Is this cartoonist mentally ill?.

Chapter 501 Ode to Joy Spiritual Pollution (Original)

The sunlight shines through the large floor-to-ceiling windows and onto the marble floor of the urban office building, reflecting a faint white light.

The sound of high heels hitting the ground rises and falls, along with the clicking of keyboards and the hum of copiers, weaving together a symphony of urban work.

People are rushing around, holding documents or laptops in their hands, and it seems that the word "busy" is engraved between everyone's brows.

The phone rings like a death warrant, echoing throughout the office area every few minutes, and the person answering the call always ends the conversation as quickly as possible, as if even breathing is in a hurry.

The aroma of afternoon coffee is intertwined with the smell of copier supplies; this is the everyday scent of the urban elite.

In the office, white-collar workers stared at the computer screens expressionlessly, their fingers dancing on the keyboards, and occasionally a slight sigh floated in the cubicle.

The door of the conference room was closed, but through the glass one could see the people inside sitting around the table. Their discussion was intense and engaged, and from time to time someone would wave the documents in their hands, trying to make their point more distinct.

In the corner of the corridor, slightly tired figures were leaning against the wall, the screens of their mobile phones flashing with unread message indicators. They took a deep breath, rubbed their frowned foreheads, and a barely perceptible anxiety was revealed in their eyes.

The afterglow of the setting sun was gradually swallowed up by the forest of steel and concrete. The lights in the office building were lit up one after another. The employees who were working overtime were working hard under the orange light. The power of caffeine seemed particularly precious at this moment.

As night falls, the hustle and bustle of the city gradually subsides, but many office buildings are still brightly lit, like a never-extinguished beehive, with every worker bee busy working for his or her own goal.

In the pulse of this modern city, they are an indispensable landscape.

"Finally, overtime is over!"

Zhou Wenwei breathed a sigh of relief, picked up the cup tiredly, and wanted to take a sip of coffee to refresh himself.

But the cup was already empty.

"Brother, here you go."

Just then, a paper cup filled with coffee was handed over.

Zhou Wenwei looked up and was a little surprised, but he still took it and thanked him, "Zaihe, thank you very much."

"You're welcome, brother, you've worked hard too."

Lee Jae Hyuk took a sip of coffee and said, "But we finally finished our overtime work, let's go downstairs and have some midnight snack."

"It's not impossible."

Zhou Wenwei yawned and said, "I'll ask the others if they want to go together. I'm really tired, so it's a good time to have some barbecue."

He picked up his phone and sent a message in the department group.

Soon, most colleagues said they wanted to go for barbecue together, and only a few family-oriented employees chose to go home directly after working overtime.

"It's past nine o'clock. It'll be almost eleven o'clock after we finish eating the barbecue. I can just watch "Eva" when I get home."

Zhou Wenwei looked at the time and said with a smile.

“EVA will be finished in about four or five episodes. It’s going so fast.”

Lee Jae Hyuk also said with emotion.

The plot of episode 21 uses flashbacks to tell the story of the birth of NERV and the love story of Shinji Ikari's parents.

Ryoji Kaji was shot dead again by an unknown character.

This leaves a huge mystery for today's audiences.

Then, episode 22 was aired.

But the beginning tells about Asuka's past.

Asuka's mother, Soryu Kyoko Zeppelin, is a scientist at the German branch of the EVA program.

When Asuka was 4 years old, she participated in the connection experiment of Unit .

Although she survived the experiment, she suddenly went crazy for some reason. She treated Asuka's doll as her own daughter and refused to acknowledge that Asuka was her daughter.

Then Asuka's mother finally hanged herself to death. Asuka was about to tell her mother the good news that she was selected as a pilot, and thus discovered her body.

Then, while Asuka's mother was ill and going crazy, Asuka's father had an affair with Asuka's mother's doctor, and their conversation was overheard by Asuka.

And the most important thing is that after Asuka's mother committed suicide, her father married Asuka's mother's doctor, which can be said to be a seamless transition.

Therefore, this left a solid wall of resistance in the young Asuka's heart.

Her stepmother immediately confronted her defenses and could not be liked by her.

When Asuka mentions her stepmother to Shinji Ikari, she doesn't say that she hates her stepmother, but she also doesn't let her stepmother replace her real mother.

During Asuka's funeral, Asuka's grandmother told her that she was a "strong girl" but that she could cry as much as she wanted.

However, Asuka disagrees with this proposal and tells her grandmother that she must take care of herself from now on.

From that day on, she made a promise to herself that she would never cry again.

This led her to suppress a healthy way of dealing with her emotions and not talking about the trauma caused by her mother's illness and death.

This is why Asuka is so strong.

After Ryoji Kaji's death, it was undoubtedly another huge mental blow to Asuka.

Therefore, Shinji Ikari and even Rei Ayanami are willing to take care of Asuka's emotions.

However, Asuka still maintains a tough and strong attitude towards Shinji Ikari and Rei Ayanami.

At this time, an apostle who looked like a giant glowing bird, the fifteenth apostle, the bird angel, appeared in the lunar orbit.

This time, NERV headquarters broke with their usual practice and only sent Asuka and Ayanami Rei to attack.

They did not send out Shinji Ikari and Unit-01 again.

At this time, one of NERV's commanders asked, "Excuse me, aren't you going to deploy Unit-01?"

"It has been frozen, under the absolute order of Commander Ikari."

Misato said meaningfully.

The camera shows Gendo Ikari in that classic pose, watching everything from behind.

Obviously, the audience has more or less guessed why this is the case -

"It should be the S2 mechanism that Unit- used when it went berserk and devoured the Angel last time."

"Because Unit-2 is no longer constrained, it has the S2 mechanism. According to the setting in the previous episode, the S mechanism can give Unit- infinite energy."

"Yes, it's obviously out of control. It's impossible to revive Unit-01."

"From this perspective, Unit-01... is not right. Could it be that Unit-01 is the second Angel Eve?"

"It's possible that Unit-00 is a replica of Adam, but the Unit-00 experiment failed, so Unit-01 was created using the second Angel Eve."

"But if he is an apostle, shouldn't he be born with an S2 mechanism?"

"Maybe it was taken away intentionally later."

"It doesn't feel right, but it's really impossible to let Unit-01 appear right now."

"Then I found out that I couldn't win, so I had to rely on Unit-01."

"After all, they are the protagonist and the protagonist's machine. They will definitely not be left there idle."

"So...Asuka and Ayanami Rei...are in danger!"

"Shit! That's very possible. In the last episode, that old thief Aoyama stabbed Kaji Ryoji with a knife. Based on the old thief's past behavior, he might not stab you in the first place, but he will stab you all in the next one!"

"So... I'm scared!"

……

At this time, the audience still thought that the setting of "EVA" was completely based on the myth of the Holy Bishop, mainly based on the story of Adam and Eve.

In fact... they have forgotten that there is also a Lilith in the Holy Bishop mythology.

And they were all completely misled.

However, in the following plot, Asuka piloted Unit 02 to assist Unit 00 piloted by Rei Ayanami.

Unit 00, piloted by Rei Ayanami, aims at the Bird Angel in the lunar orbit. Asuka is now very anxious because of the series of failures.

She didn't even know that the people at NERV headquarters were secretly planning to replace the pilot of Unit 2.

However, due to the series of defeats, Asuka's strong-willed personality became quite impatient.

"I can't stand it anymore! Can you come here quickly!"

Asuka, who was driving Unit 2, said anxiously, "It's so frustrating!"

However, the next moment, as she looked up at the sky, a ray of light suddenly fell!
At this moment, background music suddenly appeared, and this background music turned out to be...

"Hallelujah!"

“Hallelujah! Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah—!”

The famous religious song "Ode to Joy" is online.

Then, amidst this joyful background music, the alarm sounded at NERV headquarters.

“Alarm! Alarm!”

Amid the alarm, Misato asked as if she was facing a great enemy, "Is this the enemy's directional thermal weapon?!"

"No! There is no thermal energy reaction!"

The commander gave a surprising response.

But at this moment, the commander who was always monitoring the situation of the EVA body qualified personnel suddenly reported, "The mental image is confused, and mental pollution is beginning to appear!"

When the term "spiritual pollution" came out, the audience was shocked. Why did this term sound a bit... funny?

But the most spiritually polluting...is actually the "Ode to Joy" which is full of joyful atmosphere.

In this tense scene, there is a sense of humor full of huge contrast.

The audience was also amused, because this scene... they had actually seen it before, in the previous "Chainsaw Man" animation, when the Gun Demon appeared.

In the comics, after the Demon with a Gun appeared, he destroyed the church that was singing to the sound of the music of "Goddess of Joy".

So the animation "Chainsaw Man" has already used this technique.

In the holy religious songs, the powerful demon who blasphemed the Lord directly destroyed the church and the Lord's believers.

However, that scene more reflected the Gun Demon's blasphemy against the Holy Lord and its power, which gave people a very shocking feeling.

It is different from the current "EVA" and "Ode to Joy" which are paired with the sense of spiritual pollution.

So the audience played the meme even better -

"It's just right! A classic by Qingshan Laozei! A little bit of prank in the religious music!"

"The cartoonist who respects the Holy Bishop the most in the entire comics world! Old thief Qingshan!"

"Le, those guys from the Holy Bishop group said that Qingshan the old thief is a member of the Holy Bishop group, but I don't believe it anyway."

"This old thief Qingshan is really too funny. It feels inexplicably funny."

"He really made me cry, but I still like Ode to Joy so much."

"This Ode to Joy is indeed in line with the style of EVA. After all, it is set in the Holy Bishop setting."

"I just think this is pure spiritual pollution, it's so right!"

"Ah, yes, yes, mental pollution. Isn't this the cyberpsychosis of Qingshan the old thief?"

"Why are there cyberpsychopaths everywhere? I'm calling the Terrorist Squad!"

……

And back to the plot of "EVA".

Suddenly, the apostle's mental attack from thousands of miles away made the situation chaotic.

"Apostle...using psychological attacks?!"

Ritsuko once again acted as a commentator at this time, saying, "How is it possible?! Can an apostle understand the human heart?!"

"You bastard!!!"

Asuka seemed to have encountered something unacceptable and was about to collapse.

She directly controlled Unit 2 and fired the bullet.

However...the Bird Angel did not enter the range, so the positron cannon missed the target!

Then Asuka was inside Unit 2, holding her head and screaming, while Unit 2 began to fire indiscriminately.

The target location is not even the sky, but the surface of the city.

Because Asuka suffered an unexpected mental pollution attack from the Angel, the NERV headquarters is in chaos at this moment.

"Unit 2's rifle is out of bullets!"

"How about wavelength analysis?!"

"It belongs to the heat energy wave among visible waves! This is something similar to the AT force field!"

"The details are unknown!"

"How's Asuka?"

"It's very dangerous. Mental pollution has already penetrated into the Y axis!"

……

The explanation of a series of professional terms made the audience feel confused and impressed.

This also shows that Asuka’s current situation is very bad.

"don't want--!!!"

Asuka also screamed in pain, holding her head and saying, "No! Don't come into my heart!"

She seemed to have suffered some unbearable mental attack, and her entire psychological defenses collapsed.

In other words, her psychological defenses were fragile, and her outward strong will was just a disguise.

In her agony, Unit 2's limbs seemed to be twisting, and it made crackling sounds like its body was breaking.

"Don't peek into my heart!"

Asuka suddenly wailed and yelled again.

It seemed... the apostle entered Asuka's inner world through this kind of mental pollution attack and peeked into the innermost things in her heart.

"Please! Stop invading my heart!"

Her painful cries for mercy were heard by all the staff at NERV headquarters.

I just don’t know if it would be considered social death if she found out afterwards.

But now Misato was filled with worry for Asuka, and she shouted in fear, "Asuka!"

"Mental imagery reaches its limit!"

At this moment, along with the commander's report, Asuka's mental image at this moment appeared on the screen.

It can be said that... it has become a complete mess!
At this moment, the picture of Asuka's inner world finally appeared.

The departure of her mother, the betrayal of her father, the arrival of her stepmother, the safety of her grandmother, in the end she was the only one left and had to live on with strength.

Then she appeared at the NERV headquarters, she was arrogant and dismissive, and she... kissed Shinji Ikari because it was fun!
"No! That's not me!"

Asuka hugged her body and screamed in pain.

(End of this chapter)