News &: Updates

Evangelion podcasts, for your listening pleasure.

Posted: Monday, September 29, 2008
Author: Aaron Clark

From Japanese sarariman trading thoughts on Rei over long drags on cigarettes, to now infamous discussions of the gender of angels on particular English-language Evangelion forums, there has been no shortage of discussion on Evangelion since the first stage of the manga hit newsstands on December 26th, 1994.

Occasionally that discussion gets recorded and turned into an MP3, and a web page coerces you to put it in your iPod (or other similar competing product), and you listen to it, and live vicariously through the speakers. If you are the sort that partakes in these podcasts, you should know that I have collected quite a few over the years, and have assembled a page of these Evangelion podcasts so that you can listen to them and enjoy the delicious commentary. And if you enjoy the discussion, be sure to look into other installments by these podcasters.

By the way, it's entirely coincidental that I appear as a guest in several of these.

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The Nerv of Gainax

Posted: Monday, September 22, 2008
Author: Aaron Clark

At this year's Otakon, I picked up this old comic book style magazine called "Mangazine" published by Antarctic Press. What I found interesting was not that it featured Evangelion, but that it featured Evangelion and was from May 1996. Whenever I come across something from the early days of Evangelion fandom (in English), like Carl Horn's Speaking Once as They Return: Gainax's Neon Genesis Evangelion, or Lawrence Eng's In the Eyes of Hideaki Anno, Writer and Director of Evangelion, my ears instantly perk up. I take notice and scour over it, expecting to find new or insightful information. This is not always the case, but there's something about the early days of the fandom that is very intriguing to me. The article found within this magazine, entitled The Nerv of Gainax: Neon Genesis Evangelion, may not be the most insightful article written about Evangelion, but it has a very unique feel to it, partially due to the fact that at the time, Evangelion was very new to American anime fans, and the writing reflects that. There are a few details that I found particularly interesting, for example, the writer indicates that episode 19 & 20 were supposed to be reworked similarly to 21'-24', and that part of the pressure put on Gainax was preemptive constraint that spilled over from an incident with another program on the network. The descriptions of the who, what, and where also contain a few interesting bits, and in general, the article is a fun trip back to the early days of anime fandom, complete with all the whimsical charm you would expect.

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Gainax Toppage Image and Shirts by HEX ANTISTYLE

Posted: Monday, September 15, 2008
Author: Aaron Clark

I'm short on time this week, so I'm going to follow suit with a simple, yet hopefully interesting post. The attached image is the current toppage illustration over at Gainax's official website. It was created by HEX ANTISTYLE, which has also designed quite a few Evangelion T-Shirts for Gainax. Suffice to say they're considerably more stylish than the majority of the Evangelion T-Shirts that have been produced domestically. I've noticed that like the above image, it's common for their works to reference past artists. The above image references The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, and also appears on this one shirt which also references Salvador Dali and Philippe Halsman's In Voluptas Mors (NSFW Contains Nudity), an image you might also be familiar with from the iconic poster for the film The Silence of the Lambs. If you're the type that is adept and prone to importing Japanese goods, I recommend taking a look at what has been designed thus far.

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I should have said "I'll be back".

Posted: Saturday, September 13, 2008
Author: Aaron Clark

Given just three more weeks, and it would mark not only the fourteenth anniversary of Evangelion, but also one year since I discontinued Eva Monkey. It was not a decision I came to easily, having run this site for an extended period of time. But I needed time to move onto other things and grow as an individual. While I have done that a bit, I realized just how much I've missed the Evangelion fandom, not to mention running this site. It depresses me to see how traffic has languished, and it confuses me to see how high my site still manages to rank in Google despite that. Seriously, how can you stop running a site for almost a year and still manage to stay in the top results in Google?

So I decided to bring the site back. While it's not especially important, today, which marks the eighth anniversary of the fictional event we all know as "Second Impact", will just have to do. Past readers will notice some things will change considerably from what Eva Monkey was in the past. I don't intend to focus on deep analysis, or focus on trying to explain all the intricate minutia of Evangelion. I don't intend to chronicle the entirety of the Evangelion. I don't intend to maintain an episode guide or a characters guide. No one cares about that anyways. Instead, I intend to serve you up a small portion of news and fandom on a periodic basis. My overly optimistic plan is to update each Monday. We'll have to wait and see how well that pans out.

That being said, I'm glad to be back, and I'm eager to get back into the thick of this monster that I simply cannot be rid of. If you have any comments, suggestions, or feedback, feel free to hit me up at theevamonkey@evamonkey.com. If I stick to my plans, I'll have something up on Monday.

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Have something cool that's Evangelion related?
Email Aaron about it at theevamonkey@evamonkey.com.