Evangelion 01:02 Television 

Five Thoughts on Neon Genesis Evangelion’s “Angel Attack” and “Unfamiliar Ceilings”

By | June 13th, 2021
Posted in Television | % Comments

NOTE: this is not the first time I’ve watched Evangelion. It’s a show that rewards multiple viewings, whose ambitions becomes clearer after the whole thing has been laid out. I will try to keep spoilers relegated to the episodes we’re discussing, but that might get pushed aside if I need more context. So, beware of heavy spoilers for these inaugural episodes and potential soft spoilers for the entire series.

ONE

From under the sea, the Angel Sachiel approaches, a hulking monstrosity with wide shoulders, long limbs, and a face that looks like a bird skull, its beak stretching down its chest in a curved blade. A red core sits in the center of its breast, a throbbing orb protected by its rib cage. This is the 3rd Angel, the Angel of Water, the Price of God, and its appearance, we’re told through a communication barrage, marks the first Angel attack in 15 years. Quickly, the military attacks it, with tanks, with missiles, with their heaviest artillery, but it has little impact on the approaching Angel. Finally, out of options, NERV, the organization specifically built to confront Angels and avoid a Third Impact, is activated and Neon Genesis Evangelion begins.

In an article for Goop, the filmmaker Wes Anderson listed Hideaki Anno’s 1995 anime series, Neon Genesis Evangelion, as among his favorite movies. (He also later named the concluding chapter, End of Evangelion, as one of the all time greatest animated features.) “This is a Japanese cartoon that is very difficult to describe and it might not sound that great if I tried anyway,” he said. “You . . . want to believe it’s real. This could spawn something like Scientology.”

Indeed, Evangelion is a show that roots into the viewer. It’s simultaneously earnest and full of itself, intense and meandering. It’s filled with incredible visuals and aggravating characters, constantly teeters between hysterical mayhem and nerve-wracking tension, leaving you breathless, in shock. It’s a search for meaning, for relief from mental illness, turning to philosophy, religion, and anime in order to make sense of the world and find some comfort in it as it ends. It’s wild and unpredictable, sprawling and unforgiving, frustrating and inspiring, and it feels like it has this explanation for life.

Taken together, “Angel Attack” and “Unfamiliar Ceilings” serve as a crash course for the series, an introduction of Eva‘s quirks and flourishes. Hideaki Anno throws us immediately into the deep end, bombarding us with information: references to the Human Instrumentality Project, the Evangelions and their pilots, the Second Impact, Adam and Lilith, and A.T. Fields. There’s a confidence in the filmmaking and the animation. Anno and his team at Gainax are aware we have no idea what’s going on, but they deliver these opening moments with such assurance and tenacity, we are immediately wrapped up in this world despite it all.

TWO

Evangelion is a story that could only be told through animation. We’re talking ’90s cel animation, hundreds of thousands of hand drawn images, filled with the shortcuts and eccentricities and imperfections that give this story life. “Angel Attack” and “Unfamiliar Ceilings” teach us what it’s going to be like to watch this show, from the long, protracted shots of the city poised to strike to the quick abrupt and brutal battle sequences to characters locked in interpersonal turmoil.

Anno and his team show a true sense of spectacle, in moments both quiet and loud. Take the shot where Sachiel catches the missile: the missile shreds in its hand, splintering like shaved wood, before exploding. Or the scene where Shinji, Misato, and Ritsuko descend Central Dogma into Unit-01’s cage, the scene backlit in vibrant purples and magentas, an enormous hand looming over them. Or the moment when Unit-01 goes berserk and charges the Angel. It’s this sense of scale and proportions, where characters are continually shown how small they are in comparison with these giant beasts.

This same sense of staging and blocking carries through to the quieter sequences, too. Characters rarely move when they’re speaking, so Anno relies on compositional tricks to give us their power dynamics, to deliver their subtext. Consider the part where Gendo Ikari tells Shinji, broadcast in a dozen television screens behind him, to get into the damn robot. Or when the Council issues their briefings, the frame packed with their faces, layered over each other, unflinching and unwilling to deviate from their plan.

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It’s not all just for the spectacle, either. Anno spends as much energy delivering a joke. The beer can gag remains golden. Misato’s unhinged behavior in her apartment is goofy, almost like it’s making fun of the idea of fan service while still very much being a piece of fan service.

Evangelion is filled with this back and forth between moods, all at once horrifying and funny, deeply sad and truly inspiring, mundane and astonishing. We get a taste of all that in “Angel Attack” and “Unfamiliar Ceilings,” an easing into this show’s life force. So many of the images we’ve seen here would later be replicated throughout other texts, but without the balance, without the weirdness, without the context, they’ve never had the same impact.

THREE

The majority of Neon Genesis Evangelion takes place in Tokyo-3, a city that’s survived one apocalypse and constantly braced for the next one. It’s a fortress, built to protect the NERV headquarters and all its secrets in the subterranean GeoFront. Shelters and evacuation centers are spread throughout. The city towers lower underground when under attack. Cicadas chirp in the background, a pulsating noise that only enhances the overwhelming emptiness

This is a city without personality. Even at its busiest moments, the streets are barren, the stores sparsely populated. What few people who remain are almost all involved in NERV’s operations, and those who are not move away, as if distance would give them any protection against the Angel onslaught. The apartment buildings are these monotone concrete complexes, Misato’s the only one with any sort of indication someone lives there.

The only moment Tokyo-3 seems alive, shows any sort of personality, comes when the towers rise from their underground hiding place. It’s this moment that’s shown as awe-inspiring, Shirō Sagisu’s underscore reverent and captivated.

NERV headquarters, however, is a bustling mess of a command center. It’s a labyrinthine complex, with endless hallways, secret rooms, and spiraling tunnels. It hosts a massive computer system that powers the city and the two Eva Units contained within. Gendo Ikari oversees every operation from his control tower, and the massive computer system makes it seem unlikely anything can escape his notice. This is a place so large and imposing, even a seasoned employee like Misato Katsuragi can still easily get lost. Of course, this convince allows Anno and the Gainax crew to unfold the NERV headquarters before us, to introduce us to sets — the elevator, the escalator, the Eva cages, etc. — that will play major roles in the story ahead.

FOUR

On some level or another, every character in Evangelion is lonely, depressed, overstimulated, horny, and caught in a rut. Shinji Ikari, our main protagonist, the 14-year-old son of NERV commander, Gendo Ikari, sits at the forefront of everything. He’s been separated from his father for three years, living with a tutor. He does his best to disappear into the background, doesn’t like attention put on himself, and sees nothing about himself worth maintaining. While it’s entirely vocalized in “Angel Attack” and “Unfamiliar Ceilings,” we see his depression manifest in crippling ways that prevent him from looking at his father to rejecting the request to pilot the Eva unit. It’s not until he sees Rei, damaged, beaten up, physical incapacitated, totally prepared to pilot Unit-01, does he finally agree to strap in.

The first episode is everyone trying to convince Shinji to get into the damn robot. And then the rest of the series is also them trying to convince Shinji to get into the damn robot.

And while Shinji’s depression might be the most outwardly recognizable, Anno and crew provide manifestation with Misato Katsuragi. A NERV captain, she’s skilled and capable at guiding the Evas, but her home life is a mess. Her diet consists almost exclusively of instant noodles and beer. She says she hasn’t lived in her apartment long but it also looks like she hasn’t unpacked anything, either. On one hand, all her relationships are superficial and distant, but she also doesn’t seem able to function in her own head. She’s constantly on the phone, stays way too late at the office, and lacks care for her own well-being. She has Shinji move in with her to not have to live alone. The only time in either of these opening episodes she says something honest about herself, is an off-hand mention that her father, like Shinji’s, was a high-ranking individual, never around and rarely showing concern for everyone else. Misato’s boisterous and exuberant, but that’s a mask for her, which Shinji can feel even if he doesn’t necessarily understand.

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Director Gendo Ikari, Dr. Ritsuko Akagi, Sub-Commander Kozo Fuyutsuki, and the Human Instrumentality Committee also make appearances, where they say cryptic things that only make sense once you’ve experienced the whole series, and put into motion events that make the engine for the entire series. With Director Ikari and Dr. Akagi, especially, we get a sense of their position and relationship with the people around them, but their deep flaws and motivations won’t be revealed till much later.

And then there’s Rei. The first time Anno shows her, she’s being brought out on a gurney, wrapped in bandages, barely able to move, called in to pilot Unit-01 after Shinji’s initial refusal. She doesn’t say a word but we immediately get a sense of her alienation, her devotion to the mission, and what she’s willing to subject herself to on behalf of Gendo Ikari. Already there’s an unnerving quality about her, in her blank stare, in how she seemingly fails to register anything that’s going on around her. Like the Evas, she only moves when she’s activated.

Last but not least, there’s Evangelion Unit-01. It doesn’t take Anno and his crew long to tell us this is a living creature, an enormous augmented cyborg, a mecha, sure, purple and green, but one with organic elements. Nominally under NERV’s control, it operates of its own volition several times throughout “Angel Attack” and “Unfamiliar Ceilings,” often to protect Shinji. We see flashes of it, the aforementioned hand, its heart core, and, in an unnerving shot near the end, its eye, as it turns to get a look at Shinji. There’s an immediate connection between them the command center fails to understand, but only becomes more clear as the show progresses.

FIVE

Before we close out, there’s a technical thing I want to talk about. For this series, I’m watching the Netflix dub. (For what it’s worth, the first time I watched the series, it was in Japanese.) While there’s a lot of controversy around this version, namely in how it tries to erase any queer readings that might have popped up in the original script, though I think some of that makes this show feel even gayer, there’s no question that it’s currently the most accessible version of Evangelion. Of course, this is a series whose inaccessibility has as much notoriety as the show itself.

The other thing about it though: I think the performances in the Netflix dub are stronger than the ADV release, especially when it comes to Shinji Ikari. It’s awkward hearing Spike Spencer, voice pitched high and sped up like he’s auditioning for a new slot with the Chipmunks, delivering these soul-crippling lines. (This is honestly one of the reasons I’ve had a difficult time making it through the Rebuild of Evangelion movie series.) There’s no question the Japanese cast deliver stronger, more nuanced performances, but I also think there’s an authenticity in Casey Mangillo’s delivery. The direction is more consistent and the resources Netflix are able to throw at this project are far more substantial than ADV could do in the early days of anime dubbing. Though really, ADV ought to have cast a woman to voice our teenage hero.

Neon Genesis Evangelion is a beast of a series. It’s impact is huge and it’s so easy to get overwhelmed and buried in everything it provides forth. In all honesty, it’s surprising a religion or cult hasn’t spawned from this, or at least a religion or cult that exists on a more recognized scale.

In short, Neon Genesis Evangelion is the blue wind that knocks on the door of your heart.


//TAGS | 2021 Summer TV Binge | neon genesis evangelion

Matthew Garcia

Matt hails from Colorado. He can be found on Twitter as @MattSG.

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