Yesterday, at the Eva Emergency News Blog, a link to 2ch was posted that was part of an Evangelion Pachinko related thread, that appears to indicate at a certain point in the game (Challenge Bonus?) where Kaworu and Mari are twins. From the beginning, since the name “Mari” first appeared in the Nintendo Puchi Eva DS game, nothing official has been released about her except some images, a figure, and some other random merchandise.

Normally, stuff like this would immediately raise the Red BS Flag, but since the new character Mari has been so hyped yet so little is known about her, I figured a mention is at least warranted. Keep in mind this is posted by some random person, on 2ch, about a pachinko game, so don’t put too much stock into this bit of “news”. Also, as of today, the newest Eva Pachinko magazine has no mention of Mari.

• 2ch post
• Eva Emergency News post

Yet another Evangelion game is coming to the Sony Play Station portable. This time it’s the fighting game Neon Genesis Evangelion Battle Orchestra. The game’s release date will be July 30th 2009. More information will be provided as it becomes available.

UPDATE: Upon closer inspection of the flash footage on the official website, the Evangelions will have their Rebuild of Evangelion getups. Thanks to member Reichu for noticing this in the linked forum thread.

LINKS:

Battle Orchestra Portable official website

Takara Tomy has announced a Ritsuko Akagi figure in their Cool Girl line, together with the Asuka and Misato CG figures. The Ritsuko figure are currently being sold at the ToyHobby Market website as pre-order (starting yesterday) until June 9th, 2009. The figure won’t be released until later in 2009.

These Cool Girl figures are poseable and comes included with different clothing, equipment, and weapons. Only the size of the package is listed at 340mm x 180mm x 70mm, and will cost you a steep 17,640円. However, most of the Cool Girl figures are 1/6 scale or roughly 12 inches tall.

• Takara Hobby Ritsuko Figure page
• ToyHobby Market Ritsuko Figure page
• More about Cool Girl figures

What many thought was an April Fool’s joke seems to be something after all. On April 1st, Yahoo! Japan posted a poll to let fans choose the actor they felt would best portray each Eva character. ITmedia reports that TV Asahi announced that they would begin shooting live action images if they could get the fans’ choices to participate. It seems to be a promotional event for the upcoming release of Evangelion 2.0. The fans top choices as of now are:

• Ryuunosuke Kamiki as Shinji Ikari
• Erika Toda as Asuka Langley Shikinami
• Maki Horikita as Rei Ayanami
• Hiroshi Abe as Gendo Ikari
• Yasuko Matsuyuki as Ritsuko Akagi
• Nanako Matsushima as Misato Katsuragi

Lawson’s, a popular Japanese convenient store franchise, is offering a Rei Ayanami figure to celebrate the Rebuild 2.0 movie’s release. This PVC figure is about 20cm tall and is available for pre-order (approximate release date is 11th of August) at a cost of 7,350円 including tax. The figure is branded under the Loppi collection and is manufactured by Kotobukiya.

Lawson’s also offers advance tickets for the movie and packaged deals, although the Rei Ayanami figure is not included in one of these deals. Some of these deals include an Asuka and Rei PuchiEva figure with an advance ticket for 2,400円, and a Pen² pen with an advance ticket for 2,050円.

• Lawson’s Evangelion Figure

Toy company Medicom have brand new Evangelion ‘Real Action Heroes’ (“RAH”) lined up for release later this year. Two figures have been revealed so far – Shinji and Rei, both wearing their You Can (Not) Advance restyled plugsuits. Shinji – numbered 449 in the RAH series – is scheduled to be available at the end of August, and Rei – number 454 – at the end of September. They will measure 300mm in height and retail at 17,640 yen (figure stand included). As they are hidden by the clothing, there are no visible joints on the figures which are outfitted in plugsuits.

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[Disclaimer: This is not an April Fool’s Joke.]

 As mentioned back in February, the game Girlfriend of Steel Special Edition will be released on the Play Station Portable April 9 2009. Now it’s sequel in spirit, Girlfriend of Steel 2 (the game that takes place in the Alternate Universe seen in Episode 26) is also getting released for the PSP. It’s release date is set for June 11, 2009.

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(Disclaimer: This is not an April Fool’s joke.)

A new Evangelion game based on Rebuild is mentioned  in Weekly Famitsu magazine. The release date for Evangelion: Prologue (Jo) is June 4th 2009 and it will be ported for the PS2 and PSP (PSP games are region-free). The company releasing it is Bandai Namco Games, who also released Evangelion 2. The game seems to incorporate things from the series and Rebuild: for instance,  Ramiel’s appearance is the same as in 1.0, yet both Asuka and Kaworu seem to be present in the game.

There are at least two scenarios in the game, one based on the Television series and the other based on Evangelion: Jo.  Because of this, Asuka for instance will supposedly be called Soryu in the TV series Scenario and  Shikinami in the Evangelion 1.0 Scenario, although the official site refers to her as Soryu.The game’s graphics are more detailed than Evangelion 2 and the battles in this game are in full-3D.

 Links:

• News about the game, scroll down to read
• Evangelion: Jo official website

(This is not an April Fool’s joke)

As an update to the Rebuild 1.11 DVD/BD Release post, that probably deserved it’s own post, a bunch of sneak peaks into the new scenes added to this release has surfaced. Most significantly, is that they seemed to have fixed the darkness issue of original 1.01 release: Rei from the Rebuild 1.01 Release – Rei from the Rebuild 1.11 Release. Among some of the other new bits are:

• Random Destruction
• The ride to Nerv HQ
• Sachiel has blisters

As expected, the BD release will have DTS 6.1 Audio and run you about 6,090円, whereas the DVD will cost 5,040円. The BD video has AVC/h.264 encoding with a 1080p resolution. May 27, 2009, is still the release date but a number of places (online) has it available for pre-order.

• AV Watch post (3/16)
• AV Watch post (4/1) with screenshots
• Kakaku Blog

The official 2.0 trailer is out and is hosted on the Bandai Channel. Just like the first official release of the 1.0 trailer, you’ll only be able to watch from a Japanese IP. Fortunately, you can do a little digging with the help of a Japanese proxy server, to find the Microsoft Media Server link to view it directly in your favorite media player. But, if for some reason that doesn’t work, you can grab a copy of it here.

It’s good to see a (somewhat) HQ version of the highly anticipated trailer, our first glance at what 2.0 has in store for us:

• New Evas
• Eva-02
• Asuka
• Space Station?
• Tokyo-3’s Light Collectors (to direct light into the Geofront)
• What looks to be Bardiel
• Zeruel

Hopefully, there will be more juicy bits of information and further sneak peaks at the upcoming movie soon.

Update (4/1)
Another version of the trailer appeared on a yahoo stream. You can also download it from here. It’s got nothing new, but the scenes have been rearranged and the music is the next episode preview music.