Did - did the menu options just ask me why I exist? At 0:19, the menu options questioned my existence. I - I'm afraid to watch this movie. It's not even a horror movie and this thing's freaking me out. Hell, it's the damn dvd MENU and it's freaking me out! I'm gonna go curl up in the fetal position and sob quietly to myself now.
Good God, the ultra-rational and Baroque Bach pieces just add to the overall "WHAT THE HELL, THIS IS HORRIFYING!" factor. And seriously, did it just question my existence?
How about that one episode where Asuka pulls the drain on the bathtub and is shown standing there naked saying how she doesn't want to share the same things as Misato and Shinji and then saying that she hates Rei, Shinji, Misato, her mother, her father, and most of all herself.
One of the later episodes features Asuka naked and in a tub when she's well passed the Despair Event Horizon with hollow cheeks and stating that she no longer has the will the live. The tub appears to be filled with a red liquid indicating that she tried to kill herself by slitting her wrists.Poor Asuka.
How about the first time you watched the Eva TV show and hit episode 19? The Eva regrowing its arm, which seems bizarrely human, then begins EATING Zeruel, then begins a bloodcurdling howl and pieces of metal fly off it. You, the viewer, realize that the Eva wasn't actually a mecha after all, but a living being with metal "armor" seared onto its skin to allow NERV to control it. "That isn't armor, it's restraints." Not only does that make Eva-01 (by implication, Shinji's mom) a cannibal, she also looks like she's raping Zeruel in the manga.
By the way, Berserk EVA-01 is in Super Robot Wars MX and the scene it first appears in is quite scary. First, there's a cutscene of Berserk EVA-01 yelling. It takes on Vivance with RahXephon and defeats it with a combination attack. The scary part is that Berserk EVA-01 did twice as much damage as RahXephon.
The Angel in episode 10, the one in the lava? Right after Asuka says it's going nuts and going out of its chrysalis stage (X-rays of which show it looking like a human fetus) it starts making noise. Noise that sounds horribly like distorted, deepened baby cries.
It says a lot about the fact that this...thing is way, way more terrifying than any other Angel that came in the series before it. And it's a baby.
How about hitting episode 18 at the tender age of twelve? The mental image of Unit 01 crushing the entry plug of Unit 03 will haunt your brain.
Let's not forget that punch EVA-01 gives to Unit 03. Its head explodes into an ocean of blood (not to mention that if you look closely, you can see its eye and jaw pop out). I'm just glad Toji made it out alive. He's just been horribly traumatized and mangled and is likely to have flash-backs of this for decades. Welcome to the world of psychic dysfunction, boy. On the other hand, he dies in the manga, which might or might not be worse: on one hand, he gets to avoid the horrors of EoE, on the other hand he's dead.
The punch to the head was disturbing enough, but when Unit 01 proceeded to rip Unit 03 to pieces with just its bare hands, it's total Nausea Fuel.
Oh yeah, and there's also Shinji's blood-curdling scream at the end of the episode.
How the hell does a ten year old get an opportunity to watch NGE?
It's called cable. I watched it even younger.
I saw episodes 18 and 19 when I was around eight. Evangelion was aired in public TV, in a children's program, along with things like Sailor Moon. They also aired End of Evangelion after the series was over, but after it some parents started complaining. Ironically, I know some people who became Evangelion fans after seeing it there, as children...
I also watched the series when I was eight. NGE was aired on a Cartoon Network equivalent in her country; obviously the channel thought they were airing good ole Humongous Mecha. Seeing Unit 01 devouring an angel (whom I thought was a tissue monster at the time) and Asuka's mind rape were highlights of childhood scarring indeed.
The director's cut of ep. 22 is even more horrifying, with Asuka's doll turning round and round at the end of a rope, her stuffed monkey being decapitated and Asuka being confronted with a swarm of Asukas with creepy goo-like colours. By Word Of God, we're also supposed to understand that she literally gets raped.
There's also the scene in episode 24 where child Asuka runs after her mother, announcing that she's been selected as an Eva pilot and begging her to be proud of her, then discovers her hanged body and stays frozen with an empty smile on her face. "So look, look at me! HEY, MAMA!". Brrr...
Or the end of episode 23 when we find out the full truth behind the Dummy Plug System, and Ritsuko destroys the Rei clones? All those soulless little girls, smiling mindlessly, then laughing as their bodies slowly fall apart at the push of a button. And the music. By god, the music. Out of the entire series, this scene is one of the most spine-chilling by far.
The piano's chord progression sounds like the Menu Theme from Legend of Zelda. Seriously. AND NOW YOU CAN'T UNHEAR IT.
The Eva Graveyard◊ that Ritsuko showed Shinji and Misato before that wasn't much better...
I didn't realize the sephiroth (no, not that one) was filled with monster skeletons. That makes Rei's alone time hobby of standing around in there nude even worse.
Earlier in that episode when the angel Armisael tries to fuse with Shinji and Rei and Shinji stabs Armisael causing her to let out a horrific scream and then tiny Rei heads emerge from bloated veins that have appeared on Shinji's hands while calmly saying 'It hurts Ikari-kun. Doesn't it hurt'? And then Armisael takes Rei's form, and caresses Eva-01's face, causing veins to appear across it, in an attempt to "become one" with Shinji.
Hmm... you know, it not nearly as ball-shrivelingly terrifying the second time around. Maybe it's the realization that the clone isn't staring at you, but Rei. And that there's really no intelligence or intent behind the gaze, but rather, from the look, a sense of curiosity not too far from an oceanic dolphin. Yes... yes, that's how we'll rationalize it. It's like a dolphin, not a half eldritch abomination with no soul staring with nothing but mindless contempt and childish malice.
Bottlenose Dolphins gang-rape and murder other dolphins. Just sayin'.
EVA-01 is pretty much always at least freaky and often outright disturbing. Eating an Angel was just icing on the gore-splattered cake.
And how can we forget The death of Kaworu in Episode 24. It's bad enough that he was crushed in the palm of EVA-01, but the fact that HIS HEAD FALLS INTO THE WATER gives the scene horrendous chills (not to mention the sound of Kaworu's bones breaking).
That Gory Discretion Shot was so traumatic because it may not show us, but it gives us an idea of what would happen to somebody if they were crushed by the grip of a giant. Let me describe you my interpretation: when a giant grabs your body but leaves your head exposed, when it squeezes your body, your bones crack and your limbs are torn from the torso, so you know you'll be spurting out blood. Then, your blood and guts spurt out from its fist. And worst of all is what happens to your un-squeezed head. YOUR HEAD POPS OUT OF YOUR BODY LIKE A PEZ DISPENSER due to all the organs moving upward to escape the pressure of the crushed torso, being clogged at the neck and therefore blowing the neck, causing your head to fall unharmed into a pool of LCL.
Your biology is rather off, as in to body can't physically do what you're asking it to; since there's no way a giant hand would form a seal around you, the organs would just get pulped and ooze, not jet upwards like you were an icing bag. Most likely the head comes off from the pressure of the first finger closing destroying the neck; the ridiculously clean break suggests Kaworu's neck was cut, mind. Perhaps he used one of those Barbie rubber neck joints.
Furthermore, because of the synchronization with EVA 01, Shinji can feel all of that, as if it were his hand crushing Kaworu.
After Shinji kills Kaworu, he screams, and the scream echoes into the credits. It's simultaneously chilling and awesome, and almost makes up for the whole minute of one still frame that came before.
The destruction of Unit 03: Shinji's sitting there helpless as the dummy plug system destroys the entry plug, right after he learns that there's a living pilot inside. Only to learn later that the pilot was his best friend, Toji. Said knowledge is why Shinji wouldn't fight Unit 03, Which is whyGendouhad the dummy plug activated in the first place.
Really? I was too busy being pissed off at Gendo to find it scary.
Just to add, when you understand that Eva's are sentient beings with a soul which are trapped and imprisoned inside 'restraints' for use as weapons, ok. Disturbing, but you can live with it... And then you realise that all the pilots are synchronising with the Eva's. As in they are matching neuronal responses to achieve the best reaction, and are, as a consequence, melding their minds into the Eva's. So you have the kids melding their minds with the Eva's to a point where they can't distinguish their identity without them; they have so fully inter-twined their mental states, ego and identity into the Eva that they can't separate one from the other. An example? Shinji constantly screaming at Gendo "You used my hands to kill him!" when the dummy plug in Unit 01 destroyed Unit 03. Also, remember when Shinji lost it when he saw Asuka mutilated at the EOE? Yeah it's not a nice way to view the world...
And then you have Rei... where it is highly implied that Unit 00 has a mutilated piece of her soul stashed away inside it
The scene where we first see an Eva activated. All that disturbing imagery...
Some of the Angels are this too. You expect glorious beings of beauty and light, but get hellish Eldritch Abominations instead.
Except Arael. It's actually a glorious being of light and beauty, despite the fact that it rapes Asuka's mind.
I shudder to think of Christian Theology students who have watched this hearing about angels like Arael, Ramiel, Zeruel and so on in their lectures (those are all names borrowed from "real" angels).
Zeruel being eaten by EVA-01. I could deal with that. Ritsuko says that the armor is really restraints to control the EVA (which makes sense in retrospect; why give something with an impenetrable force field armor anyway). Now imagine that, not only is the EVA eating an Angel, but that the EVA's are essentially giant human beings, encased in armor so tight that they cannot move, but are most likely aware of their surroundings. Not to mention that within the EVA lies a human soul.
The fact that they use some very odd terms to describe concepts related to the EVA's. Given what we learn later on, umbilical bridge and umbilical cable spring to mind.
This might just be me, but the vision of the alternate universe in episode 26. After watching the rest of the series, seeing the main characters happy, well-adjusted and acting like normal children is genuinely disturbing. It's like staring into the Uncanny Valley.
Eh, probably just you. ReiAyanami, not adorable? Asuka Langley-Sohryu, a NORMAL Tsundere, a bad thing? ShinjiIkari - okay, maybe I'll concede that one as a wee bit Uncanny, but I thought the whole thing was more hilarious.
To elaborate: I'd find it hilarious if it weren't in the context it was in. Because it's in the middle of a Journey to the Center of the Mind , however, it looks like Shinji's last desperate cling to fantasy as his mind is breaking. Especially when the fantasy itself starts falling apart.
Leilel. At first, it's a red sphere and you're like "This outta be easy!" But then, the Evas keep passing through it. And then 01 get absorbed through what appears to be its shadow. But then you find the sphere is its shadow and what you thought was its shadow was its body that leads to a Dirac Sea - basically, a place of no return. But 01 returns. Through Leilel's shadow. BTW, did I mention that Leilel bleeds red blood? So when 01 bursts through...
The "Kentucky Fried Rei". If you haven't seen the full series yet, it's best not to look into this until you've watched Episode 23, at the very least. For those of you that have, you already know that Rei destroys her EVA to defeat the Angel that is steadily infecting her body, and dies heroically. Later, her Entry Plug is recovered, and Ritsuko peers in, then tells the men with her to classify it as top secret, and then destroy everything. At first glance, we think that we're not seeing anything. But if we look at that scene again, we can see Rei's arm◊ in the lower portion of the screen. The storyboard◊ has it much clearer. What we're looking at is Rei, having been turned to carbon by the intense heat of the explosion. Which is horrifying, especially when you take into account similar things happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The scene at the beginning where Shinji masturbatesover a comatose Asuka. This is High Octane Nightmare Fuel due to how well it drives the point home that Shinji is utterly psychologically broken. Even he admits that he's "fucked up" in the head.
One scene that comes to mind is when the mass-produced EVAs devour EVA-02. With Asuka inside it, literally feeling the pain and agony through the mind-link. Not to mention that before that, they lick her◊... in a very wrong way. * shivers*
Said EVAs are disturbing enough with those creepy eyeless, smiling faces alone... pictured here◊.
Along with the smaller one with all the spikes sticking out of its head bleeding profusely.
Not in that picture, but there is also a shot of one of the EVAs smiling with it's brains hanging out of its skull.
IF you look carefully, you will notice that in the scene immediately after the fake Lance hits Unit-02's head, Asuka's left eye socket is bleeding profusely into her lap. Additionally, after she almost-berserks and the rest of the fake Lances hit her, the first one very obviously splits her right arm in half through the link. One can only imagine what the effects of Unit-02 being eaten must have been....
That's the effect of the Lance, not her sync rate. You see her after they finish eating and before they stab her, and she's still physically intact. Except for her eye.
Wrong. First, Word of God says that the injuries that we saw on Asuka (eye imploded, guts torn apart, right arm split) ACTUALLY HAPPENED. Two, you got the order mixed up. She was impaled BEFORE being eaten. Three, we saw Eva injuries being mirrored by their pilots several times in the series. See Rei's corruption for an example. It's not just the Lance at work here.
Actually, if you look close when they're eating 02, it's hard to see because of the lighting, but there is an obvious, very-rapidly-spreading bloodstain on Asuka's midsection underneath her suit. So when Eva-02 got its torso ripped open, so, likely, did Asuka.
The bloodstain you're talking about is actually from all of the blood gushing from her eye socket.
There's also the fact that Shinji is physically incapable of accessing Unit 01 due to the hardened bakelite surrounding the entry plug. So he's pretty much FORCED TO SIT THERE AND DO NOTHING the entire time.
Asuka is a hazard to the health of anyone or anything that isn't named "Kaji" or "Hikari". This effect is turned Up to Eleven if Shinji is the victim or if she is in Nigouki ("Unit 02"), and passes the High Octane Nightmare Fuel threshold when she has to fight 9 Evangelions at once.
To illustrate just how ax crazy she had become by the end, she holds an enemy Evangelion above her head, cracks it open, and bathes in its blood with a sadistic grin on her face.
The delivery of that line was perfect. it will never leave me alone.''
How about the part after the mass-produced EVAs mangle EVA-02 when Asuka refuses to give up and, while holding a hand over her bleeding left eye socket, tries to go into berserker mode and stretches her right hand out to Grasp the Sun while repeating "I'll kill you..." right before her fucking ARM IS SPLIT IN HALF and she is impaled to death with the fake lances. Along with her◊ utterly◊ furious◊ and◊ murderously◊ insane◊ facial◊ expression◊. Sure it was pretty much her ultimate Crowning Moment of Awesome but tell me that wasn't incredibly creepy...
It doesn't matter if it's English or Japanese, the scene right after this of a sobbing Maya telling Shinji what happened... brrr.
The horrifying DVD menu for Death & Rebirth EOE, watch and behold! End Of Evangelion menu begins at 1:38.
And you know those things that look like spinal cords in the beginning of the DVD menu? They ARE spinal cords. Of the aborted Eva prototypes.
Somehow, the word aborted makes it even worse.
The subtle addition of the letters of the menu options decaying and falling apart was what creeped me out the most.
The fact that the music is a piano version of "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" doesn't help at all. The imagery overwhelms it, coupled with the screaming, the scenes of devastation, the panicked voices, the fact that someone's HANDS HAVE BEEN IMPALED WITH SPIKES and every other thing that shows up.
It Gets Worse in the DVD menu for Death and Rebirth. It starts off with lots of Big Damn Letters asking questions like, "What do I exist for?" then the menu options appear. As crazy goes down in the red-tinted background, occasionally the menu options change to something you can't quite catch. While you're asking yourself, "did the menu options just change?" the entire menu goes away for an extreme close-up of Shinji screaming in the cockpit. Then the menu comes back at the opposite side of the screen. Words like "I HATE YOU" show up on screen and all the while the music is violins mixed with the sound of cicadas. You can view it here. Sweet Dreams. P.S. That was Unit 01 going berserk and devouring an Angel. * shudders*
The changed menu options you can't quite catch are:
This movie did get an NC-17 rating by the way. You know, the one beyond R-Rated! At least according to Amazon.com
Not according to the MPAA's website, though. Then again, if Perfect Blue had to be edited to receive an R rating, one can only imagine..
Perfect Blue is High Octane Nightmare Fuel in and of itself. Really, though, the only things that were severely trimmed were a couple gore shots and the rape scene; the full-frontal nudity was also zoomed in a bit. EoE has exactly one scene that wouldn't fit under an R rating, going by current standards; namely, Shinji in the hospital.
In this lurker's library, End is rated NC-17.
The Zone 4 DVD is only M (15/16+, depending on which of the labels you read).
End apparently got an 18A rating in Canada, which is saying something since Canada only gives 18A ratings to really hard Rs.
This makes me doubt what the rating guys did to give the main show a TV-14/DLV rating (as given by the Platinum Collection Cover in the States). Someone in the screening test rooms probably slept on the job for the last third, or they said, "My god, but fine, we'll let our viewers be horrified themselves so they can feel our pain."
Well, Amazon only recommended it for ages 17 and up. The actual release is unrated.
Gets even creepier during Asuka's "I don't want to die" bit when her mother's "You are not alone. You are not alone. You are not alone" gets piled over it.
Oh! And how about the icing on the cake: The climax of the movie where Shinji begins Instrumentality by strangling Asuka and absorbs the souls of everyone on Earth as Komm Susser Tod plays (complete with creepy childish drawings of killings, violence, dead animals, and angry people).
According to the commentary, those drawings were made by abused children.
That just makes me think that, during the production of the series, Gainax Studios was Powered by a Forsaken Child...or several abused ones.
When Instrumentality begins, and the camera pans over Earth as everyone screams in terror then get turned to LCL. And according to a Toonami fan-site, this movie was available for download, uncut, on the Cartoon Network site during the Giant Robot Week. Animation Age Ghetto indeed...
If you listen closely (or listen to the commentary), the screams are actually somewhere between cries of terror and cheers of ecstasy. Which, of course, makes it that much more horrifying.
The Eva-Series opening their mouths and out pops long white blobs with human heads sprouting from the sides, and it having a happy human face at the end of the blob.
Possibly the scariest thing is the Eva-Series stabbing themselves in their exposed glowing hearts, WHILE SMILING AND CLIMAXING!
When GNR's hand just passes through Maya and she suddenly has a seizure is pretty terrifying. Who knows what she saw in that brief second but it was enough to reach Lovecraftian insanity. What is this thing and how does it exist?!
For those of you curious enough to want to see that, click here to see it in glorious HD.
The unsettling warning that the Anti-AT Field is becoming so big that "individual entities will be unable to maintain their separate forms" in other words, we explode into giant masses of LCL. And just how does this happen? Being hugged by the image of someone you loved. I'm sure at least one person developed a temporary fear of hugs after this scene.
Therefore it explains the meme: Everybody gets hugged and turns into Tang!
My friends and I have referred to it as banana pudding.
A different troper could not stand having either orange juice or marshmallows for six weeks straight after watching all of that happen.
One friend of mine once told me a story from an anime con in the UK. He said there was this girl cosplaying Rei, who stood near the entrance holding a huge "FREE HUGS" sign. With a bottle of orange juice in her hand. You could easily recognize EVA fans in the crowd by the looks of horror on their faces.
Becoming LCL sounds like Alex Mack-level lame. Instead it is quite gruesome, leaving behind spines and body parts strewn everywhere.
Don't forget the "exploding" part, such as when the camera suddenly cuts away from a character only to show some LCL and their severed hand splatter against a computer screen.
Actually, the only person whose spine is left behind is Kihl's, and that's because he was a cyborg. They weren't his real bones. As for Maya's hand exploding off, it dissolved after a few seconds. It's still pretty gruesome, but the way you describe it is quite wrong.
The fucking popping sound is what did me in. God damn it. Every time someone "exploded" it sounded like wet bubble wrap being popped.
The scene where Maya is confronted with an image of Ritsuko and is hugged which causes her to explode into LCL. It was the shot of her freaking detached hand hitting her laptop screen before it dissolved into LCL that did it for me.
Shigeru is "hugged" by a large quantity of naked Reis. He didn't love anyone enough for instrumentality to use that, so instead it beat his mental defenses into submission and tanged him anyways.
Yeah... even the resident borderline sociopath, Gendou, had someone to be happy about...
Word Of God says that was because he was an atheist/nihilist, hence Shigeru's lack of beliefs made it impossible for Instrumentality to give him something happy to hug. Which is completely depressing.
Of course, Shigeru is a Hollywood Atheist, with the traditional inability to love, which, of course, is not true to life. His nihilism, however, is reasonably realistic.
Kiele's appearance is quite freaky too. That, and the fact he's so happy about the whole thing.
And this is just about the only time in the series we see the old bastard smiling at all.
How 'bout after that mind calming pep-talk Shinji has with his mom, Yui, EVA-Unit 01 pops out of Giant Naked Rei's eye!
The one scene where toddler Shinji is left alone in the park and starts crying helplessly after destroying the sand pyramid he built because his parents won't come for him. Then a creepy tune starts and Asuka yells "Enough already! Even just the sight of you pisses me off!" at him with a murderously insane look.
And finally the greatest amount of Gorn in the movie: the GNR's neck tearing from the body, with spurts of blood coming from the neck. And then, the head falls off, with the neck muscles and SPINE exposed. And finally, the head SPLITS IN HALF AS HER LIMBS FALL APART AND THE ENTIRE BODY MELTS INTO A POOL OF BLOOD!
Now that would be something Dallas, Lambert, and Kane would get freaked out a lot more over even than the Space Jockey... even if the latter noticed that there was life, meaning something on it would be still alive... * shudder* "Ash, can you see this?"
He so totally had it coming, but how about the scene where Gendou gets cannibalized by a surrealistic, apocalyptic vision of berserk Eva-01 after finally expressing his despair and self-hate and getting a collective You Suck from 3+ ghostly entities? It's even worse when you realize that it's 'Yui-sama' he sees and know that, by Word Of God, demonic Eva-01 represents Shinji for him. While it's somewhat reassuring that he actually feels bad about his actions, it's like saying, "I want my son to kill me in the most painful, mutilating and degrading way possible." What's even more depressing is that Shinji isn't actually present and will never know that his father is sorry and didn't only hate him, that the problem wasn't with him but with Gendou being broken or insane. In other words, Gendou still manages to escape accountability towards Shinji, albeit in a very painful way. This means that if we suppose he's dead, Shinji will probably spend the rest of his life with unanswered questions, the pain of abandonment and the fear of resembling his father in any way (episode 26 of the series did have some abstract -and unrealistic- reconciliation take place). We have some news for you, kiddo... your dad is in Hell because he was a very bad man. Good luck growing into a well-adjusted and decent human being.
Did anyone else find the torso-less legs of Gendo standing on their own after Eva-01 ate him to induce nightmares for years to come? Not just the above interpretation to be creepy, but the image after?
Reading about the ending they had originally planned, with the tombstones and Shinji holding Rei's severed arm, completely alone.
Also: "Goodbye, mother." It means Shinji can finally mourn Yui, but it's still infinitely sad.
Let's not forget the And I Must Scream element of being LOCKED INSIDE OF A HUMAN-GROWN REPLICATION OF LILLITH AND BEING FORCED TO SPEND ALL OF ETERNITY FLOATING THROUGH SPACE WITH THE LANCE OF LONGINUS AS A TESTAMENT TO HUMAN EXISTENCE. Yeah well, that's what she wanted, though.
There's no way they can make the DVD covers creepy, ri-GAH!What!? GAH!
The Mass Production units alone are Accidental Nightmare Fuel; bone white bodies, lack of eyes, elongated ever-smiling faces, and the savage mentality of a freakin' vulture.
This may or may not be amplified if you know that in Japanese culture, the color white means "death", while black means "life". In other words, the 9 Mass-Production Evangelions can be interpreted as "Giant Angels of Death".
The very last scene in which Asuka and Shinji are shown to have rematerialized from the sea of LCL together on a beach looking out on the severed head of Lilith/Rei and the apocalyptic landscape. Asuka - her arm and eye bandaged in a manner similar to Rei's - lies motionless next to him. Shinji, at the culmination of his love, hate, stress, frustration, etc. - begins to strangle her without warning only to stop when he feels the caress of her hand across his face much like how Yui had done earlier. He then breaks down, sobbing on top of her and Asuka responds with disgust. Their faces during this whole scene were completely expressionless too which only makes it worse.
If you pause the movie right after Misato's death, when one of the Rei apparitions "collects" her as the JSSDF charges explode, you can see Misato's disconnected legs and torso. Someone actually bothered to find it.◊
The JSSDF soldiers killing most of the Nerv personnel. One of them even pressed a gun to Shinji's head and would've killed him if Misato didn't show up on time. And Shinji was so psychologically broken and suicidally depressed by that point that he was quite willing to let them kill him!
There is also one scene where Shinji remembers his childhood, where he plays with some creepy "children" that look like deformed dolls...
How about the part where Rei's arm falls off? Or even worse when it grows back.
As strange as this may sound, there was only one part of the movie that really scared me. After Rei joins with Lilith and the Mass Production units begin to change, there's a close-up shot of the unit that got stabbed in the head. The rest of the movie was unsettling, sure, but this moment practically had my heart in my throat the first time I saw it. Heck, I've only recently been able to look at it without getting creeped out.
According to Tiffany Grant (Asuka's English VA), Hideaki Anno once said that Asuka's "I feel sick" line is a reference to morning sickness.Think about that Asuka and Shinji will have to raise a child in the ruins of the world. How mess up will that child be? And even worse is the question "Who's the father?" Seeing as Asuka never had sex.
Unholy exploding crap! I have watched the entire series several times, and Eo E at least three - and never made that connection. I was almost literally shocked out of my chair.
I'm pretty sure Section 2 are professional enough to not rape a comatose 14 year old girl. That, or moderately SANE. Not everyone at NERV was a psycho, just the entire upper echelons. If the Pilot bodyguards were that sick, they wouldn't be very effective bodyguards, which is what Gendo pays them for. Also, as to how they would deal with a child, have some The Second Try to alleviate your High Octane Nighmare Fuel dose from this page.
I think most of tropers are forgetting that Shinji pretty much masturbated onto a naked Asuka at the beginning of the movie...if that line is connected with morning sickness it should be simple to figure out the father...
Asuka and Shinji's fight in the kitchen here. The music is what got me and then how Shinji has a Freak Out moment and tries to strangle Asuka with a furious expression on his face after she refuses him and gives him a nasty "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
Manga
The manga can be pretty bad too. One scene that is very bad even for Evangelion: the scene where Shinji, after dissolving in his Entry Plug, nearly gets sexually assaulted by an apparition of Eva-01 under the guise of naked Yui and is too tired/depressed/stoned to realize how terrifying this is. Then a spectral Yui appears and the first one's skin starts peeling off her skull. If this doesn't mess with your head, you might even be able to survive The End Of Evangelion.
In the same context of being Tanged in Eva-01: toddler Shinji begs Gendou not to abandon him, and Gendou coldly answers that he's being a difficult child and that his mother is dead, then points at a demonic Eva-01 behind him. Then, he announces that he must pilot it and Shinji's entry plug starts filling with LCL as he panics. At the end of the scene, he stabs Gendou in a real bloodbath and freaks out at what he's done. The loneliness, terror and despair of the whole sequence are just terrible.
In a recent chapter of the manga: AT-Field!Gendou's raving insanity and his speech to Shinji about never loving him and the world being a desperate, empty place. Seriously, poor kid.
The manga's reworking of the scene in End of Evangelion where Shinji masturbates over a comatose Asuka is equally disturbing and tragic, but turns it into a Kiss of Life of sorts. At first, Shinji is at Asuka's bedside, exhorting her to get up. He may try to do something more, wank or no, but then Asuka finally sits up and turns her head to him slightly, her first conscious action in weeks...and then she leaps out of bed and attempts to strangle him to death in the exact same manner her mother did to her a decade prior before she killed herself.
What triggers her off into a rage is Shinji saying that she is "just a doll" while comatose and that he wants her back...something that after her mother's treatment of her is not the right words to use. Of course Shinji does not mean it in that way and he has no clue why she snaps, which makes the scene all the more tragic.
Luckily, NERV hospital staff separate the two and Shinji is led out while Asuka angrily screams that she hates everyone. Shinji breaks down crying outside soon after seeing his father and Rei pass by him almost unnoticed.
Shortly after meeting Shinji Kaworu calmly kills an abandoned kitten that had been following Shinji. His explanation to Shinji's question of "why" was that it was kinder to kill the kitten rather than let it eventually starve to death.
Watching the EVA rip apart unit 03 with Shinji helpless to stop it and begging his father to knock it off both freaked this troper out and made her hate Gendo even more than she already did. The horrified faces of the other employees didn't help either, especially when that one girl covered her face in fear. Touji was also one of my favorites as well.
General
The show's basic message about existential loneliness, alienation and disconnection, the inevitable infliction of pain to each other, terror of oneself and other people, self-destruction, Love Hurts, man's cruelty to man, being incomplete and hollow, the meaninglessness of life, obsession with death and suicide, etc etc etc. The characters are just barely surviving and are almost constantly threatened by madness, there isn't much psychological survival to speak of. Surviving The End Of Evangelion might be the worst thing that happened to Shinji, as we might wonder what kind of future he has and how much Brain Bleach he'll need to stop the horrible images burnt in his head.
He was stuck in a ruined world with Asuka, traumatised, completely insane, and with no hope left at all. The most least depressing/terrifying thing is that they probably killed each other or died of starvation after a few days, and finally stopped being mentally tortured. I really hope Rebuild of Evangelion has a happier ending...
Or, if Yui's final words were correct, the people who have the will to live will return back as well. That is, it won't be just Shinji and Asuka left on the planet.
Aaaand then they have to live through a post-apocalyptic wasteland of a planet. Wonderful.... Anyone got a shotgun handy?
Come now, it's not so bad. It's not like they've got to worry about sustenance - that big sea of LCL is probably edible, being that it constitutes the building blocks of life. They can continue living through consuming the liquified remains of humanity!
On a lighter note, it's implied that the only area that turned into a wasteland was Japan, which makes sense given that that's where the explodey apocalypse happened. Sure, it doesn't make things any better for Shinji and Asuka, but at least it's a bit more hopeful. Of course, the Giant Giant Naked Rei, the butchered remains of Unit 02, the frozen MP-Evas and the bloodstained moon will also keep them company.
Shinji's screams in the original dub. Always unexpected and, unlike Spike Spencer's more cracking, scared approach, always ear-splittingly shrill and batfuck insane.
Try listening to "Fly Me To The Moon" afterward without an unsettling feeling of horror.
For a while, this was true for me. However, it's proof to the power of fiction that Bayonetta uses the song as well, and almost as an Evangelion shout-out, seeing as the lead character is beating the piss out of angels the entire time - however, the feel is ENTIRELY different, and completely altered the view of the song in my mind. Personally, it's kind of amazing what the same song can do with a different background.
You may also get a bit of this from "Jesu bleibet meine Freunde." Or, "Komm Susser Tod".
To counter the effect Eo E has on "Jesu Bleibet Meine Freunde", go watch Usavich. Then every time you hear the song, you will laugh! Then cry, and throw up.
Am I the only one who still thinks 'Jesu Bleibet Meine Freude' is a beatiful song, despite it's use in Evangelion?
Heck, I will never be able to listen to the Beatles "Hey Jude" without getting at least vaguely unsettled by mental images of suicide and tang.
Not to mention most of the last four episodes of Evangelion & the movies, in which each character gets thrown on the emotional rack, many die, one gets eviscerated, and one literally and graphically disintegrates. Oh, and then there's this shot◊ of Rei, which can cause a full-bore freakout all by itself.
Seeing Unit 01's true face for the first time was good for a shiver. The Gender Flip has something even more disturbing. Mama Gendo and Chairwoman Lorenz will see you in your nightmares.
Dear God, you think Gendo is bad? The redone versions of SEELE members...gah!
The male versions of Rei, Asuka, Misato, and Ritsuko, on the other hand, are actuallyquiteattractive.
The worst thing for me: Even when the series was in the more lighthearted territory, all the drama/nightmarish events to come was heavily foreshadowed in almost every episode and from the very beginning there were distinctly dark moments (be they Gendo's shady, behind-the-curtain dealings or the startling brutality with which the berserk Unit 01 murders Sachiel) that made it clear there was a lot more to the series than readily apparent.
The real nightmare fuel for me is Rei. Think about it, she is a clone of Yui, but capable of human feelings. In other words she is basically a normal human. A human that was raised by Gendo, a man that has little to none ability for empathy, ESPECIALLY towards children he is responsible for. A human that knows that they are one of several other clones, a human that has seen a pool of clones of herself smiling at herself, a human that knows that in the moment she dies another clone will simply pop out and pretend it was her at the beginning, a human whose concern to maintain her life and ability to be emotionally stable was slowly crippled because she knows she is not really a human. Now, please imagine being her while standing in front of the Pool of Reis.
And then, when we see her apartment for the first time, Shinji unintentionally knocks her over and gropes her... And she hardly reacts. It may not be as scary as other moments in the series, but seeing someone with that little regard for herself is creepy.
And to think that she actually started off the Moe trend in anime, thanks to the Misaimed Fandom. Do Mikuru and Miyuki really owe their origins to Rei? (Speaking of Haruhi, remember that Yuki is an obvious Expy of Rei.)
This AMV of PinkFloyd's "Comfortably Numb" sums up both Evangelion and Pink Floyd tragically well.
I can not sleep, and I must dream... yeah that pretty much sums it up. Tell me you didn't catch yourself thinking about the show/movies even years after you've watched it. And I still hear the sound or some kind of machinery clunk you hear when Shinji is visiting Rei in her apartment... WHAT IS IT???
I think it's construction work. Sounds like one of those machines that hammer in large electric poles or girders or something.
The video at the beginning of the Director's Cut version of episode 21, detailing what really happened the day of Second Impact. The last sentence you hear is a panicked scream from a scientist as Adam's glowing hand begins to move into the camera.
Scientist: IT'S REACHING TOWARDS THE SURFACE! (static)
Anytime you hear the "Train Crossing" noise. In fact, I recall hearing that same sound effect used in another anime and instinctively tensing up.
I don't like Asuka but damn her past is the most tragic for me. Having your mother shower all of her love and affection on a doll and not you is heart wrenching.
I hated her at first. I thought she was an insufferable bitch, but seeing her past totally made sense on why she is so...fucked up. She strangled her in the manga. Her step-mother hated her, and her father didn't even care. Then it just...gets worse...especially in the end of evangelion. Poor, poor, Asuka. Chances are, if you went through what she (or any of the characters went through) you'd end up just like her. Not to mention, she's still only 14 with one of the best FreudianExcusesever.
I started watching NGE the day after I finished Higurashi no Naku Koro ni season 1. I'm so glad there are no cicadas where I live, because it was June, and spending your summer holidays listening to the sound of people's lives being ruined would be pure Accidental Nightmare Fuel.
After reading this page and deciding that Evangelion was worth getting over a dislike for anime, I was all ready to start what may be one of the best shows I've ever encountered in my life. That is, until I spotted my name in the opening. Kinda had to pause and sit there for a few seconds...
This video somehow manages to sum up pretty much some of the most disturbing imagery of the series. And the video itself is even titled "Neon Genesis Evangelion OP (FULL)". Yeah.
A more subtle one: Sometimes, when something truly awful happens, and the pilots cannot do anything to stop it, they begin pulling on the EVA controls over and over again in fear. This can be seen in Episode 18 and Evangelion 2.0, when EVA Unit-01's dummy plug system activates, it deactivates the controls, and in the latter example, keeps Shinji's hands locked in place. In these cases, Shinji helplessly pulls on the controls hoping something will happen. Not only this, but in The End of Evangelion, after Asuka's eye is stabbed and her EVA shuts down, she sits there, screaming, pulling back and forth on the controls. It's High Octane Nightmare Fuel because you realise they can't help themselves from doing this, they've just been reduced to primitive, ape-like fear in hope of survival. Like I say, subtle, but terrifying when you think about it.
I just had several Fridge Moments regarding the nature of the Entry Plug and the way humans interface with the Evas, leading to this conclusion: The Evas themselves are living beings, and probably have no business with giant pieces of metal being being inserted into their spinal column. Combine that with the fact that the interior of the Entry Plug has been likened to a womb in-universe by a few characters, Fridge Horrorachieved. Even though it's only subtext, it's still kind of freaky.
