A public phone on the side of some stairs. Toji stands in front of it.
Mr. Tines: Cue antique telephony infrastructure. Post 2I, a wireless rather than fixed line would have been a more obvious choice, just as in developing nations today.
Brendan Brown: I'm sure its obvious that it's an artistic choice. However it might be useful to expound upon why this is so.
I don't know how many here have actually been to Japan, but one of the first things you notice is the nearly-netlike criss-crossing of telephone and electrical wires above urban streets.
Anno's mise en scène and composition often dwells on the linear and technical structures that tend to define modern Japan. The train tracks in "Shiki-Jitsu", for instance. Additionally, note the traffic light metaphor in several episodes of "His and Her Circumstances". In fact, during one episode of this same series, there is a monologue about isolation and loneliness which includes a quick cut to a telephone pole with all its outgoing wires severed. Observe again in episode #01 of "Evangelion" (C-028); the whipping wires respond to the geographic tremula that announces Sachiel's arrival to Shinji.
Gundampilotspaz made keen and insightful remarks during the episode #01 (C-023) commentary on telephone poles being used as a sign of civilisation — something that degrades over the course of the series. Indeed I would guess that Anno's general strategy is the use of these slightly antiquated but everpresent symbols of Japan's industrialisation to portray character state.
We should come up with a snappy title for this sensibility. 'Wire-punk'? 'Cable-punk'?
