New Evangelion Artbook and Eyeglasses

While production continues on the Evangelion 3.0 film Studio Khara and Gainax are releasing some interesting items to tide the fans over.

Up top is the advertisement for a new line of Evangelion eyeglasses that are being released by JINS. JINS has also released a line of One Piece eyewear in the past and this new Evangelion-themed line actually seem quite cool. Here is a link to the official page of the project that also shows some images of the glasses themselves. There is a specific glasses style for each of the pilots and unless my eyes decieve me that nice advertisement image was drawn by FLCL/Evangelion director and animator Kazuya Tsurumaki.

A new volume in the Groundwork of Evangelion art book series has also been announced. Over the past eight years or so Gainax has been releasing a series of artbooks that reprint selected key animation frames from some of their most popular productions. This new Groundwork volume is centered around Evangelion 2.0. As opposed to the previous Groundwork of Evangelion 1.0 this new collection is being split into two books, the first of which will be released this May. The second volume is planned to be published later during the summer. There is a site up for the new art book on the EVA Store here.

Also, just as a reminder, Evangelion 2.22 is out today on Blu-ray and DVD here in America courtesy of Funimation. Pick it up!

Gainax’s Hiroyuki Yamaga at Fanime 2010

A very interesting article popped up on EvaGeeks.org forum discussing an appearance by Studio Gainax founder Hiroyuki Yamaga at the Fanime convention in San Jose just this past weekend. Yamaga is the director of Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi, Mahoromatic, and Wings of Honneamise, which is the first original film by Gainax from 1987.

Yamaga appeared on stage at the end of a screening of Evangelion 2.22 and had plenty to say about the past and future of the studio. Yamaga said that the newest upcoming work by Gainax, Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt is “very dirty” and that he isn’t working on that but is instead directing another new project which is “more refined” and takes place in early 20th century England. Apparently it is to early in the production for a formal announcement of the project although Gainax has been looking for staff to work on it.

Yamaga then commented that Daicon IV (the very first work done by all of the founding Gainax animators, pictured above) was intended to be a last, big fun project done at the end of college before they all went off and got ‘real jobs’. After Daicon IV was completed they realized that they had too much talent to just leave animation behind, so they decided to form Gainax. After awhile of just meeting up and having dinner together, they approached Bandai about making a Mobile Suit Gundam OVA but were turned down because they were ‘just a bunch of amateurs’. After being rejected they then asked Bandai to sponser an original film and ‘for some reason’ they did which resulted in Royal Space Force: Wings of Honneamise.

interview goes on to discuss many interesting facts about Gainax and its subsequent works but Yamaga answered questions about two particular points of interest and conflict for American otaku about Gunbuster and Neon Genesis Evangelion. One audience member asked Yamaga if the final episode of the original Gunbuster series (pictured below)was almost entirely in black and white due to budget constraints but Yamaga answered that the style of the final episode had nothing to do with any issues with the budget.

One of Gunbuster's Most Memorable Scenes

Of course, another audience member asked if the original television ending for Neon Genesis Evangelion (which takes place entirely within the minds of the main characters) was the result of more supposed budget problems but Yamaga answered that the problem was with time, not with the budget. Yamaga then commented that the television ending was what was planned from the beginning and that the creators all agreed that it would be interesting to conclude the story in such a different way.

Another fan said that this ending was ‘not well-recieved’ by fans of the series and asked if the subsequent film ‘The End of Evangelion‘ was created as some sort of ‘revenge’ towards the irate fans of the series to which Yamaga responded that everyone at Gainax was satisfied with the television series ending and that the movie was just the result of the desire “to do more Eva” and had nothing to do with being angry with the fans’ reaction to the final episodes of the television series.

Shinji Feeling Whimsical in episode 26 of Neon Genesis Evangelion

Yamaga’s answers to these questions about Gunbuster and Neon Genesis Evangelion I feel puts to rest the complaints and conjectures by many American fans about the endings of these stories that have become major points of discussion over the years.

I am even guilty of jokingly commenting that the ending of Gunbuster must have been the result of budget constraints. Anyone who watches Evangelion is left with strong emotions after viewing its various endings but it was nice to hear that the original television ending was always the one that Gainax had intended and that the story that The End of Evangelion was the ‘true’ ending that the studio was unable to do originally because of budget constraints and censoring was just the result of rumors made up by the fans.

These comments will of course not stop the wild imaginations of the fans or the fact that we would all have loved to have been a fly on the wall during the production of that series just to see what those crazy people at Gainax were really getting up to, but for now it is just nice to have such a clear ‘official statement’ about topics that have divided fan’s for years.

 I have included below the videos for both Daicon III and Daicon IV. These were originally shown at a yearly convention of the same name in 1981 and 1983 respectfully.

Evangelion 2.22 Blu-ray Improvements

This is priceless. This is why we have flat-screen televisions and 1060p Hi-Definition picture quality. For fanservice of the highest animation quality. Evangelion 2.22 hits shelves in Japan this week and pictures are already popping up online of the changes that have been made to the film since it’s inital release to Japanese theaters last June. There are several brand new scens that have been added to the Blu-ray that were not present in the film before but also most of the film has been touched up with added detail or smoother animation.

One excellent example of this is shown in the images above. The top picture is from the new Blu-ray release and the lower image is from the theatrical release. I will leave it to your own eyes to discern the obvious changes that have been made in the scene but I just wanted to comment on how much I appreciate the fine work that directors Hideaki Anno and Kazuya Tsurumaki and the other animators of Studio Khara have put into this work. Hooray for Mari’s butt in Hi-def!

Another poster has been put out for Evangelion 2.22 covering all of the scenes in the film and showing some images of a few of the new scenes that have been added to the work. Shown below are some photographs of the poster taken from a shop in Japan.

The DVD version was leaked online this past sunday with a relatively low-quality release of the film. The fans, including me, subsequently went crazy. This is fun and all but I strongly suggest that fans of the series buy the Japanese release off of Amazon.jp (The Blu-ray is region free and will work on any Blu-ray player including Playstation 3’s) or at the very least pick up the American version of the film when it eventually gets released stateside by Funimation. I will be posting later this week with a more in-depth review of the film.

Evangelion Under the Bridge

I’m not entirely sure of the context of this video, but it seems as though sometime over the weekend a number of new releases were advertised in a very eccentric manner under the name ‘Art Under the Bridge’. Namely, large posters of each new release were placed underneath a series of bridges along the Shinmachi river in Tokushima. A number of new works were advertised in this way, including several shows to be aired in the upcoming summer and fall seasons in Japan, but it was Evangelion and Black Rock Shooter which stood out the most to me. The ‘under the bridge’ poster for Evangelion was the most recent in the series of ‘sketch’ promotional posters that have been released for the film since it opened in theaters last June. This time the focus of the image was upon Shinji and Rei’s ’embrace’ scene found at the end of the film. The Black Rock Shooter poster featured the title character as well as the lead antagonist, ‘Dead Master’, as well as some small screenshots of the upcoming work. The Black Rock Shooter anime project is apparently going to be released for free online and through a few different magazines such as Animage and Megami during a longer promotional event later this summer.

A few more pictures of this event are shown at the Gigazine website (in Japanese: http://gigazine.net/index.php?/news/comments/20100503_machiasobi3_under_bridge_museum/)

Evangelion Race Car Team

To continue the advertising for the upcoming home video release of Evangelion 2.22 (as if anyone in Japan doesn’t know about it) a new Evangelion-themed racing team has just debuted. The cars are painted in the same design scheme as Evangelion Unit-01 and the outfits being worn by the two drivers are both designed to look like Shinji’s plugsuit. And, for added fan-service, the ‘racing queen’ models are even wearing outfits made to look just barely like Rei and Asuka’s plugsuits. Really, this just made me speechless. Not in a good way. Previously teams have been designed to look like (strangely enough) characters from Pixar Animation’s ‘Toy Story’ and ‘Cars’ franchises.

The Great Evangelion Incident of 2010

Studio Khara and Gainax have been amping up the advertising for the upcoming DVD and Blu-Ray release of Hideaki Anno’s Evangelion 2.22 You Can (Not) Advance.

In some previous posts I mentioned how record shops such as Tower Records, Japanese fast food chains, iPhone Apps, and even Japanese convenience stores were all heavily promoting Evangelion this month through special deals and products. In particular, Lawson, a Japanese convenience store chain, even decided to totally make over one of their stores in Hakone Japan to be entirely devoted to Evangelion, with everything from special plastic shopping bags to toothbrushes, posters, pens, notebooks, and even Evangelion coffee and bread.

Hakone is a small town in Japan that has been getting alot of press through Evangelion the past few months. In the series Hakone is the location of Tokyo-3, the primary city within the world of Evangelion. Below Tokyo-3 is the underground headquarters of NERV and also where the Evangelions are stored and launched from. Essentially, the entire story takes place in an ‘alternate future’ Hakone.

To celebrate the upcoming release of the second film in the Rebuild of Evangelion film series, Studio Khara hosted special screenings of the new film at a high school gymnasium in Hakone which was apparently used as a model for the school where Shinji Ikari and the other Evangelion pilots are enrolled in. Hakone is a fairly small town in Japan (especially in comparasion to Tokyo) and it seems like a fun idea to have a bunch of special events in the same area that the fictional story of the Evangelion series takes place in.

The special Evangelion-themed Lawson store (where all of the pictures in this article are taken) was opened just last week and was supposed to revert back to a regular Lawson convenience store as soon as the promotional event ended on May 17th. Apparently, the fan’s reaction to this store and the other events in Hakone was tremendous. The normally small town with tiny roads and few parking spots was apparently flooded by Otaku over the weekened eager to pick up some of the special-event items available only at this store.

The store in question and the surrounding area became an overnight Otaku pilgrimage destination and the locals complained of cars being parked in every space possible and hordes of Otaku travelling through the hard-to-navigate roads to get to this tiny Lawson convenience store.  Complaints flared as quickly as people arrived to see the shop and eventually the official Evangelion website was being updated warning people to not cause the locals trouble by parking illegally and just generally making a huge ruckus at this 24 hour convenience shop. Although the Lawson company has not made any official comment, it also seems that some of these visitors were also behaving in an ‘inconsiderate fashion’. Due to the excessive noise, parking problems, and huge influx of people (even more than usual for the area as this week is also Golden Week in Japan — a national holiday) the event was quickly cancelled by Lawson just a few days after it began and all of the various items and posters were quickly taken down at 10:00 AM April 25th.

American fans have often criticized the sheer amount of promotional crap that has been released for the Evangelion franchise since it began in 1995 but regardless how one feels about the many ways this series is marketed there is no desputing the fact that it has been wildly successful. Although the special Lawson store has removed anything related to Evangelion it doesn’t seem that the other events (such as special screenings of the film) have been cancelled. I am posting more picutres of the store in question below. Many of these come from the Japanese Evangelion blog Minna no Eva (http://neweva.blog103.fc2.com/).

Although many other anime franchises get plenty of odd kinds of advertising, Evangelion is the only series I know of to get such an extreme level of attention as shown below (and also including all of the other countless different products that aren’t pictured here). A few other American anime blogs have claimed that it is series like Evangelion which are killing the genre but I think that is an over-simplification of the situation. Despite all of this crazy advertising, it can’t be said that the original TV series and the subsequent films have been entirely lacking in substance or merit (Indeed, it is my personal favorite anme series).

Something clearly resonates with the Japanese when it comes to the imagery and story of Evangelion as well as to American fans as well. Despite the people who complain about it, no other anime is as debated and fought over as Evangelion. It is also the only series and franchise that has enough associated merchandise that one could probably decorate an entire living space only with Evangelion-related products. Even packing tape and materials to toilet paper. Truly, Evangelion is a product of our times. Evangelion 2.22 is being released on home video in Japan on May 26th and the previous film, Evangelion 1.11, is available on DVD and Blu-Ray here in the United States from Funimation.

Evangelion 2.22 Trailer from TAF2010

This weekend is the  Tokyo Anime Fair where all of the various production studios announce and show-off upcoming projects for the next year or so. At the event, a new trailer for the upcoming Blu-Ray and DVD release of Hideaki Anno’s Evangelion 2.22 was screened. The trailer is totally cool but also features a ton of spoilers for anyone who hasn’t seen the movie yet. Overall though, the quality isnt that bad for a version of the trailer filmed by another fan at the Fair and I will be posting a higher-quality version as soon as it becomes available. Evangelion 2.22 is set to be released on May 26th.

Evangelion Manga Volume 12

The cover and release date for the 12th volume of Yoshiyuki Sadamoto’s Neon Genesis Evangelion manga has just been recently announced. This volume continues its adaptation of the End of Evangelion film and is set to be released on April 3rd in Japan. Hopefully Viz’s english version release won’t be far behind.

School’s Out….For Summer!

 So finals and all of that nonsense are finally done…which leaves me with more time to focus on the really important parts of life….like Star Trek! The movie finally comes out today (and I’ve already got my tickets…naturally) and it is pretty hard to describe exactly how excited I am to see this. Above is the German poster for the flick, the American one-sheet is great as well, but the Germany poster has….well…SPACE BATTLE. Excellent. I am also really looking forward to Simon Pegg’s role as Scotty….which,  if anyone hasn’t, everyone should watch his television show Spaced which is required nerd viewing. I have heard that this movie is nothing short of ‘nerd nirvana’….so I am looking forward to a real treat.

In other news, another trailer for the upcoming Evangelion 2.0 film has premiered in Japan, but again, I won’t be posting it here until a non-crappy recording of it arrives. With the trailer came a bunch of a new information about the film (the majority of which cam with the EVA EXTRA film ‘preview’ magazine) including new information about Mari…the new female pilot to be including in the story. Mari’s character will be voiced by Maaya Sakamoto (she has sung songs for and acted in more anime than I can think of….she performed songs for Card Captor Sakura, Wolf’s Rain and, more recently, was the seiyuu for Rip Van Winkle from the Hellsing OVA as well as Lal’C from Diebuster) anyways, she’s great. I can’t decide who I would like more to sing the new theme for the film, Sakamoto or Hikaru Utada. Included below are scans from the EVA EXTRA book as well as the ticket for the film showing Mari’s new plugsuit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise…and animation studio Sunrise has tons of different special projects coming out in celebration of that fact. I must admit that I was pretty dissapointed with the ending of the second season of Mobile Suit Gundam 00…..so I was hoping for something a little more from the franchise this year. Sunrise announced in the last episode that they are producing a Gundam 00 film sometime next year and some new UC PS3 game that I will never play. The most exciting announcement is that they are producing a new anime based on the Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn (haha) UC novel series….the designs look interesting and although they haven’t announced whether or not it will be a tv series, OVA, or movie, the direction is being handled by Kazuhiro Furuhashi of Rurouni Kenshin fame…so it’s got to be good right? Below are some mecha designs for the upcoming anime as well as the initial announcement images. Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn comes out this winter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also, I have been recently watching the 20th anniversary Gundam project, Turn A Gundam, and it has quickly become my favorite Gundam show. With an oddly unique setting, music by Yoko Kanno, and a lead mecha designed by Syd Mead (he also did designs for Blade Runner and Alien) it’s a really interesting program. Below is the 30th anniversary Newtype spread with the Turn A Gundam in the bottom left corner.

 In a last bit of new, Shonen Jump just announced that for the 10th anniversary of the Naruto franchise they will be animating the Kakashi flashback arc from the manga. This is potentially pretty exciting if the anime itself would ever get out of filler hell.