> i only saw the first two episodes, but wasn't the father/scientist a
> sinister figure? the phrase that kept occuring to me was 'father, why
> me?' -- a rather particular christian reference to a god demanding
> sacrifice. is that how it struck you, dennis? penguins i can't remember.
Hard to say. The series starts out as a traditional mecha story, and then goes haywire around episode four or five. Or rather, what seemed to be cardboard characters suddenly start acquiring amazing depth and resonance. There are no villains/heroes in the traditional sense in the series, as far as I can tell; Genda Ikari, Shinji's father, has a redemptive aspect, actually. The penguin is Major Katsuragi's pet, she calls it "Pen-Pen". Which may just be a reference to Antarctica or something. All I know is that when I buzzed thru the last episodes, it was like mainlining Proust or something. Gotta go back and do a frame-by-frame reading, assuming I can scam some time. All I know is, the quote of Beethoven's 9th symphony CANNOT be an accident. Not in 1995, when the series was apparently made.
Sorry for afflicting this list for what may seem like boring trivia, but where archeologists excavate civilizations and paleontologists dig up complete fossils, litcritters stumble across Works of Art, buried in the ice-fields of cable TV like woolly mammoths. A find is usually accompanied by pandemic drooling, naked dancing on top of the nearest desktop PC, and other random acts of Literature.
-- Dennis