some interesting naming conventions in evangelion:
asuka calls rei ‘yuutousei’, not ‘wondergirl’,which can be loosely translated as ‘honor student’
shinji refers to asuka as simply ‘asuka’, but calls rei ‘ayanami’. likewise, rei refers to shinji as ‘ikari-kun’, adding the proper honorific at the end
asuka calls misato ‘misato’ without honorifics. a child referring to an adult without honorifics is considered extremely impolite in japan - for point of comparison, shinji first calls misato ‘katsuragi-san’ and later eases into ‘misato-san’. before you say it’s because she’s german, asuka is steadfast in calling kaji ‘kaji-san’ (she even refers to him as ‘kaji-senpai’ on one occasion)
misato usually calls shinji ‘shinji-kun’, but sometimes she’ll jokingly refer to him as ‘shin-chan’ - a petname typically reserved for toddlers. imagine toji getting called ‘to-chan’ and you’ll get an idea of how cheeky this is on misato’s part
on a similar note, the petnames ritsuko and kaji reserve for each other are especially hilarious. ritsuko refers to kaji as ‘ryo-chan’ and kaji refers to ritsuko as ‘rit-chan’ (consequently, ritsuko is the only character in nge who calls kaji by his first name, which is ryoji). ‘rit-chan’ and ‘ryo-chan’ are weirdly infantilizing/overly-affectionate; they only do this within the earshot of misato with the obvious purpose of annoying the shit out of her
gendo still refers to fuyutsuki as ‘fuyutsuki-sensei’ (’professor fuyutsuki’); everyone else calls him ‘vice commander fuyutsuki’. old habits die hard
misato and kaji refer to each other on an entirely last-name basis; misato calls kaji ‘kaji-kun’ and kaji calls misato ‘katsuragi’
there are many different ways to refer to your father in japanese, but shinji refers to gendo as ‘otousan’. typically, children will use ‘otousan’ when speaking to their father and ‘chi-chi’ when speaking of their father, but shinji makes no such distinction, which says something about the emotional distance there. (interestingly, misato flip-flops between ‘otousan’ and ‘chi-chi’ when speaking of her own father. when does she use otousan? when she’s talking to kaji about her father)
rei never once calls asuka by her name. the name ‘asuka’ never leaves rei’s mouth once. rei refers to asuka as ‘the pilot of unit-02‘ or simply ‘anta’ (‘you’) when speaking directly to her
(Thinking about Evangelion again due to the Lockdownime stream)
I know I probably have a sentimental attachment to the old ADV dub because it’s how I first watched the show (at age 12!), but …
I defy anyone to watch Ritsuko’s dramatic monologue at the end of Episode 23 in the ADV dub, the original Japanese, and the Netflix dub, and not come away thinking the ADV version is clearly the best version of the scene.
- ADV Ritsuko actually sounds like a human being having an emotional breakdown in front of her friends
- Japanese Ritsuko is perhaps plausible as a very reserved person having a similar breakdown, but also really sounds like she’s reading off a script half the time
- Netflix Ritsuko also sounds like she’s reading off a script, but with zero preparation, and a mounting confusion that this isn’t the audition for an instructional audiobook about Windows 7.0 For Business that she thought she’d shown up for
I think the original Japanese is best for getting a feel for the Children’s vocal patterns at baseline and then illustrating exactly how stressed/cracked/psychotic they are in intense moments, but for anything else yeah, I consider the ADV dub the best format.
The jellicle cats are sort of a death cult but more specifically a death cult that believes they are one soul on the same journey as one another, and reincarnation for one is the same as reincarnation for all, because they are all the same cat
oh hey reminder that AT (“Absolute Terror”) fields are themed from the same source as “terror management theory”
reminder that that concept is about the defenses we erect to protect us from awareness of our own inevitable mortality
so the Unit-02/Mass Production Unit fight in End of Evangelion where Asuka goes balls out and channels all her perfectionist neurosis into beating them all before her power supply ends, but then they just rise up again and break through her AT field and impale her mother/avatar/self through the face to be cannibalized
the very moment where their spears, forcing their way through the field, turn into a Lance of Longinus - the very tool by which his inferiors killed God - and she exclaims in astonishment, that second when she realizes that no matter how perfect she is she’ll die anyway
that’s also a metaphor for realizing that no matter how perfect you are you’ll die anyway
