Episode 21

Episode Information
Episode #21
Title 1: ネルフ、誕生 Nerufu, tanjo The Birth of Nerv Title 2: He was aware that he was still a child
Written By	Hideaki Anno, Akio Satsukawa
Directed By	Hiroyuki Ishido
First Aired	2-21-1996
Video Release Date	2-5-1997 (Japan-Video/LD), 5-29-2001 (US-DVD)
Angel Appearances	Adam (Flashback)
Eva Sorties	None
Episode chronology
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"Episode 20"	"Episode 22"

Overview

Kozo Fuyutsuki is kidnapped and interrogated by Seele, who are horrified over the results of the last encounter with an Angel. He recounts his past, providing flashbacks into the creation of Nerv. The pasts of Misato Katsuragi, Ritsuko Akagi, Rei Ayanami and Yui Ikari are also revealed. Ryoji Kaji, meanwhile, decides to find out the truth, no matter the cost.

Synopsis

Two classified recordings showing the circumstances leading up to Second Impact begins the episode. In the first, the scientists of the Katsuragi Expedition are discussing their discovery of Adam, and it seems to prove the theory regarding the existence of the S² Engine. Meanwhile, Gendo Ikari and Keel Lorenz are off to the side, having a conversation of their own, during which Keel openly scoffs at the scientists, finding their motives selfish. The second recording shows the immediate aftermath of the ill-fated Contact Experiment with Adam, who wakes up and smashes through the scientists' base, despite their desperate attempts to contain him by forcing him back into stasis.

Back in the present, Ryoji Kaji makes a phone call to Misato, and gets her answering machine. He comments that this is his last mission, and that his Nerv I.D. card looks like blood. Elsewhere, Misato is informed by a couple of Nerv agents that Fuyutsuki has been abducted, and Kaji is a suspect. Because of her relationship with Kaji, she is also under suspicion and is taken into custody.

Kozo Fuyutsuki, meanwhile, faces the Seele monoliths rather than the committee. They have questions to ask him regarding the latest troubling development, and call him Fuyutsuki-sensei, a title he hasn’t heard in a long time....

A flashback to 1999, in Kyoto. Working at the university's metaphysical biology department, Fuyutsuki is told by a colleague about the work of a promising new bioengineering student, Yui Ikari, and the two have a meeting, revealing that Yui is also considering a domestic life over her research. Fuyutsuki looks both startled by and interested in this information. He befriends Yui, and quickly becomes a confidant of hers.

Shortly afterwards, Fuyutsuki meets Gendo Rokubungi. The younger man had asked to be released into Fuyutsuki’s custody after being involved in a brawl at a bar, even though Fuyutsuki had never heard of him. Fuyutsuki dislikes Gendo almost immediately, so, he is surprised to hear that he and Yui are seeing each other. Yui says that Gendo is actually very nice, but no one knows it. Fuyutsuki notes that at the time, it was thought that Gendo was with Yui because of her connections to Seele.

Second Impact occurs; Fuyutsuki does not go into detail, except to say that the first year was "pure hell". In 2002, he is working as an unlicensed doctor in the ruins of Toyohashi City, Aichi Prefecture. Japan is now a country of perpetual summer. Fuyutsuki finds that he has been invited to a UN investigation of the Second Impact.

The blue-haired angel.

Gendo is there in Antarctica, much to Fuyutsuki’s shock, having apparently left a day before Second Impact. His surname is now Ikari, and he is married to Yui with a child. He hands Fuyutsuki a card from Yui including a drawing of a blue-haired angel

In the present day, Misato is being kept in a dark isolation cell. She hates the bad memories it brings. The past shows Fuyutsuki watching the teenage Misato in the South Pole Investigation Ship Isolation Facility 2, and he is told she hasn’t spoken in two years.

Second Impact is officially classified as a meteor impact. But Fuyutsuki is not fooled, he knows that Seele and Keel Lorenz are involved, and decides to conduct his own investigation.

In 2003, Yui and Fuyutsuki meet in Hakone, at her workplace, the newly founded Artificial Evolution Laboratory. But Fuyutsuki has business with the Laboratory's director, Gendo. He knows that Gendo knows more than he’s letting on, and has an unusually large amount of private money. Fuyutsuki threatens to go public with the real truth about Seele, Second Impact, ant the Dead Sea Scrolls, but Gendo takes his threat in stride and instead invites him to see something.

The two men go underground, into the Geofront, and meet Naoko Akagi, see the Magi and a prototype Evangelion, which Fuyutsuki momentarily mistakes for Adam. Gendo invites Fuyutsuki to work with him to create a new future for mankind.

In 2005, the first meeting between Misato Katsuragi and Ritsuko Akagi is shown, narrated by Ritsuko. Misato is now her bubbly self. Ritsuko reports that she and Misato have quickly become fast friends, as Misato treats her as a normal person, rather than with the baggage of her prestigious name, which has frequently kept her distanced from her peers in the past. Soon Misato and Kaji get together, and Misato spends a week away from classes with him.

In 2003, Yui (with the young Shinji) and Fuyutsuki are discussing matters at the Ashinoko Lakefront, Hakone. Fuyutsuki supports her ideas, not Seele's. He knows that he can be easily erased, but tells Yui there’s no reason for her to become a test subject. She merely replies that she will "go with the flow of things", and is at Seele for Shinji's sake.

In 2004, at Hakone Underground Laboratory 2, the Contact Experiment is taking place. Yui has brought her young son to watch the proceedings. But Yui is wiped out in a "freak accident". According to Naoko Akagi, Gendo changed completely after that day, but she begins a relationship with him regardless. Gendo tells Fuyutsuki he intends to propose the Human Instrumentality Project.

In 2008, Ritsuko joins Gehirn and discovers her mother's affair with Gendo. A young Rei Ayanami is introduced in 2010, being shown around the headquarters by Gendo Ikari, who claims that she the daughter of an acquaintance and that he is looking after her for them. Naoko looks at her and is reminded of Yui. She searches the database and finds that all of Rei's records have been erased. The Magi are completed after this. Naoko proudly shows off her finished project to Ritsuko, and learns from her Misato is in Branch 3 of Gehirn in Germany and that she and Kaji have already broken up. As Ritsuko goes home for the evening, Naoko stays behind to finish up some work.

Later, as Naoko is still working, Rei suddenly appears, says that she is lost. When Naoko offers to let Rei leave with her, Rei calls her an "old hag", and adds that it is Gendo who calls Naoko that, and also pushy, not needed. Enraged, Naoko strangles the girl, calling her just as replaceable. Naoko is horrified at her deed, and commits suicide by jumping from a high rail above the Magi. The day after this, Gehirn is disbanded, and Nerv is formed.

Kaji leaves the phone booth, (the episode must have actually begun at this point) and frees Fuyutsuki, who comments that this action will result in his death. Kaji replies that he was thinking of himself because Seele was about to discover that he was the one who brought Adam to Gendo and that he just wants to get closer to the truth. Late in the afternoon, Misato is released from custody. She asks about Kaji, but the agent refuses to give her any details. Elsewhere, Kaji meets an unseen person, calmly greeting them with "Hey, you're late," and is shot.

When Misato returns home, she finds an answering machine message from Kaji. In it, he apologizes for all the trouble he has caused her, and tells her to also apologize to Ritsuko. He urges her to continue his search for the truth, and finally adds that if he should ever see her again, he will "say the words I wasn't able to say eight years ago." From the nature of the message, Misato quickly figures out that Kaji is dead and breaks down in tears as it plays. Shinji hears her crying and gets up, but can’t go into the kitchen. He returns to bed and puts a pillow over his ears, thinking that he is just a child, and there is nothing he can do.

On-Air Version Differences

Main article: Guides:Episode 21 OA vs. DC

• The recording showing the circumstances leading up to Second Impact is not included.
• The scene of Fuyutsuki meeting the agent sent by Gendo/Seele on the houseboat is not included.
• Several scenes are redrawn subtly, such as the scene where Kaji faces his killer.
• Kaji's comment that Seele would have discovered his guilt in transporting Adam to Gendo is absent. ADV has stated that the changes relating to Kaji's death were made because the OA version had led fans to mistakenly assume that Misato was Kaji's killer.

Notes

• The college-age Ritsuko is shown smoking: this is the only time in the series she is shown doing this, but the adult Ritsuko is sometimes depicted with ashtrays full of lipstick-marked cigarette butts, indicating that she smokes heavily, a possible sign of anxiety.

• The theory that Misato had killed Kaji is one of the oldest misconceptions in Eva fandom. This theory shocked Anno so much at the time that he'd later rectify it in the Director's Cut version of Episode 21 by changing the previous "evidence" for this, a shot of her room's door with her name on it, which was changed to just a shot of her apartment complex. This is one of the few cases of a straight-up retcon in Evangelion. This was controversial enough to be addressed by Newtype at the time: "While a lot of fans think that it was done by Misato, Director Anno raised the possibility that it could have been done by Japan government or Seele agent". The film-book also states that the killer was not a main character.

Analysis

• Gendo refers to Fuyutsuki as "Sensei" and appears to have at least a professional admiration for him if not anything else. That he had Fuyutsuki spared at his behest shows not only Gendo's influence within Seele but perhaps a grudging trust in Fuyutsuki as well (and perhaps Yui's influence), over other less scrupulous men of similar capacity.
• Misato is revealed to have gone mute following the horror of the Second Impact, and is seen sitting alone in a room. Her own treatment- more like a scientific experiment than as a proper human being- might draw a parallel with Rei's own upbringing. Ritsuko says that she constantly talks away in college, possibly because her loneliness drives her to seek more and more friends.
  • Ritsuko describes Misato's week-long sex spree with Kaji as "an unexpected side of her". This is seen again in Episode 25, where Misato is accused by the other characters of wanting to show this side of herself to Shinji, but she shakes her head in absolute disgust with herself.

External links

• Bochan_bird translation of DC added scenes

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