Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - *PREVIEW* Lions Led By Robots 20: Multiple Dilemmas

Episode Date: October 2, 2025

GET LIVESTREAM TICKETS FOR OUR SHOW ON OCT 4TH https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/livestream-lions-led-by-donkeys-podcast-live-in-glasgow-4th-october-2025-tickets-1532091008449?aff=ebdssbdestsearchgl=1s0822wupMQ..gaNDgyMTk4OTc3LjE3NTc4NjgzNzM.ga_TQVES5V6SHczE3NTc4NjgzNzMkbzEkZzAkdDE3NTc4NjgzNzMkajYwJGwwJGgw Joe and Tom continue their exploration of Neon Genesis Evangelion. Get the whole episode on Patreon here! https://www.patreon.com/posts/140304696

Neon Genesis Evangelion. Yes. We watched episodes 10, 11, and 12. So the first episode we watched was Magma Diver. This actually, this like three episode arc was like really good in terms of like, you know, deepening like character development. The kind of bookended by like some more action heavy episodes.

And then the middle episode is much more kind of contemplative, I suppose, is the word. Yeah. Magma Diver, the cousin of Ronnie James Dio's Holy Diver. Magma diver There's an angel Inside a fire I'm fucking yeah

I lost the melody It's okay I can't really sing Yeah it's the angel Sleepy Sleepy Instead of a volcano Yeah Sandalfon

Yep We do get like The show opens Episode 10 opens With more Weirdness Between Aska and Kaji And I remember in our last episode

You said it was like More Oscar having a crush Kaji is not being weird You know he's staying arm's length, whatever. He's doing, you know,

he is Aska's Masado. Yeah. It's like how I came to understand it last, last episode. And I was still on the fence about that until this scene. Because like, Aska's 100% flirting with him, which again,

is weird, but she's a teen girl. Teens do this kind of shit to older people in their lives, especially ones that are, they have so much traumatic baggage. Like every fucking character. in the show does.

And he just like blows it off. Yep. He is the most normal man in anime. Yep. In any anime, any of them ever made that I've ever seen. Yeah. So essentially, um, Kaji and Aska are going on a shopping trip. Um, Aska wants to buy bathing suits for an upcoming school trip to Okinawa.

And, uh, he's just like, oh, is that what kids wear swimming these days? Okay. Whatever. He's just like completely. non-plus with the whole situation he's just like yeah sure and then we find out that they're actually not going on the school trip

because they have to stay on call yeah I did like this scene because one of the through lines that I'm kind of putting together to Rosca so far is she wants desperately to be seen as an adult namely to Kaji but also everyone else and

she's also so excited about going on a school trip which is something that only kids would be interested it in. So it's like nice little hints like that that... She's still a kid. Yeah. Like again, I keep comparing this to Fully Cooley because that's one of my favorite series

and the themes of children and adults are very, very similar. And it's also this, there's multiple things in this three episode arc that remind me of Fully Cooley. And this is definitely one of them. Oscar reminds me a lot of Nauta, the main character, and Fully Cooley.

In that, I do find that both incredibly insufferable. But you can understand why they're insufferable. It's like Aska and Nauta to me as an adult watching this is a lot like if you go back and read Catcher in the Rye. Where like this little fucking shit, I hate you so much. Like this is why everybody hates you. All my homies hate holding Caulfield. Yeah.

Like when you're a kid and you read that stuff, just like if you're a kid and you watch this, you probably empathize with them a lot more. Whereas as an adult, you see it from the opposite angle like, wow, you're an insuffer. from a little fucker, aren't you? But also, like, this scene is, like, I think it, I like it, I like it, like, the thing with Kaji is, like, early on the show, you kind of have to try and figure, you're trying to figure out, like, okay, like, what is his angle, what, what's going on with him? And, like, the thing that becomes, like, kind of apparent in, like, this episode is, like,

similar in the way that, like, Masado is, like, tasked with looking after Shinji and Aska as well. And, like, she is, in a way, like, manipulating, like, Shinji's, like, a sense of empathy and need for connection. It's like, Kaji's doing the exact same thing, but to everyone. It's like in,

like he is, you know, emotionally manipulating Masado by, you know, withholding kind of affection from Aska, he's manipulating her. And it's like,

and Ritzko. And it's like, that becomes like more and more apparent as the show goes on. And like we start to see more of the cracks in people. And it's, yeah, I do think it's because he's a spy still.

Okay. Um, because it's the only thing in his character. truck, that would make sense. I don't think he's like a spy for like the angels or anything. Like that'd be ridiculous. But if he is, fine. What the show is pretty ridiculous.

But like some of their government agency, all generally working towards the same ultimate, you know, quote unquote goal. But it's the only reason that I can plot so far of why every interaction he has with any character, whether it be Masado, Aska, Ritzko, he's constantly fucking with them. like nobody is just naturally that slimy without a purpose you know and then we cut to them like yeah them finding out that no you're not going on the trip you have to stay on standby ask us like really like frustrated with and shingy doesn't back her up and she gets like really frustrated with which means like essentially like be a man and like stand up for me which is like something that

will you know come up more and more and then it cuts to them like at the pool where oh they also find note that they also have to stay because they have to study because they're failing their classes. Yeah. Like, Aska's the only one that really gets a pass on that one because she admittedly in the show says she can't read kanji. Yeah. But like the other two are in school all the time. Like, what the fuck? Also, they can read kanji. So it cuts to the pool and she is working on his laptop beside the pool he's studying. And everybody else is swimming. And like, Aska always turns everything into a competition, specifically between

her and Ray, like, almost like she's trying to impress Shinji, but like, their dynamic doesn't really read that way to me as it just, she needs to be better at everything than everyone. And she also has like a very specific bone to pick with Ray, because she can't get under

Ray's skin as a thing. Like, she gets, rises out of Shinji constantly, but Ray just doesn't give a fuck. So, both of those things are true in the Oscar calls like Ray, like, you know, the perfect girl, all the sort of thing and it's not, I think both things are true in that like she is like kind of

competing for Shinji's attention with Ray, but also is like, oh, Ray is just kind of for reasons that we will eventually get into is like the kind of preferred one of like Gendo and like other people because you know, she just kind of goes by the book and there's a kind of

an exchange beside the pool with Askin the bathing suit and Shinji and it's like once again that kind of like expression of that team of like they're uncomfortable teenagers that are developing and don't really know what to do. But there is, there's a really good line that Aska asked Misado's like, why don't we attack the angels where they live? And Misado just says, we would do that if we knew they were where they were. Yeah. Yeah. And we get another line later and it says, well, we haven't done that in 15 years. And that was when the second impact was. So people are a little bit more worried, which, you know,

makes sense you don't want to accidentally trigger the the living nuclear weapons to delete the planet again but then they do it anyway like we get that whole scene where like if we knew where they were we would attack them so then of course they find the fetus angel which turns out to be more of like an egg than a fetus but oh you know since the last time we attacked them 15 years ago

this could happen so like it's best not to risk it and then like something like yeah fuck it risk you could but also like yeah it's like the pool scene is great because like you know she asked shinji is like oh what's this question you're working on is like oh like thermal expansion she's like oh you know when things get hotter they get bigger and then she says like if my breasts got hotter would they get bigger and like shinji's like oh how would i know because he's embarrassed and then like ask us like well okay whatever you're boring and like walks off and then shinji turns and looks at Ray, which then frustrates

ask her because she's like, oh, you know, look at me, look at me before she dives in the pool. So yeah, it's really that theme of like attention and stuff, you know. Dan, she doesn't really seem to like Shinji at all. Like every scene they're in, it's like, she's like bullying him. And that could be

multiple different reasons, of course. Like, it could be seeing him as something of like a younger sibling because they live together or because she likes them and she's bullying in that way. It's hard to fucking tell. Because again, everybody in this show as a walking baggage train. Once again, we'll, I'm bringing up a Carl Young, maybe read some Carl Young.

So we find out that they have found essentially the embryo of an angel inside of a volcano as a sandalphan and they have to attempt to capture it before it hatches. So they're trying to figure out who will go, Aska eventually volunteers, but tries to like back out when the D-type. suit which goes over the Ava to protect it looks like a fat suit yeah it gets like inflated oh we get an inflated Oskah

yeah and don't Google those words and she gets frustrated when she can seize that Kaji can see her in the like big expanded plug suit and like the D type suit so Ray volunteers but Aska's like no I'll do it so

and there's also because the prototypes which are Ray's and Shinji's Ava can't put the suit on. Yeah. Which ends up not being that important

actually there at the end. But that was the one thing that really bothered me in this episode is the ending because it's not explained.

Yeah. Well, it is, but we'll get there.