Manga about Anno

To celebrate Moyoco Anno’s 20 year anniversary of writing manga, a manga book about her husband Hideaki Anno has been released.

The book, roughly translated as “Unsupervised Director Report” is said to contain insider information about Anno and is currently available for purchase through Amazon Japan’s website. It’s priced at ￥840 ($8.97).

Links:

• Minna no Eva blog post (Japanese)
• Information about the manga on Moyoco Anno’s official website (Japanese)
• Amazon Japan’s website (translated through their feature).

The Hakone Tourist Association website (Japanese only) is offering an Evangelion version of a Hakone map.

A price of 500 yen ($5.34) covers shipping and handling and the deadline for map applications is this Friday. You can only apply for the Eva map from the form (Japanese only), and direct feedback can be given to [email protected]. Scans will probably appear once the Eva map is shipped out. There’s only a limit of one per person, but no indication is given of how many maps there will be available.

• Hakone Tourist Association Website
• “Official Nerv Map of Hakone”
  (Note: the application form must be navigated to from this page)

As an update to our earlier post about a possible screening at Chicago’s Music Box Theatre, Brendan Jamieson (of EvaOtaku) contacted the programming director of the theatre. It seems they’re still on the fence about the screening because of the movie doesn’t seem to be doing that well in L.A. If anyone is interested in watching the Japanese audio/English subtitled version of Evangelion 1.0, You Are (Not) Alone, at the Music Box Theatre this August, contact them and inquire/show you’re interest. The program director’s email address is in the contacts listing, shoot him an email or give them a call to let them know you’re interested.

• Music Box Theatre website
• Contacts listing

Don’t click on these links if you’re avoiding spoilers. This guy has been making an Evangelion 2.0 version of Eva-02 garage kit model, and it looks pretty awesome. It still needs to be painted but the model itself has just been finished. I think the goal is to take (the finished product) to the Wonder Festival, a figure and model show held on July 26th, so there’s bound to be nice pictures by then.

• Completed Eva-02
• LMU-23’s Production Diary

Update 7/27: Added image of finished garage kit model.

Earlier today, I ran into this Amazon link. Although, right now, it doesn’t list a release date, just saying: “Sign up to be notified when this item becomes available.”. But this is good news and with any luck, we’ll have a release date and some details about the release. The ASIN Number is “B002HK3HWE” and doing a search on this brings up a ton of buzz all over the internet about the inevitable release. Since I had an amazon.co.jp account, I signed up for alerts for this item and I’ll update when the news comes in.

It was brought to our attention by the forum member darthikari that the English subtitled Evangelion 1.0 will be playing at the Music Box Theatre starting August 21st. Group rates will be $8 per person for groups of 20 or more and general admission at $9.25. The theatre is located at 3733 N. Southport Ave. Chicago, IL 60613.

Everyone in the Chicago area should go. As of the writing of this post, the Music Box Theatre website doesn’t have Evangelion 1.0 listed, but they have advance tickets available for some of their upcoming movies on their showtimes page.

• Music Box Theatre website

Funimation’s English dub of Evangelion 1.0, You Are (Not) Alone, will screen twice at Otakon this year, July 17-19 at the Baltimore Convention Center in Baltimore, Maryland. The screenings will take place on Friday at 8pm (July 17) and Saturday at 12:30pm (July 18) in the Video 1 room. This will be the East coast’s premiere of the movie on the big screen.

Source: Anime News Network

Evangelion Battle Orchestra, a game by BROCCOLI, originally released on the PS2, will now have a PSP release on July 30th. It looks to be mostly similar to the PS2 version with character story modes and multiplayer battle royale using the PSP’s wireless network. (Previous Battle Orchestra PSP Post)

A promotional video appeared today on the official website which seems to indicate that the PSP version has a new character not found on the PS2 version (Lilith). The limited edition of the game will cost 7,140円 and the standard edition will cost 5,040円, both with tax included. The Limited Edition includes a hardcase for your PSP, postcards and stickers.

• Promotional video
• Evangelion Battle Orchestra PSP website
• Play Asia product page
• Play Asia product page (Limited Edition)
• Yes Asia product page (Limited Edition)

Kotobukiya is releasing a Rebuild version of Asuka Langley Shikinami in a plugsuit sitting on a rock that has the head of Evangelion Unit-02 carved into it. This is similar to the Rei Ayanami figure which has the same features. Like the Rei Ayanami figure, the figure looks sleek and high quality, and will probably be sold out fast.

The Asuka figure will be 1/6 scale PVC, prepainted, and sits about 20cm high. The figure retails for 7,140円 (includes tax), but it looks like a lot of online retailers are giving you deals on the pre-orders. The figure has a release date set at November 5th, 2009, but there are pre-order deadlines at most sites. Seeing how quickly the Rei figure sold out, it’s probably better to get your orders in sooner than later if you’re interested in this figure.

• AmiAmi blog post (contains lots of pictures).
• AmiAmi Asuka Figure product page
• CD Japan product page

Carlo Santos from Anime News Network, posted a review of the Funimation English dub of Evangelion 1.01, You Are (Not) Alone. Although only a single paragraph is dedicated to the actual English dub, the rest of the review probably resonates the sentiments of most fans that have already seen the movie. You can read the review HERE.