Neon Genesis Evangelion on Netflix

So the day has finally come and the world is treated to a release of the 26 episode original series and the Death True² and End of Evangelion movies. It’s available in multiple languages for both audio and subtitles. As anticipated, we’ve got a whole new English dub cast:

Shinji – Casey Mongillo
Misato – Carrie Keranen
Asuka – Stephanie McKeon
Rei – Ryan Bartley
Gendo – Ray Chase
Ritsuko – Erica Liundbeck
Fuyutsuki – JP Karliak
Kensuke – Ben Diskin
Kaji – Greg Chun
Toji – Johnny Yong Bosch

Episodes 21-23 appear to be the Director’s Cuts (New Production Cuts) which are longer and contain additional scenes, as well as some redrawn cuts. None of the episodes or the movies appear to be in HD, though. The translation was done by Studio Khara’s in-house translator, Dan Kanemitsu, and the subtitles were edited by David Fleming.

The one other glaringly noticeable difference is the lack of “Fly Me To The Moon” in any of the ending credits at the end of each episode. Also, the song is missing in the episodes that happen to use it as background music. In the Japanese Netflix region release, the song is there in both the ending credits and the episodes, which lead some to believe this was a licensing issue or some kind, either the lyrics/publisher or the specific versions of the songs. The Wrap posted an article stating:

An individual with knowledge of the production told TheWrap that Netflix worked with the Japanese studio that made the original anime series when licensing the 26-episode show for a new English-language voice cast version. “Fly Me to the Moon” was among a “few select” assets the streaming service was unable to obtain for all regions, due to the way the song was priced for global rights.

The Wrap: “Why Netflix Cut ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ From ‘Neon Genesis Evangelion’ Credits”

So instead, the rest of the world outside of Japan are treated with the piano version of Rei’s theme while we watch the credits for 15 seconds before Netflix auto-play’s the next episode. A lot of people are complaining about this omission.

We’re sure to see a ton of criticism about the new voice actors. There’s a lot of flak coming from the German, Spanish, and Italian dubs (where they translated “Angels” to a literal “Apostles”). Anime, and especially Evangelion, fandom is like that. This is going to be one of those rare dub vs dub debates that will surely be as heated as any of the sub vs dub ones in any fandom. But just like with the new theatrical releases, this will surely bring in new people to the fandom who will have a lot of questions and perhaps some new interpretations of their own due to the new interpretation/direction of the English dub.

• Discussion about the Netflix release
• Discussion about the Netflix dub