Is Shinji truest the “lowest of the low” for doing…. you know? Or is he going a bit too far acting out the dreams of his Jungian Shadow Self? Is Miss Misato a sicko pedo? Or are you the weird lil’ freak? Let’s dive in and find out in our analysis of End of Evangelion.

We quantify that Human Instrumentality with a giant Rei Ayanami mom figure would be a way cooler way to go out than nuclear war. Most importantly, Josh will emphatically state his strong case for this film being Anno holding an ugly mirror up to his most ardently passionate fans. It’s a pretty good one. Kendrick Lamar and Hideaki Anno have the same message for us: I made you think about it, but I am not your savior. It’s not your fault. But it is your responsibility. Go outside. Make a friend. Touch grass.

Anno points two big middle fingers up at all of us as we analyze End of Evangelion to wrap a bow on it and put the original series to bed. But stay subscribed to this feed as we have plans to potentially put out special episodes revisiting Evangelion, other Anno works, or semi-related media as we feel and may do a 2nd Season covering the Rebuild series eventually.

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Human Instrumentality has arrived! Will Shinji accept or reject its call? Also… what in the heck is it anyway? We’ll explore all this and so much more in our final installment of this series analysis! Misato’s shame, Asuka’s loneliness, Shinji’s self-hatred, and Rei’s uhhh… whole being a weird doll clone thing issue. All of it gets resolved by HUMAN INSTRUMENTALITY.

We’ll also discuss these final episodes as a textbook case for the merits of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, awakening the human consciousness for a new Earth in the style of Eckhart Tolle, the overlaps of Anno’s ego breaking animated journey of the self with modern existentialist writer’s like Samuel Beckett and more brainy stuff. It’s a doozy of a ride. Hope it’s worth the wait!

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Mission Control: We are here to report that we’ve discovered quality gay representation in media from the 90s. A rare mineral we thought was non-existent. We shall defend it with our lives. That’s right. Fan favorite Kaworu Nagisa has arrived to hold, heal, and break dear sweet Shinji’s heart. But before all that: Rei suffers an unpleasant angel infection and explores her loneliness before a big kaboom. Then, welcome to Lore Dump Alley folks! There’s an Adam, there’s a Lilith, there’s Eva’s, there’s humans, there’s a black moon, there’s a Spear of Longinus (tee-hee), there’s Dead Sea Scrolls. This is it! Everything is explained short of what the heck actually is Human Instrumentality. Followed by a loooooooooooong classical pause and theeeeeen… pop.

We’ll see you all on the other side of Instrumentality…

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MAJOR Content warnings all over this episode. Seriously. Not being ironic here. Suicide, sexual abuse, just… all of it.

Generational trauma strikes again as we learn all these kids parents had just as tragic and messed up lives as they did. And to solve the mysteries of who killed Mr. Ryoji Kaji, Josh does some deep internet sleuthing to the archives of early 2000s weeb haven angelfire.com to get the real truth. We discuss the awful tension of elevator rides while menstruating with a rapidly dropping sync rate… as well as the many other traumatic histories of Asuka Langley Soryu. Poor poor kid. But Shinji and Pen Pen are just happy to be here, in spite of everyone’s drastically darkening tone. On a more serious note, lots of discussion about the prescience of this shows ability to portray trauma and it’s lingering symptoms in ways we’ve only recently come to understand and reckon with in modern society.

Would they handcuff and imprison any of Joe Biden’s grandchildren if they stole an Evangelion and tried to destroy the Pentagon? What do you think? Sound off in the comments. Moving on… Guess who’s running away again! And what’s all this about Evangelion’s? Angels? Human Instrumentality? Kaji just wants to grill for god’s sake! Then, much like man lost control of King Kong, Frankenstein, and Labor — he also loses control of Unit-01. And thus, once again Shinji takes an existential journey within the primordial ooze of LCL. We get some classy and tasteful exploration of the feminine form and sexuality… and some not so classy looks at the same because Shinji is a teenage boy after all. Sigh…

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Well hey there, lets see what Tohji’s up to in these episodes. Seems he loves lunch, he loves basketball, he’s fresh with Class Rep and… oh dear… oh no… oh god no…

We get a bit of a McGuffin in the explanation of the Marduk institute. In other news, Shinji has a lovely date with Mr. Kaji, the original lovable king dirtbag. We take a seven second clip of Tohji using a trash incinerator WAY too seriously. The new Eva series goes Oops All Angels! And, as per usual Gendo does not care for anyones well being. (Ohhhh. “Ambivalence”. I GET IT!) It’s some serious dark times on the child soldier battlefields full of guttural screams from Shinji.

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Seeing your mom’s grave at that not necessarily a Second Impact memorial is weird. Especially when your dad leaves you alone in the desert after. We discuss the wedding karaoke hit of Japan that may have been established by Evangelion. And here it is. It’s the kissing episode. Awkward pain abounds. Kaji’s magic power of giving the old SUBK (“Shut up broad kiss” …not a classy move but a heavily used trope and product of the times… sigh). Pen Pen has Uncle Magic. Is Tokyo-3 intended to be a fake city decoy against the angels? The Dirac Sea is REAL and it’s time to talk Kierkegaard and the multiple layers of “the self”. Finally, how getting sucked into the imaginary universe of the Dirac Sea is very similar to EMDR therapy (NOTE: This is not however, medical advice. We ain’t no doctors.)

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Time to sift through the 420 some (nice) citations on the Wikipedia page for Evangelion Angels. We’re doing a Bottle Epusode! Steph doesn’t want to believe an Angel can be a/have drip. What in the heck’s a Lilliputian?! Revisiting western medias over reaction to censorship and religious modesty in the 90s. The early advent of people trying to turn their brains into computers. It was bad then and it’s bad now. Unless you’re Ritsuko’s mom and know how to plant analog backdoor codes to save the world later. How many modern computers does it take to run one human brain?

More insight into the iconic and bold design choices of Anno and Gainax. We go way too deep on trying to understand the Dead Sea Scrolls. Then it’s time to take a free associating ride through Rei Ayanami’s existential dreamscape. Backing up your children’s stem cells to the cloud is real and terrifying. Finally, some connections between Jordan Peeles “Nope” and “Evangelion”. Intentional or not, it was cool.

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It sucks running into your boss on the train. But what really sucks is then learning you’re part of the deep state and the government and democracy are fake when you just wanted to read your paper. And, is there a long lost unrecognizable “olde English” dub of Eva (no). We find more opportunity to talk about Anno and our own, love of power lines and the small town nostalgia they speak to. Steph starts to see the humor in Asuka repeatedly destroying Shinjis self esteem via a Peanuts metaphor. Then we explore why old men might put their feet in water buckets at the office. Josh takes an aside to appreciate getting sound designs in space right and gives the lore on the founding of Gainax and what it had to do with Electric Light Orchestra. And finally Shinji lands on a reason to live… and it ain’t necessarily a good one.

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These child soldiers’ hormones are heating up. Both figuratively and literally and Asuka hates that they make her Eva look fat. Steph gets a tickle out of that and maybe is starting to come around on her. We also discuss one of the most beautiful :62 committed to animation and all the hijinx that get us there.