Extra-Musical Sonic Environments / 2: Sonic Embedment and Spatial “Worlding”. Soundscapes, Psychoacoustics, and Post-Human Sonics in Shinseiki Evangelion

This chapter is an analysis of the soundscapes of an anime series that is extremely crucial in the medium’s history. Through it, the author proposes a broader discourse on sound design and psychoacoustics in anime works involving post-human sceneries, expanding to the role of noise, silence, vibration, and dispersion in postwar Japanese urban planning, taking in seismic recording, vibration suppression, warning-siren broadcasts, personal music consumption through headphones, intercom announcements in public spaces. The chapter considers, in its composite frameworks, the legacy of asynchronism, sono-semiotics, audio-visual dislocation, and frequency attribution in Japanese theatre forms like kabuki, nō, and kyōgen.