| “THE BEAST” | |||||||
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| Neon Genesis Evangelion episode | |||||||
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| Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 2 |
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| Written by | Hideaki Anno, Yoji Enokido | ||||||
| Directed by | Kazuya Tsurumaki | ||||||
| Original airdate | October 11, 1995 | ||||||
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| Evangelion Portal |
"THE BEAST" (見知らぬ、天井 Mishiranu, tenjō?, "An Unfamiliar Ceiling") is the second episode of the anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion.
Plot
Shinji Ikari, in his attempt to fight the Angel Sachiel, loses consciousness and wakes up in a hospital the next day with no memory of the battle. The Human Instrumentality Committee convenes, chastising Gendo Ikari and deciding that a coverup for the events of the previous night is necessary. The structural damage to Tokyo-3 is repaired, under NERV's supervision. Misato Katsuragi picks Shinji up at the hospital. Unhappy that he will be living alone, she becomes his guardian and takes him into her apartment. After picking up food at a local convenience store, Misato shows Shinji the cityscape, saying that Tokyo-3 is "the city that you helped to protect."[1] Shinji moves into Misato's apartment, but has difficulty opening up to her. Following an awkward dinner consisting merely of instant food, Shinji decides to take a bath. Upon opening the bathroom door, however, he sees a penguin, and runs out in surprise. This is Pen Pen, Misato's pet "hot springs" penguin.[1] Misato and Shinji both, silently and separately, assess their relationship to each other.
- Misato: "Maybe I'm the one who's transparent"[2]
- Shinji: "Miss Misato Katsuragi. She's not a bad person."[2]
Lying in bed, and unable to adjust to his new environment, memories of the previous night finally return to Shinji: After Shinji had tried to attack Sachiel, the Angel had broken Unit 01's left arm and used its arm weapon to smash the Eva's head armor and put out its right eye, then hurled it against a building where it lay inactive. However, Unit 01 started moving again even though its umbilical cable was disconnected and its battery power was drained (a state referred to as "berserker mode"). The personnel at NERV attempted to respond to this situation, but had no control over the Eva. Unit 01 was able to break through Sachiel's AT field by expanding its own AT field to balance it out, allowing it to actually fight the Angel. In a short but savage struggle, Unit 01 drop-kicked Sachiel and broke its arm, just as it broke Unit 01's arm. Unit 01 overpowered Sachiel, ripped off one of the bony structures on the Angel's side, and used it to stab the Angel in its core, partially shattering the core. Sachiel, in response, wrapped itself around Unit 01 and self-destructed, resulting in a massive crucifix-shaped explosion. After the battle, Shinji, now conscious inside the Eva, stared into a building bearing the Eva's reflection. The plating covering the Eva's head fell away, exposing a clearly living entity's head under the armor. The missing eye (put out by Sachiel's attack) swiftly regenerated, and appeared (from his perspective) to focus on Shinji. In the present, Shinji lies in Misato's apartment. She opens his door to tell him to "Work hard."[1]
Notes
- Misato complains that it is hot out when they are in the truck transporting Unit 01's helmet, and even with the air conditioning turned up, takes off several layers of clothing to be more comfortable. However, Ritsuko Akagi does not take off her heavy lab coat.
- First appearance of the "Instrumenality Committee" of SEELE.
- First appearance of SEELE Chairman Keel Lorenz.
- Production design sketches released by Gainax reveal some more information about the Instrumentality Committee members. Besides Chairman Keel himself (who represents Germany), the other four members represent: France (Yellow), Russia (Blue), the United States (Green), and the United Kingdom (Red). None of them are ever given proper names.
- First mention of the Human Instrumentality Project (called the "Human Enhancement Project" in this one instance in ADV's official English dub, though afterwords "Instrumentality" will be uniformly used).
- First appearance of Evangelion Unit 00; it is only glimpsed briefly when Gendo and Ritsuko are standing in the experiment room it wrecked.[3]
- A "stop signal plug" was inserted into Unit 00 as an added measure to keep it from restarting; it is shaped like a crucifix.
- First appearance of the Misato theme, a bouncing light background music, when we see her apartment.
- First appearance of Pen Pen, Misato's pet "warm water penguin". Although Pen Pen resembles an Erect-crested Penguin, there is no direct equivalent to his species. Pen Pen has retractable claws in his wingtips, which no living bird species actually has though baby Hoatzin birds do have claws. In the manga, he was created through genetic experimentation at Misato's former job; she took him as a pet rather than let him be euthanized.
- Unit 01 is shown without its armored helmet on; we can see that the Evangelions are in fact not robots but biomechanical creations.
- When Misato and Shinji stop at the convenience store to pick up food, Misato illegally double-parks her car. She doesn't simply go over the dividing line while trying to park in one parking space: she utterly ignores that the spaces are arranged so that vehicles will park perpendicular to the curb, and instead parallel parks over two parking spaces.
- Whenever an Evangelion screams in the series when it goes "berserk", it is part of the dialogue track, not simply the sound effects track. As a result, when an episode such as this is translated into the English dub, the Eva screams actually have to be re-recorded by different voice actors, so they sound noticeably different between the original Japanese and English dubs.
- When Shinji moves into Misato's apartment, she welcomes him by saying he can "take advantage" of anything in his new home. The English dub by ADV films added in the extra segment "...except of course me, that is!" to the end of the line, thus dismissing the more overt implications of the original line.
- When Shinji is standing naked in the doorway after being shocked by the appearance of Pen Pen, a strategically placed beer can covers his crotch. Misato picks up the can, revealing that a much smaller container still obscures Shinji's crotch from view. The small container is labeled "toothpicks".
- Chairman Kheel has a white chair in the conference room as does Ikari Gendo. He is the only member without his own chair color.
- In the English translation, Misato says that Shinji received damage to his heart. In the Japanese version however, she says he took damage to his mind.
- In both the Japanese and English versions of the show, Pen Pen's collar says "Pen²" on it instead of his full name.
- In the Japanese version, EVA-01 roars multiple times in its berserk mode but in the US version, the roars are cut except for when the EVA opens its mouth.
References
