thewayneiac: So, do we finally get to see what happens, or are they leading us on again?

Reichu: They'd better not be! A wise director should only test the patience of his audience so many times.

HeWhoPostsStuff: Methinks Anno's gotten more fans mad at him than just about any other director in history, heh. Except maybe George Lucas…

BGM START: E-5 fast tempo, rhythm only [HARBINGER OF TRAGEDY]

"Emergency Situation" display, UP
SE <<All types of warning sounds>>
Woman (OFF) "EVA-01 has sustained critical damage."

Sharp-kun: I've never quite seen the point of having so many lights. Surely one big "EMERGENCY" would do?

HeWhoPostsStuff: But then they couldn't reinforce the "hexagon" motif as effectively, heh heh.

Misato (rushed) "What's the status!?"

Ritsuko is calm compared to the frantic Ibuki.
Ritsuko "Break the circuit. Block it!!"
Ibuki "We can't!!"
Man (OFF) "Nerve graph is transgressing safe depths!"

Reichu: "Depth"? Of a graph?

thewayneiac: Sure, 3-D graphs have depth. The "stairstep" design of the graph in 248 is an attempt to show three dimensions.

thewayneiac: Maya's main job seems to be to telling us which emergency procedures aren't working this episode.

Keisuke-kun: Jesus H. Christ. All this trouble because of a hole in EVA-01's head?

HeWhoPostsStuff: Methinks you'd probably have quite a few problems if you had a hole in your head, heh.

Reichu: If you're an Eva, this is just another day on the job.

Keisuke-kun: No, Ibuki. It isn't completely out of control yet.

Sharp-kun: Now, in any sane design, the ejection system would be completely separate from everything else, so, even if the Eva was completely out of control, it would still function. Nerv don't seem to have realised the wisdom of that.

Reichu: What I translated as "organic-looking" is actually seibutsuteki na, or "like a living creature". Suffice to say, those aren't the Eva's real teeth.

Sharp-kun: Shows how much thought Nerv put into the aesthetics, though. They even designed the head so it looks cool when the unit goes berserk.

Female Operator (OFF) "The Eva has reactivated."
Ibuki "How!? It shouldn't be able to move."
Woman (OFF) "Plug depth, measurement impossible. Pilot status, measurement impossible."
Woman (OFF) "EVA-01, control impossible, control impossible."

Ritsuko (shock) "It's gone berserk…"
Man (OFF) "Confirmation of internal body status is extremely difficult."

BGM END: E-5 fast tempo, rhythm only [HARBINGER OF TRAGEDY]

Reichu: Bousou literally just means "running wild" or "out of control" (and is often used in reference to motorcyclists, interestingly enough). Translating it as "berserk" is a bit loose, since going "berserk" is much more specific than simply being "out of control". Arguably, though, it's strangely appropriate in EVA-01's case:

When we say that we are going berserk, we may not realize how extreme a state this might be. Our adjective comes from the noun berserker, or berserk, which is from the Old Norse word berserkr, "a wild warrior or champion."Such warriors wore hides of bears … [and] became frenzied in battle, howling like animals, foaming at the mouth, and biting the edges of their iron shields. Berserker is first recorded in English in the early 19th century, long after these wild warriors ceased to exist.
[dictionary.com]

HeWhoPostsStuff: I doubt this matters much, but if I remember correctly, "berserkers" were supposed to have been soldiers blessed by the god Odin when they were about to expire, and given extraordinary strength with which to continue battling.

Reichu: Now, imagine, an NGE in which NORSE mythology is the source of Pointless Religious Symbolism! The Evas become Valkyries! The Spear of Longinus becomes the Hammer of Thor! The Tree of Life becomes Yggdrasil! And, of course, Keel Lorenz becomes a NORSE cyborg. Maybe there's some worthwhile parody potential in there…

BGM START: E-5 fast tempo [THE BEAST]

The Eva lifts her head and bellows.
Eva "GUWAAAAAAAA!"

Keisuke-kun: NOW it's completely out of control.

Reichu: This is the real reason I watch NGE.

The Eva roars are basically modified human vocalizations. Try shouting into a microphone, pitch-shift it down, and you'll probably end up with something fairly Eva-like. There is more to making an Eva roar than that, I assume, but that's the secret of NGE's sound engineers… In my opinion, the Evas' various roars, grunts, and bellows have not been even adequately replicated in any dubbing efforts (one has to wonder why the Evas need to be dubbed over in the first place…). Even Gainax's redubs for DEATH were inferior — there's just no beating the original.

thewayneiac: In the commentary for the English dub of DEATH, AWL says they had to dub the Eva cries because they were on the dialogue track instead of the sound effects track. Wow, some actual information!

Reichu: Notice here how a joint in the mandibular piece pops open as she opens her mouth as wide as it (one would hope) goes… I'm not sure why this piece of armor would need such a joint, though.

Reichu: And for the first time, we see the Evas' faculty for performing gymastic stunts, with a level of grace and majesty I'm sure most "giant robots" lack. Of course, in real life, it would be impossible for something as large as an Eva to move like this, if at all. (Elephants can't even run, lest they break all of their limbs!) Evas are basically giant humans, just with slightly different proportions, but in actuality one cannot simply magnify a smaller organism and expect it to still work; larger lifeforms, by their very nature, cannot be built the same as smaller ones (at least when you have gravity as a limiting factor).

Shin-seiki: This involves what is known as the "square/cube" law: If you increase the size of an object that retains its shape and proportions, its surface area will increase as a function of the square of the size increase, while the volume (and thus the mass) will be cubed. Thus if you doubled the size of a man, his surface area (for example, the size of the soles of his feet that would be bearing his increased weight, or the cross-section of the bones in his legs) would be 2² (= 4 times), while his weight would be 2³ (= 8 times). This puts a practical limit on the size of terrestrial life that makes a creature the size of, say, King Kong a bio-physical impossibility…

thewayneiac: Exactly. When people talk about the great weights that ants can lift relative to their own weight, they often end with, "An ant the size of a human could lift the Empire State Building!" This is not true; an ant that size couldn't even lift itself.

tv33: For anyone interested, there was rather funny parody of this scene in "Burn-Up Excess" involving a giant transvestite.

Reichu: You may also remember this as C-064 from the OP. The animation itself is identical, save for the fact that she has the missing eye here. There is a coloration blooper here not present in OP/C-064, though — the clavicular plate is supposed to be purple. An error present in both is that the soles of her "shoes" are supposed to be yellow-orange, not grey.

If you ever watch scenes from this anime frame-by-frame and have an eye for nitpicking, you're bound to catch some of these coloration errors. They are more plentiful than it would be within the bounds of good taste for me to point out — so, by and by, I won't bother.

Reichu: If you're paying close attention, you'll notice that EVA-01 is trying to rip off Sachiel's face here. We'll see the actual damage shortly.

On another note, I wonder where all of those sparks in thumbnail B come from? Friction from the soles of the Eva's "shoes" seems improbable, as the "shoes" are clearly made out of a flexible, non-metallic material. I also have to wonder how Sachiel manages to continue standing while there's an Eva kneeling/squatting on his chest. He must have abs of steel in that spindly waist of his.

For a moment, it looks as though Sachiel's hand is on the Eva's arse… He's a bit too high, but I still find it amusing. "Oh, baby, you got buns of steel! Now… get the hell off me!!"