By The Eva Monkey
on Wednesday, June 15th, 2005
I recently became aware of the fact that there is such a thing as a “doujinshi” fighter. A doujinshi fighter being a fighting game that is fan produced, often featuring the characters of a particular anime series. A good example of a doujinshi fighter would be Melty Blood, a doujinshi fighter predominately featuring characters from Tsukihime. I had previously come across the third image shown above, and simply presumed it to be a random animated image made for humor purposes, and had not thought that it might have been from an actual game.
Unfortunately, I’m at a loss for how to obtain such a game. I’m not very into games lately, and have never been into the fighter culture, nor the Japanese import culture. I’ll throw down in King of Fighters or CVS2 any day of the week, but it’s far from a passion. So if anyone within the sound of my voice knows anything about this game, or where I might begin my search, I would be grateful. It would be nice for someone to dig it up, so that I can put it up on the site for the benfit of the fanbase.
Posted in: Fandom, Video Games.
By The Eva Monkey
on Sunday, June 12th, 2005
Newtype: What’s evolved in the world of animation these 20 last years?
Anno Hideaki: The first time I encountered Newtype, I was working for Gainax on the pilot film for Wings of Honneamise. I had the occasion to read it in the studio. In the beginning, I had a hard time determining the principal subject of the magazine, and I said myself that with a such a name it must be completely centered on Gundam [note: “Newtype” is a term from Gundam meaning people who have evolved beyond normal human beings]. At the time, animation had bad press and to have the word “anime” in the title of the magazine would not have been very successful. That must be the reason for choosing the name Newtype… even if it’s from the jargon of anime. In addition to anime, Newtype covered about a whole heap of other subjects, it was really difficult to see where they wanted the magazine to go.
Hideaki Anno appeared in Newtype three months later. Newtype published an article titled “Nanimator,” which covered the medium of anime in the Kansai region. (note : pun on Naniwa, old name of the area of Osaka and “animator”).
In fact everyone thinks that I am from Osaka, but it is a preconceived idea. I am from Yamaguchi, and just did my studies in Osaka… well, in fact I did not really study (laughs).
I appeared again in Newtype when the Evangelion phenomenon started to explode. Moreover, Evangelion made the cover of the tenth anniversary issue. At the time, marketing departments were all about a “Media Mix”. There was much adaptation of manga and anime elsewhere [note – I’m assuming he means video games, toys, etc]. I always thought that animation should have the principal place but not everyone agreed with me. With the first meeting at the time of the launching of the magazine Shônen Ace [note- which serialized the Eva manga], there was agreement between the editor in chief, Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, and me. It was one of the elements that created that relationship.”
After Evangelion, Hideaki Anno moved away from the world of animation. We asked him how he saw animation in the 20 next years.
Well. I think that the world of animation is cyclic and has not evolved much for 20 years. At the time, the large madness was around Zeta Gundam, and 20 years later, Gundam is in the news and very popular. With regard to Newtype, I will say that you do not have to be concerned. As long as there will be series of popular animation, the magazine will continue to exist. However, I think that the industry rests too much on large successes like Gundam, which you could call the “Old Type,” which is a little annoying with a magazine which is called Newtype. As I said earlier, the world of animation follows a regular cycle. The cover of the 10th anniversary issue was Evangelion, the cover of 20th is Gundam– thus it is logical that the cover of the 30th will again be Evangelion. You’d better reserve it as of now.
— translated by Babelfish and Otaprince from the French translation at Chu Project.
Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: Hideaki Anno.
By The Eva Monkey
on Tuesday, June 7th, 2005
Hey, kids! Monkey insisted on imbuing me with more power, so here I am with a little bit of “news”. I recently got my grimy meat hooks on the NGE dating sim, “Iron Maiden 2nd”, more commonly known as “Girlfriend of Steel 2”. And, while it was an exponential waste of time, it has yielded some fruits for all to enjoy.
First off, here you will find a torrent to download a RAR of all in-game images. If you want it, make sure you do it soon, because I don’t know how long my compadres will be seeding it. (I can’t, due to the suckage of my home connection.)
Additionally, for anyone who wants to suffer through this game verself, but knows little to no Japanese, my walkthrough (the first and only English one, as far as I know) is now up at Game FAQs (under “Kotetsu no Girlfriend 2”). However, I leave the acquiring of the game to you, unless Monkey decides to set up all of those torrents he’s been procrastinating over for months. ;;>
Enjoy, everyone.
Posted in: Video Games.
By The Eva Monkey
on Saturday, June 4th, 2005
Over the last couple of years, I’ve seen a number of groups state their intention to create an Evangelion mod for a PC FPS. Most notably EvaMod and Evarena. It’s good to see that Evarena finally succeeded in getting their project to demo phase, and it looks pretty good. Good enough that I’m dissapointed that my computer can’t handle Unreal Tournament 2004. I read comments on EvaMod’s forums that were less than encouraging. I don’t want to take them at face value, as they are a different team working on a different mod for a different game. However, members of EvaMod spoke quite negatively of Evarena which, by all indications on their website, has been a huge success.
Evarena has been a success thus far, and illustrates an interest in Evangelion games. I can only hope that this is the beginning of a trend, not simply the only ones who were able to pull through and deliver.
If you’re a UT2K4 player, download the demo and give it a whirl, and send me your thoughts on the game. If you’re not able to play the game, take a look at this game play video. It should give you an idea of what the game has to offer.
Posted in: Fandom, Video Games.
By The Eva Monkey
on Thursday, June 2nd, 2005
This past weekend there was a Neon Genesis Evangelion musical at Animazement. It was written by Phil Lee and directed by Heather Walker, and was performed by the Carolina Otaku Uprising. There are extensive photos of the performance on A Fan’s View, if you happen to be interested. Further info such as cast, crew, script, and music is available on the club’s site. Their page says that a torrent of the video will be made available in time, so for now, who your support and interest.
Posted in: Audio, Conventions, Fandom, Music. Tagged: Animazement.
By The Eva Monkey
on Thursday, May 26th, 2005
I’m quite happy to announce that I will once again be hosting the Evangelion Panel at Otakon. If you happen to be an anime fan within the Baltimore area, or happen to have the means to come out and spend a weekend at the Baltimore Convention Center, then seriously take some consideration into attending Otakon this year. Twenty some thousand fans can’t be wrong. Otakon is a great time, and it’ll keep you coming back. If you so choose or simply happen to be attending, drop in on the Evangelion panel. I’ll be hosting the panel, and assistant panelists will include Reichu, our very own Commentary mistress, as well as Otaprince of Gainax Pages. If you’ve attended one of my Eva panels in the past at Otakon, Katsucon, or Anime Mid-Atlantic, you’re in for a slightly different experience. This panel will be in celebration of ten years of Evangelion, and I have a few special things planned. So please, stop by, geek out with Monkey and company, you will not be dissapointed. And if you are, its your fault.
Posted in: Conventions. Tagged: Otakon.
By The Eva Monkey
on Wednesday, May 18th, 2005
This past weekend, I had the distinct pleasure to go on a roadtrip to Anime Central with the likes of our very own Commentary mistress, Reichu, as well as the wild and crazy Otaprince of Gainax Pages. The three of us went on a fairly long road trip together through the boring scenery of Ohio and Indiana. This was rather convenient, as none of us would have been able to have made the trip on our own. I had a really good time, and enjoyed some good company, and I can only hope that Otakon is as enjoyable as Anime Central.
Thursday was largely uneventful. I took off from Baltimore for Pittsburgh, got within spitting distance of Otaprince’s place, and somehow ended up in the ghetto. Eventually, I got to his place alright. It’s really interesting meeting someone in person that you’ve only had dealings with via email, messenger, or forums. So meeting someone like Otaprince was really cool, because sometimes you don’t get a sense of someone’s personality online. He was a cool guy, and we had some good discussion about Eva, Gainax, and fan enthusiasm. We went out and got some sake, and later on Reichu arrived. It was good seeing her again, as the last time I got to hang out with her was at Otakon last summer. So needless to say it had been awhile. The three of us went out and grabbed a pizza, listened to some groovin music, and me and Otaprince drank some sake. Reichu did not, for she is a poo poo head.
Friday was a whole lot of driving, being bored by the entire state of Ohio and Indiana, and being confused by Chicago’s highways. At some point I noticed that my phone was an hour behind the clock in my car, and it took us a few moments to figure out that we were in central time as opposed to eastern. It dawns on Otaprince, and he says “Dude, we’re in another time zone.”, which was fairly convenient for us because I was worried about making it to the con in time for the Eva panel at 5pm. I had not counted on Anime Central being completely unlike Otakon, Nekocon, Anime Mid-Atlantic, and Katsucon, all of which have generously provided me multiple panelist badges. Anime Central merely offers one free badge per panel slot. This is very backwards in my opinion, as panelists are providing a service to the convention, and a few free badges is the least they can do to pamper panelists. We were given the run around by a gender confused panelist coordinator until we gave up. Without badges, we wandered around, went to the game room, and then snuck into the dealers room (hee hee).
Just shy of 5pm, we wandered over to the panel room and ran into the esteemed (and very well dressed, I might add) master of ceremonies, Carl Horn. This was cool, having last seen him hosting the Eva panel at Otakon 2002, which was very much part of what was the impetus for this site and what I do as an Evangelion enthusiast. Similarly, meeting Brendan Jamieson of Eva Otaku, and being on the panel with him was a treat as well, especially as this was the first we had met in person. The panel went really well, thankfully it was two full hours, so we had plenty of time to talk. Unfortunately my voice was fairly much gone by this point, due to being ill, with the aid of a microphone, I managed. Much of the discussion was quite good, aside from a few questions revolving around the fuzzy subject of soul theory, some good topics were discussed, and the variety of interpretations among the panelists strengthened the panel, rather than being a subject of argument. I talked too much, as usual.
After the panel, Reichu, Otaprince, and myself were forced to go through 2-3 hours of on-site registration. This dragged on forever, and in my poor health, I was miserable. Tetris alleviated it somewhat, making it almost bearable. When we thought we had reached the front of the line, we found an equally long line within registration. A string of obscenities followed. We eventually got our badges, and Otaprince cried out in victory. As we stepped out of registration, some guy in a booth was giving out Pillows tickets early. Hot damn, I says, we don’t have to get up early to get tickets the next morning. We got drinks at the sports bar, caught some of Anime Hell, and headed to our hotel. It took us two hours, multiple tolls, stops, and illegal u-turns to find our way to the hotel only ten minutes from the convention. It sucked, we swore, I coughed up a lung, and we went to bed. And somehow admist all of that, we managed to avoid a drunken hoodlem.
Saturday morning I awoke to find that I was incapable of speech. After coughing up a sickening amount of mucus from the vague recesses of my sinuses and respiratory system, I managed to rediscover the most precious form of communication that is speech. The Pillows concert was great, it really makes me want to break out my FLCL DVDs and watch it again. Something tells me they weren’t expecting their music to be as popular over here, as they aren’t particularly popular in Japan to begin with. Afterwards, we wound up wandering the dealers room for awhile, until I decided to catch a few panels, including the Megatokyo panel, which is generally ok, minus the really obnoxious questions from people that sound like the Android’s Dungeon comic book guy from The Simpsons. Then I went to the Bemani and Fighting Game Fan Panels, which were both really really REALLY bad. I tried locating the “Your favorite anime sucks” Panel, which was oddly enough hidden behind a ginourmous line. Otaprince however managed to get in, and enjoyed it. Reichu and I went and grabbed sandwiches, discussed some geeky stuff, and then went to the fanparody panel until I wandered off and found my way to Carl’s room party.
It was definitely one of the coolest parts of my weekend. It was as if the artistic, intellectual, and sophicsticated populace of the convention had congregated for some good music, company, and polish beer. I enjoyed myself a lot, Reichu did as well, surprisingly, which made me glad, and Otaprince… well, lets just say he enjoyed the polish beer. Carl Horn had some cool guests, Tavisha and Rikki Simmons, Doug Smith, Jan Scott Frazier, David Fleming, and even the most rockin eukelele strumming translator ever, Taka. I chatted for a while with Carl as well as Brendan, who is apparently seeming more and more like me the more I get to know him. This time around, I came to find out that he’s only a day younger than me. Eventually, we bid our farewells, took a group photo, and our troupe went back to the hotel without, amazingly enough, getting lost like the previous night.
Sunday morning was a bit like Saturday morning…. I was again congested to the point where I was mute. We paid for the room, and began our trip back to Pittsburgh. Reichu still had quite a bit of driving to do, and I wasn’t feeling up to driving home, so we watched Otaprince’s bootleg of the live action Casshern movie, which was absolutely amazing. We had some smores poptarts, and watched some Otaku No Video before calling it quits.
Monday I got up fairly early, packed up, and after some photos and goodbyes, I made the trip back to Baltimore in time to show up to my Video class a half hour late.
All in all, the Anime Central was a great time, there were some highs (Eva Panel, Pillows, room party, good company) and some lows (being sick, registration, getting lost). There was plenty of Eva-ness, booze, public urination, more Eva-ness, and various glimpses of Reichu in her underwear. I can’t say for certain if I would go back out there, but it’s tempting. Hopefully some cool characters will make the trip out to Otakon this summer. Hint hint.
Posted in: Conventions. Tagged: Anime Central.
By The Eva Monkey
on Monday, May 9th, 2005
You may have heard, at one point or another, that I am certifiably nuts. If there was any doubt before, there certainly isn’t now. It’s that time of the school year when everything is in a bottleneck. I’ve got papers, final projects, and exams looming on an unfriendly horizon. I certainly don’t need to tell you what the stress of college life is like. It’s a bit like the stress of highschool, only multiplied by a factor of two. And if you’re unfamiliar with that, the stress of highschool is roughly twice that of elementary school. I’m not entirely sure when it happened, but at some point this past weekend I bid farewell to my mental faculties and made the decision to go on a road trip from Baltimore, MD to Rosemont IL, in order to attend Anime Central.
Needless to say, I’ve been working with a fervor befitting an actual college student over the last several days, something that I am horribly unaccustomed to. Nevertheless, the determination to attend Anime Central has prompted a scholastic effort on my part unlike any I have experienced in my recent years.
So, I look forward to attending Anime Central, hanging out with Carl Horn of Dark Horse, Brendan Jamieson of Eva Otaku, Otaprince of Gainax Pages, and last but certainly not least, Reichu, of the very esteemed Commentary Project. There will be the very rockin Pillows concert, as well as the 10th anniversary Eva panel, and of course, lots and lots of sake…. hopefully.
If you happen to be in the widwest region, and will be among the attendees of Anime Central this year, stop by the Eva panel, I will be there geeking it up in the manner I am best suited to. And I understand there will be free stuff for those attending.
And now, I venture onward in the name of education.
Posted in: Conventions. Tagged: Anime Central.
By The Eva Monkey
on Thursday, May 5th, 2005
It’s times like this that I find very very difficult to maintain my reserve. In my infinite Eva geekery, I’ve spent a lot of time on the internet. Read a lot of bad fan fiction, stumbled across too much disturbing doujinshi, read some incredibly idiotic theories, and dealt with a lot of unsavoury individuals. I remember one time some guy tried to convince me that he was learning to harness his chi in order to perform energy blasts akin to Goku in Dragon Ball. That being said, I’ve had my patience tested repeatedly over the past several years. And its stumbling across stuff like this Wiki that makes me ask myself “why in the hell I do this?”. I have a love & hate relationship for this fandom that is largely hate these days. I would very much like to move on, but this is probably the most prosperous thing I’ve ever had going for me, and I don’t want to give up halfway. This isn’t about Wikis as much as its about my severe need to learn to practice a greater degree of humility, tolerance, reserve, and patience.
And no, Dr. Akagi, I will not tickle your clit.
Posted in: Uncategorized.
By The Eva Monkey
on Sunday, April 3rd, 2005
Over the years, I’ve collected quite a lot of books on Evangelion. From various incarnations of the manga, to script books, groundwork books, film books, storyboard books, and various guides and art collections. But none of them have made me envious of the ability to read and comprehend the Japanese language as this book has. I’m one who desires to see informative analysis of the Evangelion series in print in the English language. Seeing, and even owning, a book with critical analysis in a language I can’t comprehend is like taunting a monkey with a banana from behind bars or a glass plate.
This book is absolutely amazing, and includes a number of interesting articles on various aspects of the Evangelion series. The English headers and imagery contained within allow a non-Japanese speaker to follow the basic idea of each section of this book, but beyond the basic thought, there’s not much more for an English speaker to get out of it. It is a simply amazing book, both in terms of its content and its design, but it is something casual fans might want to overlook due to it content being in Japanese. However, for the hardcore fans who like collecting various oddities (like myself) this might be an interesting book to pick up and flip through.
Posted in: Merchandise. Tagged: Books.
