is the twenty-first episode of the Japanese anime television series Neon Genesis Evangelion, which was created by animation studio Gainax. Hideaki Anno and Akio Satsukawa wrote the episode, which the animator Hiroyuki Ishido directed. The series' protagonist is Shinji Ikari, a teenage boy whose father Gendo recruited him to the special military organization Nerv to pilot a gigantic biomechanical mecha named Evangelion into combat against beings called Angels. In this episode, Kozo Fuyutsuki, the deputy commander of Nerv, is kidnapped by a secret organization called Seele, which questions him about his past and how he met Gendo. Fuyutsuki retraces his youth and his meeting with Yui Ikari, a young scientist with whom he falls in love. Ryoji Kaji, a member of Nerv, rescues Fuyutsuki and is killed by Seele.
Gainax wrote "He was aware that he was still a child" in haste due to a tight production schedule and time limitations. The episode was originally intended to focus on an event called the Dead Sea Evaporation Incident, which became the melting of Earth's southern ice cap during production. During the installment, it is revealed that one giant artificial cavity in Antarctica and one in Tokyo-3 exist, named White Moon and Black Moon, respectively, which came on Earth during the giant impact and were built by an alien species called the First Ancestral Race, a scenario later expanded in the Neon Genesis Evangelion 2 video game. After the first broadcast, Gainax released an extended version called the "video format version", with new footage. The animators Masahiko Otsuka and Shunji Suzuki directed this version.
"He was aware that he was still a child" was first broadcast on February 21, 1996, and drew a 7.7% audience share on Japanese television. The episode was generally well-received by critics because of the music, direction, voice acting, and ending; however, other reviewers complained of poor character development and a lack of clear explanations. The use of flashbacks was both praised and criticized.
Plot Scientists at a research base at the South Pole in 2000 discuss a mysterious weapon called the Spear of Longinus on its way from the Dead Sea. Gendo Ikari and Keel Lorenz, members of an expedition named the Katsuragi Group, criticize other scientists. In 2015, Ryoji Kaji, a member of the special paramilitary agency Nerv, sensing his death is near, leaves a message on someone's answering machine. At the Nerv base, the deputy commander Kozo Fuyutsuki is kidnapped. Misato Katsuragi, head of Nerv's strategy department, is detained because Kaji, her lover, is suspected of kidnapping Fuyutsuki. Fuyutsuki has been kidnapped by an esoteric organization called Seele, which is suspicious of Nerv's commander Gendo. Seele questions Fuyutsuki about Gendo, and Fuyutsuki recalls when he met the researcher Yui Ikari and Gendo, who then used his old surname Rokubungi, in 1999.
Yui and Gendo enter into a romantic relationship. Fuyutsuki falls in love with Yui and is suspicious of Gendo, who he believes is only approaching Yui due to her connection with Seele. Fuyutsuki begins investigating the Second Impact, an event that kills billions of people and was caused by a mysterious being called Adam. He also investigates an underground cavity in Antarctica called White Moon, which originated during an event called the Giant Impact, and discovers Gendo's and Seele's involvement in the event. Fuyutsuki then meets Yui and Gendo at the Artificial Evolution Institute in Hakone. He threatens Gendo with public disclosure of his discoveries but Gendo invites him into an underground cavity beneath Hakone that was constructed by a non-human entity. Inside the cavity, Fuyutsuki meets the brilliant researcher Naoko Akagi and Gendo reveals his organization, Gehirn, is working on the Evangelion project, the goal of which is to ensure humanity's future survival. Following this revelation, Fuyutsuki joins Gehirn.
In 2004, Yui dies after volunteering to be the subject of a contact experiment with a mecha called Evangelion 01. Gendo, after a period of mourning, proposes the Human Instrumentality Project to Fuyutsuki. In 2005, Naoko's daughter Ritsuko Akagi meets Misato and Kaji at Tokyo-2 University. After joining Gehirn with Misato, Ritsuko discovers that her mother and Gendo are in a romantic relationship. One day in 2010, Gendo brings a young girl named Rei Ayanami into Gehirn. Naoko, after completing the Magi supercomputers, finds Rei alone and lost in Gehirn's base; Rei starts calling Naoko an "old hag", saying it was Gendo who referred to her that way. Naoko recognizes in Rei the somatic features of Yui; she strangles and kills Rei and then commits suicide. After Naoko's death, Gehirn is restructured and renamed Nerv.
In the present, Kaji frees Fuyutsuki and is then killed by Seele. Misato is released and returns home to discover a message on her answering machine, in which Kaji says goodbye to her. Devastated over Kaji's death, Misato breaks down in tears; Shinji Ikari, her housemate, hears her but fails to give her words of comfort. Shinji acknowledges he does not know what to do and that he is still a child.
Production Genesis and staff Neon Genesis Evangelion main director Hideaki Anno and Akio Satsukawa wrote the screenplay for "He was aware that he was still a child", while Hiroyuki Ishido directed the episode. Jun'ichi Satō wrote the episode's storyboard under the pseudonym Kiichi Hadame, with Satoshi Shigeta as the animation director. The production involved other studios besides Gainax, such as Vega Entertainment and Tatsunoko Color Center.
In 1993, Gainax wrote a document introducing its new planned series called , which already contained a synopsis of the episodes. In the original plan, the twentieth episode was to be titled "The Birth of Nerv". In the episode, Eva-05 would have been sent to the Nerv of Germany, and the history of Gendo, the Evas, and Nerv would have been presented. The original project for the episode included an in-depth look at an event called the Dead Sea Evaporation, which occurred fifteen years before the main events of the series. Kaji's death was planned to occur in the previous episode, "A Man's Battle". For the Dead Sea Evaporation, the series staff took inspiration from Gainax's previous work Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water; in the last episode of which the show's main antagonist becomes a salt statue, like Lot's wife in the Book of Genesis account of Sodom and Gomorrah. Adam would also be discovered in the Dead Sea, while in the final version the setting is Antarctica, keeping the idea of using Seele's Dead Sea Scrolls. The basic idea of using the Dead Sea, a highly saline body of water with no fish, as a setting was retained, representing Antarctica as a hostile environment for life, including microorganisms.
In the initial scenario, the Angels were supposed to be security devices left scattered around the world by an alien , which was never mentioned in the version that aired. Gainax also wrote a draft for the twentieth episode of the series, which included a line from Misato saying: . Gualtiero Cannarsi, editor of the first Italian edition of the series, compared the initial scenario proposed by Gainax to that of James P. Hogan's Giants series, itself influenced by Arthur C. Clarke's short story The Sentinel. In the initial scenario, in fact, the Angels attacking Tokyo-3 would have been Adam's divine sentinels that woke up after Adam's discovery, but Gainax later changed its plans. Writer Virginie Nebbia compared the First Ancestral Race idea and the concept of merging extraterrestrial life with the birth of the human race to Nadia, which already presented a similar scenario. Gainax later reused the idea of a First Ancestral Race for the video game Neon Genesis Evangelion 2.
Writing In the episode's original script, the first Rei clone, who in the final version is strangled and killed by Naoko, survives and awakens in a Nerv control room. The Proposal document does not mention the Katsuragi research group with which Misato goes to Antarctica, nor Misato's past; Misato suffered and later recovered from aphasia in the final version, but it's unclear how she recovered. The original scenario also mentions a discovery of ancient ruins at a place named ; according to the academic Taro Igarashi, Arqa ruins possibly become Nerv's base in the final script, which Fuyutsuki describes as a perfectly round cave. For Igarashi, this means the geofront is "some sort of ancient ruin" itself. The Institute for Artificial Evolution was supposed to be located in the underground geofront, home of Nerv, while in the final version, its headquarters are moved to the shores of Lake Ashi. The institute was conceived as an entity still active in 2015 that is independent of Nerv, rather than as a predecessor organization to Nerv, like Gehirn. The presentation document describes the Human Instrumentality Project as an attempt to acquire godlike power and a forbidden fruit; according to Evangelion Chronicle, an official encyclopedia on the series, this description alludes to "scientific arrogance". Instrumentality was supposed to recreate a perfect being, freeing man from original sin and curses; according to Evangelion Chronicle, the perfect being in the original scenario could relate to the character of Rei Ayanami. The Proposal document also mentions that Gendo runs the Human Instrumentality Project, but it is unclear whether the project is his idea or not in the final version. Lorenz Keel is introduced before Fuyutsuki, which shows his importance to Gainax's original scenario. Fuyutsuki's introduction page, on the other hand, is simple, and there is no mention of his past with Gendo.
The original script for the episode included a scene in which Gendo immediately realized that the Instrumentality Committee had ordered Fuyutsuki's abduction, as well as one in which Asuka questioned the Evangelion units' true nature. Another deleted sequence had Asuka and Shinji talk while Shinji relaxed inside Eva-01's cockpit. The original draft also called for a scene of Kaji standing alone, lost in thought. In Gainax's original plans, Fuyutsuki would have been thirty-five years old in the flashback scenes. The dialogue between Fuyutsuki and Seele also differed slightly, including a line in which a Seele member says, "Man must not exceed his limits". The flashbacks originally included a sequence in which Yui cradles the crying infant Shinji and tells him, "You always cry, don't you, Shin-chan? If you keep letting yourself be spoiled, it'll become a habit. You'll end up running away whenever you face difficulties". Another deleted sequence showed Ritsuko becoming so absorbed in her thoughts during an experiment that she failed to assist Rei when she encountered difficulties, inadvertently putting her life at risk. Rei would then have asked Ritsuko whether she intended to kill her. Gainax originally also planned for Kaji to be shot outdoors beneath a clear blue sky, rather than at night in front of a ventilator.