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duhragonball · 14 days

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Neon Genesis Evangelion 04

"We have to use fourteen-year-olds to pilot the Evas. And we have to make rainbow scans of their skinny little butts! The future of mankind depends on it!"

This episode, Shinji runs away from home. Or maybe he's going back to wherever he lived before he came to Tokyo-3, so he's running away to home? He's running away is the point here.

Misato isn't very surprised to discover this, but she's still frustrated. Then Shinji's classmates, Suzuhara and the other guy... I was gonna look him up but I looked up Suzuhara and just got spoiled so fuck that. We're calling him Big Rigg Mahoney now. Yeah, Suzuhara's taller, but I don't care. We're going with it.

Anyway, Suzuhara and Big Rigg Mahoney show up at Misato's apartment because they haven't seen Shinji at school for days. Suzuhara wants to apologize for punching Shinji in Episode 3. He only did it because he blamed Shinji for fighting the Angel so close to the city, which got his sister hospitalized, but his sister chewed him out for this, and he and Big Rigg Mahoney got a first-hand look at what it's like for Shinji when he's piloting that Eva. That's his motivation, Big Rigg Mahoney's mostly involved because he likes war movies and likes playing soldier, and he's fascinated by the Evas, NERV Agency, etc.

They did not expect a grown woman to be living in Shinji's apartment, so they hand her his assignments from school and leave, but now they think Shinji is even cooler, because he's a badass pilot and he's living with a hot babe.

Let me get this out of the way: I did find this episode much more enjoyable than the last one. I had a good feeling about it, since the next-episode preview promised that Shinji would run away, which was encouraging because at least Shinji would have to make a conscious decision and act upon it, like some sort of fictional character might do. But then it occurred to me that maybe Suzuhara and Big Rigg Mahoney might have kidnapped Shinji and told him to run away, in a misguided attempt to help him. And Shinji would be like "hai!" and go AWOL simply because someone told him to. That would suck, so when these two show up early in the episode and they have no idea where he went either, it was very reassuring.

Not that it's too much of a change for Shinji. He's off on his own, but he's still mopey and dead inside. He rides the subway all the way to the end of the line, listening to his playlist of "Track 25" and "Track 26" over and over again the whole way. Then he realizes he has to "go back". I'm not sure what that means, but I assume he's talking about going back to Tokyo-3, since he doesn't seem to have a destination in mind. And yet, he's in no hurry, stopping off at a movie theater that's running some sort of film festival of Second Impact documentaries.

He watches a couple making out in the theater. I don't know if he's envious or fascinated or disgusted, or he just doesn't know what else to do.

Meanwhile, Misato discusses Shinji's disappearance with Ritsuko. We flash back to the aftermath of the battle in Episode 3. Misato had ordered Shinji to retreat before his Eva ran out of power, but Shinji went gonzo and killed the Angel instead. She scolded him for ignoring her orders, but he acted cavalier about it, reminding her that they won, so it doesn't really matter. She warned him that his attitude will only get him killed, and he replied that his attitude doesn't matter, because he's the only one who can pilot the Eva. It's either Shinji or Rei (who's still injured), or nobody, so they might as well let Shinji fuck around and find out. If he gets himself killed they're no worse off than if he doesn't pilot the Eva at all.

In hindsight, Misato is kind of relieved he's gone, because at least this way he won't bring this fatalistic mentality onto the battlefield. The disconnect here is that she's some sort of career soldier, with loyalties and duties and causes to respect. Shinji got drafted last month, and he doesn't want to do this and he's only participating because he's the indispensible man. But Shinji hates himself, so if he gets killed through incompetence, it's no better or worse than winning every battle, or abandoning his post. It's all the same to him, he's got nothing to gain or lose here.

Meanwhile, Shinji happens upon Big Rigg Mahoney, who's playing soldier out in the middle of nowhere. He's got a uniform and a tent and everything. When he spots Shinji he invites him over for whatever he's cooking, and they hang out. See, this is nice. Shinji took matters into his own hands, and now he's hanging out with his friend, Big Rigg Mahoney.

Finally, a bunch of goons from NERV show up and take Shinji into custody. The next day, Suzuhara is upset to hear the Big Rigg Mahoney let them take Shinji without a fight, but come on, man. Big Rigg Mahoney didn't get this far in life without learning to know when to fight and when to take it easy.

Back at the base, Shinji expects Misato to scold him, but she doesn't. She just asks him if he enjoyed his time away, and he says he doesn't know. Classic Shinji. They continue their argument from before. He doesn't want to pilot the Eva because he sucks at it and it's scary and painful, but he doesn't think it's right to leave it all up to Rei and the others. Misato tells him that has nothing to do with it. If he's only forcing himself to go along with this, then he'll never be in the right mindset to do any good as an Eva pilot. Better if he just calls it quits now and forgets he ever got involved.

Meanwhile, Shinji's dad could not give a shit less whether Shinji leaves or not. He's already figuring out what to do when he's gone. If Shinji won't pilot Eva Unit 01, then they'll just reconfigure it for Rei. Apparently that's a thing they can do now. I thought each pilot had their own specific Eva Unit they were bonded to, but I guess not. According to this conversation, Rei was injured while piloting Unit 00, but it wasn't in combat. They were just running experiments on Unit 00 to get it working, and there must have been an accident.

So some of this is becoming clearer. We still don't know why only certain teenagers can pilot the Evas, but we do know that there are others besides Rei and Shinji. They just haven't located very many candidates, so it's not like Shinji is completely irreplaceable. And Rei is recovering, so there's that. And Shinji can resign whenever he wants. He only got arrested last night because he left without resigning. Today, he's decided to go through with it, and NERV doesn't seem sorry to see him go. Shinji asks if he can say farewell to Misato, but they're like "You quit, so you're not authorized to see her." At this point all NERV cares about is escorting him off their base.

Suzuhara and Big Rigg Mahoney do show up to see him off, though. Suzuhara finally apologizes to Shinji for punching him, and insists that Shinji punch him back to restore his honor. Shinji reluctantly agrees, and at first he kind of holds back, but then Suzuhara tells him to hit like he means it, and he does. See, this is nice.

Shinji apologizes for leaving Tokyo-3 in a lurch, but the boys are used to classmates moving out, and they know how hard it is for Shinji to pilot the Eva, so they don't blame him for quitting. Suzuhara promises to beat up anyone who doesn't respect Shinji's decision to leave.

Finally the NERV goons decide it's time for him to go to the train station, but he pulls away just long enough to tell Suzuhara and Big Rigg Mahoney that he has been cowardly and weak after all. It's like he's having second thoughts about the whole thing.

Back at the base, Misato mulls the whole thing over, and it finally hits her that this is how Shinji expresses his feelings. He runs away and waits for someone to care that he's gone. Realizing this, she rushes to the train station to see him, but she sees the train pull out just as she arrives. For a second she thinks she was too late, but then when the train is gone...

They see each other on either side of the tracks. Shinji couldn't go through with leaving, I suppose because Suzuhara and Big Rigg Mahoney were enough to make him question his decision. But now he looks up and sees Misato cared about him too, and that puts him over the hump.

Then Shinji declares that he's home, and Misato replies "Welcome home." And that's a beautiful moment. Everything kind of came together. Now I'm starting to see what the fuss is about here.

I stand by my criticism of Episode 3, though. I don't think they needed four episodes of this show to get to this moment. Two episodes, maybe. They could have ditched all those scenes of Shinji staring at Misato's beer cans in Episode 2, and trimmed a lot of fat from Episode 3. Suzuhara could have found out about Shinji being an Eva pilot some other way before the episode started, instead of that long scene in the classroom.

Still, we're here. Shinji has decided that he actually cares about Tokyo-3 and its people, and he wants to pilot the Eva to protect his home, not just because someone else told him to do it. We'll see how well that goes, but it's a big step forward.

Also, the next episode preview shows Rei looking healthy and doing things, so that seems like a big improvement too. Everything's coming up Milhouse!

#neon genesis evangelion #shinji ikara #toji suzuhara #misato katsuragi #gendo ikara #ritsuko akagi #rei ayanami #big rigg mahoney #don't tell me what his real name is it's too late for that #his name's big rigg mahoney now and forever

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