An Evangelion themed Lawson convenience store has opened in Hakone, the site of Tokyo-3, to coincide with the screenings of 2.22. The store is filled with all kinds of Eva merchandise, including food products, snacks, and various other Eva merchandise such as Eva headphones and the Evangelion manga and DVD sets. The store will remain Eva themed up until May 17th, where it will then be returned to its normal form.

Lawson convenience stores are the second biggest chain in Japan, with 7-Eleven being the largest in the country.

Some Hakone residents have been complaining to their city council about the influx of otaku and are trying to get the screening cancelled because of this. There has been no information on whether or not the screenings will in fact be cancelled.

Update: According to the Evangelion blog, the Eva themed Lawson in Hakone is no more, due to the unexpectedly large influx of people.

• Sankaku Complex post about the store, including numerous pictures of the store and the products being sold. (Warning, some images may be NSFW)
• EvaGeeks forum discussion on possible cancellation of screenings.
• More pictures of Eva merchandise. (Japanese)

The Official Evangelion website released the Evangelion 2.22 promo video which was previous put on the internet via a cellphone video. The official website links to videos supplied by the Bandai channel, so unless you’re on an IP that’s in Japan, you won’t be able to see them. But Yahoo has a silverlight version on their Eva 2.22 page. If you don’t have silverlight, you can always look at the page source to get the MMS file. If that still doesn’t work for you, we’ve got an XviD/PCM copy of it that you can download here.

There’s nothing new compared to the one we saw at the Tokyo Anime Fair, this one just looks better.

• Official Evangelion Website
• Yahoo Eva 2.22 BD/DVD Page
• MMS Link to video
• XviD/PCM encode of video

From the same people who brought you the Evangelion iPhone Battery Case, here comes another gadget that’s sure to get fans char…. —sorry, actually it would be just too corny to say that; let me start over. Studio Khara have again teamed up with X-Pal Power(Energizer) to offer Evangelion themed versions of the XP1000 portable battery charger pack. Unlike the previous offering, which was only of use to iPhone owners, the XP1000 packs operate over USB and can be used to give extra charge to all kinds of devices. The examples given include mobile phones, PSPs and the Nintendo DS. The pack comes in two themes: Model I has a Rebuild style Nerv Hexagon theme; and Model II has Rei, naturally.

Links:

• EvaEnergy.jp – XP1000. Official page. Contains information and images of the portable charger pack
• EvaEnergy.jp — Official site (Japanese). Contains information on both iPhone case pack and XP1000
• Eva Store: XP1000 Battery Charger — Nerv Theme (Japanese)
• Eva Store: XP1000 Battery Charger — Rei Theme (Japanese)
• Energizer information page about the XP1000 power pack—Has images and example video.

Apparently, the site is already taking preorders and the cases themselves will be available on the 15th of May. The packs are retailing for around 6000 Yen (~$65/€48) on the EvaStore.

BFI Southbank Cinema’s Anime Weekend will be screening both Evangelion 1.0, You Are (Not) Alone, and Evangelion 2.0, You Can (Not) Advance. The weekend starts on Friday, May 21st to Sunday, May 23rd. 1.0 will be screened on the 21st at 6:30pm while 2.0 will be screened right afterwards at 8:45pm. Other movies that will also be screened include Chocolate Underground, K20: The Fiend with Twenty Faces, Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva, Stormy Night, and Welcome to the Space Show. Joint tickets can be purchased at a lower price.

• BFI Southbank Cinemas Contact
• BFI Southbank’s Anime Weekend schedule and tickets

To commemorate the release of Evangelion 2.22 on DVD and BluRay, UCC canned coffee is going to release new coffee designs and a set of figures of Asuka, Rei, and Mari on April 27th.

An Example of the UCC cans and figures are on the website linked to below. Be aware that the images may contain spoilers.

Evangelion Official News Blog

The Noguchi Version of Evangelion 2.22 (Bluray Disc release) is going to be screened in “New Tokyo-3” (really in Hakone, where Tokyo-3 would be located) on May 8th and 9th.

(Warning: This post may have spoilers!)

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Found these on nico video. They’re a bunch of fan-made recreations of battle scenes from Evangelion 2.0 using Revoltech figures.

Warning, there are 2.0 spoilers in these videos.

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As a quick update to the Eva-Extra 06 and Tokyo Anime Fair, the Promotional Video shown at TAF for Evangelion 2.22 has made its way onto the internet. Be warned that there’s minor spoilers in the PV.

EDIT: Seems the youtube video has already been removed, let’s see how long the nico version of it stays online:

According to the Min Nano EvaFan blog, the recently released Eva Extra 06 has stated that Evangelion 2.22 will have a runtime of 111 minutes and 49 seconds compared to the 108 minute runtime of Evangelion 2.0.

Eva-Extra 07 has also been announced to be released on 5/26/2010, the same day that 2.22 is out in Japan.

(Warning: Possible Spoilers!)
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Dark Horse Comics will begin selling Evangelion: Campus Apocalypse (Gauken Datenroku), which ran in Kadokawa’s Monthly Asuka magazine from 2007-2009, on August 11th of this year. The manga is a retelling of Eva as a shoujo supernatural school story.

“Shinji Ikari’s parents are gone, and he lives with his legal guardian, Ryoji Kaji, while attending the private NERV Academy. But no one ever told Shinji about its secrets . . . or that he’d find his fellow students Kaworu, Rei, and Asuka out on the streets late at night—fighting with sword, spear, and whip against an enemy that looks very human, but who Kaworu insists are beings called the Angels . . .”

Dark Horse also solicits the Shinji Ikari Raising Project manga.

• ANN article
• Comics News I article
• Dark Horse Comics