We witness its genesis as a great light, a blinding spark searing the atmosphere, visible even from the surface of the moon. Then comes the furious wind, as our vision cuts in to a snowy hellscape stained rust red, as if the earth itself has suffered some great and terrible wound. A ragged figure trudges with purpose across this nightmare, his arms cradling an unconscious young girl. As we peer down through a shattered bunker, the man sets his cargo down in a metal tube, and she briefly wakes – but her cry of “father” is cut off, their final connection severed by the sealing of the tube. And then the shivering landscape upends entirely, as a great and terrible creature rises to remake the world.
Neon Genesis Evangelion’s twelfth episode opens with a direct glimpse of the Second Impact, the event that set this entire narrative in motion fifteen years ago. On that day, mankind paid a terrible price for its ambition, as some vaguely alluded-to scientific expedition ended up waking a sleeping giant, destroying Antarctica and prompting a cascading wave of flooding and destruction. As we learn in these first moments, Misato was on hand at the moment of catastrophe, and only survived through her father’s sacrifice. It’s an appropriate starting point for an episode that will grapple with two major questions – the nature of Misato’s relationship with her subordinates, and the reasons why any of these heroes choose to fight.
Masayuki Yamaguchi’s storyboards once again set an alienating stage in episode twelve, an episode directed by series regular Hiroyuki Ishido. Smash cuts emphasize the sudden, overwhelming nature of this tragedy, as well as the finality of Misato’s separation from her father, with the shot of “father” cut off by a mechanical seal almost feeling like a summary of the series itself. The imagery of the second impact is incredible – it is conveyed as a tragedy of biblical proportions, with both the immediate tactile experience of trudging through this wasteland and the overwhelming scale of the creature’s malice coming through clearly. From a foreign perspective, it’s easy to erroneously assign the aftermath of the nuclear bomb as the motivation for any apocalyptic imagery in Japanese media – but the Second Impact in particular seems to draw a direct line from the terrible and entirely self-inflicted chaos of classic bomb metaphors like Godzilla. As Gendo said just last episode, in the end, the enemy of mankind is mankind.
We return to the present on a rainy day, as Kensuke and Toji take shelter from the rain at Misato’s apartment. Military otaku Kensuke is the first to notice Misato has been promoted from a Captain to a Major, something he realizes by counting the stripes on her jacket. Though Kensuke chastises Shinji and Asuka for failing to notice this, the more important takeaway here is that Misato herself never actually told the kids about her promotion. Given she neither tells them beforehand nor reacts with any sort of alarm when they actually learn about it, the logical takeaway is that to Misato, personal advancement within her military career just doesn’t really matter.
Misato gets the chance to actually voice her feelings in the next scene, when an Eva synchronization test prompts the bridge crew to marvel at Shinji’s increasingly impressive scores. “It’s like he was born to pilot an Eva,” one of the technicians says, to which Misato responds with “even if he doesn’t want to. I doubt that’ll make him happy.” Misato likely knows Shinji well enough to understand that his reasons for piloting the Eva won’t truly fulfill him, but it’s equally clear that she’s also talking about her own choices, and reflecting on a young adulthood spent in pursuit of an unreachable, ever-receding father.
After barely surviving the second impact, Misato chose to follow in her father’s footsteps, and join the organization built to contain the disaster he provoked. Having worked with that organization all through her twenties, she’s been forced to accept that this work will bring her no closer to him, nor will it satisfy the hunger inside her. But Shinji is still living within the false hope that inspired her career – and even though Misato can see that he’s pursuing a false dream, her position as his superior means she’s actually incentivized to not help him sort through those feelings. Just like how she’s repeatedly manipulated Asuka by using her fear of abandonment against her, so too must she manipulate Shinji by taking advantage of his fixation on his father.
The two get a chance to talk frankly on the drive home, after Ritsuko’s praise of Shinji prompts Asuka to throw another tantrum. Shinji offers his personal congratulations to Misato, and Misato demurs, saying she’s actually not thrilled about the promotion. This unexpected confession, a rare glimpse of sincerity and perhaps even trust, prompts Shinji to confide that he also doesn’t feel happy getting praised, and that he wonders what he did wrong to make Asuka so angry. His childish concern, so reflective of Shinji’s limited adolescent perspective, snaps Misato’s veil back into place. She responds with the brutally condescending “that’s because all you ever do is worry about what other people think,” before the approach of a tunnel literally transforms her human, approachable features into an impersonal mask. Though Misato will occasionally admit her true feelings to these children, there always comes a moment when she remembers she’s their commanding officer, not their parent or friend.
This isn’t to say Misato is intentionally, willfully misleading these kids with her gestures towards familiarity – merely that both her natural instinct to protect these kids and her professional need to manipulate them must share space inside her, provoking a continuous renegotiation of their relationships. The leads of Evangelion can never be fully described by any one consistent instinct; they are messes of contradicting desires, often genuinely wishing the best for each other at the same time that their painful baggage and fractured understanding of human intimacy lead them to cause each other great suffering.
Both of these contradictory instincts are on display in the next scene, when Kensuke organizes a celebration of Misato’s promotion. This party offers one more brilliant example of Evangelion’s knack for integrating lengthy, animation-conserving held shots into its natural methods of storytelling. While we hear the other party participants bicker loudly around him, the camera stays fixed directly on Shinji’s face, as he maintains a slight defensive posture and somewhat unfocused eyes. While most shows would likely break up this shot with some visual drama, Evangelion’s unwavering focus on Shinji’s expression naturally evokes the lived experience of attending a party with acute social anxiety. We don’t see the other party participants because Shinji doesn’t really see them either; when you’re in this state, you often find yourself dazed by all the commotion around you, and instead draw your mental focus inwards.
Having come to know Shinji quite well, Misato recognizes his stillness as discomfort, and quietly asks him if he’s okay with this situation. It’s the kind of assurance and validation that Shinji desperately needs, and it allows him to unlock his own feelings, opening with the perfectly understandable “why do they have to be so noisy?” But when his thoughts return to what’s really bothering him, and he asks “why did you join NERV?”, Misato responds with the dismissive “oh, it’s been so long that I’ve forgot.” Shinji knows this isn’t a real answer, and Misato knows that he knows, but as before, their strange bond means she is incapable of acting as either a true parent or a true superior officer.
Shinji’s efforts to connect with Misato are briefly interrupted by a return to the south pole, as we check in on the absent Gendo and Fuyutsuki. The great cataclysm of that opening sequence has resulted in a bloody, lifeless sea, with glaciers rising like misshapen teeth from the red surf. The two share a conversation that opens by relitigating the Second Impact – Gendo speaks to how scientific enterprise has made it possible for humans to survive even in this hell, and Fuyutsuki cautions him that it was precisely that arrogance that caused the second impact. Their thoughts then turn philosophical, as they raise an argument that will be carried all the way through End of Evangelion: Gendo states that this is a world “cleansed of original sin,” and Fuyutsuki counters that “I’d prefer a world where people live, no matter how stained with sin.” Human emotions and relationships are messy, often ugly things, but they are all we have – we must either learn to live with our shameful feelings, or embrace the oblivion of this cold and lifeless sea.
And then, of course, an angel strikes. Somehow manifesting way up in the earth’s orbit, this latest angel is able to drop portions of its mass like bombs to the earth below, each subsequent detonation drawing ever closer to NERV headquarters. When the creature’s target has been reached, it is certain to drop itself – and when that happens, NERV headquarters, Tokyo-3, and a great deal of the surrounding countryside will be utterly obliterated. Misato orders a civilian evacuation in response to the angel, but disregards the Magi’s unanimous suggestion to have NERV flee as well, and instead decides to wager all their lives on an impossibly unlikely plan to have the Evas catch the angel in their bare hands.
Ritsuko brings this episode’s persistent subtext to the surface when she challenges Misato on this decision, accusing Misato of making a selfish choice in pursuit of “revenge against the angels.” Her critique is immediately emphasized by one of Eva’s most iconic episode subtitles, further urging Misato to not “make others suffer for your personal hatred.” And indeed, the next scene seems intended to underline just how callous and single-minded Misato has become, as she informs her pilots that they are all obligated to write wills in case the mission fails. But instead of pushing back against her flimsy promise of a steak dinner after they succeed, Shinji and Asuka actually cheer at this news, only letting their lack of enthusiasm show after Misato leaves.
It’s a great gag that simultaneously demonstrates something critical about these children, something Misato herself may not have realized – as much as they are wrapped up in their own psychological drama, they are far from oblivious to Misato’s own problems, and wish to protect her in their own ways as well. While this episode mostly framed Shinji’s interest in Misato’s promotion as a reflection of his own insecurities, when Asuka rags him for insincerely cheering about steak, he responds with “if it helps Misato feel good about being in command, what’s so bad about it?” Though their efforts are perpetually mediated by the NERV apparatus, in the end, all of these characters are doing what they can to protect each other, and offer what honest connection they can.
That’s true of Misato as well, as the episode’s emotional climax reveals. When the bridge crew lament the fact that they’re putting the children in such danger, Misato responds that if the worst were to happen, the Eva’s AT Fields would protect them. In fact, being inside an Evangelion is the safest place to be – even if they’d evacuated, a failure to stop this angel would have doomed all of them anyway. Misato’s choice to directly fight the angel could thus be assigned to either motive – either her desire to get revenge on her father, or her unwitting reiteration of his love, as she seals away her three wards in a reenactment of his own final sacrifice. Misato isn’t entirely sure of her own motivation, but that’s not really the important part; far more important is that she is ultimately willing to share that uncertainty with Shinji, and let him know he is not alone.
The actual battle goes exactly according to plan, which isn’t actually a surprise; at this point, these three kids are all remarkably good at their jobs. Neither the pilots nor Misato are particularly inspired by the importance of their duty, but they’re still being rewarded for their efforts, be it through either the hard-earned mutual respect of the pilots, or the genuine smiles of mutual trust they share in the aftermath. And after Gendo offers words of praise for both of this episode’s fatherless stars, the team articulate that faith one more time, accepting ramen over steak as a fond acknowledgment of Misato’s questionable finances. Both Shinji and Misato are chasing a memory of home that may only be a mirage, but however unreachable their destination, they at least know they are not walking alone.
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