Birthed into crash room clearly undergoing remodeling, and grabs bottle like a badass

We are so back.

Intro

Episode 20 of Neon Genesis Evangelion. The final chapter in our fourth arc. Last bit of sunlight before the storm, you could say. Titled Shape of Heart, Shape of Mind, or Shape of Heart, Shape of Human…or, Of the Shapes of Hearts and—I don’t know why there are so many translations, but there’s a shape in there somewhere, it includes hearts, and it aired on Valentine’s Day.

The episode features several scenes and elements reused from previous episodes, but recontextualized to offer the audience a new perspective on previously explored topics. It’s much like Episode 14 in this regard, only taking a more philosophic approach instead of recapping what we’ve already seen. Also a big reason as to why both episodes are subtitled “Weaving a Story.”

The story in question today is, of course, about Shinji, and the responsibility he bears for the position he’s gotten into. It’s no secret at this point, a huge theme of this show is learning to not run away. But what to do with the times we’ve run previously? To make peace with that requires reconciliation, which Shinji will have to pry from the fingers of his worst enemy: himself.

Episode 20: Shape of Heart, Shape of Mind

Beginning with a recap of Episode 19’s finale, a cleverly edited splice of the Human Instrumentality Committee shows their apprehension at Unit-01’s ascension, with Lorenz chiefly expressing his distrust in Gendo given his obvious allowance of a deviation from their projection. Remember, the Committee attempted to install an S2 Drive in Unit-04, an Evangelion they could much more easily control (probably with their own pilot (Kaworu)), and that failure in Nevada led them to believe installing a drive would take more than…well, just eating one. Now, Gendo has a demigoddess, and they don’t, so I can’t say I blame them for worrying.

Much like the episode before, our first title—Of the Shape of Hearts and Humans—flashes only 75 seconds in, once again expediting our usual format. The frame we see immediately afterwards, however, “The First Day”, clues us into the fact that this chapter won’t be in standard chronological order like we’re used to, but instead an extended montage, similar again to Episode 14.

The snapshot of the first day itself, mere hours after the brutality of Zeruel’s attack, highlights the inner workings of NERV as they transfer control stations and assess damage to the Evas. Maya’s voice-over indicates the damage is beyond the Hayflick Limit, which, if you didn’t know, is the maximum number of times a population of normal somatic cells can replicate before telomere erosion causes them to stop. Basically, Units -00 and -02 can’t regenerate naturally and will require extensive reconstruction by NERV.

Fun little microbiology detail for you.

Speaking of, Hyuga tells Misato no discernable energy sources are capable of moving Unit-01, but Misato, ever the wiser as to the Evangelions, reminds Makoto and the audience of the three occasions when Unit-01 casually broke those laws of physics. A distaste for rules which Hyuga relates to Katsuragi herself, another comparison between two of Shinji’s mothers.

You’ll see a lot of that, this episode, actually. The parallels between Yui and Misato are incredibly obvert, so I won’t mention all of them, but once you go looking for it, it’s all you’ll find.

SEELE, growing more impatient with Ikari’s antics, speak of the bell around his neck that never rang. If you’re confused about what they’re talking about, the hard cut to Kaji should remind us of Ryoji’s triple agent status between SEELE and NERV, and his refusal to clue the former into the latter’s operations can be surmised as a lie of omission which allowed Gendo to ascend Yui and Shinji. This is also the last time in the series we’ll see SEELE posturing as the Human Instrumentality Committee: afterwards they’ll appear as the iconic monoliths. Not only a visual cue that they’re separating themselves from their humanity, but from Gendo as well, no longer trusting him and instead conducting their own operations privately.

Remember, folks, bad guys don’t show their faces.

Back to Gendo: Kaji’s little inquiry to our boy hero cuts to this [REFUSE sign blinking], which is always a reassuring sign. Unit-01 is, unsurprisingly, refusing the ejection code, and once a visual feed goes through, Shinji’s utter absence is another uncanny hint that something’s gone terribly off-track.

The floating neural crown is a nice touch.

There is, as always, an argument to be made that Gendo has no regard for his son’s wellbeing. On the other hand, we’ve seen before there’s nowhere safer than inside an Eva (Episode 12), and since Gendo’s ultimate plan is to start instrumentality on his terms, Shinji and Yui merging is just a jumpstart on that objective. The only people Gendo wholly trusts is his family. His indifference here could just as easily be complete faith as it is callousness.

Anyway, Misato and Ritsuko clash again over kept secrets as Akagi struggles to explain the Eva’s nature as anything other than a reflection of man, and Katsuragi, while picking up on the nuance of her hints, nevertheless loses her temper just as in Episode 16. In fact, her slapping Ritsuko reuses those exact frames, this time including an even tighter close-up showcasing Misato’s lips to really heighten the tension. I also love the brief cutaway to Maya and the others, reminding us viewers this is no longer a private spat as the wound uncomfortably deepens. Also note the slap is in response to Ritsuko’s statement that the Eva willed Shinji’s disappearance, which Katsuragi, not incorrectly, takes as a deflection of responsibility. That is, Ritsuko running away.

The Second Day, we have a recreation of Episode 2’s hospital awakening, this time with Rei instead of Shinji, and her left eye, as usual, is bandaged, a call back to where her Evangelion was struck by Zeruel. Asuka, on the other hand, takes things a little worse, her room in disarray, but more importantly her body framed the same way Shinji’s was, again, back in Episode 2. Her facing away from the camera, instead of Shinji’s facing towards, shows her lack of self-acceptance and insistence on emotional regression, a direct contrast to the feelings Shinji had following his very near defeat against Sachiel.

The Third Day gives us a lot more to work with, the opening frame our familiar red friend cluing us into the notion that this discussion, about Shinji’s salvage mission, probably isn’t destined for greatness. Shot two, focused on the Eva’s core, gives the audience a hint as to where Shinji needs to be salvaged from—the very heart of Unit-01—and shot three, brilliantly striking, gives us Ritsuko and Maya to the left, while Misato remains barely visible—that’s right—literally in the dark. I’m sensing a theme here (Episode 16 catwalk shot).

I’m also going to point out now that every shot of Unit-01’s head has the eye staring directly at the camera. Firstly, horrifying, and secondly, another technique after her previous wardrobe malfunction to play on audience fears. Yui is interacting directly with the viewers; a fourth wall break usually reserved for comedy instead twisted into an unnerving display of awareness. We’re going to look inside her, but not before she looks inside us.

Back to the conversation itself, Ritsuko and Maya explain Shinji’s body has effectively dissolved while his soul remains in the plug, his ego projecting a recreation of his plugsuit in his body’s place. Now, this is a clever coverup of an obvious animation mistake, as the visual feed we saw before showed Shinji’s suit floating in the LCL, even though when last in the Eva he was wearing his school uniform. If you want to inscribe some deeper in-universe logic to Akagi’s explanation, we know at this point Shinji regards piloting as his sole reason for existing—he declared as much to Gendo—so it makes sense why his ego would manifest a symbol of his primary identity.

And finally, a third of the way through our episode, we get The Fourth Day, and with it, Shinji’s disembodied thoughts. Considering this sequence is a character’s soul sorting itself out while the body is melted, it’s not hard to see this as a precursor to Instrumentality as a whole. We’ll get to the substance and philosophy of Shinji’s words in a minute, but first I want to point out the opening visual we have in Shinji’s mind: the ocean.

It is, of course, an obvious and recurring motif throughout the series—even in the openings and closings of each episode—submergence commonly indicating two characters are intimately interacting. It’s not difficult to imagine the ocean representing unity, a body of liquid which all other bodies of bodies of liquid pour into. (Foreshadowing.) Here, however, we have a beach: a natural liminal space between the conscious and unconscious. For Shinji especially, who doesn’t swim, it’s an introspective threshold between comfort and the unknown. A point of decision.

In this sequence specifically, the land is fluctuating like the boot-up sequence of a plug. I want to clarify, I don’t think the flashing beach is meant to be anything more than a trippy visual, but I do think the sight of the ocean is an intentional callback to the themes of unity and isolation we’ve seen expressed up to this point.

Which tracks, right? Harmony is represented by the ocean; the one thing Shinji is unequipped for and wants nothing to do with.

Ikari’s internal monologue breaks down into several sections: first, self-definition, with Shinji categorizing his identity in relation to others. We’ve seen this before, in the first three acts of the series, with Shinji’s intensional definition of himself supported with images of other characters who helped him progress to this point in his arc. Once he’s able to identify the other, and therefore define the self, we see the montage change from images of the supporting cast to images of Shinji.

After this, he takes an important step in compartmentalizing his reality by categorizing the others he knows as, quote “[those] who make up my world.” This is what some, like James P. Carse, call the creation of the Society: basically, the people you agree with. Of course, once a society is defined, so too are those outside of it.

For Shinji, this occurs moments later while under the ocean. Now merging with Unit-01, an outside image, represented by a red light, spills into a montage of Angels as Shinji recognizes what he dubs “the Enemy”; the Others he contends against. This brings us to the second section of his monologue, a definition of the self by negation as he attempts both classifying and justifying the existence of the Enemy. The supporting cast, the Society, represent what he’s attempting to assimilate, while the Angels, the Enemy, represent the apathy and desolation he’s avoiding; both equally vital for informing his sense of identity.

In the words of Carse, “War is not an act of unchecked ruthlessness but a declared contest between bounded societies, or states. If a state has no enemies it has no boundaries. To keep its definitions clear a state must stimulate danger to itself. Under the constant danger of war the people of a state are far more attentive and obedient to the finite structure of their society: […]

War presents itself as necessary for self-protection, when in fact it is necessary for self-identification.”

This, however, is Shinji’s classic black-and-white thinking, which he’s learned to move beyond; and by breaking out of it, it predictably leads to our first bend in the logic, where Shinji consciously realizes he’s drawn an ostensive line, and wonders at why. By questioning why the Angels are regarded as Enemies, he attacks the show’s own logic, and the mecha genre in general, by undermining the definitional formula the genre traditionally follows. This is another glimpse of metanarrative, Shinji as a character questioning why the show is structured so rigidly, and if it can expand beyond its finite limitations into a think piece, which, of course, it’s doing as he says this.

His foray into the alternative is contested by Asuka’s support of the established logic, her quote “strange monsters started attacking us, of course we have to fight them!” being the defining logic of every monster story. Shinji struggles with this, wondering if it’s morally right of him to resist the formula he’s been both given and set within.

And that brings us to the third section of his monologue: the realization of the illusory boundary of mutual exclusivity between the Society and the Enemy. Or the “What if it’s me,” problem, for short. If the Society and the Enemy aren’t binary, there must exist the possibility that the Society could be the Enemy, or worse yet, that the self is an Enemy. This dynamic, an inversion of the standard logic, still exists prominently in anime today, Attack on Titan being the go-to example of this.

Shinji, in his self-reflection, realizes his father isn’t part of his Society, as shown by his absence in the montage of supporting characters. And if he’s not in the Society, Shinji deduces his identity as the Enemy, as images of Gendo invade the montage of Angels. This culminates in a standoff, much like their first encounter at the elevator, only with Gendo rendered in nightmarish darkness amid the red background. Shinji accuses Gendo of effectively killing Toji and actually killing his mother, the following montage cleverly recontextualizing several clips of Shinji’s violence to reroute his anger not at the Angels but at his father. The noise and momentum build until the image of Rei dissipates it.

At that point, the reconned scene of Shinji and Rei from Episode 5 convinces Shinji that Geno left him for Ayanami. Their exchange here mirrors their conversation aboard the train in the previous episode, Rei asking if Shinji ever tried to understand Gendo, but his answer here is different: Shinji is brutally honest, saying he couldn’t understand what he didn’t experience, and Gendo’s affection must’ve gone to Ayanami instead of himself. Rei’s image fights against even this, claiming Shinji ran away, before a rapid montage, like The Sickness unto Death, flashes psychological terminology onscreen, then oscillates between variations of Gendo, showing everything from storyboard drafts to early sketches and final imagery. While storyboard elements have showed previously this episode, this is the first time we have a chance to really stare at them, the show peeling its execution back, relegating itself only to its writing and the questions it poses.

Shinji spills his inner thoughts, confessing he came all the way to Tokyo-3 at the series’ start to tell his father how much he hated him, now wondering if he was made to pilot only to suffer. Gendo says suffering is the point, which Shinji retaliates against, but in the end, he finally comes to terms with the fact that he did, and always has, run away. Shinji knew of the Evangelions, now remembering his mother’s test, and he chose to ignore and separate himself from the project following her demise. With little time to let the reveal sink in, it’s easy to gloss over this detail and not fully realize how impactful this is to Shinji. He acknowledges that his situation now, his familiar distance and emotional shallowness, is a direct result of his self-isolation and separation from his father and his work. Gendo didn’t abandon Shinji: they abandoned each other.

No one is responsible for his problems but him.

And with that, we get our second title.

Weaving a Story II: Oral Stage is a dual reference. The first, to Weaving a Story I, the second title of Episode 14 which similarly focused on SEELE’s machinations and Rei’s self-reflection within Unit-01. The second, Oral Stage, is a Freudian term referring to the first stage of psychosexual development wherein an infant derives pleasure primarily through their mouth. Likely a term evocative of Shinji’s infantile regression, it likewise reminds us of Episode 16’s title the Splitting of the Breast, another twofold title when Shinji regressed and inhabited Unit-01 like a newborn. There are also other references to Oral Stage specifically within Evangelion, which we’ll touch on later.

The next frame shows we’re on the thirtieth day since Zeruel, a major time jump, soon illustrated by Unit-01’s reconstruction and augmentation. That said, the focus on her eyes reminds us that while the mask may be on, Yui’s still staring at us. The wide shot of Misato surveying the salvage plug is a hideous twist on the injection sequence we’re used to seeing, and Ritsuko explains to Maya the documentation they’ll be following to save Shinji is based on a previously failed salvage mission from a decade prior, a mission we could deduce and will eventually be told resulted from his mother’s failed contact test. That is to say, Yui is about to undergo her second salvage mission, this time from the other side.

Next frame: the thirty-first day, as Shinji continues his personal reckoning, the backing soundtrack, BORDERLINE CASE, the same as when Rei attempted her interoperability test. This time, Shinji engages in a dialogue with an image of Rei, who, as usual, is unrelentingly digging into his motivation. The single drop in the surface indicates another awakening of a soul, although whether this is Shinji’s, Yui’s, or somehow Rei’s is unclear. The elevator confrontation with Ayanami, reused and redubbed from Episode 15, has Rei asking if Shinji understands loneliness and happiness. She doesn’t ask for his definitions of these terms, only his understanding of them, like Yui did inside Leliel: so, Rei could be a mask Yui has on; alternatively, this could be a remnant of consciousness from Rei herself when she interfaced with the Eva, or a sliver of one of Rei’s souls; or, yet another option, this could be Shinji repurposing a memory to interrogate himself. Ultimately it doesn’t matter, as what we’re witnessing is more metaphor than explainable phenomenon.

Answering why others are nice to him, in other words why he has a relationship with other people, Shinji says it’s because he pilots. His constant self-sacrifice elicits others’ praise, which in turn motivates him to pilot, and Shinji derives purpose from this cycle. When Shinji talks about his purpose, and we take the next step in the philosophic debate, we’re shown the vertical white line and the clenching of the right hand, both from Episode 16 and representing his resolve in this particular belief. As Rei seeks to understand this belief, Shinji realizes his purpose for existing is conditional: his fulfilment is achieved only after victory, after which others must choose to continue praising him, otherwise the cycle breaks and his purpose is rendered null. This dependency, this forfeiture of responsibility, is difficult to grapple with, as shown by his repeated flexing of the right hand, and eventual hanging of the head.

While holding the payphone, the symbolic connection to every other character, Shinji hears everyone telling him to do his best, more burdens of expectation. The final line, Gendo’s recalled praise, is now in doubt: Shinji unsure if this praise is worth chasing. The following flashes of faces and corresponding lines precedes Shinji claiming delight at everyone’s praise, and here he finally rejects the prospect of dependent admiration, begging instead to receive unconditional love, wondering why he hasn’t yet.

Here, Misato’s voice claims they’ve always given him unconditional love.

We have another shot of the beach, a reminder of unity, before the three infamous “joining” sequences. Our three supporting ladies, Misato, Asuka, and Rei, each in turn request Shinji to join with them, before they overlap into a single voice. This could be anything from Shinji’s consciousness attempting to placate itself, to Unit-01 using different faces to figure out which character Shinji is more likely to merge with. Interpretation of this sequence is completely subjective, although I agree with the scholars it’s more foreshadowing of the effects of Instrumentality.

Another drop, bookending the sequence, and we’re catapulted back into reality where the salvage mission is underway. As NERV makes contact, Shinji interprets the attempt as the multicolored names and voices we see in the black, and the ensuing chaos in headquarters prompts Ritsuko to ask if Shinji even wants to come back. To her credit, she’s facing the opposite direction as Episode 16’s so-called rescue mission, so I’m assuming this time she’s earnest in her attempts. Within the entry plug, Shinji’s translucent soul admits to not understanding himself yet, and interrogating himself in a vacuum is the only way he thinks he can fix that. He asks himself, through the others, what he wants, and Yui herself asks the same. It’s now or never, the salvage mission triggering a point of no return where Shinji must choose to exist in harsh reality or forever within the sterilized phantom space of the Evangelion. As the entry plug bursts open, however, the LCL fluid needed to rebuild his body evaporating, it’s evident Shinji’s time to choose is running out.

What follows is a brilliant little exchange between our hero and the image of Misato. He recognizes he is within the Eva, and he’s there because he chose to be. Ultimately, his position is his responsibility, and his insistence on refusing the Evangelion means nothing if his actions are repeatedly to engage with it. Why he repeatedly pilots, despite the pain, is, as Misato says, because he recognizes the pain he continually endures is strengthening his character. The two scenes in which Shinji and Misato interact isn’t a random reuse of assets: the first, in NERV’s interrogation room, was Shinji’s first attempt at abandoning the Evangelion, of abdicating responsibility. The second, during their sendoff at the train station, is Shinji’s purposeful redefinition of his identity, when he took responsibility in pursuing his desires. Misato states plainly is it Shinji and only Shinji who can choose how to exist, and what to do with himself. And the following shot is unique: an original background behind Shinji’s face rising, the same as the previous episode, to indicate he’s willing to embrace reality and his place in it once again. Before his decision is manifested, we know by this simple gesture that he’s finally ready to stand his ground, and not only avoid running away, but own up to every time he did.

Misato’s begging for Shinji coincides with his recollection of the post-Leliel cradling. He encounters a smell—not unusual itself, within the entry plug—but as he tries to identify it, we get something unique. He attributes the smell at first to Misato, then to Ayanami. At the mention of Rei, a blast of random noise and imagery tells us he’s wrong. This effect is diegetic, himself recognizing the feedback as a confirmation of incorrectness. Then he attributes the smell to his mother, and the absence of a blast implies he’s correct. Note, however, the absence of a blast also when he first attributed the smell to Misato, inferring that Misato and his mother smell the same, may as well be the same.

When Shinji recognizes his mother’s soul, a third impact—or drip, precedes a voiced over memory of Yui and Gendo’s, which Shinji identifies, itself also diegetic and signifying another point of contact between mother and child. Shinji drifts closer to his Yui’s soul, the flickering blue beckoning him, until it burns a shade of red. The background and soul fluctuate, the dissonance indicating an incompatibility, until a fourth drop, as seen from above, leads us back to Misato crying on the catwalk.

With a splash, she looks up to see Shinji naked before the Eva core, reborn. Unit-01’s refusal to release Shinji before he completes his self-actualization isn’t dissimilar to a mother refusing to birth her child before they’ve reached the necessary point of maturation. Shinji’s return to reality is another agreement that he’s ready for the responsibility of living.

With that, we get day thirty-three, and a plate from Episode 1 as Ritsuko and Misato drive together, discussing what’s just occurred, and even Akagi admits the miracle they just witnessed was more Misato’s doing than her own. Gotta love the camera’s position in the backseat, another grounded angle as if we’re listening from behind as the radio plays a talk show segment focused on a caller’s Oral Stage. I won’t go into the transcript now, but it’s a cleverly veiled sequence summarizing the series’ main themes, all playing out in the background as Ritsuko suggests they go bar hopping. Misato turns her down, dropping Ritsuko off as a light switches from red to green, indicating even though they’re parting, their relationship is once again healing in some way. Ritsuko remarks on Misato running to her man, Kaji, for comfort, then confesses she’s no better, one of the more direct admissions that her and Gendo are illicit together.

Speaking of illicit, the following scene—holy smokes, more handholding. I can’t show that on YouTube—oh that I really can’t show on YouTube. Whoa, that is—whoa!

How did a sex scene ever make it to air in Japan, you might be wondering? Well, it’s not a sex scene. It’s a massage.

I’m not kidding. In order to get Tokyo TV to air this portion of the episode, which was by far the most explicit section to date, Hideaki Anno convinced the station to categorize this scene as a “massage scene,” not a sexual one. And somehow that worked. Probably helped that the show was amassing up to nine million views per new episode at this point: seven percent of the nation’s population.

The scene itself isn’t skin for skin’s sake, the ninety-six second longshot, while containing a lot of moaning, does cover some notable plot details. For one, Kaji talking about deceiving NERV’s intelligence department, which is when you’ll notice this escapade isn’t just self-indulgence, but a chance for Ryoji to slip Misato a coded pill: that’ll be important later. What we see during their discussion on the vanity is a glass of orange juice, which means nothing and doesn’t scare me; a lighter; a torn…candy wrapper; and an ashtray with two spent cigs, which we normally associate with Ritsuko, but instead belong to Misato. Another sign the two are more alike than not.

Kaji lets Katsuragi know the information he’s slipping to her might be the last favor he can perform, a cryptic sentence that carries with it another hint that the beginning of the end is near.

Episode 20 is fascinating for several reasons. Forced to reuse previous assets, the episode visually as well as narratively takes one step back and two steps forward. The first third of Shinji’s internal monologue is nothing new, all retreaded ground from past acts, but that lends a sense of non-linearity to his progression, which, while not strictly engaging, is admirably realistic. Nothing grows in a straight line, not even people. We screw up, we regress, we relapse. The important thing, as Shinji learns, is not to dwell on it. If the past insists on intruding, have a prog knife ready for it. He’s torn his way out of a core before: he can do it again.

Before we end, there is one detail I can’t get out of my head. We’re shown the frame displaying the thirty-first day, before diving back into Shinji’s psychology, but the only day display we see afterwards is the thirty-third day. Between the two, we’re missing an entire 24 hours. More than this, the number thirty-two is inherently bizarre when discussing days, as it’s one day over the average month. We didn’t just venture into Shinji’s untethered reconciliation: somewhere along the way, we ventured into a time that shouldn’t exist: an anomalous liminality beyond the standard and into the post conscious mind. The thirty-first day is the end of the month, and the 20^th Episode is the end of the Act, but somehow, without realizing it, we’ve slipped further forward than we ever intended, glimpsed more of the unknown than we realized. Beyond, the series breaks down into an incoherent series of shapes and sequences—as do the characters we’ve been following.

But that’s a journey for another day.

Outro

Thank you all so, so much for watching. I know I haven’t uploaded in a while: I just underwent the most drastic changes of my life, some of which included a new living situation and studio space. I cannot tell you guys enough how much I appreciate the incredible support and feedback, even during this downtime, and I hope this return to content lives up to the hype. Seriously, let me know what y’all thought about this video. I’m excited to try some new stuff out.

In the meantime, however, thank you all again, as always, for everything. I’ve been Jir0, y’all have been absolutely amazing, and I’ll see you all on the bright side.

God bless.