Watching Neon Genesis Evangelion was really something...
I watched the original 1995 available on Netflix just for the love for anime and it really twisted my views on anime and I fear I might never find another series as good as this one.
The world building, the characters, the lore was REALLY out of this world. I love the concept of the mecha evas just essentially being biologically engineered angel flesh. The very creatures the Evas were made to fight off.
As confusing as the end was because I didn't watch the "End of Evangelion" Movie, and because of the budget cuts and restraints, the show was absolutely brilliant.
The way of how there were soul less shells resembling Rei Ayanami as well as the fact Rei was produced using the dna of Shinji's mother. The plot twist of Kaworu being an angel which led to Shinji being ordered to eliminate him even though they got so close was just so....GAHHHHHH. I absolutely loved the Series.
I don't know what to do now that I have watched the series but I'm looking very much forward to watching the following rebooted movies of the anime.
I would recommend this anime for the folks who enjoy psychologically complex things, introspective stuff, complex themes of (gore, trauma issues) and also for those who love Deep world building and characters with well written detail.
I’ve had this outline for a while but I don’t think I’ll ever get around to fully writing it, so I’ll share it here to get rid of the brain worms
Warnings for psychological/emotional manipulation, hypnosis, and past cannibalism (stay with me here—)
Timeline - Post season 2, pre-movie
Genre - psychological thriller
ROTTMNT Leatherhead AKA ‘Edd’
Mutant crocodile, between 25-30 years old
From Louisiana, still has accent, migrated to the New York Hidden City after ~events~
Hermit, chronically alone, bitter towards Yokai and the world at large
Despite this he’s not outright AGGRESSIVE if approached with no intent to harm
Generally pretty grumpy
Hasn’t had any sort of relationship with ANYONE since the ~events~
Plot
First Meetings
The switch of Raph to Leo for leader at the end of S2 creates immense amounts of friction, specifically in fights and tense verbal spars between Raph and Leo, with Mikey and Donnie caught inbetween
Mikey takes the brunt of the attempts to de-escalate to very limited success, and Splinter tells them they need to work it out themselves
Donnie eventually completely checks out from all of it and figuratively throws Mikey to the wolves, holing up in his lab to get away from the constant noise and tension
The fights aren’t physical, but it causes all of them to avoid the common areas of the lair and on top of Mikey getting frustrated with the fights in general he’s really lonely and mentally exhausted with everything (Leo and Raph both try to drag him to their sides and blow off all his attempts to create a compromise)
Nothing’s fun or calm in the lair anymore and April is busy with finals so Mikey has very little options to feed his need for a social life
Draxum kicks him out and/or hangs up whenever Mikey tries to call and vent about things, too
Eventually Mikey’s spending more time out of the lair than in it, only returning each night with the hope of having a family dinner again (and being disappointed each time, eating at the table by himself and a rare visit from Splinter)
On one of his outings he’s in the Hidden City and accidentally draws the attention of the Hidden City Police with his tagging, he tries to talk his way out of it but gets rebuffed immediately by the officers once they hear that he’s a ‘teenage MUTANT ninja turtle’, they’re very xenophobic towards mutants
Mikey tries to escape but gets clipped by a mystic taser which completely nullifies his ninpo (not permanently, just for like 15 mins)
Ran towards the very outskirts of the city towards a swampy area, where the officers finally catch up and pin him
They’re about to drag Mikey off (he’s cursing in his head about it) when Leatherhead ‘Edd’ comes out of the treeline and scares off the officers, who leave Mikey to be possibly eaten
Edds very tense and standoffish but still asks if Mikey’s alright, and happy to find a somewhat friendly face Mikey brightens and profusely thanks him, Edd gives him a weird look and tells him to beat it, going back the way he came
Mikey follows and asks a million questions to Edd and is met with silence all the way to his run down shack where he finally snaps and makes it VERY clear that he’s a MUTANT and not a Yokai like he thinks Mikey is, Mikey gleefully corrects him and Edd’s a little taken aback meeting another mutant but loses any kind of aggression, leaving him awkward
Insinuates Mikey should be getting home and after Mikey morosely agrees Edd awkwardly asks if Mikey wants to stay for dinner and Mikey eagerly agrees (no stranger danger here) as long as he can know his name, Edd says it’s ’Leatherhead’ and Mikey nicknames him Edd immediately and there’s no complaints about it
Edd’s already getting charmed by Mikey and is even more shocked when Mikey asks for his number (Edd doesn’t have a phone) but Mikey says he’ll just be back in a few days and Edd has no chance to disagree in the face of the whirlwind that is Mikey excited about a new possible friend
…New Friends (?)
Things still aren’t going great in the lair, so Mikey spends more and more of his time at Edd’s to chase away the loneliness, and justifies it as him being there for Edd who is also very alone, he even stays the night once or twice, and when none of his family asks where he went it sends him into a bit of a spiral
He has no clue how obsessed Edd is getting with his company, thinks the fun nickname he gave Mikey (‘mon frère‘, AKA ‘my brother’) means friend in Cajun French cause that’s what Edd told him it meant
On one of those overnight stays Mikey finally pries Edd’s backstory out of him
His mother was mutated right before they hatched (Edd was the oldest) and she threw them into the water, contaminated with runoffs of residual Empyrean, to be mutated too. Edd felt responsible for looking after his little brothers (about 34 of them) when his mother left
After four years their mother stopped coming back, everything went bad and his hungry little brothers started trying to kill each other, Edd got caught up in the carnage and rage, ended up as the last one standing, since he was too scared to leave his home he ate most of their bodies to survive
He relives this everytime he closes his eyes and desperately wishes he could have another chance to be a good big brother *wink wink*
When he finally left and stumbled into the New Orleans Hidden City he was outed as a mutant and persecuted with death threats, similarly happened at Philadelphia and Pittsburg Hidden Cities until he managed to make it to New York which is also not great towards mutants but he wasn’t forcibly chased out, he just deals with the prejudice and harsh words and keeps to himself
Throughout all this time Edd has been slowly sprinkling in doubts about Mikey’s relationship with his brothers/family, how if they’d really cared they’d know he’s gone and check up on him, they show no appreciation on how Mikey keeps them together
It’s not enough to create obvious red flags but enough to have Mikey think about it more than he should, and in response now HE’S getting snappy and irritated with his brothers for not noticing that he’s NEVER home anymore except to sleep
When a fight finally turns physical Mikey snaps (not explosively, but he left during it which he would have NEVER done before), Donnie gives him a weird look for it but doesn’t comment and is back in his lab to avoid everything once again
Mikey packs a bag and leaves for Edd’s (his safe place now), Edd of course welcomes him warmly but gets concerned with how withdrawn Mikey is
He finally breaks down sobbing about how broken Mikey’s family has become and they’re not acting like brothers anymore, Edd comforts him through it all, saying he can stay for however long he wants and that he’ll always be there even if his family won’t
Mikey stays for 3 straight days (with no one reaching out wondering where he is) before he thinks he should probably head back
Edd seems panicked and fidgety when he hears it and practically begs him to at least stay for dinner, and Mikey wasn’t going to but Edd bribed him with his favorite southern dish and he’s convinced to stay
Edd is staring at him all throughout the meal, barely picking at his own, Mikey notes that’s there’s something sweet about it that’s not normally there but brushes it off since it still tastes REALLY good, starts trying to leave and gets hit with a wave of dizziness
Edd acts concerned and insists that Mikey can stay if he’s not feeling well when he still tries to leave, everything starts getting fuzzy for Mikey and he can’t think straight
Mikey’s picked up before he can fall on his face and placed in his hammock above Edds bed (he feels like he should be concerned but he can’t feel anything except calm and pliable), Edd comforts him, tucking him in, and then brings out a hanging lamp right in front of the hammock
The lamp had light that flows gracefully between greens/blues/yellows, Mikey passes out watching it completely calm and mind suspiciously quiet
Under the mystic hypnotism Edd whispers things like ‘it’s aight, you’re already home’ ‘I’ll take care of you’ ‘You’ll get everything you deserve’ ‘nothing will hurt you again’ and ‘You’re big brother will make sure you stay safe and sound’ ‘I won’t mess up it this time’
Where’s Mikey?
April finally visits the lair after finals, she’s prepared to party but finds the lair suspiciously empty, expects Mikey to be in the kitchen and doesn’t think much when he’s not
She goes to the lab and Donnie’s very happy to see her but reluctant to admit everything about the fights and being cagey about it, Aprils already frustrated and calls a family meeting after dragging Donnie out of the lab
Mikey’s the only one not present and no one knows where he could be (he’d NEVER miss a family meeting), cue hunt through the lair that no one except April takes seriously at first until Leo gets to his room and freezes next to the calendar hanging by the hammock
Mikey was always on top of crossing out the days, but the X’s are missing from the last 2 weeks
They start panicking a little bit more and try tot rack his phone, the signal is at the bottom of the harbor, the subdermal tracker thankfully works and shows him at the CERY VERY outskirts of the Hidden City, and they set off to bring him home (Leo and Raph bicker the entire time)
Meanwhile, Edd and a hypnotized Mikey have been having tons of fun as Edd tries to teach him everything he knows and how to survive
Since it’s things to do with crocodiles and not turtles Mikey’s pretty terrible at it but that just endears him to his amazing ‘big brother’ even more than before, cementing in Edds mind that Mikey will always need him and won’t ever leave
Hypnotized Mikey believes that Edd gracefully took him after his real brothers were neglecting him, and looks up to him as if he’s the best thing ever, never going against Edd and when there is some pushback Edd gives him a little bit more of the mystic hypnotic to make it go away and has no desire to return to the lair, irises ringed in a very faint glittery green
The family finally finds Mikey and try to drag him home but Mikey resists, Edd gets VERY AGGRESSIVE when he stumbles out to what’s happening, Donnie (very uncharacteristically, hold on though) convinced everyone to avoid a fight and retreat as Edd forcibly drags Mikey back inside the shack where it’s ’safe’
When Donnie gets flack for the retreat he reveals the mystic aura that he could see covering Mikey from head to toe from his glasses, he couldn’t tell exactly what it was and didn’t want to accidentally hurt Mikey because of it, they get Draxums help figuring out the hypnosis thing and go on their mini adventures to get the ingredients for the sure fire antidote
Edd’s getting progressively more agitated and aggressive the more Mikey questions why his previous brothers were here, why they would want him back after all that happened, why they’d look like they cared about him when Edd said they didn’t, etc.
It gets to the point where Edd nearly turns Mikey into a mindless doll with how much mystic hypnotic he gives him to try and erase the encounter and stop talking about it so he can keep his ‘little brother’ for himself and protect him like Edd couldnt with his other little brothers
The others obvious come back with the antidote and Draxum which leads to a big fight against the wards Edd put up in his paranoia about Mikey being taken and then Edd himself
Leo manages to sneak into the shack and finds Mikey listlessly watching the lamp in his hammock, he takes Mikey out of the hammock and gives him the antidote, starts snapping out of it immediately and Leo fills him in on what was happening because of the explosions outside
Mikey, pretty weak, gets out and tries to reason with Edd where he’s facing off against Raph, the fighting momentarily stops and they’re all glad to see Mikey okay
Mikey very much doesn’t appreciate what Edd did but since he’s Mikey he says that he can forgive Edd for it given enough time (the others VERY vocally disagree on that, and April says they’re going to have a talk about his tendency to forgive abuse)
Edd seems to deflate and understand, backing down and walking remorseful towards Mikey and Mikey’s hopeful that he can still have Edd as his friend after they get some time apart
In the next moment Edd snaps and tries to kill Mikey, claiming that if he can’t have his little brother than no one can (he’d rather know that Mikey’s dead than living somewhere without him being happy), Draxum takes him out with his vines before he can get far and has to take him to the police where he’s imprisoned immediately for being a ‘volatile mutant who’s a danger to the general public’
Mikey finally speaks to April about the stress he was under with all the fights and trying to keep the family together before he finally had enough, April makes it VERY clear that none of it was his fault and he didn’t deserve any of it
She also gives the others a talk and they all reluctantly agree that they’ve definitely been drifting too far apart and vow to have family time where they don’t dissolve into real fights (Leo makes this hard but there was no rule against being a nuisance on patrol so he’ll live with it
Mikey hopes that Edd can get the help he needs and live an actually happy life
(He doesn’t, every time Edd escapes the prison he goes after Mikey, only gets stopped when he gets Kraangified and goes ‘missing’, AKA the officers of the Hidden City finally have a justification for executing him)
The ending’s sad for Leatherhead, I know, but some people don’t change or get better even if they DO get help, which Edd doesn’t. On top of that, sometimes trauma makes people do bad things and they don’t have any remorse for it. Seeing as this was meant to be a psychological thriller kind of fic I think the unhappy ending for him was fitting.
If you read all that, I hope you found some enjoyment from it! It’s also a little showcase of how I outline the stories I write lol
Just finished my first book of the year, The Shining by Stephen King. I understand why this is a classic. I went into the book mostly blind, not even seeing the movie. I loved that it switched perspectives and had unreliable narrators. It was an overall great psychological book. I give it 4.5 stars
