Rain and After Running Away – Neon Genesis Evangelion S01E04

➡ The text is a conversation between two people discussing their experiences living in Japan and America, their love for anime, and their thoughts on the anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion. They talk about the concept of a real-life mech suit, comparing the possibilities in Japan and the US. They also discuss the episode “Hedgehog’s Dilemma” from Evangelion, analyzing the character Shinji’s rejection of his role as a hero and the implications of using 14-year-old children to pilot the Evas.
➡ The text discusses a character named Shinji who is seen as unlikable due to his bland personality. Despite being the protagonist, he is seen as an obstruction to the story. Shinji is described as being detached from the world, even avoiding eye contact with others. The text also mentions an unresolved conflict between Shinji and a bully, and ends with Shinji’s return to a place called Nerve, where his emotional shutdown continues.
➡ Shinji, a young boy, is pressured into being friends with his bully and piloting a mech suit in a post-apocalyptic world. Despite returning after leaving, his return isn’t heroic or brave, but rather apathetic. The story explores the pressures and insecurities that lead Shinji to pilot the suit, despite not liking it. The text also raises questions about the selection process for pilots and the potential for a military draft in this society.
➡ The text is a conversation about a train station in Japan, comparing it to building structures in America, particularly Florida. The speakers also discuss the return of nature after an apocalypse, using the example of cicadas. They then shift to discussing the tone of a series they are watching, noting how each episode has a different feel. The conversation ends with them promoting their own podcasts and discussing the possibility of having Wikipedia pages.
➡ The text discusses a comic called “Never a Straight Answer” available on nasacomic.com. This comic, suitable for all ages, explores a conspiracy theory about Stanley Kubrick directing the Apollo space missions. The text also includes lyrics from a song, expressing various emotions and experiences.

90% of the world’s population has been annihilated. You know, so much more fun and games at the Cotton Cabal. Beyond what’s just in a name at the Cotton Cabal. See, just at what cost comes fame at the Cartoon Cabal. So much for the fun and games at the Cartoon Cabal. Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Cartoon Cabal. We’re having a look at cartoons. Anime. I guess cabal was a great word. Anime. We just didn’t work anything out. Anime atrocity. That’s no good news. It’s not atrocities. Well, we also don’t want to be limited to just anime. That’s true.

That’s why we are including Mickey’s hands in our logos to, you know, because this is also kind of where in league with the cult Disney. But now we are in Japan. I am always in Japan, but it’s a Neon Genesis Evangelion. We are looking at a hedgehog’s dilemma. This is Matt here. It’s a paranoid American over there in America. Not Japan for now. Yeah, no, I think I’ll stay here. I think I’ll stay. I, I, you know what I’ll say? I’ve been basically living in Japan for 20 years. And for the first 10 years, I’m like, have I moved myself outside of the centerpiece of culture? You know, because you’re young, you want to be like, where things are happening.

You want to be in New York, you want to be in la. And I was like, I’m not even in Tokyo. Right. But, you know, as I get older and as things get weirder, I’m like, man, I’m happy with my choices. I like living up here in the mountains. You know, if you think it’s time, let me just say that, that you got to experience, I think, the peak of American culture. And I guess that’s just like an old man thing to say now, right, Because. Yeah. What’s hit? But really, I, I do feel that by the time AOL started getting phased out, you moved to Japan.

It was like the perfect time. Yeah. And I live one valley away from Tokyo too, just to make it, you know, Eva ready. Like Tokyo 2 is one valley over. One of my friends, best friends lives over there. So, you know, I’m in the, I’m in this. I feel like I’m in the safe spot. You can still have real society here while 90% of the world’s population has been annihilated. You know, do you think that Japan, anywhere in Japan actually has a mech suit somewhere in development? In real life, there’s a full size Gundam that moves a little bit in Tokyo.

I mean, obviously it’s not a full Evo, but hey, if that’s for the public, who knows what, you know, JAXA or whatever has underground, right? Because I guess I’m just thinking. I’m pretty sure Japan’s beating the US in the underground Mech Suit arena. Maybe. Maybe the US Will surprise me. But I promise you, there are really smart guys who are also massive dorks that have gone about trying to make a proper Mexico in Japan. I’m pretty sure that’s like, not even like on, you know, things you can’t experience. Like, you could probably look that up if you felt like it and find somebody doing that.

And I. I do mean in the scale of this show, which would be pretty ginormous, right? Because we’re. I mean, that would be the goal. That would be the goal. Like I said, I think it’s an Odaiba. Maybe that there is a full size Gundam there. So, I mean, it’s not like a real. Again, it doesn’t fly. I don’t think anyone can get into it, but it does like move a little bit. So does it shoot anything? Maybe he’s carrying a gun. I’ve never seen it in person, to be honest. Yeah, I haven’t been to that part of Tokyo for some time.

Because that’s the whole point, right? The whole point is that if it can’t fly, I get that. And if it can’t move very well, I get that too. At least needs to be able to shoot well in order for it to shoot well. Means it can’t just be a gun under all of the armor and like the. The costume part, right. It actually has to be integrated so that you get a little vision, a little readout. You can see. Exactly. You got to have like the Terminator Predator kind of vision built into it. Otherwise you wouldn’t even be able to hit a shot, I don’t think.

Well, this one’s outside of the mall on Odaiba, so you probably don’t want to have that one actually shoot anything. I think it’s a Demono Daiba. Someone correct me if I’m wrong there, but. Well, I mean, you needed to shoot things so it can shoot the other Gundams. Yeah, yeah. Here’s a weird thing. I know what toy guns in in America have to have like the orange caps and stuff and like. Or be made in neon colors so people know it’s not a real gun. Where in Japan, since we don’t have guns for to speak. We have these super accurate models of guns that don’t shoot anything, but they look exactly like the real thing.

And we have stores that sell tons of them. That actually sounds pretty cool, but. Yeah, here in the States, that will get your kid shot. Yeah. Oh, yes. That’s. That’s why I think when I see these stores, I’m like, you know, sometimes you see a kid buying, walking out with them, like, oh, man, that kid’s getting shot in the streets in America. You know, could I just go to Japan with an action, like with my Glock and just walk around and people would just think that it’s part of a costume or because I’m clearly American, would they put two and two together? I was going to add that writer to it.

Yes. If you were Japanese, you might be able to get away with it, but. Yeah, but not me. Anyway, today it’s what, episode four of Eva, it is Hedgehog’s Dilemma, which I had one of those weird things where two days ago I was doing a different podcast on I guess the TV show Severance or something, and someone comes up and says, oh, yeah, have you ever heard of the Hedgehog’s Dilemma? I’m like, funny you should ask. I was like, where did you hear about that? He was like, I was like, funny you should ask, why’d you phrase it that way? Or he explains it first.

I’m like, why’d you phrase it that way? He’s like, I think it’s from a Evangelion episode or something. So the circle was complete. It was not quite a coincidence. A little bit of coincidence. Well, they didn’t invent it, right? They just used it. I think they just used it. It was funny because my friend referenced it and then like, was like, yeah, I think I got it from an Evangelion episode, you know. Now last week we delayed this one a little bit, just. And last week I had already watched it and I described it as an episode where nothing happens.

Do you want to confirm or deny that? I can see why you said that, but I also think that this is an important part of the overall series. Like this episode, while nothing happens, something represents that nothingness. And if, I guess if we talk about Hero’s Journey style, this is the most obvious version of. Of the rejection of the call, right? There’s the call to adventure. And then in a lot of these versions of Heroes story, there’s a rejection to that call where they. They deny it. And this is exactly what Shinji is going through he’s going through this complete detachment where he’s thinking, nothing is really worth it.

He can’t do it. He’s not made for it. At one point he even says, it doesn’t feel natural to me or it doesn’t come natural. And I thought that that was the dumbest thing that he said so far because it literally synced with him in the matter of 10 seconds. And everyone was surprised how quickly this huge Mexu binded with him. And he’s thinking that, oh, it doesn’t come natural. Like how, how much better, how much more natural could you be than this? Almost instant synchronization. Well, that’s part of being a 14 year old dumbass, right? Like when I was 14, 15, man, I was playing bass in the band.

I was like, I wish some girls liked me. Whereas literally being chased by people and didn’t notice, you know, that’s being 14, right? This isn’t natural. Like you’re the only person that can actually do this. The person beside you who’s considered the best is still recouping with, you know, a sling and an eye patch and stuff. They actually make another comment in this one that says we have to use 14 year old children to pilot the Evas. And she’s like, yeah, that’s stuck. I know we do. So there’s really no great options, right? You’re going to be limited to a whole bunch of mopey like, like kids going through puberty.

They’re going to be all angsty 24 7, which is kind of a weird combination for them to be. The answer that’s going to save us from fallen angels taking over the planet. No, my notes. Got to harvest children for the Evas. Damn kids and their attitudes, you know? So again, I teach kids this age, so I recently got a complaint because my high school class was too fun. So I mean, that actually sounds pretty American. Okay, sure, yeah. Because yeah, we had some time to the game, which usually 95 of kids enjoy it when we just chill out for a few minutes, but in this case they do.

It’s niched. Who’s snitching about having too much fun. Oh, I know. Oh, you did? Is it. Are we talking staff or parents? It’s neither. Here. It’s fine. They just wanted to sit there and do hardcore practice, which you get occasionally, you know, so. But that’s why I’m kind of tying in with. With just the way that the kids in this are functioning, you know, like Shinji has no perspective on anything. Like, like I Said nothing happens. It is a notable character study. I mean, I feel like in the west, though, you do a character study like this and it fully resolves by the end of whatever it is, be it an episode, a movie, whatever.

So we have said an episode, right? Because this is episodic, so they’re serialized, I guess, if you want to get real specific. But it’s serialized, so. But I feel like the Western version of this would have resolved a little bit more at the end, instead of just like, his classmate being punched me in the face, you know? And even that didn’t really come through, that there was no resolution to that. Shinji is such a flaccid, wet, you know, paper towel that even the things that he’s supposed to do that are gonna help him elevate, go to the next step of this hero’s journey.

They all feel so unimpactful. And it just kind of feels like he’s just there. He’s just like an obstruction to the rest of the story. Despite being the protagonist, it’s actually one of the most unique, like, characters. Because of that reason. He’s. He’s so, I guess, milquetoast that he becomes unlikable through being so bland. He doesn’t do. He doesn’t even do anything to make you dislike him, which makes me dislike him even more. Yes. And that’s, I think, one reason I maybe never got to the series earlier, other than I have trouble coming to TV series.

But I’d always heard, yeah, people don’t really like the guy. I mean, they love the lady pilots, which still aren’t really doing that much, but they love them. But Sinji is so annoying. I’m like, he is, but he’s very realistically annoying, which. Yeah, that’s a good way of phrasing it. So realistic with like. Like, he’s got to be one of the most realistic characters I’ve come across in, like, you know, fictional media. Right. But at the same time, he’s not likable realistic, but he is realistic. And, you know, I mean, there’s the Hedgehog’s Dilemma again. I guess you could find a way to connect with this guy, but it’s pretty difficult.

And chances are you’re going to give up. You know, you mentioned Hedgehog’s Dilemma. The. The title of this one for me is it was Rain After Running Away. That’s the Japanese title, which is my first note. Although I’m thinking that the rain in this world must be acidic by this point. Come on. Everything can’t be okay in this town. And I guess that’s the whole plot of this episode, is that no one can find Shinji. And then it rains. That’s kind. That’s kind of what happens. And then we see where Shinji is. At first. He’s riding on a train and.

And he’s not making eye contact with anyone, and he’s just playing the exact same song over and over again. And school girls come onto the train and they get back off. And not only does he not make eye contact with them, he doesn’t even stab them or anything. Like, he doesn’t do any of the typical things you’d expect the Japanese kid to do to like, Japanese schoolgirls on a train. So it’s showing that he’s been so completely detached from the external world. I mean, I kind of was feeling like he might have just jumped off a bridge at the end of this episode, the way that he was acting.

But that’s not un. I mean, we, like, in Japan, like, you know, there’s plenty of teenage suicides, and it’s usually, like, bullying, which I guess Sinji’s kind of been bullied. Well, he has. Okay. I’m just coming from a perspective where I guess I realize I probably did get bullied growing up. I just never noticed that was something useful. I never noticed. Right. So it didn’t last long because I didn’t pay attention and respond where Shinji will respond to that. Well, he gets bullied, but then he saves his bully. And then in this episode, the bully tells Shinji to hit him in order to kind of, like, balance things out.

But even that doesn’t really have a very strong resolution to it. No, not at all. And then. Then at the last few scenes, he’s back at, you know, at a nerve. Is it? And it’s like, is he now more of a prisoner? Like, does he get to hang out in the apartment with Masado anymore now that he’s run away? Or is he just, like, you know, keep him in the tank at this point, I guess we’re going to find out, but. Well, I think what we’re seeing this episode again, you’re like, this is the episode where nothing happens, but we’re seeing is a shutdown of his emotions, a shutdown of his libido.

I guess that was like, he’s. He’s just completely detached, even from, like, the cute little screw girls that would come on the train and everything. And that there’s even. I’m not even sure there’s a sign on Shinji’s door that says Little Shinji’s room. And I was wondering, did he put that on there? Like, who put. Who wrote little Shinji on his door? And was. Is that not going to emasculate a 14 year old boy to see as you come home? Like, oh, it’s little Shinji’s room. This is like a baby’s room. It’s one that was definitely Masato, not him.

Because it’s on. It’s in a heart too, right? So also it’s like Shinji kun, which is Shinji boy, which is not too emasculating. Like, here’s thing you’ve heard Chan. Well, 4chan, right? But Chan is like girls also very young boys are still called chan for some reason. And then when they’re a little older, it’s kun. And my wife will call me Moto Kun sometimes, you know? So it’s not. So if she wrote Mato kun’s room and put them on the door. That. I guess, I mean, that would be weird. But Masado is weird. But it wouldn’t be like.

It wouldn’t be infantileizing, I guess, is what I’m saying. So that. That’s kind of fine. It’s weird. But it doesn’t do that. The other nephew. I wasn’t sure when I was supposed to stop saying yu chan and switch to. You couldn’t. I was like kind of stressed about that for a year or two. What age group is it that you have to stop saying it? When was it? Probably about the third or fourth grade of elementary school is where the switch happened. Okay, so before 14. Before 14. But, but. But that’s chan. So kun is kind of fine.

You kind of like, okay, you just don’t. Until you just get son. Also, a girlfriend is going to say, you know, like Thomas Kuhn or something, you know, like they’ll add it, you know, So I don’t. It’s not like I said, it is weird that she makes it a sign for the door. And I’m very sure that’s her, not him. And it’s. It’s weird too. Just because there’s like an age gap and there’s clearly she. She scolds him. She kind of acts like she’s his mom in a way where she’s like, you know, trying to give him a pep talk, but she dresses him down, giving him this pep talk.

Like she yells at him. I guess we. It’s like we do what? They didn’t specifically say your age, did they? In an earlier episode 18. I mean, she drinks a bunch of beer, so I mean, I guess we’re 20. 18 to 20, right? 20 is drinking age in Japan. So at least, I guess at least 20. Because I feel like she’s young. I mean, it is that weird. You know, I think we said before the Anakin Padme stuff from Star wars that’s. That’s certainly got its stink on this situation. And I’m wondering if you caught this part.

So in the beginning of this episode, after we realize, and then Misato realizes that Shinji is missing the bully and the bully’s friend, or I assume like another kid that the bully was bullying or something, they show up the Shinji’s and they’re asking, have you seen Shinji? But then we see later in the episode they’re camping out with them, so it seems like they were hiding him and then preemptively going to meet Sago and telling her that they didn’t know where Shinji was, even though they really did know where he was. Just the bully’s buddy out camping.

Though I got the weird impression he was a prepper, which seems weird until you consider while things seem relatively normal, this is like 20 years or 15 years post apocalypse, right? So it kind of makes sense that you would be maybe secretly prepping a little harder than say, someone just, you know, in modern society. So everyone’s a prepper here. But. But the idea that I got was that Shinji doesn’t even have any friends. He begrudgingly is peer pressured into being friends with his bully and doesn’t seem like he really wants to be friends with any of these people.

And in fact, when he goes back at the end of the episode, I mean, freaking spoiler alert, right? They’re not going to end on episode four and say, that’s a rap. Shinji never came back. Everyone screwed. He does come back, but it’s not a hero’s return. It’s. It doesn’t even feel like he does it out of bravery. He’s doing it out of apathy. Which again, it just kind of neuters the entire point of leaving and coming back and saying. Because it’s not like he comes back and says, all right, I’m ready. I’ve gotten through my mental block.

Let’s do this. He just kind of shows up like, whatever, I guess this is what we’re doing now. And then that’s the next episode. See, that’s the interesting thing here. This is kind of like realistic programming. Like, it’s very. Everyone loves the story of Someone is put into a sci fi room and has their brain reprogrammed. Love it, love it. But this is more like subtle, you know, your own insecurity, subtle pressures, stronger pressures, you know, pressures used in weird ways. And that’s how you get Shinji into a mech suit and quote, unquote, not liking it, but I guess no longer caring about it.

Right. I got, I got a couple high level questions, I think, about series in general. So if only 14 year olds can pilot these evasions, then why don’t they have a full pipeline created where once you turn 14, you go through boot camp and they test you out and see if you know how to handle one of these Evas. It almost seems like they’re just randomly picking people that they think might work with these, when really they could, they could turn this into like a military draft. Well, keep in mind the, the junior high school class has five students and one of them just went awol, so there’s not so many choices, you know, and if it’s not that many people are compatible and you have a very small selection, they do say the other high schoolers, junior high schoolers left, they went somewhere else.

I mean, I don’t know. Should, should this post apocalyptic society just be martial law like you said, should be Sparta, Everyone gets drafted. Because I am guessing most people cannot run a Neva. You know, it’s like maybe like 2% or something. Right? But we saying Shinji just happens to be one of the people. I mean, I guess that might be the entire premise of the scenes. He might have been born to do that, literally. We’ll, we’ll get, I don’t, I mean, I’m not saying he is, I, I don’t know, but we’ll get to that. It just seems like he had some extra pokers in the fire with Shinji.

We could, you could flip that on its head and then say, well, if we only have five people that are four people that are going to be making it through, then let’s custom make mechs for each one of those. Or I mean, I, I, I guess you’re just kind of screwed either way. And, and I would feel extra screwed if I was in Tokyo too, and I realized that Shinji is our last hope. And also three we’re in. Now, if he has to be 14, then does that mean that if he doesn’t figure it out by the time he’s 15, then it’s game over.

Does this all have to happen within his 14th year? I don’t think it’s the year that matters. I think it’s the puberty crossover that matters, that it might be. To run an eva, you have to be in the midst of puberty. So once your voice drops, you, like, the EVA doesn’t respond to you anymore. Yeah, yeah, that’s what I’m saying. Because, like, in America, I feel like it was like, for us, it was like 12. You hit it. Right. In Japan, I think it is lowering, but especially in the 90s, I think it was like, it really was more like 14 when kids would hit puberty.

So I am wondering if that is the biological reason these, you know, biological mechs have to combine with. With someone in that state. Were these designed by Jerry Seinfeld? Sure. Why not? Just an underage joke. It was a bad one. Oh, okay. Sorry. I. I was just listening to a different podcast just before this one, where someone was like, yeah, I never listened to Jerry Seinfeld’s jokes. I just thought he was corny. And I read a book, and so they didn’t know the delivery of his jokes, but they were just reading the jokes, and they came out like Zen cones.

I’m just coming out from a very different place. Why does this guy care so much about airline food? I don’t get. It was like. It’s like talking about cars, and you’re. It’s like you’re moving and you’re not moving at the same time. You’re not inside, but you’re not outside. When you do it in a sign. Oh, you’re not inside, but you’re not outside. But when someone just reads it like this, it’s like, it sounds like a Zen cone. I’m like, that’s interesting that his jokes come out that way. There has to be a Seinfeld haiku book out there somewhere.

What do you think about hockey? There is no puck. That doesn’t even make sense yet it’s funny. Of course, he says it in a Seinfeld voice, where if you say it as a kind of in a chill tone now, it sounds like a. Like. Yeah, okay. Anyway, sorry. I was having very different thoughts about Seinfeld, which is why it didn’t quite connect. I was thinking Zen cones when you said Seinfeld, which is not the usual response. I understand that. Well, I think there’s some synchronicity here, too, because. Right. Seinfeld is supposed to be the show about nothing, and this was the episode about nothing.

So it all kind of comes in a nice, handy little bow. Yeah. The one about Shinji running away Sorry, it’s friends that name their episodes that way. But yeah, I got two things I just want to hit this observation wise one, this is a full on seizure alert for, you know, the, the late 90s scare. That Japanese anime is going to give your kids epilepsy or whatever. Right. Pokemon was of course the main one for that. But just I don’t even remember any seizure inducing visuals. Oh, there was some serious flashing lights somewhere in the first five.

I guess I’m just so used to it now. I’m just in a date. We don’t care anymore. I just, I always have my eyes open for that to see if it starts, you know, making me hallucinate. Which it didn’t. But also I, I did. I train geeked a little bit because the forbidden train never comes by. That was the only thing where I’m like, oh, things are different weird here. I mean like a freight train will come by or a weird looking train. We did have the super rich train several years ago. I’d finished work on Saturdays and always would come up this like 500 ticket train right.

Overnight. It’s like 500 or more or something. And it’s got. It was like the, you know like the snowpiercer front car or something. So the thorn where they eat the babies, right? Yes, the veal for sure, if not the babies. But where was I going with that? Okay, so there are weird trains, but yeah, the forgiven. The forbidden government train. I don’t know. That caught my attention. Also here’s something I noticed. I was in Tokyo a few weeks ago and in this they say make sure to stand behind the yellow line. All the train stations have these yellow lines with stand around.

Recently they started saying stand behind the yellow squares instead because the lines are comprised of squares. I don’t even know if that’s a worthwhile thought. But it’s kind of weird because the announcement changed about what they are. I have no idea what to say to that. Okay. Yeah, as I was saying, I was like, this is so specific. Yeah. Japan has yellow lines all over on the street. Like basically for blind people can run their canes along them and, and not walk in the crap. So. But in training, raised paint that they tap on or, or something else.

No, no, it’s like ceramic stuff. It’s actually raised stuff that’s also painted. Wouldn’t you just trip over it all the time? It’s not that raised. Then if you have a. I mean it’s like, it’s like walking on cobblestone. Right. You’re not going to trip on cobblestone. You don’t know me. Point nine of the time. Well, there’s the time you do trip on cobblestone. Hey, I tripped on a crack in the sidewalk, like yesterday. You break your mother’s back, you got to be careful with those. I did not fall down. I just did a little skip and went on my way.

But that is still stumbling a bit, right? He’s a clumsy one. But where are we going? So anyway, I just. The train station was so hyper realistic that caught my attention. So if anyone is watching us and thinking, whoa, is this a sci fi train station? Definitely not. Everything here is like Japanese train station solid. I think I might have even been to the train station they modeled this after. Although I guess there’s lots of weird mountain train stations. That’s the thing. They build things in weird places in Japan. They just don’t. In America. If there’s like a little valley with like just a few flat square meters to build something, someone might build something there, like a hotel.

Yeah, we still got plenty of land to do weird stuff with here. We just don’t have a lot of the money or resources to do it. Right. I guess you got more flatland, especially in Florida. I mean, you can’t. There are no weird crevices to build anything in. What’s the highest point in Florida? Isn’t it something like insanely like it’s like five meters or something? Yeah, it has the word mound in it, so I’m not even kidding. Okay, there we go. So, yeah, skyscraper in Miami is the tallest place in Florida, I guess. Whereas I think it’s like 80% of Japanese land is considered like basically unusable.

So when you do find that small little patch, you build something there. And that. That’s where this train station is at the end of. Of the episode. So. Well, and I guess after an apocalypse, you would have even less ground to work with. Or does it kind of reset the. The grid a little bit and now there’s. There’s more land to work with. I don’t think there’s more land. But they do make the note in this episode that nature is resetting. You know, it’s kind of like that pre Apache Chernobyl thing where it’s like, wow, the wildlife has really gone nuts here.

Instead of like irradiating and dying, you know, in the. In the fauna too. Flora, fauna. I guess the specific thing that we’re talking about is that the cicadas were coming back and it’s. That’s a Little bittersweet. It’s like, yeah, it’s coming back. But step one are the cicadas are coming first. It’s like nature couldn’t have started with anything else. I had to go right to the cicadas. Mid June. They’re not screaming at me yet. That’s nice. My movie podcast, we used to do it in person, often outside. And there’s one or two episodes of Matt and Luke’s Sci Fi Sanctuary, which are basically unlistenable because you hear cicada screaming around us the entire time.

They have like multiple, like, mating seasons and molting seasons. And like, every once in a while, at least in Florida, there’s, I think there’s like these two major batches of them. And every once in a while, the. The two different batches will both hatch at the exact same time. So you’ll get way louder cicadas than at any other time in your life just because they. They kind of like synchronize with each other. Like, every once in a while, there’s a phase shift, and if you get one, you can figure out when the lightning is going to help hit or.

What was. What was the thing with the cicada sounds? Temperature is temperature. No, this. That was for grasshoppers. Although it applies the same way. But, yeah, you can. You can gauge how hot it is based on the frequency of grasshoppers rubbing their legs together. Okay, it’s grasshoppers. There we go. Any other threads in this episode where nothing happens but many things, I guess, happen again? I guess. I guess it does set the stage just for the emotional vibe of where we’re going in the future. Plus, if you were following Hero’s Journey, this is a literal checkbox that they just checked.

It’s like, okay, this is the. The deny of the call. So now they can. Now you can think like he didn’t just jump into it because we can clearly see it’s against his nature to even volunteer for something or be brave about it. So this is the one moment we get. This is like the long, deep inhale before you jump off the cliff. So that was this episode, I guess. It’s such a surprisingly long, deep inhale that doesn’t resolve at the end is what got my attention. Because Luke Skywalker in Star wars, he’s. He’s denying it for about three minutes.

You know, in Spider Man 2, he gives it up for about 10 minutes, right. And then gets right on back. I think the way that this series is panning out, though, it’s not as much as that, every episode is like. Like ends to a nice, complete little punctuation mark. It’s that this episode represents a very specific thing and that it doesn’t have to resolve because the. The thing has now been established. We’ve kind of seen that over the first three. Right. The very first episode. And then we get the second one, and the second one is a little bit disjointed from the first one.

They don’t just neatly fold over. Even though it’s to be continued, we get a complete. It’s almost as if there’s a different director shooting each one of these different episodes. So this one, we get the mopey, you know, like, Emo Shinji episode where he just doesn’t want to participate in the rest of life. And we see that all the way until it ends. Yeah. And so far, it’s interesting how every episode is so tonally different. You know, the first one is mech. Second one’s like this weird, like, sex romp. The third one’s high school stuff. And this one is this mopey journey.

You know, it’s. It’s weird because if you just randomly came across one of these four episodes and you’d never seen the series. Series before, you can’t really get a good sense of what the series. I don’t even know what the series is fully about yet because the. The tone keeps changing so dramatically from episode to episode. I feel like it’s gonna get weirder. Oh, for sure. But, hey, when we started this, that’s why, just to let people know, there was an idea. Do we just do one episode of a bunch of animes? I was like, I think you can’t just do one of Evangelion.

You have to look at more of it to. To even start to, you know, grock it or whatever. Yeah, we’ll. We’ll experiment a little bit. We’re gonna do. Oh, there are some you can do that with, I’m sure. But I was like, you can’t do it this one. Well, especially since there’s just this one season and it’s so highly rated, and I don’t think either of us have seen it in its entirety, so we kind of have to do this one and get it out of the way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anything else you want to throw out on this one? Just little.

Little Shinji. He’s got a little Shinji’s room. Shinji kun sounds different in Japanese. Anyway, let’s break it down for today. If people want to hear you mope about things. Sorry, that’s not the way to put you into a plug. Your stuff is very anti mopey. I don’t have that particular podcast started yet, but I have considered it where I just kind of bitch for an hour and then release that as its own podcast. But yeah, but for all my other stuff, you can go and find it. Just go to paranoidamerican.com or search Spotify for Paranoid American.

You’ll find a whole bunch of different podcasts on there. You can go to Amazon and search for Paranoid American. You can go to the FBI database and search for Paranoid American. I think my name comes up on almost any place you search it, except for Wikipedia. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. So if anyone wants to go ahead and create the with the Paranoid American Wikipedia page, I won’t stop you. In fact, I’m not allowed to make it myself. That’s how Wikipedia works. So get to it. Tell them one weird fact you want put in there and then you’ll know.

You know, it worked for the the Wikipedia. Well, I mean, it doesn’t exist at all. So just the fact that the page shows up would be a nice one. One weird fact is that I bit someone when I was 7 and I wasn’t allowed to go to a magic show afterwards and now I hate magic. Okay, put that in the bio. Anyway, on my end. I don’t know, do I want a wiki page that’d be fun to read? Sure. But I do lots of podcasting about lots of movies and stuff. Films and Filth is a podcast about really highly rated, really lowly rated movies.

According to IMDb time enough podcast is about the Twilight Zone about to go into different Twilight Zones because we finished the original Twilight Zone. And what else? Oh, Imprisoned in Prison is now covering the recent show Severance. So for some trippy stuff hit on in there. Okay, I’m gonna. It’s. I’m gonna run away. I think it’s supposed to start raining tomorrow. When should I run away if it’s gonna start raining tomorrow? Right now. Ready for a cosmic conspiracy about Stanley Kubrick, moon landings and the CIA? Go visit nasacomic.com nasacomic.com CIA Stanley Kubrick put us on. That’s why we’re singing this song on NASA comic.com go visit nasacomic.com go visit nasacomic dot com CIA’s biggest Kong Stanley Kubrick put us on.

That’s why we’re singing this song about Nessa. Comic.com go visit NASA comic.com go visit NASA comic.Com never a straight answer is a 40 page comic about Stanley Kubrick directing the Apollo space missions? This is the perfect world read for comic Kubrick or conspiracy fans of all ages. For more details visit nasacomic.com I scribbled my life away driven the right page. Will it enlight your brain give you the flight my plane paper the highs ablaze somewhat of an amazing feel when it’s real to real you will engage it your favorite of course the lord of an arrangement I gave you the proper results to hit the pavement if they get emotional hate maybe your language a game how they playing it well without Lakers evade them whatever the cause they are to shapeshift snakes get decapitated met is the apex execution of flame you out nuclear bomb distributed at war rather gruesome for eyes to see max them out then I like light my trees blow it off in the face you’re despising me for what though calculated and rather cutthroat paranoid American must be all the blood smoke for real Lord give me your day your way vacate they wait around to hate whatever they say man it’s not in the least bit we get heavy rotate when a beat hits so thank us you’re welcome niggas for real, you’re welcome they ain’t never had a deal you’re welcome man they lacking appeal you’re welcome yet they doing it still you’re welcome.
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