The Weirdest and Best Episode of Neon Genesis Evangelion Turns 15 Today

 

Neon Genesis Evangelion is an anime that defies definition. There’s teenage angst; giant robot battles; mommy issues; clones; daddy issues; several Armageddons; a lance that gets stuck in the moon; different kinds of clones… Every episode is a treasure, all of which culminate into a surreal package that’s honestly like nothing else on television, animated or otherwise. As a young fifteen-year old who was making his way through Evangelion’s dub for the first time, VHS tape by VHS tape, I was fascinated by the anime and its approach to characters and storytelling. However, it’s the ninth episode, “Both of You, Dance Like You Want to Win!”, that truly opened my eyes to how Evangelion is so different and important. It’s an episode that made me look for other anime that want to evolve animation as an art form rather than use it as an excuse to have big explosions and sell products.

“Both of You, Dance Like You Want to Win!”, is an underappreciated entry in the anime that’s deceptively simple, but perhaps the strongest example of the surreal versatility of Neon Genesis Evangelion and Hideaki Anno’s interpretation of the material. The episode involves Shinji and Asuka’s first cooperative attack against an enemy Angel, Israfel. Often the success of Eva pilots is based on their strength or courage, but this time it’s dependent upon their ability to master synchronization with one another, which of course is reinforced through the art of dance.

What makes “Both of You, Dance Like You Want to Win!” such a standout installment. of Neon Genesis Evangelion is that its premise is basically Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver, but instead of car chases it’s mech battles. It’s extremely ambitious to take something like a time-sensitive choreographed piece of music and combine it with an apocalyptic robot fight. This then becomes an even loftier task when it’s done in an anime like Neon Genesis Evangelion, which so frequently trades in questions of paralyzing doubt and the erasure of individuality and freewill. None of this should work, yet “Both of You, Dance Like You Want to Win!” might low-key be the best episode of the anime and it’s the perfect time to revisit this unique installment as its dub celebrates the 15th anniversary of its broadcast premiere.

To better appreciate the significance of this episode’s legacy, it’s important to briefly cover Neon Genesis Evangelion’s dub and broadcast history. The anime as a whole celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, but Evangelion’s dub was first distributed by ADV Films during 1996 to 1998 through VHS releases. Anime was still a very niche interest in North America during the late ‘90s and early 2000s, which means that most people didn’t actively purchase anime or have access to a rental store with a decent library of titles. On February 23rd and 24th 2003, years before Adult Swim had acquired the level of autonomy from Cartoon Network that it currently does, the first two Neon Genesis Evangelion dubbed episodes aired as part of Toonami’s Giant Robot Week. Albeit heavily edited, this trial run allowed the network to test the waters so that Neon Genesis Evangelion could properly air a few years later after viewing habits had the opportunity to mature. Evangelion’s dub premiered in its entirety on October 20th 2005, where it’d air weekly on Adult Swim until April 21st, 2006.

So despite being around since the ‘90s, many mainstream audiences and anime newcomers would first experience Neon Genesis Evangelion’s dub on Adult Swim during this 2005/2006 run, which is why this specific anniversary is so significant. “Both of You, Dance Like You Want to Win!” first aired on December 15, 2005 at 12:30am, following an episode of Stroker & Hoop and as a lead in to repeats of Samurai Champloo.

Adult Swim’s approach towards censorship was better than Cartoon Network proper, especially on their late-night “Midnight Run” version of the block, but anime would still receive edits. This was discouraging to fans that may not have an alternative means to watch an “uncensored” version of the episode. Neon Genesis Evangelion’s mature content largely aired without edits, but they did happen. However, “Both of You, Dance Like You Want to Win!” is completely untouched because of its relatively chaste nature. It’s an episode that Adult Swim audiences knew they were getting without compromise.

Neon Genesis Evangelion is so special because every episode resonates in a different way with people, but this particular entry is also one that’s had a special impact on Tiffany Grant, the original English voice actor for Asuka Langley Soryu. “I have long said that ‘Both of You, Dance Like You Want to Win!’ was my favorite episode of Neon Genesis Evangelion,” admits Grant. “It really is very different in tone from the other episodes, but you have to appreciate that we—the actors—hadn’t yet seen all the episodes. So it didn’t stand out in as stark contrast as it does to someone who is able now to sit and binge watch the whole series.”

Grant’s acknowledgement of the episode’s unusual tone is in reference to how “Both of You, Dance Like You Want to Win!” is this radical deviation that combines synchronized dance with mech fighting. It’s one of the last examples in Evangelion where the show gets to be truly playful and fun before its tone shifts over to the staggering existential dread that eventually becomes its bread and butter. “Both of You, Dance Like You Want to Win!” is a great example of the kinds of spectacles that are only possible in anime. Neon Genesis Evangelion becomes increasingly entrenched in backstory and lore, but “Both of You, Dance Like You Want to Win!” excels because it’s largely an episode that can be distilled and watched on its own as a satisfying and strange parable about teamwork. “Both of You, Dance Like You Want to Win!” is even an episode that works as an effective introduction to Neon Genesis Evangelion for someone who’s never seen it before.

The whole point of “Both of You, Dance Like You Want to Win!” is to illustrate that Shinji and Asuka can function as a flawless unit. This is conveyed through the episode’s plot and dialogue, but even the majority of shot composition meticulously stages characters and objects to form symmetrical images. It’s frequently done to create an overwhelming feeling of unity in the audience that can’t be avoided, just like how these synchronized movements become ingrained in Asuka and Shinji. To go one step even further, so much of Evangelion is interested in characters confronting whether they actually have freewill or not. However, “Both of You, Dance Like You Want to Win!” forces Shinji and Asuka to perfectly replicate each other’s actions so that they’re void of individuality. It’s an incredible subversion of Neon Genesis Evangelion’s standard themes, but it all feels so subtle due to how it’s dressed up in such a flashy and unconventional way.

The other major way in which “Both of You, Dance Like You Want to Win!” conveys Shinji and Asuka’s metamorphosis is with their attitudes towards each other. Grant details how her early experience in the role helped inform her performance as Asuka during this initial character arc:

This was only my second episode playing Asuka, so it was all pretty new at the time. I had been able to watch the first seven episodes before I went in to record episodes 8-10, so I did have some idea of what was going on.

This episode is certainly a stark contrast to the previous one, “Asuka Strikes!”, where my character is first introduced. When we meet Asuka, she’s shown to be quite a self-centered hotshot who is actually thrilled when the Angel Gaghiel arrives, thus giving her the perfect opportunity to show off for the less than exciting Third Child. Asuka clearly loves the limelight and is very much not a “team player.”

However, when the Angel Israfel shows up in episode nine, it splits into two identical copies, which requires a different approach.  It’s obvious that neither Asuka nor Shinji is accustomed to working closely in a collaborative manner with another person, so this training regime proves to be quite transformational for them both.

The growth that’s experienced between Shinji and Asuka is palpable and Grant elucidates on how the nature of Evangelion’s dub production helped contribute to both the animosity and eventual warmth that’s created between the two Eva pilots in this episode. “It may surprise many Eva fans to know that, when we recorded the dialogue for ‘Dance Like You Want to Win,’ Spike [Spencer] and I had never met,” reveals Grant. “Dubbing is very much the medium of the director, and it was the casting, script adapting and direction of Matt Greenfield that made this episode (and indeed the rest of the English version of Neon Genesis Evangelion) as entertaining and iconic as it is.”

It’s specifically the scripting of the dialogue and the characters’ performances in the dub that help “Both of You, Dance Like You Want to Win!” have such a personality. It juggles silly training sequences and comedic fight scenes with harrowing dialogue like, “Even the devil cries sometimes.” Asuka’s famous, “impenetrable Wall of Jericho” declaration plays like a cute scene between Shinji and Asuka where they squabble over personal space through the use of a blanket fort, which is then filtered through a heady Biblical allusion. Confidence and anxiety levels fluctuate between Shinji and Asuka throughout this episode while the two attempt to reach an equilibrium and understanding between each other. “Both of You, Dance Like You Want to Win!” provides constant visual evidence that Asuka and Shinji begin to rub off on each other and become more in sync, but Evangelion’s dub performances further punctuate the fluidity between these characters.

This is best represented by the “almost kiss” moment between Shinji and Asuka. It’s a loaded moment that speaks to Shinji’s disconnected nature, especially when it comes to romantic relationships (or honestly, even basic friendships). However, when Asuka brings it up later the moment is played for laughs as if it’s a beat in a romantic comedy and just a “quirky” step in the inevitable relationship between these two. The dub performances accentuate this even more, which ultimately makes the whiplash nature of how “Both of You, Dance Like You Want to Win!” plays the audience even more effective.

Everything in “Both of You, Dance Like You Want to Win!” builds to Shinji and Asuka putting their synchronized skills to use and the end product is such a sublime minute of animation that gives me goosebumps every time. Neon Genesis Evangelion crafts one of the anime’s most effective sequences, which acts as the perfect conclusion to such a challenging episode. Eva-01 and Eva-02’s one-minute limit plays out in real-time during Shinji and Asuka’s synchronized attack.

“Both of You, Dance Like You Want to Win!” is an important Neon Genesis Evangelion episode because of how it subverts expectations of its genre, characters, and very self. Adult Swim also experienced some programming changes after Evangelion’s run, which may have been a result of the anime and this episode’s impact. Adult Swim started to air more mature and psychological series that might not have previously fit pre-Evangelion, such as Death Note, as well as more absurdist comedies that swing in the opposite direction, like Shin-chan. The popularity of Neon Genesis Evangelion also likely helped contribute to Toonami’s return to more traditional staples of the mech genre, like Voltron.

Tiffany Grant says that Neon Genesis Evangelion is a series where there’s no lack of love from the fans and community, but that she still sees the legacy that “Both of You, Dance Like You Want to Win!” has left behind. “I have seen cosplayers at cons dressed in the blue and pink matching outfits that Shinji and Asuka wear in this episode, and there have also been figures made of them as well,” reveals Grant. “I’m very happy with the way this episode turned out, and I’m quite pleased to still get asked about it all these years later.”

Neon Genesis Evangelion’s increased visibility means that it continues to get discovered by new people and subsequently blow their minds. It’s so easy to focus on Evangelion’s heavier moments and all of its doom and gloom, but hopefully “Both of You, Dance Like You Want to Win!” can gain an even larger appreciation as a significant piece of the eclectic Evangelion puzzle.

With any luck there will be a synchronized dance attack in Evangelion 3.0+1.0.