Splitting of the Breast

"**Splitting of the Breast**"
"Splitting of the Breast"
Neon Genesis Evangelion episode
	The scene in which Shinji Ikari argues with another himself has been compared to Ultraman, Gundam and Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory.
Episode no.	Episode 16
Directed by	Kazuya Tsurumaki
Written by	Hideaki Anno, Hiroshi Yamaguchi
Original air date	January 17, 1996
Running time	22 minutes
Episode chronology
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	List of episodes

"Splitting of the Breast"^[a] is the sixteenth episode of the Japanese anime television series Neon Genesis Evangelion, which was created by Gainax. The episode was written by Hideaki Anno and Hiroshi Yamaguchi, and directed by Kazuya Tsurumaki. The series' protagonist is Shinji Ikari, a teenage boy whose father Gendo recruits him to the special military organization Nerv to pilot a gigantic, bio-mechanical mecha named Evangelion into combat with beings called Angels. In the episode, Shinji is absorbed into an Angel called Leliel in a space of imaginary numbers called Dirac sea. Shinji has a vision in which he sees another self as a child and discusses his lifestyle.

To write "Splitting of the Breast", the staff writers merged the ideas originally planned for a trilogy of episodes with the same theme. The episode contains several references to other Japanese television shows such as Ultraman and Gundam, and to psychoanalysis. The title refers to Melanie Klein's psychological concept of splitting while the episode's Japanese title is a reference to Søren Kierkegaard's work The Sickness Unto Death.

"Splitting of the Breast" was first broadcast on TV Tokyo on January 17, 1996, and drew a 9.4% share of the national television audience. Animage readers voted the episode among the best anime installments of 1996 and Gainax has released merchandise based on it. Critics positively received "Splitting of the Breast" for its symbolism, Leliel's attack, the animation, and its moments of introspection.
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[a]