Author: John Oppliger
Source: Anime Nation
Dated: March 14th, 2003
Question:
Will Renewal of Evangelion come to America? The DVD's at least?
Answer:
Now that Gainax Studios has announced plans to re-release the Evangelion animation to
Japanese DVD for at least the third time, this time with fully remastered image and sound
quality, there's been a lot of speculation over whether or not this "Renewal of
Evangelion" will be brought to America. While anything is possible, so far neither AD
Vision nor Manga Entertainment has expressed any plans to localize the Renewal of
Evangelion DVDs. From a pure financial perspective, the odds of the Renewal of Evangelion
DVDs coming to America are probably relatively slim.
The Renewal of Evangelion DVD boxed set will be released in Japan on June 25th. This DVD
boxed set will not contain any new Evangelion animation. It will include the full 26
episode Evangelion TV series, the extended "director's cut" versions of episodes
21-24 that were never released in America but have been available in Japan for nearly 8
years, and the final edits of the Evangelion Death & Rebirth and End of Evangelion
movies. In Japan, all of this animation is distributed by Starchild. However, in America
this animation is owned by two competing distributors, AD Vision and Manga Entertainment.
For the full Renewal of Evangelion DVD boxed set to be released in America, two domestic
anime distributors would have to co-produce a single DVD release- an event that has never
occurred, nor even been considered in the 10+ year history of anime distribution in
America. This itself is the first of several obstacles in the way of the Renewal of
Evangelion DVDs coming to America.
Beside the aforementioned obstacle, perhaps the most likely reason the Renewal of
Evangelion DVDs probably won't be officially released in America is because the Evangelion
series has already been available in America for years. The Director's Cut TV episodes
21-24 were never released in America, according to common wisdom, because Gainax Studio
sought excessive additional licensing and distribution fees for these extended episodes;
fees that couldn't be justified in order to acquire extended versions of episodes that
were already available in America. It unreasonable to assume that the distribution rights
to the Renewal of Evangelion will be inexpensive. Extensively remastering the series
animation was undoubtedly an arduous endeavor, and Evangelion is one of the most
profitable anime franchises in the world. Based on that, it's only reasonable to expect
Gainax Studios to request reasonably expensive fees for the translation and distribution
rights to Renewal of Evangelion. From the perspective of an American anime distributor,
it's simply more logical to spend a given amount on money on licensing a totally new
program than spend the same amount of money for the rights to re-release an old title
that's already exhausted the majority of its American market potential. There are
certainly a few hundred or perhaps a few thousand hardcore American anime fans and cinema
buffs that would spend $200 or more to by Evangelion on DVD a second time, but the odds
are that most American consumers would rather buy an entirely new anime series on DVD than
replace 10 DVDs with new copies of the same 10 DVDs. Relative to its probable acquisition,
mastering and distribution costs, Renewal of Evangelion probably just doesn't have enough
sales potential in America to be a cost effective, profitable licensing option.