The Birth of NERV – Neon Genesis Evangelion S01E21

➡ The text discusses a podcast episode about the anime series, Neon Genesis Evangelion. The hosts talk about the challenges of animation production, including overwork and burnout. They also discuss the differences between the director’s cut and the original version of an episode, and their preference for the director’s cut. The conversation also touches on the exploitation of passionate workers in the animation and video game industries.
➡ This text discusses an episode of a series where the secret history of an organization called Nerve is revealed. The episode explores the origins of the AVAs, creations of humanity, and their connection to a being named Adam. The series is compared to Kabbalah, a form of Jewish mysticism, due to its themes of humanity trying to recreate natural order. The text also mentions the existence of a powerful group called Seal, compared to the Illuminati, which controls Nerve and other global affairs.
➡ The text discusses the philosophy and symbolism of Freemasonry, its connection to ancient knowledge, and its influence on secret societies. It also delves into the plot of an episode of a series, focusing on the character dynamics, backstories, and the concept of cloning. The text further explores the character of Gendo, his appeal, and his motivations. Lastly, it mentions the death of a character named Yui, which is vaguely explained as an accident, and the financial constraints of the series production.
➡ The text discusses a character named Misado who has experienced severe trauma after witnessing a catastrophic event. Despite her trauma, she remains strong and continues to lead, even when under the influence of alcohol. The text also discusses the changing climate in Japan, with unusual temperatures and seasons, and societal changes, such as the controversy over family names in marriage. Lastly, it mentions the complexity and abstract nature of the narrative, which has become clearer over time.
➡ The speaker discusses the tradition of passing down the father’s last name, explaining it as a way to trace paternal lineage since maternal lineage can be traced through mitochondrial DNA. They also touch on cultural differences in Japan, including the use of kanji in names and the increase in foreign workers. The speaker mentions the increase in visa fees in Japan and how it might affect immigrants. Lastly, they discuss an animated series and their work on a podcast about movies and TV shows.
➡ This text discusses a 70s cartoon show, highlighting its low-budget animation and unusual creativity. It also mentions a serialized format, which is rare for Saturday morning cartoons. The text then promotes Paranoid American sticker sheets, which feature various conspiracy themes. Lastly, it includes a rap verse, expressing feelings of defiance and resilience.

What if we just slip some full frontal onto primetime tv and that’ll get us cancelled? So much more abandoned. Games at the Cartoon Cabal beyond what’s Just in a Name at the Cartoon Cabal See, just at one cost comes fame at the Cartoon Cabal so much for the fandom. Games at the Cartoon Cabal hello. Welcome to the Cartoon Cabal. It’s where we’re rocking through all of the episodes. Episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion. Is Matt here? It’s a paranoid American over there. Holy exposition, Batman. That’s right. Well, it is the. It is funny that we’ve had two weaving of stories now and this is the one that actually weaves the story for us, you know, which is not the title of this episode.

Hold on. We got 26 episodes total. We’re on 21 right now. And we finally get a few direct answers. None of this Japanese infer it when like a butterfly flaps its wings a certain way and then if like a girl blinks for a certain amount of time, you’re just supposed to know that her dad died in like a war. Now in this episode, they like at least the Americanized subtitled version, the one with or the English overdubs. They’re telling me things that I understand for the first time in 20 episodes. It’s coming through in Japanese as well.

And I have to bring up my page again. There we go. He was aware that he was still a child. That’s the name of the episode. You might have had the other name. They always have two names. Anyway, I don’t have that. That’s. Yeah, that’s like kind of the last line of the episode. I guess it makes sense. And for anyone listening, we did put on what was the director’s cut, if I’m correct. Yeah, I watched the director’s cut, which is a full half hour instead of, I think like a 22 or 23 minute. And let me just say that originally I did intend to watch both and see what got cut and maybe why it got cut.

But after I saw this the first time, I had so many questions and I had to watch it again and then I watched it again. So I basically watched this one three times. And by the end of the third time, I don’t care what the non director’s cut version has to say. Like, I’m still piecing together what this one has to say. Well, at this point of the show, the budget is running out. So when it was originally on air, they kind of put out like not well enough animated, I guess. Was the idea. So later on they I guess read a little animation.

There’s a movie version from the movie is it took a few scenes from the later movies and stuck it in here. So it was kind of. I think in this case you should be watching the director’s cut just because the original is like kind of compromised, you know. And by default I usually do want to see the director’s vision for something and not the editor’s version. Although, I mean there’s, there’s always versions that are better or worse. But everything that we know about this series, about how they change some things last minute, like large plot points and they start running out of money.

I figure that the one that was added together later is going to be the superior one. So I don’t really, I don’t care what the none director’s version looks like. This is the canon. I mean, I guess there’s a, there’s an ethical question of watching these where you’re just like the animators making. These were like in literal hell. Well, not literal hell, but they were in hell basically making by this point. Right. I mentioned last episode, they were like, what if we just slip some full frontal onto primetime TV and they’ll get us canceled. I mean, maybe this is why some of the Disney movies have some of those little like, oh, is that a dick castle? Maybe someone’s just like, I don’t ever want to have to work on a movie poster ever again.

That’s kind of what’s going on here. So I, I’ve seen documentaries with Hidekiano. He seems like a relatively, you know, not terrible person. But you do start to feel like Gendo’s in the back, like actually making the series, you know, like, like production wise. Cracking. I think he is. He actually is doing it. Yeah, yeah. I mean that is how it’s working. And even to this day, anime is a pretty, you know, dodgy career where you’re going to get just overworked to death. Well, this is another. I mean in the animation world, in special effects, even if you go, if you don’t go straight for animation, you start doing after effects and Houdini and like special effects suites.

The, the. It’s the weirdest thing, man. And this is again like in Disney and elsewhere, another good one is Blizzard. Blizzard. If you get into video game development, a lot of people like gravitate towards these like huge studios of video games that they fell in love with. And these brands know that you love them. Like they know that you want to work there, not just because of the job, but because you have a personal affinity to whatever their brand is. And they will usually overwork you to hell and just not even, not just about not compensating you, but they just won’t let you have your own life.

And the problem is that there’s so many people that are willing to take your spot. Even if you burn out at Blizzard or at Disney or any of these special effects studios, there’s, there’s a line of a thousand people behind you that are like, I want to work on the next Avengers movie. I want to work on the next Disney movie. Right? I want to work on the next studio Ghibli. So it’s not like there’s a shortage. There might be a shortage of people that are talented enough to do it, but as we’ve seen with at least at Colt Disney and maybe in some spots here, like shortcuts do happen and sometimes you do get inferior quality stuff even at these high level studios because of that burnout.

Yeah, well, we watched it, or at least I watched a Ghibli documentary where they got the, you know, posted notes around the office saying like, you’re working as hard as you can and when you’re no longer expired, there’s the door. Although Ghibli is one where I feel like we don’t see many shortcuts, at least in the Miyazaki ones. I mean the, the daddy Miyazaki ones, that might be the exception. It seems like a, like a Walt Disney mix with Steve Jobs is sort of like the Ghibli vibe. At least that’s what I get from watching the documentaries.

Behind scenes stuff where he’s kind of cult leader, but also seen as this revolutionary guy that you wouldn’t want to offend or come across because he’s, he’s a legend, right? And that’s, and he kind of uses that Steve Jobs vibes. It is the end product though, because everyone’s like, oh, the Ghibli movies, those are masterpiece, whimsical masterpieces. So I guess it’s worth it. Evangelion, you know, it’s, it’s got it, it’s pretty good, it’s got a good reputation. But you’re like, man, you don’t want to be on the, the creative team making this like it, like all the way up.

It just sounds like a bad time making this show. This is, that means this might be a, a shoehorned in analog, but it’s almost like working at Bad boy in the 1990s. You’re like, man, I’m on all these music videos. Like, I’ve got a top 10 hit. I’m gonna be rich any day now. And now you’re basically homeless or. Or worse. Yeah, well, there’s also a thing. I mean, with that kind of fame, it’s like not knowing what to do with your money, which, hey, if I had been famous in my 20s, I. I might have fallen prey to that same problem.

You know what? Slice stone, living in a van for 20 years, that sort of thing. And then here you go. These are up and coming animators and up and coming video game designers to tend to kind of follow that exact same trajectory. Yeah, of course, of course. In that case, you can keep on working as an animator, at least till your hands fall apart. So you got decades of that. You know, the. The rock star is going to become a slightly atrophied rock star within 20 years. Right. I mean, you could go to a Rolling Stones show now and probably have a good time, but you’re looking at some skeletons playing music for you.

Also, when we’re talking about animation, this is if we ignore the AI exists. Well, yeah, well, we can ignore the AI because we got Magi right running the show, but as far as the animation here, it certainly isn’t the case. It’s an interesting discussion, maybe for a different, like a post recap show, but that there’s probably people that would not want to see AI generated. Neon Genesis Evangelion, even though the very plot of Ava requires AI to exist within their world. But to use AI to make a world where they’re using AI would not be seen as favorable, I think.

Well, I guess you’re missing that human touch. How shall we work through this episode? I’m almost feeling like we just work through the scenes you see three times. So you’ve got that. Let me get the bullet points, because there’s some episodes here when you say, okay, what happened in this episode, it’s like Shinji felt sad and wrote a train. And that’s. That’s literally like an entire episode, right? In this episode, we get the entire secret history of nerve. We show the formation of the the gern. We see the Human Instrumental Instrumentality Committee. We learn about Shinji’s mom, how she died.

We meet her, we see her for the first time. We find out about Akagi’s suicide. We see Shinji’s dad’s entire rise to power from start to end. And then we also get way more insight into what the AVAs actually are, that it comes from Adam and that the humanity created Ava from Adam. Kind of like how Adam created Eve from a rib, I assume. And that it’s just been this cycle of us trying to recreate something that pre existed us. So Adam existed without humans. Humans try and clone Adam or at least make their version Adam and that gives us Eve.

And now I can, I can definitively say that this series is Kabbalistic. They do. Even if they hit it by accident. This is the exact premise, premise of Kabbalah as I understand it, is that there’s a natural order of things, the things that happen through God or nature. And then there’s humanity’s interpretation and their attempt to recreate what they see as natural order. But like we’re always gonna have a flawed version of that because. Because it’s artificial, it’s going to be a simulation. And this is a direct correspondence with that. This is literally Adam, a literal Adam demon or sorry, Adam angel that comes from whatever God.

And then humans trying to recreate it. That. That is Kabbalah. Right. And what’s interesting is he’s also picking up on some of that from some of the previous animes like Ultraman 80. I’m looking at a reference here where Ultraman 80 has a giant sphere of light entering in like kind of a colobistic way. And yeah, the whole Gundam thing that this isn’t quite Kabbalah, but the whole idea of like maybe the, the organization isn’t, you know, 100% good or bad. Right. So NERVE is definitely like on sketchy territory. They’re CIA esque right there. The way that I see Nerve again, I guess technically we also learn about this, this other group that we didn’t have a needle for.

Satel. Right? Is that what it is? I knew I. Oh, Seal. Seal. Or I. I was very happy when you were going to say it first, but apparently that was also. I think it’s sale, which, which is unmiss, enunciated version of German for the word soul. But that this is the Illuminati. So you’ve got this high level political Illuminati group. Let’s just say like, I don’t know, like a seven person CFR kind of thing, like a Carlisle group. And that they’re the ones that are really running everything. Governments, different programs, the underworld, the Overworld, everything. It’s these guys running the entire world, the Illuminati.

And then under them, NERVE is just a thing. It’s just an appendage that they have control over, but it’s also a Very important one. So then you’ve got like Men in Black and other intelligence agencies trying to discover more about this sale or SEAL group, but they’re technically the highest you can go. That’s, that’s the way that I’m interpreting it because now there’s like inter factions of the government that are sort of going after each other, not realizing that they’re, they’re lower on the totem pole. Like the men in black that show up asking questions, right.

Like they’re looking about seal, but they don’t actually have any way to touch SEAL because SEAL are. These seven dudes have way more power than they do. I don’t know if this is splitting hairs or not. I’m just looking at a note here saying that the, the actual people making the show are specifically thinking of Freemasonry, which, yeah, again maybe splitting hairs there, but I’d love to know more because there’s probably more I could read into it without feel like I’m stretching. I didn’t, I didn’t get a strong Freemasonry feel specifically. There’s guys in a boardroom that really feels more like a CEO sort of operation.

If you wanted to be Freemasonic. There’s a few things that they left out. Like the square compass is a big one. They might have just been saying the phrase interchangeably as they did it too. Because I agree it feel it has more of an Illuminati feel. But. Well, we do have the two kind of door things. We have what the White Moon cavern and the Black Moon cavern. Because I kept being like how the hell they put a city down there? And it’s like. Well, because the, the cavern was there. Yeah, they didn’t put it there.

It. It pre existed. Which is now we’ve got some strong Hollow Earth theories going on because that’s sort of the premise. And this isn’t new either. If you look at the old. Remember we did Tarzan that. That came up in Tarzan that. The OG Tarzan. That was a story about him finding a hollow inner Earth and that there was advanced civilizations down there with cities and technology that nobody had seen before. Like, like Atlantean style technology. And we’re kind of getting the exact same vibes on this where this underground city that’s fully powered, fully created, that’s almost like a protection from whenever this is going to happen and that they just discovered it.

And up until this point, I guess we’ve always assumed that they built it. Right. And then that was kind of hard to believe right now that you know, that at least they didn’t carve that space. Like. Well, they built these weird futuristic buildings and pyramids down there. But you can do that with enough money, which apparently they have, you know. Yeah, but if you build the impressive looking pyramid, then people just assume that you built the city. And the building the entire city in a little biosphere that’s underground is far more impressive, I think, than a single building within it.

But if you can build a building, then you can just show like, I own this area. Yeah, well, so they’ve been doing it for 15 years now, haven’t they? That’s not that long. Yeah, you do 11, 15 years. Especially when you’re motivated. Again, look at the things they build in to buy, man. I mean, they might fall over 30 years later, but hey, they’re there now. Well, I mean, I hope that they last a little bit longer, but yeah. Yeah, I should say. I don’t. I don’t know that the Burj Khalifa is going to fall over anytime soon.

I’m gonna assume it’s not. But hey, we don’t know yet, do we? So there was. There’s so many other things that come into this episode. Like just listing them all would take me as long as the episode is to watch, which is impressive for how much stuff happens in this one. So, for example, we also find out about secret Antarctic underground base. We find out that this Antarctic underground base is where a supposed quote unquote meteor hit and that this started the whole angels coming back down to Earth and destroying stuff. But then we also find out that that was always a cover story put forth by this Illuminati group and that Shinji’s dad knew the real, the real truth about this and didn’t tell anyone else that he was working with.

So he’s kind of one of these, you assume an insider working with Steel or that has a guy that didn’t get on the 911 flight but had a ticket, you know? Yeah, 100%. He’s. He’s the guy that like knew it and now he’s running things. So you all the CEO quit just before COVID This is. Or yeah, this is. What is it? Like J.P. morgan right before he decides not to go on the Titanic at the last second. Right here. Here’s some of the, I guess stuff where you could maybe say they were thinking kind of masonically because they mentioned the door of goth gaff right at the beginning, which I don’t know, that made me think of like twin killers or something.

Yeah. Or The G. Yeah. The first. Well, yeah, here’s what I would say about that particular note of like, the Freemason. Because Freemasons were just a European version of older secret mystery schools of, you know, like from Greek times and Roman times. And. And they’re. They weren’t even necessarily the most direct or even the coolest out of all of them. It just happened to be the longest running because the Freemasons made an impression on guilds and then they made an impression on royalty, and then the royalty wanted to become part of it. Then it turned into like a whole status thing.

So a lot of people will correlate it with the out the suits and the apron and the top hats and kind of like very specific visuals, but ultimately getting together in a clandestine way, having this philosophy of black and white and good and evil and dancing in between the two. And that there’s no such thing as absolute. Like, none of that is necessarily something that Freemasonry owns the patents to. What. What you would definitely say this is unequivocally Freemasonry would be the aprons. It would be that the literal pillars, and it would probably be the square encompass without one or all three of those things.

Then you can call anything that’s a secret mystery school Freemasonry and still be kind of right. Yeah. I guess the thing I was thinking about was kind of the ancient knowledge part where they’re basing their actions based on secret Dead Sea Scrolls that they found. Right. Well, and this is one of the more. Without getting too much in the weeds, but, like, this is also one of the more contended aspects of Freemasonry that caused a huge rift in the 18th century even. But that there was a number of Freemasons that were obsessed with connecting themselves to the Knights Templar and to, like, older biblical movements.

And that a lot of the contemporary Freemasons for them in the 18th century, they were. They were kind of annoyed, like, bro, you guys are role playing and you’re making me look silly by you claiming that Freemasons are all Templars. Like, we can’t prove that. And because you keep saying this out in public, I look like an idiot that also believes I’m a Templar. So they kind of squelched all of that being connected to old and ancient knowledge, and it became way more symbolic in the 1800s and. And forward. So just some deep conspiracy Freemason lore for you.

I mean, the plot of this episode, they kidnap what, Fuyutsuki, who is apparently the deputy commander of nerve. I don’t remember seeing him before much. I mean, he hasn’t been a major character. But yeah, they set him up in front of a bunch of like monoliths for like the world’s worst zoom call, you know. And we also get a lot of. And here’s what this character looked like, you know, 10 years ago. And sometimes I had to like keep. Again, I had to keep re watching it. Like, who is this person? They’re showing me. They have a different haircut, they have a different hair color.

Like their. Their face looks completely different. See, I. I guess I just have a better eye for anime. Maybe because I live in Japan. Like with Ritsuko, like when it shows Child Ritzko, of course she has a different hair color. You know, she wouldn’t have dyed her hair until she got out of high school. Right. To. To blonde. And then Ray, the first Ray clone, Ray, you can tell Raise is pretty because her hair is always silver. Right? So. And she, even as a kid, she’s like, you’re an old hag. Like what? Well, that one we don’t.

That’s not the one we know. She gets strangled to death. Well, yeah, yeah, but I have to assume that that, that nugget of Ray that would just call someone an old hag exists in all the rays. Yeah, but remember that that Ritz mother is having an affair with Gendo. So obviously she’s. You know, it’s like a four year old that has actual adult jealousy at you and a four year old that’s only one year old. Also, that’s something we need to know. That Ray does seem to have like advanced aging or something programmed in to get to 14 faster.

In addition to all of the different expositions and backstories and talks about how NERV operates and the ATOM and the DNA and the secret UN underground bases that we also get at least two, or maybe even three, depending on how you squint your eyes like love triangles. Again, this is all in one episode in the same series where previously we just saw a sad boy cry on a train for a half hour. I guess we, at this point we are relatively sure that Shinji is not a clone, since we see baby Shinji. 3 year old Shinji.

Shinji is about the age he’s supposed to be. Unlike Rey. You say that, but I wouldn’t surprise you if in the next episode there’s a scene where someone strangles Shinji. I mean, I did throw that out with a question mark at the end. You know, he’s very. He’s very. He’s. I would argue Shinji is more strangleable than Rey is. Oh, yeah. Especially at the end of this episode. Although I guess that is a thing. You know, when someone is crying in another room in your family, you don’t know why. And it’s not like your actual, you know, wife slash girlfriend, whatever.

It is a little. It’s like, I don’t think I’m gonna go in there right now. You know, I get it. But it’s. He still comes across as an all right at the end of this. That’s his line, isn’t he? I’m just a child or whatever. I am aware that I’m still a child. He has the best excuses that you possibly could. Yeah, but he’s making all the excuses, isn’t he? So I don’t know if. If you knew that whoever was crying could just be cloned again anyways, would you care less? We’re not cloning Masado, are we? Like, I feel like everybody could be cloned.

Everybody can be a clone. Cloned himself just for funsies. What’s the logic to not have everyone be a clone now? Just that it would not make any sense. Well, we’ve already got one, so what’s the difference between one and 20? Yeah, I’m tweaking the topic here, but what is talk about Gendo? What is his charm? He gets all the ladies and he’s like, terrible. He’s the ultimate bad boy. And everyone can fix him. I assume that must be it. Everyone thinks they can fix him, so. But he’s also. He’s, I would say, an alpha, right? He’s a go getter.

He’s motivated and he will stop at nothing to get what he wants. And that type of power can definitely be seductive, I assume, to people. So even if he’s not even looking to seduce anyone, they’re just like, man, that guy’s really making things happen. You know, he’s running. He’s literally running the world. And I guess it’s like, what, Yui had connections to what, seal or whatever? So that was his interest there. And she was like, he’s cute. And then, you know, once he’s. Once nerve is up, I guess, or whatever they called it before that, you know, he’s like, well, if I got the scientist, main scientist in my pocket, you know, so he dies.

Now it’s going to be her daughter. And maybe you can remember this quote. I should have looked it up beforehand. But there’s this episode of the Simpsons where the dog dies at the end. And it’s like Poochie, you know, got killed on the way to. Oh yeah, Poochie died on the way back to his home planet. Yeah. And. And it’s. It’s kind of become a joke. And I felt that same vibe when they’re talking about Yui, when they’re talking about Shinji’s mom, because you see her on. On screen and like, you can see like there she is designing the three Magi.

She’s explaining it all over again the same way that we heard it. And that’s Ritzko’s mom making magi. You. You. He’s the one having a philosophical conversations, by the way. Sorry. Yeah, so. So. So we have Yui and then it’s just flashes somewhere else. And then someone’s saying, and that’s the last thing that we ever heard Yui say because she died in an accident. And it felt like that same sort of like Poochie died on the way back to his home planet. Except Yui seemed like a very, you know, bubbly, charming person who just like when sprinting into her own demise, you know.

Well, yeah, she. She was one of those people that is naive about. She loves what she does, but probably forgets that she’s doing it for darpa and that when you’re doing a job you love, but it’s for darpa, then at some point you might end up screwing yourself because she’s like, this is so exciting. I brought my son to work today. And everyone’s, why the hell did you do that? And then she dies. We don’t see exactly how. But yeah, that. I, I mean, yeah, we. We don’t see how. We just hear, oh, she. She died in a horrible accident.

Like, okay, that’s very vague, specifically for the exposition heavy episode where everything else is spelled out. But this is the one thing that they don’t spell out. They. They didn’t have the money to put that in, basically. I was reading about other things with the director’s cut. Like, apparently they, like you didn’t even see mechs in the TV version. They just didn’t have the money that week. So those. They added in a few mech shots to the director’s cut. The talk by the lake I mentioned, I think that was added in for the director’s cut. So.

Yeah, yeah, it is one where. And oh, the, the preview at the end, if you got to the preview, you can’t tell what the hell is happening because it’s just flashy, you know, like seizure inducing stuff. Because once Again, did not have money. Okay, that and MK Ultra. Because in this episode we also see this isolation facility four and it’s got. Misado is in there and she’s just like like holed up in a little ball, like fetal position, like shivering. And they’re talking about how she’s been traumatized and she’ll recover from the physical trauma, but who knows if she’ll ever recover from the psychological trauma.

And I think what they’re describing is that she actually witnessed one of these first Angels coming down to the ground and decimating everybody. I think that that’s what. Yeah, we saw that like 10 episodes ago. There was a flashback where she’s, you know, floating around. She’s floating around after the Second Impact. So. So that’s Masado’s version of trauma based programming. Even if it wasn’t done by nerve directly. Like she’s in that state. And now we basically see that, that. That there’s going to be another victim. And that like you said, it just was like flashing colors and letters and maybe it was for budget constraints, but also that seems like a way that you would continue the newer version of MK Ultra programming.

So how do we feel about Masado now knowing more? Because at the beginning we were like, what is up with this woman? This is insane. Where now it’s like, okay, they’ve done a pretty good job of explaining what’s happening. You know, that’s. And that’s why she’s drinking now. And that’s why that she has this extra insight because she’s kind of been battle worn a little bit. Right. That she made it through shell shock and she came out and is not completely crazy. She’s drunk. And I feel that when you need someone at the helm, a drunk is better than someone that cracks.

Right? So she, she. Well, she cracks at the end of this when Kaji there’s, you know, leaves his last message. Right? Yeah, I got. Well, let’s ignore just this one. The end of it. I mean, that’s personal stuff she does. She doesn’t crack when Angels are involved, you know. Yeah, she might be drunk, which didn’t crack there one. So a few, few Japanese things that are on here. People. When you come to Japan, people really love to tell you that Japan has four seasons, which I guess if you’re for you coming from Orlando, that does mean something you don’t really have.

You mean the hotel chain? No, we don’t have that. We have, you know, fall, winter, spring and summer. And they really like to press that. And I Thought this episode was kind of entertaining, that really, Preston. Oh, we don’t have four seasons anymore, which is kind of anathema for Japanese. That is in Tokyo. 3. Well, in Japan, they say it’s, like, over 30 degrees in, like, winter and stuff, right? Oh, yeah. You know what? The freaking Celsius. I’m like, okay, yeah, whatever. 30 degrees. What does that even mean? Oh, okay, that. That means it’s like 95.

When. When the. The professor’s on the boat, like, doing his unlicensed doctoring. He. He says it’s about 95 Fahrenheit. Okay. I mean, yeah, that’s a Tuesday, but it’s winter, right? So it’s literally. I mean, it’s literally. That’s a Tuesday right now for me. So. Yeah, that’s why I’ll say for you, that’s a Tuesday. You’re already. You’re already living in a post Second Impact world, I guess. I’m prepping. This is part of my. My prepper, you know, like, to make sure that when angels really do come down and destroy everything, I’m a step ahead. There we go.

But that’s what Kaji was saying, like, a few episodes ago, like, oh, we’re starting to hear, like, some of the autumn, you know, fauna again. And he’s. We can actually start growing stuff now. I. I did appreciate seeing a little bit of the rebuilding of society in this one, because, as I said, it’s just like, everything looks like Japan’s supposed to, what the hell? But here you do see a few of the, you know, Mad Max steps in between. What do you feel about the overall episode format where it’s like, 1999, 2000. 2000. That was some whiplash.

My brain actually works where I can kind of. You know what? Jeez, I can’t say the word. I can. I can kind of distinguish. But it is confusing narratively. So to do that. What if they just did them in order? Would that have been a problem? I kind of feel that I wanted to see some of those in context in the previous episodes, especially thinking back into how many episodes had a little bit of filler going on or just like, lulz. Like, there were better times that we could have gotten exposition for some of this stuff.

For example, anytime before episode 21, to learn about how there’s a reason why there’s a drinking problem that probably would have made the character a little bit more relatable instead of. Because, you know what? This episode, even if it’s not, it feels like a super retcon. Right. It almost feels like everything you know is wrong. You know, Cruella deville was a good guy all along. It kind of has that same feel to it where they can just rewrite the rules by rewriting history on. I don’t, I don’t think that they, they did a retcon, but the way that they did this exposition is the way that you would do a retcon.

Well, they did. I mean one. All the. It all fits in pretty well. So it’s not. Sometimes there’s a recon like wait, what? Which I think even in weaving a story, one, they did a little bit of that and then reanimated the clips. Right. So it’s like, hahaha. They know it’s fine. So this one I think does at least honestly where narratively all the pieces fit into what we’ve seen previously. I was thinking though, watching this, I was like, okay, this show has gotten very good, like probably better than when it started, but it is less fun.

It’s kind of like I was bringing up the animators. I’m like, as the fun drains out of the people making the show, the fun drains out of the show itself. Yeah, I do. I gotta say, right now, episode 21, the most fun episode to me was the one when Shinji and Akasha like move in together and they have. And they’re doing like the. That’s the one before. Right. You get was fun. It was like legitimately fun to watch and it was cartoony and it was kind of silly, even though it was juxtapose with being serious as hell.

Because there’s 14 year olds that are fighting angels and, and this one, like I appreciated it. But also if this was the first one we would have watched, I just, I would have been like, I don’t have the level of ADHD required for all of this. Jumping around and, and different plot points. I often, before getting into the show, I’d often hear people say, oh, it just gets confusing and abstract. Which it does. But at this point I, this episode in particular, I’m like, I think I get mo. I mean, Gendo’s probably still has a few secrets.

Seal, I’m sure has eight more secrets. But I’m like, I generally follow what’s happening now. You know, it’s not like I’m confused maybe because I am into whack, you know, conspiracy stuff. Yeah. I mean, honestly, as soon as they start talking about top secret UN forces and Antarctic bases and clones, I do like, I get it now. I understand. And it’s Like, I knew it all along. But, yeah, earlier on, it doesn’t seem like it’s getting more abstract because we literally started with them fighting biblically accurate angels. It doesn’t get a lot more abstract than that.

And if anything, we’re starting to get answers that I don’t know if any of these you could have pieced together yourself. Unless you’re one of these nuanced Japanese people that can, like, infer. Yeah, but this one, this one, the past five episodes, I’m like, you gotta infer this. You gotta infer this. 10 episodes. This one doesn’t really have inferences. Like, here it is, right on a platter, you know? Or this. We should write. I want to write a letter to the animation team and say, like, hey, whenever you come up with the next episode, do it this way.

One other thing, just to bring up that maybe after the Second Impact, it’s fine, but it is. It’s like, currently a controversy in Japan, which sounds insane, that Gendo takes Yui’s family name, right? Which. Now you cannot do that in Japan. Wives must take their husband’s name. You cannot keep your name, which is. And that’s currently in the talk. We. Our new prime minister is female. People are like, oh, well, maybe she’ll change it. But she’s super conservative, so she’s like, no, we’re keeping that law. So he couldn’t really do that. Now, in another weird twist, maybe because I’m a foreigner, my wife did keep her name.

So we. We found a loophole for her. But in general, you can. That’s still a thing in Japan. It’s like they’re talking about in the Parliament, like, this month. Let me. This is not coming from, like a patriarchal standpoint. I do think that the man’s name should be the one that gets passed down. But the reason behind this is because the mitochondrial DNA is always going to be passed down by the mother regardless. So whether there’s a name or not, the mom can be traced all the way through the lineage. It’s the dads that would disappear because they don’t have that mitochondrial Eve relation, right? So, like, they need some symbolic, external way to flag, hey, here’s what lineage is related to this family line.

Because without the last name following the father, you’d have no record of them. But you do have a record of the mom, even if you don’t have her name. Okay. See, my daughter, you know, on her American passport, her Japanese name is her middle name, and she has mine. But in Japan, it’s just straight up using her name. Also in Japan if you show up and you don’t have kanji like in. In even if you are Japanese, it just gets weird. So if my wife being born in Japan shows up and then it’s like katakana, like kamages, which is my family name.

Like she go to a bank and they’ll just be like oh, your Japanese is very good. Even though she is Japanese, they’ll just like yeah. So you, you kind of have to have that, that, that’s foreigner name versus you know, kanji name. That’s a slightly different thing. Can you get a job if your name’s like Smith? What kind of job are we talking? I don’t know. I mean not, not an English translator. How about one that doesn’t involve teaching other people English in any capacity? You work at the 7 11. Okay. Fact. That’s another controversy in Japan now over the, especially in the past five years there’s been a lot more foreign workers here.

So when you go to convenience stores now before 2020 was almost always, you know like people who native Japanese and now you, you’ll get a lot more usually as I said like East Asian. Once I went into a law since and there was, there was an actual person of European descent as the clerk and it was actually kind of confusing for me because I’d never seen that before. Now you’re I guess a little bit of a zealot. Zealot. That’s right. But no, it was, it was just kind of surprising. But no, we are starting and now the, the current government is a little bit too much of hard asses.

They’re, they’re now trying to curb the, the foreigners coming in here. They’re making the visa fees a lot more which you know, hopefully if that changes by 2029, I don’t have to pay those. But if it stays, then I do. So does this affect me going to Disney Sea at all? No, that’s, this is, this is. I’m talking about people living here and getting visas. Okay, well then I don’t really care about them. Yeah. Getting in al Japan just throw it out. I think renewing a visa, which I have to do every five years previously cost 6,000 yen which is about 45 bucks.

Now it’s going to cost 60,000 yen which is like 450 bucks. So big increase on visas. Well, they, they’re not against immigrants, they’re just against poor immigrants. Well, I just saw in the news yesterday. What is it like the million dollar visa in the States. You don’t have to deal with crap if you pay us a million dollars. I really don’t want to deal with crap. Pay us $5 million. Yeah. I think it’s the 5 million one. It’s. It’s the trump card. It’s a literal trump card that you can order and it’s like a gold card or something.

And I guess you just flash it at the border and they’re like up. He’s. He’s with the big guy. He has a lot of money. Or she. But yeah. Let’s see. What else do we got here? We got our Giant of Light. I’m just trying to get back to the episode a little bit. Ray did. Yeah. With that old hag stuff. She did have some actual malice, which I feel like we haven’t seen in her before. Maybe. Maybe the next version. Ray. They took out the malice. I don’t know. I didn’t get malice. I got that she was simply repeating what she had heard and that she maybe didn’t understand that it was something that was mean.

Because. Because even this version array is still robotic. She doesn’t seem to have her own personality. It seems like she’s just repeating words that she’s heard before. Yeah. But I. I guess now we can join Ritsuko and not liking her mom since Dr. Akagi killed a clone child and then herself. But that still seems kind of raw. You just killed a four year old. A one year old. Four year old is pretty gnarly. Is she anti child or anti clone or anti clone child? Anti clone child. Connor. An old hag. That’s what she is. Okay. Yeah.

Provoked. It didn’t happen out of nowhere. Yeah. I mean she was scratching on some gnarly feelings that, you know, whatever. You got anything else you want to throw on this episode? I mean, I’m over the initial VO director guy that was like they were just throwing stuff in at this point. Even if it was the clock was wrong. It’s like right at this time or whatever. However that goes. Like buzz the clocks right twice a day or whatever. I. I think that finally this entire series, it is kabbalistic. It is about like what you would expect from the actual opening series and all the different graphics that come up.

I think it gets vindicated a little bit. I don’t know how much that is retconned in so that it makes sense. If they had the luxury of retrospect and you know, of like 2020. I see they didn’t though because they were making this show threadbare by this point, you know, if there’s any like deep thinking you had to do that early, which they did with that plan. Right. I did note that in the original version, this rec or this flashback episode, retconning whatever was going to be episode 20 originally, it was in the plan originally that this was going to happen.

So I’m sure a few of the details were changed. But yeah, only one episode ahead of this. One off. Yeah, just one off. So just, just look in the little changes. But animators actively trying to get the show canceled by this point. So I’m not, I’m not sure how much more, you know, you can cabalistic stuff you can add in now that wasn’t there to start with. The other thing too that I would say about this episode is that even though you get all of this detail and insight on like all these different things have been going on, it’s not even really a spoiler.

Like if you watch this episode first and then you watched the rest of the episodes from start to end, you might get understand a little bit more of the context later on. But it’s not like anything gets spoiled for. You don’t really understand anything happening in this episode without all the context of the previous these ones. But like you, like you said, you probably wouldn’t be hyped up to watch the show if this was episode number one. I’m. Unless that you were just raised on tick tock, then maybe you would. Okay. I do find myself not looking so much forward to the next episode since the preview is like we’re gonna psychologically tear apart Oscar.

I’m like, oh, oh. I mean that’s kind of when she’s at her best. Yeah. I mean I might love the episode, but I’m just like, yeah, watch the preview of like, do I want to see that? I don’t know. Oh man. Yeah, I think that if anything it’s getting better from here. But again, my very first, my very favorite episodes so far were like the silly ones. Yeah, like, like I’m saying it’s better. It’s getting better. It’s getting, you know, real deep. But it’s. It’s also less fun. So that, that’s the. Can you do both at the same time? That’s, you know, somebody does sometimes, but I can.

Especially in all of the comics, you can find a paranoid American. How’s that for a segue? I have, I have get to do the fun part and the interesting deep occult symbolic research stuff. I think I find a pretty decent blend and we were talking about Illuminati and secret mystery schools and Freemasonry. I’ve got a comic series called Secret Mystery School that basically breaks down the. The. The origins of secret mystery schools, which, spoiler alert, it’s all psychedelics right on over here. What do I do? I talk about movies, I talk about TV shows. That sort of stuff.

Podcastio podcast.org we’re about to start talking about the. The Jordan Peele Twilight Zone at Time Enough Podcast. If you don’t like that. We did the complete original show as well. We’re about to start talking about the animated Planet of the Apes over at podcast 1999. The apes have tanks in that version. That’s pretty exciting. But the animation is. Is if. If they cut corners on Evangelion, they cut all the corners off on this mid-70s Saturday morning Ape cartoon show. But the most fun so far is Dude. Dude takes off his shirt in one shot. Like they just changed the colors.

So now he’s not wearing a shirt. And then the other guy jumps into the water. That didn’t take off the shirt. He jumps in the water with his shirt on. So that was some fun cheap animation. Those, like, they didn’t have the budget to also animate the other guy to take a shirt off. That’s my guess. I don’t know. It’s just, it’s. It’s. It’s amusingly cheap but weirdly creative. So that. That’s some return to the Planet of the Apes. There we go. Not the best era for non Disney, non Fleischer cartoons. No, not at all. The interesting thing is though, the first four or five episodes are quite serialized, which is kind of insane for a Saturday morning cartoon.

You don’t see that much. So yeah, plug for that. Okay, I guess. Join us next time to watch Asuka get screwed up for reals. Cryptids, Cults and killers. Killers. We got all your favorite conspiracies. All the more on our sticker sheets. There are North American stickers. They’ll make you smile and snicker. False friends and secret society. All of these and more on our sticker sheets. Explore the unique with Paranoid American sticker sheets. Unearth tales of cryptids, cults and mysteries through each sticker. These won’t last long. Get yours now@paranoidamerican.com American stickers. Cryptids, cults and killers. Killers. We got all your favorite conspiracies.

All that more on our sticky sheets. Now a North American Snickers make you smile and snicker. False flags and secret society all of these and more of us sticker sheets what the heck are you waiting for? Discover the extraordinary with paranoid American sticker sheets from cryptids in the night the cults out of sight each sticker is a unique find get yours now@paranoidamerican.com paranoid. I scribbled my life away driven the right to page will it enlight to 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 vading whatever the course they are the 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 light my trees blow it off in the face you’re despising me for what though calculated you’d rather cut throat paranoid American must be all the blood smoke for real Lord give me your day your way vacate they wait around to hate whatever’s they say man it’s not in the least bit we get heavy rotate when a beat hits a thank us you welcome niggas for real you’re welcome they never had a deal you’re welcome man they lack an appeal you’re welcome yet they doing it still you’re welcome.
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