Sexual assault scene

This is quite strange, since he sexual assault scene is included in the Italian version that is an adaptation of the English language one. Shiro and the girl were involved. Shiro assaults the girl but she does not surrend to him, so he repents and apologizes for his behaviour. He feels surprised when the girl apologizes indeed for hurting him when defending herself.

I once read something from an anime historian who gauged that the filmmakers' original intent was to project a sense of purpose for all the characters in the film.
According to this idea, in relation to the assault, the reality of what Shiro has stepped into doesn't actually hit him until the press conference, particularly when the media hounds start dogging him about purpose ("Why spend our money on this?" "What's your agenda?" etc.). Shiro decends into a false sense of selflessness (tosses cash to the homeless on the steps, helps Riquinni pass along flyers); he has associated this awareness with Riquinni totally, yet another mistake he makes.
Get it so far?

Riquinni had inspired Shiro simply by being herself. Her devotion to God and willingness to trust Him in the face of eviction and poverty makes death in a space capsule seem insignificant. By the time that Shiro thinks he has given himself totally to a new purpose, Riquinni reveals that she has been hoarding money in her shoe. Shiro's awareness is shattered. His anger, again, from a false origin, he attempts to supress without success, so it escalates into the abrupt assault. Make no mistake--this is not an excuse. The attack is inexcusable. However, it is not unexplainable. Riquinni does not apologize for what she did or what he did--she apologizes because that's who she is.

I don't know if I completely buy his position, but it does give me some solace in how their relationship is resolved--the meeting at the trolley. They don't actually say so, but they seem to realize at the same time that they can't be together because of what happened, but they can still care about each other. Given Manni's speech at the market and a conversation (finally) with little Mana, Shiro realizes too late that Riquinni did give him a purpose; one that was too big for anyone-them included-to fully understand.

I thought that the reason Shiro did it was because he just couldn't help himself. Here was a girl so pure that he couldn't stand it, that there could be such pureness in the world. He thought that she needed to be brought down, in a figurative sense, to the level of the rest of the world.

Of course, once he starts, he realizes when he looks at her that this was folly, that it was his own insecurities that made him become a monster. Even though he's a nice guy and all, he realizes that he could not compare with Riquinni.

I didn't think the money was a big deal. I just thought it was her savings or whatever.

My theory, as much as an inference as other's, but: Riq's stripe of street-corner preaching has long been construed as annoying or disagreeable or what have you (as evident by the barrage of indifference or outright ignoring by lay denizens whenever she is dishing the leaflets).

There are the hue of people who either concur (including views) or pities or lauds or simply pays alms (pocket change; e.g. those tin/copper/lower-currency looking toothpicks) to distant themselves (without harmful emotional backfire) from Riq's gusto for the preaching whilst dually helping her cause.

Little Manna, I surmise, is autistic; hence long silent bouts, the awkward outburst or two and inaction.

I hear a lot of people claim this scene completely destroys the film in the last act, but having given it some thought I don't think it hurts the film at all in literary terms. The build up and hysteria surrounding the main character made his action, monstrous as it was, more understandable, and his guilt over the whole event is handled very well with that last look he gives before being knocked unconscious.

However, I have issues with the followup scene. The two treat it far too nonchalantly, and seemingly just brush it off. A few shots emphasizing their actual feelings beneath their false attitudes would have helped remedy these problems.

A shame, since I'd otherwise consider this one of the best anime films of the eighties (a great decade for feature length projects) and I pray that Gainax will try something like it again one day (though preferably in the hands of Hideaki Anno or some new blood than Hiroyuki Yamaga, whose work since then has been uniformly terrible).

...modern popular culture is inferior to such a degree that it should be renamed "cultural flaws".

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The DVD and Blu-Ray that came out in the UK today has had the sexual assault scene restored, with the certificate being “15” to accommodate the waived cut applied to the earlier version.