Episode 01

Episode Information
Episode #01
Title 1: {{{japanese_title_k}}} {{{japanese_title_r}}} {{{japanese_title_e}}} Title 2: Angel Attack
Written By	Hideaki Anno
Directed By	Kazuya Tsurumaki
First Aired	10-4-1995
Video Release Date	{{{video_release}}}
Angel Appearances	Sachiel
Eva Sorties	Unit-01
Episode chronology
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"(none)"	"Episode 02"

Overview

Shinji Ikari is summoned to Tokyo-3 by his father Gendo, commander of the NERV organization, to fight off an attack by a giant "Angel" monster by piloting the only weapon capable of battling an Angel: Evangelion Unit-01.

Synopsis

A mysterious figure glides underwater towards Tokyo-3, passing sunken buildings on it's way. It's the Angel Sachiel. After 15 years the Angels have begun to attack.

Meanwhile,Shinji Ikari arrives in Tokyo-3. He is waiting by a phone booth for Misato Katsuragi, who has sent him a risque photo of herself. During his wait he suddenly notices a mysterious teenage girl who seems to be observing him; she vanishes as quickly as she appeared. Before he can ponder this Sachiel appears. Shinji is rescued in the nick of time by Misato and is taken to NERV's underground base.

Meanwhile, the military is powerless against Sachiel, so they surrender command to Shinji's long absent father, Gendo Ikari.

Upon their arrival, Shinji and Misato are greeted by Ritsuko Akagi NERV's chief scientist. Shinji then learns that he has been summoned to pilot Evangelion Unit-01 into battle against the Angel. Shinji, who plainly detests his father refuses. Gendo then sends for his other pilot Rei Ayanami despite her being seriously injured, coldly telling his vice-commander Kozo Fuyutsuki "she's not dead". Rei is wheeled into the room in a hospital bed, covered with bandages and clearly in pain. The audience recognizes her as the girl Shinji saw on the street, but in her condition how could this be?. There is no sign that Shinji recognizes her as well.

Sachiel has now zeroed in and has begun to attack NERV headquarters. The room shakes and Rei tumbles to the floor. As Shinji moves to help her a bank of floodlights falls straight towards him! Suddenly, Unit-01's arm moves to deflect the lights. Ritsuko is astounded because the Eva shouldn't have been able to move at all with no entry plug inserted. Misato realizes that the Eva had moved to protect Shinji thus they have a chance to succeed after all. Cradling Rei in his arms, Shinji sees her blood on his hand, and is finally shamed into piloting. The episode ends with Shinji being launched into battle. Gendo's smile indicates his supreme confidence.

Notes

• Every recurring major character in the series appears in the opening sequence of this episode, including Shinji's classmates (who don't appear until Episode 03), and Asuka and Kaji (who do not appear until Episode 08), probably because it would have been more expensive to create more than one opening sequence.
• Tokyo-3 was built on the site of pre-Second Impact Hakone. Throughout the series stray dialogue about there are various stray references to geographic locations surrounding Tokyo-3 that also surround Hakone.
• According to Misato it took seven months for Rei to synchronize with Eva Unit 00. It is not clear if Rei's accident in which Eva 00 went berserk, which chronologically seems to happen right before this episode (and is seen in flashbacks in Episode 05, is what Misato is referring to as Rei's first synchronization, or if it happened even earlier than seven months ago.
• Shinji and his father Gendo have not met in three years.
• When Misato asks Shinji if his father sent him a NERV ID card, he hands her the letter that his father sent him summoning him to Tokyo-3. All of the printed out words on the entire letter are censored and blacked out because it is classified information. The only actual information on it is a handwritten message from Gendo which reads: "COME -- Gendo Ikari". Shinji obviously tore up the paper out of frustration at his father, and then taped the pieces back together.
• When Shinji says he doesn't get along with his father, Misato says he sounds just like her. The relationship between Misato and her father will be expounded upon in Episode 12.

  

  "Check these out!"

• Misato mailed Shinji a photo of herself to let him know what she looked like when she picked him up: it is a humorously inappropriate photo of her wearing cutoff jeans that reveal her thighs, leaning forward in a tank top revealing excessive cleavage, winking at Shinji and giving him the V-sign. She also left a lipstick kiss on it. The Japanese writing on it translates as "To Shinji: I'll be picking you up, so wait for me, okay?" (apparently written in creator Hideaki Anno's own handwriting). Misato also punctuated the photo with a highly inappropriate message, "Check these out!!" with an arrow pointing to her barely covered breasts. The Platinum Edition DVDs translate this into English as "Pay Attention!".
• Sachiel's energy blasts look like crucifixes.
• Despite being the head of NERV's Tactical Operations division, Misato is apparently a relatively new arrival at NERV HQ, as she gets lost on her way into the base, prompting Ritsuko to comment that she's "lost again" (i.e. it's not the first time that she has been in NERV HQ, but she is has not been there long and still gets lost). In the next episode, Misato says that she just moved to Tokyo-3 "the other day" and there are still unopened boxes in her apartment.
• Sachiel's respiration system is somewhat unusual; this is made more clear in production sketches, but apparently it "breathes in" through the gills on its thighs, and "breathes out" through what is apparently a large "nostril" in the center of its crotch.
• When Misato and Shinji are entering NERV HQ, the hexagonal sliding door they walk through has the misspelling "cauntion" written on it.
• The announcer at the beginning of the episode says that "a special state of emergency has been declared for the Kanto and Chubu regions"; Tokai is the district between Tokyo and Nagoya. Kanto and Chubu contains Tokai and the large area north of it.
  • Geography-wise, Sachiel approaches Tokyo-3 from coast to the east, and is said to be "moving from Highway 83 onto 88" when it arrives at Shinji's original position. When Shinji first appears at a phone booth before he arrives in Tokyo-3 itself, a road sign he is standing right next to says that his current position is 12 kilometers from Tokyo-3 and 35 kilometers from Gotenba. Also, an aviation support unit spreads "from the direction of Odawara". Soon afterwards Sachiel "penetrates the Tonosawa area" crossing the "tertiary self-defense line".
• Misato's blue car is apparently based on a modified 1981 Alpine Renault A310. However, the A310's driver's seat is on the left hand side, while the driver's side of Misato's car is on the right side. Further, Misato's car appears to be battery-powered, and does not use gasoline. Further, Misato's car seems to have some sort of GPS display monitor on the dashboard.
• The little green booklet that Misato hands to Shinji when they enter NERV HQ says "Welcome to NERV" on it. Apparently, Shinji has never even heard the name of "NERV" before, and yet he is a matter of minutes away from being told to pilot Eva Unit 01.
• Background announcements in NERV HQ after Misato and Shinji enter state that the "Sigma Unit" is under a complete lockout.
• The levels of NERV HQ are all designated in the elevators as "B-(level)"; i.e. we see Misato and Shinji pass by a sign on a wall that says "Level 20", and the elevator they are in designates this as "B-20" etc (the "B" is drawn in a fuzzy digital font causing some viewers to confuse it for an "8"). When Misato and Shinji are passing along a shaft (going through Level 20) that extends several levels down, Level 30 and Level 40 can be seen progressively further down the shaft. Thus, levels with higher numbers in NERV HQ are deeper underground. Other maps show that different subsections of NERV HQ have different letter prefixes ("A-15", "K-05", etc.), but the main subsection that the command center is located in appears to be a large hexagon-shaped vertical shaft with each level designated with the prefix "B-".
• Misato's map indicates that NERV's command center is located on level B-20, saying: "NERV Headquarters: Central Dogma B20". Of course, NERV's Commander Center is a massive room many levels in height, so level B-20 is presumably the level which Misato normally accesses it on. Misato has left a handwritten note in red ink on the map with an arrow pointing to the commander center, saying "this area!". Looking closely it can be seen that Misato has also left another note with arrows pointing to two other areas on the same level: "WC", which presumably stands for "water closet", that is, the lavatory (bathroom). When Misato encounters Ritsuko, she tries to hide the map behind her back out of embarrassment that she needs to use it.
• Ritsuko tells Misato that the odds of Eva Unit 01 activating are "0.000000009%. "O9 System" seems like a fitting thing to call it". This is a pun in Japanese that would be somewhat lost on an English-speaking audience, so the official English dub by ADV films inserted an extra line clarifying this, by having Ritsuko go on to explain that "O-Nine" is a pun on "Oni", the Japanese word for "demon".
• Eva Unit 01's shoulder normally just as the word "EVA" written on it, with a number "1" superimposed over it. However, when Shinji and Misato first drive up to Eva 01 in a hovercraft, the entire word "Evangelion" is written on its shoulder due to an animation goof.
• The original Japanese title of this episode is "使徒、襲来 "Shito, shūrai". Gainax made their own English titles, and the English title Gainax created for this episode is "Angel Attack". ADV Film's translation of the original Japanese title is "An Angel's Attack".

Analysis

• Shinji sees a "vision" of Rei standing in the road wearing her school uniform soon after he is introduced, right before Misato arrives in her car to pick him up. Obviously this couldn't have been the "real" Rei simply physically traveling from Shinji's position to Tokyo-3, as Rei has been seriously injured and is at NERV HQ (wearing her plug suit) under constant medical surveillance. This shot effectively forms half of two "bookends" for the series: when Shinji comes to Tokyo-3 here he sees a vision of Rei wearing her school uniform, and in the penultimate scene of The End of Evangelion, Shinji sees a vision of Rei wearing her school uniform standing over the Sea of LCL after Instrumentality (and after the Rei/Adam/Lilith hyper-being has died, or perhaps as it was dying) which then vanishes. What "really happened" in this appearance of Rei?
  • It seems almost assured that Shinji didn't just "hallucinate" it, as he had never met Rei before and thus had no way of knowing what she looks like.
  • During several episodes of the series (Episode 16, Episode 20) Shinji has internal mind-trips in which he appears to be talking to Rei. In these scenes it is unlikely that Shinji is simply hallucinating (talking to his own subconscious feelings, etc.) because in Episode 19, Toji has an almost identical vision of a Rei/Shinji conversation, and these scenes bear too close a resemblance to the "train" scene in EOE in the earliest stages of Instrumentality to be coincidence. Another possibility is that"Rei" is an Angel or Eva Unit 01 trying to contact his mind using the image of Rei, etc. Yet another possibility is that in these instances Rei actually reached out and contacted Shinji's mind, and the "Rei" in his internal visions in Episodes 16 and 20 actually was Rei, contacting him. It's unclear exactly what was happening in these conversations, but there are clues that suggest an explanation for Rei's appearance to Shinji in ep. 01.
    • In ep. 23, when Ritsuko shows Shinji and Misato the room where Rei was born, the words "Top", "Bottom", and "Strangeness" are written on the wall. These are terms from Quantum Mechanics, and as it is emphasized that this was Rei's room, they must have been put there as a clue as to Rei's nature. Quantum Mechanics describes the behavior of subatomic particles. The basic subatomic particle, so far as we know, is the quark. Top and bottom are two of the six kinds of quarks known to exist. The reason that this is relevant is that quarks behave in ways that would be impossible in normal physics. For instance, a single quark can be in more than one place at a time. As we see in EOE, after absorbing Adam and re-joining with Lilith, Rei can be everywhere at once, collecting the souls of all mankind. Another property of quarks is that time has no meaning for them. At the sub atomic level, effects can happen before their causes, and particles can arrive at their destinations before starting on their journeys. In light of this, it seems likely that the Rei Shinji sees in Ep. 01 is Rei III, who has transcended time after gaining god-like powers at the end of the story.
• Sachiel's design is remarkably similar to the Plug suit designs. For details, go here: Sachiel/Plug Suit Design Analysis
• Gendo never properly wears his uniform, even while in front of the JSSDF generals who, prior to the transfer of power when the N² Mine attack fails to stop the Angel, are technically in command and his superiors. Fuyutsuki keeps his uniform properly zipped up the entire time, but Gendo just wears his uniform's jacket open. It's possible that this is just economy of animation and character design (Gendo never zips up his uniform throughout the entire series), but it could also be an intentional subtle hint that Gendo has no respect for the JSSDF at all.
• When Ritsuko first meets Shinji and Misato, she is wearing a one-piece swimsuit, which she was wearing under a diving suit, with her lab coat over it. However, between when Ritsuko, Misato, and Shinji meet in the elevator and when they reach Unit 01, Ritsuko has changed into her normal clothes (blue shirt, black skirt, and stockings); in addition, Misato has put on her trademark red jacket. They're supposed to be hurrying to Eva Unit 01 as fast as they can to sortie it against the Angel: Misato could conceivably have just thrown her jacket on while walking, but Ritsuko apparently took the time to change her entire outfit?

Quotes

• Fuyutsuki: "It's been 15 years, hasn't it."
  Gendo Ikari: "Yes, there can be no mistake. It's an Angel".
• Misato Katsuragi: (while standing on an elevated people mover transporting her through NERV base, which is clearly visible from lower levels) "This is why I hate wearing skirts here".
• Ritsuko Akagi: "This is the Ultimate All-Purpose Humanoid Decisive Battle Weapon developed by humanity. The artificial human, Evangelion. That is EVA-01. Its construction carried out in complete secrecy, it is our — humanity's — final trump."
• Shinji Ikari: "I mustn't run away. I mustn't run away. I mustn't run away..."
• Gendo Ikari: "Go wake up Rei."
  Fuyutsuki: "Can we use her?"
  Gendo Ikari: "She isn't dead."
  Fuyutsuki: "Understood."

Credits

See "Episode 1/Credits"