| "A Human Work" | |
|---|---|
| Neon Genesis Evangelion episode | |
 Eva-01 (right) tries to stop Jet Alone (left). The Jet Alone affair has been described by critics as a deconstruction of the mecha genre and a political satire. | |
| Episode no. | Episode 7 |
| Directed by | Keiichi Sugiyama |
| Written by | Hideaki Anno, Yoji Enokido |
| Original air date | November 15, 1995 |
| Running time | 22 minutes |
"A Human Work", also known by the Japanese title "The Works of Man",[a] is the seventh episode of the Japanese anime television series Neon Genesis Evangelion, which was created by Gainax. The episode, written by Hideaki Anno and Yoji Enokido and directed by Keiichi Sugiyama, was first broadcast on TV Tokyo on November 15, 1995. The series is set fifteen years after a worldwide cataclysm named Second Impact, and is mostly set in the futuristic, fortified city Tokyo-3. The series' protagonist is Shinji Ikari, a teenage boy who is recruited by his father Gendo to the organization Nerv to pilot a giant bio-mechanical mecha named Evangelion into combat with beings called Angels. In the episode, a rival organization of Nerv builds Jet Alone, a prototype giant robot with an onboard nuclear reactor as an alternative to the Evangelions. During the first public test of Jet Alone, it goes out of control and marches toward a nearby city with its reactor close to a meltdown. Shinji keeps the robot at bay in his Evangelion while Nerv's Major Misato Katsuragi gets inside Jet Alone and shuts down the reactor.
"A Human Work" contains quotes from Japanese and Western directors such as Stanley Kubrick, Kihachi Okamoto and Kunihiko Ikuhara, and cultural references to scientific and religious concepts, including apoptosis, the giant-impact hypothesis and the Tree of the Sephiroth. The episode's first broadcast scored a 5.9% rating of audience share on Japanese television. "A Human Work" received a divided reception; some reviewers considered it to be a filler episode for the series' plot, while others appreciated the political implications and character development. The episode has been described as a deconstruction of the mecha genre and the Jet Alone affair as a parody of the stylistic features of giant robot stories.
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