Ha… I can’t believe I’ve gotten five episodes in and haven’t said anything about the outro theme for this show, yet. I suppose that when a theme song finally gets stuck in your head, you know you need to offer some kind of observation pertaining to it.  I’ve commented  in the past about how I’m amused that one of the tropes of anime seems to be the choice of totally different intro and outro theme songs.   This case is really no different, as we’ve got an J-Pop that intro which has a breed of synth that really recalls midi-themes from the days of the SNES, followed by an outro that covers… Frank Sinatra?! I knew old Blue Eyes had a worldwide following, but I didn’t know it extended THIS far. And what’s up with the looping image behind the credits? It’s one of the kids, floating upside down in the water next to reflection of the moon? Is this one of those symbols I’ll only understand after watching the whole series and reading all those “out-there” interpretations? Anyway, the plot picks up a bit in this episode, following the unconventional characterization I voiced so much approval of. I really like the scene where Shinji watches his father extend his paternal love to Rei. It actually demonstrated a subtlety and power of suggestion you wouldn’t expect in a bombastic series like this.  And I was tickled by Shinji and Rei’s morbidly funny, and grossly uncomfortable, meet cute. Again, Shinji’s too much of a putz to handle the nude mistake that smoothly and Rei's too much of a space case to really even get offended by it. Sure, she takes offense when Shinji complains his own father, but not when he puts her in thoroughly comprised position. Oh no. I have to say I’m genuinely curious to see what happens next episode. I thought that was perfect gag to finish the episode and definitely following what we’ve been discussing about Nerv’s competency as a tactical organization. You put an untrained kid against an extra-terrestrial monster and DON’T expect him to get rocked within two seconds of the fight? Get real… -- Tom Pinchuk is the writer of UNIMAGINABLE for Arcana Comics and HYBRID BASTARDS! for Archaia. Pre-order the HYBRID BASTARDS! hardcover now on Amazon.com.
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