Episode #02: The Significance of Shinji's SDAT

(Expanded Commentary from C-169)

Shin-seiki: The fact that we always see Shinji listening to the SDAT player represents how he tries to shut out reality and exist in his own little world

Shinji started out as a happy, friendly little kid:

but losing his mother…

and being abandoned by his father…

has turned him into the introverted, almost autistic, little wretch we all know and love…

So how does all this relate to #25 and #26?

It's because that is the world he choses to create for himself, which reflects what he was seeking with the tape deck and headphones all along: A closed-off space, where other people and the painful and troublesome demands of dealing with them can be shut out…

(Literal Translation Project script, #25)

Maya: It's your world, only given to you now. That is reality. Misato: Your world, which nobody else can deal with. Shinji: It's the world where everything is already created, isn't it? Ritsuko: No, it's the world that you are creating. Fuyutsuki: The world that you are trying to create. That is reality. Misato: The will to live. Asuka: The mind that wishes to die, which you yourself want. Shinji: This darkness, this incomplete world… Are you saying, I wished for all of these? Asuka: Yes. Ryouji: The closed world where nobody but you are comfortable. That is the very world you wished for. Makoto: To protect your weak mind. Shigeru: To protect your joy. Maya: This is the result. Misato: In a closed space with nobody but you in it, nobody can live. Asuka: But you wanted this world, a closed world for yourself. Ritsuko: Excluding what you hate, you wanted a world of solitude. A mind all your own. Rei: This is your world delivered, with a small haven in your mind. Asuka: This is one of the conclusions. Misato: The end of the world that you have lived in.