Neon Genesis Evangelion 1x16: "The sickness unto death, and then..." // Reaction and Discussion
Added 2025-10-17 23:49:28 +0000 UTCBLUR AT 58:59 BC OUR CITY WAS SHOWN IN THE WEATHER REPORT ON WINDOWS
Comments
It is true that Asuka is angry because of coping with stuff (more than just Shinji getting better harmonization results); you can see she cares because she was outside of Shinji's hospital room, hoping that everything was OK. It is also true that the coping mechanism she chose causes pain in Shinji and in all those around her. Her hyper-pseudo-security ('I'm Asuka the best!') is jarring; she knows it, but she doesn't care. That ends up being bad for her -- as you point out, she cares, is afraid, is insecure... but she's decided she can't get help from anyone, so she drives people away. She's either an unreachable ideal (like with those love confessions from her classmates), or an angry pile of criticism ('I'm not so bad! I mean, look at Shinji and Rey!')
Sergio Meira
2025-10-20 01:05:56 +0000 UTCYou should revisit the sign that you may not have paid much attention in the scene where misato busts kenji looking for adan last episode... LCL, in case you dont remember is the liquid the pilots are sumerged on, maybe reading that sign will help with some of the theories you had this episode about LCL
Rodrigo Torres
2025-10-19 08:20:21 +0000 UTCAnd in the case of Shinji ikari: he has daddy issues, and also mommy issues (mommy died, daddy left), leading to abandonment issues and a distinct tendency to avoid crises by running away, or pretending they're not there. A face-saving, la-la-la-it's-ok personality if you want. That's what that little mental crisis inside the angel was revealing about him. Shinji... wants others around him ('I wanted to see them once more'), but he doesn't want conflicts of any kind, even when he's right (Asuka: 'you're always apologizing!') in his near-death experience, he saw his mother. He looks for soothing, for someone who is nice to him; but he only finds people with issues of their own around him, and that confuses him, makes him think it's partially his fault, triggers his it's-all-ok avoidance reflects, sometimes even his running-away reflexes. He lacks confidence, because, unlike the cello, he never learned (nobody ever taught him) to love himself. (I'm reminded of the episode with his first flight reaction, where he said to Tōji: "I'm a coward..." in this one he says to the Misato in his mind: "I'm worthless." It's also curiously revealing that Ray confronts Asuka: "Do you only pilot the EVA to earn the praise of others?" Asuka looks at her, hatred in her eyes, and denies it. What a bunch of teenagers!...
Sergio Meira
2025-10-18 22:22:29 +0000 UTC1:00:40 Angels are supposed to be scary figures, the real angels that are in the biblical scriptures, not the angels that Hollywood shows us. 😂😂
Pedro Hernández
2025-10-18 15:05:37 +0000 UTCTo explain the difference in quality that you noticed. Supposedly, this is from the Platinum dvd booklets: "Now, concerning some of the scenes in Episode Sixteen and the previews, the original 16mm negatives had become lost from the development laboratory in the past. Thus, the telecine process was done from a 35mm internegatlve, but through last spurt color work through color correction and digital remastering, the footage has been reproduced to approximate the original."
lilrigbus
2025-10-18 06:11:03 +0000 UTCAwesome discussion! Really looking forward to the remaining episodes
Jason Parker
2025-10-18 04:07:26 +0000 UTCthis episode was/is art
nycReaching
2025-10-18 03:24:15 +0000 UTCSome could say you are now in the "real" Evangelion. These kind of episodes haunted me for decades, trying to find all the concepts behind them. Like I spent HOURS reading about quantum physics to understand the Dirac Sea concept. And while I'll never be able to understand it fully, I find incredible, still today, that it was integrated in a show like Evangelion. Also, to this day I'm still AMAZED by the slap, it still feel so visceral, so real. Some modern show should learn from that slap how to convey emotions in a strike.
Maxime Goettelmann
2025-10-18 00:20:10 +0000 UTC
