Kurogane's Anime Blog

I have to admit, that’s a pretty ecletic piece to choose for the climax of the movie, Tsubasa wo Kudasai that is.

Also I must say, the whole OST has a lack of…. EVA-ish-ness to it? I dunno, probably it’s to do with all the weird uplifting music. I like my EVA OST’s to sound a bit more oppressive I guess.

P.S. Will we ever get a full camrip? I still haven’t seen Asuka 2.0 yet ;_;. I have to admit Mari was fucking badass though.

Warning: Spoilers ahead.

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Holy shit wtf Anno?

/r/ camrips!!! (Reminder to self: HOLD ON UNTIL THE BLU-RAY’S ARE OUT!)

Anno’s Evangelion 2.0 Film Slated for June 27 in Japan

Evangelion: 2.0 You Can [Not] Advance, the second film in Hideaki Anno and Khara’s theatrical remake of Gainax’s Neon Genesis Evangelion television anime series, will open on June 27 in Japan. Khara had already revealed the title and early summer release window for the second film last October.

In related news, the official Evangelion website has announced on Thursday that the first movie in the remake project, Evangelion: 1.0 You Are [Not] Alone, will get a “1.11″ release on Blu-ray Disc and DVD on May 27. The 1.11 release will include new cuts and digital mastering. More details on King Record’s news release will be made public on March 16. There was an earlier “1.01″ version that was first released on DVD last April and given a second theatrical run that same month.

Firstly I’m happy to finally get a real release date for 2.0, which also means I’ll have to prepare to buy the second DVD when it’s out. I damn well hope Asuka will be still the same Asuka we all know and love in this release.

Secondly, the 1.11 release just… just… just… makes me want to curse at some one. I bloody forked out money to buy the LE 1.01 and now they come and tell us that there’s gonna be ANOTHER remastered version. I bloody well hope they not also providing LE goodies in 1.11 too. If they’d release this AFTER the whole series was complete…. I’d probably be not as angry. But man… just less than 2 years after releasing the first one? It’s a bit of a ripoff isn’t it? Evangelion 1.11 : You are [not] alone [again] wwwwwwwwwwwww.

Another year passes. Man, it’s hard to believe I’m already in to my 9th year of being an otaku as well as my 4th year of blogging. Time sure flies. I’m now well over 1500 posts with nearly 16k comments, and it’s thanks to everyone’s support that I’ve gotten so far.

This year was marked by an increased number of good shows, but surprisingly, it wasn’t as “happening” as last year. To put it in another way, while the average increased, the top end of the bell curve wasn’t as high as last year. Nevertheless, this year still had its moments.

My choices here aren’t particularly graded using a strict measure, it’s more of an overall rating of shows of this year that I greatly enjoyed in one way or another, so please view it as that rather than a solid indicator of quality.

Of course, being a mere mortal with a real life outside of the Internet, I will inevitably miss a few gems here and there, so feel free to voice up any other shows that you, my dear reader, believe I should have watched and not missed for this year.

With that said, here’s the list.

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Artefact brings mention about the updated Evangelion movie website and the announced released date for the second movie, early summer of 2009. The second movie’s English subtitle is also now known; Evangelion 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance. An interesting choice of words.

The official movie poster has also been updated from the first one with the addition of Asuka and the new character hinted in the preview of the first movie. Sad to say, nothing new has been revealed, but the story will definitely be going differently from the original now at the least. I would love to see Asuka finally as well.

It’s quite a long wait now for the next movie. I was definitely expecting it this year. On the bright side, my Evangelion movie DVD trust fund has now a much more longer time to mature :).

… is quite a pretty awesome experience, more especially when you rent a whole cinema hall for it and watch it with one of the biggest weaboo gatherings locally. No offense, AS’ers :).

Operation Yashima on the big screen is definitely pretty darn awesome, as well as pretty much seeing all the new CG pimpage by Anno. Sadly enough, they censored TEH REI, but I guess it was kinda expected. I’m still surprised the censored the plugsuit changing scene though. Also, FAIL FOR NO MISATO “SABI~SU, SAA~BISU!!”

Also went to Bon Odori at Matsushita Stadium. Pretty much the same old, same old, but I did get to meet a very good friend and catch up on times with him, so it made up for it I guess. Sorry for the lack of pictures though, I still don’t have my own camera. If anyone would like to donate $1 to Kuro’s Camera Fund, you can send it to my Paypal, lol.

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 :).