New Evangelion Movie Hits September 1st, 2007!

Evangelion on Cover of Rolling Stone Mag in Japan

The cover girl for the Septeraber issue of the Japanese edition of Rolling Stone magazine (on sale August 10) is Neon Genesis Evangelion's Rei Ayanami. The illustration by animator Fumio Iida (Aim for the Top! Gunbuster, The Wings of Honneamise) adorns both the cover and the included poster supplement.

The cover coincides with an article called "Eva no Saishinsaku wa Eco Datta?" ("The Latest Eva Work Is About Ecology?") with the English subtitle, "Does Evangelion Save Us?" The article covers the Evangelion: 1.0 You Are [Not] Alone movie remake of the psychological science fiction series. It follows the magazine issue's "Rock Meets Eco!! Stop Global Warming" main feature.
 
My issue is more one of artistic integrity. One thing I could enjoy about Eva was that Anno didn't subscribe to the nonense that all the annoying fanboys did. Now, his public statments are saying that he does. Why? Ideally, all creators should be pleased with their work but to go from "Eva is what it is. I'm done with it, take it as you will" to saying it neeRAB to be brought back and such...it just feels so forced.
 
What is everyone's thought on their being a new closing theme song for the EVA movie? Hikaru Utada announced that she wrote "Beautiful World" which will be replacing the closing theme "Fly me to the Moon".

*note: she says opening theme but in a later blog she corrects herself.

http://hikki.blogspot.com/2007/07/on-sunday-in-akihabara.html

Anyway, I'm kind of excited for this film. Eva is never really let me down.
 
Are they saying that the movies with original storylines are going to have an environmental focus? Not sure how I'd feel about that.

Oh, and it would be the most insane thing ever if this cover made it to the US version of Rolling Stone...I have to imagine people would be beyond confused: "Who's this blue-haired cartoon girl, where's Tom Cruise?"
 
It HAS been ten years though. I can't see why revisiting a project many years down the track should somehow be looked down upon. If this was just about cashing in, there had been dozens of Evangelion spinoRAB that could have been animated in all these years. It could have been turned into a Gundam-sized franchise monster, but Gainax never went that far.
(Yes, I know there are tonnes of variety of EVA spinoff merchandise. But they are always limitted in production scale compare to Gundams and Totoros. Only a small proportion of the overall EVA merchandise is on sale at any one time, as such they aren't earning as much as you might think.)

Ten years is a long time, HellCat. Sometimes an artist could feel nostalgic too. I believe Anno is serious about why he does this, so integrity shouldn't be affected. (And as I mentioned before, anime movies are traditionally risky investments. If this is about money, it would be safer to go for OVAs or TV series.)
 
But why such a sharp turn in attitude? The guy seems to have gone from "I hate Eva" to "I love Eva". That's an awfully sharp turn to be taking, especially from someone who seemed to advocate the importance of moving on and not constantly rehashing one work again and again. Yet now he's going back and giving fans what for years he said they'll never have. People can change and creative minRAB can be fickle (say he, the design student) but it's such a swift change.
 
I wouldn't call 10 years a "sharp" turn or a "fickle" change. I'd call it stubbornly gradual.

If this was just about the money it would have made much more sense to do this on TV or OVA. And any network would have certainly jumped at a chance, if not begged and pleaded, to have the new EVA show to air.

To further explore why Anno's sentiments may have changed from "it's over and I'm done with it" 10 years ago to what it appears to be today, let's take a look at what has happened in the animation world in the time since End of Eva was released in the summer of 1997:

- Anime has made huge strides outside of Japan. In the west it's gone from underground showings at college campuses to mainstream theaters and TV. American and European companies are making co-productions with Japanese studios. And American and European cartoons have even started to take on a distinctly Japanese look. Basically, there's a MUCH bigger audience for Eva today, one that was never there in 1997.

- The Internet has changed the lanRABcape of television and movies in general. The web had already taken off back then, but it was nothing like it is today. There was no YouTube, no MySpace, no bittorrent, etc. Everybody can basically see everything now. Audiences are far more jaded today - they think they've seen everything, and it's far more difficult for filmmakers to create something that truly challenges people's perspectives. And that's what Eva was really all about, changing conventional perspectives.

- Countless new animes have been produced (see my comment above about Pokemon), but to date there's been nothing that comes even close to challenging viewers the way Eva did. I'm NOT saying there's been nothing as good or better than Eva, but nothing has come out that has truly challenged its audiences to the same degree.

I think this is what Anno meant when he made that bold statement that was something like "No anime has been released that is 'as new' and Evangelion". He was directing that at the industry and other animators as much as he was audiences. Maybe what he hopes to do is to make people remeraber how much Eva shook things up all by itself, and hopefully it will be a wake-up call to a new generation of artists and audiences alike to demand and create more stuff that will both excite and enrage the way Evangelion did.
 
I doubt he'd be able to get Eva back on TV unless he decides to show it at 2 AM in the morning. Eva sparked the heavy Japanese television censorship that we see today, so it would have to either be on a satellite channel like Elfen Lied, or at a 2 AM time-slot (provided the content wasn't that bad); none of which would get much attention like a prime-time slot on TV Tokyo or something would.

All of those can be seen as "marketing" though. If it can be released in multiple countries and more people are willing to buy it now rather than just Japan than back in the late 90s when he said he was "done", since he now knows more people will buy it, he's making more? I'd say that's along the lines of making a big profit.
 
Rei's actually showing a lot less skin in her plugsuit than most women that get a cover shot on Rolling Stone.

That, and underage sexualized subjects aren't exactly new territory for covershots. There are a few models/actresses that have fit that role quite well.

Either way, if this somehow hit the American Rolling Stone, the sheer oddness would probably get it a mention in the mainstream news media.
 
When I look at Eva, I don't see a guy who set out to shake things up. I see a creative mind who was troubled and the end result just happened to be one of the most interesting works in recent times. From his own comments and the production of the show (including the final 2 episodes being "Screw plot, I'm gonna do what I want to do"), it always struck me that Eva was something very personal for him and something that couldn't really be replicated. So for him to now be all gung ho about bringing it back and making statments about how important it is...why? It just doesn't sound right. Not to typecast, but let's not forget that Anno is a child of a nation that prides polite social standing and going with the majority. Under that light, his comments sound like business speak.
 
I'm in the boat that doesn't think he's milking it. If he were milking it, something else would have been made in the 10 years since the last piece of Eva animation was made. 10 years is quite a long time. Not to mention, this is just a trilogy of remakes; not a new series, not anything really new that will be continuing for a while. Just a set of remakes.
 
It was a personal work for him, but not just for him. It was also for other people suffering the way he was, which he identified as the youth of the time. Shinji was supposed to relate to them. Whether or not he intended it to have such a huge effect on audiences, it did. And the way he sees it (with that quote about nothing being "newer" than Eva), and I agree with him, there's been nothing since Eva that has managed to challenge audiences as much as it did back then. That doesn't sound like business speak, but more like he's calling out people for not taking up where he left off.

Contrary to popular belief he did not just make Eva for himself, and the last 2 episodes were not just meant to make sense to himself and say "screw you" to everyone else. He was actually trying to say something (in the last tv episode - "to all the children everywhere - congratulations!"). He gave audiences something they never had before.
 
Meh, I didn't mean that, I meant more animation. And I bet Gainax got more from that than the creator, anyway. But then again, I don't know a whole lot about that kind of stuff.

Also, there's been like two games and two mangas.
 
Obviously we can't know what he's thinking, which is why we're having this debate. If we could read his mind there would be no need for a discussion.

I'm basing what I said on Anno's quote (that no anime is "newer" than Eva), and the fact that the show spoke to me and so many other people so profoundly. As I said before, nothing has ever challenged the audience like Eva has, and certainly nothing as successful as Eva. If all he wanted was a self-serving "screw you" ending, that wouldn't be the case.
 
Back
Top