Below is the original script for my video discussing Neon Genesis Evangelion’s editing and presentation throughout its first act, titled “Analyzing Evangelion’s Perfect First Act,” at the time of recording. This was a sequel to my previous video on the subject, “What IS Evangelion, Technically?“

Analyzing Evangelion’s Perfect First Act

You know, beginnings are a funny thing. Every story has to start, even if it doesn’t end. And how it starts always leaves an impression on us, one that’s often utilized or occasionally abused by the storytellers we listen to. Some start off slow, ramping up as we hurdle to conclusion; others drop us in the midst of action, convince us an ending might be closer than we think.

And others, somehow, manage to do both at once.

Analyzing Evangelion’s Perfect First Act

Disclaimer, before we begin. I’ve said before and I’ll say again: Evangelion is a show about a lot of things, and as much as I want to deep dive into every frame, it’s important to remember this series is notorious for its over-analysis. I mean this is the show featuring cross shapes people speculated on for twelve years. Twelve years, before director Kazuya Tsurumaki said in an interview they were included because, and I quote, they “look cool.”

Nevertheless, there’s more than enough intended messaging to dig into, [from screen direction to color use to shot composition and even how they use telephones,] so without further ado, let’s get involved.

Act I: Involvement

Act I of Evangelion can be broken into three chapters over the course of four episodes, the first of which we see in Angel Attack and The Beast. Or, if you’re translating directly from Japanese, Apostle Approach and An Unfamiliar Ceiling. The thing about these two episodes is…well, let’s just get into it.

Chapter 1: Episode 1: Apostle Approach

Eight years ago—wait is that right? I…yeah, okay, no yeah, cool. Eight years ago. It’s 2015, or twenty years in the future, if you wanna think of it that way. A quick helicopter shot over the speeding water, and we see buildings in the ocean, clearly a city drowned by calamity, with something otherworldly, an Angel, swimming toward us. There’s nothing fancy here, just effective establishing shots giving us a time, area, and sense of urgency as we’re in medias res.

Following the shot of the Angel, Sachiel, flowing towards us from the top to the bottom of the frame, we get these shots, with the Angel propelling itself from the right to the left. Screen direction is a huge consideration throughout the series as a whole. The top of frame is traditionally considered the background, the bottom foreground, so we know this thing is coming towards us. How should we feel about that? Well, we know in the very next shots, because while moving left to right typically signifies progression and positivity, moving right to left conveys the opposite, a sense of negativity, regression, wrongness. Whatever this thing is, it’s not good.

A 2012 paper from Cleveland State University proved consistency in audience perception (thank you to Now You See It for making a video on this), and it doesn’t take more than thirty seconds before we see this used again, this time on main character Shinji Ikari.

Let’s back up real quick, because the established space between our introductory Angel and best boy Ikari is weird at best, and that’s on purpose. After we see the Angel (and the military force awaiting its surfacing), this next shot of the drowned city pans right to left, from ocean to land, and on that land, we see who I assume is Shinji.

I gotta say I love the framing here: Shinji so far away he’s barely even recognizable, and he’s moving, again, right to left. If we line these shots up spatially, the way we’re to understand them, we see not only is Shinji running out of frame and away from Sachiel, he’s not technically in frame to begin with. Shinji isn’t just to the left, he’s to the ultra-left, so far from the Angel no one should even notice him. And yet, we do, watching him run away for the very first (and unfortunately not the last) time.

We get two more establishing shots, this time panning to the right, before we see Misato Katsuragi as she patrols the empty city, moving—you guessed it, we’re three-for-three here—right to left. Because the previous shot panned the other direction, however, left to right, we know Misato is between the Angel and Shinji, and she’s chasing after him.

So to recap, we’re not even one minute into the show, and we’ve established our main character is running from the monster behind him while his guardian, pursuing him, also stands between Shinji and what he fears.

Impressed yet? Yeah, me neither.

Our first real line of dialogue is Misato saying she’s gotta find “him”, a statement punctuated by a shot of the GPS, and the “him” is revealed by the school photo which turns into a match cut, bringing us back to Shinji, and introducing him properly as he tries and fails to reach anyone by pay phone. In these four consecutive shots, we’re shown our two primary characters, one neglecting her phone while searching for what she lost, the other unable to connect to her or anyone else.

Subtly has left the room.

Turning from the pay phone, Shinji sees Rei Ayanami in her school uniform across the street, and just like that, the show decides to ask questions we might never get answers to—but we’ll come back to that.

[By the way, while writing this video, subscriber Samuel Gaspar directed me to a fantastic video from Ryan Storm fully breaking down the editing of this first episode, so if you want more on that front, please go watch that video. It’s incredible. Anyway—!]

Cue some fantasy action and a daring escape from Atami, and the episode outlines its two plot threads: Shinji and Misato with their comical meeting and interactions on the way to NERV, and the serious exploits of NERV itself as Gendo Ikari takes control of the situation. [Throughout the series, contradicting mood like this is used to strengthen the impact of what we’re experiencing. Here, the comedy of Misato and Shinji—and yes, it is comedy, I mean look at these shots—grants levity and instant entertainment, while Gendo and NERV are the serious notes preparing us for an emotional beat drop. This episode manages to be neither comedy or drama, but both at once.] As the two threads draw closer to merging, Shinji and Misato have their first genuine discussion, and we see Shinji’s paternal conflict, punctuated with red light (we’ll come back to that, too). If Shinji’s face tensing up and his flashback to abandonment wasn’t enough, the request letter he forwards to Misato tells us everything we need to know.

The letter’s been torn up and retaped, red ink scribbled over Gendo’s handwritten words, a visual representation of Shinji’s fury and disdain towards his father. Again, though, there’s more here than first meets the eye. The mass blacking out of the typeface across the page indicates this was a formal letter with redacted information, and my guess is this is a page of the Marduk Institute’s assessment of Shinji, which Gendo probably blacked out since it’s considered top secret information. If that’s true, however, Gendo’s redaction also hides from Shinji his capability for piloting: our first example of the father’s mission interfering with his son’s life. Regardless of whatever this page was, Shinji saw fit to repair it and report to Gendo, signaling his first steps to repairing that relationship.

Need more literal character introductions? Don’t worry! Doctor Ritsuko Akagi emerges from her work, Eva cage containment fluid, to help direct Shinji and Misato. Misato points out the gruff similarities between Shinji and Gendo, which elicits a glance of compassion from Ritsuko, and this single reaction shot does more work than it deserves when you realize that glance of compassion is due to Ritsuko’s own intimate relationship with Gendo. The only other character in the series to form a compassionate bond with Shinji because of his similarity to his father is Rei, and thus we have the first of many comparisons between Rei and Ritsuko, which proves substantial later.

Then we get this heck of a shot: Ritsuko explaining why they call Unit-01 a devil as Shinji is framed against its closing hand. Subtly is gone, but awesomeness abounds.

In the icon “get in the Eva” scene, a sequence of progressively tighter close-ups escalate the tension until we get my favorite shot of the episode as Shinji faces his father. Notice, Gendo is framed both above Shinji and sealed off from him. Within the viewing port, we don’t even see Gendo’s entire face as a wall of monitors display no less than six identical copies of Shinji: he’s a non-exclusive resource in his father’s eyes. And this point is driven home when Gendo speaks with Fuyutsuki and Rei, where only one monitor switches to confer with them. Fuyutsuki and Rei are one of a kind; Shinji is expendable.

When Rei is wheeled in, we get a look at Shinji realizing that if he refuses to pilot, a girl weaker and more injured than him will have to take his place. This is enforced with the shot of her blood literally on his hands, where he determines he’ll fight. Afterwards, throughout the series, Shinji insists he only fights for recognition and praise from others, but that notion is out of mind here, where Shinji decides to involve himself for one reason alone: to protect those who can’t defend themselves.

Speaking of, I know everybody’s going to say I missed the importance of Unit 01 reaching up to defend Shinji from the Angel he was fleeing earlier and how that parallels Misato saving him in Atami, but, BUT, we’re not gonna talk about that now: we’ve got enough to cover and we will come back to it, I promise.

Anyway…where were we…oh yeah. After our first epic boarding and launching of Eva Unit-01:

[Fuyutsuki questions Gendo if he’s certain about letting Shinji pilot, and Gendo’s smile, seen first when Unit-01 reacted independently to defend Shinji, and now as Shinji prepares to pilot, shows that Gendo sent for his son hoping he would not only pilot, but unlock the latent potential of the Evangelion. Realize that Gendo sent for Shinji before Sachiel attacked, so Gendo wasn’t just looking for a replacement to Rei to defend Tokyo-3, he was looking for Shinji to pilot Unit-01, which Gendo knows has Yui’s soul in it, hoping their son’s presence would trigger the Eva to awaken and complete itself as a fully realized being. Gendo is playing the long game here, and Unit-01 reacting to Shinji without the entry plug is his first sign of progress.]

Shinji reaches the surface, Misato hopes he survives, and bada-bing bada-boom we finish our first episode.

When Angel Attack first released, critics praised it for its ability to merge suspenseful action with copious amounts of information without affecting the pace of the episode. Taking a closer look, it also sets up several character arcs, most notably Shinji and his father’s interpersonal struggle, but also Misato’s paternal issues, Ritsuko’s similarity to Rei in their intimate knowledge of Gendo, and Shinji’s role as a defender to Rei. Episode one is only the first half of our introduction, however, and the Unfamiliar Ceilings do the rest of the heavy lifting.

Chapter 1 – Part 2: Episode 2: Unfamiliar Ceilings/The Beast

Picking up immediately where we left off, episode two, titled Unfamiliar Ceilings and The Beast begins with Shinji’s encounter with the Angel Sachiel. Things go downhill fast, and the Angel breaks Unit-01’s arm. In response, Shinji’s shocked expression is painted over with abstract shades of undulating red. This is the first proper instance of what eventually becomes my favorite and Evangelion’s most recurring motif: the color red as an indication of pain. Specifically, the pain of isolation. There isn’t much time to dwell, however, before Unit-01 receives a critical blow to the head and—

In direct contrast to the chaos of battle, a series of long takes allow us to absorb the surroundings of an alabaster room, wondering, like Shinji does, how we got here, and what happened. The minimal use of color here was intended to convey emptiness as Shinji processes what he thought, is thinking, and feels.

After a handful of scenes, we see Rei transported on a stretcher past Shinji, [and to be completely honest, if we’re looking at every frame of this series and asking “why?” I honestly don’t have an answer for these three shots. Mayhaps the sequence is Supportive, letting us and Shinji know he did the right thing by saving Rei from piloting, and he’s satisfied with that decision while still recovering from it. Or, maybe the sequence is Comparative, showcasing the silent understanding between the two that they now share the same position as pilots; they are mutually exclusive from the rest of the world. Or maybe the sequence is both at once.]

Misato comes to fetch Shinji from the hospital after no one else does, and at the elevator they encounter Gendo. The first of many brilliant elevator scenes, Shinji and Gendo standoff silently, and unlike their first meeting, they’re both on equal footing with no barriers between them. A low shot conveys the magnitude of their disgust for each other, their emotions as gargantuan as they appear while they stare each other down. Shinji is the first to break eye contact, turning away as he always does, before Gendo continues on his way, going to visit the girl his son just saved.

Misato, witnessing the whole ordeal, decides to move Shinji in with her, a choice she’s positively ecstatic about, but even though the prospect is a bright one, it nevertheless makes Shinji uncomfortable, as illustrated by the blinding light that promptly eclipses Misato’s words. Her enthusiasm is overshined by Shinji’s own doubt.

Here our second title is revealed: The Beast, although what exactly the Beast is remains up to interpretation. Maybe it’s the struggle of no longer being alone and learning to share space with someone. Shinji crossing the threshold into his new home is emphasized in this shot, there’s special weight in the decision to share a home with someone else, an Other that Shinji has never had to navigate around, and thus this isn’t just stepping into a new life in Tokyo-3, it’s stepping into his first relationship.

And he isn’t sure he wants it. His room is marked on a scrap of paper, impermanent, like his decision to stay as wonders if he’ll leave. And while under another unfamiliar ceiling, we’re introduced to another motif: Shinji’s recorder—

Excuse me? It’s not…S-D-A-T? What’s…Super Digital Audio Tape? SDAT, okay, no I gotcha, I just always called it a recorder…because it has recordings? Yeah no, it’s fine, I’ll call it that, just—yeah well you can go to—!

 Shinji’s SDAT is a signifier of his state of mind. There’s speculation that the track numbers reference the episodes of the series, and the tape itself is representative of his relationship with his father. Here, though, all we need to see is that it’s running through a track he’s no doubt listened to already, just like how his brain is rerunning his first battle with Sachiel. Maybe the Angel is the beast, itself a representation of fear and isolation, aiming to drive him away and kill him, like he feels Gendo has always done. We see Shinji back in the cockpit, again bathed in red and pink, even the line art of this shot miscolored as pain consumes him. Animators used CG imagery to warp this shot, so it appears as if filmed on a wide-angled camera lens, heightening this feeling of discomfort. No one is able to eject the entry plug or remove Shinji from the situation, and as the pain consumes him, the Eva awakens.

Gone berserk, Unit-01 obliterates the Angel with a fragment of its own body, fear destroying fear, pain destroying pain, and you have to wonder, maybe the Beast of this episode is Shinji. The Angel self-destructs trying to kill him, green explosion yielding to red flames which the Evangelion strides from, harmed, but alive. Shinji has survived the pain.

And when the mask sloughs off, Shinji and the Eva looks within itself. I can’t decide which of these shots I love more; the wounded mecha using the building as a mirror or the same view from within the cockpit as the eye regenerates. Eyes are of clear importance in this sequence, and the Eva’s eye is green, a color diametrically opposed to red, so we can speculate here that if the color red signifies the pain of isolation, green might signify unity, wholeness, connection…which for Shinji, is far worse. Forced to look within himself, Shinji blacks out in pain, revulsion, and a flash of green.

A green that Misato happens to be wearing when she gets out the bath where she was just talking to Ritsuko about seeing Shinji as more than just a tool. Misato is attempting to connect with him, lending him praise, and encouragement. An attempt at connection that Shinji is torn between accepting or rejecting, given that he’s faced away from her, but wrapped in his own green blanket.

And that’s just chapter one.

Chapter 2: Episode 3: The Silent Phone

After an opening chapter like that, how do you possibly continue a series? Well, episode three, The Phone That Never Rings, gets to work quickly establishing what life for Shinji looks like now. Everything is new for him, and he still feels alone, even when completing normal daily tasks like taking out the trash or heading to school. And this sense of loneliness and wrongness is punctuated again by composition where Shinji is to the left of the frame. Our first meeting with Kensuke Aida and Toji Suzuhara is without Shinji: he’s right next to them, but he’s plugged in to his SDAT again, in his own head. And when Shinji opens up to them and the rest of the class about being an Eva pilot, the camera’s focus shifts to Suzuhara beginning to target him, while Aida, intrigued as he is, tries to dissect him, taking notes on his laptop. Dare I point out how every laptop, the devices used to expose Shinji, is red, except for Aida’s, and that may well be an error as you can see it is in the previous shot.

Regardless, after outing himself, Shinji gets his face busted by Suzuhara. Not the best reward for being vulnerable, is it.

When the fourth Angel, Shamshel, attacks, Shinji laments his father not watching him launch into combat, and so begins his season-long battle of seeking Gendo’s attention and praise. As the fight continues and Unit-01 takes damage, warning lights bathe Shinji again in red. When he notices Aida and Suzuhara nearby, however, note this shot here, where the direction Shinji is looking, at his classmates, is devoid of red.

[Even though Shinji’s interactions with them haven’t been positive, they have been genuine, and there’s a connection, however tenuous, between the three of them. Perhaps Shinji understands Toji’s brash communication because of his own difficulties connecting.]

Here the tables turn, and Shinji, previously losing while seeking his father’s approval, begins to win once his focus shifts to defending his friends. And the only way to protect them is to open up to them. Literally.

Within the entry plug, Aida and Suzuhara see Shinji at his most desperate and vulnerable. Misato orders a retreat, but Shinji is unable to let himself run away again, so he arms his knife and takes on the stoic expression seen at the start of the episode during training. Misato screams again, the timer hits critical, and Shinji decides it’s now or never. Going straight for the Angel’s heart, he’s again in total red, enduring the pain of vulnerability head-on until he kills it.

When Shinji doesn’t show up at school for a number of days afterwards, Suzuhara is the one to notice, lamenting his earlier ignorance and how he…how do I say this…punched him in the face. The understanding he develops throughout this episode is actually pretty complex, as after being in Shinji’s shoes, (or rather, his Eva), Suzuhara not only witnessed how Shinji was ordered around while piloting (his previous defense proven true by Misato’s retreat order), but he sees Shinji’s inner conflict between obeying orders and pleasing others and facing the obstacles he doesn’t want to run from. The next episode proves that Aida doesn’t fully understand Shinji’s turmoil the way Suzuhara does, which is why Toji and Shinji end up emotionally bonding through this experience.

Now, without reading too much into this, what we see next is a red umbrella inside the doors of the hall where Suzuhara attempts to call Shinji. Can we assume it’s representative of the pain he’s putting himself through to further connect with Shinji and apologize? You can believe that if you want, watching a shot of the phone who’s call never made it through, even though, somewhere, Shinji’s phone finally rang.

Phones throughout the series are typically red or green, red phones used throughout NERV headquarters to issue orders, communicate pain, while nearly every other phone, a device used to connect people, is green. Japanese pay phones in the 90’s were legitimately green, though, so whether this is an artistic decision, a coincidence, or just a reflection of reality is up to you.

Also, in this final scene, it begins to rain, which perfectly sets us up for:

Chapter 3: Episode 4: Rain, After Running Away

Rain, After Running Away, is the capstone to Act I of the series, and possibly the most important episode. Shinji’s room is properly marked with a heart-shaped sign now; he finally belongs, which is why it hurts all the more when he runs away. Away from NERV, away from the Evas, and away from Misato.

Aboard the long running train, his SDAT repeats the same song again; he’s stuck in his head, and we know he’s thinking about the events of the previous episodes. He tells himself to go back, but he can’t bring himself to do so and continues running. Wandering Tokyo-3, he sees a young couple getting along in a theatre, and his eyes light up, signaling his desire for human connection and touch, especially if it comes in the form of sexuality. Fun detail here, the film playing is a disaster movie about the Second Impact, which is to say it’s a fictional film based on a fictional event within a fictional series about fictional events.

Anyway, he takes a nap in the theatre—something we can all relate to—and come morning, the sky is red with sunrise. As viewers, we know at this point what red means, and sure enough, Shinji can’t shake the feeling of the city he struggled so hard to defend closing in around him, suffocating him as background plates move in faux parallax to emphasize the emotion. So he gets out of the city and away from painful memories where he ends up in the country.

I gotta say, I like how the show spends a minute bouncing between Shinji and Misato, showcasing him trying to escape, and her unable to stop thinking about him, which culminates in the diagnostics scene where Ritsuko is physically diagnosing Rei and emotionally diagnosing Misato. Misato’s empathetic relationship with Shinji is on full display, and we’ll come back to this conversation, but for now, more teen angst.

In the country, Shinji runs into Aida who’s playing war for fun, in stark contrast to Shinji’s very real suffering. This glorification of war is something Aida never unlearns, which is probably why, despite his earnest wishes, he never ends up piloting; still, he and Shinji bond over the loss of their mothers, and Shinji’s Hedgehog Dilemma lessens.

Escorted back to NERV and facing Misato, Shinji ends up in a very uncomfortable situation when she forces him to choose for himself whether to pilot instead of deferring to others’ preferences. He’s upset and confused why Misato isn’t scolding him like a negligent parent and setting him straight, the only adult response he’s used to. Instead, Misato is forcing agency upon him, and he’s not used to making a decision for himself.

Misato, upset with Shinji’s previous and current “mouthing off,” assumes he’s immature, self-absorbed, and irresponsible. He’s unable to reciprocate her corrective criticism and doesn’t understand that she’s emotionally invested in him, she’s afraid to lose him, and she expresses her exasperation as anger.

Again, the framing reflects all of this: the two are unable to connect on anything, being on two different planes of elevation and facing two different directions. Misato, when she speaks, is looking directly at the camera, at Shinji, at us, but she’s blacked out and inscrutable because Shinji, again to the left of frame, never once faces her.

So he runs.

Leaving Tokyo-3 for good, Shinji gets intercepted by Aida and Suzuhara. In this crucial final scene in a crucial final episode of the Act, the two of them force Shinji to display the strength they know he has, which triggers him to finally admit all the flaws he recognizes in himself. They don’t force responsibility on him, they encourage and support him. Shinji’s finally facing himself, while punching Suzuhara, you know, in the face; and if that wasn’t on the nose enough for you, the pop song playing overhead in the background of this scene is called FACE by Masami Okui. I won’t read it aloud, but here are the lyrics for your leisure.

https://shinitakashi.blogspot.com/1995/04/okui-masami-face-english-lyrics.html

At the same time this is occurring, Misato has a revelation. Now here I want to point out that throughout Act I, Misato undergoes her own mini-three-act journey, beginning back in episode 2. Episode 1 is pure introduction, but after Shinji moves in with her, Misato speaks with Ritsuko while in the bath and realizes that despite the victory over Sachiel, Misato isn’t happy because through that ordeal she had to think of Shinji as a tool, which recontextualizes her wishful “Don’t die, Shinji” from “don’t die because I care about you in any way,” to “don’t die because then we’ll need to replace you and we might be doomed.” But now with Shinji living with her, Misato is forced to see the boy as a person instead of an instrument.

In episode 4 we see her reprimanding Shinji post episode 3’s battle, and throughout this final episode she goes back and forth thinking about him, sorting out her own emotions, and finally discussing it with Ritsuko again during the diagnostics scene where she not only admits to Shinji’s humanity but places his needs before her own. You could say Misato has gone from being in Shinji’s way to stepping out of the way, emotionally speaking.

This comes to a head during this final revelation, where she understands Shinji behaves the way he does not because he’s immature or rude, but because he has no experience reciprocating, expressing and communicating his emotions since he never had a stable family unit around him to teach him how to do so; and the worst thing she could be doing right now is sending him away from the only people willing to nurture, support, and love him. It’s not enough that she got out of Shinji’s way; she needs to help him find his way. He doesn’t need distance; he needs a family and a mother. And she comes to this realization literally in the eyes of Eva Unit-01, which, if you know you know, is also Shinji’s mother. Furthermore, she realizes this and stops moving to frame left, going to see Shinji at the train stop and looking towards the right to see him. In frame, she literally turns around.

Shinji, then, also experiences a revelation when, after receiving encouragement from his friends, he recalls Misato’s words of encouragement from the end of Episode 2, the first bit of praise and support he ever received from the first person to ever see him as a person. So he doesn’t run away. He makes the choice Misato gave him before: to stay, face himself, and fight for others.

When Misato reaches the train station and contacts Shinji, we’re treated to one of the greatest shots, in my opinion, in anime history. It’s the polar opposite of their last encounter, the two of them in broad daylight, facing each other, with Shinji elevated instead of below, and he’s finally, after four episodes of conflict, centered in frame, which is to the right of the challenge he faces.

This is also the first of many iconic Evangelion ultralong shots, this one lasting 43 seconds, during which time the song Bay side love story -from Tokyo-, also by Masami Okui, mixes with the ambience of summer noise. Here, again, are the lyrics, detailing two lovers meeting at the train station.

https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~teresako/lyrics/bayside.htm

I’ve previously discussed Evangelion’s use of ultralong shots, so I won’t deep dive into that here, but it’s important to note exactly what this shot means for the characters involved. The drawn-out passage of time gives us as viewers a chance to reflect on the two characters and how they got here, the lack of cuts applying more and more pressure for a change, a choice of any sort to be made. It isn’t just the realistic passage of time an emotionally diluted teenager like Shinji needs to formulate and vocalize his thoughts, it’s enough to build anticipation for the audience as we wait for Shinji to give a long-awaited response.

Most importantly, the normally outspoken Misato says nothing: she gives agency of the situation to Shinji, letting him form the first words, and the words he chooses couldn’t be more important.

I’m home. Here. And I’m no longer running away.

And she welcomes him.

Then the show begins.

Enough emotional development for a whole series you say? Absolutely. And a final point on this episode is that it wasn’t originally planned. Staff members at studio Gainax looked at the story overall and decided Shinji’s relationship to others needed to be more fleshed out before we continued. In other words, arguably the best episode of the act came about because Anno’s audience and colleagues knew what the story lacked and were capable of providing it, ]even if it was a rushed installment.] Without episode four, however, I find episodes one and two take all the weight of act one before we hurdle into meeting our supporting cast, which is what any other show would do. This buffer, though, allows us to not only explore Shinji’s emotional state, but progress it. Without episode four, there’s no explanation for the strength he develops and displays in later episodes.

            The Act overall is a deep dive into Shinji’s character, his thought process and an explanation as to why he would possibly involve and subject himself to the pain that comes throughout the rest of the series. He begins completely alone, and ends here surrounded by everyone who’s endeavored to know and support and love him.

Maybe this final scene, these final shots, are nothing more than a hasty wrap-up from an episode whose studio couldn’t afford to animate more frames. Maybe it’s a deliberate decision to draw out anticipation and exercise audience mindfulness. Or maybe—if we’re willing to believe creativity can overcome limitations—maybe it’s both at once.

And that’s why, I’ve gotta admit, I think Evangelion has a perfect first act.

Thank you so much for watching, I sincerely hope you enjoyed this video. I’m glad so many of you enjoyed the previous Eva essay, but this is the real start of what hopefully ends up as a full-series breakdown. I know I didn’t cover every detail or motif use, but I hope I was able to reveal some of the techniques Eva uses so that you can enjoy the show even more on your next rewatch; and who knows! Maybe you’ll find something I completely missed. Probably will.

Today’s video was brought to you by our sponsor: TimberW0lf Studios. They have—oh wait, that’s me! Hahahahahahaha…I really need money— For real, if you enjoyed this video, feel free to support us additionally through our Etsy or Redbubble stores: we’ve got tons of anime inspired designs, and, if you’re broke like me, you can use code EVAACTONE to get %10 off all Etsy products! All links in the ‘scription below.

If you’re just here for the neat video content though, that’s cool too! I’m hoping to break down Act II before too long, so make sure you stick around if you wanna see that. In the meantime, the support and feedback from everybody has been absolutely amazing and I cannot thank you guys and gals enough. Seriously.

Until we meet again, I’ve been Jir0, you’ve been amazing, and I wish you only the best.

God bless you.