Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - *PREVIEW* Lions Led By Robots 17: Get in the Robot

Episode Date: July 16, 2025

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Essentially, the plan is that Shinji is going to get in Ava Unit 1, and he's obviously very terrified because he's a 14 year old child who hasn't seen his dad in three years. Yeah, he's effectively been shanghaied to be a robot pilot. And he's naturally quite a skittish kid. Famously, obviously, his personality is probably one of the best ones known of anime of like being very depressed and confused and all those other things. I don't really see him as being depressed at this point. I see him as being a 14 year old has been abandoned by his family. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, uh, Shinji refuses pretty much. He's like, I know I can't, I'm too scared. And like Gendo knows that

like I have a unit one is it's for Shinji. Then says, well, oh, bring out fucking Ray Ionami who earlier on in the episode in one, the very first scenes when Shinji hangs up the telephone, he sees Ray on the street. Mm hmm. Right around now, Ray gets like wheeled out in a hospital bed because she got all fucked up in the last fight. And Ava Unit One kind of reinforces the fact that it was built for Shinji with Shinji in mind because the angel attack knocks so much debris loose from the ceiling and Ava Unit One reacts by protecting him despite the fact it's not plugged in or anything.

Because that is probably my favourite little tidbit fact for Ava's, is that they must be plugged into the wall at all times, other than the five minute time limit they have from their umbilical cord system. But yeah, much like my vacuum cleaner, the Ava must be plugged into the wall. Yeah. So we find out that Ava unit one is like designed for Shinji and he gets in it. He gets in the robot. Also it's weird. Maybe it's because I don't remember anything from either A not watching it or B too many shots to the head. But I do think it's funny that whenever you close your eyes and you picture Ava, you picture them in a very specific kind of way and not that horrible scene

with Shinji and Rei, which we'll get to. But in those Ava uniforms, right? They're very iconic in a way. Yeah. And the first time Shinji climbs inside of it, you know, when he's just wearing his, his like white button up fit. Yeah. And they flood the cockpit with breathable water. I forget what they call it. LTL or something like that.

And mysteriously, he is not wet when he comes out. Mm hmm. I need I need that waterproof white button up. Yeah. So Shinji can like breathe in the special liquid also as well when he gets in the Ava through the insert plug system, he immediately synchronizes with unit one. Yeah. And it does also kind of show that he synchronizes with it, but he also can't really control it at all, which certainly won't come up again in the future. Yep. And we see Shinji, you know, kind of stumble on fall onto the ground. He doesn't really know how to use the Ava.

Then it kind of blacks out. He's fighting the angel for a little bit and it's not going well. The angels absolutely kicking his, well, the Ava's teeth in and then we flash forward episode two and he's in hospital bed. Which tells us it did not go great. Honestly like fucking perfect first episode like that cut to black is like such a incredible like directorial choice like a lesser director would have actually shown the battle in the first episode. Yeah, that's something that through three episodes now, I will say that the animation, the direction, everything is really good. It's gripping in a way. Like it kind of pulls

you in the battle scenes are great. I even don't mind the new voice actors in the Netflix version. The script is shit. The translation that kind of pulls you out of it. But yeah, it's not their fault. But it's a great cut. Unfortunately, it cuts to not fly me to the moon at the end of episode one. It cuts to elevator music volume two. There's so much like beautiful like cell work in episode one, like the scene in the elevator with Ritsuko, Misato and Shinji where it's just their silhouettes and it's just the hand of the Eva in the background. Yeah. So fucking good. If I remember correctly, this show pretty much bankrupted the studio.

Yep. To the point that it was almost not finished. And in fact, is the reason why it did not have the ending that Ana wanted. If I am to understand the lore correctly, and I'm kind of understanding why, even when you compare it to the other shows of its era that have kind of broken into mainstream. The animation quality is so good. No detail is literally ever spared in any shot. I could only imagine how astronomical the production cost of a show.

And we all know Anno is a perfectionist. So working for him must have been horrible. Yeah, I fucking say so. Yeah. Then we get on to second episode. Shinji wakes up in a hospital bed. Yeah. Thankfully, it's not the worst scene we're ever going to get in a hospital bed in Evangelion. And we get a, I keep alluding to that scene and I'm not going to say what it is until it happens.

Everybody who understands is internally cringing. Now we get what I assume is a Nerve meeting. They're going over like, you know, the angels have returned after 15 years. But now we get something interesting. And that is this is a Nerve is effectively the government in a way. And obviously the Japanese government is involved with them and everything because Nerve is effectively the government in a way. And obviously the Japanese government is involved with them and everything. Cause Nerve is a government program. And yes, I'm going to keep saying it that way.

So you all can suffer with me. And they're like, oh, but the main difference between now and 15 years ago is people are picking up on what happened. Word is spreading quickly. Like, oh, don't worry about it. We'll deploy our disinformation program. And then it flashes to Masato watching the news and there's no word of the angels anywhere. Yeah. We also get a scene where Gendo is having a meeting with a committee about the, you

know, the funding for the Evangelion project, but also like protecting the city nerve is in charge of protecting the city, but also kind of the world. Yeah, we find out that they say his priority should be the human instrumentality project, which we will talk about later on. It's turning all of humanity into one giant banjo. You know how like, like we've already talked about, everything slowly turns into crabs. The human instrumentality project is to slowly turn all of humanity into a pair of bagpipes. Yep. So then we find out. So Shinji sees Ray in the hospital all broken up. Also the scene with a

Shinji in the kind of like, I assume it's the foyer of the hospital where it's just him silhouetted from behind is beautiful. Like the first 12 episodes of Evangelion are just like a kind of perfect measure of quiet and kind of like a silence. And it's so good. So the 12th episodes is where Anno really loses his mind is what you're telling me. Oh no, I'm not going to say what number it is in case anyone's watching it for the first time, but we find out that Masato has now become the legal guardian of Shinji and he's going to come and live with her. Yeah, which is weird. There's also some like ominous vibes. There's a cloud around Masato

where it's just like, you get hints that she is actually not a nice person and she's doing this for nerve. Like, you know, she's on the phone with Ritsuko. She's effectively Shinji's handler because I think they realize upon meeting Shinji is he needs someone to kind of nicely goad him into being a pilot. It's not going to work like Ray or as we'll eventually meet, we'll meet Asuka where he goes like, you need to fucking do this. That won't work on Shinji. So he needs like a mother figure and he has been issued the alcoholic who lives with the penguin. Yeah. So they like do some grocery shopping and arrive back at Misata's apartment. She

has only just moved in recently as well. Shinji stuff has arrived and he's kind of like reluctant to go in and she's kind of like, no, this is your home too. You know, you're welcome here. And Shinji gets in and he just finds out that, oh, the only thing that's in this house is like ramen and beer and whiskey. It is beer, beer cans and whiskey bottles as far as the eye can see. And we also get a shot of Misato's bedroom, which is again, still mostly beer cans and some very suspiciously placed bottles of lotion and the tissues by the bed, which is summa for pen pen.

Which I assume are for Pen Pen. Also Misato makes a joke that she's not going to put the moves on Shinji. I would hope not. That is like a constant, right? Like that going forward is this uncomfortable bit of space between them, which we will talk about this in episode 16. Yeah. And we get the first hints of it on this one because, you know, she's getting drunk. She's very obviously like flirting with him in a kind of way because then she retreats to the like when he ends up taking a bath and meeting pen pen. But like she is like, oh, I'm worried I'm putting on too thick and he's going to get on to me.

You know what I mean? Like he's going to figure out that I'm fucking with him.