The Phone That Never Rings – Neon Genesis Evangelion S01E03

➡ The Cartoon Cabal discusses episode three of Neon Genesis Evangelion, focusing on the main character, Shinji, who is portrayed as a social outcast. Despite being a hero, Shinji’s phone never rings, symbolizing his lack of friends. The group also discusses the “hedgehog’s dilemma,” a concept used to describe Shinji’s struggle with social interactions. They also touch on Japan’s mix of advanced and outdated technology, such as the continued use of fax machines and payphones.
➡ The speaker discusses a character named Shinji who, despite saving the world, is still seen as pathetic and bullied. They also talk about the importance of youth in controlling technology, using an example of a young gamer who lost his exceptional skills as he aged. The conversation then shifts to music, specifically the Beatles and Paul McCartney, before moving onto the topic of post-apocalyptic shows and movies, and how they depict destruction. They end by criticizing the confusing naming conventions of Godzilla movies.
➡ This discussion revolves around the anime series Evangelion, its target audience, and its place in the anime genre. The speakers discuss how the series blends different anime sub-genres, such as high school drama and mech (giant robot) themes. They also ponder whether the series was intended for high school students or adults, with the creator’s statement suggesting a target audience of 16 to 24-year-olds. The conversation also touches on other anime series like Voltron, Robotech, and Full Metal Alchemist, and the cultural impact of Evangelion in Japan.
➡ The text discusses a post-apocalyptic world where 80% of the population has been wiped out, yet society continues in a seemingly normal way, including school bullying. The story also touches on the cultural aspects of Japan, such as public service sounds and societal reactions to disasters. It further delves into a narrative about a mechanical-organic entity, Eva, controlled by a 14-year-old, raising questions about its nature and the ethical implications of its use.
➡ The speaker discusses their dislike for teaching a certain student, who isn’t necessarily bad but makes the class less enjoyable. They also mention their online presence, including a website and a new coloring book available on Amazon. They host a podcast and are currently covering the show Severance. Lastly, they promote propaganda packs available for purchase on their website, which include durable stickers with various messages.

Holy crap, that’s good. So it’s more fun and games at the Cotton Cabal beyond what’s just in the name at the Cartoon Cabal. See, just at what Costco’s name at the Cartoon Cabal. So much for the fighting games at the Cartoon Cabal. Hey, everybody, it’s the Cartoon Cabal. We’re having a look at Neon Genesis Evangelion here. Looking for all its secrets, Things right on the surface, things put in for funsies, all of those sort of things. Today it’s episode three A Transfer, the Silent Phone. The Phone that Wouldn’t Ring. There’s lots of titles for this, it seems.

Matt here. Over there, it’s Paranoid American, what it is. I also have a phone that doesn’t ring, but it’s because I keep it on silent all the time. Yeah, I think. I mean, how many people have ringing phones these days? I guess is a good question. The phone. Yeah, we don’t have a landline in my house anymore. So I guess there’s. Some of my family members have chimes that go off, but. Yeah, mine just vibrates. Yeah. This is an interesting one because the whole premise of this episode is that Shinji has no friends and he was giving given a phone, but his phone never rings.

And it’s kind of going to show that he’s a complete social outcast despite saving humanity every day. And. But there’s kind of a paradox here, right? Because if you are so popular that your phone’s always ringing, then you do turn the ringer off and then it never rings. So they’re being kind of judgmental. They don’t. Maybe they don’t realize how many calls he is getting. Yeah. It makes me think of the south park episode. You have zero friends, where there’s some kid that has no Facebook friend. So I think it’s Stan decides to become his Facebook friend.

Then everyone drops him as a friend because he’s made friends with the Outcast. It’s like a Black Mirror episode, something like that. Yeah, but it is. It is. I mean, things that make more sense with. Well, I guess we do have cell phones here. So we are entering cell phone. Because there’s so many plots in the past that could be like, you know, solved by cell phones. Right. But this takes place in the future, does it not? The future of the past. That’s right. The future of 2015. Living that back to the future sort of future, you know, so.

So they didn’t have. They didn’t really have the mobile devices completely dialed in when they Wrote this. Oh no, these are the Star Trek communicator type ones. The, the K Ti, which were they rocking those in the 90s because this came out in 95. I think that phoney has. Does see, it looks retro to us, but I think it’s slightly futuristic for the production of the show. The phone that he’s given it looks a lot like a car phone from the mid-90s. Yeah, I thought, okay, maybe I’m just so used to seeing the smaller ones. Like my mind like just said that’s a normal Japanese phone.

If I had paid a little more attention, I would have been like, oh, that’s a big. I felt like it looked kind of beat up. Right. They gave him like a loner. Right? Well, this is. I can’t, I can’t remember it was episode one or two, but he goes to a pay phone at a certain point. It’s like, that’s not 2015, right? In Japan, I think we still had those green payphones. If I look around, I’ll still find those at train stations and stuff. They still do have those here and there because there’s the OG sign.

Remember, most of Japanese population is now like getting older and older, right? So, you know, I saw a guy with a 20 year old cell phone at the station yesterday. My daughter just started high school this year, so she just got a phone before that she’d call mom from the high school train station. They had a pay phone. So yeah, we still have payphones here and there. It’s wild. It is wild because of how technologically advanced the perception is from the outside. Like you guys are supposed to have all the latest and greatest too. Now here’s the weird thing about Japan.

It has cutting edge tech. At the same time, change is extremely slow. Faxes are still sent at my company. Sorry to put that in the passive voice, but there’s occasionally still a fax coming through, which I feel like Americans have not heard of fax coming through. For 20 years I’ve had to, I’ve had to do faxes and it makes me. It reminds me of how close we are to not that long ago. There’s only been a push in the past two years to make records digital, which I don’t know, maybe I’m kind of like, maybe on paper is better sort of guy.

Although now it’s like, no, let’s not waste paper. You know, my company doesn’t want to waste paper. So like, oh, we’re not giving you the schedule anymore. You, we just gave you laptops. So look at your schedule on there. I’m like, that’s great. But I’m also. I also have the class I’m supposed to teach on the laptop, right? So I want. I just want a piece of paper with my schedule on it. That’s all I want. Right. You know, even better, it’ll just be the neural link and then they’ll just. They’ll just download it directly to you.

Oh, well, the plus there is you can. You can play like Royal Match or something while you’re teaching the class, right? And watching some, some BTS videos. You can do all of that at the same time. 6. While you’re teaching a class on ethics. Yeah, that’s right. Exactly. So let’s all hail the neural link. Although you’re mentioning was Shinji not making friends in this? And of course they bring up the hedgehog’s dilemma here, right? That, I guess the idea of prickly people hurt each other. Yeah, Hedgehogs dilemma. Basically that when it gets cold, hedgehogs want to stay warm, so they all gather together for warmth.

But when they get so close to each other, then they prick each other. So then they separate again, but then they get cold, so then they get closer and eventually what happens is they all find the optimal distance from each other to both be warm and also not hurt each other. And this has been brought up by Schopenhauer, by Freud, as the. The hedgehog’s dilemma as applied to humans. That humans also basically like, we’re afraid of getting hurt and hurting other people, so we also only get so close to each other. So I guess they’re describing that Shinji is sort of going through this particular phase.

He’s figuring this stuff out for himself for the first time. I. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say this, but maybe Shinji just actually has this dilemma with like the public at large. Because as the show goes on, I think people don’t like Shinji that much in general. Like even big fans of the show are like, Shinji kind of sucks. Which so far he does. So yeah, it’s. That’s not easy to argue against. He. Is he realistic? Yes, for sure. I have 14 year old kids that are very much like this. I think I mentioned before, but tomorrow night I have three bubbly first year of high school girls and this one like kind of black hole of a dude there, you know, who is very Shinji.

You know, like they make a note too that when he’s like doing all this training for his Eva, like man, you Just do whatever you’re told, don’t you? That’s kind of. And it was. It was almost said as like a derog way, but it’s like, oh, that’s just Shinji. He just. Some people just do whatever they’re told, and that’s their personality. And I’m starting to get that from him. And he didn’t really refute it very much. He’s very much like, you go there and do that. Like, they’ll just, you know, snap into place and go and do it even if they don’t want to.

I mean, he is his dad’s tool. Who knows? Maybe we’re gonna find out he had some more Ultra programming when. When daddy was around as a kid, you know, I mean, wouldn’t you. If. If you needed your kid to be able to synchronize immediately with tech and fade and like, phase in and out of trances, it seems like you would have to MK Ultra them from birth. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So I wonder if we will get I again. I don’t really. It’s. The story for this is new to me. I’m just. The iconography of the show is familiar.

Where we do see the Eva and like, models and stuff, but, you know, you don’t see too many Shinji toys and models. When you see the Evangelion section and like a used or a toy store or something, or a model shop or whatever you call them. It’s Rey after she kills and gets the cast off. And a few more, you know, lady pilots. And they’re, you know, super sexy pilot out. Yeah. Why. Why is that? Why don’t we see more Shinji, I wonder? And then he’s got this little, like, head things which make him look like, even derpier.

Right. I. I don’t think that looks cool. What do you think? I think that all he is is kind of a pilot. And so far the only cool thing about him is. Is Eva. Like, there’s nothing about him in particular that is. Which is kind of interesting though, because usually when you’ve got a protagonist that’s constantly saving the world from fallen, you know, angels and demons, they tend to take on like, a heroic quality. But here, Shinji is still just as pathetic. And even the people, like, there’s a bully at school that knows that he is going out and saving humanity from fallen demons and.

And the bully still picks on him and beats him up. So I mean, that’s about as. But that. What else could you do if you can’t impress your bully by saving Humanity and then piloting this badass mech. I don’t know what else he’s supposed to do. I was halfway hoping that he was going to go on like a little side quest and just kill his bully. Be like, there. How about that? And then goes and kills the angel in this one. What are they going to say? They need him. He’s the only guy that can, you know, sync with these mechs.

Ray’s still got a broken arm, right? Seriously, I mean, and there’s really no one else that would be able to pull this off the same way. And actually, like, from the first couple episodes, Ray’s age isn’t completely clear, but now it’s clear. She’s also in high school. So I guess you have to have, like, people that are not fully developed to pilot these things. Is that how you sync with them? I gotta say, there was a. And stop me if I’ve already brought this one up, but there was a documentary on discovery in the mid-90s to the, to the late 90s about StarCraft championship players in South Korea.

And one of them had the highest APMs they’ve ever seen, which is actions per minute, which is like how many times you click a mouse or type a key or something. Like, every one of those unique actions is like an apm. And this guy had an APM that was four to five times as much as the next highest person. And they put in him under, like a brain scan analysis as he’s playing this game, and they were actually able to see exactly how fast everything was going. And then the. I think like the day he turned 20, like once he aged out of being a teenager, it all sank right back down to kind of like the high average.

Like he no longer was 4 to 5x. So there is, I mean, there is something to be said that at a very young age, especially when it comes to controlling computers and robots and video games and stuff, that the younger you are, the faster you can operate this. And then as soon as you hit a certain age, that just falls right off a cliff. I mean, that’s kind of a pop culture thing too, with your movies. Actresses, you know, it’s always like you hit 40 or finished. See you. Which is. That’s aging there. But. But then musicians, like, man, did McCartney ever make anything as good as he made in the 60s? Or that other guy who’s McCartney, if that’s the case, you know.

Although I will say if Paul McCartney was replaced in 66 or 68, the second guy’s a little more talented. So Wings. No, no, I’m talking late Beatles. Because if you go with the pause dead theory, I, I think sergeant Pepper is the White Album and Abby Rodolph all under the purview of fall. So I’m like, okay, well, he’s pretty talented too. But doesn’t, doesn’t Wings also fall in that same category? Because Wings came after all that. Five years of real Paul McCartney, five years of the fake paw and the Beatles. And then Wings, you get equal amounts of, you know, there’s three.

There could be three. Yeah, sure, why not? I, I, and I, I love the one where he comes back somewhere in the 2000s, the original Paul comes back and starts making albums again. Because if you don’t realize that I, the theory on this is he starts looking different around the Garden album. Sorry, I was scanning the one before this one with a chair. I don’t know the names of that one’s memory almost full. Sorry. I had to like actually pull it out from the shelf to see what it was. But the album before that is where it’s like, no, it’s original paw again.

So I don’t know like how you just have all the Beatles albums like right in front of you in case you need to pull one out a moment’s notice. That’s right. Just. That wasn’t a joke. I can also do it with Johnny Cash. By the way. You got some David Alenco in there. I have a country set. Was he on Columbia? There might be a David Onko in there if it’s Columbia. No, if you remember when CDs started to kind of like bite the bullet, they sell like these 25 album sets of like jazz and, or like the Beatles or Johnny Cash and stuff.

So I just scarf those up and I have like a wall of those here. Now how do you room for all this stuff in these tiny houses? That’s a good question. Yeah, that is a good question. Well, look at Misato’s house. How does she fit all that beer in there? It was basically a beer storage facility. Yes. That is the thing that still kind of blows my mind about this show. Just usually anything post apocalyptic shows the shambles of society, whereas Japanese society is still holding together. And Evangelion, you know, which just is weird to me.

Yeah, it’s, it’s not really post apocalyptic. And then also in this episode, I think more than the first two so far, we see a full on battle in the city. So people retreat from the city, they go into bunkers, they go in the hiding. And then this angel comes through, that’s fighting the Eva. And the angel has these weird laser whips. And as it, like, kind of moves these around you, he’ll whip through a building, and the building will just slice in half and fall down. I mean, are we talking, like, this city is being decimated and now people of hundreds of people have lost their homes and businesses? I would think so.

I have a note. Oh. I said the suburbs are screwed, right? Because, you know, the main city center is, like, protected, and it retracts underground. Right? So, yeah, so? So, I mean, we don’t really see a lot of the devastation. I mean, like, you see the building get sliced in half, but it almost feels like it’s like all props. It almost that same kind of Kaiju feeling where, you know, the building gets trampled, but in the back of your head, you’re like, I know. That’s just a cardboard building. Like, no one’s actually losing any sleep over this.

And I’m. I’m getting that same feel in this thing, is that these buildings are so expendable. They’re just like a. A building you can’t enter in a video game or, like, you don’t really care what happens to it after it’s no longer on the screen. So I feel like one of the weirdly most effective. And this could be Kaiju or disaster movie for both would be the. The third Transformers movie. There’s a scene where they go through an office level of a building that’s being destroyed, and the office is filled with people. And it’s one of the only times you’ve seen that, you know, and you’re like, wow, that is intense.

You know, like that King Kong remakes, I think, and one of the. The first King Kong remakes, they did a decent job. And don’t. Don’t kill me for even bringing this movie up. At the original Godzilla remake with Matthew Broderick in the early 2000s. I think that one also had a scene that did a pretty good job of like, hey, these buildings are filled with people that are now about to get destroyed. 97. But, yeah, it’s not the worst movie. It’s just like, they do it so much better in Japan, even the newer ones. I enjoy the Universal monster movies.

Skull Island. Loved it. Right? But it’s still like, have you seen a Godzilla minus. No, not yet. Not yet. Holy crap. That’s good. Yeah, I just had forgotten the title. But it’s great. Like, they put that out right after. Right before the last American Kaiju movie and the American one’s fun. Like Godzilla versus Kong two. Is that what it’s called? These. The titles are getting super confusing for these. Fun movie. But you’re like, I just saw one of the best Godzilla movies ever and this is just like dumb, right? So I do kind of hate, hate the naming convention of these.

Where now it’s like, oh, you can’t watch Godzilla XY09 before you watch B734. Like you got to know a secret code just to know exactly what order to even watch them in. And then your head pops. Right? This episode also shows you. Well, actually, I think you’ve basically explained the plot, which is mostly Shinji’s not making friends. We have another angel attack. But it is weird that this goes for like yet another anime genre for much of its running time. The first one is whatever it is, right? The intro episode. The last one was that weird one with Misato hitting on Ginger getting apocalyptically drunk, right? And this one’s like, now it’s like a high school drama.

So which high school animes are super popular? You know, so, yeah. What age group is this particular series made for? Is it made for the high school age group? Or do the. The targeting demographics of anime not work the same as they do over here? Short answer, I would say it’s not the same. I’m trying to see, like when this actually aired, like, like this came out in the 90s, were there 40 and 50 and 60 year olds that were like, oh yeah, this is my jam. I mean, I come downstairs a lot and my 75 year old father in law is, you know, reading manga.

So. Which you don’t feel like you see much in the States. So that would be my short answer. I’m trying to find anything here that really suggests who it was aimed at. Because now that you’re saying it, I’m like, man, I really don’t know. Like, I’m thinking guys in Akihabara. Do you know Akihabara Electric City? No. God bless you. Yeah, it’s central Tokyo. It’s like one or two stations from Tokyo Station and had a bunch of electronic stores and that brought all the geeks into town and that, you know, so they also have like lots of model shops.

If you want to buy like real sexy Evangelion figures, you’ll find them all over Akihabara. But, you know, and then you get a bunch of like kind of weird guys shuffling like you get a bunch of Shinji shuffling around basically, and ogling J Pop ads. Oh, oh, here we go. Perfect. Blue. He watched Perfect Blue. The fans of whatever the group was that. That was like the Akihabara crowd that was fans of the group. And. And in. In Perfect Blue. In Perfect Blue, there’s a much easier age group that I think that it’s for. It feels like that one’s for like the 16 or the 18 up.

Like that one’s kind of made for adult, not necessarily high school kids. Whereas this one, you could tell me it was made with high school kids in mind and I’d believe you. And you could also tell me it was made for adults in mind and I believe you. Okay, here is the statement from the creator. Director Hidaki Anno said early in the production. He stated his intent was to have Evangelion increase the number of anime fans named Otaku in Japanese. That’s the hockey Habara crowd and attract interest in the anime medium, bringing a breath of fresh air to the Mecca genre.

So it seems like he wanted to like Endorin people aged about 16 to 24 was. Because that would be the main Otaku crowd a little bit older. And there’s kids, you know, like high school up to early mid-20s probably. And when he, when he’s talking about the, the mech aesthetic, is this because the. And just forgive me if I’m going to refer to Voltron, I’m sure it was something else. But like the Voltron did seem more juvenile. So that one easily could have catered to like an 8 year old, whereas this one maybe caters a little bit older.

Also because you watched Voltron in America, the Japanese Voltron is a little bit more intense. I. I can’t say specifically for Voltron, but are you familiar with Star Blazers Space Battleship Yamato? It’s a 70s great, great series. By the way. I, that I almost thought about suggesting that one, but I thought I maybe suggest something that wasn’t from the 70s, you know. But that’s where Earth is apocalyptically screwed. Like everyone’s living underground and they take the old Battleship Yamato and refit it to be a spaceship and they’re going to go on this journey, two year journey to get like whatever McGuffin they need to save the Earth or whatever.

Okay, this sounds a little like the new Star wars skeleton crew series. I didn’t see that one, but. But maybe that’s the case. Anyway. That one has a robot that is sexually harassing the one female crew member. There’s a lot of death when they put it on TV as Star Blazers. They totally took all that stuff out for the American audience. So it was like 30% more juvenile now. And I’m guessing, I think they did that with Voltron to a certain extent too. The big one, the big mech series before this, I guess there’s Bat, there’s Gundam, which I, I don’t know.

I, I’m not a mech guy. I don’t know much about mech. There’s Gundam, which also a lot of models and stuff. I did write a Gundam theme park attraction once without knowing anything about what Gundam was really. So that was kind of fun. Was that a TV series too? A TV series, manga, movies, you name it. In Japan it’s, it’s. It’s one of their big. It’s their big mech property. And a Robotech. You’ve seen Robotech models and. Yeah. Robotic. So. So does this show, is this trying to compete with those or elevate those? Because he said was talking about like elevating the Mac.

Yeah, elevating the mech to make it like. I think either it is a little more juvenile. Like Voltron is the more juvenile side of mech. Like I guess Robotech is the more adult side. But at the same time it’s just very like, you know, like tech headed. So the idea. That’s why we’re throwing so much things like you know, cabalistic trees into the credits and stuff. Right. To make it and to elevate it, make it seem deeper. That sort of thing. Seem deeper. That’s. We’re going to see if it is or not as we go. But yeah, because we are detouring into these weird sub genres of anime right now.

It’s like he wants to make sure that like. Okay, let’s pick up the, the, the anime fans. I don’t know if this is a 90s thing, but definitely is. Now there’s the, there’s the boys love genre which is like boys having like, like not quite sexual affairs in high school and then it’s a manga and weirdly it’s like junior high girls like to read these. So kids these days. Yeah. This one I’m still trying to get my footing on. On how deep the symbolism and the meaning and all this stuff. Because right now the deepest part of the show seems to be the credits.

Maybe. We’ll see. And I, I was talking with one of my friends a few days ago and I was saying we were doing this and he was. And he was suggesting also the reason we didn’t go for this is it’s way too long, but a Full Metal Alchemist is a little more direct with making. I actually did watch that one. Yeah, that one I, I liked. But it was again, I guess it was a little bit more leaning into the occult stuff. But I didn’t understand any of it. Like it, it just felt like, oh cool.

They talked about a grimoire and a homuncul. They’re clearly looking at some sort of Enochian sigils. And then they would go off and make some logical conclusion based on all this stuff. And I was lost immediately. Like, I don’t like Evangelion, I guess doesn’t have like quite, you know, Disney Ghibli level pervasiveness in Japanese culture. I would put it at say, I don’t know, Minion level pervasiveness. Like everyone knows the Minions, but not everyone is like fully familiar with the Minions. You know, I don’t really know much about the Minions. I’ve only seen that first movie.

I don’t know if we’ve had this discussion here before, but this is a very anti Minion household because Despicable me and Megamind came out the same time and we are massive fans of Megamind. So then when everyone forgot about Megamind and and, and the Minions became super popular, we were like super pissed at the Minions. You’re like Megamind hipsters over there. We’re Megamind hipsters for sure. Yeah. Well, I like something a little bit co than that. You might not have heard of it. Yeah, it looks a little edgier. Megamind, well, his menu is much edgier. It’s like what, it’s a gorilla with a floating fish in a brain suit or something like that.

I don’t quite remember but it’s freaking weird. That’s what it is. Anyway. Yeah, here we, we do a little bit like at the end, at the end of this where it’s like he does call just that’s very much like that felt like a. A boys love manga anime. A few years ago my daughter was maybe still end of elementary school. So she was like 11 or 12 and I took her to the anime store. Animate is the name of the chain. And it was funny because I was. Oh, don’t look that way. Han is embarrassed. You’re looking in that direction.

I’m looking over. It’s like maybe like a Vangelian. Like you know, ladies and skin tight suits. I turn, oh, Hana’s embarrassed now you’re looking at like the boys love section. Every time I would turn she’d be embarrassed because of the direction I was like Looking. So it’s like, well, every direction is embarrassing at the manga store. So I just walked outside for a while. You put on the little like blinders like you’re a horse. Really. I almost had to, by the way, just because of the high school stuff. My. My alternate title of this was Apocalyptic Breakfast Club.

I mean, I guess the school feels slightly apocalyptic in that they said since the city’s constantly under attack from Angel Kaiju. You know what 80% of the students have now left, which makes sense. I don’t think I would keep going to school. No, that’s the weird thing. Because this. It’s not really. It is the post apocalypse. They said what? 80% of the world has been killed in this episode. They said the second impact killed 80% of the world, I think. Right. So it’s just so weird that they have this little bit of society that they’ve like rebuilt and feels like normal Japan.

It’s. That’s. They’re taking it well to the point where bullies still feel like comfortable just being regular old school bullies even though 80 of the population is gone. I don’t know. I almost feel like there would be less bullying. I mean, I guess they were, you know, born or small children around that time when the world basically ended. Right. So are they like the adults almost be like 100 fully traumatized. Right. And the kids to a certain extent too. But the. The adults would remember before and after where the kids would only remember this. Yeah, kids would.

It would feel crowded if they saw what another 80% looked like. But here I’m like, I’ve climbed temple stairs when it’s 5pm or whatever. They have the. If you have a bell tone, right? And that, that plays all the time in Japan. So depending on where you are talking about Space Battleship Yamato again, it was funny that the alarm on the ship, they had an alarm, you know, like red alert or whatever. And I was watching Space Battleship Yamato because I didn’t have work a few days after the 2011 quake, right? So like watching that and.

And there were aftershocks and the local elementary school would sound an alarm for when there was supposed to be an aftershock. It was exact same alarm. So I’m watching it on the. Like, you know, there’s an airline ship. Then I’d hear the same thing out the window, like what’s happening? So yeah, these. These public service sounds that you’ve heard in your name that you’ve heard here, these are just. You hear. That’s like baked into Japanese culture. Any Japanese person hearing that is, like, just in, you know, very familiar with that sound. That’s fair. I mean, like, even like us cops have a very specific siren or like little chirp noises that you’ll hear constantly.

In fact, it’s the reason why I can’t listen to some albums, usually rap albums, but I can’t listen to some albums because they’ll just like throw a police siren, like in the middle of an intro somewhere, and it always kind of throws me off. So I just can’t let someone in the car now. Bomb Squad’s out. NWA’s out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m usually in the train. I can handle it. Yes, sire. Well, I still have that. If I’m playing, like Public Enemy or something, I hear those. Well, crap. Is there a copy in Japan’s, you have Warwack.

I think the sirens are a little different, but also police cars will just drive around with their red lights flashing. They have red lights in Japan, so the ambulances and police have the same colored lights. And police will just drive around with the lights on, not the siren on, but the lights are on, which is kind of confusing, especially if they’re behind you. For an American especially, it’s confusing. Do I have to pull over? You know? Yeah. Is it the same feeling as in the States? And a cop gets behind you and you’re like, oh, oh, no.

I hope he’s not having a bad day. Oh, I like. Anything wrong right now? I don’t know. I don’t know. For a Japanese person. That’s the thing for Japanese folks. I couldn’t say for me, yeah, I’m American. Like, if I’m on the street and I see a cop, I’m sure, like, let’s avoid the cop a little bit. Not carrying a gun. He’s just got a billy club. He probably doesn’t, you know, the cops usually don’t mess with you in Tokyo. They will stop foreigners occasionally and check for passports or IDs or something, which is a little harassy, but I’ve had that happen for.

Usually if you’re with someone or if you’re like, drinking on the street or smoking on the street, you know, which isn’t, like, illegal most places. But the cops might decide to, you know, hassle you a bit and at least just looking, really, if you’re smoking on the street for just walking around, smoking a cigarette, now maybe you can’t do that anyway, but 10 years ago you still could. It was much later in Japan than you could in The States. But you. You could drink on the street most places in Japan. It’s like a big deal that you can’t in, like Shinjuku and Shibuya because they have like the New Year’s parties and stuff.

So where they used to. But yeah, Shibuya would have the New Year’s parties, the Halloween parties. And in recent years, they’ve gotten very footloose about it. And as in the. The, you know, the nasty people in Footloose and trying to get everyone to not come for Halloween and New Year’s. So not so. So they’ve passed. Not laws, but what’s the word I’m looking for? Statutes that you can no longer drink on the streets in those areas of Tokyo. Or get billy clubbed. Where you get me. Yeah. Now you can get billy club, maybe. Well, they. They during these.

Now they have police cars parked in the middle of the street. It’s been closed to traffic because people still come. And then you just have like cops, like, with bullhorns, like being buzz kills. And the car is like, you know, you should not be crying. The area. Why don’t. Why don’t you go home and celebrate there? I don’t know exactly what they’re saying. I have never gone to these anyway. But yeah, it is kind of weird that that’s where maybe society does hold together. Because, like, after the 2011 thing, we didn’t have, like, looting and things.

People kind of contracted a bit and, you know, so it is kind of a Japanese thing to do, I guess. But this still seems like too much. 80 of the world’s gone. Most of Japan’s or a lot of Japan’s probably underwater. And we’re just like going to the community center and the local high school. It’s a little weird and bullying each other. Yeah, well, people are always going to bully, right? I mean, so Battleship Galactica, they’re. They’re bullying. Yeah. Yeah. Something to look forward to. Even if the world ends and 80% of humanity is decimated, you’re still going to have a bully at school.

Oh, one more note in this. I don’t know if I noticed this in the first or just didn’t notice in this in the first two episodes, but Ava’s hands. Fingers are like, human. Yeah, I know. I saw that because he grabbed on to one of those laser tentacles and he was, like, holding it for a few minutes. It seemed like when he pulled it away. He’s a black man under there. Yeah, yeah. But the whole. I mean, yeah, it’s human hands. Which we didn’t see that in the first two. Right. Am I or. Or we didn’t notice.

I don’t. I think we didn’t see. We didn’t see, but we. What we did see was that when he first, I think bound maybe in the first episode when Shenji first bound to it, his eyes like turned human at a certain point. That’s when there was ascribing that it’s not just pure Mac, that there’s like an organic layer to this thing, to this Eva. Yeah. So I. I do think as we get a little more accordion to it, that’s gonna probably be one of the main scratches to itch, you know, it’s just a scratch, however you’re supposed to say it.

What if you were unit 001 and you are some kind of organic thing, but you’re a pacifist, but this little 14 year old like Jacks himself inside your chest and makes you fight your brothers and sisters? Well, 23 more episodes. See where they take that. Okay. Yeah, I guess we’ll wrap up the Apocalyptic Breakfast Club. I’m renaming this episode that, but. Anything else you want to throw on it? No, I mean, I’m still looking forward to the other 23 episodes and see how far they can bring this story and how much we can really hate Shinji right now.

On a scale from 1 to 10, he’s coming in at like a 3. And I’m being very generous. Yeah. As I said, I’m just like, this is not. Yeah, this is just literally everyone else. I like his dad more than I like him. And I know his dad’s an. He reminds me of kids that I don’t dislike but aren’t fun to teach. Yeah. Like the kid I was talking about earlier where it’s when I said he’s like being a black hole to class, it’s not like he’s bad or anything. He’s just like he’s not fun to teach.

And that makes the class less fun. So that Shinji would not be fun to teach in that high school. I. I definitely do not see him endearing himself to the teacher. Even though there’s only four people in the class, the bar is low and he’s still not meeting it. Yes. Okay. Well, as we wrap up, I guess give people a quick heads up to where you hanging out on the Internets and such. You can jack into paranoidamerican.com. you can also go on Amazon all across the world and search for Panoid American and find some stuff, including a brand new coloring book.

Unless you’re listening to this before it gets approved. But in the next week or so. Illuminati Animals Coloring book guaranteed to be the best and only Illuminati animals coloring book on all of Amazon. No Ava’s in there, though. Not yet. There is a xenomorph in there though. You couldn’t find a lot of other animals that started with the letter X. There’s a few, but none of them were cool enough. Right over on my end I do podcasting at podcast deal podcast yes.org it’s also at Patreon. You can look for it there. You can look for it, you know, on your podcasters.

We just did the Twilight Zone on Time Enough podcast Plan of the Apes over at podcast 1999 and imprisoned in prison we a few years ago we did the 60s TV show the Prisoner, which is a good show for any conspiracy head. And we’ve actually reignited that feed for or about by the time you’re hearing this, we’ve reignited that feed to cover the more recent show Severance. Because you’re like, there’s some, there’s some similarities. You could put Severance and imprisoned in prison. So we’re running with that right now. So go dig that, get back to school.

Wait for your phone to ring. Wait. Answer the call. That’s Ghostbusters. Oops. Spread the word with propaganda packs all for just $40 shipped at paranoidamerican.com paranoid propaganda packs we got facts on these sticker slaps so grab yourself a stack and go attack with these parents propaganda packs these huge all weather slaps will last in public for years to come. Remind citizens that birds are not real. Self immolation is an option and might make you magnetic do your part and get a propaganda pack today from paranoidamerican.com paranoid propaganda packs we got facts on these sticker slaps so grab yourself a stack and go attack with these paranoid propaganda packs what are you waiting for? Go to paranoidamerican.com right now and get a paranoid propaganda pack.

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