Kihachi Okamoto
According to Yūichirō Oguro, an editor of some Japanese home video editions of "Evangelion", the Japanese title "Showdown in Tokyo-3" is a reference to the sixth episode of "Return of Ultraman," "Showdown! Monsters vs. MAT". Like "Rei II", "Showdown! Monsters vs. MAT" contains a large-scale operation. Oguro noted that ticker tape is also used during the episode, similarly to Anno's previous works "Gunbuster" and "." He compared the use of ticker tape to the works by director Kihachi Okamoto. Critics also speculated that Ramiel's design was influenced by "Mirai Keisatsu Urashiman" and "" (1968).