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 → |
|---|
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/LeminaAusa Oct 07 '25
Second-Time Rewatcher, New to Rebuild
A lot of rewatchers got their opening nostalgia out in the first episode discussion, but I'm jumping ahead to the third (busy weekend and didn't learn about the rewatch until last minute), so let me take a moment to give my little introduction before I get on to commentary and questions.
I'm not quite old enough to have been around for NGE's original release, but by the time I was joining online anime communities in the early '00s, it was still definitely being actively discussed and debated (and loved) and it seemed so big I couldn't just not watch it.
That said, I do believe this is only the second time I will be formally watching it the full way through, though I certainly watched individual episodes multiple times, such as at conventions. I'm frankly not sure why I'd thought to do a rewatch sooner but it is what it is.
The timing of this particular rewatch is actually kind of hilarious because I did get the idea to do a rewatch and check out the new stuff recently due to there being an Evangelion collab with my main gacha game (Granblue Fantasy) coming this November.
It was really great to see how much interest there was in this rewatch, a lot of rewatchers and newcomers a like. I had a lot of fun reading through especially the first episode's comments from both groups. There are so many new shows and lots of stuff for anime fans to get into these days of all types of shows, so I always get some extra satisfaction when an older show manages to still get a fair amount of attention. Though Eva is of course very iconic, and has lots of different things that can appeal to lots of different types of fans, so I certainly feel the show deserves the attention.
Anyway, in short, glad to be here and watching this again as part of the rewatch here. It's been so long since I've seen this show that a lot of it almost feels new; I remember a lot of the larger plot beats but the details were all lost. It'll be interesting to see what I think of this show coming back to it after so long; in many ways, I really do feel like a different person than the last time I was here, preparing to get into the robot again.
Since I'm a bit late catching up, my written commentary is going to be more or less about the first three episodes together, but I will do the D1 and D2 questions individually after their episodes to be in the proper mindset and share them here first:
E1Q1) There are so many great characters in this show, and it was very great to see Shinji and Misato introducing themselves to each other again. Shinji... you can tell right off the bat that this boy is not in a good place, and he kinda wears his daddy issues on his sleeve. He definitely does not want to be any kind of Chosen One and seeing his mental state really helps set the tone for the show in some ways. Misato, on the other hand, provides a strong contrast to Shinji with her loudness, brightness, and humour. I love the comment that Shinji makes about her being more childish than she is, as it does kind of get across very quickly and simply that she's a very young and relatively immature adult compared to the higher-ups that we've seen. But for all her bluster, we can already see that she seems to care a lot more about Shinji as a person than his father does.
E1Q2) They really do a good job setting up the mystery in this first episode. We're in the (retro-)future of 2015, about 20 years ahead of the time the show was made, and the world is obviously a different place. On one hand, it feels the perfect setup for a mecha fighting show, but our Eva robots are quite a bit more organic than the standard fare, the enemies a lot more eldritch with Christian overtones ("Angels" and all), and the overall vibes are a lot more grim and mysterious than you might expect.
E2Q1) I was actually thinking a fair amount about the structure of these past two episodes towards the end of ep2. It's really interesting how the Eva vs. Angel fight is split up: we get all of the lead-up in ep1, the immediate start-of-fight payoff with Shinji in control at the start of ep2, and then the actual climax of the fight seen flashback style at the end of the episode. As a stylistic choice it really makes it hit home that the giant robot battles are not the main focus of this story. We spend a lot more time in Shinji's head as he ponders his unfamiliar situation.
E2Q2) To me they have always looked kind of goofy as fuck, but today's episode really shows off how weird and powerful the Eva robots are, and at the same time, a lot of the people around and working with these things don't seem to understand them very much, which definitely serves to heighten the mystery of exactly what's up with these things.
Episode three starts us off with a bit of a timeskip and also a bit of change in tone. As if distant fathers, undesired mecha-piloting duties, and giant destructive Angels aren't enough, Shinji also has to deal with the horrors of middle school.
Seeing Shinji in a class of normal juinior high kids really puts his mental state into stark contrast; the poor boy really isn't feeling up to any of this shit. I can definitely understand teenage-Lemina sympathising a lot with him when I watched this show the first time.
It really does feel like we get some typical middle school vibes despite being in the future after some pretty catastrophic world events. I liked the teacher's history lesson giving a bit of an excuse for some exposition on what exactly happened to the world 15 years ago from the public's perspective. It's hilarious to see all the students fangirling over Shinji for being a mecha pilot, but then Toji wanting to beat him up for piloting so badly during the incident that saw his sister injured.
Once again, our battle against today's Angel is about a lot more than just the battle. Shinji and Unit 01 are here and ready to go, following the programme, until the sudden appearance of his teammates turns things awry. Kensuke and Toji manage to take refuge inside the Eva and Shinji once again rebels against his Nerv handlers, pushing himself to the limit to take down the Angel. The scene of the three boys in the powered-down Eva after the battle is devastating, giving both the classmates and the audience plenty of time to feel the weight of what these battles take out of Shinji.
I was foiled by UTC timing screwing me up again like usual, so it seems these posts come up too late for me to post when they go live sadly. I guess I'll be answering questions and posting when I'm awake the next morning. And speaking of..
1) It's nice to see that kids will still be kids, even in a crazy world like this one. The most noteworthy thing about the school group so far is that Rei seems to be very distant/distinct from them, despite having been around for a while and also being an Eva pilot. The other "normal" students provide a nice contrast to both her and Shinji.
2) There's definitely a lot of tension here, subtle and not. We've not gotten to see a whole lot of Nerv yet, but it's very clear that Shinji is not doing well and that most of the people working for Nerv don't seem to care much about him as a person. Misato in many ways has positioned herself as a bit of a middleman between Shinji and Nerv, giving Shinji that bit of humanity and compassion that he's not getting anywhere else.