# Don't Be

"Don't Be" is the twenty-second episode of the Japanese anime television series Neon Genesis Evangelion, created by Gainax. The episode was written by Hideaki Anno and Hiroshi Yamaguchi and directed by the animator Akira Takamura. In the episode, Asuka Langley Soryu, the pilot of the Evangelion Unit-02, comes into conflict with Shinji and Rei Ayanami, her fellow pilots, due to several defeats in previous battles. An Angel called Arael appears in space and Asuka attempts to intercept him to avoid being dismissed from her role as a pilot. Arael, however, launches a mental attack on Asuka, revealing her repressed past, marked by the suicide of her mother, Kyoko.
The original premise for "Don't Be" involved an aerial battle between the Evangelion and Arael; however, the concept was shelved due to production restrictions. The episode explores Asuka's psyche and contains several references to psychology and psychoanalysis, particularly the concepts of reaction formation, psychological regression, repression, and masculine protest. It uses experimental directorial techniques to explore Asuka's psyche, notably using George Frideric Handel's Hallelujah chorus. Critics have compared the chorus' use to the direction of Stanley Kubrick and Kihachi Okamoto's Blue Christmas.
"Don't Be" was first broadcast on February 28, 1996, and drew a 7.9% audience share on Japanese television. The episode received an overall positive reception from critics, who particularly praised Asuka's exploration and psychological development. However, some critics have criticized the use of the Hallelujah chorus and a long freeze-frame scene in which Asuka and Rei remain silent in a lift.

## Plot

The episode opens the night before the eighth episode of the series, "Asuka Strikes!". Asuka Langley Soryu, pilot of the mecha Evangelion Unit-02, and Ryoji Kaji, a member of the special agency Nerv and Asuka's legal guardian, talk while en route to Japan. Asuka attempts to seduce Kaji by showing him her breasts and saying she is an adult, but he rejects her advances. She then remembers her own refusal to cry at the funeral of her mother, Kyoko Zeppelin Soryu, who died after a contact experiment with an Evangelion unit. During the flashback, Kyoko speaks to a doll she believes is Asuka while Asuka's father cheats on Kyoko with a nurse—her future stepmother. Asuka overhears a conversation between her father and the nurse in which they describe humans as God's dolls.
Sometime later, Asuka practices at the Nerv base, achieving shockingly low results with her Evangelion. Misato Katsuragi, Asuka's new guardian after Kaji's death, argues that this may be due to menarche, but Ritsuko Akagi, a doctor in Nerv's science department, argues instead that the cause is rooted in Asuka's psychology. After the drill, Asuka attempts to call Kaji, who does not answer. She sees Shinji Ikari and Rei Ayanami, her fellow pilots, arguing, and feels jealous. In the evening, Asuka has dinner with Misato and Shinji, but all three remain silent. During dinner, Asuka receives an international call from her stepmother. After the call and a bath, she feels disgusted for living in the same space as Shinji and Misato. Misato and Ritsuko discuss Asuka, who feels a strong animosity and sense of inferiority toward Shinji. Asuka and Rei, meanwhile, are left alone in the elevator. After almost one minute of silence, Rei suggests that Asuka open her heart to Eva-02. Asuka insults Rei by calling her a "doll" and slaps her.
The fifteenth in a series of mankind's enemies called Angels, Arael, appears in geostationary satellite orbit. Asuka, fearing the loss of Eva-02, and refusing her assignment to cover Rei's Eva-00, attempts to intercept the enemy with a Positron Rifle. Before Asuka can attack, Arael, via a beam of light, erodes the girl's psyche. Asuka experiences a flashback in which she rejects a stuffed monkey from her stepmother, and her real mother suggests that she commit suicide along with her. Meanwhile, Rei attempts, with her own Positron Rifle, to shoot down Arael in orbit, but she fails. Gendo Ikari, supreme commander of Nerv, orders the use of a weapon called the "Spear of Longinus". Misato and Nerv's deputy commander Kozo Fuyutsuki attempt to prevent this, but the commander refuses to stop. Eva-00 extracts the Spear from a white giant in the deepest level of Nerv headquarters and launches it into orbit, defeating Arael. Asuka is angered by her defeat, which is worsened by her hatred of Rei. Shinji tries to console Asuka, but she angrily lashes out at him, telling him that she hates everyone and would rather be dead.

## Production
### Background

In 1993, Neon Genesis Evangelion studio Gainax released a presentation document for the series called New Century Evangelion (tentative name) Proposal (新世紀エヴァンゲリオン (仮) 企画書, Shinseiki Evangelion (kari) kikakusho), containing a presentation of the series and it's planned episodes, which was then published in 1994. "Don't Be" was based on the studio's original plan for the twenty-first episode, which was to be titled "At least, human". The original premise had Shinji, rather than Asuka, suffering from a mental attack. The episode would have included an underwater battle near a sunken ship, and explored the past of Yui, Shinji's mother,. Gainax's early concept for the Angel Arael used high-frequency swords on the tips of his twelve luminescent wings. Arael also would have fought the Evangelions in the Earth's atmosphere, rather than open space, in the nineteenth episode.
Hideaki Anno, the director and main scriptwriter of the series, wrote the script with Hiroshi Yamaguchi. Kazuya Tsurumaki drafted the storyboard and worked on character design. The episode was directed by Akira Takamura and Mau Hanabatake was the chief animator. Yoh Yoshinari was the chief animator of the mecha.

### Development

Hideaki Anno originally introduced Asuka in the eighth and ninth episodes of the series, in an attempt to lighten the heavy, moody tone of the previous installments. He did not have an initial plan for the character. He developed Asuka as a character through her catchphrases, such as "Are you stupid?" or "Chance!", growth which lacked the negative aspect of the character later shown in "Don't Be". According to the Japanese cultural critic Hiroki Azuma, the change was the result of a decision made by Anno during the airing of the series. During the first broadcast of Neon Genesis Evangelion on TV Tokyo, Anno noticed the inner closure of animation fans, or otaku. This prompted him to take the second half of the series in a darker direction than the first half, which was seemingly headed towards a happy ending. Asuka's character development reflects this change; initially introduced as a comedic character, she suffers heavy physical and psychological wounds in the last half of the series. Azuma has stated that Asuka's injuries broke with the conventions of classic mecha anime, in which a character like Asuka would not be hurt. Anno claimed in an interview that he wanted to go against the pleasure principle of viewers who watch Evangelion and television to see an enjoyable character.
The episode features a scene with Asuka and Rei in a lift together that uses an almost one minute long freeze frame, during which there is hardly any movement apart from Asuka's occasional blinking. According to the academic José Andrés Santiago Iglesias, "the sequence recreates the social awkwardness of being stuck in a lift with someone you simply don't want to share the room with". The tension between the two characters is created without explicit images; at the end of the scene, for example, Asuka slaps Rei, but the viewer only sees the initial image of a slap and the sound, and not the actual slap. This expedient allowed the animators to avoid drawing a scene with elaborate movements. In the following scenes, Asuka waits for the Angel Arael with her Eva-02 in the rain. The writer Virginie Nebbia has stated that in the same sequence Asuka is then surrounded by a divine light without drops, which could be inspired by the directorial style of Akio Jissoji, who directed the tokusatsu series Ultraman.
During Asuka's subsequent mental attack, Gainax inserted distorted kanji and handwritten German terms in quick succession, such as wahnsinnig (transl. insane), wie ärgerlich (transl. how annoying), unsauber (transl. dirty), der Verlust (transl. the loss), Doppelselbstmord begehen (transl. commit double suicide), peinlichen (transl. embarrassing), Groll (transl. resentment), Stiefmutter (transl. stepmother) and erhängte (transl. hanged). In an interview, Michael House, the only American member of Gainax and the company's official translator at the time, stated that he had inserted German terms using his basic, knowledge of the language acquired in high school and a Japanese-German dictionary. The terms also include Nein (transl. no) and Tod (transl. death), which, according to the magazine Evangelion Chronicle, indicate emotions lurking in Asuka's heart, as well as menarche, a woman's first menstrual cycle. According to the writer Sellés De Lucas, these inscriptions in rapid succession challenge the viewer's attention span and drawn on cinéma vérité, "which ha[d] been often considered one of Anno's inspirations for his fractured narrative". It is hinted in the episode that Asuka is unable to pilot the Eva-02 as she once did due to her first menstrual cycle. Anno initially planned to include more scenes about Asuka's first experience with menstruation. However, not feeling, as a man, capable of exploring such a feminine subject, he condensed everything into a single scene.
In the Eva-02 ejection scene, a spark caused by rubbing against the rails used to launch the mecha is visible. In response to possible criticism from viewers that the Eva's Linear Rail System should not cause such vibrations, staff attempted to give a touch of reality. The animators unrealistically depicted Eva-00 launching the Spear of Longinus into orbit, prioritizing the spectacle of the sequence.
After the episode aired, Gainax released several new scenes that added to the plot and redrew some existing scenes to improve the animation quality. Unreleased sequences were also included in the film Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death & Rebirth (1997). These new animations were later included on the home edition of the series, starting with the first Laserdisc release in 1998. The studio distributed two versions of "Don't Be" and the other retouched episodes: one from the first airing, called the on-air version, and the extended version, called the director's cut or home video version. In the extended version of "Don't Be", the staff added an opening scene of Kaji and Asuka arguing on an aircraft carrier before meeting Misato and the others in "Asuka Strikes!", the sequences in which Asuka sees Shinji and Rei on a station platform, the one in which Asuka screams in the bathroom, the one in which Eva-00 extracts the Spear from Angel Lilith and grows legs, and greatly extended Asuka's inner monologue during Arael's mental attack. Tsurumaki handled the storyboards for the director's cut version, acting as animation director with Takeshi Honda and Yoshiyuki Sadamoto.

### Voice acting and music

Gainax used a version of "Fly Me to the Moon" as the closing theme, performed by singer Aya, called Bossa Techno; in the director's cut it is replaced by an instrumental rendition. In addition to Shiro Sagisu's original score, the episode includes George Frideric Handel's Messiah, specifically the Hallelujah when Asuka is mentally attacked. According to an official booklet on the series soundtrack, the song's use reflects the idea that God is judging Asuka's sins. According to Virginie Nebbia, it's use is relevant to the religious-spiritual theme of the series and suggests an analogy to a divine message too powerful for humans to learn, which crushes Asuka. The writer Dennis Redmond compared the scene's fusion of classical music and violence to Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange.
Yūko Miyamura, who voiced Asuka, empathized greatly with her character, and chose the design of the puppet in the introspective sequences. She decided on a small monkey, an animal also visible in some of her autographs. She also wrote the script of the telephone sequence between Asuka and her stepmother and took a conversational course in German to improve her pronunciation.
In the extended version of the monologue from the director's cut edition, her mother asks Asuka who she is, and Asuka—voiced by five different actresses—repeats five times statements she had made in previous episodes. The five Asukas are voiced by Kotono Mitsuishi, Megumi Hayashibara, Miki Nagasawa, Yuriko Yamaguchi, and Junko Iwao, the voices of Misato, Rei, Maya Ibuki, Ritsuko, and Hikari Horaki, respectively. The academic Ida Kirkegaard wrote that Shinji's voice actress Megumi Ogata is absent among these alternate Asukas, suggesting that it is the characters, not the actresses, who are taking over Asuka's identity. For Kirkegaard, the sequence also has "a sense of wrongness" and unease that reinforces the narrative events. The replacement of Asuka's voice with that of another actress highlights the artificiality of her identity as a character, and calls into question Asuka's personal identity. Kirkegaard also argued that the scene could be misinterpreted as an attempt to demonstrate to otaku the fictional nature of the characters and the world of Neon Genesis Evangelion; instead, "the viewer is asked to further empathize with Asuka as her reality is unraveled".

## Cultural references

In the scene in which Evangelion units are under repair, scientific terms such as apoptosis, mitosis, necrosis, receptor, and morphogenesis are mentioned. Yahata Shoten's Evangelion Glossary (エヴァンゲリオン用語事典, Evangerion Yougo Jiten) linked the latter term to morphogenetic fields and Rupert Sheldrake's concept of morphic fields, which are energy fields with a collective memory that are located in and around systems and serve as an organising force. Positrons are also mentioned in reference to Eva-00's Positron Sniper Rifle and the concept of visible spectrum. In the same scene, Gendo utters the phrase "The hands of the clock cannot turn back", a reference to an earlier work by Gainax and Hideaki Anno, Gunbuster. Anno also used the Hallelujah chorus in the same series. Eva-00 then extracts the Spear of Longinus from Lilith; its name is a reference to the Christian relic of the same name. The official filmbooks of the series noted how the shape of the spear resembles DNA. According to the scholar Fabio Bartoli, Lilith is also depicted in the guise of the Golem. During the Eva-00's descent into the deepest level of Nerv headquarters, the Nerv mentions a section of structures named Malebolge; their name is a reference to the eponymous circles of Hell presented in Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. When Eva-00 sends the Lance into orbit, the concept of escape velocity is also mentioned.
In the opening scene of the director's cut version of "Don't Be" a drink called Isoroku is shown, a tribute to the Japanese admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. During the episode, Shinji wears a shirt with the inscription XTC, in homage to the British band of the same name. Virginie Nebbia compared Arael to Perolynga, an antagonist from Ultraman, and Kyoko to Kushana's mother from Hayao Miyazaki's Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, who also speaks to a doll believing it to be her daughter. Arael's mental attack, on the other hand, according to Nebbia, resembles Solaris, the animated ocean protagonist of Stanisław Lem's novel of the same name. Kyoko's madness is caused by a mental contamination, which refers to the phenomenon of a mental contagion, where one patient's symptoms are passed onto another by suggestion.
Several psychological terms appear during Arael's attack, such as primary identification, dependency, manifestation, shadow, suppression, masculine protest, and attachment behavior. In Asuka's inner monologue, the English title of the episode, "Don't Be", is visible. According to the official film-book of the series, these are words no Western parent would say to their children. Asuka rejects the doll given to her by her stepmother and attempts to abandon her childish behavior in order to become an adult; her attachment behavior consists of attempting to gain the approval of others. Furthermore, as in the concept of imprinting studied by Konrad Lorenz, Rei rarely shows emotions towards anyone other than Gendo, her primary attachment figure. The Evangelion Chronicle encyclopedia notes taht Asuka performs reaction formation, another term present in the monologue, a defence mechanism consisting of replacing a feeling with its opposite; unlike a child who cries in order to gain affection, Asuka represses this desire by displaying an adult attitude. Her memories related to her past and her mother are repressed and removed from her consciousness. Asuka also demonstrates masculine protest, an aggressive and stereotypically masculine form of attitude shown by women who are tired of their feminine social role, thus competing with their male peers.

## Themes and analysis

"Don’t Be" focuses on the psyche of Asuka Langley Soryu, exploring her troubled psychology and traumatic past. Comic Book Resources described the episode as an "animated nightmare" and "one of Evangelion's most disturbing installments". According to the writer Virginie Nebbia, Asuka, like the other protagonists of the series, hides her inner self for fear of being hurt, as in Arthur Schopenhauer's porcupine's dilemma. At the beginning of the episode, Asuka is in a state of severe psychological crisis over her defeat in "Introjection", fearing herself surpassed by Shinji. The Evangelion Chronicle, an official magazine about the series, wrote that in the scene where Shinji, Misato and Asuka are having dinner, a heavy atmosphere is created through the silence and soft music in the background. Misato pretends to drink during dinner, never showing her mouth. This detail is due to a directorial choice to emphasise Misato's lack of courage in talking to Asuka about the death of her guardian Kaji, who died in the previous episode. In the lift scene, however, Rei tells Asuka that without the pilot opening their souls, the Evangelions do not move, a dialogue that condenses the theme of the entire episode.
According to Antony Chun-man Tam, in "Don't Be" it is revealed that Asuka "only wants to catch her psychopathic mother's attention". Kyoko is mentally unstable because part of her soul remained in the Evangelion unit that she made contact with. Kyoko's subsequent insanity and suicide led Mariana Ortega of Mechademia to describe her as a "vampiric" mother, just like Ritsuko's mother Naoko, who committed suicide in the previous episode. The writer Gilles Poitras compared the suicide of Kyoko, who before killing herself asks Asuka to commit suicide along with her, to the shinjū, a ritual of double suicide in Japanese culture. In the sequence in which Asuka is alone in the bathroom and pressing her belly due to cramping she uses the expression "Kimochi warui" (気持ち悪い), which is translated as "How disgusting", or "I feel sick". This phrase possibly shows a refusal to share her existence with Misato and Shinji. Asuka later uses the same expression at the end of the movie The End of Evangelion (1997), where she seems disgusted by the existence of another human being, Shinji.
"Don't Be" includes doll symbolism, as evidenced by a theological discussion between Asuka's father and stepmother where they describe men as God's dolls, Ritsuko's cat-shaped figurines, and the lift scene in which Rei says she is not a doll. The Japanese writer Taro Igarashi, has stated that Neon Genesis Evangelion has a recurring theme of copies and cloning; in "Don't Be", for example, Eva-02 replaces Kyoko, who replaces her daughter with a doll, only to later be replaced in the role of mother by Asuka's stepmother. Misato can also be considered a substitute mother figure for Asuka and Shinji; Ritsuko in the same episode points out how they wanted to "play" by pretending to be a family. Misato replies by saying that she does not intend to accept such a joke from someone like Ritsuko, who fills her loneliness with cats, before apologizing. According to the Japanese writer Hiroshi Daimon, Misato's response is an example of how characters in Neon Genesis Evangelion exhibit traits associated with borderline personality disorder.
According to Dennis Redmond, another theme of "Don't Be" is feminism. Asuka rebels against society's sexism and being treated like a doll; moreover, when Asuka is saved by Rei, she states Asuka is "exhibiting the first moment of genuine rage we have ever seen". For Redmond, the moment constitutes a "savage denunciation of the unutterably vile sexism permeating so many anime series". During Arael's attack, graphics called psychographs are framed, showing the psychological state of the pilot. The Japanese critic Akio Nagatomi wrote that faces are visible in Asuka's psychographs. According to Fabio Bartoli, the attack scene, in which Asuka begs Arael not to penetrate her, has physical as well as psychological connotations. At the end of her mental rape, Asuka describes herself as contaminated, and curls up in a fetal pose. In the final scene of the episode, Shinji tries to console her, and Asuka is shown surrounded by a ribbon that says "Keep out". According to Evangelion Chronicle, the presence of the ribbon also reflects Shinji's cowardice, as he is incapable of crossing that line.
According to Virginie Nebbia, Arael's attack shows how Angels are increasingly curious about human beings and their feelings, although it is not clear whether they act out of pure instinct or through premeditation. Arael's psychological contact technique is subsequently used by two Angels, Armisael and Tabris. The episode also reveals that the Spear of Longinus is an essential element for Seele to realize the Human Instrumentality Project, a plan to artificially evolve humanity and unite it into a single divine being. For Redmond, the loss of a monopoly on the Spear constitutes "Seele's ultimate nightmare scenario". Seele is furious with Gendo after he uses the Spear against Arael, and it becomes clear that Gendo has his own version of Instrumentality in mind. When Rei descends with the Eva-00 use to a giant locked in Nerv, believed to be the first Angel Adam, Misato protests that doing so may set off the Third Impact, but the order cannot be overruled and Misato is left feeling that everything she has learned is false. After the loss of the Spear, Seele changes its plans, and in The End of Evangelion uses the Eva-01 instead to realize Instrumentality. Fabio Bartoli also linked the scene in which the Spear heads towards the Moon to "Fly Me to the Moon", the series' closing theme song.

## Reception

"Don't Be" was first broadcast on February 28, 1996 and drew a 7.9% audience share on Japanese television. In July 2020, Comic Book Resources reported the episode having an 8.5/10 rating on IMDb, making the eighth highest-rated Evangelion episodes. Merchandise based on the episode, including a line of official tee-shirts, have been released.
Digitally Obsessed's Joel Cunningham gave "Don't Be" a positive review, describing it as an "example of the unconventional goals of the series". Film School Rejects' Max Covill also gave a positive review, writing: "Emotions weigh heavy during this episode, as it acts as the series’ closure for Asuka, one of the series' best characters". Akio Nagatomi of The Anime Café described it as a "decent" episode and praised the use of high-speed cuts during Asuka's mind rape, but criticised Anno's use of the Hallellujah chorus, the elevator scene, and Miyamura's performance. Kenneth Lee of Anime News Network similarly criticised the lift scene and described Anno's use of the Hallellujah chorus as "one of the worst choices of music ever", stating: "Not only is this sacrilegious, but even from an atheist's point-of-view, this would seem completely incongruous and out of place." The academic José Andrés Santiago Iglesias, on the other hand, described the lift scene as one of the "examples of masterful uses of stillness" in the series. Comic Book Resources' Ajay Aravind listed it as one of the scenes that changed Japanese animation, since it's "fascinating, because it starkly contrasts the dramatic beauty of the show's animation".
The Japanese writer Shoko Fukuya reported that Asuka's extended inner monologue in Death and Rebirth gained a negative reaction from viewers due to the loop of Asuka repeating the same lines. GameRant described Arael's attack and Asuka's mind rape as one of the most disturbing events in Evangelion. Screen Rant similarly described it as "one of the most traumatic" battles in the series. Comic Book Resources ranked it among the best fights and most disturbing moments in the show. According to Fangoria: "It's a harrowing example of pure psychological terror". Anime News Network's James Beckett similarly lauded it, saying: "When Asuka's mind and soul were invaded by Arael in Episode 22, 'Don't Be', I learned the ways that you could use form and technique to not just tell a story, but to break it, and in so doing allow your audience to connect with your characters on an even deeper level". Looper described Asuka's character development as one "of the strongest on the show". IGN critic Ramsey Isler also praised Asuka's characterization and past, ranking her as the thirteenth greatest anime character of all time and saying: "She's a tragic character, and a complete train wreck, but that is what makes her so compelling because we just can't help but watch this beautiful disaster unfold."
A parody of the lift scene between Asuka and Rei is present in Sword Art Online. In 2015, the Japanese actress Natsuki Kato dressed as Misato Katsuragi during an announcement by the Hakuto team of a space mission to send a miniature replica of Longinus' spear to the Moon, taking inspiration from the scene in "Don't Be". According to Anime News Network's James Beckett, a scene from the fifth episode of Blue Exorcist: Shimane Illuminati Saga, in which Izumo Kamiki confronts her mother, may be inspired by Asuka's inner monologue in "Don't Be", including a shot of Izumo running towards the camera against a red backdrop.