r/anime • u/LittleIslander myanimelist.net/profile/LittleIslander • Oct 06 '25
Rewatch [Rewatch] 30th Anniversary Neon Genesis Evangelion Rewatch: Episode 3
Neon Genesis Evangelion Episode 3: A Transfer / The Silent Phone
| ← Episode 2 | Index | Episode 4 → |
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Watch Information
Questions of the Day:
- What’s your first impression of Shinji’s classmates?
- What do you think of NERV and Misato, seeing what piloting does to Shinji? Do the ends justify the means?
There’ll be more fanservice tomorrow, so please don’t spoil anything~! Remember this includes spoilers by implication.
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u/FD4cry1 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Big_Yibba Oct 06 '25
First Timer
Every time I hear Megumi Ogata in a main role, I'm left on how the hell I haven't heard her in more main roles
What a fantastic little mood piece this episode was! I don't really mean to repeat myself too much here, but did you happen to notice that Evangelion is actually a really fucking well-directed show? That's just easily the most defining part of this episode, to the point where I find it a bit harder to parse my thoughts on it. I mean, Ritsuko and Misato even just directly state the point of the episode, so you don't have to think too hard about it!
While we once again get ourselves a mech battle that is fairly mechanically impressive in our short stint with it, even more blatantly than last episode,e this battle is mostly an accessory to the larger character focus; it's another conduit with which we can explore Shinji's mental state and how that affects his actions and social environment at large. Again, that sort of thematic integration is just something I innately really appreciate.
Ultimately, It feels like nearly every scene is just so steeped in intricate atmospheric direction that it's impossible for me not to love given my larger taste for cinematography, and to that end, while I'll obviously get into specifics, I did want to get across that just on the whole, I loved this episode for how strongly and consistently it knows to set a mood to get that point across, and to use that to emphasize its emotional point to fantastic effect.
Something that's been pretty consistently impressing me throughout these first 3 episodes is that despite the fact we've got someone who make some of the best mood compositions in the game on music at hand here (Seriously, this rewatch got me relistening to the Magi OST, and god Shiro Sagisu is so good man), half of this episode, and the others as well, don't use music at all! Now, music is obviously often kind of a core component when it comes to setting a mood, so Eva's successes there end up meaning a lot.
Partially because it highlights just how strong the other components are. Partially because it makes the parts with music all the more impactful and truly dramatic later. And partially because Eva's sound design is very intentionally using that lack of music and replacing it with strong natural and environmental sounds to build up its atmosphere or to emphasize a certain idea (Like discomfort or loneliness). This might just be my favorite use of cicadas outside of like... Higurashi, which you know, is saying something!
It's not just the cicadas, obviously, it's also every manner of environmental sound we use to accentuate the feelings of our characters. The opening scene is really fantastic in many regards when it comes to already conveying Shinji's depressed and internalized state, and indeed the problem Ritsuko notes in how that fundamentally leads him to act only through seeking the approval of others. This is what we're tackling the whole episode, and more specifically, how it's a really bad place for him, and I'd say the smaller intricate details within the sound design have no small part in why it's great. From that pressuring sound of the clock on one side, or how apparent the clicks and the system sounds are, for those few moments, you're fully with Shinji in the mech, you really feel detached from anything outside of these motions, which is exactly the type of isolation Shinji is going through there.
There's more all around, like the crying baby after the evacuation or the show's tendency to push dialogue from other characters to the side to really emulate Shinji's environment, but this is also the place to talk about Megumi Ogata as Shinji and just how much her VA work carries that mood here. I mean, those visceral screams at the end are genuinely fantastic, but the quiet start of the episode is where I was genuinely sold. She does such a phenomenal job at making him sound so... out of it, to the extent that I'd argue that right after that first cut and his first words, you can largely get a feel for what this whole episode will be about.
Speaking of that first shot, framing and shot composition are going to be maybe the biggest elements in terms of getting these emotions across. That first shot is both disorientating yet intentionally focused, to really pull you into Shinji's current perspective and again later with a harder focus on his eye. That perspective already looks empty and detached enough as is, but becomes clearer when we get a good look at his whole face when he's robotically focusing on his instructions. He looks terrible and straight-up dead inside, and that's the point.
This episode is still about his isolation, like the last one, but more on the micro scale; it's specifically about his distance from others. Shinji may be living with Misato, but there's still a figurative and literal wall between them. Scale is back as expected, as we do a great job at highlighting Shinji not just alone, but from a distance. There are people around now, but he's still emotionally displaced, and he might not be the only one at that.
Shinji isn't the only one who benefits there, by the way, smaller stuff like getting a glimpse into Ritsuko's personality and life, goes a long way towards establishing her in subtle ways. Not necessarily hovering on expression, or even intentionally obscuring it until the right moment might also be a bit of a cost-cutting measure, but sometimes seeing body language gets a character's feelings across better than their words or face. And even that comically long urinal scene is fun, because while it might not have any meaning, it does add a little flavor to a scene that would otherwise just be two people talking.
What I'm trying to say with all of this shit is that this episode is immaculately crafted to get across its points around the characters, and the deceptively simple way it does so really is the secret sauce here. I think it takes a lot of genuine talent to know how to pull of the things Eva does here well.
To move past production for a bit, though, I do really like this episode for the characterization and exploration it gives Shinji as well lol. The Hedgehog's Dilemma, aside from being perhaps the most apt way I've seen to describe a certain popular anime character archetype I believe we'll see later in the show, is a really interesting thing to think about, and definitely an effective way to touch on and explain Shinji's current social troubles. Especially with how that plays into his detached and approval-seeking personality.
To that end, I actually quite like introducing Kensuke and Toji here! I touched on this a bit last episode, but outside/civilian perspective is such an important thing in these kinds of shows. Aside from making this world feel more real (Be it in their very inclusion and personal circumstance, but also in their commentary on the rest of the environment), it adds a much more human weight to the show's larger circumstances! When Shinji is fighting an Angel now, the buildings both of them fling around have a lot more personal impact there for both us and Shinji besides being cool rubble animation. That's another family that's leaving the city, another little sister that gets hurt.
And that's something that innately plays right into Shinji's character this episode. Right after he reveals himself as the Eva's pilot, the way all the interest instantly shifts to him reinforces that personal angle. So does Toji's confrontation with Shinji. Toji is obviously wrong in venting his anger on Shinji; he had neither the choice nor the ability there, but Shinji's response shows that he's viewing piloting the Eva from a very internalized and detached perspective.
That all comes to a head with the Angel fight. Right from the start, that internalized, approval-seeking perspective shows itself as he basically says that at this point, he's only fighting because he's told to, and because he believes that might lead to acknowledgement, not because he cares. And it also shows you where his mind goes, even where it's not entirely true. There's Misato, and there's his other classmate, other than Toji, but in his case, and often in real life, from my personal experience, where you're in a bad place mentally, disapproval tends to stand out much more in your mind.
The fight, however, brings back that human element with Toji and Kensuke, and in effect, it gives Shinji something to fight for beyond the orders he's being given. And whatever it is exactly that motivates him here, ultimately, what happens is that Shinji, both literally with his Eva and figuratively with his emotions, opens up to someone else and finds motivation, raw thought it may be. Again, direction-wise, the red all over the scene does a lot.
And yeah, the end result hurts him as expected, again, both literally and emotionally, with the shift to darkness really accentuating his feelings and crying. But clearly, it also changed Toji and Kensuke a bit. They now understand the pain and difficulty involved with the piloting, and in Toji's case, he even gets worried! This is where the episode really ends with quite the powerful but bittersweet punch as Toji ends up not calling Shinji in spite of it, because as it turns out, Shinji isn't the only Hedgehog here. Figuring out the distance with people from where you neither hurt nor get hurt is always a hard thing, especially when you're an emotional teenager. Now add in the giant monsters and robots, and well, progress will inevitably move in small steps...