The first Rebuild film will be screening at the Seventh Annual National Cherry Blossom Festival Anime Marathon event on March 28th at 1:30pm, at the Freer Gallery of Art. The screening will have the original Japanese audio with English subtitles. Tickets to this event will be distributed at 10:30am and limited to 2 per person per film. The Freer Gallery of Art is located at 1050 Independence Ave SW, Washington, DC 20439 – Telephone: 202.633.1000. The screening is billed as “Video” which could mean that it won’t be the 1.0 film, but the 1.01 video release.

• National Cherry Blossom Festival website
• Freer Gallery of Art

The French distributor of the Evangelion 1.0 movie, Dybex has set up a screening of the movie at the Cinema Publicis 129 in Paris starting from February 25th, 2009. Originally, they had planned on starting the screening on March 4th but moved it up a week.

Dybex acquired the rights last April on the 22nd of 2008 and screened it at the Annecy animated film festival in June of 2008, although the movie wasn’t part of the feature film competition. Depending on the success of the screening, Dybex may run the movie in other cities.

• Official 1.0 movie website (French)
• Dybex website announcement

Evangelion 1.0 You are (not) alone will get a re-release on Blu-ray Disc and DVD as “1.11” on May 27 in Japan. The 1.11 release is said to have new cuts and digital remastering. The AV Watch website says that the digital anime won’t be directly transfered to DVD/BD, but that they’ll make new 35mm prints and create a High Definition telecine from the film. Hopefully this remastered version won’t have the darkness problem 1.01’s release did. Whether or not Funimation, the company who secured the rights to Evangelion 1.01 in the States, will gain rights to release 1.11 is unknown at this point.

Links:

• Blog post about Rebuild of Evangelion 1.11
• Rebuild of Evangelion 2.0 release and 1.0 re-release information

According to the official Evangelion Website, the second installment of Rebuild of Evangelion, You can (not) advance, will be in theatres on June 27th this summer. This means that the rumor from earlier was in fact true.

Advanced tickets will go on sale on March 14th nationwide (Japan) for 1,300円 along with a set of “Be@rbrick” toys designed by Sadamoto and produced by Medicom Toy Corporation, which includes Asuka (1600円), Rei, and a mystery character. The ticket agency provided a list of the theatres the movie will be playing at. There still isn’t very much information regarding the tickets, but I assume it’s similar to the 1.0 advance tickets, where the tickets themselves were actually a voucher that can be redeemed at any number of theatres. Updates to follow once more information is released.

Update: (3/25)
Animate, one of the outlets that sold advance tickets to the first movie, has already started selling the first of the 2.0 Advance Tickets for the expected 1,300円 that includes a clear file. Also on the page, they are selling tickets for the April 18th launch that includes a “Countdown Calendar” for an extra 683円.

Links:

• Official Evangelion Website
• Evangelion 2.0 Tickets
• Evangelion 2.0 Theatre list
• Rebuild of Evangelion 2.0 blog
• Anime News Network announcement
• Animate Movie page

Tokyo mobile application developer Appliya Inc. has obtained a license to bring the first Evangelion related applications to iPhone and iPod Touch users. The applications will be based on the Rebuild movies and the first of them are planned for submission to Apple this month. Appliya’s first offerings will be casual use apps that will take advantage of the touch screen on the iPhone and iPod Touch, as well as the camera, calendar functions, and clock. UPDATE: Appliya has posted a clock and picture stamps on their website.

• Appliya’s Evangelion page
• Anime News Network
• Apple

Rebuild of Evangelion: 1.0 has been selected to screen at the AFI Dallas International Film Festival. Information on times and dates will be posted in March. The festival will run from March 26 – April 2. Passes and tickets will be available online from the AFI Dallas website, by phone at 214-720-0663, and in person at AFI Dallas box office locations. Passes go on sale February 6 and tickets March 2.

• ANN article
• AFI Dallas film schedule

Update (3/4)
Their schedule is now online and tickets are on sale. The movie is listed at the Mangolia and will play at 7:30pm on April 2nd.

According to this Japanese Amazon.com page , the Special Edition version of Girlfriend of Steel (the game with Mana) will be released on April 9 2009 on the Sony Playstation Portable. The link is for the Limited Edition release, but a regular edition of the game will also be released. Whether or not Girlfriend of Steel 2 (the game and later manga that takes place in the alternate universe from Episode 26) will follow suite for a PSP release is unknown at this point. Also, for those who don’t know: PSP games are region-free, meaning they play in any PSP unit if you import the game. PSP videos (UMD videos) however play only for the region your unit is from.

Links:

• Gainax’s blog which discusses the game.
• Regular Version of the Special Edition.
• Limited Version of the Special Edition. Includes an “Original Commuter Pass” of Rei and an “Original key chain” of Asuka.

According to the Cinema Topics website, July 2009 is the estimated/planned theatrical release date for Evangelion 2.0: You can (not) advance.  No source is given. More news will be posted on Evageeks once this information is updated.

Update (Feb 3rd): False alarm. The movie is no longer listed on the site.

Update (Feb 12th): Another rumor surfaces! At an Evangelion blog at fc2.com, the author writes (rough translation) that he heard it would be on the 27th of June from someone who works at a theater and an official announcement is expected next month, but this person isn’t an authoritative source. He apologizes for getting everyone’s hopes up if he’s wrong, but even if it’s earlier or later, the ‘early summer’ release is still not far away.

Rakuten Ichiba, one of the largest online shopping malls in Japan, started selling Evangelion tights yesterday (Monday, the 2nd) manufactured by Movic. The 3 products include black and white striped tights with a Nerv logo, argyle Eva-01 logo tights in purple, green, and black, and black and grey checkered tights with the head of Eva-01.

Although Rakuten Ichiba offers quite a large selection of Evangelion related merchandise. These tights probably rank amongst the more ridiculous ones.

Evangelion 1.01, Shiki-Jitsu, and Love and Pop will be screening at an all night Saturday event at the Shin-Bungeiza in the Ikebukuro area of Tokyo on February the 14th. The Shin-Bungeiza is reknown for showing movies all night and you can stay for as many movies as you want.

Love and Pop, Anno’s first live action movie, was made in 1998 and won the “Best New Director” and “Best New Talent” (Asumi Miwa) prize at the Yokohama Film Festival. Shiki-Jitsu (roughly translated as “Ritual Day”) was Anno’s second live action movie. It was made in 2000 and received the “Best Artistic Contribution Award” at the Tokyo International Film Festival.

Links:

• Shin-Bungeiza website
• Shiki-Jitsu website
• Shiki-Jitsu IMDB page
• Love and Pop IMDB page
• Source