Kurogane’s Anime Blog

Finally got my hands on my order of Evangelion 1.01. Amazon.jp is impressive. Ordered placed on Saturday, processed on Sunday, delivered on Monday morning, arrived at Tuesday evening. That’s what you call service, eh. But I must say, for the 1,700 yen I paid for the shipping, they could’ve used a much more better packaging. I was surprised at looking at thin boxpack(or whatever it’s called) used for the DVD. I was expecting a box, heh.

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Finished watching the DVD version. In the end, I reordered the DVD, despite the lack of Asuka and no thanks to the remastered Operation Yashima. If my paycheck had arrived a week earlier, I wouldn’t have to had to do this… oh well. Says much for my fanboyism, looks like it’s gonna be bread all the way until my next paycheck arrives again. Man, my parents are gonna throw a fit when the DVD arrives home orz.

Impressions on the 1.01 version?

I still feel that the start was rather cut-and-paste, so for anyone already familiar with the series, it’s best to skip it. The real goodie is of course Operation Yashima, where clearly a fuck ton of budget has went in to the CG, and seeing it full DVD-glory is definitely impressive. Very impressive.

I still think that the Shinji in the Rebuild is less “emo”, and as I’ve stated earlier when I watched the cam-rip, he seems more quick to pick up on his role. I think it’s mainly because of his actions during the actual Operation Yashima, where he actually recovered and struggled to get a second shot at the Angel, despite his father ordering Rei to do it instead. I think it clearly shows that he has accepted the fact that he is an Eva pilot, unlike in the series where he keeps on rejecting the fact throughout the series. I do hope that the following movies will continue with a less “emo” Shinji.

What I find most intriguing is the end of the movie with Kaworu awaking up in a coffin-like box, overlooking a pit housing what I conjecture to be Adam, on the Moon. This already hints for big changes ahead, further reinforced with the preview of the second movie.

So far, no news of the second movie as of yet. It will probably be released late this year, maybe on September as well, just like the first movie.

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Oh wow. Holy fuck. How come no one told me about this!!! The things you miss when you stop reading the (government propaganda distribution) newspapers.

Right, so I’m definitely going. Definitely. Better book the tickets now.

So, someone actually posted a camrip of Eva 1.0 on the usual sites *ahem*. Quality isn’t too bad, and with the release date of the DVD still unknown, I guess this is the best thing in the mean time.

Won’t go too much in to the summary, but it basically keeps the events of the beginning mostly intact, and only starts to differ mainly towards the end of the movie, with the climax being Operation Yashima.

First thing of all, the aired movie feels “cut and paste” mostly, and I suspect the DVD will have an additional airtime of at least 20 minutes, and that’s being rather conservative of me already. It’s clearly noticeable throughout the first 50 mins of the movie or so, with the speedup from Shinji’s initial fight with the 3rd Angel, the conflict he has with Toji and his following triumph of the 4th Angel.

The movie truly picks up at the appearance of the 5th Angel, and oh boy, Ramiel is impressive now. Instead of remaining a boring cube, Ramiel actually changes forms in to various fractal shapes whenever it attacks, a testament to the amazing budget that the Rebuild of Evangelion series has access to. The electromagnetic sniper rifle is also given quite an upgrade, and it’s really impressive now, in terms of eyecandy.

Well, it’s not only limited to those parts, the whole movie is really a mixture of the old animation but with more details and CG whenever they have time to throw it in. Tokyo-3’s transformation looks really awesome now. The old touch of the original 2D animation is also still in it, evoking a nice feel of nostalgia at parts.

I’ll be honest here and say that I found Shinji in the movie way less pathetic and annoying compared than he was in the series. He’s more like a boy thrown in to a bad situation and confused about it more than being illogically emo that he was back in the TV series. I supposed it’s because of the speeded up character development due to the shorter airtime, but I’ll reserve my judgment until later.

The rest of the cast are as their original ones in the TV series, without many major changes to the characterization. Rei is still enigmatic and silent as usual, Misato remains the onee-san that likes alcohol, Gendou is cold as usual and etc.

Overall, I find it a nice starter to the series, upgraded with more shiny CG and explosions. Even Shinji is less pathetic than he was in the TV series and I hope it remains so. The preview for the next movie shows quite a lot of plot changes to happen, so I really can’t wait till it airs later this year :).

From Anime News Service:

9-6-07 (11:34PM EDT)—- Pizza Hut Ties Up With Latest Evangelion Film
American based restaurant chain Pizza Hut has struck up a new web campaign / partnership for its Japanese stors involving the new Eva movie. Online orders and club members can get an oversized Ayanami Rei cardboard cutout as well as special wallpapers.

Does this mean that we’ll see a mini subplot involving Asuka ordering pizzas to collect stamps for Cheese-kun in the next movie?

Following up on the earlier announcement…

2-17-07 (4:30AM EST)—- Rebuild Of Evangeriwon: Shin Gekijou-ban Films Officially Announced
Just when you thought you’d pinned down an official name for the new Evangelion movie project, new titles and pronunciations keep piling on and as promised, on Saturday, the 17th in Japan director Hideaki Anno officially made his statement announcing the series. A special website has gone live at Yahoo announcing the 1st feature: “Shin Gekijou-ban Evangeriwon” will hit theaters nationwide in Japan on September 1st. A poster carrying the director’s statement was hung in 50 cinemas across the country, its contents have been reproduced online here. Therein it is confirmed for the first time officially that a new company formed by the director will helm production. Additionally, the first trailer from the new movies has gone online in 1MB Windows Media streaming form which can be accessed at the bottom of this page. Mantan is carrying an image of how the poster appears in theaters locked behind a glass wall case.

That’s a weird name there…. anyone can summarize what the poster is about?

2-14-07 (8:20AM EST)—- Hideaki Anno To Announce New Eva Films On February 17th
New Evangelion film series “general superintendent” Hideaki Anno will release an “emergency statement” regarding the project on the 17th of this month. This will mark the first time the Director has spoken to the public regarding the 4 new animated features. Additionally, its been revealed that the first Evangelion Shin Gekijou Ban film will be released to Japanese theaters on September 1st, 2007. Anno’s statement will be made in several media including a film projected poster, to be shown in around 50 theaters across Japan. A special message in all white colored text will read: “Animation set in and impoverished future Japan”. A 15 second video clip will be screened simultaneously. Those who have seen these media have noted that several Japanese katakana characters in the “Evangelion” title have been changed over the previous spelling. A different “E” character is used and the “O” has been replaced with “WO”. The first fillm is expected to encompass the storyline of the first 6 TV epeisodes. A special internet website will be launched through Yahoo Japan to coincide with the announcement on the 17th. Content there will include messages from the production staff. There hav been around 6000 merchandise items produced around Evangelion to date, with total sales approaching 150 billion Yen or more.

Another 7 months to wait then. Well, I guess Gainax’s financial stability will be guranteed for another decade or so. Let’s hope their standard hasn’t dropped from complacency.

Source: Anime News Service

From Anime News Service:

10-19-06 (9:29AM EDT)—- World Exclusive: Rebuild Of Evangelion Updates

Tonight we met up with Evangelion Producer Toshimichi Ootsuki in Akihabara. According to Ootsuki-san the “contents” for the “1st part” of the new Rebuild Of Evangelion movies is now complete. The animation staff is also very close to being fully assembled. Building on past hints (the cover image of the October, 2006 issue of Newtype Magazine) Kaworu Nagisa and Rei Ayanami will be central characters in this new story. The theme of the “first part” movie will feature the characters in a school setting prior to the arrival of the angels.

Yay for teh Rei camp I guess….

Still… as an EVA fanboy, that side of mine is totally satisfied with the fact that more EVA will be out. Looks like the first movie will be some sort of a prequel…