| "Angel Attack" | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Neon Genesis Evangelion episode | |||
 Shinji Ikari (center),Ritsuko Akagi (left) andMisato Katsuragi (right) with theEva-01's head. The scene is influenced byCombattler V. | |||
| Episodeno. | Episode 1 | ||
| Directed by | Kazuya Tsurumaki | ||
| Written by | Hideaki Anno | ||
| Story by | Gainax | ||
| Original air date | October 4, 1995 (1995-10-04) | ||
| Running time | 22 minutes | ||
| Episode chronology | |||
| |||
| List of episodes | |||
"Angel Attack"[a] is the first episode of theanime seriesNeon Genesis Evangelion, created byGainax. The episode was written by the series directorHideaki Anno and directed byKazuya Tsurumaki. It was originally aired onTV Tokyo on October 4, 1995. The series is mostly set in the futuristic, fortified city Tokyo-3, fifteen years after a worldwide cataclysm named Second Impact. The protagonist isShinji Ikari, a teenage boy whose fatherGendo has recruited him to the organization Nerv to pilot a giant bio-machinemecha namedEvangelion to combat beings calledAngels. In the episode, Tokyo-3 is attacked by the AngelSachiel, who fights theUnited Nations Army and theJSSDF. Gendo summons Shinji for the first time and Shinji reluctantly agrees to pilot the mecha.
Production for "Angel Attack" began in September 1994 and ended in April 1995. The episode, influenced by Japanesetokusatsu, references other mecha anime series and previous works by Gainax. It scored a 6.8% rating of audience share on Japanese TV and received critical and public acclaim focused on its visuals, direction and introduction of the characters.
Gendo Ikari, commander of a special agency named Nerv, summons his sonShinji to the city of Tokyo-3.Sachiel, the third of a series of mysterious enemies known asAngels, approaches a Japanese city underwater as aJapan Strategic Self-Defense Forces tank battalion awaits it on the shoreline. Shinji, who recently arrived in a nearby town, has remained above ground waiting forMisato Katsuragi, head of the military department of Nerv, who is due to pick him up. The Japan Strategic Self-Defense Forces air force begins to attack the Angel with missiles. Shinji is nearly killed in the ensuing battle but is rescued at the last moment by Misato, who arrives in her car.
The Japan Strategic Self-Defense Forces, admitting their ineffectiveness, transfer responsibility for the Angel's destruction to Gendo and Nerv. Elsewhere, Shinji and Misato in acar train descend deep underground into a Geofront. Shinji is taken to the hangar of a giant mecha namedEvangelion, where he is shownUnit 01, the first test type of the Eva series, as Gendo appears above. Shinji learns he has been summoned to pilot Unit 01 into battle against the Angel. He confronts his father and protests his treatment, believing he has no chance of completing the task, but Gendo tells him to pilot the craft or leave. Shinji initially refuses, and Gendo sends for his other pilotRei Ayanami, who is seriously injured. Confronted with the sight of Rei's injuries, Shinji agrees to pilot the Evangelion, which is then launched from the Geofront into the path of the Angel on a road on the surface.
Gainax began planning the production ofNeon Genesis Evangelion in July 1993.[1][2] On September 20, the first internal meeting about the new project was held at the studio,[3] but production for the first two episodes began in September 1994,[4] a year later the first meeting, and lasted for months.[5][6] The production was slow, and, according toEvangelion's directorHideaki Anno, it took six months to complete the script for the first episode.[7]Kazuya Tsurumaki, assistant director ofNeon Genesis Evangelion, served as director of "Angel Attack";[8] Anno and Masayuki, who drew storyboards for the episode,[9][10] assisted him,[11][12] while Shunji Suzuki worked as chief animator.[13][14] Yoshitoh Asari, Seiji Kio and Yuh Imakake worked as assistant character designers.[15][16] Production also involved animatorMitsuo Iso, who animated the battle between Sachiel and the United Nation aircraft.[17][18]
Gainax decided the basic plot for "Angel Attack" in 1993, when it wrote a presentation document ofNeon Genesis Evangelion titledNew Century Evangelion (tentative name) Proposal (新世紀エヴァンゲリオン (仮) 企画書,Shinseiki Evangelion (kari) kikakusho).[19][20] In the first draft, "Angel Attack" had been named "People's reunion" (再会する人々,Saikai suru hitobito).[2] TheProposal document contained a detailed description of the first episode, which was conceived as a diptych with the second one.[21] The episode would have begun with Shinji on a train, stopped by a battle between Rei Ayanami's Eva-00 and an Angel named Raziel; the Angel would have vanished into a lake, with the damaged Unit 00 returning to the Nerv base.[22] The beginning of a battle between Raziel and a berserk Unit 01 was also planned, but it was moved to the second episode.[23] Production of "Angel Attack" officially ended in April 1995; one month later, the second episode was also completed.[2] The dubbing sessions began on March 27, about six months before the series debut.[24] The episodes were later screened in front of two-hundred people at the second Gainax festival on 22 and 23 July 1995 inItako, Ibaraki, a few months before their official broadcast.[25][26] According to Gainax co-founderYasuhiro Takeda, the work was still at an early stage, since "theopening sequence as well as other elements weren't quite ready yet, so the screening showed only the raw episodes".[27]
Miki Nagasawa,Megumi Hayashibara,Akiko Hiramatsu,Takehito Koyasu, andTakashi Nagasako played several announcements and unnamed characters in "Angel Attack", whileTomomichi Nishimura,Hidenari Ugaki andHiroshi Naka voiced the three soldiers who speaks with Gendo in the first scenes.[11][28] British singer Claire Littley[29] also sang a cover of "Fly Me to the Moon"[30] which was later used as the episode's closing theme song.[31][32]
I wonder if a person over the age of twenty who likes robot anime andbishōjo anime is really happy. If this person doesn't know that greater happiness exists even until he died, he is probably happy. Regrettably, I have my doubts about his happiness. As I was making this work I wanted to try to consider what in the world could the 'happiness' of such a person be?
Gualtiero Cannarsi, who curated the first Italian adaptation of the series, noted that "Angel Attack" story startsin medias res,[35] a narrative technique used in the following episodes of the anime by which, by means of flashbacks or the speeches and thoughts of the characters, what happened before the beginning of the narrative is reconstructed.[36] He also noted that in one scene of the episode Shinji pronounces the phrase "I mustn't run away", which will become one of the most typical of the character.[37][38]Hiroki Azuma, a Japanese philosopher and cultural critic, speaking of his motto "I mustn't run away", describedEvangelion as a story that depicts "anxiety without a cause", linking this feeling to the social repercussions in Japan after theAum ShinrikyōTokyo subway sarin attack.[39] The sentence is inspired by the personal experience of Hideaki Anno, who faced a hard time in the four years before the series' release and then returned to anime with the same idea.[40] For Yasuhiro Takeda, a member of the Gainax studio, "what we saw inEvangelion was maybe just a reflection of those feelings".[41] For the phrase "I mustn't run away", according to Takeda, the director took inspiration from an old failed Gainax project,Blue Uru.[41] "Angel Attack" also presents the themes of father-son relationships[42] and interpersonal communication.[43]
Yūichirō Oguro, editor of extra materials from the home video editions of the series, noted how in "Angel Attack" Misato tells Shinji to act like a man, a theme also presented later in the series.[44] According to an official booklet on the anime, it is unclear if the series supports thepatriarchal model or discusses its value instead.[43][45] The episode also presents references to earlier anime works, includingLupin III,[46][47]Combattler V[48] andGunBuster.[49]Akio Jissoji's directorial style particularly informed the installment,[50] along with shots influenced by thetokusatsu genre.[51] Furthermore, staff used humorous graphic symbols that are typical ofshojo anime, drawing inspiration from the works ofKunihiko Ikuhara.[52][53] "Angel Attack" also depicts existing military vehicles,[54] including JapaneseType 74 tanks,[55]Yak-38-inspiredVTOLs,[56][57][58] nacelle-lessgyroplanes[59] andM270 MLRS missile launchers.[60][61]
Writer Virginie Nebbia interpreted an image from the episode representing Shinji's hand covered in blood as a reference toJushin Liger.[62] According to Nebbia, a similar image can also be found inOsamu Dezaki's animeDear Brother, from whichEvangelion borrom various techniques and symbols, including trains and electric poles.[63] Moreover, in one of the first scenes, Shinji sees a ghost of Rei Ayanami in a deserted city near Tokyo-3. The Rei visible in the sequence is not the real Rei; the appearance has been connected to the scenario of the filmThe End of Evangelion, released in 1997 as a conclusion to the classic series.[64] During the film, all forms of life come together in one being during the Instrumentality; human beings, shortly before dying, see Rei's ghosts appear, guiding them in the process as "messengers of redemption".[65] According to Oguro, the Rei's ghost Shinji sees on the avenue is "the existence that gazes upon man", and the scene symbolizes that "Shinji is protected by his mother since the beginning of the series".[24][43] Japanese anime magazineNewtype also wrote that the deserted city with Rei "seems to allude to the future interior landscape of Shinji and director [Anno]".[66][67] Virginie Nebbia compared Rei's ghost toArthur C. Clarke's novelChildhood's End; in the novel, the Overlord aliens explain to humans that time is more complex than what human science perceives and that humans actually invented the classical image of Christiandemons, the Overlords themselves, as a future memory from the last years of human race. According to Nebbia, Rei "appeared to Shinji fromThe End of Evangelion before becoming a God".[68] Nebbia also noted how inKihachi Okamoto's movieBlue Christmas (1978), Okamoto uses almost subliminal fast cuts that evoke Rei's ghost appearance.[63]
First episodes can make or break a series. Few anime premieres do a better job of setting up the players and crisis thanEvangelion''s opening episode. ...Evangelion is a rush of drama and excitement right from the start with the end of the world scenario and the "special" child who must save the world, making for an especially lovely touch.
The episode received critical and public acclaim.[70][43] Gainax premiered "Angel Attack", along with the second episode, in a preview at the second Gainax festival on July 22 and 23, 1995, receiving a positive reception.[27] The episode was first broadcast on October 4, 1995, and scored a 6.8% rating of audience share on Japanese television.[71][72] After the series' first run, it ranked seventeenth among the best anime episodes of the moment in anAnimage magazineGrand Prix poll.[73] The scene in which Shinji meets Rei Ayanami for the first time also ranked sixteenth in a survey byTV Asahi about the best anime scenes.[74] At the 2006Tokyo International Anime Fair, anime fans voted the first twoEvangelion episodes as the anime they would most like to see again.[75]
Critics, including animator Yūichirō Oguro writing forNewtype magazine[76][77] andAnime News Network's Nick Creamer,[78] appreciated the episode's direction and editing.[79][80] AcademicSusan J. Napier described the depiction of Shinji's and Misato's "inner world" in "Angel Attack" as an example of the series' unconventionality.[81] Italian writer and critic Andrea Fontana wrote; "From the first episode, every detail [inNeon Genesis Evangelion] overflows with many meanings".[82]Comic Book Resources criticized the depiction of the futuristic scenario, but defended Shinji and his reluctance to face the task of protecting humanity in "Angel Attack" from some criticisms made by animation enthusiasts.[83][84] Kristy Anderson, writing forSupanova Expo website, picked his decision to ride Eva-01 as one of the character's best moments.[85]Film School Rejects' Max Covill similarly placed "Angel Attack" third among the bestNeon Genesis Evangelion episodes, praising it for its visuals and introduction of mysteries of the series;[69] he also lauded one shot of Shinji reading a book with the hand of an Evangelion in the background, listing it among the "perfect shots" of the series.[86]
The Animé Café's Japanese reviewer Akio Nagatomi described the animation as "average" for a TV serial and praised "some interesting creature and mecha design", but also criticized the premise of the story of a young boy who fights alien beings as excessively derivative.[87] The December 1995 issue ofNewtype magazine lauded the series realism and dense amount of information.[88]SyFy Wire's Daniel Dockery described Sachiel's debut as "terrifying", but considered it reminiscent of "a bunch of giant monster tropes".[89]Newtype wrote, "the many elaborate camera angles may tickle fans hearts" and "the unusual titles and the eye-catching screens are also well placed".[90] Multiversity Comics' Matthew Garcia similarly praised the confidence in the film-making and the animation of "Angel Attack" and "The Beast", eulogizing the "assurance and tenacity" of Anno and Gainax.[91]Ex magazine's Charles McCarter lauded the animation as "nice and clean", the soundtrack and the pace of the first two episodes.[92] According to theNewtype's officialEvangelion film books, the scene in which Gendo takes command on the battle against Sachiel also received a positive reception for its "expressiveness", being "considered one of the best-executed of this episode".[93]
Kinoko Nasu, writer ofMahōtsukai no Yoru andFate/stay night, began his career as a writer after seeing "Angel Attack", an episode that according to him "can't have been ignored by neither I nor my contemporaries".[94] Official merchandise based on the installment has been released,[95][96] including lighters,[97] T-shirts[98] and reproductions of the battle against Sachiel.[99][100]
Text was copied/adapted fromEpisode 01 at Evageeks wiki, which is released under aCreative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 (Unported) (CC-BY-SA 3.0) license.We visited Gainax towards the end of January. By then, they were busy refining the first few episodes of the new TV series
Those first two episodes took six months to produce, which is really unusual for a TV anime series
ちょっと異色のサブタイトルやアイキャッチの画面も、ポイント高し。
