"Hedgehog's Dilemma", also known by the Japanese title is the fourth episode of the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion, which was created by animation studio Gainax. The episode, written by Akio Satsukawa and directed by Tsuyoshi Kaga, was first broadcast on TV Tokyo on October 25, 1995. The series is set fifteen years after a worldwide cataclysm named Second Impact, and is mostly set in the futuristic, fortified city of Tokyo-3. The episode's protagonist is Shinji Ikari, a teenage boy who is recruited by his father Gendo to the organization Nerv to pilot a giant biomechanical mecha named Evangelion into combat with beings called Angels. In the episode, Shinji is overcome by the stress of being an Evangelion pilot and runs away from home. After wandering around Tokyo-3, he must choose between quitting and staying at Nerv.

Production of "Hedgehog's Dilemma" took place after the fifth and sixth episodes were made, and the content varied from the staff's original ideas. It is the only episode in which Neon Genesis Evangelion director Hideaki Anno is not credited with direction or screenplay. The episode's title references the namesake concept proposed by German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, variously called the "hedgehog's" or the "porcupine's dilemma". The episode scored a 5.8% rating of audience share on Japanese TV and was generally well-received by critics. The episode received appreciation for focusing on the psychological description of the characters. Critics also appreciated the philosophical themes and directorial choices of "Hedgehog's Dilemma", such as the representation of natural landscapes and the use of still images.

Plot Special agency Nerv Major Misato Katsuragi notices Shinji Ikari, a minor in her custody and official Evangelion pilot, has run away from home. Shinji aimlessly wanders around the city of Tokyo-3 and the countryside, and meets his classmate Kensuke Aida sleeping in a tent. In the morning, men in black escort Shinji back to Nerv headquarters, where he renounces the title of pilot and chooses to return to ordinary life. Shinji is taken to a station to board a special government train, and meets Kensuke and Toji Suzuhara, another of Shinji's classmates, who had struck him in the previous episode. Toji reconciles with Shinji under Kensuke's push, asking Shinji to strike him without holding back, which he reluctantly does. Misato drives to the station, believing Shinji has already left. She notices Shinji, who has decided not to board the train, on the platform, and they smile at each other.

Production

"Hedgehog's Dilemma" was once omitted in terms of the series composition, and it was planned that the fifth episode, "Rei I", would come after the third, "A Transfer". After the battle against Angel Shamshel, Shinji would become friends with Toji Suzuhara and Kensuke Aida in "A Transfer", receiving a call from them. As production progressed, however, staff members said they thought there was a need to depict Shinji's relationships with the people around him after the third episode. 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. "Hedgehog's Dilemma" was thus made with contents that differ from the original plans. Moreover, Neon Genesis Evangelion director Hideaki Anno had already worked on the fifth and sixth episodes of the series, and tried to go beyond regular anime and develop realistic characters with the installments.

The episode's script was written after the fifth episode's script had already been finalized, making "Hedgehog's Dilemma" the only episode in which director Anno did not have direct input into the plot and script. Akio Satsukawa wrote the episode, while Jun'ichi Satō, who is credited as Kiichi Jinme, drew the storyboard. Tsuyoshi Kaga directed the episode, and Satoshi Shigeta served as chief animator. British singer Claire Littley also 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. In 1993, Gainax 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 original project, the fourth episode should have been titled ; during the episode, Shinji's birthday would occur, but his father Gendo would have ignored the son without wishing him a happy birthday. Rei Ayanami would then attempt to make dinner for both of them, while Misato would decide something for Shinji. Gainax also proposed as the episode's title in the storyboard phase.

During production, the staff thought about opening and closing the episode with Misato reading the day's notes from her diary, but the idea was dropped and used for the movie Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death and Rebirth (1997). The draft script for "Hedgehog's Dilemma" also mentions dates that were cut from the broadcast, according to which the episode's final scene, in which Misato recounts the events of the previous week, was originally intended to take place on July 31, 2015. In the episode's original script draft, Gainax planned for Misato to grab Shinji by the collar during their conversation. She would then ask Toji and Kensuke whether anything had happened at school, and Shinji would see the sea during his flight from Tokyo-3. The days were described as cold rather than summery as in the final version, and Kensuke's military role-playing scene was considerably longer. While speaking with Shinji, Misato would apologize for forcing him to do things against his will. Satsukawa himself stated that he initially envisioned Misato as a more militaristic character. Ritsuko, rather than Nerv's men, would accompany Shinji to the station and relay a message from Gendo: "Take care of yourself". At the station, Shinji would apologize to Toji and Kensuke for hesitating to let them board Eva-01 in the previous episode. The final exchange between Misato and Shinji and any explicit mention of the hedgehog's dilemma were not yet included. Ritsuko, meanwhile, would mention Pandora's box in connection with the Second Impact. After a flashback depicting Misato and Shinji's first meeting and the beginning of their life together, the final scene would show Shinji at Nerv undergoing tests with a Z-Cycle laser cannon.

In the scene in which Shinji watches the disaster film about the Second Impact in a cinema, a "story within a story" script was created and voice-acted for realism, including all of the film's main characters, who were voiced by Kōichi Nagano, Hiro Yūki, Megumi Hayashibara, Fumihiko Tachiki as the doctor, Tetsuya Iwanaga and Tomokazu Seki as his assistants. A frame in which Rei is analyzed in a computerized scanning was added in the following scenes, in which normal cells have been integrated with computer-generated effects. The Tokyo-3 signs in the night scene were also produced by the staff on the computer, and were later incorporated into the final drawings. Italian writer Mario Pasqualini noted how the scene features, among others, a karaoke sign, whose sign, however, reads , where the kana character is replaced with . Pasqualini linked this to a specific choice of Anno already used in Gunbuster and to the gyaru-moji writing style, which has spread among Japanese youth during Evangelion broadcast using arbitrary homophones or graphic inventions. Writer Virginie Nebbia noticed that Misato, usually depicted in a sensual manner, wears long pajamas that cover her entire body in "Hedgehog's Dilemma". According to Nebbia, this is due to the absence of Anno from the main staff. However, Nebbia noted how Anno's imprint is still present, as it features elements typical of his direction, such as close-ups of electricity poles and the long, silent final shot. Writer Álvaro Arbonés similarly noted the episode presents a dreamlike and visual style very different from the previous one; for example, Shinji is portrayed wandering in a field similar to Vincent Van Gogh's paintings.

During the episode, existing geographical places such as Atsugi, Gōra, Togendai, the Ōwakudani valley, a pampas grass field in Sengokuhara, and Lake Ashi, are named or drawn. A fictional JRG train model named Odakyū 7700 series CHiSE was also drawn for the episode. Hayashibara and Hiro Yūki served as female and male speakers of the train, respectively. Hayashibara and Yūko Miyamura also voiced two prostitutes in a scene in which Shinji wanders Tokyo-3 at night. For the last scene, which is set in the New Hakone Yumoto station, staff took inspiration from the real Hakone-Yumoto Station, depicting it similarly to the actual station. The stairs into which Shinji is led by the men in black were depicted as dark, similar to the corridors of a prison. Another Okadyū Romancecar train similar to the Odakyū 10000 series HiSE was drawn for the scene, along with a Renault Alpine A310 car without modifications driven by Misato. In the same sequence, the songs Bay Side Love Story – from Tokyo and Face from Masami Okui's album Gyuu (1995) were used as background music. A fifty-second-long take in which Shinji and Misato look at each other in the station was added as a conclusion to the episode. Academic writer Giuseppe Gatti noted that the use of long shots that "transmit its atmosphere of cognitive and narrative thinning" became one of the defining stylistic elements of Evangelion. The take was originally supposed to be one minute long, but the staff decided to cut it during production. Academic Philip Brophy noted that Shinji is positioned in a wide frame, visually reducing him in size, focus, and importance; the scene has no music, with just the station announcements and Okui's song "at the threshold of audibility", so "at these moments, location sound is either reduced or voided". Brophy described it as a musical haiku, where the "individual elements collide, merge, and quietly combust". Writer River Seager noted Anno had shown an interest in trains since his short film At the Bus Stop (1980) and Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack (1988); the symbol of the train then returns in Anno's next work, Love & Pop (1998). Seager observed that trains have fused the themes of death and modernity since Kenji Miyazawa's novel Night on the Galactic Railroad, which was adapted into an anime film by Gisaburō Sugii and possibly influenced Galaxy Express 999. Trains became a site of isolation, loneliness, and the desire to run away; however, in Anno's cinematography, train stations also offer the hope for growth and change, as in the final scene of "Hedgehog's Dilemma".

Cultural references