Neon Genesis Evangelion Episode 5 Reaction

Esta serie es cruda y dura de verla. Shinji expresa claros signos de depresión y Rei de dependencia emocional, dos males que duelen ver en pantalla cuando uno mismo como espectador los ha vivido. Definitivamente esta serie no es para adolescentes, por eso es que en los géneros demográficos se le considera como "seinen" o dirigido para adultos de, digamos, 20 años en adelante.

This is definitely not made for kids but in the 90s people had this mindset of animated = for kids so it aired on cartoon channels. I remember watching this as a kid and I couldn't understand anything which kinda gave me a certain fascination for this bizarre and confusing universe that I wasn't equipped to understand. I had to rewatch it as an adult to really understand that it was even more messed up than I thought.

There's actually so many people who blame Shinji for running away and not being a man, but that is exactly the opposite of what the show is trying to portray

Need a picture of the chili art for dopamine purposes

Yep, not for kids, I tried to watch this when I was 17 and found it extremely boring, I got almost to the end trying to see why people praised it so much but just couldn't finish it, I remember almost nothing from the show, and don't remember where I stopped. Now I'm 30 years and decided to give it a try since you are watching it and I can't believe how much I'm enjoying it, it's funny to think that at some point in my life I could find any of this boring.

Lola: "Kids shouldn't watch this" Meanwhile, my disassociated 14 year old self watching this on VHS: "wait, other people feel this way???" 😂

You know who really loves anime? Carol Sturka.

“Kids shoudn’t watch this” haha I wholeheartedly agree with that. NGE was one of the first shows that made me realize that anime is just a medium and not a genre, which the western tends to get confused with. NGE really pushes the boundaries of what “anime” is imo.

What stands out most about Rei is how much she is defined by absence. She barely speaks, has no visible friends, and her school life barely exists as a social identity. Her room does not feel like a teenager’s bedroom, but like a place where someone has simply been placed. Cold, medical, empty, and almost without self-expression. It is not just a messy room. It is a character statement. But Rei is not simply emotionless. Her inner world shows through the “mental instability” suggested during the Eva-00 test, through the importance she gives to Gendo’s broken glasses, and through the slap she gives Shinji when he speaks bad against his father. Viewers often try to read Rei through autism, but I think episode 5 points more strongly toward schizoid traits (ScPD), even if she is written as a symbolic figure rather than a literal clinical diagnosis and even if we still dont know enough about her. Rei’s presentation here is about emotional restriction, social detachment, isolation, and a selfhood that feels almost erased from ordinary life. This also lines up with Anno’s comments in an interview, where he describes Rei as probably the character closest to his deep psyche while also saying he does not really understand her. This episode also reveals that Gendo is capable of tenderness. He can act urgently, protect someone, and even smile. But Shinji sees that warmth directed toward Rei, not toward him. So Rei becomes more than a mystery. She becomes living evidence that Gendo’s coldness is selective, and that he is not unable to care for people. That is what makes it so painful and conflicted for Shinji. This was also one of the first mentions of the Magi System, NERV’s trio of supercomputers named Melchior, Balthasar, and Casper after the Biblical Magi. I would not go too deep into it yet, since its deeper symbolism will be revealed later. While examining Shamshel’s remains (the previous angel remains), Ritsuko describes angels as having both particle and wave properties, like light, although this is sci-fi language rather than strict physics. In real quantum mechanics, wave-particle duality applies not only to photons but also to matter. In other words, ordinary matter around us can display wave-like behavior, but for macroscopic objects the wavelength is usually so tiny that the effect is practically negligible. Interestingly, the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics was related to this boundary between microscopic and macroscopic quantum behavior, showing that quantum effects can appear at larger scales under very specific conditions. Ritsuko also says the Angel’s signal pattern is 99.89% similar to human DNA, making it even closer to humans than Neanderthals, at about 99.7%, and chimpanzees, at about 98.8%. Also in this episode, the Fifth Angel, Ramiel, arrives. It's shaped like a gigantic, floating octahedron. Like the previous angel Shamshel, his name also appears in the Book of Enoch as "Rameel", where he is listed among the leaders of the Watchers, the group of fallen angels who descended to Earth and revealed forbidden knowledge to humanity. The name is usually interpreted as "Thunder of God" or "God has thundered", but this etymology does not really have direct relevance to the show.

yeah this is defiantly not a kids show despite being appealing for a young audience. I mean i think young people can learn from it I watched as a child and defiantly took stuff from it but there was just no way to truly grasp these characters at the age i was. 11. re watching even a little bit older and then again as a adult has given me much more insights i could not see

Hideaki Anno (the director) did a great job turning the pervy scene trope in comedy anime, where the main character unintentionally sees one of the female characters naked (usually complemented by a slap to him for being a "pervert"), into an extremely awkward scene to show Rei's lack of "life"; instead, the slap happens when Shinji criticizes his father in front of her.

I know there’s a lot of competition but I really think this may be the worst father we’ve ever seen in anime (other than Shou Tucker from FMAB)

What you mentioned about some people potentially thinking Shinji is a "whimp" because he doesn't want to pilot the Eva, it was definitely a thing teenagers used to say back in the day. There's a reason the phrase "Shinji, get in the robot" got passed down online as a joke within the anime and Eva communities. This show is most definitely not for kids, yet some of us found it as teenagers, and at least for me, it came at the right time in my life. I'll probably talk about it once you're done with the show. Meanwhile, I'm so glad people like you are discovering Evangelion. Found your Andor reactions and I loved them. You show a lot of empathy towards these characters, these kids, and they have issues actual kids in many parts of the world back in the 90s would have never gotten help with. Makes me happy to know the world has indeed moved forward in the last 30 years, even if just a bit.

Ohh so you girls are already debating some details about the story.. some of your ideas are interesting :)) ahh Rei.. you guys were asking for it at the start lol but even then you guys didn’t learn much about her but the small scramble of details you get will definitely get your brain going. Also yes, watching this when I was 14 maybe wasn’t a good idea but I blame my parents for letting me watch adult swim back then lol

As a reminder, the angel we saw in episode 1 was classified as ‘The Third Angel’. The Fourth Angel was the one Shinji stabbed in the core whilst protected the two classmates, and its corpse was left intact, giving them the sample in this episode. The Fifth Angel is the one from the end of this episode, the floating blue octahedron. The Third Angel was the first Angel in 15 years. We know that this show takes places in 2015, 15 years after a cataclysmic event known as the ‘Second Impact’, which melted the ice caps and half of humanity perished in the fallout. The variety in Angel design is worth noting. The Third was a humanoid design and body type, and the Fourth was more aquatic in look, and also somewhat phallic. Then the Fifth shows up and it’s literally a big geometric shape with no discernable features, and emitting a constant choir-like noise. They have all been completely different in look and style despite being classified under the same terminology. They also appear without warning, and have all been apparently making a beeline for Tokyo-3 and attacking NERV HQ specifically.

From the thumbnail I bet they think this episode was wholesome :)))

This show is definitely better on a re-watch. A lot of things you clue into faster!

late night uploads, i guess sleep is for the wicked