is the first episode of the

anime is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...

series ''

Neon Genesis Evangelion , also known as ''Evangelion'' or ''Eva'', is a Japanese mecha anime television series produced by Gainax and Tatsunoko Production, and directed by Hideaki Anno. It was broadcast on TV Tokyo and its affiliates from October 1995 to March 1 ...

'', created by

Gainax Gainax Co., Ltd. (stylized as GAINAX; , Hepburn: ) was a Japanese anime studio famous for original productions such as '' Neon Genesis Evangelion'', '' Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise'', '' Gunbuster'', '' Nadia: The Secret of Blue ...

. The episode was written by the series director

Hideaki Anno is a Anime, Japanese animator, filmmaker, Film producer, producer, and voice actor. His most celebrated creation, the Neon Genesis Evangelion (franchise), ''Evangelion'' franchise, has had a significant influence on the anime television industr ...

and directed by Kazuya Tsurumaki. It was originally aired on

TV Tokyo JOTX-DTV (channel 7), branded as is a Japanese television station that serves as the flagship of the TX Network.Shinji Ikari, a teenage boy whose father Gendo has recruited him to the organization Nerv to pilot a giant bio-machine

mecha In science fiction, or mechs are giant robots or machines, typically depicted as piloted, humanoid walking vehicles. The term was first used in Japanese (language), Japanese after shortening the English loanword or , but the meaning in Japan ...

named Evangelion to combat beings called

Angels An angel is a spiritual (without a physical body), heavenly, or supernatural being, usually humanoid with bird-like wings, often depicted as a messenger or intermediary between God (the transcendent) and humanity (the profane) in variou ...

. In the episode, Tokyo-3 is attacked by the Angel Sachiel, who fights the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

Army and the JSSDF. 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 Japanese ''

tokusatsu is a Japanese term for live-action films or television programs that make heavy use of practical special effects. Credited to special effects director Eiji Tsuburaya, ''tokusatsu'' mainly refers to science fiction film, science fiction, War fi ...

'', 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.

Plot

Gendo Ikari, commander of a special agency named Nerv, summons his son Shinji to the city of Tokyo-3. Sachiel, the third of a series of mysterious enemies known as

, approaches a Japanese city underwater as a Japan Strategic Self-Defense Forces tank battalion awaits it on the shoreline. Shinji, who recently arrived in a nearby town, has remained above ground waiting for

Misato Katsuragi is a fictional character from the Gainax-created media franchise ''Neon Genesis Evangelion''. In the eponymous anime television series, Misato is head of the operations department of the special agency Nerv, and is in charge of directing an ...

, 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 a car train descend deep underground into a Geofront. Shinji is taken to the hangar of a giant mecha named Evangelion, where he is shown Unit 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 pilot Rei 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.

Production

began planning the production of ''Neon Genesis Evangelion'' in July 1993. On September 20, the first internal meeting about the new project was held at the studio, but production for the first two episodes began in September 1994, a year later the first meeting, and lasted for months. The production was slow, and, according to ''Evangelion'' director

, it took six months to complete the script for the first episode. Kazuya Tsurumaki, assistant director of ''Neon Genesis Evangelion'', served as director of "Angel Attack"; Anno and Masayuki, who drew storyboards for the episode, assisted him, while Shunji Suzuki worked as chief animator. Yoshitoh Asari, Seiji Kio and Yuh Imakake worked as assistant character designers. Production also involved animator

Mitsuo Iso is a Japanese animator and director. He worked as a freelance artist through Neomedia, Studio Zaendo, and Studio Ghibli. When he participates in anime works as an animator, he sometimes uses aliases such as Mikio Odagawa and Hideo Tateda, or do ...

, who animated the battle between Sachiel and the United Nation aircraft. Gainax decided the basic plot for "Angel Attack" in 1993, when it wrote a presentation document of ''Neon Genesis Evangelion'' titled . In the first draft, "Angel Attack" had been named . The ''Proposal'' document contained a detailed description of the first episode, which was conceived as a diptych with the second one. 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. The beginning of a battle between Raziel and a berserk Unit 01 was also planned, but it was moved to the second episode. Production of "Angel Attack" officially ended in April 1995; one month later, the second episode was also completed. The dubbing sessions began on March 27, about six months before the series debut. The episodes were later screened in front of two-hundred people at the second Gainax festival on 22 and 23 July 1995 in

Itako, Ibaraki is a Cities of Japan, city located in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 26,063 in 10,849 households and a population density of 365 persons per km². The percentage of the population aged over 65 was 32.9%. The ...

, a few months before their official broadcast. According to Gainax co-founder Yasuhiro Takeda, the work was still at an early stage, since "the

opening sequence A title screen (also called an opening screen or intro) is the method by which films or television programmes present their title and key production and cast members, utilizing conceptual visuals and sound (often an opening theme song with visua ...

as well as other elements weren't quite ready yet, so the screening showed only the raw episodes". Miki Nagasawa, Megumi Hayashibara, Akiko Hiramatsu,

Takehito Koyasu is a Japanese voice actor from Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan.Doi, Hitoshi"Koyasu Takehito" ''Seiyuu Database''. January 3, 2011. Retrieved January 10, 2011. He is affiliated with and representative of T's Factory, a voice acting agency he founded ...

, and

Takashi Nagasako is a Japanese voice actor who is currently affiliated with Arts Vision. He has voiced in a number of video games with roles such as Ganondorf in ''The Legend of Zelda'', Big the Cat in the ''Sonic the Hedgehog'' series, Cervantes de Leon and ...

played several announcements and unnamed characters in "Angel Attack", while Tomomichi Nishimura, Hidenari Ugaki and Hiroshi Naka voiced the three soldiers who speaks with Gendo in the first scenes. British singer Claire Littley also sang a cover of "

Fly Me to the Moon "Fly Me to the Moon", originally titled "In Other Words", is a song written in 1954 by Bart Howard. The first recording of the song was made in 1954 by Kaye Ballard. Frank Sinatra, Frank Sinatra's 1964 version was closely associated with the Apo ...

" which was later used as the episode's closing theme song.

Cultural references and themes

Gualtiero Cannarsi, who curated the first Italian adaptation of the series, noted that "Angel Attack" story starts ''

in medias res A narrative work beginning ''in medias res'' (, "into the middle of things") opens in the chronological middle of the plot, rather than at the beginning (cf. '' ab ovo'', '' ab initio''). Often, exposition is initially bypassed, instead filled i ...

'', 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. 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.

Hiroki Azuma (born May 9, 1971) is a Japanese cultural critic, novelist, and philosopher. He is the co-founder and former director of Genron, an independent institute in Tokyo, Japan. Biography Azuma was born in Mitaka, Tokyo. Azuma received his PhD in ...

, a Japanese philosopher and cultural critic, speaking of his motto "I mustn't run away", described ''Evangelion'' as a story that depicts "anxiety without a cause", linking this feeling to the social repercussions in Japan after the Aum Shinrikyō

Tokyo subway sarin attack The was a Chemical terrorism, chemical domestic terrorism, domestic terrorist attack perpetrated on 20 March 1995, in Tokyo, Japan, by members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult. In five coordinated attacks, the perpetrators released sarin on three line ...

. 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. For Yasuhiro Takeda, a member of the Gainax studio, "what we saw in ''Evangelion'' was maybe just a reflection of those feelings". For the phrase "I mustn't run away", according to Takeda, the director took inspiration from an old failed Gainax project, '' Blue Uru''. "Angel Attack" also presents the themes of father-son relationships and interpersonal communication.

Yūichirō Oguro is a Japanese writer. He co-created the 1997 television anime series ''Revolutionary Girl Utena is a Japanese anime television series created by Be-Papas, a production group formed by director Kunihiko Ikuhara and composed of himself, ...

, 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. According to an official booklet on the anime, it is unclear if the series supports the

patriarchal Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of authority are primarily held by men. The term ''patriarchy'' is used both in anthropology to describe a family or clan controlled by the father or eldest male or group of males, and in fem ...

model or discusses its value instead. The episode also presents references to earlier anime works, including ''

Lupin III , also written as ''Lupin the Third'', ''Lupin the 3rd'', or ''Lupin the IIIrd'', is a Japanese media franchise created by Monkey Punch. The series follows the endeavors of master thief Lupin III (character), Lupin III, grandson of gentleman t ...

'', '' Combattler V'' and ''

GunBuster ''Gunbuster'', known in Japan as , is a Japanese original video animation (OVA) series produced by Bandai Visual, Victor Entertainment, and Gainax and released from October 1988 to July 1989. It was the directorial debut of Hideaki Anno, b ...

''. Akio Jissoji's directorial style particularly informed the installment, along with shots influenced by the ''

'' genre. Furthermore, staff used humorous graphic symbols that are typical of '' shojo'' anime, drawing inspiration from the works of Kunihiko Ikuhara. "Angel Attack" also depicts existing military vehicles, including Japanese Type 74 tanks, Yak-38-inspired

VTOL A vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft is one that can takeoff and landing, take off and land vertically without relying on a runway. This classification can include a variety of types of aircraft including helicopters as well as thrust- ...

s, nacelle-less

gyroplane An autogyro (from Greek and , "self-turning"), gyroscope, gyrocopter or gyroplane, is a class of rotorcraft that uses an unpowered rotor in free autorotation to develop lift. A gyroplane "means a rotorcraft whose rotors are not engine-dr ...

s and M270 MLRS missile launchers. Writer Virginie Nebbia interpreted an image from the episode representing Shinji's hand covered in blood as a reference to ''Jushin Liger''. According to Nebbia, a similar image can also be found in Osamu Dezaki's anime '' Dear Brother'', from which ''Evangelion'' borrom various techniques and symbols, including trains and electric poles. 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 film ''

The End of Evangelion is a 1997 Japanese anime Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, apocalyptic science fiction film written by Hideaki Anno, directed by Anno and Kazuya Tsurumaki, and animated by Gainax and Production I.G. It serves as an alternate ending to ...

'', released in 1997 as a conclusion to the classic series. 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". 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". Japanese anime magazine ''

Newtype is a monthly magazine originating from Japan covering anime and, to a lesser extent, manga, voice actors, science fiction, , and video games. It was launched by publishing company Kadokawa Shoten on March 8, 1985, and has since been released in ...

'' also wrote that the deserted city with Rei "seems to allude to the future interior landscape of Shinji and director nno. Virginie Nebbia compared Rei's ghost to Arthur C. Clarke's novel '' Childhood'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 Christian

demon A demon is a malevolent supernatural entity. Historically, belief in demons, or stories about demons, occurs in folklore, mythology, religion, occultism, and literature; these beliefs are reflected in Media (communication), media including f ...

s, the Overlords themselves, as a future memory from the last years of human race. According to Nebbia, Rei "appeared to Shinji from ''The End of Evangelion'' before becoming a God". Nebbia also noted how in

Kihachi Okamoto was a Cinema of Japan, Japanese film director who worked in several different film genre, genres. Career Born in Yonago, Tottori, Yonago, Okamoto attended Meiji University, but was drafted into the Air Force 1943 and entered World War II, an exp ...

's movie '' Blue Christmas'' (1978), Okamoto uses almost subliminal fast cuts that evoke Rei's ghost appearance.

Reception

The episode received critical and public acclaim. 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. The episode was first broadcast on October 4, 1995, and scored a 6.8% rating of audience share on Japanese television. After the series' first run, it ranked seventeenth among the best anime episodes of the moment in an ''

Animage is a Japanese anime and entertainment magazine published by Tokuma Shoten since July 1978. Notable works serialized in the magazine include Hayao Miyazaki is a Japanese animator, filmmaker, and manga artist. He co-founded Studio Ghibli a ...

'' magazine Grand Prix poll. The scene in which Shinji meets Rei Ayanami for the first time also ranked sixteenth in a survey by

TV Asahi JOEX-DTV (channel 5), branded as , and better known as , is a Japanese television station serving the Kanto region as the flagship station of the All-Nippon News Network. It is owned-and-operated by the a subsidiary of , itself controlled by ...

about the best anime scenes. At the 2006

Tokyo International Anime Fair The Tokyo International Anime Fair also known as was one of the largest anime trade fairs in the world, held annually in Tokyo, Japan. The first event was held in 2002 as "Tokyo International Anime Fair 21". The event was held at Tokyo Big Sigh ...

, anime fans voted the first two ''Evangelion'' episodes as the anime they would most like to see again. Critics, including animator Yūichirō Oguro writing for ''Newtype'' magazine and

Anime News Network Anime News Network (ANN) is a news website that reports on the status of anime, manga, video games, Japanese popular music and other related cultures within North America, Australia, Southeast Asia and Japan. The website offers reviews and ot ...

's Nick Creamer, appreciated the episode's direction and editing. Academic Susan J. Napier described the depiction of Shinji's and Misato's "inner world" in "Angel Attack" as an example of the series' unconventionality. Italian writer and critic Andrea Fontana wrote; "From the first episode, every detail n ''Neon Genesis Evangelion''overflows with many meanings".

Comic Book Resources ''CBR'', formerly ''Comic Book Resources'', is a news website primarily covering comic book news, comic book reviews, and comic book–related topics involving movies, television, anime, and video games. It is owned by Valnet, parent of publicat ...

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. Kristy Anderson, writing for Supanova Expo website, picked his decision to ride Eva-01 as one of the character's best moments.

Film School Rejects Film School Rejects is an American blog devoted to movie reviews, interviews, film industry The film industry or motion picture industry comprises the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking, i.e., film production company, prod ...

' Max Covill similarly placed "Angel Attack" third among the best ''Neon Genesis Evangelion'' episodes, praising it for its visuals and introduction of mysteries of the series; 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. 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. The December 1995 issue of ''Newtype'' magazine lauded the series realism and dense amount of information. SyFy Wire's Daniel Dockery described Sachiel's debut as "terrifying", but considered it reminiscent of "a bunch of giant monster tropes". ''Newtype'' wrote, "the many elaborate camera angles may tickle fans hearts" and "the unusual titles and the eye-catching screens are also well placed". 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. ''Ex'' magazine's Charles McCarter lauded the animation as "nice and clean", the soundtrack and the pace of the first two episodes. According to the ''Newtype'''s official ''Evangelion'' 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".

Kinoko Nasu , known better as , is a Japanese author, best known for writing the light novel ''The Garden of Sinners'' and visual novels '' Tsukihime'' and ''Fate/stay night'', and a co-founder of Type-Moon. Nasu graduated from Hosei University with a majo ...

, writer of '' Mahōtsukai no Yoru'' and ''

Fate/stay night ''Fate/stay night'' is a Japanese visual novel game developed by Type-Moon. It was first released for Microsoft Windows, Windows on January 30, 2004. The story takes place over three distinct routes: ''Fate'', ''Unlimited Blade Works'' ...

'', 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". Official merchandise based on the installment has been released, including lighters, T-shirts and reproductions of the battle against Sachiel.

References

* Text was copied/adapted fro
Episode 01
at Evageeks wiki, which is released under
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 (Unported) (CC-BY-SA 3.0) license

Bibliography

* * *

External links

* {{Neon Genesis Evangelion 1995 Japanese television episodes Neon Genesis Evangelion episodes Science fiction television episodes Japanese television series premieres