FGC:Episode 02 Scene 04

Our City

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Screenshots	Cut #	Description/Dialogue	Commentary
	069a	Misato (OFF):“Alone?”
	069b	The bottom-most floor of a ceiling building, the Geofront visible through the glass floor. Misato and Shinji stand, speaking with an officer. Officer:“Right. His room will be in the 6th Block, just beyond this one. Is that satisfactory?” Shinji:“Yes.” Misato:“Are you sure?”	Shin-seiki: As one can see here with this shot I got off the Nadia vs. NGE section of www.thesecretofbluewater.com, Anno has a thing for transparent, panoramic floors.
	070	Misato:“……Shinji-kun.” Shinji:“I'm fine with being alone.”	HeWhoPostsStuff: I think this is the first time we see Shinji smile since he's woken up. I suppose that the prospect of staying alone, as he has been, gives him its own kind of comfort, in knowing that at least something in his life is consistent, if not pleasant.
	071	A decisive Misato looks at Shinji. Shinji:“Anywhere is fine.”	Shin-seiki: (070~071) Shinji may be "fine with being alone", but Misato most definitely is not; here is where she gets the idea for what Ritsuko later sarcastically refers to as "your nice 'family' game". Do I need to point out that Misato, Shinji, Asuka, and even Pen2, are all, in a sense, orphans? Though there are practical advantages to having Shinji, and later Asuka, live with her, in that she can keep an eye on her pilots and try to see to their social and psychological needs, it should be obvious that this is basically about Misato trying to assuage her own loneliness… OMF: She may be also trying to sooth her guilty conscience. She was one of the people who has forced him into such awful circumstances, and worse, she personally delivered him to Gendo. Responsibility is weighing heavily on her.
	072	Ritsuko in her office; coffee maker and cup in front. Ritsuko:“What did you say!?”
	073	A passage inside the ceiling city. Misato makes a phone call while Shinji stands alone. Misato:“Like I said, I'll take care of Shinji-kun. I've already got permission from the brass… …And don't worry, it's not like I'm going to "put the moves" on a kid.” Ritsuko (OFF - TEL):“Of course you're not! What the hell are you thinking? You're always like that. Honestly!” Misato holds the receiver away. Misato:“She could never take a joke.”	thewayneiac: Why don't I believe her? Shin-seiki: Here Anno presents us with a nice little "irony bomb," which will tick away, out of sight and out of mind, until it goes off around twenty or so episodes later. There's a lot of Freud referenced in NGE, and one of his ideas is that 'unacceptable' thoughts and desires cannot be suppressed entirely: They tend to come to the surface one way or another, "Freudian slips" being one example, or, as we see here, they get expressed as 'mere jokes'; and I would say this is a pretty self-implicating joke for Misato to make. As Ritsuko quite rightly puts it: "What the hell are you thinking!" Why would it even occur to Misato to say such a thing, unless the idea was lurking somewhere, perhaps subconsciously, in the back of her mind?…
	074	Misato's car inside a tunnel. SE <<Motor of the car>>
	075	Inside the car. Shinji holds an envelope between his arms. Misato (OFF):“Well, we'll have to go all out tonight, won't we?” Shinji:“——— What for?”	Hexon.Arq: Is grocery shopping her idea of going out? Reichu: "Go all out", not "go out". Or are you referring to something aside from my dodgy translation?
	076	Misato:“A welcoming party for my new roommate, of course!”	Shin-seiki: (075~076) I detect an almost 'desperately' perky and upbeat tone to Misato's demeanor here and in the scene where they arrive home; she is sooo happy to have someone around to talk to and hang with. HeWhoPostsStuff: And give most of the chores to, and tease, and boss around, and… Incisivis: I find Misato's portrayal for most of the first few episodes interesting, because it seems to define her as quirky, optimistic, and free-spirited, but with glimpses of something more. I'm wondering if that portrayal is one of the many reasons fans tend to "go easier" on the female characters; with Shinji the story plunges right into depression and issues, but with Asuka and Misato there's some hint-dropping with a more "positive" image, before it gets going. Even Rei's weirdness could be attributed to being "mysterious" instead of being simply unbalanced.
	077	Misato's car parked in front of a convenience store. SE <<(pre) A cash register, the beeping of barcodes>>	Reichu: Love Misato's parking job.
	078	BGM START: "You are the only one" Shopping basket placed on the register table, filled with nothing but alcohol, snacks, and instant food. SE <<Faint broadcast music>> Housewife A (OFF):“So, you're going to move after all?”	Reichu: The song playing in the background here is from "Lilia", an image album for the "Ys" (pronounced like the "eas" in "yeast") RPG series. Not at all coincidentally, the vocalist is Kotono Mitsuishi, Misato's VA.
	079	Shinji, with Misato further in. Housewife B (OFF):“Yes. I never dreamed that this city would become a battlefield.” Housewife A (OFF):“I know what you mean. My husband's saying that our kid and I should evacuate, at the very least.” The two housewives pass in front of Shinji, after which he hangs his head Housewife B (OFF):“Evacuate, huh? This city may be a fortress, but that's no guarantee of safety.” Housewife A (OFF):“Yesterday's incident… Just remembering it gives me the chills.”	Shin-seiki: (078~080) If you pay attention, you will note that the voices of Housewife A belongs to Yuko Miyamura (Asuka) and Housewife B to Megumi Hayashabara (Rei). They're utilized quite a few times in the first few episodes for background voices and bit parts.
	080	Misato looks at Shinji. Housewife B (OFF):“Honestly…” BGM END: "You are the only one"	Shin-seiki: Misato decides that Shinji could use a little encouragement after that bummer…
	081	Misato's car drives on New International Highway 138 as it undulates up and down. Sunset sky. SE <<Voices of cicadas>> Misato (OFF):“I hope you don't mind, but…”	Reichu: Highway 138 is just north of Tokyo-3.
	082	Shinji in the car, holding the bags from the convenience store in his arms. Misato (OFF):“…we're making a little stop on the way.” Shinji:“——— To where?”	Hexon.Arq: Isn't there room for that stuff in the back?
	083	Misato smiles and looks away from her driving. Misato:“Someplace really cool. ♥”	Reichu: Literally, she just says "a good place"… but that sounds silly.
	084	Rear end closeup of the car stopping. SE <<The calls of crows>> SE <<The voices of cicadas (faint)>>	thewayneiac: Crow calls are often used in anime to question the characters' intelligence, but I doubt if that's the case here. (Crows are said by the Japanese to cry "Aho!" = "Idiot".) Shin-seiki: There are sound effects that go with certain situations in an almost clichéd way; in NGE, crows cawing go with sunsets (see the end of #10, the Asuka/Hikari scene in #18, and the sandbox scene in #26', among other examples).
	085	Panoramic view (from a viewing platform on the mountain ridge). Shinji, Misato, and the car in the foreground. Shinji (pre.):“It's such a desolate city.”	Mr. Tines: (085~098) Look — the sun actually sets! One of my pet niggles is about sunsets where the sun doesn't set (see episode #24). The sun crosses its own width in 2 minutes, so with the zoom in on the disk like we have, we should see noticeable movement, either horizontally or vertically, over the duration of the typical Eva sunset scene. Hexon.Arq: This shot makes me wonder about the expanse of Tokyo-3. In the gun-hauling scene, there seemed to be a much more active landscape than what we see here, something resembling Las Vegas. What buildings are apparent (those that do not retract) seem to be very tiny, almost house-sized; the city seems almost completely flat. It makes me wonder about how big the ceiling buildings must be for their scale to dwarf what structures we saw previously. It could just be my lack of aggressive observation, but the city seems to change appearance a lot: towering where convenient and desolate likewise. Reichu: The "tiny buildings" we see in this panoramic shot are apparently, at their tallest, actually Eva-sized -- i.e., 40 to 200 meters in height. Since the Evas are deployed after the "ceiling city" is retracted underground, the battles, and the various artifices existing solely for Eva use (elevators, armament buildings, etc.), exist on the city outskirts. As we'll see more clearly next episode, most of the non-retracting buildings are about waist-high, with a few slightly taller than an Eva. See more. Hexon.Arq: Those must be some pretty damn big streets. Reichu: Interesting that you should mention the streets. A production drawing of Tokyo-3 designates one of the streets going through the middle of the city as a "six-lane highway", which might explain why they are so big.
	086	Shinji speaks in solitude. Misato looks at her watch, then lifts her face. Misato:“It's time.”
	087	Panoramic view of the city. SE <<Sound of a siren (echoes a great deal)>>
	088	Shinji looks.
	089	BGM START: C-7 [TOKYO-3] A street corner. The square-shaped red lights turns on; the traffic light is red, as well. The display changes from "CAUTION" to "DANGER" as the armored shutters open. SE <<Sound of the lock bolts disengaging beneath the surface; they retract during the echo>>	Sharp-kun: Anyone else think "Stingray!"? This was an old Gerry Anderson show; when Marineville was in trouble, the buildings would all retreat underground.
	090	The final lock bolts project from the ground and a building starts to gradually rise.
	091	The group of mirror buildings, the old part of the city partly on the water, etc., stand in front. The evening sun is reflected on Ashinoko. A group of buildings steadily rise. Shinji (OFF):“Amazing!” Towards the end, a giant building appears in the foreground.	thewayneiac: The physics of this are next to impossible. Do they have any idea how much horsepower it would take to lift just one of these buildings? And, as we saw in episode #01, the buildings are sticking down into the Geofront, so there aren't even any elevators under them. There must just be equipment in the shafts rolling them up and down. Reichu: As we should all know by now, the physics of NGE in general are impossible — but that's just repeating the obvious… HeWhoPostsStuff: Maybe that's why Shinji's so impressed with this display… "Wow! Even physics has nothing on you guys!"
	092	Shinji, amazed. Misato has her arms crossed. Shinji:“The buildings are growing!”
	093	A group of highrise buildings ascend before the evening sun.
	094	Aerial view of a water regulation cistern, a rising building reflected on the water's surface. When it stops, the lock bolts go in and the building is locked in place.
	095	Misato and Shinji in front of the city and the setting sun. Artificial lights are turned on bit by bit. Misato:“This is a fortress city for 'Angel' interception.”
	096	Misato:“Tokyo-3.” She looks at Shinji. Misato:“Our city.”
	097	Her unexpected words illicit a confused look from Shinji.	mechashiva: What is weird about this episode is that Shinji wakes up and has no memory of the night before (Ritsuko says his memory may be a bit "muddled" from the head trauma) and the muted expressions of everybody else could be read to Shinji as anger or disappointment: Rei glaring at him from the hospital bed and seeing Gendo at the elevator, he looks away as if to say "I did what you asked. What more do you want from me?" So Misato taking Shinji to the overlook has two purposes: to make him feel better as well as helping to jumpstart his memory.
	098	Tokyo-3, dyed in the colors of the sunset. Misato (OFF):“And… it's the city that you protected.”	Shin-seiki: (084~098) This scene obviously mirrors the scene at the end of the first half of #01, just before the eyecatch. Here we see Tokyo-3 from the opposite perspective, but we still have the same BGM ("TOKYO-3", natch), the same reaction from Shinji ("Sugoi!"), and similar inspiring words from Misato ("…this place has become a fortress for the human race.", and "This is a fortress city for 'Angel' interception… Our city. And… it's the city that you protected.")
	EYECATCH A	BGM END: C-7 [TOKYO-3] EYECATCH

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