Episode 08

Episode Information
Episode #08
Title 1: {{{japanese_title_k}}} {{{japanese_title_r}}} {{{japanese_title_e}}} Title 2: Asuka Strikes!
Written By	Hideaki Anno, Yoji Enokido
Directed By	Kazuya Tsurumaki
First Aired	11-22-1995
Video Release Date	{{{video_release}}}
Angel Appearances	Gaghiel
Episode chronology
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"Episode 7"	"Episode 9"

Overview

Misato brings Shinji, along with Toji and Kensuke, to a massive UN naval convoy transporting Evangelion Unit-02 and its fiery German pilot, Asuka Langley Soryu, to Japan. Escorting Asuka is Misato's old boyfriend, Ryoji Kaji. After some awkward introductions and reunions, the fleet is attacked by a massive aquatic Angel. Asuka powers up Eva Unit 02, and decides that she will defeat the Angel by playing "hopscotch"...

Synopsis

Ep. 8 opens with a telephone conversation between Gendo and an unknown person, wherein we learn that the cargo has "Left Sasebo, and is coming here across the Pacific."

We then join Shinji, Misato, Toji, and Kensuke, aboard a helicopter. Misato tells them they are on a date, but Toji and Kensuke are actually along as cover, so that no one will know that this is official business. They are on their way to meet Asuka Langley Soryu, the pilot of Evangelion Unit-02, which is being transported by the U.N. Pacific Fleet. The fleet is centered around an aircraft carrier named Over the Rainbow, and several battleships named after Shakespeare plays, Cymbeline, Titus Andronicus, Othello, ect. Kensuke is even more irrepressible than usual in this episode, and has his video camera glued to his eye the rest of the episode. When Toji's new hat blows across the deck, Asuka stops it with her foot; as Toji tries to retreave it, a gust of wind flips her skirt, presumably giving him an eye full. (We don't see anything.) Even though it wasn't his fault, Toji gets his face slapped as a "viewing fee". Incensed, he "drops trou", only to get a second welt on his face. Upon being introduced to Shinji, Asuka pronounces him "dull".

During a conversation between Misato and the Captain about who has authority, and where the emergency power cable should go, Ryoji Kaji strolls onto the bridge. Misato doesn't seem happy to see him. (But Asuka does). He is escorting Asuka from Nerv's German branch to Japan. The character then all cram themselves into the same elevator to go below deck for lunch. During the meal, Kaji hints at the intimate relationship he once had with Misato by asking, "does she still toss and turn in bed?" He also seems to be implying that he thinks that Misato is capable of doing something with Shinji. Misato and Asuka fume the rest of the scene, while everyone else looks shocked. Except for Shinji; he seems to be enjoying Kaji's banter. When Shinji is surprised that Kaji recognizes him, Kaji replies that he is famous.

After the meal, when Asuka once again comments on how boring Shinji is, Kaji tells her he had a 40% Synch Rate with Unit-01 with no training in a combat situation. This surprises her so much that she feels a need to impress him as well, so she takes him to the transport ship to see her Eva. She explains to him that Unit-02 is the first production model; Unit-00 and Unit-01 are just the proto-type and test-type. Just then Gaghiel, the sixth Angel attacks, damaging several of the battleships. Asuka sees her chance to impress Shinji and forces him to put on a plug suit and accompany her into battle. (After telling him "no peeking" while donning her own plug suit.

Kaji calls Gendo and tells him an Angel attack wasn't part of their deal. Gendo assures him that he put Unit-02 and a spare pilot aboard for this very contingency.

Because there are 2 pilots aboard, Asuka has trouble starting Unit-02. When telling Shinji to "Think in German!" doesn't work, she solves to problem by switching the language to Japanese. The captain warns Misato that Unit-02 has "B-type Equipment", and can't fight underwater, but Misato tells Asuka to go ahead. Asuka leaps her Eva from ship to ship until it reaches its power cable aboard the carrier, plugs herself in, and draws her Progressive Knife. The Angel's leap knocks Unit-02 into the Sea, where she is swallowed. Kaji leaps into a fighter plane; Misato thinks her has a plan, but instead he makes his escape. Misato comes up with a desperate plan. Scuttle two of the damaged battleships in Gaghiel's path; have Asuka and Shinji pry open the Angel's mouth, and then have the ships fire their guns point-blank and then self destruct, destroying the Angel. Shinji and Asuka can't get Gaghiel's mouth open until they cooperate in the effort. The plan works, and the blast propels Unit-02 back onto the carrier's deck.

Later, back on shore. Ritsuko looks at the data and tells Misato that Shinji and Asuka both broke their Synch records while opening the Angel's mouth.

Meanwhile, Kaji has arrived at Nerv H.Q. with his cargo, and asks if it, not Unit-02 weren't the Angel's actual target. Gendo, agrees. Inside Kaji's case is what appears to be a large human embryo, encased in an amber-colored block. Even though it is encased in bakelite, Adam, the first human is alive and growing.

The next day at school, Toji is telling Shinji and Kensuke how glad he is that he won't be seeing Asuka again, when she is introduced as a new student.

End of episode.

Notes

• First appearance of Asuka Langley Soryu in the series. Despite the fact that she shows up as late as Episode 8, she's actually part of the trio of primary characters: Shinji, Rei, and Asuka.
• Asuka is actually three-quarters German and only one-quarter Japanese (her paternal grandfather was Japanese), explaining how she has a Japanese name but a German appearance. Asuka's father held United States citizenship, so her nationality is technically American as well, though she has been raised in Germany her entire life. As seen when Asuka starts up Eva Unit 02, her native language is German, but she does speak fluent Japanese.
• Asuka's seiyu, Yuko Miyamura, noticeably struggles to pronounce Asuka's extended piece of German dialogue as she is starting up Eva Unit 02. The English voice actress for Asuka, Tiffany Grant, quickly recites the German startup list much more fluidly. Aside from the fact that Tiffany Grant speaks German in real life, English and German are fairly closely related languages, while German is entirely alien to a speaker of Japanese. In the original Japanese dub, Asuka actually speaks German only at two distinct points in the entire series: in this episode when Asuka recites Eva 02's startup checklist, and later in Episode 23 when she has a phone conversation in German with her stepmother. For the official English dub, Tiffany Grant (aided by her ability to speak German in real life) inserted many German words and phrases for Asuka to speak, not just in this episode but throughout the series in every episode she appears in, to give a greater overall impression that Asuka is German but has learned to speak Japanese like everyone else.
• First appearance of Evangelion Unit-02. Eva Unit 02 is the first "Production Model" Evangelion. Eva Unit 00 was just the "Prototype" (notable for being buggy and prone to lose control), and Eva Unit 01 is the "Test Type". It is later revealed that all of the Evas are created by cloning genetic material from the first Angel, Adam, except for Eva 01, which is a clone of Lilith. There were never more attempts to make an Evangelion based on genetic material from Lilith, so Eva 01 was just a "Test". Eva Unit 02's construction refined mistakes made while producing the earlier Evangelion models, and added more weaponry: Eva Unit 02 is the first Eva truly meant for frontline combat.
• First appearance of Ryoji Kaji.
  • Kaji is almost never referred to by his first name. Even Misato, his ex-girlfriend, just calls him "Kaji" (even later on when she isn't mad at him).
• The closing credits of this episode are tinted red instead of the usual blue. Probably to celebrate the arrival of Asuka and Unit-02 (as Unit-02 is painted red).
• Kaji has delivered Adam to Gendo in Tokyo-3, which as he suggests and Gendo confirms is "the key to Human Instrumentality Project". Gendo describes Adam as "the first human being".
• This is the first and really only time that an Angel attacks somewhere other than Tokyo-3; this is because Adam was secretly being transported in the naval convoy (Misato notes that the Angel seems to be searching for something). Two later Angels, Sahaquiel and Arael, will appear in Earth orbit, yet despite being located in space their attacks are both still conspicuously directed against Tokyo-3.
• Gaghiel is the first and only aquatic Angel, and this is also the only aquatic battle in the series.
• Asuka's breasts are atypically large for a girl her age; she developed early. That is to say, this isn't just the style in which she is animated; she has a markedly larger bust size than other girls her age in the series i.e. Rei, and actually seems to brag about it (when she boasts to Misato that "my figure has filled out, too")
• Pausing when Misato flashes her ID card to the naval convoy's commander reveals some of her personal information: Misato is 1.63 meters (5 feet 4 inches) tall, and her blood type is "type AO" (actually, both the genotype "AA" and "AO" are indistinguishable as the "type A" phenotype). Conspicuously, the fields on the ID card listing Misato's age and weight have been scribbled out with pen, probably by Misato herself out of embarrassment.
• The Angel Ramiel's corpse is still being cleared away in this episode, after it was killed in Episode 6. The timeline for the series gets slightly more vague starting with this episode, but in Episode 7 it was also mentioned that Eva Unit 02 and its pilot were already "on their way" from Germany. This, combined with the fact that Ramiel's body is still being slowly removed, indicates that Episode 8 takes place relatively soon after Episode 7.
• As was earlier seen in Episode 3, when more than one person is in the Entry Plug of an Eva at the same time, it creates "thought noise"; basically static interference between the mind of the pilot and the Eva.
• Also expanding on material from Episode 3; an Evangelion pilot can actually enter, then activate, an Eva entirely without external aid if they need to. Although there is a dedicated Entry Plug loading mechanism in NERV HQ, a pilot can manually open it (apparently Asuka triggered the release of Unit 02's Entry Plug by use of a mechanism on the side of the Entry Plug's hatch) and then launch it entirely independent of the control center.
• Apparently, the internal controls of an Evangelion which interact directly with the pilot's mind which the pilot is synchronized with the Eva are set to the native language of the pilot. For example, Shinji's native language is Japanese, and therefore he "thinks in" Japanese, so Eva Unit 01 is set to Japanese. The language mode of Eva Unit 02, however, is set to German, because Asuka's native language is German and she "thinks in" German. However, Asuka speaks fluent Japanese, so she can apparently set the language mode to Japanese, but still function well enough (meanwhile, Shinji doesn't understand German at all, so he cannot function in an Eva set to anything other than Japanese).
• The warships in the United Nations Pacific fleet that form the naval convoy escorting Unit 02 are all codenamed after plays by William Shakespeare, such as Titus Andronicus, Othello, Cymbeline (destroyed by Gaghiel), and The Tempest. The nuclear-powered aircraft serving as a command ship, however, is named "Over the Rainbow" (and implied to actually be USS Harry S. Truman, renamed after Second Impact). The fleet consisted of 5 aircraft carriers and 4 battleships, plus other smaller vessels. Judging from markings on its interior, Othello, which Eva Unit 02 was transported on, was a vessel from the Russian navy. All four battleships in the fleet were ultimately destroyed (two by Gaghiel, while Illinois and Kentucky were sacrificed to defeat the Angel).
  • The two battleships in the UN escort fleet which Misato sacrifices to destroy Gaghiel are the Iowa-class battleships Illinois (BB-65) and Kentucky (BB-66), which were never actually completed in real life: both were only partially completed when following the end of World War II their construction was canceled (in 1945 and 1947, respectively) and they were subsequently scrapped. In the timeline of Neon Genesis Evangelion, they were apparently not scrapped, but finished (possibly as part of President Reagan's "600 ship navy" initiative to bolster the US navy in the 1980's) and upgraded with modern military technology (as fellow Iowa-cass battleships Missouri and Wisconsin were also upgraded over the years).
  • The combined United Nations Pacific Fleet contains vessels from both Western bloc and Eastern bloc nations: Ticonderoga-class cruisers (United States Navy), the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman (renamed "Over the Rainbow"), Udaloy-class destroyers (Russian Navy), Admiral Kuznetsov-class aircraft carriers (Russian Navy), Kirov-class battlecruisers (Russian Navy), and Kongo-class destroyers (Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force).
• The underwater battle between Eva 02 and the Angel Gaghiel clearly takes place in the submerged ruins of Old Tokyo: the computer display map that Misato observes the Pacific Fleet's position on clearly displays street names and landmarks from present-day Tokyo.
• Geography-wise, subtitles at the end of the episode explain that "New Yokosuka" is actually the city formerly known as Odawara. Previously, the Angel Shamshel approached Tokyo-3 by making landfall at Odawara, and Sachiel also came from the eastern coast. Here, "New Yokosuka" appears to be the primary port serving Tokyo-3, which is landlocked, given that Eva-02 is delivered to Tokyo-3 via this point.
  • In Gendo's phone conversation at the beginning of the episode, he says that the naval convoy transporting Eva Unit 02 left Sasebo "yesterday", and was currently in the Pacific. Sasebo is a port city in extreme southwestern Japan, in Nagasaki prefecture, slightly north of the city of Nagasaki. Sasebo is the site of a major naval military base. The convoy transporting Eva 02 from Germany apparently made a short stop in Sasebo, before continuing on to New Yokosuka.
• The three sets of Japanese characters that form the opening title card for the episode appear in sequence, with each one punctuated by synchronizing each with one of the three times Asuka slaps Toji's face.

Analysis

• When Asuka makes her first appearance on screen during the series, she is standing facing the "camera" silhouetted against the Sun behind her. Just as a recurring visual motif of the Moon is used with Rei in the series, with Asuka (who is the polar opposite of Rei's personality) a recurring visual motif of the Sun is used.
• The series' creators have described Asuka as a girl "who seeks to put herself above all others": in the very first scene Asuka appears in, she is standing on the control tower of the aircraft carrier, physically standing high above the landing pad where Shinji, Misato & Co. exit their helicopter transport. This also occurs later in this same episode, when Asuka feels driven to show off Eva 02 to Shinji, and is compelled to stand on top of Eva 02 to look down on Shinji far below.

Quotes

Original Japanese dub

• Asuka (Starting up Eva Unit 02): "LCL Füllung. Anfang der Bewegung. Anfang des Nervenanschlusses. Auslöses von Links-kleidung. Synchro-start." (message displays: "FEHLER")
  Shinji: "Its...a programming error?"
  Asuka: "It's thought-noise. I told you not to disturb me."
  Shinji: "What do you mean?"
  Asuka: "You're thinking in Japanese aren't you? If you must think, do it in German!"
  Shinji: "I'll try...strudel...bratwurst..."
  Asuka: "Dummkopf!"
  
• UN Captain: "But what about Eva?"
  Misato: "Don't worry. Those two'll be alright."
  (Scene quickly cuts to the Entry Plug of Eva 02, Asuka is strangling Shinji from behind)
  Asuka: (switches from strangling Shinji to beating him rhythmically with her fists) "Hey, don't pilot my Unit 02 without my persmission!!"
  Misato: (Over the radio) "Do both of you understand the operation?"
  Shinji: (Asuka continues to strangle Shinji) "I'll do my best"
• (Back in school, speaking of Asuka)
  Toji: "She may have looked cute, but she was a real female dog, if you know what I mean."
  Kensuke: "Well, at least we won't have to see her again".
  Toji: "Yeah, but Mr. Bigshot here still has to go work with her every day. I feel sorry for him..." (classroom door opens and Toji, Kensuke, and Shinji react in shock; Toji fall out of his desk and points) "...LOOK!"
  Asuka: (Asuka walks up to the front board wearing a class uniform, and writes her name on it in ornate Latin letters) "I'm Asuka Langley Soryu. Charmed, huh?"

Official English dub

• Asuka (Starting up Eva Unit 02): "LCL einleiten. Anfang der Bewegung - bestätigt! Anfang des Nervenanschlusses - bestätigt! Anfachung des Herzmonitors - bestätigt! Synchro-start nun!" (message displays: "FEHLER")
  Shinji: "Its...a programming error?"
  Asuka: "It's thought-noise. I told you not to disturb me."
  Shinji: "What do you mean?"
  Asuka: "You're thinking in Japanese aren't you? If you must think, do it in German!"
  Shinji: "I'll try...strudel...bratwurst..."
  Asuka: "Dummkopf!"
  

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