Easily the best episode of the series and top episode ever made for a Tv show
This episode has everything
Amazing direction which causes a sea of emotions to end with an espectacular climax
8 Reviews
Blood, sweat and EVA-01
elweoncriticolacago27 June 2019
Mind Blowing
daredevilu3 February 2022
This series way ahead of its time . "Pacific Rim" is inspired from this series , can't believe they did this 27 years ago .
Especially this episode is mind blowing . Shinji emotions & awakening of Eva unit 01 is shown amazingly . It's Raw and brutal . The show is crisp & screenplay is perfect without any unwanted scenes or drag .
Especially this episode is mind blowing . Shinji emotions & awakening of Eva unit 01 is shown amazingly . It's Raw and brutal . The show is crisp & screenplay is perfect without any unwanted scenes or drag .
My personal favorite episode.
kipknockmc29 March 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Oh man was I enthralled in this episode. The Eva reaching 400% sync rate was so incredibly well done in terms of visuals and writing that it was so cool, definitely one of the best moments during the entire series. It was bone-chilling, but awe-inspiring at the same time.
I Really Wanted to Love This Episode, But...
liammc-7327422 December 2021
Warning: Spoilers
My god, the ending revelations hold so much weight and the final battle is incredibly visceral! The finale of this episode is some of the best that NGE has to offer. There's something utterly primal about EVA-01's behavior, and it really makes that scene more impactful and unnerving than nearly any in the show up to this point. The subtle hints at the true nature of the Human Instrumentality Project (with Toji partially bearing witness to Shinji's personification of his own inner turmoil) were honestly brilliant! I really wanted to love this episode, but there are some things that I thought could've been executed more effectively. These hold this episode back from being truly great, and draw attention to problems with the series overall.
Firstly, I think the stakes would've been MUCH higher if Toji had been killed off in the previous episode. It would've made both Gendo and Misato's betrayal of Shinji that much more devastating, and would've lent more credibility to Shinji's "final" decision to run away from piloting the Eva. In the end, we see Shinji come running back to pilot the Eva in order to protect the people he's closest to once again. This kinda fell flat for me, as we've already seen a similar scenario play out before earlier in Ep 4, "Hedgehog's Dilemma".
It's clear that the writers were trying to give Shinji more agency as a character, making it definitively his choice to pilot the Eva. We get this impression through his conversations with Misato and especially Kaiji, as well as through the fist-clenching gesture he makes before he emphatically proclaims his identity before Gendo (a callback to Ep 16 where we saw him at his most confident and headstrong). Despite this, I personally still found it tedious to watch Shinji "grapple" with essentially the same decision he did in Ep 4 in the first half of this one. Imagine if Shiniji witnessed Toji's corpse being dragged out of Eva-03's crushed entry plug, and had to deal with that added element of loss and betrayal. In my opinion this would've made the first half of the episode much more compelling. It also would've piled on even more tragedy to Toji's budding relationship with class rep Hikari. The scene with Toji's glimpse into Shinji's psyche would've been lost, but I wouldn't have minded. The nature of the Human Instrumentality Project had been hinted at through dialogue in previous episodes as well, so the scene wasn't truly integral to the story.
The other thing that really bothered me here (as well as in some of the previous episodes) was the staging of the battle. The positioning of the shelter wards is incredibly convoluted. I guess they're supposed to be in the retracted buildings above the Geo-front, but in any case there's absolutely no way the head of Asuka's Eva could've ended up in the shelter ward Shinji was in. The positioning of Nerv HQ within the Geo-front is also very vague. It seems like Asuka is initially being elevated to the surface to engage with the Angel, when in reality she's being elevated from HQ to the Geo-front to wait for the Angel to break through the last of Nerv's shields. The location of Kaji's melon garden is similarly confusing to pinpoint. The geographic landmarks in the background in this episode don't look anything like those in Ep 17 where we first see it, so it's very difficult to say whether or not it was on the surface or inside the Geo-front. This exceptionally muddled world-building is one of the few failures of the show, and something that tended to distract me as a viewer. I think this mostly comes down to a lack of focus on concrete world-building from Anno, as well as recycled shots being used in inappropriate places/times (ie the Eva elevator shots, wide-view shots of the Geo-front, etc.).
To wrap this up, I did enjoy A LOT of things in this episode. I just don't think it's anywhere close to being the best written episode of NGE. It magnifies some of the show's few flaws, but also demonstrates its greatest strengths. It's good, but I'm not nearly as high on it as others. Solid 7/10.
Firstly, I think the stakes would've been MUCH higher if Toji had been killed off in the previous episode. It would've made both Gendo and Misato's betrayal of Shinji that much more devastating, and would've lent more credibility to Shinji's "final" decision to run away from piloting the Eva. In the end, we see Shinji come running back to pilot the Eva in order to protect the people he's closest to once again. This kinda fell flat for me, as we've already seen a similar scenario play out before earlier in Ep 4, "Hedgehog's Dilemma".
It's clear that the writers were trying to give Shinji more agency as a character, making it definitively his choice to pilot the Eva. We get this impression through his conversations with Misato and especially Kaiji, as well as through the fist-clenching gesture he makes before he emphatically proclaims his identity before Gendo (a callback to Ep 16 where we saw him at his most confident and headstrong). Despite this, I personally still found it tedious to watch Shinji "grapple" with essentially the same decision he did in Ep 4 in the first half of this one. Imagine if Shiniji witnessed Toji's corpse being dragged out of Eva-03's crushed entry plug, and had to deal with that added element of loss and betrayal. In my opinion this would've made the first half of the episode much more compelling. It also would've piled on even more tragedy to Toji's budding relationship with class rep Hikari. The scene with Toji's glimpse into Shinji's psyche would've been lost, but I wouldn't have minded. The nature of the Human Instrumentality Project had been hinted at through dialogue in previous episodes as well, so the scene wasn't truly integral to the story.
The other thing that really bothered me here (as well as in some of the previous episodes) was the staging of the battle. The positioning of the shelter wards is incredibly convoluted. I guess they're supposed to be in the retracted buildings above the Geo-front, but in any case there's absolutely no way the head of Asuka's Eva could've ended up in the shelter ward Shinji was in. The positioning of Nerv HQ within the Geo-front is also very vague. It seems like Asuka is initially being elevated to the surface to engage with the Angel, when in reality she's being elevated from HQ to the Geo-front to wait for the Angel to break through the last of Nerv's shields. The location of Kaji's melon garden is similarly confusing to pinpoint. The geographic landmarks in the background in this episode don't look anything like those in Ep 17 where we first see it, so it's very difficult to say whether or not it was on the surface or inside the Geo-front. This exceptionally muddled world-building is one of the few failures of the show, and something that tended to distract me as a viewer. I think this mostly comes down to a lack of focus on concrete world-building from Anno, as well as recycled shots being used in inappropriate places/times (ie the Eva elevator shots, wide-view shots of the Geo-front, etc.).
To wrap this up, I did enjoy A LOT of things in this episode. I just don't think it's anywhere close to being the best written episode of NGE. It magnifies some of the show's few flaws, but also demonstrates its greatest strengths. It's good, but I'm not nearly as high on it as others. Solid 7/10.
Brutality
ajtwlsalsdl8 January 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Asuka, Rei, and Nerv's soldiers struggling against Shito, Shinji's decision, and revealing Evangelion's truth. EVA-01's action was so impressive that I couldn't find how to explain the feeling. By the way, very impressive story and direction.
The more I think about it...
sevskirita31 January 2023
Warning: Spoilers
... the more I don't like the decision to keep Tohji alive. The prior episode was set up perfectly for Tohji's death, and the brutal nature of it would've really driven home the weight this would have had on Shinji.
This even compounds beyond an issue of the first part of the episode when you realize that for the battle right in front of HQ, which was set up pretty damn well otherwise, would've been given so much more umph to Shinji's decision to pilot the Evangelion of his own choice.
After all, if Tohji had died, it would counterbalance the countless times we've seen this mechs brutalized with their pilots just fine in a bodily sense. This would've connected the visual blood of the Eva's more to an actual representation of the harm his friends are coming to, and it also would've make the idea that his friends could die so much stronger since one just did.
Not that I necessarily expected them to go through with it, but I thought there was a chance. When a show pulls its punches like this, it's hard not to lose some respect for it.
This even compounds beyond an issue of the first part of the episode when you realize that for the battle right in front of HQ, which was set up pretty damn well otherwise, would've been given so much more umph to Shinji's decision to pilot the Evangelion of his own choice.
After all, if Tohji had died, it would counterbalance the countless times we've seen this mechs brutalized with their pilots just fine in a bodily sense. This would've connected the visual blood of the Eva's more to an actual representation of the harm his friends are coming to, and it also would've make the idea that his friends could die so much stronger since one just did.
Not that I necessarily expected them to go through with it, but I thought there was a chance. When a show pulls its punches like this, it's hard not to lose some respect for it.
Here we go again
EuropeanQoheleth11 July 2021
Warning: Spoilers
Shinji is (justifiably) mad at Gendo (again) so he decides not to pilot an Eva and runs away (again) but seeing the fight not go well he decides that he wants to after all. It's the 19th episode and still Shinji doesn't get the message that there isn't any other option. He may not like piloting an Eva but if he doesn't then best case scenario someone in Nerv will die and he'll feel worse than he already did and of course worst case scenario is the human race goes extinct. It's the problems of one person against the entire human race and the only way it's gone on this long that I can think of is that they knew full well that they were pandering to young awkward guys so Shinji must have no character development. Anyway he does save the day albeit after the Eva eats the angel (yeah, it's as gruesome as it sounds) and looks genuinely horrifying. Apparently something big is about to happen. An awakening of some kind.
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