So, Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, renowned for his awesome and unique illustration style closely associated to the Evangelion franchise and notorious for his inability to keep to a monthly serialization schedule, is bringing back Evangelion again according to an announcement in this month’s Young Ace magazine.

I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I loved the manga and own all of them. On the other hand, this table of his past record speaks for itself. (Source: 2ch thread)

Utada Hikaru – Beautiful World

Beautiful World by Utada Hikaru is the theme song of the new Rebuild of Evangelion movie. I personally think that it’s her best and most awesome song ever, but maybe the relationship to Evangelion is clouding my judgement. I fell in love with this song after watching the movie trailer on YouTube. Hikki performed this song live on yesterday’s Music Station. I translated the lyrics, available here. Why do I always start translating things when my exams draw close? Sigh.

YouTube video embedded after the break.

Translation | Kanji | Printable

Awesome song. T_T You can get the CD from Amazon JP.

Either no one has bothered to blog about it or I didn’t look hard enough. So anyway, the latest issue of Newtype has a whole bunch of juicy titbits on the new Evangelion movies starting next year.

Click on to find out…

If you haven’t heard about the new Evangelion project before this, basically it’s a total of four new movies, with the first movie coming out next year.

I’ll just listen them out in the order they are mentioned in the magazine.

Itâ€s going to be crazy. Crazy like the Eva that we love and hate. Apparently, Mr. Anno is working full steam. Heâ€s happy that he can finally recreate Eva “as he wanted it to be”, because heâ€s no longer limited by the technology of 12 years ago, ergo lots of 3D CG this time. In fact, it’s so crazy that you will need to watch the first movie at least 3 times to “get” it. (Or so they say.)

The planning for the first movie has already been completed and it has entered the drawing phase and Mr. Hideaki Anno is working on the script for the second movie. The staff remains more or less the same as the TV series.

The first movie will revolve around the events covered in episode 6 of the TV series, basically Operation Yashima where Eva-01 takes down the angel with a positron rifle. That episode did not turn out the way Mr. Anno wanted it to, due to last-decade technical limitations, and he wants to make it right this time. Operation Yashima will be the climax of the first movie. Mr. Shinji Higuchi, the director of Sinking of Japan, will be in-charge of the Yashima portions of the movie.

NEW characters will be appearing in the second movie. (Please let it be Mana Kirishima!!!)

Although the uniform designs will remain unchanged, the NERV and SEELE logos will be changed. The NERV logo will be based on a bitten apple, while the new SEELE logo will be an apple with a serpent coiled around it. The new logos are references to the original sin as told by the Bible. Apparently, this reference may be paralleled by the movies’ story at some point.

It sounds to me that the first movie will be at least a partial remake and the second movie will branch off to a new story with new characters. I guess you can call it a parallel Eva universe?

As a fanboy, I can’t wait to see Eva with modern graphics. :3

P.S. Mana is the hawtest Eva girl. She deserves screen time!!!

MANA!!!

Let me tell you a story.

/me walks past the new releases.
Me: “ZOMG Honey & Clover final volume!”
*Honey & Clover Vol.10 get*
/me walks past the magazine shelf.
*Newtype October get*
/me walks to Japanese counter to place order.
Staff member A is busy attending to another customer (who, coincidentally, is from my school).
/me waits.
Staff member B: “Excuse me, are you Mr. (my name)?”
/me goes wtf?
Me: “Ermmm… yeah.”
Staff member B: “The book you ordered has arrived. Do you wish to collect it today?”
/me looks at the book. It’s Genshiken Vol.8.
Me: “Okay, sure.”
/me takes a few minutes to fish out the correct order slip from my wallet.
*Genshiken Vol.8 get*
Staff member A is done and I finally get to place my order.

You know you spend too much on manga when you have six Kinokuniya order slips in your wallet and the counter person knows you by name.

Anyway, I’m somewhat disappointed with Honey & Clover‘s ending. Somehow it lacked the impact that I expected. The ending is… unfulfilling-ly realstic. That’s how I would put it. The unrelated short story 「星のオペラ」 (The Stars’ Opera) that was included as the last chapter is quite good, though.

[アニメ]「新世紀エヴァンゲリオン 新劇場版」前編、中編、後編、最終話の4部作にて製作決定。

以前のタレコミ情報では、TVシリーズの総集編3部＋完全新作の全4部作という話だったけど、4部全てが新作という位置付けらしい。続編でもリメイクでもないとか。タレコミ情報を頂いたæ‚は、正直まゆつば情報だと思ってたんだけど、本当に4部作で再映画化だったとは。

Un-moon-ed:

“New Evangelion Theatrical Version” will be a 4-part project.

According to previous leaks, it was thought that the new project consisted of 3 summary movies of the TV series and 1 new movie, but now it turns out that all 4 movies will be new productions. Also, the movies are neither sequels nor remakes. We had previously thought that those leaks were faked, but apparently there really are going to be 4 new movies…

Here’s the scan (from Newtype I presume) linked by the article that supposedly proves it:

The words on the left say　劇場４部作で描かれる「新作」 or “A new project consisting of 4 theatrical releases”.

So it seems like we are getting 4 new Eva movies that are neither sequel nor remakes… Hmmm… I guess we just have to wait for Newtype October, though Moon Phase is pretty reliable so there’s a pretty good chance that it’s true. Also, Hideaki Anno will once again be in charge, for good or for bad.

Yay! Now we can look forward to 10 more years of Evangelion merchandise! (Okay, so it was going to happen any way)

UPDATE: Just want to add that the first movie will be out Summer 2007, about one year from now.

1. Evangelion COSPA T-shirt
2. Gundam SEED Destiny Limited Posters 3 (took me three tries to get Lacus and Cagalli)
3. Sentimental Graffiti Desktop Collection
4. Valkyrie Profile -Lenneth- for PSP (secondhand)
5. To Heart 2 Tamaki Kousaka doujinshi (18+)
6. To Heart 2 Tamaki Kousaka COSPA tea cup
7. Rumbling Angel Version 6 Starter Deck
8. Gundam SEED Lacus Clyne handphone strap
9. Cafe&Kitchen Cos-Cha handphone strap
10. Kamen no Maid Guy Vol.1-3
11. Suzuka Vol. 4-6
12. Negima! Vol. 4, 5, 7
13. Genshiken Vol. 7

Basically, it’s mostly just some manga that I was missing.

I got BahamutSphere to buy the Tama-nee doujinshi for me. I tried to do it yesterday but the Toranoana cashier asked for identification and I had to give up… gao… But justice always wins in the end! Bwahahaha!

I had tea at Cafe Mai:lish today. It’s been more than a year, but I managed to recognize one of the waitresses there. Mai:lish waitresses wear maid costumes in the noon and cosplay after 5pm. One of them was cosplaying in the seifuku from To Heart 2. The costume was quite well-done. :3 There was another uniform that looked like the ones from Kashimashi, but I’m not sure. And there was a waitress in ZAFT pilot uniform too.

I think that might be enough Akiba for some time.

P.S. Here’re some pictures of the Tama-nee tea cup. Tamaki-moe forever!!! :3

Interestingy,

Once the Weta-ADV partnership hit the news, the company’s in-box started overflowing. “We get a lot of e-mails, a lot of letters from people around the world about Lord of the Rings. But we get 25 e-mails about Evangelion to every one we get about Lord of the Rings,” says Taylor. “And Evangelion has not even been made yet: It’s just a whisper in the corridors of ADV, and it’s a suggestion in the hallways of Weta.”

LotR, in your face!