Evangelion director Anno Hideaki's acclaimed film Shin Godzilla (Godzilla Resurgence) aired on Japanese TV on November 12th, setting social media abuzz. The day after the film aired, Twitter curation and aggregation service Togetter had several Shin Godzilla-related stories in the top ranking.

One of these related an exchange between the official Twitter accounts of electronics manufacturer Sharp and weighing scale manufacturer Tanita. As explained in this Bloomberg.com story, Tanita and Sharp (or rather, the men behind the accounts) have enjoyed a bromance of sorts for the past five years, as part of a successful social media strategy that has increased both companies' visibility and endeared the public to their humorous exchanges, often unrelated to the companies they represent.

While the film was still airing, probably after the scene in which Godzilla destroys most of Tokyo, their exchange started out like this:

In typical fashion, Tanita kicks off the exchange: "Godzilla's too strong, OMG! Time to call Megumi Ogata..." Megumi Ogata, as any anime fan and Evangelion fan knows, is the voice actress who played Shinji Ikari in Evangelion.

Six minutes later, Sharp responds: "First, you calm down," quoting a famous line spoken by Acting Special Advisor to the Prime Minister Shuichi Izumi to Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Rando Yaguchi in a particularly tense scene in Shin Godzilla.


Picking up the cue, Tanita blurts out: "Sorry..." mimicking Rando Yaguchi's rejoinder in the film.


This exchange would already have been entertaining enough had it ended there. However, things got really interesting when Megumi Ogata joined the fray only one minute later:

---"So you're asking me to take this thing and go out there and fight?! ... No I can't! I've never even seen anything like this before! There's no way I can do this! (crying)"...How could you...Tanita-san...There's no way! (crying)

To the delight of Evangelion fans, the first part in quotes was from Shinji Ikari in the pivotal scene when he is suddenly ordered by his father to pilot Evangelion Unit-01.

However, perhaps because neither Tanita or Sharp immediately volunteered a response, Ogata extends the scene a bit further in a follow-up Tweet: