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neon genesis evangelion (episode twenty, "weaving a story 2: oral stage")

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When Shinji achieved 400% synchronization with Unit 01, his body dissolved into LCL. Since Unit 01 will only operate for Shinji now, this is a problem for Ritsuko and Gendo, who may not really care if he lives or dies but do care a lot about a functional Unit 01. And the fully awakened Unit 01 is a big problem for SEELE, who are outraged even if it’s not quite clear what they can do about it. However, much of this episode—maybe half?—takes place in Shinji’s mind as he floats around Unit 01. So because a lot of this episode takes place on a fairly abstract plane, I’m going to do a pretty “this happens and then this happens” sort of summary. Here we go.

On the ground at NERV, the bridge crew are trying to figure out how to coax Shinji back into embodiment. They develop their plan over a month, though Ritsuko lets it slip that this is not the first time a human being has been absorbed into an Eva and they’re mostly trying what people tried ten years ago. It didn’t work then, t…