After barreling out of the gate with what was essentially a two-part opening episode, Evangelion’s third episode sees us slowing down for a moment, and adopting what you could theoretically call the show’s “neutral mode.” Evangelion’s narrative builds over time, but its episodic angel attacks echo many of its giant robot predecessors, with Shinji as the not-so-gallant hero defending Tokyo-3 from an inventive range of new horrors. Episode three does indeed ramp up to a new angel attack, but this episode isn’t really about that fight, or rather, the fight is just one final illustration of the points it makes all throughout. This episode is about Shinji’s own personal alienation, and its illustration of Shinji’s headspace is as tense and immediate as any terrible monster could be.

It’s often said that Hideaki Anno’s experiences with depression (he fell into a four-year rut following his unhappy experiences directing Nadia), or disillusionment with anime fandom (he’s made his frustration with the “otaku lifestyle” clear endlessly over the years), were what ultimately led Evangelion to “become dark” at some point during its running time. That assessment seems misguided to me, or at least, it ignores the fact that even at this point, Evangelion is more a bracing articulation of the lived experience of isolation, depression, and self-loathing than anything else. Evangelion doesn’t become a portrait of depression only when it starts directly interrogating its characters’ psychology – in fact, the day-to-day experience of depression seems even more clear in these early episodes, where it’s conveyed almost entirely through sound and imagery.

That portrait of depression and alienation begins with this episode’s very first shot, as we hone in on Shinji’s eyes while the Eva unit runs its diagnostic checks. Like Shinji himself, we have no context for these flashes of colors – they’re just noise. With the camera so high on his forehead, we can draw almost nothing else out of this shot, and so we are inevitably led into a similarly blank mindset. Eyes dulled, mouth holding a half-open line, forehead prominent, these shots naturally convey a sense of not thinking about anything, about simply existing, and nodding when you’re told to nod. “I’m getting used to it,” he tells Ritsuko. “It’s not so bad.”

Ritsuko’s presentation in this scene intentionally keeps her distant, concealed either through the view screens and dials of the control module or the dim lighting of the room. Her monologue offers natural exposition and seeds the Evangelion’s dramatic limitations all while bolstering this scene’s tone of alienation, as if none of this is actually real to Shinji. Compare the beats of Shinji mindlessly repeating “center the target, pull the switch” to the way Eva activation is conveyed in the show’s open OP – in contrast with drumbeats punctuating shots of clear dramatic escalation, here everything exists on one even tone, the steady beat of the rifle’s click lulling us into apathy. Shinji might be following orders, but he’s not truly present – as Ritsuko says, simply doing what he’s told is “his way of getting through life.”

But Shinji’s professional life is so far removed from reality that it’s hard to truly relate to his feelings. It’s when we return to his home experience that things really come together, opening with a firm declaration that Shinji and Misato aren’t truly family at all. Misato is married to her job, and though she’d like Shinji to be comfortable, she doesn’t really take any steps to ensure that. Though he’s crossed the threshold of her apartment, their one conversation here is set entirely around another threshold, a barrier into her life that he will never cross.

Shinji’s journey to school is accompanied by Misato and Ritsuko carrying out one of Evangelion’s most famous conversations – their discussion of the “Hedgehog’s Dilemma.” After Misato worriedly gripes that Shinji doesn’t seem to be making any friends, Ritsuko describes how some people are just like hedgehogs. “Even if a hedgehog wants to get closer to another hedgehog, the closer they get, the more they injure each other with their spines.” This isn’t just an idle metaphor – dealing with the consequences of this truth, the fact that emotional closeness inherently implies pain, is the great project of Evangelion as a whole. The show will seek answers to this paradox with the desperation of a person who doesn’t know the answer, Anno’s questions leadened with the weight of immediate, still-pressing experience.

Just as the episode’s first scene illustrated the language of Shinji’s internal quiet, the place he sinks into, so do these scenes convey Evangelion’s language of alienation within a larger society. The sequence of Shinji throwing away the garbage encapsulates this language fully: Shinji at an extreme distance, obstructed by foreground interference, quietly alone in a vast empty plane. In a narrative sense, the fact that Misato’s garbage stands alone reflects how Tokyo-3 has been largely abandoned, and the city itself reflects Shinji’s isolation. In a tonal sense, these alienating compositions, thick with power lines, divorced from human expressions, and subtly implying a sense of watchful paranoia, will recur throughout the episode, painfully evoking the lived experience of loneliness and depression.

Shinji’s arrival at class demonstrates more of Evangelion’s remarkably efficient and purposeful dialogue, as we’re rapidly introduced to Toji, Aida, and their unnamed Class Rep. The bickering between these three conveys their relationship as efficiently as Misato and Ritsuko’s first meeting, while the actual content of their conversation echoes the second episode. As Aida excitedly describes the catastrophic damage the Eva inflicted, we get a slow pan over Shinji’s back, a reprise of his unhappy trip to the grocery store. Both Aida and Toji’s words here again make what might come across as meaninglessly distant into an emotionally felt experience – a human isn’t built to meaningfully process a statement like “ten thousand deaths,” but hearing about one little sister trapped under rubble makes the destruction of the Evangelion real.

Ultimately, Shinji’s loneliness prompts him to do something that Misato probably wouldn’t approve of: he tells the class he’s the Eva pilot. This makes him an immediate celebrity in class, but after the questions fade, the only person he’s truly made an impression on is the vengeful Toji. In shots that alternate between trapping us in Shinji’s perspective and echoing that earlier sense of alienation, Shinji is beaten for his efforts, for the crime of doing what he’s told. His defense that “I’m not piloting by choice” does nothing to ease Toji’s anger – it’s a way of sliding away from the apology Toji feels he’s due. Shinji has found a sort of comfort and safety in not being responsible for any of his own actions, and yet now he finds himself punished for them regardless. And staring up at a cold blue sky, he learns he is to pilot the Eva in battle once more.

As one more strange and otherworldly creature approaches, Evangelion once again tempers the unreality of that threat with a parsable, immediate on-the-ground experience. Just like how the first episode conveyed the immediate experience of an angel attack from the perspective of an abandoned city, this episode conveys it from the perspective of the evacuated civilians, lending the mundanity of forming into groups and sitting with your assigned classmates to an experience that would otherwise feel totally unrelatable. Evangelion’s dedication to grounding its narrative beats and emotions in immediate, felt moments may at this point be its greatest strength – the show understands that making something feel “real” is less a matter of imbuing it with lofty stakes, and more one of recreating a convincing, universal, and strangely mundane moment.

Speaking of mundane moments, Toji and Aida’s decision to go witness the battle is conveyed through another great one, a bizarrely long pan across a set of urinals. In an in-show sense, this conversation humanizes both of them wonderfully, and is full of idle banter that efficiently characters both of them. Toji and Aida are essentially opposites, and opposites that naturally reflect Evangelion’s own contradictory priorities. Aida sees an angel coming and thinks, “cool, giant robots!” – Toji sees that threat and can only think of his injured sister. The genre’s past and its future, each represented by one goofy classmate, each a genuinely key part of Eva’s own worldview.

In a production sense, this scene demonstrates something else Evangelion is famous (or perhaps infamous) for – its mastery of animation conservation. Television anime is on the whole an art form defined by compromise, and one of its central, inescapable compromises is “things will never look fluid all the time, so we must find spaces where animation can be conserved.” Evangelion excels at this genuinely necessary skill, and though we’ll see more famous examples of this later on, this episode’s use of long stills for actual dramatic effect is already noteworthy. Toji’s description of his sister’s injuries is granted even more impact through the show’s resolute hold on his clenched, ineffectual hands; this conversation between Toji and Aida is granted an inherent sense of comedy through the slow pan of the camera. Conserving animation is a crucial skill in anime production, and Evangelion demonstrates a clear mastery of that skill even before it descends into production hell.

Shinji’s battle against the second angel acts as a clear echo of all of the episode’s earlier beats, opening with a reprise of Ritsuko’s careful directions. Shinji in turn shifts right back into that sunken place, the familiar imagery telling us that he’s only getting through this situation by hiding inside himself, and letting his body just follow orders. Misato calls him an idiot for his unthinking strategy, but Shinji isn’t thinking in terms of “victory” – he’s thinking “if I do what I’m told, this will all be over as soon as possible.” Shinji isn’t attached to this city, isn’t attached to this victory, and is barely attached to his own life – all he wants is to not be hurt or yelled at anymore. And as his non-strategy leads towards defeat, the angel’s imposing advance echoes Toji’s violence, telling Shinji that even simply existing to follow orders is not acceptable.

The fight climaxes in Shinji being brutally tossed to the hillside, and landing beside his terrified classmates. Paralyzed by his classmates’ presence, Shinji is unable to fight back, until Misato arrives at a desperate solution: let those two idiots into the cockpit too. After failing to connect with others at school, Shinji ends up with a key metaphorical bridge crossed in the other direction, as two unwitting teenagers cross his own threshold and bumble into his cocoon. And there in Shinji’s private, unhappy sanctuary, they witness the truth of his experience – the terror of the angels, the horror of battle, and the feeling of vast, towering emptiness when it’s all over.

As with the first battle, Shinji’s victory here isn’t glorious in the slightest, or cathartic, or even impressive. His strategy remains “attack as quickly as possible to make this horrible situation end” – his reward is darkness, and the cold comfort of his own shuddering sobs. In the end, it’s not Shinji’s own efforts to reach out that convince Toji and Aida he’s a decent guy – it’s the naked, obvious pain he feels in completing his duty. Episode three finds a solution to the hedgehog’s dilemma, but it’s not a happy one – episode three’s solution is “if getting close causes us to experience pain, then at least we can share that pain, if nothing else.” Sometimes the only thing we can do to connect, or to relieve our suffering, is to acknowledge that we are all suffering together.

Episode three ends on one more dramatic parallel, though this one is at least slightly happier. In a reprise of the Class Rep’s questions about Toji, we now see Toji himself asking about Shinji, revealing he actually cares about our unhappy lead. But when Toji tries to call Shinji and ask how he’s doing, there is no answer. Along with his pain, Shinji can only share his isolation, trapping Toji in a composition that echoes his own experience of this city. There is no solace here. Shinji is gone.

This article was made possible by reader support. Thank you all for all that you do.