't.

Like, that 50 page manual.

His worst case scenario, this child is in this giant robot about to fight a monster for, like, the for the what's the word? The fate of humanity. And they're just like, yeah, it'll be fine.

You just have to sit inside of it.

I honestly appreciated the this isn't the millionth Mech Show to be like, yes, welcome to the Institute. You're going through training. I do like that they're like, oh, fuck. We need a mech pilot now. So I like that they cut to the chase, but just the tactics of this high military operation are just dog shit.

Their operation hinges on children.

Yes.

For me, I was like, okay, they have this, like, big explosive that they know is at least going to do some damage. Let's use it just enough time for it to minorly hurt it and then have it reheal before we try again. Rather than as the mech is coming out of the ground, as you're expecting this pilot to arrive, you're like, no, we got to waste this billion dollar missile.

They're all idiots.

So they're like, okay, Shinji, focus on walking. So he does. And the mech starts to walk, but it falls flat on its face. So the angel takes the opportunity to come up, grabs eva by its head, and then breaks its arm. And Shinji is freaking out because I don't know if he feels what the robot feels, but he's freaking out because his arm is in pain. And they're like, oh, it's not your arm, Shinji. Calm down.

Misatto says, It only feels like your arm's breaking. I'm like, yes, that's why he's reacting. It almost like his arm's breaking.

It hurts.

Eva jillians are essentially, like, hooked up, or eva gillian essentially hooked up, like, on the nervous system level. So it feels everything. And we see them get injured, and then the pilot also gets injured, which isn't clear. I don't know. But, yeah, they feel what the mech feels.

Yeah, like, Shinji doesn't come out of this with his arm broken. So after it breaks its arm off, the angel focuses its attacks on the head. It's just kind of, like, pulsing attacks into the head. And it disconnects from the control center. And they lose readings on Shinji.

Oh, no.

Also, all the mechs are tethered in by a wire, which is hilarious to me.

Just got the plug running into the vacuum.

Yeah, it's like a bad iphone with a battery. Can't keep a charge.

And then he wakes up in a hospital bed. So it didn't go great. And then we see some guys it's a very sinister looking meeting of some guys talking about the Angels being back, and they got to make sure that the public only knows what Nerve wants them to know. And there's a conference about it on every news station. And Misado seems upset that they're covering up the truth, but, like, this isn't new. And we see the men talking about how expensive and wasteful the eva project has been. They're talking to gendo, and they say that he should be focusing on the Human enhancement Project, whatever that is. And they say that the Angels are no excuse for delays. And I'm like, well, they're here to destroy the planet.

So remember how a lot of the facility got destroyed? Yeah. Where do you think our research labs are?

I just love how they say that's expensive. It's like, you know what doesn't exist anymore if we all die? Money currency. You know how we should probably put all that effort into saving ourselves and the planet? nah, it's a climate change oligory.

I'm starting to think the government doesn't care about people.

What if I could have money instead of the citizens?

So gendo is dismissed from the meeting, and he says, very ominously, that mankind has no time left. And then we see Shinji is still in the hospital. He's looking out a window, and he sees Ray get rolled by, and they look at each other. It's dramatic. And then Misatto and Ritzko find out that Shinji woke up and ritzko says that his brain is foggy. And then Misatto is worried that it's something called contamination. But we don't really find out what that means.

I think it's a concussion.

Both are very likely.

And we see folks are working on putting eva back together from whatever happened, eva, Unit One. So Misatto hopes that eva and the city will work at optimal levels and they're going to get through it, which is optimistic. And we see Shinji and Misado waiting for the elevator, and it stops. And Gender is in there, and they just stare at each other. And Shinji chooses not to get on the elevator.

Whole show, I've just been begging Shinji, just like, punch him in the face, spit in his eye. Just something. Just show him. Fuck you. Come on.

Yeah, it hurts.

No, I got an emote glare at you, dad, as I continue to do your bidding.

Like, it is like like, I feel like this show has been so memified that the impact of this is lessened because it's literally terrible. It's awful. And I wish I cared more.

I do care.

But yeah, anyway, we find out that they aren't going to live together because gendo, I guess, can't stand being around his fucking kid. And Shinji also doesn't want to be around his dad. And he says it's what he's used to anyway. But Misado won't have this, so she's going to take him to live with her.

Misado heard that I had a child living alone square on the bingo card. And she said, fuck that.

Not today.

Not now.

I really enjoyed Misado's voice in the dub. I watched the old one, I guess, and there's something about it. It's similar to the situation with haru and B Stars, where the voice itself isn't very like traditional anime. But the way she plays the part is so natural, and I really like it.

Yeah, I watched this one with the Netflix dub, and yeah, that was probably my biggest note, is all of the Netflix dub voices kind of sound similar. I had trouble distinguishing some of the characters when they weren't on screen talking. But the original dub, every character's voice is really unique. Like, you don't hear voices that type or range as much anymore. And it's not like molly from sailor Moon, where it's like, hey, I'm Brooklyn.

What's going on?

But it's just like it's definitely got a very unique flavor to it, which I very much appreciate in the original dub now.

Yeah, I wasn't the biggest fan of her voice. In the new dub, she is very clearly like, hey, this is a very depressed boy. Let me try to be chipper. But it's also just it feels a little too bright and not quite Valley Girl, but just like that. Just like a little too, like, young and yeah, we're having fun here in this robot apocalypse.

Yeah, but so they're on their way to her apartment, and she says, that they should have a welcoming party for him. So they go food shopping and Shinji, while they're in the store overhears some women talking about moving because they don't feel safe in the city, which sure thing.

Why would you say that?

And they stop at an overlook and a siren goes off and some buildings rise up from the ground. And Shinji is pretty amazed by that. Amisato says the city is a fortress. And it's Tokyo three baby. The sequel to the sequel love a trilogy. So they get to her apartment, and this was like I don't know. I liked this moment where she goes inside and she's like, come on in. This is your home now. And he's like, Are you sure? I know I'm already here, but this feels weird. And she's like, yeah. So he takes a step inside and he says, I'm home. And she says, welcome home. And I just I don't know. I was like, oh, that's kind of nice. Because, I mean, that is what she's trying she's trying to cheer him up. And maybe it comes across better in the acting for the old dub that.

Someone in this goddamn show needs to be nice to this child.

She tries so hard.

Yeah. So the place is a huge mess. There's just, like, empty beer cans and garbage everywhere. And all she has in the fridge is snacks and beer. And there's another fridge. And Shinji is like, what's in there? And she said, oh, don't mind it. He's probably still sleeping. Not alarming at all.

Don't worry about it.

Completely normal. So they sit down to eat, and Misado is having a beer and there's, like, this sick shot of her ass.

Yeah, she's in, like, daisy dukes. How can we emphasize this? How can we utilize this chance?

She is pretty hot.

Definitely a 90s show in that there is four, like, military mech stuff. Just a ton of nudity.

So they play rock, paper, scissors to divvy up with the chores. And she tells him to make himself at home and tells him to take a bath and says that taking a bath can wash away your troubles, put you in a better mindset. So he goes to bathe, but there's a weird penguin in there. So he runs out naked and he's like, what the fuck is that?

Once again, understandable.

Yeah.

Is that a mech? Two? Do you have to pilot the penguin?

They're everywhere.

It's anime. Maybe. Like, it's possible.

I didn't know we were watching Penguin drum. The penguin goes back to the fridge, and Misado was like, oh, yeah, don't mind him. That's Pen. Pen.

We love pet. Pet.

We love penpen. So he's in the tub and he's like it's nice of her to think that I'll feel better after taking a bath, but bad memories always seem to find me in the bath being alone with my thoughts.

I haven't done this in years. That's why these podcasts. Were invented.

So gendo and Ritzgo are discussing Ray, and they say only children can pilot the evas, and there's no other choice, no matter what. So that's fun and cool.

If you're wondering if what you're doing is ethical and you need children to go and commit war crimes on mass scale levels, probably not.

Maybe not. So shinji is in bed being angsty. Misatto is talking to Ritzko on the phone, and she says, I don't think he'll want to pilot again, and I don't really want to make him, but it is her job to get him back on his feet since they're living together. She's kind of like his handler.

Yeah.

Oh, when he said this in the hospital, I wonder if this is in the new dub. He said this in the hospital, and he says it again, looking up at the ceiling, he says, Another unfamiliar ceiling.

Yeah, he said that in both.

Yeah. So he wonders why he's there, but it's pretty clear it's to get in the robot.

That's all there is.

Yes, get in the robot or perish. And so it's then that we see the chaos with the eva in the first episode from the head being damaged. They couldn't do anything because they were disconnected. Like, Nerve couldn't do anything, but the robot reactivated itself and fought. So we see more big robot fight. It regenerates its left arm on its own. It breaks through the angel's force field, and it's winning the fight. It's bashing the angel in and breaking its bones. But the Angel, I guess in an effort self preservation, decides to self destruct. If you're going to kill me, I'd rather not. Let me do it myself.

Oh, you got to keep your kd ratio low.

So it blows up, but the eva comes away unharmed, and they say it's in its true form. And part of the head comes off, and they're right next to a building. And shinji turns, and he sees the reflection, and under the metal, the eva has flesh.

Oh, yum. When he walked, eyes with a cutie across the room.

And eye opens, and shinji screams.

I fucking hated this vagina eye. It bumped me up so much.

There's a lot of deep on the lids.

Yeah, just too much.

I really didn't even think of that.

I'm glad you were spared.

No, thank you. Well, you told us we're not spared now.

They're fair. I had to bring you down with me. Self destruct motherfucker.

He's the angel. There's a few times where Unit One kind of goes berserk like this, like when it's fighting, and I truly live for those moments in this shit. Like, it's just so cool and cool. Fucking love it because we see most of the time it looks like a meth head where it's got, like, the outline of a mouth. But then, you know, when it goes berserk when its mouth opens, it's like, why the fuck does a robot have teeth, and it's like, this is bad. Yeah, it's the best part.

Yeah, this part was really chilling for me.

I guess just like visceral.

Yeah, like shinji's reaction to seeing it. So after that, we see him back in bed, and Misatto stands at his door and tells him that he did something brave and noble and that he should hang in there.

So she's doing her best, champ.

And that's episode two.

No, you went through the most trauma you've ever experienced in your life within the day, but good work, motivational, pat.

On the butt, let him go again. So, yeah, we pick up in episode three, a weird concept. They're now giving him training for this mech robot. Weird. Oh, okay. Glad you finally got to this point. But going through, like, a VR simulation in the mech, just in a giant VR room.

It's a VR chat.

Yes. Going through it and get some exposition. The big plug is your umbilical cord. Without it, you can only operate the thing for five minutes at most. And then it'll just power down, and then you will die. So don't do that. Cool.

Don't die.

But yeah, in this training, we start to see shinji just go in soldier mode and just like yes, just mindlessly follow the directions. Cool. Great. So we see Misatto back in the apartment, is crawling into bed, and shinji is like, hey, I'm about to go to school. She's like, I just got home. I just got off. Goodbye. He's like, all right, I am a child. Like, breakfast. And she's like, oh, I'm good. No, I'm going to sleep, bitch.

All right, thank you.

But then he goes off to school. Cool. And Raisko calls and is like, hey. Yeah, does he how's he doing? Has he burnt out yet?

It's been three days.

Massachusetts, like, shockingly. No, he does seem very lonely, though. I did give him a cell phone because, you know, kids in the 90s, they got to have a cell phone, but weird, weird. This new kid doesn't have any friends.

I wonder how that traumatized child is having a hard time making friends.

Yeah, especially this. Seems like his, like, first day of school too.

Yeah, I think they say it's been like, three weeks, but yeah, it's yeah, it's clear he's never spoken to anyone else at school.

Yes, the interactions we see in a minute, no one knows shit about him. No one has ever seen him, so I don't know. Yeah, whatever. But yeah, so he goes to school and oh, sorry. First, the beautiful, just beautiful writing raceco. Hearing that he's not friends is like yes. Are you familiar with the hedgehog dilemma? Yes. hedgehogs, they can't get close to each other because they're too spiky, so you have to find the right distance. And being emotionally distant is actually good for you young boys watching this. Great lessons to teach the youth. Okay.

Yay.

I thought the hedgehog was dilemmas if you search your name with the word hedgehog after you.

Yes, the OC dilemma.

Dillo.

I guess. His first day of school, whatever. And we see. Just a super old teacher just doing an exposition dump.

I can help you fill in the blanks because there's a lot here that gets talked over by the students. So it's clear.

I just got lost for a second. So yeah, we get exposition. So essentially, there was another meteor striking the Earth 15 years ago. We keep hearing about what happened 15 years ago. We finally figure it out. So, yeah, meteor strikes the South Pole, melts it instantly. The sea levels rise, climate change. Do you get it? wipes out like half the Earth population and angels start showing up. Good old propaganda. Tokyo Three will save us all. And we also see some classmates as this lecture is going on, some classmates are talking about, oh, toji's out odd. Do you get hurt in the attack? Oh, we don't know what's up. So the bully comes in, and this is toji. And he's like, oh, yeah, I'm fine, but my sister got buried in that rubble. Whoever. Fucking idiot piling that dumb robot. I'm going to kick his ass. anyways, who's the new kid? So the lectures going on, and shinji just sitting there quietly trying not to get his ass beat by the person who just said he would beat his ass. Gets a strange dm in the class saying, hey, new kid, are you the pilot for him?

Are going around.

So he looks around, sees this, like, one girl in the back of the class. And he's like, oh, I can trust her. And just types back, yes. But then immediately the whole class is like, holy shit. You're a neck pilot. You're so cool. What's the name of your robot? How many kills do you have?

You're so cool.

So they just swarm him, make him so popular, teacher doesn't even realize it. Just still yammering on a model.

I like to finish.

Yeah, but we see toji sitting in the back of the class not reacting. And we cut to him beating the shit out of shinji after class.

We could have seen this coming.

But yeah, so he beats him up, and he's like, oh, you got my sister hurt, you piece of shit. And and shinji is like, I don't I don't want to do this. I have to. And toji's like, let me reconsider. Let me punch you again. Stupid idiot.

I never took that consideration.

And what is her girl's name?

Ray. Missed that.

Ray. Yeah, Ray. Also in this class, still super bandaged up, is like, hey, shinji, can I stop your beating so we can go beat up some monsters? There's an emergency call that came in. So we see a bug angel. That is just a dick.

This is shamshell.

Yeah, you did say before that freud would have a field day with this show. And so this vagina eye and penis angel.

There's so much more. Yeah, there's so much more.

If there's one thing I know about evangelion, it's parents issues.

Yes.

Also, real quick, I completely forgot when, in the last episode, the angel self destructs, the beam of light that comes out of it is just a giant cross, and it's like, hey, how thick do you need me to lay this on? Do you get the Jesus stuff going on yet? Sorry, that just came back to me. But yeah. So dick bug. Back to dick bug.

So, anyway, back to dick bug.

Perfect. I didn't have a poll, but, yeah, this comes in. The school is in their shelter, their underground. I skipped over. The eda character is just like this film kid.

His name is eda.

Was it really?

It was ida in the new dub.

Yeah, they say ida, but that's how ita is spelled.

I don't want to say it like that.

I've watched this show twice. I've never learned that character's name. I do not care about the character at all.

That's fine. But, yeah, we see that. They watch the ava. All this is happening together, so it keeps cutting back and forth. But whatever, we see ida and toji I just said I didn't want to say it like that. Damn it. ida and toji are in the shelter, and edith is like, they're not even televising this. They're on propaganda blackout. Hey, toji, you know how your sister got hurt being on the surface in the last attack? I really want to see a robot. Do you want to come with me?

Sure. I see no problem.

And then sort of guilt trips them into being like, well, you did beat the shit out of the only guy who can save us right now, so I guess you owe that to me somehow by sneaking out at this place. All right, Cool. So, yeah, the ava is launched, has a gun this time. Big old gun, big building size gun. Cool. Just starts shooting at it, sticking to his training by doing a real bad job, like he did in training Cool. But he's, like, knocking up a bunch of dirt. So he loses visual, and then it shoots him. It's mech, Battles. You can't describe it too much. I have, like, four more lines in my notes. anyways, but yeah, so he gets knocked down, because, again, not good at this. Then the bug picks him up and throws him at a mountain. And that mountain happens to be where the two boys are watching from Cool. So he lands, like, right above them. They're, like, in his crotch. Thanks, freud. And being thrown that far, he was disconnected from his tether. ah, remember that timing thing that was just introduced? Now. Cool. Great. Relevant. So he has five minutes until the suit powers down, but he can attack. He can't fight. There's children in the way. Oh, why would it can endanger children with this mech. So Misatto watching from the command center is like, hey, put them in your cockpit. It's fine. It'll be fine. Don't worry about it. So they hop in with them. Now they get to see what it's like. Oh, toji's going to learn to respect him. Cool. But then they get the order to fall back because it's only a matter of time before he powers down and all three die. But shinji, he needs to impress the bully. So he goes wild and just pulls a knife out and starts knifing the dick bug.

What a sentence.

I made the right choices in life. Well, yeah. Starts stabbing this thing. Only got a minute left. And the angel dies as time runs out. And then he starts crying. There he is. Release those feelings.

Let's get understandable.

Checks out. A couple of days later, eda and toji are back in school. But shinji is not. Is he hurt? Is he dead? No one knows. But toji feels bad and decides to call him. He has a friend in his phone now.

Yeah, he's got something to live for.

Got to get somebody in your top five.

Hey, kid. I never told you my name. This is a kid that beat the shit out of you. Just checking to see how you're doing.

I only introduced a pain and panic my face. Yeah, that's a hercules reference. One of them, I'll beat you up again.

Perfect. But yeah, that's episode three. And that's where we're going to end. Here. I get it.

Supposed to get sick out of this.

Like this show. I can tell from the art. The art is beautiful. We didn't really get into it, but just extremely cinematic. Especially for like, an older anime. Because nowadays all these newfangled kids are just cinematic equals good and prestige. And we got a little bit of that going on here where it's just a lot of moody shots and angles. You wouldn't see another anime. And good. And we see mexa fighting good. It's fun, but yeah, not really my cup of tea.

Would have never.

Yeah, unless the mechs are animal shaped, then I don't give a shit. And even then, going to 50 50.

Struggling with their day to day lives.

I've been meaning to watch this since it is such a prolific show, and I like it because I don't talk about this very much. But mysterious, like mysterious Experiment Gone awry is like one of my favorite tropes. Like your outlast your resident evil the game inside by play dead like that's literally one of my favorite indie games. And akira. I love stuff like this. I think it's really compelling, especially to see where it all comes from and how it all happens. So I think I'll probably watch more of this if I can just skip to episode 16. I would, but I probably missed too much.

Yeah, I wouldn't recommend it.

I mean, I know the twist but.

If you're already interested in it now, I think it does enough to keep your interest. But 16 was the big hook that gets to the main plot of the story.

Yeah, I just think it's so interesting, stuff like this, where it's just like, yeah, we spent a lot of time and money on this crazy man who was doing these whack experiments with children.

Oh, God.

Also, I think so, last week when we watched Children of the whales, they did a lot of telling and not very much showing, but in this, we just get dropped in the middle of it. But it's well done, so we're not, like, confused. And I think that's great. Like, literally in the first two minutes, it's like, here's an angel attack. Okay.

Yeah. Like, the backstory exposition dump that standard anime now would be in the first 2 seconds it took until episode three to get to. So, yeah, they do a lot of good explaining without explicitly just dumping it at your feet. Like, we get something big happened 15 years ago. That was the last time there was a big attack like this. But there's just enough discussion and talking around it to weird give you the information without needing to spell out every detail.

Yeah.

I will say we've had both sides of that conflict within shows we've watched, of them just force feeding it down your throat within the first five minutes of a show. And then other shows dragging out too long, where it starts piecing it together by episode, like, ten or something, where it's like, I'm already checked out by this point. Like, you lost me. So there is a middle ground of, like, you don't want to just hand the audience the nerve handout and be like, here's 100 pages of what our company does. Good luck in the first five minutes of meeting them, like masado does. But you also don't want to play the long game so long that you lose the audience's attention. Still explaining it. So, yeah, this one does a good pacing of, like, here's a little bit of intrigue. Here's the answer. Here's a little bit of intrigue. Here's an answer. Like, piecemealing it at a better pace.

Yeah. And, like, the info dump we do get is still in the background as students are like, hey, is that a good new kid? You want to make out? Or whatever.

Yeah, it's also like, I just very much appreciate any show where the nameless background characters, or just, like, filler characters aren't complete idiots. They aren't actually mannequins, where they realize, hey, this new robot showed up, and the same day this kid showed up. Wait a minute. And, like, they can actually deduce what's happening as opposed to people being like, I don't know, the kid just likes music, I guess he wears headphones a lot. He's probably a musician. No, you fucking idiot.

He's traumatized. Damn it.

He's escaping. Like, we all are. Through animal.

I like that when they find out he's the pilot, one of them is like, how did you get to do it? Like, it seems like they think it's a cool thing. Like, that's another trope I love where someone is put into a terrible position and other people look at it is if it's like this amazing thing that they're doing. One of the honor games.

Yeah. After having done this podcast with you bit for D, I realized you would probably be enjoyed or intrigued by a lot of the stuff, especially, like, the underlying narrative to a lot of stuff or theming of it. I think the mech the mech battle stuff would probably be the least interesting stuff for you, but I think everything else would probably captivate your interest.

But it doesn't even last that long, so that's nice.

Noor fight. It's not like gun to where the whole episode is the fight. It's like, no, this is brutal and quick and they're trying to murder each other. They're not going to monologue at a monster that doesn't understand them.

Like, they literally put on the restriction of, yeah, we can sustain this for, like, five minutes at most.

That's one thing that surprised me with the cord being so sensitive and being the power supply for the units. You think they project it better because almost every fight it gets cut and they're just like, time limit got to go. So it is a built in way of, like, we got to wrap this up quick. It's expensive to animate all this. We got to do this as little as possible. Let's go. So it is funny, but yeah, if you took sigmund freud and you force fed him a Bible and you said, make a mechanic, you'd get this. Like, there's so fucking much, like meta underlying narrative and clues and stuff that you could tear it apart for days and years maybe. But there's also a point where it's like, yeah, I fucking get it. Parent issues. All right, move. Like, enough. Get past it.

Listen, I hate sigmund freud, but I do love shit like this.

I am realizing they're talking about it and rematching it now gendo akari is just elon Musk without the memes. Like, he's just an absolute sociopath that should not be in power.

I can't wait for that child to this is the future.

This is what I'll have. This is what's going to happen to that kid with that weird name that I refuse to learn. But yeah, neon genesis. There's a fucking lot going on. It is a pillar of the anime of the community for a reason. It is fantastic. I did warn these two before starting up. It's pretty episodic up till the episode 16, and then the main plot kicks in full force. It's still good up till that point, but that's when I got captivated by it. So for anyone who's interested in watching the series for the first time very far after it came out. It is good. And there is stuff worth watching, but then there's the end of eva and then there's like two other movies and one of them hasn't come out yet. I think that like, pieces. There's a certain point where I just don't give a shit anymore. I'll watch the series. It's very compelling. It's very interesting and cool.

Yeah. My absolute favorite recommendation of yeah, about 8 hours or so, you'll really get hooked.

Yeah, it's hard to do that. But it is good. It does pay off. It is good. But, yeah, I definitely understand people who watch three or four episodes. I get it. But it's not for me. That's fair. This shows wild.

Yeah.

I have my own baggage to deal with, thank you very much.

But now you get the memes. Now you understand all those references.

One of my favorite background jokes in Craig of the Creek is the nerdy kids have a poster for Sad Boy pilot geton. And now I get it.

There you go.

But, yeah, what do we have going on next week that will make me a sad boy.

Next week? We are watching Tiger and bunny, which I'll preface. This is not a furry anime.

I was worried, but I was reminded.

Recently that it exists, and I've always been sort of interested in watching it. So I'm seizing the opportunity. It's my turn.

Haw.

This hasn't been on my list for a while.

You, the listener, can seize the opportunity to send us recommendations. Our email is at rwee. God, that's not it. Our email is rwebaria@gmail.com. Or you can reach out to us on Twitter or Instagram at arweevariat on both. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram at Mr. Patrick dugan and listen to other podcasts I do. There's too many at this point. You'll find.

You can find me on Instagram at honey. Period D on Twitter at honey d eight and Honey d art. Or you can find me on twitch at Honey underscore D. And Honey is spelled H-U-N-N-I-E. Find me on Twitter.

A bts, Brendan. Really not a lot going on there. I don't recommend my handle or Twitter in general, but it stands for Almost Better Than Silence, which is a video game podcast I also do and maybe don't recommend. But you can also find me playing Knockout City just endlessly because that's my new addiction.

Thank you to camille ruley for our artwork. And thank you to Louis zong for our theme song stories. You can find all of louie's music at Louisong bandcamp.com. Thank you, and we hope you'll join us next week as we learn to live with anime.

Get in the robot, Fraser, or else niles will have to do it again.