Episode 02

Episode Information
Episode #02
Title 1: {{{japanese_title_k}}} {{{japanese_title_r}}} {{{japanese_title_e}}} Title 2: The Beast
Written By	Hideaki Anno, Yoji Enokido
Directed By	Kazuya Tsurumaki
First Aired	10-11-1995
Video Release Date	{{{video_release}}}
Angel Appearances	Sachiel
Episode chronology
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"Episode 1"	"Episode 3"

Overview

Shinji wakes up in the hospital, with no memory of defeating the Angel the night before. Rejected by his father, Misato decides to take Shinji with her to live in her apartment. Later that night, memories of the battle against the Angel come flooding back to Shinji.

Synopsis

The episode continues where the last left off, with Shinji preparing to face the Angel in Unit-01. Shinji first attempts to get the Eva to walk forward, but loses control and falls. Unit-01 is left helpless as Sachiel advances and proceeds to seriously damage the Evas left arm and right eye. The pilot's signal is lost, and the Eva is lifeless. The scene then cuts to Shinji suddenly waking up in an unfamiliar, empty hospital room.

Gendo discusses the reappearance of the angels after 15 years with the Human Instrumentality Committee, while Misato and Ritsuko survey the aftermath of the battle. Gendo is intructed not to let the reappearance of the Angels allow the Human Instrumentality Project to fall behind schedule. Shinji sees Rei at the hospital. Misato comes to pick Shinji up at the hospital and they meet Gendo by the elevator, but Shinji wordlessly refuses to enter.

Misato takes Shinji to be assigned accommodation, but discovers that he is to live on his own. She decides to take him to live with her instead. On the way home Misato picks up some groceries and they overhear two women fearfuly recalling the previous days battle. Misato takes Shinji to an observation point overlooking Tokyo-3 and they witness the city building emerge from underground.

Misato and Shinji arrive at Misato's Apartment. Shinji tries to enter as a guest, but Misato insists that the apartment is his home, and so Shinji says "Tadaima" as he crosses the Threshold. Misato's apartment is in a state with empty beer cans everywhere, and only ice, condiments and more beer in the fridge. Misato changes and they set down to eat a meal of instant convienience food.

Misato decides the houshold chores by games of Jan-ken(Rock/Paper/Scissors), with Shinji getting most of the daily tasks. She advices Shinji to take a bath. Shinji meets Pen Pen in the bathroom and is so startled that he runs naked back into the kitchen to tell Misato. Misato explains that Pen-Pen is their other "roommate", and advices Shinji to cover up, and he slinks embarrassedly back into the bathroom. Shinji reflects in the days events in the bath.

We see Unit-00 frozen in Bakelite being observed by Gendo and Ritsuko. They discuss Rei's recovery in a ruined control room. Gendo reveals that despite their hardships he will continue to have the children pilot the Evangelions.

Shinji lies alone in his bedroom, listening to his SDAT player. Misato speaks with Ritsuko on the phone about their situation. Shinji lies awake reflecting on his presence in Tokyo-3. As he does so, sounds from the battle are heard and we begin a flashback to the events of the battle.

Unit-01 was rendered lifeless by Sachiel's attack, with NERV losing control of the Eva and contact with the pilot. Misato orders the ejection of the Entry Plug, but the system is completely out of control. Unit-01 suddenly reactivates and begins to act on her own. She launches a vicious attack upon the Angel who defends with a powerful A.T. Field barrier. The Eva repairs her broken left arm and erodes the Angel's barrier with another A.T. Field.

Once the barrier is down, Unit-01 soundly defeats Sachiel by shattering the downed Angel's Core. Sachiel in a last desperate attack, wraps itself around Unit-01 and self destructs in a massive cross shaped explosion. Unit-01 emerges still intact from the explosion.

As Nerv regains control of the Evangelion, Shinji comes to in the entry plug. The damaged helmet sloughs off, and Shinji is able to glimpse the Eva's face reflected in the windows of a building. As he looks on, the Eva's eye regenerates and suddenly focuses straight at him. Shinji begins to scream and the flashback ends.

Shinji slowly curls up in bed after recalling the battle. Misato comes to his door and praises him for piloting the Eva and saving the city. The episode ends.

Notes

• Evangelion Unit-01 is seen without it's helmet on, revealing that Evangelions are clearly not robots, but more living organic creatures with cybernetic machine and computer components grafted onto them.
• When an Eva pilot is synchronized with their Evangelion, they feel all of the battle damage happening to the Evangelion as if it was actually happening to their own body: when Sachiel breaks Eva 01's arm, Shinji feels pain as if his own arm has been broken.
• First appearance of the "Human Instrumentality Committee" of SEELE, and SEELE's leader Chairman Keel Lorenz (incorrectly translated as "Human Complentation Project" in this episode by the official English dub, though correctly translated in all subsequent appearances).
  • None of the other four members of the Instrumentality Committee are ever given proper names, but Gainax production sketches indicate which country from the United Nations (which is secretly controlled by SEELE) each of its members officially represents. Besdies Chairman Keel himself (who represents Germany), each of the Instrumentality Committee members is indicated only by what color their video conference hologram is tinted: Chairman Keel (Germany), France (Yellow), Russia (Blue), United States (Green), United Kingdom (Red).
    • Four out of five of the countries represented on the Human Instrumentality Committee are also permanent members of the present-day UN Security Council. China, the remaining permanent Security Council member, is notably absent, with the fifth seat on the Instrumentality Committee going to Germany.
• The translation of the file cover displayed during the meeting of the Instrumentality Committee is: "Top Secret/Human Instrumentality Project/International Alliance Supreme Executive Council/17th Interim Report/Human Instrumentality Committee/2015 Business Plan Outline/Summary"
• First appearance of Pen Pen, Misato's "warm water penguin".
• First appearance of the Misato theme, bouncy light background music that plays in her apartment.
• First appearance of Evangelion Unit-00, glimpsed briefly while frozen in bakelite when Gendo and Ritsuko are standing in the experiment room it wrecked when it went berserk. Flashbacks to this and a full introduction of Eva Unit 00 will be given in Episode 5.
  • The "stop signal plug", inserted into Eva 00 apparently as another measure of restraint, resembles a crucifix.
• Timeline-wise, Gendo says that Rei will be out of the hospital in 20 days, at which time Eva 00 will be brought out of cryo-stasis.
• When Shinji is shocked by the appearance of Pen Pen and runs out of the shower naked, a strategically placed beer can hides his crotch from view, until Misato takes the large beer can away and a much smaller container still obscures his crotch from view. In Japanese, the smaller container is labeled "toothpicks".
• Whenever an Evangelion screams when it goes "berserk" in the series, it is part of the episode's dialogue track, not just the backround effects sound track. As a result, when episodes such as this one are translated into different languages (such as the official ADV Films English dub), the Evangelion screams have to actually be re-produced by different voice actors. The result is that Eva screams sound noticeably different between the original Japanese and English dub versions.
• When Misato welcomes Shinji into her home, she says that he should feel free to "take advantage of anything here", which of course has several inappropriate implications. The official English dub actually added in the extra line "...except of course me, that is!", which dismisses the overt connotations of the original dialogue.
• When Misato stops with Shinji at a convenience store to pick up food, she illegally double-parks her car. She doesn't simply go over the dividing line between lanes: Misato utterly ignores that the parking spaces are obviously arranged so that vehicles are supposed to park with their front facing the curb, and instead parks her car fully parallel to the curb, so that it takes up two full spaces. Judging by the large amount of food that she and Shinji bought, she apparently wasn't just running in and out of the store, but must have left her car intentionally parked like that for a considerable amount of time.
• NERV apparently makes or contracts out for production its own merchandise and accessories for its employees (like many real world large organizations). In this episode we see coffee mugs and even disposable paper cups that have the "NERV" logo on them.
• The song playing in the background in the convenience store Misato and Shinji stop at is the song "You are the only one" from "Lilia", an image album for the "Ys" RPG series. Not at all coincidentally, the vocalist is Kotono Mitsuishi, Misato's seiyu.
• Misato's apartment is littered with several car magazines; Gainax character designer and animator Yoshiyuki Sadamoto is himself a car enthusiast.
• When Shinji's memories about the battle against Sachiel return to him, images of nerve cells as viewed through a microscope flash across the screen.
• The outfit that Misato changes into when she brings Shinji back to her apartment (blue cutoff short shorts, a loose fitting yellow t-shirt, and apparently no bra) is exactly the same outfit that Asuka wears when she kisses Shinji in Episode 15.
• Before Misato and Shinji begin eating (their meal of microwaveable insta-food and beer), in the original Japanese dub they say "itadakimasu". This is a traditional prayer before beginning a meal, literally meaning "I will humbly receive"; this is done to show proper thankfulness to the preparer of the meal in particular, and more generally to all those living things that lost their lives to make the meal.
• The brand of beer that is Misato drinks is "Yebisu" which is actually a real-life brand of beer in Japan. When the series was originally broadcast in Japan, the TV network the series was airing on complained that they didn't want to advertise for Yebisu for free like this, so by Episode 2 the name was changed to the fictional "Yebichu" (named as a direct homage to the manga series, "Oruchuban (Ebichu)"). However, when the series was released on video and DVD the name "Yebisu" was restored.
• When Shinji and Misato are dividing up household tasks between themselves, they are playing "Janken" to determine who gets a given task. Janken is actually exactly the same as "Rock, Paper, Scissors", though the terminology is of course different.
• The original Japanese title of this episode is "見知らぬ、天井 "Mishiranu, tenjō". Gainax made their own English titles, and the English title Gainax created for this episode is "The Beast". ADV Film's translation of the original Japanese title is "An Unfamiliar Ceiling".

Analysis

• Misato's promise not to "put the moves" on Shinji foreshadows both the scene in ep. 23 where she tries (and fails) to "comfort" Shinji by seducing him, and the scene in The End of Evangelion where she gives him an "adult kiss" (and promises to "do the rest" later) to encourage him to pilot Eva 01.
• The shot of Misato grabbing Shinji's head from above while at her kitchen table visually parallels the sot when Sachiel grabs Eva 01's head from above.
• Misato complains that it is hot out when they are in the truck transporting Eva Unit 01's helmet, and even with the air conditioning turned up, takes off several layers of clothing to be more comfortable. However, Ritsuko does not take off her heavy lab coat. This would seem to be emblematic of their personalities; Misato is casual and laid-back, while Ritsuko is very professional and concerned with appearances.
• There is a brief shot of a construction schedule for some of Tokyo-3's defensive emplacements, soon before Misato picks up Shinji at the hospital, which reads that this particular construction began in November 2014 and was scheduled to end in August 2015. As the construction is still ongoing, this places the latest possible date for the start of the series in August 2015.
• An Eva pilot feels everything their Evangelion feels when synchronized with the Eva, experiencing the pain of injuries the Eva sustains, i.e. Shinji feels like his left arm has been broken when Eva 01's arm is broken. Just exactly what is the real extent of these injuries?
  • Apparently, Eva pilots feel the pain of injuries but do not actually sustain these injuries: Ritsuko points out to Shinji that "That's not your arm" when he feels the pain of Eva 01's arm being broken. Similarly, in Episode 10 Eva 02's left leg below the knee is completely bitten off, but Asuka's leg does not just spontaneously fall off as a result. Also, in Episode 19 both of Eva 02's arms are cut off, but Asuka's arms do not physically fall off. Even in this episode, Eva 01 is shot through the head, destroying its eye (which it later regenerates) but Shinji does not instantly lose an eye. The pilots appear to experience the pain and nervous system shock (which can actually result in severe forms of injury nonetheless) of injuries the Evas sustain, but do not actually suffer these injuries themselves. That said, it appears that if an Evangelion is severely damaged enough (even if the Entry Plug containing the pilot is not directly damaged itself), the pilot can indeed die from physical shock. For example, in Episode 19 Misato shouts for technicians to quickly cut the synchronization connection between Asuka and Eva 02 moments before the Angel Zeruel decapitates Eva 02, the sheer pain and shock of which would probably have killed Asuka. However, at odds with this is that during The End of Evangelion pilots appear to actually suffer the same physical injuries that their Eva Units suffer. This may be explained by the fact that in The End of Evangelion, the pilots were highly synchronized with their Evangelion Units. At an abnormally high synchronization ratio, it appears that pilots will really suffer injuries an Eva suffers.
• What function could the backpack that Pen Pen wears possibly have?

Quotes

• (Misato is talking to Ritsuko on the phone)
  Ritsuko Akagi: "What did you say?!"
  Misato Katsuragi: "Like I said, I'll take care of Shinji. I've already got permission from the brass...(sarcastically)...And don't worry, It's not like I'm going to "put the moves" on a kid."
  Ritsuko: (Misato holds her phone away from her head as Ritsuko yells loudly) "OF COURSE YOU'RE NOT!! What the hell are you thinking? You're always like that. Honestly!"
  Misato:"She could never take a joke".
• Misato: (to Shinji) "Starting today, this is your home. So you can take advantage of everything here."
  • Note: The English dub version has:
    Misato: (to Shinji) "This is your home, so feel free to take advantage of everything here...except of course of me, that is!"

The "except for me" part was probably just added to make the line match the lip flaps, but it turns the meaning of the line completely on its head. Misato is supposed to be flirting with Shinji in this scene, and deliberately implying that he might be able to take advantage of her. (She's already starting to break her promise not to "put the moves" on him.) This is a typical example of bad dub translation.

• Misato: "Air conditioning has just got to be humanity's greatest treasure. It's a real triumph of science."