Twenty-Six
Before we go on, I want to take a moment to appreciate the silences in Neon Genesis Evangelion, or, perhaps more accurately, the almost silences. There are countless instances throughout the series where the camera lingers on a character lost in thought or slowly, methodically drifts over a set to allow us time to soak everything in.
No one speaks.
No music plays in the background.
Cicadas chirp in the distance, a cassette player whirrs as it rewinds, and a train rattles when it crosses a track. These small noises, noises that we would almost certainly ignore under normal circumstances, make the silence that much more resounding and impactful.
Designed by Hideyuki Tanaka, this silence serves two different purposes. The first is that it allows the characters time to reflect and react to what they’ve experienced. We’re at that point in the series where NERV confronts a new Angel in almost every episode, and watching them in quick succession can be exhausting. These long silent stretches give us a moment to breathe before the next launch, keep the characters and the viewer from being overwhelmed. When that silence gets interrupted, each stomp of an Eva unit, each attack by the Angels, every piece of collateral destruction feels louder and more brutal.
But Tanaka’s silence is not designed to be reflective or calming. It’s not an unwinding, decompressing quiet ASMR track. He creates the same kind of silence you experience after a catastrophic event, that post-apocalyptic silence when it sounds like life, the activity of the city have been sucked into a vacuum. There are no cars revving. Air conditioner units don’t hum in a constant strain to combat the heat. The noise pollution from a thousand people walking down the street is absent. It’s hollow and still and nervous, a constant reminder of the turmoil and destruction this world has endured.
There’s a moment in “In the Still Darkness,” when Asuka, essentially the only character not quiet, makes an offhand remark about the people of the Second Impact generation, of how they grew up with shortages and in despair. (By the way, the Second Impact generation are the equivalent of millennials. I learned Misato was born the same year as me.) They’re constantly braced for more turmoil. Their lives are in a perpetually terrified state that the end of the world is coming again.
I know Evangelion can be a polarizing show. Often the texts that bare their souls or go for broke end up alienating a not insignificant portion of their viewership. It could go too far or fall up its own ass with meaning or just exist on a wavelength other people cannot find. Yet, among the complaints I’ve seen lobbed against Eva, and never understood, is that the show is slow and boring. That it never goes anywhere. That it’s too slow.
Sure, for a show were giant bio-mecha robots piloted by teenagers on the brink of an emotion and psychological breakdown battle Gnostic-themed extraterrestrial entities, Evangelion is all too happy to take its time. But that patience, that acknowledgment of trauma, that weight of cataclysmic history, that fear, all carried within those long silences, are what give Evangelion its power.
Twenty-Seven
Without a doubt, “A Cruel Angel’s Thesis” ranks among the most recognizable, most famous, and most cited opening themes in anime. A J-pop retro funk throwback, the song fuckin slaps, with its fast tempo and decorative brass section. No wonder it’s such a function of karaoke performances.
We could talk about how the song in no way sets up the mood of Neon Genesis Evangelion, although the conflicting tones of an upbeat pop number, with its call to actions lyrics sung by Yoko Takahashi, and a depression-fueled psychological dive into the apocalypse are all oh so Eva. Or we could talk about how Hideaki Anno wanted to use a piece of symphonic music for the opening theme and despite how the producers gave him full creative control of Evangelion, they intervened here. Or we could talk about how the song has spread through the culture and become ubiquitous with anime, that it may be responsible for the trend of the theme music not matching the production. Or we could even break down the notes and chord progressions and figure out how the song matches the show’s mood, actually.
Continued belowBut you already know all that.
Instead, I want to look at the sad story of Neko Oikawa, who wrote the lyrics for “A Cruel Angel’s Thesis,” and how she was scammed out of almost her entire fortune.
Neko Oikawa never thought the Evangelion job would have such an impact on her. The assignment came from the show’s producers who needed something to market the show. She skimmed the proposal and watched the unfinished first two episodes. She put the lyrics together in two hours.
After the show found success, Oikawa also found herself flush with royalty checks. “A Cruel Angel’s Thesis” climbed the Japanese charts and Oikawa discovered she suddenly had the opportunity to travel. “I was so detached from my regular life in Japan,” she said in an interview with Geki Rare-son wo Tsuretekia, which I’ve sourced through Anime News Network for this story. “So I thought I’d try out a different meal.”
Oikawa ended up in Turkey, where she met a young man almost 20 years younger than her. They didn’t speak the same language and had no real ability to communicate. She dismissed him as a child. Yet Neko Oikawa liked Turkey and made subsequent visits. It was during one of those later visits the young man confessed he was in love with her, that he couldn’t stop thinking about her.
“He was an interesting guy,” Oikawa said.
So they started a long distance relationship. Late night phone calls. The usual love letters strained by the language gap. The young man wanted to see Oikawa more often, but, due to her work, it was rare she could often get away. Therefore, Oikawa invited the young man to come to her in Japan. She fronted the fee for his passport, almost six hundred thousand yen, or, more or less $6000.
Soon, they constantly traveled back and forth between Turkey and Japan. Oikawa paid for more of the young man’s bills, on behalf of his shop, on behalf of his family. Her friends tried to take her to the side and warn her the boy was no good. She shrugged them off and said, “Even if I am being scammed, all I’m losing in money.”
They eventually got married. The young man moved to Japan and started making more financial demands on her. Oikawa founded business pursuits, most of which amounted to nothing. She bough him fancy cars and big houses and inadvertently gifts for the girlfriends he accumulated. Oikawa did see these demands were getting ridiculous, but by that time, they had gone so far and she had already spent so much, she had no idea how to get out.
The young man got it into his head that he wanted to build a hotel in Turkey, in a cave. This project would cost around 74 million yen, or $74,000. This on top of the cumulative 10 million yen she had already spent. Like always, Oikawa handed him the money. Before construction could begin, the young man asked Oikawa for a divorce. She was left with hardly any money in her account, waiting for the next batch of royalty checks to clear.
“He seemed to be under the impression that I would keep helping him,” Oikawa said. “But after we divorced, his problems weren’t my business. When I told him so, he called me a traitor.”
The whole ordeal chipped away at her finances and quality of life, but she got out and she started to rebuild.
Oikawa claims her ex-husband still calls from time to time to ask for more money. She shrugs it off. “He’s a vain sort of person who only gets happy when people make a fuss over him,” she says.
To this day, Neko Oikawa claims she hasn’t watched Evangelion in its entirety. “A Cruel Angel’s Thesis” was a job for her, one she moved on from years previously, one that helped her, hindered her, and brought her from the brink.
Twenty-Eight
At his loneliest moment, Shinji uses his tape player to shut himself off from the rest of the world. When he needs a moment alone, he plugs in his headphones and vibes. If things are getting particularly overwhelming, he stretches out across the floor and goes back and forth between tracks 25 and 25 on his cassette player.
Continued belowIf you listen close enough, you can just make out, through the tinny audio leakage spilling from those undoubtedly cheap earbuds, J-pop songs. They’re taken from the Ys series, tracks like “Blue Legend,” “Distant Family Promise,” and “You Are the Only One.” They’re upbeat and loud, like they’re the only things that can drown out the constant pressure, both internal and external, Shinji faces.
(I’ve seen a theory that suggests the series is a sort of reflection from Shinji during Instrumentality. Or, that those two tracks are foreshadowing the final two episodes of the series. Both of these are kind of a stretch and I haven’t found anything in the text to support them.)
Until End of Evangelion, when Arianne’s “Komm, süsser Tod” plays out over Instrumentality, these are the only instances of pop music on the Evangelion soundtrack. The fact they’re taken from a video game series only underscores how much these characters, how Anno and company themselves, rely on pop culture to understand the world around them.
Shinji plays these songs loud, to wash away the rest of the world he’s thrown into. The music doesn’t help him understand or quantify his experiences so much as help him ignore them.
Which is probably why we do get the upbeat “Komm, süsser Tod” during Third Impact. I realize I’m jumping far ahead here, so consider this End of Evangelion spoilers.
“Komm, süsser Tod” takes Shinji’s perspective during Instrumentality, almost a movie musical moment where the emotions are so big they can’t be expressed in mere words. Shinji reflects on all his disappointments, all his failures, and all that has gone wrong in his life, for which he blames himself while the world explodes.
One of the many themes Evangelion addresses is the search for definition beyond popular culture, to be able to find purpose and meaning and identity not only through a piece of media, but also the wider environment. Pop culture shouldn’t define us but should be one aspect of the greater part of ourselves in this world. We, like Shinji, may have to filter our experiences and traumas through something recognizable in order to more forward. In Shinji’s case, it might be a song. For others, it could be a wild and winding emotionally wrecked ’90s anime series.
They are there to help us but we have to get to that final understanding and self-acceptance on our own.
Twenty-Nine
For the most part, Shinji listens to muffled J-pop. He may play the cell on the side, and get through a Bach suite with workman like competency, but he listens to J-pop. That all changes near the end of the series when he meets Kaworu Nagisa. Before everything blows up in Shinji’s face, before the final revelations are made, before some of the last secrets are brought out into the open, Kaworu and Shinji share a moment around Beethoven.
Kaworu tells Shinji that Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” the final movement of the Ninth Symphony, is the pinnacle of human expression. Later that night, Shinji switches up the music on his SDAT player, interested in relating to this brand new person. Of course, “Ode to Joy” plays out far differently near the end of Evangelion, turning into the soundtrack of pandemonium, a last cry of humanity set to Alexander Rahbiri conducting the BRTN Philharmonic of Brussels.
As we enter the back half of the series, classical, for lack of a better term, pieces become more prevalent on the soundtrack. It’s easy to argue this is due to the imminent production and budget issues looming over Eva, the imposing schedule and the creators’ gradual descent into despair, but I think they would have thrown in random Shirō Sagisu stings if that were the case. The symphonic pieces serve as a shorthand, a way for Neon Genesis Evangelion to acknowledge its past, the broader culture; to connect the characters with hundreds of years of context.
Certainly, Anno and the rest of the creators are aware of how “classical” music oscillates between the highest culture — sophisticated, pristine, artful — and the absurd. But only something that has endured for so long can transcend its original context and exist within both the ridiculous and profound. There’s a timelessness to the medium, a recognizability.
Continued belowIf Shinji attempts to lose himself in J-pop, he makes a step for connections with the “Ode.” His SDAT player is a world he has personally crafted, a world he wants to wallow in. The “classical” pieces blow that open, even if it’s painful, even if allowing other people and other conservations and other perspectives in is painful.
The characters are starting to transcend and evolve. We are not static beings. The ability to change makes us human and these enormous expressions of the human condition that have existed before us can also be the catalyst for progression.
(As a sidenote, this video was instrumental in helping me organize my thoughts for this section.)
Thirty
All told, there are 32 different versions of “Fly Me to the Moon” in Evangelion. Each episode has its own unique rendition of the song, some performed by Claire Littey, some performed by Yoko Takahashi, and some by the Japanese character actors. This one features a bossa nova beat, that one’s just a solo piano, and that one utilizes the entire orchestra. Thirty-two unique versions of the song and not a one of them has been included in the North American Netflix translation.
“Fly Me to the Moon” was originally written in 1954 by Bart Howard. Felicia Sanders performed it in cabarets, theaters, and the movies, though Kaye Ballard made the first recording. It was already a popular song, but when Frank Sinatra recorded his version of it and tied it into the space race in the ’60s, it launched into the stratosphere. There have been some 300 versions of “Fly Me to the Moon” recorded.
I’ve seen arguments that claim the song is intrinsic to understanding Eva. That the singer’s expression of a joy and love so powerful it throws them into orbit is basically what every character is looking for. Certainly, “Fly Me to the Moon” is a song obvious enough and famous enough that Anno and company wanted you to notice its usage. Like with the symphonic pieces, “Fly Me to the Moon” puts us in the broader culture, adds to a longstanding conversation.
However, I don’t think its exclusion from the Netflix version makes for a true impediment. After all, Evangelion is not the only show they changed music for. The licensing may have gotten tricky. The company may have gotten cheap. Still, Shirō Sagisu’s score carries the same emotion and meaning, especially because it’s tied to Rei’s themes. It doesn’t make the material any less sad. Instead of a pining I want that “Fly Me to the Moon” implies, we’re given a more somber, this is what you get.
Which feels like the same attitude the Netflix executives had when they posted this.
