Neon Genesis Evangelion

Episode Three is set up to be part one of two with Episode Four. This episode depicts Shinji, who tends to be rather introverted, being bewildered by his new surroundings and yet taking the first step towards communicating with others. In Episode Three, New Tokyo-3 No. 1 Middle School that Shinji attends is one of the places where action takes place and his classmates, Tōji Suzuhara, Kensuke Aida, and the class representative, Hikari Horaki, appear. Tōji, who consciously behaves like a man, and Kensuke, who has his own world of his hobby concerning all things military and who also knows how to get on in the world very contrasting characters compared to Shinji. The names of these two characters are taken from the main characters in Ryu Murakami's The Fascism of Love and Illusions, which provides no small amount of inspiration for Director Anno. Many truths are revealed in this episode, such as Unit-01's capabilities and weapons, the defense system of New Tokyo-3, and the truth about the Second Impact. Also, pay attention to the morning variety show voice that can be heard from off the screen in the morning scene at the beginning. The story of how a giant meteor strike caused the Second Impact that the old instructor is telling during class is not the whole truth. The following information is brought up in Episode Seven. Also, Misato's dialogue reveals that the Angel that appeared in this episode is the Fourth Angel. This is the second Angel that has appeared during the series. So did the Second Angel appear 15 years ago and the First Angel appear even before that, or what? The mysteries increase. As opposed to Unit-01's first battle being at night, Unit-01's second battle develops under the blue sky. There are also many memorable images here, such as the cut that has the silhouette view of Unit-01 frozen in place where it had delivered the finishing blow to the Angel, or the special effects movie-like scene compositions, like the cut where the Fourth Angel flies right by a lighthouse and the cut with the birdhouse standing in front of the fallen Unit01. In this episode, Risuko talks about the "hedgehog's dilemma," which is a psychology tern that originates from Schopenhauer's fable, and it expresses the complications and ambivalence that arise as people seek the psychological distance to maintain between each other. This is where the English episode title "Hedgehog's Dilemma" for Episode Four "Rain, Escape, and Afterwards" comes from. In addition, what Misato says in the same scene allows us to see what her thoughts on communicating are at this time, so that is also very interesting.