News & Updates

According to a recent Newtype interview, as discussed on tokyo3cn, reposted to the Evangelion ML, and once more reposted here for your delight and consumption, Rebuild of Evangelion 3.0 is due out in the Summer of 2010. This is earlier than expected, as it took nearly two years between 1.0 and 2.0. Apparently, the films have been so successful that they’re not limiting the budget on 3.0, and with the staff from the previous two films, they’ll be adding new staff, maintaining the same level of quality, and pushing the film out much earlier than expected. The only downside is that the directors/supervisiors won’t be able to do interviews/press conferences. I’d say that’s a pretty fair trade, wouldn’t you?

Wildarmsheero has done a series of blog entries about his outing to see 2.0. His Japanese isn’t spectacular, so you won’t be getting tons about the dialogue:

http://blog.mistakesofyouth.com/2009/06/27/evangelion-2-0-prelude-to-terror/
http://blog.mistakesofyouth.com/2009/06/27/evangelion-new-theatrical-version-division/
http://blog.mistakesofyouth.com/2009/06/27/evangelion-2-0-you-can-not-advance-spoilers/

Funimation has released a trailer for Rebuild of Evangelion 1.0. It has people speaking English in it. It also has stock trailer music that you’ll never hear in Evangelion. If that interests you, you can find it at the following location.

http://www.funimation.com/Evangelion/

This is just too weird to escape mention. On June 6th, Bandai Namco Games will be providing a program for PS3 owners in Japan that will create a live real time updated news channel, hosted by one Misato Katsuragi. Using the voice synthesis from the Cellius software, and some quantum magic, it will even talk to you in Misato’s voice. You can even customize the set and her attire. How’s that for a crazy promo?

Sources: ANN, Kotaku, and Mainichi.

Just as before, our first real look at Rebuild of Evangelion 2.0 is from a cellphone camera. This time, we don’t even have sound, and I think the quality is actually less. If I could pick apart everything that happens in this movie, it would amount to a mind boggling amount of stuff. Bardiel, Zeruel, Sahaquiel, Ireul, Leliel, Matarael, Sandalphon… just how many episodes and Angels do they plan to cram into this movie? Furthermore, how long is this movie? I am pleased to see that this movie has almost entirely new animation from what I can tell. That may just be the trailer for all we know, we’ll just have to wait until July 27th, when the film is released to know for sure.

So, the entry plug one is apparently kind of big, comes in Eva 01 and Eva 00 varieties, and is only 2GB. But the Rei Ayanami drive on the other hand, is like an over sized Lego person that poops up to 4GB of data onto your computer. Isn’t that brilliant? And who doesn’t want their favorite anime character hanging off the side of their computer? Also comes in new school outfit version. Both based off of that Petit Eva thing.

Seventh Annual National Cherry Blossom Festival Anime Marathon
Date(s): Mar 28, 2009 – Mar 28, 2009
Time: 11:00 AM – Marathon finishes
Location: Smithsonian Institution, Freer Gallery of Art – 1050 Independence Avenue, SW

Description: In celebration of this year’s Cherry Blossom Festival, the Freer, in conjunction with the Japan Information and Cultural Center and Otakorp, Inc., presents a day-long festival of four Japanese Anime films:

Evangelion 1.0: You Are (Not) Alone
1:30 PM
This sci-fi tale co-directed by Hideaki Anno, Masayuki and Kazuya Tsurumaki is set in a post-apocalyptic Tokyo, where the population defends itself from alien invaders with the help of human/mechanical hybrid battle robots. Its hero, Shinji, is a shy 14-year-old boy mysteriously chosen to save the planet from the aliens for good. Rated PG. (2007, 98 min., Japanese with English subtitles, video)

This won’t be the first time Rebuild of Evangelion 1.0 will screened in the US, but it’s the first time it will be screened in my own backyard, so I’m going to make the effort to make the trip down to DC. Who knows, maybe an Evangelion fans meetup will transpire?

More information can be found at the Cherry Blossom Festival website:
http://nationalcherryblossomfestival.org/events/eng/event_display.php3?event_id=320

See you there!

I don’t have too much to say about this piece of art by Mike “Gabe” Krahulik, in which he mashes up Penny Arcade and Evangelion. According to his post, the image is for a poster that they’ll be selling exclusively at Sakura-Con in April.

His comments about the image are limited, however a quick cross-reference will show some very distinctive similarities in the robot, and especially in the suit in the upper body and collar area. It’s kind of neat to see two of my long time favorites cross over, even if it’s just in a single image.

References to Evangelion are not a new thing, I’ve posted a few others over the years, like fan art by Bruce Timm of Batman: The Animated Series, or when the characters of Chugworth Academy headed to Otakon, or references in full-fledged productions like Invader Zim or One Hour Photo with Robin Williams. There’s lots of cool stuff floating around out there to find.

Hey, remember when you could spend like $400 on an Evangelion ipod? Well now you can spend just $2-3 on your iPhone or iPod Touch to make it Evangelion-ish. Appliya Inc. has developed an application for the Apple iPhone and iPod to give it a clock and countdown time reminiscent of the activation timer in Evangelion. There’s also a goofy picture stamp application that… puts Angels, Evas, and Rei Ayanami’s hair into your pictures. And if that sounds kind of silly, that’s because it is silly. If you’d like to see just how silly it is, click here to see a picture of the application in action.

Dengeki PlayStation Online has posted quite a few images from AOU2009 Amusement Expo of Sega’s Rebuild of Evangelion figures due out between June and September. Ordinarily, this wouldn’t be especially noteworthy, but as it turns out, one of the figures on display was a design illustration of the figure for the new character Mari, who we have not gotten many good glimpses of. Check out the post on Dengeki Playstation Online for more images.