| "Weaving a Story" | |
|---|---|
| Neon Genesis Evangelion episode | |
 An image of Rei Ayanami's inner monologue. Several images of the girl put in a row appear during Rei's stream of thoughts, described by critic Dennis Redmond as reminiscent of 1970s science fiction. | |
| Episode no. | Episode 14 |
| Directed by | Masahiko Otsuka, Ken Ando |
| Written by | Hideaki Anno |
| Original air date | January 3, 1996 |
| Running time | 22 minutes |
"Weaving a Story"[a] is the fourteenth episode of the Japanese anime television series Neon Genesis Evangelion, which was created by Gainax. The episode, written by Hideaki Anno, and directed by Masahiko Otsuka and Ken Ando, was first broadcast on TV Tokyo on January 3, 1996. The series is set fifteen years after a worldwide cataclysm known as Second Impact and is mostly set in the futuristic, fortified city of Tokyo-3. The series' protagonist is Shinji Ikari, a teenage boy who is recruited by his father Gendo to the special military organization Nerv to pilot a gigantic, bio-mechanical mecha named Evangelion into combat with beings called Angels. In the course of the episode, a secret sect named Seele examines Gendo Ikari's actions to determine whether his actions are in accordance with the organisation's plans, which follow ancient documents called Dead Sea Scrolls. Evangelion's pilots are tested; during her test, Rei Ayanami has a long stream of consciousness in which she investigates her identity.
During the making of the series, director Anno felt he had neglected Rei's character, so he tried to devote space to her by writing an inner monologue of her by depicting her as a girl with schizophrenia. A friend of his had lent him a volume on mental illness with a poem written by a nervous sufferer. It was thanks to the book Anno wrote Rei's monologue by inserting more and more psychological introspection in the episodes to follow.
"Weaving a Story" drew a 0.9% audience share on Japanese television. The first part of the episode, a summary of the previous thirteen, was deemed both useful and superfluous by reviewers. In contrast, Rei's inner monologue attracted positive comments.
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