"A Transfer", known by the Japanese title is the third episode of the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion, created by animation studio Gainax. Series director Hideaki Anno and writer Akio Satsukawa wrote the episode, which was directed by Hiroyuki Ishido. It aired originally on TV Tokyo on October 18, 1995. The series is set fifteen years after a worldwide cataclysm known as the Second Impact, specifically in the futuristic fortified city of Tokyo-3. The protagonist is Shinji Ikari, a teenage boy whose father, Gendo, recruited him to the organization Nerv to pilot a giant mecha named Evangelion into combat with beings called Angels. In the episode, Shinji begins attending his new school in Tokyo-3 and has a difficult time dealing with the fame of being an Evangelion pilot. His classmate Toji Suzuhara, whose little sister was injured in Shinji's fight against the Angel Sachiel shown in the previous episode, is angry at him; a new Angel named Shamshel appears, and Shinji must once again pilot Eva-01 to defeat it.
Production for "A Transfer" began after the fifth and sixth episodes. The episode analyzes the characters' relationships and Shinji's psyche in particular. "A Transfer" scored a 7.1% rating of audience share on Japanese TV and received a divided reception. Critics praised the animation, sound, and character focus, while others criticized Toji's characterization and Shinji's actions.
Plot Shinji Ikari tries to adjust to his new life in Tokyo-3. He is now the official pilot of the giant mecha Evangelion 01 for the special agency Nerv and lives with Nerv's captain Misato Katsuragi, though their relationship is still distant. As the episode opens, he is lethargically going through the motions of training. In the morning he departs for school; Nerv's Dr. Ritsuko Akagi calls Misato to check on Shinji and is told that Shinji seems to have made no friends at school. There, Shinji's classmates Kensuke Aida, Toji Suzuhara, and Hikari Horaki are first introduced. They begin to discuss the battle between a mecha and an enemy named Sachiel, the third of a series of beings called Angels, which took place in the previous episode. Toji has only just returned to class for the first time since the fight, explaining that he had to care for his sister, who was injured in the battle with Sachiel. When Shinji's classmates discover his identity as a pilot, Toji blames him for his sister's injuries and gives him a beating in retaliation. Shinji's protestations that he was piloting involuntarily make Toji angrier.
The fourth Angel, Shamshel, attacks Tokyo-3, and Shinji is mobilized in Eva-01 to defend the city. Kensuke convinces Toji to sneak out of their shelter to watch the battle from nearby. Shinji loses his nerve to fight and is tossed into the air by Shamshel, almost killing Toji and Kensuke as he lands. This also severs Eva-01's Umbilical Cable, leaving it with just five minutes of reserve power. Shinji then begins fighting a defensive battle, attempting to protect Toji and Kensuke rather than defeat the Angel. To protect them from the battle, Misato orders Toji and Kensuke to take refuge in the Evangelion's cockpit. Inside, Toji sees Shinji's great anguish and pain as he fights the Angel, and is beset by remorse. Misato orders Shinji to retreat, but he loses his temper and charges Shamshel with his knife, defeating the Angel as its power runs out. Days later, Kensuke gives Toji the number of Shinji's phone so he can apologize; Toji attempts to call, but stops.
Production
In 1993, Gainax studio wrote a presentation volume of Neon Genesis Evangelion named , containing a first draft of the planned episodes. The studio published the Proposal document in 1994. In the Proposal, the staff initially called the episode . After the battle with the Angel, Shinji would have become friends with Toji and Kensuke, receiving a call from them; Gainax, however, changed the planned scenario and moved the beginning of the friendship to the following episode, "Hedgehog's Dilemma". As they were writing the scripts and the screenplay, the staff also felt that it would be logically implausible to have Shinji pilot Eva-01 again without first considering the effects of the boy's traumatic experience. Gainax later changed the original title to "The Silent Phone", with the English title "A Transfer".
Neon Genesis Evangelion director Hideaki Anno and Akio Satsukawa wrote the script for "A Transfer". Evangelion assistant director Kazuya Tsurumaki and Hiroyuki Ishido composed the storyboards. Ishido also served as director for the episode, while Nobuhiro Hosoi took the role of chief animator, and Tsurumaki and Yoshitō Asari served as assistant character designers. Asari also worked on Angel Shamshel's design. Animator Yō Yoshinari contributed to the depiction of the battle against Eva-01 and Shamshel. According to the schedule, Anno worked on the fifth and sixth episodes of the series, "Rei I" and "Rei II", before the third and fourth ones. For production reasons, the post-recording dubbing followed the same order. He felt he had to go beyond regular anime in developing realistic characters for "A Transfer" and "Hedgehog's Dilemma", so he tried to focus on Shinji's relationships in the installments.
Specific technical terminology was used for the simulated battle in the first scene, including terms such as "gain" and "induction mode". In the episode's original draft, Shinji was meant to use a large laser Gatling gun during training. In the scene where Toji talks about his sister, a shot of the roof of a civilian shelter collapsing was also planned, and Toji would have revealed that both of his parents, rather than only his father, worked for Nerv. The draft had not yet determined whether Kensuke would reprimand Toji, and the battle against Shamshel also differed slightly from the final version. Shamshel was meant to have arms that transformed into shields capable of deflecting projectiles, and during the battle it would have attacked Eva-01 with a knifehand strike, driving its hand into the Eva's body. Ritsuko would have encouraged Shinji to defeat the enemy, and after allowing Toji and Kensuke aboard Eva-01, Shinji was meant to avert his gaze with a displeased expression. In the following episode, Shinji would then have apologized to Toji and Kensuke for initially not wanting to let them aboard. Japanese academic Masaki Miyakawa noted how in Shinji's training scene, the control room where Ritsuko and Maya observe him has walls full of light indicators in the style of Leiji Matsumoto, particularly reminiscent of Space Battleship Yamato or Galaxy Express 999. In the episode, an image of a crater generated by the battle in the previous episode, "The Beast", was introduced, in which a mountain named Mount Takanosu was depicted. Tokyo-3 is also shown in a battle for the first time in "A Transfer"; for the landscapes of the city, Anno took inspiration from Tracy Island from the Thunderbirds series and the headquarters of UFOs SHADO organization.
Evangelion Chronicle, an official encyclopedia about the series, noted that the episode's screenplay deliberately subverts audience expectations. Viewers would typically expect Shinji to reconcile with Toji by the end of the story and finally receive a phone call, yet his phone—true to the episode's title—never rings, even in the closing scene, a choice that strengthens Toji's role within the narrative. Evangelion Chronicle also pointed out that mobile phones remained uncommon among the Japanese public in the late 1990s. As a result, Misato's decision to give a cellphone to Shinji, who was still a middle school student, stood out as remarkably unusual at the time. The publication further observes that Shinji's classroom features computers that the students actively use, even though personal computers still occupied the earliest stages of widespread adoption during the series' original broadcast, when most people regarded them as expensive technologies with relatively limited use. An imperfect three-dimensional representation of the Entry Plug was also added at the end of the episode, produced by Kensuke on his laptop according to his memories. Several voice actors were used again to portray Shinji's classmates in the installment; the female companions, in particular, are voiced by Yūko Miyamura, Kotono Mitsuishi, and Megumi Hayashibara, who also voice the characters of Asuka Langley Soryu, Misato Katsuragi, and Rei Ayanami. At the beginning of the episode, a radio program with two female speakers talking about Matsuzaki city was included, revealing details about the geography of the world of Evangelion. Junko Iwao and Yūko Miyamura voiced the two female speakers of the radio program. Eiji Maruyama, who worked on Mirai Keisatsu Urashiman and other anime series, also voiced Shinji's math teacher. British singer Claire Littley sang a cover of "Fly Me to the Moon" which was later used as the episode's closing theme song, replaced in late home video editions by another cover by Yōko Takahashi.
Cultural references and themes
Ritsuko Akagi mentions the hedgehog's dilemma, a psychoanalytic and philosophical term, to describe Shinji's behaviour in the first scenes. The concept is usually used to describe the behaviors of individuals with a borderline personality disorder. Like the hedgehogs described by philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer in his book Parerga and Paralipomena, Shinji is afraid to be hurt and withdraws from human contact. According to Schopenhauer's pessimistic philosophy, every human relationship is characterized by pain and miscommunication; the closer humans are, the easier it is to hurt each other. Akio Satsukawa added the term while writing the script. Schopenhauer's concept later becomes one of the show's main themes. As noted by writer Virginie Nebbia, all the main Evangelion characters hide their inner self for fear of being hurt, as in Schopenhauer's dilemma. It is revealed in the second half of the series that a secret society named Seele tries to merge all humanity into a single being, deleting human psychological barriers in a process named Human Instrumentality. For scholar River Seager, Evangelion Instrumentality can be regarded as a possible solution to Arthur Schopenhauer's dilemma. Animage magazine argued that the relationships between Gendo and Ritsuko, Shinji and Asuka, and Misato and Kaji all follow this scheme; Seele also physically hurts and attacks Nerv in the ending movie. According to writer Alexandre Marine, a similar concept can be found in Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise (1987) and The Secret of Blue Water, in which Nadia Arwol realizes she can't live without interacting with other people after a suicide attempt.