| Series: | Neon Genesis Evangelion |
| Episode: | 19 |
| Director: | Masayuki |
| Length: | 22 minutes |
| Prev: | Ambivalence |
| Episode List: | List of Neon Genesis Evangelion episodes |
is the nineteenth episode of the Japanese anime television series Neon Genesis Evangelion, which was created by Gainax. Hideaki Anno and Akio Satsukawa wrote the episode, which animator Masayuki directed. The series' protagonist is Shinji Ikari, a teenage boy whose father Gendo recruited him to the special military organization Nerv to pilot a gigantic, bio-mechanical mecha named Evangelion into combat with beings called Angels. In the course of the episode, Shinji comes into conflict with his father and leaves Nerv. As he is about to leave Tokyo 3, however, the Angel Zeruel attacks the city, defeating Asuka Langley Soryu's Eva-02 and Rei Ayanami's Eva-00. Shinji again boards Eva-01, which goes berserk and devours Zeruel.
During the production of "Introjection", animator Takeshi Honda gave the female characters a youthful touch. The episode also reprises several situations and frames presented in the first episodes of the series, so as to show Shinji's path of growth and maturation. The installment features cultural references to Ultraman, Buddhism, Christianity, and Daijiro Morohoshi. The title itself refers to the psychoanalytic concept of the same name.
"Introjection" was first broadcast on TV Tokyo on February 7, 1996, and drew a 8% audience share on Japanese television. Critics praised the episode for its direction and action sequences, considering one of the best episodes of the series. Merchandise based on it has also been released.
Shinji Ikari, pilot of the mecha Eva-01, protests against his father Gendo, commander of the special agency Nerv, who used his Eva-01 to destroy the thirteen of a series of mankind's enemies named Angels, Bardiel, and Eva-03 with it, despite the fact that it had pilot Toji Suzuhara, Shinji's friend, still on board. Shinji is stopped, and decides to leave Nerv. Meanwhile, Toji awakens after the battle against Bardiel, with his left leg amputated, and Misato greets Shinji, telling him that she has placed all her hope in him. As Shinji stands on the station platform about to leave Tokyo-3, the Angel Zeruel attacks the city. Pilot Asuka Soryu Langley aboard Eva-02 attempts to stop him, but is easily defeated by the enemy. Her fellow pilot Rei Ayanami aboard Eva-00 takes an explosive device and launches a surprise kamikaze attack attempted to hit Zeruel's core, but she is also defeated. Shinji witnesses the battle and meets Ryoji Kaji, Asuka's guardian; he explains to him that if an Angel were to make contact with an entity called Adam, kept in Nerv headquarters, all of humanity would be wiped out. Shinji therefore confronts his father, re-boarding Eva-01 and fighting Zeruel. During the battle, Eva-01 runs out of power, and Zeruel launches an attack on Eva-01's core. Shinji cries out in despair, and Eva-01 reactivates, defeating and devouring Zeruel.
In 1993, Gainax wrote a presentation document for Neon Genesis Evangelion entitled .[1] In the Proposal scenario, Gainax included a description of the fifteenth episode, in which Unit 01 was to be heavily damaged, then remodeled and upgraded. Elements of the episode later flowed into "Introjection", in which Eva-01 is damaged by Zeruel and absorbs the Angels' S2 engine.[2] In the Proposal nineteenth episode, Asuka was supposed to injure herself in an attempt to protect Shinji, Shinji was supposed to try to prove himself, and there was supposed to be the first air battle of the series;[3] in the final version, Eva-02 is mutilated by Zeruel and Asuka suffers a heavy defeat, but not for Shinji. The plan also included a change in the relationship between Shinji and Asuka, a scenario later presented in the movie The End of Evangelion (1997),[4] and an origami Angel, a cube that would change shape similar to a Möbius strip; however, the production of a television series at the time did not allow Anno to exploit the idea, but he did manage to use paper-like arm elements for Zeruel, and then for Armisael in "Rei III".
The series staff envisioned in the original plan an ending in which twelve final enemies called Apostolos, the most powerful ever seen, would appear from the Moon, like the Twelve Apostles of the New Testament. Evangelion Chronicle, an official encyclopedia about the series, linked the initial scenario to Zeruel, the most powerful Angel ever to appear in all of Neon Genesis Evangelion, being the twelfth enemy to appear starting with the third Angel, Sachiel, the first to attack Tokyo-3.[5] The scenario also included an enhancement to Evangelion units in the second half of the series; Eva-01 was to be strengthened using the power of the Apostolos, an enhancement related to the mysteries of the whole story.[6] The Proposal document also mentions a "positron engine" that was to equip Evangelion units, later to become the S2 engine in the final version of the anime.[7] The staff specifically included a description of Ryoji Kaji in the document, thought of as a positive influence on Shinji's path, who spurs him on with words that help him grow. This element is later found in the scene where Kaji spurs Shinji on in "Introjection".[8] Staff also originally wanted him to die in the nineteenth episode.[9]
Hideaki Anno, Neon Genesis Evangelion's main director,[10] and Akio Satsukawa wrote "Introjection".[11] Masayuki, assistant director of the series, assisted them by working on storyboards and direction, joined by assistant directors Ken Ando and Masahiko Otsuka. Takeshi Honda served as chief animator, while Yoshito Asari and Masayuki himself worked as assistant character designers.[12] [13] The staff also included animators Yasushi Muraki, Hiroaki Aida, Shoici Masuo, Mitsuo Iso, experts in action mecha anime,[14] [15] and Takashi Hashimoto.[16] Production also involved other studios beside Gainax, including Studio Cockpit, FAI International, Studio Tarji, and Tatsunoko Color Center.[17] [18]
In the previous episode, "Ambivalence", Toji Suzuhara's character is injured in the clash against Bardiel, and is later depicted in a hospital room with an amputated left leg in "Introjection".[19] [20] The indication was not in the storyboard, but was given only at the animation stage. Anno originally wanted to kill Toji; however, during the production of the series he had promised Toshimichi Ōtsuki, a representative of King Records and his friend, not to kill minor characters in the process. The second half of the series also suffered from a tight schedule and production delays, and staff deviated from the original plans. Episodes were delivered at the last minute; TV Tokyo, the series' broadcaster, therefore could not supervise them before airing. "Introjection" then ramps up the violence, showing a bloody fight in which Zeruel is eaten by an Eva unit. According to writer Virginie Nebbia, such a strategy had been adopted before by Anno for Nadia, but for Evangelion it was only partially the result of the authors' will. Despite the difficulties because of the timing and some members leaving the production, however, the staff of the series managed until "Introjection" to do work of a certain quality.[21] According to Anno, all staff members still worked together for the installment.[22] The director therefore compared the production to a live concert in which the staff did what they thought "was best for the moment", saying that "we give top priority to cost performance".[22] According to Evangelion assistant director Kazuya Tsurumaki, the episode also reflects Anno's writing style, which is "deductive" rather than "inductive"; Anno in fact does not have the final destination in mind, except vaguely, but gradually chooses the path to take.
Takeshi Honda gave an aesthetically pleasing look to the female characters, including even Ritsuko Akagi, who is usually depicted as a cold woman, giving her a young, teenage appearance instead. Yoshito Asari conceived the design of the Angel Zeruel, similar to that of Sachiel and inspired by the image of a shinigami. The production asked Asari to portray an enemy seemingly slow and clumsy, but actually fast and strong enough to taunt the Evangelion. Kaichiro Morikawa, a Japanese architect and writer, noted how in "Introjection" Rei Ayanami's character is presented blindfolded again following the battle against Bardiel in "Ambivalence", as in the first episode, "Angel Attack". Asuka's character, however, was supposed to suffer similar damage as Rei's, but she emerged almost unscathed. Misato and Ritsuko are also presented covered with bandages, while Toji remains injured. According to Morikawa, there would be no reason to present Rei bandaged, except as a matter of style and character design. For the writer, the bandages do not represent Rei's physical wounds, but symbolizes the character's position as a "warrior". Morikawa also noted how Hayao Miyazaki's Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984), on which Anno worked as an animator, features wounded characters. During "Introjection", characters are also presented in a neurological hospital. For Morikawa, such scenes are distinguished by a uniform pale color; although there are occasional announcements by operators in backgrounds, the emphasis is on electronic instruments such as electrocardiograms, giving the idea of a cold clinic that treats people as objects.
The staff inserted an introspective scene set in a train, using a wide-angle, backlit screen layout. The idea of the dreamy train, suggested by assistant director Tsurumaki, was first presented in "Splitting of the Breast"; Anno liked the idea, and decided to include it in "Introjection" as well.[23] The fictional New Hakone-Yumoto Station, previously presented in "Hedgehog's Dilemma",[24] [25] and based on the real Hakone-Yumoto Station, is also depicted throughout the episode. The staff conceived for the occasion an alternate route of the Odakyuu line connecting Tokyo, Shinjuku, Kanagawa, and Hakone-Yumoto, since in the world of Neon Genesis Evangelion as a result of the Second Impact and the consequent rise in sea level, old Tokyo is submerged.
Mitsuo Iso worked on the confrontation between Eva-01 and Zeruel[26] together with Takeshi Honda. Academic and writer Stevie Suan noted how the battle lacks the classic movements of mecha anime sequences, which often mimic human combat, with "sword slashes and gun blasts", while Eva-01 instead devours the Angel through beastly movements. In the final version of the episode, it is said that Eva-01 manages to absorb Zeruel's S2 engine, but no frame in the anime shows its true form, which remains a mystery. The original episode script features a scene in which Eva-01 extracts an organ explicitly referred to in the storyboards as the S2 engine.[27] Eva-01's cannibalistic act negatively represents the act of feeding on flesh.[20] This detail can be linked to the personal experience of Anno, who has been a vegetarian since early adolescence and is already accustomed to transposing this aspect of his life into his works;[28] the character of Rei, for example, is also a vegetarian. According to writer Virginie Nebbia, moreover, the battle "gets rid of some taboos, such as cannibalism". In an interview Anno stated that he included the cannibalism scene in an attempt to traumatize a young child and make him vomit; according to him, it is better to show "repulsive things" to children as they really are.[29] He said: "Today, these things are too much concealed from children, including [what is shown on] television. When I was a child my town was filled with frightening things. There was a darkness behind my house. The corpses of cats and dogs had been left abandoned. Even the adults were frightened - because I was around people who had experienced going to war".[30] Nebbia also noted how the battle is reminiscent of the confrontations of Akio Jissoji, director of several Ultraman episodes, as the viewer witnesses Eva-01 eating behind black spruces. Zeruel's attack on Eva-01's core, on the other hand, took inspiration from the image of a rape.
Koichi Yamadera, Miyuki Matsushita, Koichi Nagano, Junko Iwao, and Tetsuya Iwanaga, voice actors of several main characters, also played unidentified characters or Nerv operators in "Introjection".[17] British singer Claire Littley then sang an Off Vocal version of the song "Fly Me To The Moon" as the episode's closing theme song; for subsequent home video editions,[31] the staff later replaced it with a version called Normal Orchestra sung by Kotono Mitsuishi, Megumi Hayashibara and Yūko Miyamura.[32] [33]
The title of the episode is a reference to the eponymous expression from psychoanalysis;[20] the term denotes the act of incorporating other people's characteristics and feelings and making them one's own.[34] [35] The title refers to Shinji maturing a new awareness of his own ego, and the process of Zeruel's absorption by Eva-01. According to the book, edited by Yahata Shoten, the term could also relate to the plot of the Evangelion episode on several levels. Shinji, after witnessing the defeat of Eva-00 and 02, declares that he is "the pilot of Eva-01" as a result of incorporating "another Self", that is, his Self as a pilot, and the values of his father Gendo. Eva-01, moreover, reactivates after incorporating Shinji's request for help. The book also noted how in psychoanalytic theory it is through introjection that the Superego, the part of the psyche that is the result of parental and social norms, is formed; Shinji, who in "Ambivalence" had refused to fight Bardiel, later kills Kaworu in the last episodes of the series, having introjected Gendo's parental norm that it is necessary to make sacrifices in war. Furthermore, during Rei's attempted suicide a soundtrack called "Thanatos" is audible,[36] [37] the name of which is a reference to the Greek god of death's namesake.[38] In psychoanalysis the term denotes the death drive, the instinct to destroy others and oneself.[39]
Anime critic Akio Nagatomi noted that Eva-01 devouring Zeruel is obviously modelled after primates, tracing a possible influence from Stanley Kubrick's (1968). When Gendo attempts to activate Eva-01 with the Dummy System, he pronounces,[40] [41] a military expression used to prevent misunderstandings when pronouncing numbers, particularly the number 108. Yahata Shoten's Evangelion Glossary noted how 108 in Buddhism is the number of human desires, likened to the image of "pearls and mirrors". For the image of the out-of-control Unit 01, which walks on four legs devouring an Angel, staff also took inspiration from the Buddhist figures of the preta, damned people punished with eternal hunger for their earthly sins.
"Introjection" is influenced by the tokusatsu genre series, of which Anno is an fan. Zeruel's explosive eye beam technique, in particular, is similar to Ultraman Jettle from the Ultraman franchise. Writer Virginie Nebbia has linked the Angel and his role to Zetton, an Ultraman antagonist which appeared in the least episodes of the series of the same name. In the first Ultraman series finale, Zetton causes the separation between Ultraman and the human Shin Hayata, and defeats Ultraman, going against the audience expectation. As noted by Nebbia, in the fight against Zeruel, the Evangelion staff demonstrates a desire to thwart audience expectations, as the hero refuses to fight, the series mecha contains his mother, and the villains, the Angels, are portrayed as the rightful inhabitants of Earth. In contrast to Zetton, however, Shinji manages to defeat and eat Ultraman, fusing with Eva-01. Nebbia also compared Zeruel's cross-shaped explosions, already used by Sachiel in the first two episodes, to Daijiro Morohoshi's Yokai Hunter. In the third installment of Yokai Hunter, Zezu, a "Christ-savior", takes the stricken souls from Hell to Heaven as a giant cross hovers in the sky.
In the battle against Zeruel, Eva-01 devours its S2 engine,[42] extending its operational power, which becomes infinite.[43] The full name means Super-Solenoid; it is named after the solenoid, a cylindrical coil which produces magnetic force.[44] According to the Evangelion Glossary, it's an engine "powered by the energy generated by the annihilation of positrons and electrons". It gives great powers to the Angels. Writers Martin Foster and Kazuhisa Fujie described as a "perpetual engine". Evangelion Chronicle magazine similarly likened the S2 engine to a perpetual motion machine, such as Archimedean spiral, believed to be incompatible with the laws of thermodynamics, and to the DNA supercoil, particularly the solenoid structure of chromatin. The same magazine also compared it with the anthropic principle, according to which there is a hidden energy in genes that has advanced life.[45]
For umanity, S2 engine represents a "forbidden fruit".[45] Evangelion Chronicle[46] [47] and Kazuhisa Fujie thus linked it to the Biblical fruit of life, while academic Fabio Bartoli compared it with the tree of life. According to Comic Book Resources, Evangelion fruit of life vaguely implies a relationship with the Fruit of the Holy Spirit, suggesting that "the Angels aren't the villains after all";[48] eating Zeruel, Unit 01 ascended to a "God status", and the event is "a turning point in the series".[49] Furthermore, the game Neon Genesis Evangelion 2 contains a section named Classificed Information with a description of S2 engine, according to which, "As the universe is formed with spirals, the engine acquires energy from its shape, which is the same as DNA".[50] In a statement for the liner notes of "Fourth Child" and "Ambivalence", in which S2 is discussed, assistant director Tsurumaki linked the anthropic principle to Lyall Watson's hundredth monkey phenomenon, a hypothetical scenario according to which consciousness can alter reality and something that was previously nonexistent can become real the moment it is thought real. According to Tsurumaki, quantum physics could also be related to the hundredth monkey phenomenon, which is not to be understood as a rigidly fixed number, and even a single person can modify reality, making their dreams become true.[51]
"Introjection" represents the culmination of Shinji's story,[52] as well as the third and final chapter in the trilogy of episodes devoted to the Fouth Children, which began with "Fourth Child" and "Ambivalence".[53] As noted by Japanese academic Taro Igarashi, the installment also represents the climax of the second half of the show, in which there is a huge sense of tension and the plot goes to pieces and out of control like Eva-01. In the first scenes of the episode, a conversation on a train at sunset is presented, a technique previously used in the sixteenth installment.[20] According to Asia Scape magazine, the imaginary train dialogues represent Shinji's "internal argument".[54] For the Evangelion Chronicle encyclopedia, on the other hand, the scene would represent the characters' inner world, but not Shinji's; it is Toji who is watching the conversation between Shinji and Rei from a distance. According to the magazine, it would be unnatural for Toji to know Shinji's concerns, so it is possible that Shinji, Toji, and Rei are somehow connected through Evangelion units.[55] Rei and Shinji discuss about "running way from unpleasant things",[56] a theme already discussed in the previous two episodes.[57] [58] In the following scenes, Rei asks Asuka what it means to dream, and Asuka asks her, "You never dreamed?".[59] The official booklet of the movie (1997) described Rei as "an expressionless Noh mask" and "a girl who does not dream",[60] while the book Schizo Evangelion as "a dreamless mind, completely separated from Jung's collective unconscious".
Evangelion Chronicle noted how the episode picks up on the symbolism of hands. When Shinji meets his father again, concern, hesitation and determination are visible in the movement of his hands.[61] The symbolism of hands and the variety of emotions that can be expressed through them returns often in the series, where people fight with their bare hands, or use their hands to strangle others, like in the previous installment battle or in The End of Evangelion movie, in which Shinji strangles Asuka and Rei asks Shinji what are his hands for.[62] Director Anno already presented the theme of doing things with the "hands of men" in the previous installments, including "A Human Work"[63] and "She said, "Don't make others suffer for your personal hatred.""[64] [65] Furthermore, important phrases related to the secrets of the respective characters are presented in "Introjection". Gendo, for example, when Eva-01 rejects the Dummy System and Rei says "Are you rejecting me?",[66] while Rei experiences a feeling of vomiting[67] says that "It is no longer possible".[56] During the battle against Zeruel, Rei herself says, "Even if I die I can be replaced".[56] [20] Gendo, usually depicted as a calm and aloof man, shows a concerned expression in the face of Rei's suicidal actions, hinting at strong feelings toward Rei. As noted by academic Stevie Suan, Rei operated according to her own volition in the battle, even against her orders. This shows that Rei has abilities "to act and induce effects".
In the first scene, after the battle against Bardiel in the previous installment, Shinji protests against his father in a childish way, saying he doesn't care if Gendo's action were necessary.[28] As noted by writer Michael Berman, Shinji threatens to destroy Nerv because he was forced to destroy the Angel regardless of the captive's survival, and "most disparaging for Shinji is that he was unwillingly used as an instrument for his father's purpose". After the event, he decides to quit Nerv and stop piloting the Eva. In the fourth episode, "Hedgehog's Dilemma", Shinji already momentarily escaped from Nerv; the decision he makes in "Introjection", however, is not an escape from reality, but is based on his own conscious will and greater maturity.[68] "Introjection" indeed reprises several shots and situations presented in the first, second, and fourth episodes, clearly showing Shinji's evolution. For example, when Shinji confronts his father at the Nerv base, the same shots from the first episode are used, but the dialogues are reverted and Shinji affirms himself as a pilot.[69] As the first two episodes, an Angel similar to Sachiel generates cross-shaped explotions,[56] [20] and Eva-01 after going berserk repairs its left arm.[28]
According to writer Dennis Redmond, Shinji "for the first time in the series, claims an explicit identity" in "Introjection". As noted by Newtype, Shinji "has seemed lost and isolated up to now";[70] at the beginning of the series, he drives the Eva as if he were taken away from his surroundings, but in "Introjection" he rises with his strong will.[71] Misato herself in the course of her encounter with Shinji notices that the boy speaks with true self-awareness,[72] something he had never done before.[73] Assistent director Kazuya Tsurumaki noted that, despite the common conception of Shinji as a boy who, unlike the classical anime hero, never grows up, "you can see several milistones in Shinji's growth that you wouldn't mind seeing as the final episode", including "Rei II" and "Introjection"; according to Tsurumaki, "Introjection" would be the last episode of a good classic mecha anime, but Shinji's journey stil goes on: "When you think about it, it's not that Shinji hasn't grown up. It's just that there's an even tougher development waiting for him, and he repeatedly worries and gets lost".
According to Tsurumaki, while Zeruel attacks Shinji is on a hill overlooking Tokyo-3 saying to himself "I won't pilot", but in the next scene he is in the underground shelter. As noted by Tsurumaki, Shinji's body gradually comes closer to Unit-01. In addition, there is also the lack of visual informations characteristic of other anime. For example, there is the sky in the background behind the character, but no information is given outside of that: "My interpretation was that, even though Shinji was saying he wouldn't pilot, he also understood that he had to pilot". He reported his interpretation of Shinji’s doing whims to his father to Anno, who replied saying that Shinji really doesn't want to pilot in the scene instead. Tsurumaki thus concluded that Shinji is not weak like commonly perceived; he's obstinate and "doesn't really pay attention to other people", just like Anno. Shinji's first English voice actor, Spike Spencer, similarly noted how Shinji has not completely taken "the weak path", since "when he gets in the Evangelion, he kick ass" and by the nineteenth episode, he lets go of his emotions: "You can't discount the fact that he's kind of a wuss when it comes to girls and talking to other people, but he's a warrior. ... The world's still here, and it's thank to him".[74]
After his resignment, Shinji sees a battle for the first time from an outside perspective, as an ordinary civilian,[75] seeing Eva-02 and Eva-00 being defeated by Zeruel. While Shinji is "uncertain about the path to follow", he meets Ryoji Kaji.[76] [77] According to Redmond, Kaji "says the crucial words" that Gendoo "cannot bring himself to say". Furthermore, as noted by Newtype's official filmbooks on Evangelion, characters rarely express their feelings in the series, but Kaji still speaks to Shinji by voicing his emotions. Through Kaji's discussion Shinji develops an overall insight into things for the first time. Kaji, in particular, urges him by inviting him to decide for himself, without external constraints.[78] Unlike the previous episodes, in which Shinji states to ride Eva to have his father approval, Shinji decides to pilot again for himself, not for Gendo's affection.[79] According to Hideaki Anno, the phrase is a spur toward the Japanese people to be more "individualistic".[80] Shinji's heart is shaken by Kaji's words and Rei's sacrificial action. Instead of being self-centered, Shinji thinks in a broad, third-person perspective and makes his decision. His face is also depicted more graphically mature than the rest of the series, while Kaji has a peculiar expression on his face during the battle, as if he is thinking about his own fate. According to Newtype, Shinji understands who he is in "Introjection", and could be considered a "modern hero", an evolved version of the animated heroes of previous anime series.[81] Mechademia Mariana Ortega also described Kaji as an "adopted father-figure" for Shinji.
The episode Japanese title, "A Mans' Battle", can be linked with the theme of masculinity, already presented in the previous episodes. Yūichirō Oguro, the editor of supplemental materials included in the Japanese edition of the series, especially noted how in the first two episodes Misato repeats to Shinji to act like a man.[82] [83] In "Splitting of the Breast" Shinji says that fighting is "a man's job,"[84] [85] but becomes trapped in Leliel and the 01 Entry Plug as a punishment or a castration for trying to act like a man,[86] [87] while Toji, a character who reveals machista ideas,[88] is metaphorically castrated by losing a leg in "Ambivalence". As noted by Oguro, Evangelion seems skeptical about masculinity; it is also Eva-01 with Yui's soul who actually defeats the Angel, and not the male protagonist, so it's not exactly "a man's battle". According to academic Cristopher Smith, after the battle against Bardiel, Shinji has seen where the performance of violent masculinity ultimately leads, and concludes it is not something he desires or which is aligned with his own masculinity: "Exposure to extreme hegemonic masculine violence leads Shinji to finally reject both it and the patriarchal organization run by his father". Smith also noted that, for the first time in the series, Shinji performs exceptional violence in "Introjection", in which he repeats some of the same violent actions his father had forced him to perform earlier in "Ambivalence": "He has a deranged look on his face as he does it. ... Now he has realized the depravity of hegemonic masculinity and the violence it requires, but here he indulges in that depravity with full awareness".[89]
During the battle, Eva01 emits a roar similar to a carnivorous animal;[90] for writer Giuseppe Gatti, Eva-01 recalls the posture and verses of "a mammoth gorilla-cyborg".[91] Stevie Suan similarly noted how the scene gives a "sense of a primal, savage character". The New Yorker wrote that, in awakening his Eva, Shinji unlocked "a monstrous, destructive id synonymous with — or derived from — his own".[92] According to GameRant, while this Eva-01 going berserk "ensure victory more often than not, it's a haunting subversion of the mecha trope".[93] Writes Brian Camp and Julie Davis similarly stated that Eva-01's fury makes public question "what's really in these machines". According to academic Mariana Ortega, since Eva-01 was built from Lilith and the Angel is born from Adam, Unit 01 absorbs a "sibling" and becomes an "alpha et omega". Japanese academic Kotani Mari has related this act of cannibalism on Shinji-Eva's part to "the explosion of the radically feminine, that is, to what Alice Jardine calls 'gynesis'": "Shinji very naturally but miraculously comes to feminize himself. This sequence unveils Shinji's epiphany. The more strongly he desires a miraculous breakthrough, the more deconstructive his own sexuality becomes".[94] Writer Sharalyn Orbaugh noted how in the original Japanese the pronouns used carry no indication of Evangelions gender whatsoever: it is impossible to tell whether the speakers think of the Shinji-Eva cyborg as "he", "she", or "it". During Eva-01 berserk, Ritsuko says that this is the awekening of "her" in "Introjection", using the female pronoun instead.[95]
Shinji eventually synchronizes completely with Eva-01 with a 400% rate[96] and becomes absorbed in it. According to Orbaugh, despite the hyper-masculine outlines of the Eva unit and the fact that the pilot of 01 is a boy, Eva is decisively gendered feminine. Evangelion narrative, therefore, emplots both the male terror of being radically feminized through the excessive intimacy implied by the interpenetration and the intercorporation of the cyborg subject and the paradoxical hope that one power that can finally oppose the various forces of evil "is precisely the eruption of the abject femininity that is repressed in technopatriarchal society". According to Suan, the sequence reveals both "the isolation and agential capacity of individualism, so distinct it is difficult to relate to, so autonomous it cannot be controlled". Because it is an Eva unit, such a performance reveals the actual agency of the non-human, dispelling the divisions between humans and non-humans, "reversing modern conceptions of inanimate object (one that humans can control) and active (human) subject". For Japanese academic Osamu Tsukihashi, Eva-01's awakening scene can be called the culmination of Evangelion as a work of robotic animation. Unlike an ordinary mecha anime, however, the battle presence of extreme violence and the obvious dichotomy between good and evil, friend and foe, shifts to an unstable idea that "everyone can be an enemy". In the Eastern plot structure of kishōtenketsu, the battle corresponds to the third moment, the .
"Introjection" was first broadcast on February 7, 1996, and drew a 8% audience share on Japanese television.[97] In 1996, it ranked fourth among the best anime episodes of the Anime Grand Prix, a large annual poll made by Animage magazine with 556 votes.[98] In July 2020, Comic Book Resources reported an 9.2/10 rating for the installment on IMDb, making it the highest-rated Evangelion episode.[99] Merchandise based on the episode, including a line of official tee-shirts,[100] and a sculpture portraying Maya Ibuki's reaction to Eva-01 cannibalism, has been released.[101] [102]
Digitally Obsessed's Joel Cunningham gave a positive review of "Introjection" for its "real shocker" ending, which described as "the best moment in the series thus far", and its introspective moments; according to Cunningham, while introspective moments of the series can be boring or confusing to many, they are "a standout example of the risky, unique, and impressive elements of the series", saying, "I can't imagine many other cartoons (even anime) have quite this much character development".[103] The Anime Café's Akio Nagatomi also praised the episode, particularly the manner in which Anno chose to portray Eva-01 devouring Zeruel as "highly effective, with the glowing eyes shilouetted against the twilight skies sending shivers down my spine".[104] However, while Nagatomi described the visual direction as "nothing short of spell-binding", he noted that "The stories seem to be dragging on, as if there's a contractual length to be met, and there's not enough material to fill it".[104] Nagatomi also criticized Megumi Ogata's voice acting, but still stated that, "the direction of this one episode alone makes following this series worthwhile".[104] Comic Book Resources' Edward Lequin, on the other side, criticized Shinji's decision to quit Nerv, since "the Angel might not have gotten that far in the first place if Shinji didn't leave so suddenly".[105]
Game Rant[93] and Comic Book Resources[106] cited the battle against Zeruel among the most "disturbing" and best battles in Neon Genesis Evangelion. American magazine Anime Invasion ranked it as the eighth-best fight in Japanese animation history.[107] Screen Rant similarly described it as the best battle in the whole series; according to Adam Beach from the same website, what really makes this confrontation memorable is its climax, "where Eva Unit 01 goes completely berserk to destroy Zeruel in a visceral display".[108] [109] SyFy Wire's Daniel Dockery listed it among the series' "most awesome moments",[110] while the Supanova Expo website cited the scene in which Shinji states to be the pilot of Eva-01 in front of his father Gendo among the character's best moments.[111] Film School Rejects's Max Covill placed "Introjection" seventh on his list of the best Evangelion episodes, describing it as "solid episode".[112] According to Covill, a great aspect of this episode is that Shinji finally becomes the hero he was once envisioned to be; while one of his traits throughout the series is his indecisiveness, Shinji isable to stand up to his father and make decisions for himself in "Introjection".[112] He also included the shot in which Shinji is in Nerv's prison with Gendo's shadow over him and another shot in which Shinji's face is reflected on Gendo's glasses among the "perfect shots of Neon Genesis Evangelion.[113] [114]