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

A recording showing the circumstances leading up to Second Impact begins the episode.

Ryoji Kaji makes a phone call to Misato, and gets her answering machine. Elsewhere, Misato has just heard that Fuyutsuki has been abducted, and Kaji is a suspect. Because of her relationship with Kaji, she will also be under suspicion.

Kozo Fuyutsuki, meanwhile, faces the Seele monoliths rather than the committee. They have questions to ask him, 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, Fuyutsuki is told 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 meets Gendo Rokubungi shortly afterwards, the younger man asking to be released into Fuyutsuki’s custody after being involve in a brawl. Fuyutsuki dislikes Gendo almost immediately. So, he is surprised to soon 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.

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.

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.

In the present day, Misato is being kept in dark isolation. 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. But Fuyutsuki knows that Seele and Keel Lorenz are involved.

In 2003, Yui and Fuyutsuki meet in Hakone. But Fuyutsuki has business with 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 invites him to see something.

The two men go underground, into the GeoFront, and meet Naoko Akagi, see the Magi and a prototype Evangelion. 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; Misato is now her bubbly self. 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. And Gendo begins making plans for the Human Instrumentality Project.

Ritsuko joins Gehirn. A young Rei Ayanami is introduced soon after that, being shown headquarters by Gendo Ikari. 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 is completed after this, and Misato is in Branch 3 of Gehirn in Germany; she and Kaji have already broken up.

After Ritsuko leaves, Rei is lost and comes to see Naoko. 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 then dies from a fall off the Magi. The day after this, Gehirn is disbanded, and Nerv is formed.

In the present day, Fuyutsuki is found and freed by Kaji, who knows that this action will result in his death. Kaji just wants to get closer to the truth. Misato is let free. Kaji meets an unseen man, and is shot. When Misato gets home, she finds an answering machine message from Kaji, 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

• The scene of Fuyutsuki meeting the agent sent by Gendo/Seele on the houseboat is not included in the OA.
• Several scenes are redrawn subtly, such as the scene where Kaji faces his killer.

Notes

That blue-haired angel....

• The Angel on Yui's card bears an uncanny resemblance to Rei Ayanami, complete with blue hair.
  • If Yui drew that Angel herself, it is possible that Rei's appearance is no accident: Rei(Lilith) probably had mental contact with Yui when Eva-01 and Lilith were fused during the contact experiment. Lilith's new body probably took upon the blue-haired form of the Angel in Yui's imagination during Rei's creation.

• The shadow behind Gendo falls in an unnatural manner, but one with deliberate symbolic overtones: he appears to be carrying a crucifix, representing the burden he is carrying, and which he will carry, in order to reunite with Yui.

• 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.

• A possible reference to Edgar Allen Poe’s short story The Cask of Amontillado appears in the English-dubbed version of this episode. When Gendo asks, "Worried, Montresor?" to Fuyutsuki on their way underground, he might be referring to the story’s lead character, who led the drunken Fortunato underground to bury him alive for a slight against his family’s honor. Because Gendo is doing the leading, the reference is somewhat garbled. This was not found the original script, and was kept for the Director’s Cut dub, though Gendo’s English voice actor had changed and some other script changes were corrected. Gendo's original line is, "Does it worry you?"

Analysis

• Gendo and Naoko stand together in the front of the light when they speak of project Eva, indicating their relationship and their joint involvement. While Naoko is already known by Fuyutsuki, and is implied to be extremely famous as a scientist, we never see how Gendo got so deeply involved in Project E.

• 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.

• Rei as a child bears a much more pronounced resemblance to Yui than her teenaged form and her behavior is considerably different between the two instances of her meeting Naoko. In the first instance, Rei is with Gendo, and bows politely to Naoko and Ritsuko when asked to do so, showing no antagonism at all. However, when she reveals Gendo's true feelings to Naoko, she has a very knowing look on her face, as though she's happy to shatter Naoko's feelings with the truth.
  • Did Rei herself decide to tell Naoko the truth, to cause Gendo harm because he was using her? Or was it to tell the truth to Naoko, and let her know? Or was it because Gendo sent her with the intention of using her against Naoko? At that time, it is likely that only Gendo and Fuyutsuki knew the truth about Rei, and Gendo either did not anticipate Naoko to kill Rei or had no qualms about having her dead when she could be replaced. As the original Rei, she might have been able to know the truth about herself as Lilith rather than possibly losing a part of herself to Eva-00.
    • The alternative would be the simplest explanation- that Rei just got lost and decided to tell the truth to Naoko, but it leaves the motives of the young Rei unexplained.
  • If Rei had been confronting Naoko with the intention of causing harm, it is possible that the part of her soul inside the Eva took to attacking Ritsuko- whom she had seen along with Naoko. It is possible that she associated Ritsuko with her mother, and wanted to kill her as well.

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