#naoko akagi

[sailormoonsailorstars]

I’m procrastinating chores

[ekdsc]

I just broke into khara HQ and found all these very real evangelion plushies that they're definitely going to release soon!!!!!!!!!! guys i'm so excited

[i-was-a-teenage-eldritch-horror]

Read Jeff Kass' Columbine: A True Crime Story the other day (this is the best, most factual English-language book on the subject; Cullen's book is basically his fanfic in many respects), and came across this interesting bit:

The context is that Kass is discussing why it is that girls are more likely to spot warning signs of school shooters (gender is such a huge component of this problem, yet there is so little discussion of it, so I really respect Kass for even including this brief bit in his book).

Since then, I've been thinking about this concept of feminine social responsibility in a more general sense and how it relates to the Eva women.

Ritsuko pays no mind to questions of right and wrong. She facilitates Third Impact with impartiality and only attempts to thwarts it to hurt Gendo after she decides the events of episode 23 are the last straw. Ritsuko reveals the truth of Rei, all the cruelty and all the facade, to Misato and Shinji for her own personal catharsis -- not for Rei or anyone else's material benefit. Not even her own, really, since this results in Gendo putting her in what basically amounts to solitary confinement. The most "responsible" thing Ritsuko does in the series is probably chastising Misato for her off-color and concerning jokes about SA towards Shinji in episode 2, but even that feels like a slap in the face after finding out her complicity in Gendo's abuse of Rei. Ritsuko knows she's doing ~bad~ things and loses no sleep over it until she can no longer deny that she's been hurt by this arrangement, and even then, the morals aren't her concern -- only that she can no longer bury this pain.

Naoko fits into this in much the same way -- her research into Rei mirror's Misato's research, yet Naoko ultimately copes with the suspicion that something is amiss in the same way that Ritsuko copes with the certainty and acceptance that there is -- by killing Rei. Naoko's interaction with Rei is, fittingly, much more personal -- Naoko kills with her bare hands; Ritsuko does so with the push of a button. Additionally, there's not really anything to suggest that Naoko was planning on doing anything with her information on Rei -- the murder was committed on impulse. If Ritsuko does an arguably materially good act for selfish reasons, then Naoko does a needlessly cruel act for selfish reasons. This situation is less nuanced.

Maya probably showcases this feminine social responsibility the most out of the Eva women -- she stands up to Gendo and tries to police Ritsuko in much the same way that Misato and Ritsuko try to police each other. Cracks begin to form for Maya, too, but she resigns herself to continue going with the program, unlike Misato, who is at least genuinely curious and does her own independent research.

Misato is hawkish and, much like Maya, wholeheartedly believes that NERV is a net positive for the world. But when Kaji reveals the Adam-Lilith switcharoo in episode 15, Misato's worldview begins to crack. Yet she quietly sits on this information, barely discussing it with Kaji. Her most significant interactions regarding this are with Ritsuko, whom she batters over these doubts as she refuses to accept partial blame for Shinji's potential demise in episode 16. Misato's ego is bruised by Kaji's revelation to her, because it pokes holes in the myth that fuels her life's purpose. Ultimately, the concern boomerangs back to Misato herself, rather than the pilots or the millions of people around the world who are starving because governments' budgets are drained from supporting NERV. The difference between Misato and Ritsuko is that Ritsuko is under no impression that she's "good." Misato is.

Now we come to Yui. Like Naoko, her actions are really only to fuel her own desires and ego -- Misato and Ritsuko are more nuanced than Naoko and Yui. Yui waxes poetic about the moon, stars, happiness, etc. but ultimately...her master plan was not concocted for any noble reason, but rather, to serve herself.

Kaji, interestingly, does display social responsibility. He tells Misato the truth about Adam/Lilith out of the goodness of his heart; not for any ulterior motive. His research and status as a triple agent stems from his genuine desire for the truth. Unlike Misato, his worldview is not based on either side of the coin. Unlike Ritsuko, Kaji is actively trying to thwart the wrongs he's forced to do as part of his job, and it costs him his life. This is not the only time that Kaji is assigned a typically feminine role/trait/status, etc.

I have not discussed Asuka and Rei here for a few reasons. One is that their responsibilities are less nuanced (though significantly heavier in many ways) than that of the women -- which makes sense, being that they're teenagers. Another reason is that, unlike Yui, Naoko, Maya, Ritsuko, and Misato, Asuka and Rei never commit any grave wrongdoings throughout the series. At worst they are a little annoying or slightly rude.

[ritsuko-transvestigation-archive]

fuck it we are getting personal here

[baixueagain]

[reivelation]

rejection followed by strangulation

episode 21: he was aware that he was still a child

neon genesis evangelion: end of evangelion

[duhragonball]

Neon Genesis Evangelion 21

NERV Origins: The Clownshoes Abduction

Okay, so this one is kind of confusing, because it flashes back and forth a lot. Let's go over the present-day stuff first and then we'll cover the scenes from the past.

Admiral Clownshoes gets abducted right under NERV's nose. I gave him a silly name because I couldn't be bothered to look up his actual name, but to be clear, he's the second-in-command of NERV, after Gendo Ikari himself. So it's kind of amazing that he could get kidnapped like this, although it's also kind of stupid, because this guy has done fuck-all since the story started. Gendo's the mastermind of NERV and the Evangelions and everything else that goes on here. Misato and Ritsuko pretty much handle all of the logistics and combat stuff. All the "Vice Commander" ever does is stand beside Gendo and make wry observations to him. I don't get the sense that he has any real purpose in the organization. I named him "Clownshoes" for a reason.

Anyway, NERV Intelligence suspects Kaji Ryoji, who was recently kicked out of NERV for being a double agent working for the Japanese Interior Department. Since Misato is known to be his lover, they hold her in a detention cell just in case she's an accomplice.

Regardless of Kaji's role in the abduction, the ones who wanted Clownshows are SEELE. I was starting to get the impression that SEELE was the name of the committee of grumpy old men who talk to Gendo Ikari whenever things go wrong. But apparently SEELE is another, even more mysterious group of dipshits behind the committee of grumpy old men. They wanted to talk to Clownshoes directly, without Gendo in the room, so they staged this abduction to make it happen.

Near the end of the episode, Kaji shows up to rescue Clownshoes. Clownshoes warns him that he might get killed for this, and Kaji says that he just wants to get closer to the truth. Uh... how does this help, exactly?

Like, I really don't get it. SEELE wanted something from Clownshoes, but we never actually find out what it is. They're mad about Eva Unit 01 absorbing an S2 from that Angel it ate a couple of episodes back. Now they think it's become a god, and they've lost confidence in Gendo. But what's Clownshoes supposed to do about that exactly?

And how is Kaji connected to any of this? I think the idea here is that NERV or SEELE set him up to take the fall for the kidnapping. The fact that he's rescuing Clownshoes seems to suggest that he wasn't the one who kidnapped him, except no, Kaji's been playing one side against the other the whole time. He's totally the kind of character who would kidnap a guy to spite NERV and then free him to spite SEELE. I'm not saying that's how it went down, but this episode doesn't really make it clear to me that he didn't abduct Clownshoes.

Somebody eventually catches up to Kaji near one of those slow-moving ventilation fans, like the one that stymied Goku in Dragon Ball GT. Yes, I'm still mad about that, by the way. He asks some unseen character what took so long, and then there's a gunshot sound and I guess that means he's dead. Well, good. Kaji sucked and I hated him. Rest in piss, you smug womanizing prick.

By now, Misato's been released, and she's pretty sure that means Kaji has already been killed, but then she gets a voicemail from him, and he says his goodbyes. Also he asks her to tend his watermelon garden for him. Man, fuck your watermelons, Kaji. Nobody's got time for that shit.

Misao breaks down and sobs over the dinner table, while Shinji hears her from the bedroom and covers his head with a pillow to drown out the crying. He doesn't know what to say to comfort her, but he does understand what she's going through.

All right, I think that does it for 2015, so let's look at the flashback stuff.

In 1999, Professor Clownshoes is tasked with mentoring a promising young student named Yui Ikari. She looks... familiar. Oh dammit...

Soon after, Clownshoes made the acquaintance of Gendo....... Rokubungi. He and Yui eventually start dating, and the next time Clownshoes meets him is after Second Impact, on a research mission in what's left of Antarctica. There, Gendo informs him that he and Yui have married, and he took her last name.

Eventually, a man named Keel, working for the SEELE organization starts the whole cover story about Second Impact being caused by a meteor strike. Clownshoes knows better, that it was caused by a "Giant Man", Adam, the First Angel. He eventually figures out that Gendo Ikari and SEELE knew Second Impact was going to happen. That's why Gendo left Antarctica right before it happened. He had been working with Misato's dad's research time, and I guess they discovered Adam and Gendo left them to take the fall.

Clownshoes threatened to expose the conspiracy, but Gendo showed him something first: An underground expanse, that "someone else" excavated. I don't know what that's supposed to mean, but this is the space where the NERV base is located in 2015. SEELE and the Ikari's established a research facility here, and I guess that's what convinced Clownshoes to go along with their secrets? I don't get it.

One day in 2004, Yui was working on some sort of experiment, and she brought their son Shinji to work so he could see it. Over there on the left is Ritsuko Akagi's mother. We'll get to her in a moment.

Clownshoes didn't approve of Shinji's presence in the lab, but Yui wanted him to see her experiment, to show him how bright the future would be. Those were literally her last words, as she died shortly after saying them.

So this is where that rumor started about Gendo killing his wife. She died in an accident of some sort, but it's hard not to imagine Gendo being at least partially responsible, since he's the driving force behind everything that went on in this place.

But Gendo was cleared of any wrongdoing, and soon after her death he started working on the Human Instrumentality Project.

However, it's still possible that Gendo had something to do with it. Even if he didn't directly sabotage Yui's work, he might have manipulated Dr. Akagi into doing it for him. That's because Akagi had a thing for him, and when Yui died, she admits to herself that she had hoped it would happen. Not long after, she and Gendo make out in the lab...

And Akagi's daughter, Ritsuko sees them going at it. This is like her first day on the job, and she sees the director porking her mom. Wild.

Not long after, Gendo starts bringing some other kid to work, and he explains that he's decided to care for the daughter of some acquaintance, which is totally the sort of thing a genuine hyu-mon person with real organs would say out loud. He introduces her as Rei Ayanami and... oh fuck we're really doing this. Akagi even notices the resemblance right away, so it's not a coincidence.

One night, Akagi sees Rei wandering around by herself, and Rei calls her an old hag. Akagi warns her that she'll get in trouble with Gendo, and she says he's the one who always calls Akagi a useless old hag. Akagi snaps and murders Rei in a fit of rage. Uh... okay?

When Akagi comes to her senses, she apparently throws herself over the safety railing, dying among the three supercomputers she just finished building. Soon after this, Keel reorganizes this thing into the NERV Agency.

And yeah, I think that's everything.

So if Rei isn't some sort of clone of Shinji's dead mother, this show is working very hard to fool me into thinking so. I mean, the resemblence of Rei to Yui aside, we see Li'l Rei get strangled to death in the past. So how is Rei alive in the present? If she's a clone, it stands to reason Gendo has a few spares.

I don't know the why of it. Maybe he just desperately wants his wife back, so he's waiting for one of the clones to grow up so they can get married. Or he thinks he can resurrect Yui but he needs a Rei to serve as a vessel for her disembodied consciousness. Maybe Yui's mind is trapped inside Eva Unit 00 the way Shinji was stuck in Unit 01 recently. Or maybe Gendo just wanted a loyal follower, and he only used Yui's genes because he had a sample handy.

For my part, the Yui-Rei connection is the only part of this that actually matters to me in this episode. Kaji's death is irrelevant. I'm glad he's dead. All the stuff with Ritsuko and her mom was dumb. Like, aside from killing Rei and then herself, all Dr. Akagi did was talk about the supercomputers she named after the Three Wise Men, and how she modeled them after three aspects of her personality. It's just a callback to Episode 12, with nothing else added.

And the whole story seemed to be centered around Clownshoes, except he never actually said or did anything to justify all this attention. I don't know why he threw in with Gendo in the 2000s, or why he's in such a high position in NERV today, or what SEELE expects him to do, or what he's actually going to do instead. Kaji freed him like it was some bold play to tip the balance of this story, but I can't see how. Well, there's still five episodes to go, so maybe they're building up to that.

Oh, right, one other complaint: I was really hoping to find out about the Second Angel. Remember? Adam's the First Angel, the one who exploded and caused Second Impact. The first time we see an Angel in this show, it's called the Third Angel. So what happened to the Second Angel, who would have appeared somewhere in between? I just assumed a flashback episode would have touched on that. Oh well.

[springfieldnerv]

oh no

[miss-morada]

"Even if you die, there'll be another to take your place" - Naoko Akagi

[orbitaldot]

Brainrot doodle

[sailormoonsailorstars]

[algumaideia]

She killed the child??? Because of Ikari of all people?????

[drikari77]

Ikari et al.

Soryu, Kyoko (left), Ikari, Yui (center), Akagi, Naoko (right), Makinami, Mari (bottom)

[tomboyjessie13]

Yes, yes you are the asshole, because you literally dated someone who's clearly too young for you, now I don't have a huge problem with age gap relationships, but she was literally a minor when you met her mother.

AITA for dating my previous girlfriend’s daughter while still hung up on my wife’s death?

I (48m) lost my wife, Y, of 6 years 11 years ago (at the time of her death, she was 27) and three years after the birth of my son. I worked as a researcher in a government/military sponsored lab. She died in a tragic accident after volunteering as a test subject in a risky experiment. 

My wife was a lovely person, and treated me in ways no one else ever has. She was a great person who always saw the best in others and only ever wanted what was best for me and our son. Soon after her death, one of my colleagues N (at the time 47) approached me for a no strings attached relationship. Our relationship was incredibly toxic, and ended with her death three years later after she realized that I’d never love her the way I loved my wife. I genuinely feel like she took advantage of me during my grief. 

During the time period right before Y’s death, I met N’s daughter, R (at the time when I met her, 20). After R’s mother’s death, I approached her, and we bonded in our shared resentment of N and her actions. I asked her to keep me company, and she accepted, although I made it extremely clear that Y was always going to be the one to have my heart. Our relationship was always strictly physical.

Now, however, our lab has been absorbed further into the military, and I’ve found myself as the commander of operations. Recently, R has become extremely unstable; I’ve caught her sabotaging my work, and she’s had to be brought before our board of directors. 

Today she confronted me and told me I never cared about her, and the only person I’ve ever loved is Y. Although I can understand where she’s coming from, I did care for her. I’m confused and upset by this sudden turn in events. She wouldn’t listen to me when I tried to tell her I did love her, and that I thought the nature of our relationship was clear from the beginning. 

So, AITA?