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Yoko Takahashi - The Cruel Angel's Thesis (残酷な天使のテーゼ) [Zankoku na Tenshi no Thesis] Lyrics (Romanized)

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The Cruel Angel's Thesis Lyrics (Romanized)

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zankoku na tenshi no you ni shounen yo shinwa ni nare

aoi kaze ga ima mune no doa wo tataitemo Watashi dake wo tada mitsumete hohoenderu anata Sotto fureru mono motomeru koto ni muchuu de Unmei sae mada shiranai itaike na hitomi

dakedo itsuka kizuku deshou sono senaka ni wa Haruka mirai mezasu tame no hane ga aru koto

zankoku na tenshi no teeze madobe kara yagate tobitatsu Hotobashiru atsui patosu de omoide wo uragiru nara Kono sora wo daite kagayaku shounen yo shinwa ni nare

zutto nemutteru watashi no ai no yurikago Anata dake ga yume no shisha ni yobareru asa ga kuru Hosoi kubisuji wo tsukiakari ga utsushiteru Sekaijuu no toki wo tomete tojikometai kedo

moshi mo futari aeta koto ni imi ga aru nara Watashi wa sou jiyuu wo shiru tame no baiburu

zankoku na tenshi no teeze kanashimi ga soshite hajimaru Dakishimeta inochi no katachi sono yume ni mezameta toki Dare yori mo hikari wo hanatsu shounen yo shinwa ni nare

hito wa ai wo tsumugi nagara rekishi wo tsukuru Megami nante narenai mama watashi wa ikiru

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Yoko Takahashi - The Cruel Angel's Thesis Lyrics (Romanized)

Yoko Takahashi - Zankoku na Tenshi no Thesis Lyrics (Romanized)

Yoko Takahashi - 残酷な天使のテーゼ Lyrics (Romanized)

Neon Genesis Evangelion Opening Theme Lyrics (Romanized)

Shinseiki Evangelion Opening Theme Lyrics (Romanized)

残酷な天使のように　少年よ神話になれ

蒼い風がいま　胸のドアを叩いても 私だけをただ見つめて微笑んでるあなた そっとふれるもの　もとめることに夢中で 運命さえまだ知らない　いたいけな瞳

だけどいつか気付くでしょう　その背中には 遥か未来めざすための羽根があること

残酷な天使のテーゼ　窓辺からやがて飛び立つ ほとばしる熱いパトスで　思い出を裏切るなら この宇宙(そら)を抱いて輝く　少年よ神話になれ

ずっと眠ってる　私の愛の揺りかご あなただけが夢の使者に呼ばれる朝がくる 細い首筋を　月あかりが映してる 世界中の時を止めて閉じこめたいけど

もしもふたり逢えたことに意味があるなら 私はそう　自由を知るためのバイブル

残酷な天使のテーゼ　悲しみがそしてはじまる 抱きしめた命のかたち　その夢に目覚めたとき 誰よりも光を放つ　少年よ神話になれ

人は愛をつむぎながら歴史をつくる 女神なんてなれないまま　私は生きる

残酷な天使のテーゼ　窓辺からやがて飛び立つ ほとばしる熱いパトスで　思い出を裏切るなら この宇宙を抱いて輝く　少年よ神話になれ

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Like a cruel angel, young boy, become a legend!

A blue wind is now knocking at the door to your heart, And yet you are merely gazing at me and smiling. Something gently touches, you’re so intent on seeking it out, That you can’t even see your fate yet, with such innocent eyes.

But someday I think you’ll find out that what’s on your back Are wings that are for heading for the far-off future.

The cruel angel’s thesis will soon take flight through the window, With surging hot pathos, if you betray your memories. Embracing this universe and shining, young boy, become a legend!

Sleeping for a long time in the cradle of my love The morning is coming when you alone will be called by a messenger of dreams. Moonlight reflects off the nape of your slender neck. Stopping time all throughout the world, I want to confine them, but…

So if two people being brought together by fate has any meaning, I think that it is a “bible” for learning freedom.

The cruel angel’s thesis. The sorrow then begins. You held tight to the form of life when you woke up from that dream. You shine brighter than anyone else. Young boy, become a legend!

People create history while weaving love. Even knowing I’ll never be a goddess, or anything like that, I live on.

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Zankoku na Tenshi no These

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" A Cruel Angel's Thesis "  (残酷な天使のテーゼ, Zankoku na Tenshi no Tēze ? , " Zankoku na Tenshi no These " in Japan) is the theme song of the popular anime Neon Genesis Evangelion performed by Yoko Takahashi . It is used as the opening to the series, and two instrumental versions of it are played in the final episode, " Take care of yourself. " These are "The Heady Feeling of Freedom" and "Good, or Don't Be", scored for violin, piano, and guitar. "The Heady Feeling of Freedom" is a somber and reflective piece for bowed strings and guitar, while "Good, or Don't Be" is played to a light piano and guitar tone. A similar version can also be heard during the intermission between the two parts of Evangelion: Death and Rebirth .

The single was released on October 25, 1995 with the part number KIDA-116 and it also reached a peak rank 17 in the Oricon album database, appearing in the ranks 61 times.

Unlike what is commonly assumed, this song was written without any involvement from the show's creators. [1] Anno originally wanted to use an excerpt from Borodin's Polovtsian Dances in the opening, but the producers did not approve of this and instead decided to use a J-Pop song, which eventually resulted in the creation of "A Cruel Angel's Thesis". The lyricist, Neko Oikama had next to no knowledge of the show. Oikama simply skimmed through a proposal of the show (possibly Neon Genesis Evangelion Proposal ) and watched unfinished versions of two episodes on fast forward, only serving to broadly "fit" the anime after the fact. [2] [3] [4] Oikama took inspiration for the title from the manga A Cruel God Reigns . [5] She said the lyrics "become a legend" were originally "become a weapon". She was orientated that the show was "difficult and philosphical". Oikama described it as: "older women", "mothers" and "14-year-old boys and girls", and decided to make it about the perspective of a mother when her child "leaves the nest". [6] The original song included a male chorus, which was cut at director Hideaki Anno's request in order to "emphasize maternal affection". [7] The writing process for Episode:01 took as long as six months, [8] and the opening sequence was not yet finished. [9] [10] Singer Yoko Takahashi was also brought in relatively haphazardly and had no knowledge of the series, and would only see the opening featuring her voice when it aired on TV. [11] She had also first met Anno on the day of recording. [12]

• 1.1 TV Size
• 1.2 Full Size
• 4 External Links
• 5 References

TV Size [ ]

Full size [ ].

[13]

During the instrumental break in the middle of the song, a chorus can be heard. The lyrics to the chorus are not in Japanese, nor in any other recognizable language. According to the January 1996 issue of Newtype magazine, the lyrics can be phonetically transliterated into Japanese as 「ファリィア。セタ(or セパ）メッソ。ファリィア。トゥスェ」 "Fariya. Seta (or sepa) messo. Fariya. Tuse" , and they are supposedly written in an untranslated language passed down from ancient times. One could entertain the possibility that they are written in the same language as that of the Dead Sea Scrolls . [14]

See Also [ ]

• " Zankoku na Tenshi no These 2009 VERSION "
• " Zankoku na Tenshi no These MATSURI SPIRIT "

External Links [ ]

• 「残酷な天使のテーゼ」MUSIC VIDEO（HDver.）/Zankoku na Tenshi no Te-ze“The Cruel Angel's Thesis” at King Records' YouTube channel

References [ ]

• ↑ "Producer Ootsuki said he allowed Anno to do whatever he wanted in the anime except for the theme music. Ootsuki was particular about the theme and handled the music staff by himself. No anime staff, even Anno, met the music staff, he said." - Yuko Miyamura, BS AnimeYAWA
• ↑ “My manager got the job, we had a quick meeting lasting about 30 minutes, skim-read the proposal and watched two episodes on fast-forward. And with that I was told ‘so, yeah, just write whatever you want!’, and finished the song [lyrics] in about two hours. Sorry to burst your bubble, guys!” https://soranews24.com/2015/01/08/a-cruel-angels-thesis-took-just-two-hours-to-write-says-evangelion-lyricist-neko-oikawa
• ↑ "I hadn't watch Eva and wrote it in 2 hours. I don't even know what the story is or who is fighting who." https://twitter.com/otakucalendarjp/status/1356542049751687171
• ↑ She also professed that she didn't know much about Neon Genesis Evangelion when she first wrote the song, and she still hasn't watched the series. "It's a finished job, so [I'm] not really [interested]," she said. When she wrote the song, the anime hadn't been finished yet and she only had the proposal and the first two or three minutes to go by. "It wasn't even colored. I wrote the song, and my job was done. I wrote it in about two hours." - https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2021-02-03/lyricist-neko-oikawa-shares-how-she-was-scammed-out-of-her-evangelion-royalty-money/.169084
• ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20160830224921/http://news.livedoor.com/article/detail/11939169
• ↑ https://www.sankei.com/west/news/161228/wst1612280011-n1.html
• ↑ Refrain of Evangelion OST Booklet, 2003.
• ↑ 2nd JUNE interview
• ↑ Notenki Memoirs
• ↑ According to Hidenori Matsubara during the Animazement 2015 convention, "the song was created before they even got done with animation for the opening theme. Strangely enough, the song manage to go along with the opening animation."
• ↑ Yoko Takahashi Performs Neon Genesis Evangelion Theme, “A Cruel Angel’s Thesis,” to Excited Crowd at Anime Expo 2015 in LA
• ↑ —When was your first meeting with Mr. Anno? "It was on the day of recording. As I said earlier, when I entered the studio before anyone else to get ready, even while I couldn't afford, a man dressed in black and wearing sandals suddenly appeared. I didn't know who it was, but I just said hi, and he was actually Mr. Anno (Hideaki). It was a shocking encounter (laughs)." - Yoko Takahashi: EVANGELION FINALLY (2020)
• ↑ https://www.animelyrics.com/anime/eva/ngetnshi.jis
• ↑ http://www.mars.dti.ne.jp/~yato/eva/ura.htm
• 2 Rei Ayanami
• 3 Kaworu Nagisa

A Cruel Angel's Thesis

A Cruel Angel's Thesis is the opening theme song for the series Neon Genesis Evangelion , composed by Hidetoshi Sato and sung by Yoko Takahashi . The lyrics are by Neko Oikawa while the arrangement is by Toshiyuki Omori. The song also has the distinction of taking first place in the JASRAC Awards. [1]

This song was written with relatively limited involvement from Hideaki Anno and the production staff, being handled by producer Toshimichi Otsuki . [2] Anno originally wanted to use an excerpt from Borodin's Polovtsian Dances in the opening, but the producers did not approve of this and instead decided to use a J-Pop song, which eventually resulted in the creation of this song by Neko Oikawa.

Oikawa apparently had very little knowledge of the show, which was under production at the time with the episodes not having been colored. According to tweets and interviews, Oikawa went through a proposal of the show (possibly Neon Genesis Evangelion Proposal ) and watched two unfinished episodes on fast-forward, only serving to broadly "fit" the anime after the fact [3] [4] The writing process for Episode 01 took as long as six months, [5] and the opening sequence was not yet finished. [6] [7] The original song included a male chorus, which was cut at director Hideaki Anno's request in order to "emphasize maternal affection". [8]

Oikawa states that she took inspiration for the title from the manga A Cruel God Reigns . [9] Among other statements, Oikawa said the lyrics "become a legend" were originally "become a weapon" and that she decided to make the song about the perspective of a mother when her child "leaves the nest." [10]

Original Japanese Lyrics: Neko Oikawa

Translation Notes

1 This was translated by Takayama Miyuki and these are the translator's notes:

• young boy, become the legend! : The word "shinwa" actually means "myth" ("legend" would be "densetsu"), but I think it sounds better as "legend."
• with surging, hot pathos : "Atsui" (hot) can also mean "intense, passionate." "Pathos" is "the quality or power in life or art of evoking a feeling of pity or compassion; pity; suffering; sorrow."
• Embracing this sky [universe] and shining : "Sora" (sky) is the reading given for the kanji for "uchuu" (universe).
• has any meaning : The kanji used for the "a" in "aeta" is not the normal kanji used in "au" (to meet). It's the first kanji in "ouse" (encounter, tryst) and has more of a connotation of meeting by fate or being brought together by fate, not just meeting. (Interestingly, a dictionary I have gives the meaning of "au," when written with this kanji, as "to meet (with drama or pathos)")
• for learning freedom : The "watashi wa sou" is probably "watashi wa sou omou." And "bible" in this case isn't referring to *the* Bible. "Bible" can also mean "guide book, how-to book, a book valued for its use as a reference," like in "a handyman's bible," or "a bird-watcher's bible."

2 This is the translation found on the U.S. release of Evangelion by ADV.

3 The instrumental section contains chanted non-Japanese lyrics in Yoko Takahashi 's version and a few others, while other versions of the song have a purely instrumental section. The January 1996 issue of Newtype magazine transcribed Takahashi's lyrics in this section as "Fariya. Seta(or sepa) messo. Fariya. Tuse." which they speculate is from the fictional language of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Alternatively, an EvaGeeks forum discussion suggests that the lyrics may be "Faria? Será mesmo? Faria? Eu sei!" which is in the Portuguese language. Since the word "Faria" is usually used in a similar way as the English word "would", those lines could be interpreted as someone doubting something or someone else. There has never been any official information on the actual lyrics or their meaning, if any.

• ↑ http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2011-05-25/songs-from-evangelion-other-anime-win-jasrac-awards
• ↑ From the animania blog report on the March 28, 2005 NHK Anime Yawa talk show (translation by animania) - Otsuki said he allowed Anno to do whatever he wanted in the anime except for the theme music. Otsuki was particular about the theme and handled the music staff by himself, going as far as to claim that no anime staff, even Anno, met the music staff (apparently contradicted by Oikawa's statements). - Yuko Miyamura, BS AnimeYAWA
• ↑ “My manager got the job, we had a quick meeting lasting about 30 minutes, skim-read the proposal and watched two episodes on fast-forward. And with that I was told ‘so, yeah, just write whatever you want!’, and finished the song [lyrics] in about two hours. Sorry to burst your bubble, guys!” http://soranews24.com/2015/01/08/a-cruel-angels-thesis-took-just-two-hours-to-write-says-evangelion-lyricist-neko-oikawa
• ↑ "It wasn't even colored. I wrote the song, and my job was done. I wrote it in about two hours." Anime News Network interview with Neko Oikawa
• ↑ 2nd JUNE interview
• ↑ Notenki Memoirs
• ↑ According to Hidenori Matsubara during the Animazement 2015 convention, "the song was created before they even got done with animation for the opening theme. Strangely enough, the song manage to go along with the opening animation."
• ↑ Refrain of Evangelion OST Booklet, 2003.
• ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20160830224921/http://news.livedoor.com/article/detail/11939169
• ↑ https://www.sankei.com/west/news/161228/wst1612280011-n1.html
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A Comparison of English Translations of ‘A Cruel Angel's Thesis’

Disclaimer: I know zero Japanese. When I see ‘残酷’, I read ‘ cánkù ’. This post is based on the generously-licenced work of Wiktionary and others.

Cited as the translation found on the U.S. release of Evangelion by ADV. ( Source )  ↩

A translation by Takayama Miyuki . ( Source )  ↩

A translation found in various places. ( One such source ) Based on Miyuki's statements on the above-linked page, I believe, though cannot confirm, that this is an ADV ‘dubtitling’.  ↩

Miyuki: The word shinwa actually means ‘myth’ (‘legend’ would be densetsu ), but I think it sounds better as ‘legend’. (Editor's note: Wiktionary lists ‘legend’ as a valid translation.)  ↩

Miyuki: Atsui (熱い, hot) can also mean ‘intense, passionate’.  ↩

Miyuki: Sora (空, sky) is the reading given for the kanji for uchuu (宇宙, universe).  ↩

Miyuki: In some versions of this song, there is singing in this part. Unfortunately, I can't tell what they're singing (there's too much overlap). I think the last thing they sing could be ‘ ai ga fusei ’, which can be roughly translated into ‘Love is a sin (wrongdoing)’.  ↩

Miyuki: The kanji used for the a (逢) in aeta (逢えた) is not the normal kanji used in au (会, to meet). It's the first kanji in ouse (逢瀬, encounter, tryst) and has more of a connotation of meeting by fate or being brought together by fate, not just meeting. Interestingly, a dictionary I have gives the meaning of au , when written with this kanji, as ‘to meet (with drama or pathos)’. (Editor's note: This is the definition given by Wiktionary .)  ↩

Miyuki: The watashi wa sou is probably watashi wa sou omou . And ‘bible’ in this case isn't referring to the Bible. ‘Bible’ can also mean ‘guide book, how-to book, a book valued for its use as a reference’, like in ‘a handyman's bible’, or ‘a bird-watcher's bible’.  ↩

A Cruel Angel's Thesis Lyrics

Maki Itoh Sings The Cruel Angel’s Thesis

Neon genesis evange-itoh-chan.

Text by Jordan Mishkin

There’s been endless debate on what AEW can do to turn their fortunes around, but I have the answer. I know a sure-fire way to increase live attendance, boost ratings, and make millions in merch: more Maki Itoh !

The clip of her singing her bop of a theme song while everyone else wrestles always makes me laugh. And you know what? We could use a lot more of that. If Maki Itoh came out to sing her theme during a Rampage main event or during a Timeless Toni Storm promo, it would be a license to print money.

Don’t believe me? Just listen to The Fired Idol belt out the theme for one of extremely popular anime Neon Genesis Evangelion, Cruel Angel’s Thesis . I love all the other wrestlers, like fellow sometimes AEW-er Yuka Sakazaki, getting into it as well. I’m telling you, license to print money.

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What Life Was Like on Moscow’s Streets After the USSR Collapsed

As we all know, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is no more. It has ceased to be. It has rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. It is a late Union. Bereft of life, it is pushing up the daisies. It is an ex-Union. (It’s not just “resting,” either.) The landmass it formerly occupied is now taken up by new countries with old names, such as Russia, Ukraine (out, damned the!), Kazakhstan, and Byelorussia, which I half expect, once capitalism takes hold, to rename itself Sellhighrussia. Yet even though the corporeal and temporal actuality of the Soviet Union has ended, the Soviet Union is not nowhere. It has simply moved to a different plane of existence. It has fled to the realm of myth and mystery, of fright and fable, where it abides with other empires that must be imagined to he believed (whether or not they were ever real)—empires good and empires evil, empires like Atlantis, Ancient Rome, the Middle Kingdom, Oz, and the Third Reich.

Of course, even when it was alive the Soviet Union was a fabulous kingdom, a place of the blackest black magic. How could it have been otherwise? After all, here was a country founded upon a vast and elaborate fantasy, the fantasy of the Workers’ Suite, a fantasy sustained not only by the cruel and bloodsoaked apparatus of fear but also, and above all during its wickedest decades, by the blind goodwill of millions of believers within and without its borders. The literature of and about the Soviet Union was steeped in weird phantasmagoria. Almost every word of Soviet journalism was fiction disguised as fact; by the same token, any Soviet writer wishing to publish a bit of honest social analysis had to disguise his facts as fiction. Many of the books written in praise of the Soviet Union described an imaginary place. Some of the most eloquent attacks on it did likewise, albeit in a more conscious way—Zamyatin’s We , Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984 . The most spookily on-target visual portrait of the pre-collapse USSR is Terry Gilliam’s great cult film Brazil . The movie has nothing directly to do with the Soviet Union (or with Brazil either), and I doubt that Gilliam had the Soviet Union in mind when he made it. He captured its essence all the same. It you want to know what the texture of this very odd country was like before the fall, see Brazil .

I’ve been here three times now. The first time, Moscow seemed to me less like a foreign city than an alien planet—a planet that had developed along amazingly similar lines to earth. This faraway planet, like our own, is populated by bilaterally symmetrical bipeds who, like us, garb themselves in clothing differentiated by gender, use four-wheel motorized vehicles for transport, live in boxlike structures, and consume grain-based products for both nourishment and recreation. They have equivalents of almost everything we have—shoes, newspapers, traffic lights—yet there is always something about these everyday items that makes them seem utterly strange. It’s hard to say which is more eerie, the resemblances or the differences. They have shops, for example, but the signs on the outside say harsh generic things—PRODUCTS, REPAIRS, MILK, PHOTO—and inside there are only drab, empty display cases and coiled lines of shuffling people. That was three years ago. It’s still basically the same, only now this exotically gray planet has begun to be colonized by earthlings.

Three years ago, there were still a few big signs of the COMRADES! WE ARE BUILDING COMMUNISM variety to be seen. On my second visit, a year and a half ago, I saw only one sign of this type—red background, block letters—but when I asked someone to translate it for me it turned out to say YOUNG PEOPLE! INVEST IN HIGH-YIELD SECURITIES! This time, the signs are advertising Mars candy bars, Hyundai cars, Panasonic electronics. The consistent thread is that all the signs, whether communist, perestroika-ist, or post-communist, advertise things that are either nonexistent or unavailable.

Some other changes. The lines at the state stores are longer than they were eighteen months ago, but elsewhere there is much more evidence of non-state commerce. The Metro corridors and the passageways under the broad Moscow avenues are lined with card tables where people sell books, magazines, scarves, flowers, chewing gum. cans of German beer. There are musicians on the subway, too—another absolutely new development. Homeless people, too—ditto. Three years ago the hot newspaper was Moscow News , which had emerged from decades as a weekly for tourists published by the Novosti Press Agency to become the voice of glasnost. A year and a half ago it was Commersant, a business weekly. Now it’s Moscow’s Nezavisimaya Gazeta ( The Independent ), a sober thrice-weekly broadsheet, and St. Petersburg’s Chas Pik ( Rush Hour ), a spunky afternoon daily. Three years ago, an American in Moscow felt utterly invulnerable. Now every foreigner knows someone who’s been mugged or burgled. But Moscow still feels a lot safer than New York.

If you have dollars and a few Russian-speaking friends to guide you, the Commonwealth of Independent States is, for the moment, a vacationer’s and shopper’s paradise. I traveled here on frequent flyer miles courtesy of Pan Am (another institution that has gone the way of the USSR) and stayed in the apartment of a friend of a friend. A couchette on the night train to St. Petersburg set me back about 26 cents’ worth of rubles; on the return trip I bought a whole four-passenger compartment. Lunch for three at a “cooperative” restaurant (pickled veggies, not-bad pizza, cognac), about 38 cents. Reverse-chic Soviet neckties at TSUM (Central Universal Stores), the Gimbel’s to Moscow’s Macy’s, the more famous GUM (Government Universal Stores), a nickel each. Subway rides, about two-tenths of a cent each. The whole nine-day trip has cost me about $200, mostly for gifts and meals for Russian friends and souvenirs to take home.

I’ve been asking people if Communism left anything worthwhile behind. Everyone gives the same answer: the Metro, the legendary Moscow subway that served as an argument-clincher for a generation of American communists. True enough: the Moscow subway is the only Soviet institution that is indisputably the best of its kind in the world. Like the pyramids of Egypt, the temples of the Incas, and the Roman colosseum, it has a brutal splendor that transcends the moral squalor of its origins. A Russian friend adds something else to the list: the “Seven Stalinist Sisters.” the mock-gothic, wedding-cake skyscrapers that dot the cityscape. “I hate them, myself,” the friend says, “but my eight-year-old daughter loves them. She says they’re magic castles. She says gremlins and goblins must live there.” A wise little girl.

Hendrik Hertzberg is a former editor of The New Republic.

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Tuesday briefing: The mystery of the Moscow car bomb attack

In today’s newsletter: After an ultranationalist’s daughter is killed in Moscow, people in Russia and the west are asking who did it – and what the Kremlin might do next

Good morning. On Saturday, Darya Dugina, the daughter of the ultranationalist Russian ideologue Alexander Dugin, was killed by a car bomb in Moscow. Yesterday, Vladimir Putin called it a “vile, cruel crime”, and Moscow said that Ukraine was responsible. But that description tells only a small part of the story of an attack in the Russian capital that is unprecedented in the six months since the war began.

There are many unresolved questions about the killing – and the military consequences that could flow from it. Today’s newsletter, with the Guardian’s Moscow correspondent Andrew Roth, is about some of the possible answers. Here are the headlines.

Five big stories

Environment | The Tory leadership frontrunner, Liz Truss, was responsible for cutting millions of pounds in funding earmarked for tackling water pollution during her time as environment secretary, the Guardian revealed.

Crime | A nine-year-old girl has been shot dead in Liverpool and two other people taken to hospital with gunshot injuries. Officers began a murder investigation after attending a house at 10pm over reports an unknown male had fired a gun inside the property.

US politics | Donald Trump on Monday filed suit against the US government over the FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago home, seeking to temporarily stop the bureau reading seized materials until a special court official can be appointed to review documents concerned.

Policing | The Metropolitan police were wrong to Taser a man on Chelsea Bridge and their “excessive and unnecessary force” contributed to his death , his family have said. Oladeji Omishore, 41, was hit by the electric stun gun on 4 June before climbing over a barrier and falling into the River Thames below.

Justice | Criminal barristers in England and Wales have voted in favour of an all-out strike next month in a clash with the government over jobs and pay, with 79.5% of members of the Criminal Bar Association voting to strike.

In depth: Setting the stage for ‘total war’

What do we know about how the attack happened?

On Saturday night, Alexander Dugin gave a lecture at a festival at an estate in Moscow dedicated to the kind of hard-right pro-war worldview he is known for. He and his daughter Darya Dugina left, apparently in different vehicles. About five minutes after Dugina left, the Toyota Land Cruiser she was driving was blown up by a car bomb. Footage circulated on social media appeared to show Dugin standing next to the wreckage in a state of distress.

Reports in the Russian media on Monday claimed that an untraceable telephone may have been used to remotely detonate the device after it left a garage where CCTV had been switched off. They also claimed that the perpetrators may have been following the car when it blew up.

It’s hard to assess some of these claims with any certainty, Andrew said. Russian authorities have given limited evidence to back up their version of events, “but that doesn’t discount it”. But we can say with confidence that Dugina died in an attack which may have been aimed at her father – and it appears to have been carefully planned.

Who was Darya Dugina, and who is her father, Alexander Dugin?

“Most analysts who heard the news immediately thought it was Alexander who had been targeted,” Andrew said. Dugin exults in the nickname “Putin’s Brain”; but while some people in Putin’s circle have read Dugin’s work, it is less clear that he has the kind of sway on the Russian leader that would justify that title.

“He’s the kind of person you see on these gladiatorial screamathons you get on pro-Kremlin TV,” Andrew said. “But it’s important to understand that people like Dugin don’t make the final decisions – they’re just one pressure group in a complicated country.” As a rough comparison, think of some of the talking heads with tenuous links to the Trump administration who turn up on Fox News.

Dugin’s politics are extreme: he is an ultranationalist who advocates for a new Russian empire. At the same time, Andrew said, he is “a political opportunist – I remember him requesting €500 to give interviews”.

“This is not the same as an attack killing a member of a Kremlin official’s family,” he said. “In those terms, he’s small fry. But he has an outsize profile.” That profile suggests another important feature of the attack: “He doesn’t have the security detail you would associate with somebody at the Kremlin. He’s a softer target.”

Dugina, meanwhile, was the editor of a disinformation website, United World International, and a TV pundit. Her politics were “close to a continuation of her father’s approach, but she was a little slicker,” Andrew said. She was also less prominent: “People in Moscow know who he is. You didn’t have to know who she was unless you were following this stuff closely.” Nonetheless, her pro-war rhetoric had earned her a place on UK and US sanctions lists, and it is not impossible she was targeted herself.

Who does Russia say was responsible?

One of the key questions in the aftermath of the attack was whether Russia would “frame it as terrorism or sweep it under the rug”, Andrew said; on Monday, the Federal Security Service (FSB) provided an answer. It accused Ukrainian intelligence services of carrying out the killing, and said the suspect was a Ukrainian woman in Russia with her 12-year-old daughter since July. The suspect had attended the festival, and fled to Estonia in a Mini Cooper after the bomb went off.

The FSB’s version of events appears to suggest that it was Dugina and not Dugin who was the target. Ukraine has denied responsibility for the attack, with one official noting: “Not many people here have heard of him, and nobody had heard of his daughter.”

The FSB has provided little evidence for its claims beyond footage of the woman driving across the border in and out of Russia. As Shaun Walker argues in this excellent analysis of the claimed chronology, there are plenty of reasons for scepticism. He noted how quickly the agency put its case together, and how remarkable it would be for a Ukrainian assassin with a child in tow to navigate Russia with impunity. “If true, it is a shocking FSB failure and, if false, it is a strangely self-incriminating tale to invent,” he wrote.

At the same time, Shaun notes, it is possible to see a motive to carrying out the attack from Kyiv. If so, it marks a departure from Ukraine’s strategy of retaliation within Russia, which has been confined to military and logistical assets near the border, and a string of attacks in Crimea , the Black Sea territory annexed by Russia in 2014.

Is that the only possible explanation?

No. One claim is that the attack was carried out by an underground opposition movement within Russia – “but I’m sceptical of that”, Andrew said. “From what we know the internal opposition haven’t done anything like this before. It would be a huge step up.”

There’s also the theory of a false flag attack carried out by elements close to the Kremlin as a pretext for retaliation. “There is no reason to do that if you want to intensify attacks on Ukraine or crack down on the opposition,” Andrew said. ”The Kremlin doesn’t need a pretext to do that – it does whatever it wants.” If so, the significant downside of spreading panic among Kremlin outriders doesn’t seem worthwhile.

Finally, some have floated the possibility that the killing was simply a crime tied to a business dispute involving Dugin or Dugina. But that doesn’t appear to align with the sophistication of the attack, even if the FSB’s claims should be taken with a grain of salt.

What are the likely consequences of the attack?

“This is unprecedented here,” Andrew said. “And there are already people writing that this is not the last act of terror we’re going to see. It will have scared people in Dugin’s circles. Until now, they have been able to agitate for war without thinking it would come for them.”

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The larger question is whether claims of Ukrainian responsibility will lead to a Russian escalation. “It could set the stage for a new wave of political violence,” Andrew said, against so-called “decision making centres” and specific Ukrainian officials. But if more general attacks on Kyiv increase, it’s worth bearing in mind that such an escalation was already expected to coincide with Ukraine’s independence day on Wednesday.

Regardless, for the most belligerent voices in Russia – voices aligned with Dugin’s – the death of his daughter will be viewed as evidence for the strategy they already espoused. “Many of those who’ve been agitating for a more aggressive approach are demanding a response now,” Andrew said. “They want total war.”

What else we’ve been reading

Zoe Williams’s interview with Mick Lynch is a great primer on the RMT leader who has become something of a folk hero during Britain’s summer of strikes. Hannah J Davies, deputy editor, newsletters

With the Tory leadership contest apparently all but over, you might expect Rishi Sunak’s supporters to stop attacking Liz Truss. Instead, the criticisms have intensified. Rowena Mason’s analysis is an excellent guide to what one source calls a level of vitriol that “will be extremely difficult to heal”. Archie

A new release from Christine and the Queens and tours from Sugababes and Kendrick Lamar (as teased at Glastonbury) are among the autumn musical highlights helpfully compiled by the Guardian music team . Hannah

If dragons and thrones leave you cold, read this Stuart Heritage piece about how the real stars of TV this year are fictional chefs . (And do watch The Bear, one of the US shows he mentions, when it comes out – it’s amazing.) Archie

Water vapour, poison … or something else? I enjoyed this explainer from Dazed on how chemtrails conspiracy theories took over. Hannah

Football | Manchester United produced a superb performance to beat Liverpool 2-1 at Old Trafford. After a difficult start to the season, goals from Jadon Sancho and Marcus Rashford were enough to secure the win.

Football | England and Manchester City forward Ellen White has announced her retirement at the age of 33 , saying all her football “dreams came true” in winning Euro 2022. The England women’s team’s all-time record goalscorer with 52 goals, White earned 113 caps for her country.

Cricket | In an exclusive interview with the Guardian , Ben Stokes described how a spate of anxiety attacks twelve months ago led him to consider retiring from cricket. Stokes said that he is now in a much better place but “it’s an ongoing process” and urged fellow sufferers to seek help.

The front pages

The Guardian this morning leads with “Truss cuts millions from services that kept sewage off UK beaches” while the i has “Truss to risk ‘flying blind’ after Budget pledge U-turn”. The Financial Times says “UK inflation projected to top 18% as gas prices surge” while the Times says “Spiralling inflation is forecast to hit 18%” and the Express asks “how will millions cope” with the effects. “Snowflakes blocking A&E” – somewhat literally, the Metro reports, after a patient walked in demanding dandruff treatment. “Refugee host cash ‘should be double’” – that’s the Telegraph’s lead. “Justice is being held to ransom” – the Daily Mail paraphrases Dominic Raab as barristers go on strike. “Ronaldo doesn’t feel sorry at all … he left me crying and shaking” – the Mirror has a follow-up on an incident involving a smashed phone.

Today in Focus

Revisited: The Division: New Orleans – part two

In 1995, Kuantay Reeder is sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison for a crime he says he didn’t commit. He spends years doing hard labour in the fields of the prison, and trying to have his conviction overturned. By 2020, he has exhausted almost every legal avenue available to him. But 2020 is also the year that Jason Williams is elected to be the new district attorney of New Orleans. Will the creation of a new civil rights division in his office offer hope to Reeder?

Cartoon of the day | Stephen Lillie

A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad

A few years ago, Scott Oughton-Johnson was struggling with stress and anxiety following a long custody struggle. He’d had cognitive behaviour therapy from the NHS but was then, in his words, “back in the wild” and having to cope on his own, as Sirin Kale reports in the latest profile for the Guardian Angel series . So Oughton-Johnson launched a Facebook group with a video asking if any other men in his south London neighbourhood were up for a walk. Two years later, the Proper Blokes Club has a website and an active WhatsApp group, and men in neighbouring boroughs are organising their own walks. “Each day we do a check-in, and say, ‘Good morning. Hope everyone is all right. Have a good day,’” says Oughton-Johnson. “We’ve had incidents where people say, ‘I’m not in a great place; is anyone about?’ And people have gone and met them, or called them up.”

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Bored at work?

And finally, the Guardian’s crosswords to keep you entertained throughout the day – with plenty more on the Guardian’s Puzzles app for iOS and Android . Until tomorrow.

Quick crossword

Cryptic crossword

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