Well, it took long enough for a variety of reasons, but better late than never. This is a summary of the October 15 trailer of Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0, highlighting a few key points and their significance, although it isn’t quite everything in that action-packed trailer!
The trailer begins with Asuka and Mari changing into white plugsuits in a room with a divider between them, a section of blue glass with a crisscross pattern visible behind them. Asuka’s plugsuit has “02” on it and red highlights, while Mari’s has “08” and pink highlights, both of which will be seen more clearly later. Both pilots press buttons on their wrists to fit their plugsuits to form.
Asuka is on the left and Mari is on the right, mirroring the positions taken by Shinji and Kaworu in their own similar plugsuit-fitting scene, and both girls have white plugsuits to the boys’ bluish-black. However, the background is radically different – in this case, a room on the Wunder or another Wille facility, and both Mari and Asuka are separated by the twin bunk bed between them when Kaworu and Shinji had no physical separations. This appears to be a shared living quarters of some kind, with a chair and table visible in front of Asuka, and dark green cases, presumably for the plugsuits, in front of the pilots.
The new white plugsuits appear to be specialized or advanced models of some kind, with gray lines on them activating as the plugsuits fit to form and revealing a shifting rainbow pattern of colors, reminiscent of the rainbows associated with Angels and the gates at Fourth Impact. Both suits additionally feature X’s on the back of the neck, a design feature not seen otherwise, and perhaps tying in to the prominent X on the face of Eva Mark X. Oddly, both plugsuits have what appear to be raised heels – Red for Asuka’s and Pink for Mari’s.
Misato stands in front of three white hexagonal blocks that may be three Magi supercomputers, in a facility that may be on the Wunder or another Wille base. Her expression is unreadable, and it is hard to understand what might be so important about what she’s looking at here. The odd lighting and background make further details impossible to discern.
Asuka, “Rei Q” and Shinji walking through the red landscape and passing in front of the remains of a train station at what looks like the outskirts of a town/city. This may be based on a real station in the Hakone area, but it hasn’t been identified of this writing. The three of them are the only colored objects in a field of red core material. Asuka is looking at the device she was holding at the end of 3.0 and walking ahead, paying no heed to the other two. Rei follows her, but stops in the middle of the train tracks and turns around to face Shinji, who is despondently trailing behind.
Rei Q appears very surprised by something that’s in front of and below her. The background is sky, giving no hint of location. Sharp-eyed fans pointed out the similarity to a piece of Khara calendar art from 2013 showing the feet of Shinji, Asuka and Rei as they stood on a (normal, not core) railway track, with a tortoiseshell cat beside them. Could Rei be surprised to see another living creature? Or is the calendar art simply calendar art, and not an unused concept for this movie, and Rei is looking at something else to be revealed?
The Black Moon floats horizontally and slowly drags along Mount Fuji, against a blue sky and with a line of clouds on the horizon. This shot gives scale to the utter monstrosity that is the Black Moon, which appears to be somewhat darker and redder than when it was pulled out of the Earth in Evangelion 3.0. The last time we saw it, it was lying on its side on the Earth, with Failures of Infinity spilling out of it. Why is it floating again and moving? Are Gendo and Fuyutsuki flying the thing? The sky shows no sign of an impact, adding to the mystery of what is going on.
This is a shot of Rei Q, identifiable by the green sections on her plugsuit. She holds Shinji’s SDAT and holds out a hand, most likely seen from Shinji’s perspective. The color of the sky behind her suggests either dawn or sunset. This shot interestingly mirrors Kaworu holding Shinji’s SDAT and holding his hand out to him in 3.0.
Asuka approaching what looks like a cubical cell or living quarters of some kind, with an additional space and what looks like a tent on top. Although the glass is similar to the one behind her when she and Mari were changing into their plugsuits, this cell appears to be too small to be the same room. Since a previous trailer depicted Shinji and Kaworu in a similar cell, it’s possible that this is the location in which they are held. Asuka is in a red plugsuit, and it is not clear if this is the same plugsuit she was wearing at the start of the movie or a new one.
The next shot shows someone with pinkish-red coveralls and plugsuit-like shoes holding a plastic bag of drinking water and eating a meal. The Wille logo on the water and the background confirm that this is a position on the bridge of the Wunder. Could this be Shinji, having joined the Wunder crew? What would have made Misato relent and allow him to join? For what it’s worth, the hand shot and food shot are reminiscent of the shots of Shinji in 3.0 eating food paste from a tray at Nerv, although the food from Wille appears to have quinoa, fresh greens and slices of green apple or cucumber to go along with the beige and red pastes. Interestingly, Russian is included as a language alongside English, indicating Wille’s international composition.
The next shot shows a red Rei, made of core, her hair animated to move slightly and moving red speckles of “core glow” seen in her iris. Has Rei Q been turned to core? Is this a different Rei that has been turned to core? Is this the 3.0 + 1.0 version of the Rei-Lilith monstrosity from the End of Evangelion?
This is followed by Shinji, his eyes opening, looking up. There appear to be dark circles around his eyes, suggesting tiredness. He does seem to be showing subtle signs of interest, or determination as he looks on, his eyes widening. The angle of the shot obliterates all background and therefore context, so it is hard to say who or what he is looking at, or what he has decided to do.
Eva-08 and Eva-02 descending into the center of Final Impact on top of two aircraft carriers, perhaps the USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) on the left and the USS Gerald Ford (CVN-78) on the right? The identification of the two aircraft carriers is complicated by the removal of their hull numbers from the bow in favor of the Wille symbol. Eva-02 is in its rebuilt configuration using the equipment seen in previous trailers but Eva-08 is attached to a bizarre, towering, organic looking object that utterly dwarfs it in size and defies easy description. Both of these were in fact glimpsed briefly during the preview of the first ten minutes of the movie, but what they are exactly is anyone’s guess.
Asuka turns around, and calls out to Mari, who apparently shouts a response to her from the same scene. The red and pink highlights on their respective plugsuits are visible but the rainbow effect is gone. Looking closely at their monitors, you can see that Eva-02 has been redesignated N-EVA-02, while Eva-08 is now Eva-08 gamma (which looks like a y).
The next shot shows the bridge of the Wunder going on alert as a new Eva appears outside. This Eva appears to combine the colors of the Mark.09 and Eva-03, and features a red glowing light in the center of the X-shaped marking on its face. While this may be the Eva Mark.10 seen in the lantern festival drawing, this Eva lacks the slight “crest” seen on the lantern festival model and the Mark.10 previously seen didn’t have the noticeable “chevron” along the side of the face. Is this the previously revealed Mark.10, with an updated design, or is this another Eva? It appears to be unusually huge when seen from the bridge of the Wunder, but this may be due to magnification from the bridge cameras rather than an indication of the Eva being unusually large in size.
Of further interest, additional bridge seats appear to be occupied, and the bridge crew appear to be wearing something similar to plugsuits. The next shot shows Ritsuko shouting an order into a phone while on Wunder’s bridge, revealing a very plugsuit-like neck to the garment that she is wearing. Misato turns around and speaks but the background is an abstract core-red rather than the Wunder bridge display, suggesting that this is from another scene entirely. Her visor appears distinctly red-tinted in this scene.
The next shot shows what can only be called a dark counterpart of the Wunder. There appear to be numerous small detail differences, such as the lack of a visible “bridge”, the presence of what looks like a glowing blue object of some description attached to its underside, and with silvery throne-shaped objects replacing Wunder’s three satellite dishes, The vessel fires with an effect similar to that of the 6th Angel in Evangelion 1.0, out of spheres with glowing pink apertures that are shaped like an eight-pointed Star of Venus. What is this ship? Gendo and Fuyutsuki were seen in a space uncannily similar to Wunder’s bridge at the end of 3.0, so could they be flying this thing and taking the battle to Misato? The red background and the flying Failures of Infinity indicate that this vessel is in the presence of Final Impact.
Flying pink balls of energy surrounded by rainbow halos fly past Wunder with its A.T. Field active, which is also surrounded by red and with Failures of Infinity flying around it. This indicates that this shot follows the previous one, meaning that Wunder and “Dark Wunder” are having a duel during Final Impact. Looking closely, Wunder has multiple Arleigh Burke-class and Kongo-class destroyers (along with possibly ships of other classes) balanced along its wingspan, and the two aircraft carriers seen previously are visible under the Evangelion cages. Eva-08 is visible briefly and heavily shadowed, sitting upon the George H.W. Bush for its plunge into the epicenter of the impact, indicating that the scene of the two Wunders fighting each other happens before Eva-02 and Eva-08 drop into what appears to be the epicenter of Final Impact.
[EDIT 3/19/2021 : This article has been heavily edited now that we understand that the screening in question, although possibly one of the earliest in the US, is sadly NOT a pre-release screening]
While we wait for more 3.0 + 1.0 news, one of our EGF staffers has found old gold. FreakyFilmFan4Ever came across a VHS tape with material from a US anime convention that supposedly contained Evangelion material. It turned out to contain a full screening of Episode 01 of Neon Genesis Evangelion, possibly the first ever in the United States!
Needless to say, we’re excited and surprised by this discovery. Check out the relevant forum thread for the detailed description and screenshots! While we’re not allowing the full video to be put up or linked to here, we have confirmation that it does exist and appears entirely legit. If this does turn out to be the first US Eva screening, it is a confirmed piece of history, and even if not, it’s still one of the first Eva screenings in the US, and a rarity.
This VHS tape is not something that many of us thought likely to find, especially since so many VHS tapes are now lost, unreadable or out of circulation. Beyond revealing a historic old Evangelion screening in the US that many of us didn’t even know happened, it’s a fascinating look into the Eva and Anime fandom as it existed 25 years ago, before much of the present fandom scene was established. Who knows if more such surprises lie out there waiting to be discovered, or if the near-extinction of the VHS medium means that we’ve forever lost small but important parts of fandom history we never knew existed in the first place?
Back in April, the fourth and final Evangelion movie that was supposed to be released in June was delayed indefinitely because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was more or less expected because of the global situation but that left a lot of questions about when the movie would finally be released.
Now that movie theaters are open for business, it appears they now have a new release date, January 23rd, 2021, which was revealed in a preview video before the screening of the new Demon Slayer movie.
Khara also put out a tweet announcing the new release date along with the Youtube video of the preview:
According to a tweet from GKids, they have acquired the North American home video rights for the Neon Genesis Evangelion TV series (26 episodes) and the Death and End of Evangelion movies. With a release on BluRay slated for 2021. They also said there would be an “Ultimate Edition” of the BluRay release as well as digital download-to-own versions available.
This is obviously some big news. This would be the first BluRay release of the original series in North America, and with an addition of the “Ultimate Edition”, there could possibly be some cool extras. So far, on the GKids Evangelion website, there’s not a whole lot of additional information.
As with any announcement like this, the Evangelion community starts asking a lot of questions:
What will the source be for the BluRay? Will it be the same version broadcast on Netflix?
Will there be a new English audio track, with new (or the original) voice actors/actresses?
Will we get the various “Fly Me To The Moon” outros back?
Will there be various versions of English subtitles? (Like the original ADV subs, or a version where only signs are captioned)
Will episodes 21-24 also include the original video releases as well as the director’s cuts?
What is the situation with Netflix?
As for Netflix, it looks like the series and movies are still available there for streaming. Does the GKids home video rights affect the current Netflix streaming rights? Will there be any overlap? If they’ll both be available all through next year, how does having the series streaming on Netflix affect BluRay sales from GKids?
The official Evangelion site was updated today with a new front page, some news entries and an updated staff/credits. The front page was updated with a new image that can be viewed in both Japanese and English that shows train tracks and Shinji off in the distance (this is apparently Ube Shinkawa station, the main train station in the city where Hideaki Anno was born, ht: @tsurikawa_pc).
There were a few new news articles in the news section. They announced the delay of the 4th and final Evangelion Theatrical Edition (Rebuild) movie which was originally slated for a June 27th, 2020, premiere, due to COVID-19 concerns. It’s unknown how long the delay will be but it will probably depend on the changing conditions of the corona virus outbreak.
Regarding the “Shin Evangelion Theater Version” that was scheduled to be released on Saturday, June 27, 2020, due to the unprecedented situation in Japan and overseas due to the expansion of new coronavirus infectious disease (COVID-19) As a result of careful examination, we decided to postpone the release date.
Hideaki Anno also posted a letter expressing gratitude for the healthcare workers and other staff fighting the COVID-19 disease, apologizing for the delay due to an unprecedented situation, and encouraging everyone to persevere through the current situation. And also that the first 3 movies will be released for free:
As for the last part, there was also a quick note about the first 3 movies being made free to watch. On April 18th people will be able to watch these movies from the EVA-EXTRA app and on the 20th, they will be made available for free through the Khara Youtube channel.
This shouldn’t exactly come as a surprise since the better part of the world has been doing social distancing and quarantine to some degree and Japan is one of those places. People who purchased advance tickets for the 3.0+1.0 movie will still be able to use them when the new release date is announced. There’s also been plenty of discussion about the new movie poster.
Following on from this post, I’ll be taking a detailed look at the rest of the second 3+1 trailer. Just a note, I lightened and/or color-adjusted some of the cuts to get a better look at the contents; refer back to the official King Records upload to see the original presentation!
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Mari giving a wry little wave. What we can see of her plugsuit indicates it’s a new model, and isn’t simply a palette swap of her previous one (compare this to this). Black, huh? That’s quite a sharp deviation. The thing on the wall is an industrial control pendant, which you might use to operate heavy machinery. Curious. The relative proximity of this cut to the tease about Wunder going into space makes me wonder if Mari is departing for a Moon-based mission here, but that’s just wishful thinking on my part… ;)
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Well, Kaworu did say that they’d meet again, but… this is just weird! The lack of choker on either boy means this isn’t a flashback. Is this on the Wunder? I at first thought that Shinji wearing his uniform here was a giveaway that something was funny, but, lo and behold, you can see his uniform in this cut as well. Shinji was wearing it in the plug at the end of 2.0, so Wille being able to return his clothes to him is reasonable.
How do you explain this Kaworu, though? Shinji’s expression seems a bit severe, which is interesting. His mouth and neck are stiff and he’s not directly facing Kaworu. Whatever is going on here, Shinji doesn’t seem to welcome it. There’s nothing good to go on this early, but my own suspicion is that this isn’t a clone, or that Shinji is necessarily hallucinating (even though he likely has PTSD and nobody could blame him for doing so). Rather, I think this may be similar in cause to the strange Shinji-Rei phenomena happening throughout the films — seeing her on the street, seeing a vision of her inside Eva-01, talking to her inside his head while unconscious, etc. — though on a visual level it most closely resembles what Rei Q sees while she’s soaking. Shinji and Rei have a hidden connection which Gendo has taken advantage of in his plans, and Rei Q, being a Rei clone whose soul is “somewhere else”, logically is connected to Rei 2 as well. To relate this back to the trailer: Shinji had recently synchronized with Kaworu, so the two have a unique spiritual link, which may carry forward beyond Kaworu’s physical death.
Another thing I notice here is that Kaworu’s shirt is conveniently left out of frame. This could well mean absolutely nothing — or it could mean everything, in that khara is deliberately hiding something from us. The end of this post explores the issue, though it does require that entire thread for context.
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And a mere seven scenes later, we get… this. A disheveled-looking Rei — though we don’t know which one — in the foreground, and an incredibly ominous Fuyutsuki in the back. Rei’s eye shifts very slightly during the cut, but the overall effect here is still, for me, very doll-like. Compare one of the creepy close-ups from EoE. The background also brings to mind this awful place from 3.0.
There is certainly not much to go on, but it stirs the imagination, as I’m sure was intended. We have never seen Fuyutsuki depicted like this before, which suggests some sort of seismic shift in his character to come. If, as suggested last time, Gendo actually does sacrifice himself to Eva-13, then it’s another “I leave the rest to you, Fuyutsuki-sensei” situation. In the original series, the intense and uncompromising parts of Fuyutsuki’s personality took a back seat when the choice came down to “help the good guys over the long term quietly” or “get shot by the bad guys right now”. In the new movies, Seele are finally gone, and maybe Gendo will be “gone” too, leaving Fuyutsuki to act as he sees fit. This could get very interesting. Getting to see Fuyutsuki channel a little of his inner Gargoyle? Yes, please!
What’s going with this Rei is much harder to say. As I detailed last time, the trailer does provide a subtle hint that it may not be all peaches and cream for Tentative Name: Rei Ayanami. And, much as we want to see her learn and grow outside the confines of Nerv HQ, she will also need to return there sooner or later to answer that fundamental question: “Then, what am I?” If she is dependent on the facilities there to live (which “Until You Come To Me” might be implying, by showing Rei’s hand crumble away during her travels with Asuka and Shinji), that could also present a slight problem.
My general read on what’s happening in the shot itself: Rei is back at Nerv HQ seeking answers, and Fuyutsuki’s brought her to his shrine of assorted horrors in order to provide them. Except this isn’t like Shinji, where Fuyutsuki was trying to provide information for the boy’s benefit. Fuyutsuki’s playing a much darker game here. With the glassy doll-eyed look on Rei, it’s easy to imagine him nonchalantly telling her that she’s merely a soulless husk pretending to be human. Whatever’s going on, I look forward to it.
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First, note the scene number. A whole bunch of movie receives no representation in the trailer. How close are we to the very end here? None of the Eva movies have been split up into “scenes” before, so… there’s no way to say.
We get our first full-body look at New Eva-02 and… uh… Hmm. That’s not quite what I was expecting, though in retrospect I really should have known better. JA-02, Eva-02. Get it??
In case you have no idea what I’m talking about, at the end of Avant1 when Mari uses a special scanning mode on Eva-08 to look inside the Nerv Paris storage lockers, we can see Jet Alone 2 parts inside. (Main body and arms on the left here, legs on the right here.) In fact, a LOT of the lockers have “JA-02” written on them. I’d kind of been hoping to see a whole squadron of battle-ready space-faring Jet Alones or something, but I suppose merging one with Eva-02 is a surefire way to force the ‘bot back into relevancy. Bravo, Anno. Bravo.
From what we can see here, Eva-02 has actually been restored considerably from the sorry state we saw it in at the end of Q. Even if the helmet and torso armor can hypothetically hide missing organic parts, that right arm doesn’t lie. Somehow we went from a few stray arm muscles to a complete, functional arm. Interesting. The hollowed-out Jet Alone chassis here initially gives the impression that there’s much less Eva-02 than there actually is; there’s a better look inside the brown shell coming up.
The left arm and the legs are 100% from Jet Alone 2, though. It seems Wille can get Eva flesh to regenerate, but they can’t outright replace entire units of the body that are missing.
The weird backpack seems to be some kind of missile launcher. It was first shown in Avant1, all the way on the left here. That absolutely crazy weapon could also be glimpsed behind Mari on the left here. In the side view, you can see a bulky rounded apparatus that looks… sort of like bagpipes??… on Eva-02’s back. I wonder if that’s meant to be a power reactor. Those tubes sticking out of it remind me of the original Jet Alone’s control rods. Having the reactor attached as a back module instead of loaded inside the main unit would make it possible to jettison if something were to go wrong, or if you needed to blow something up without killing yourself too, I suppose.
The low bitrate might make it hard to tell, but Eva-02’s falling into a writhing mass of Failures of Infinity. They look kind of like swarming insects. Pretty strange way for a bunch of headless Eva-01s made of core to move. After Eva-02 falls a certain distance, the launcher backpack comes off (can’t tell if deliberately or not), and the swarm starts to surge upward as Eva-02 dives deeper in.
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This shot seems to follow on the previous one directly. End of previous, Eva-02 had started diving into the swarm, and here we can see it spiraling downward (note the sun). Its destination is unknown, but that giant multi-weapon it’s toting tells us it means business.
I’ve heard Eva-02’s new look get compared to a “grizzled veteran”, and that’s… just about perfect. Here, 02 pulls off this “I’ve been through some real shit, so don’t screw me me!” feeling quite well. The “scar” (representing the eye lost all those years ago in the 10th Angel fight), the toothy underbite, the devil horns, all the strapped-on equipment, the jumbo gun like some kind of crazy space marine. It all takes some getting used to, especially those brown J.A. parts, but it’ll be great fun to see in action.
Note that here we can clearly see that the main JA body has been hollowed out and partly wraps around Eva-02’s torso, providing an extra layer of armor. I assume that if you go down far enough, Eva-02 does become 100% mechanical prosthesis, but there’s no way to make out that exact point here. Eva-02’s new Eva plating is the same as what we saw in Paris, though the right shoulder pylon looks modified.
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AAA Wunder passing over the camera POV, with Failures of Infinity strewn through the sky and partly blocking out the sun. We can see the Wunder’s power core as it goes over (look for the yellow-striped knobs in the second image), suggesting that, alas, Eva-01 gets to spend a significant portion of the movie in there. (If it’s stuck inside various containers for ANOTHER whole film, I revolt.)
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Well, they did tell us Final Impact was going to happen at the end of Q (in the preview), so this isn’t exactly a surprise or anything. Here we see the Wunder fly past a rather conspicuously-textured background, on past the edges of the Gates of Guf, tilting down toward the epicenter. The Failures of Infinity flying through the air look like they have a tendency to aggregate in clusters; maybe Eva-02 was dropped into one such cluster. This could mean nothing, but the core-speckle effect on the Failures that fly through the foreground is especially prominent.
What we can see of the Gates shows only red, white, and black — no other colors. Near Third Impact was distinctive for its Gates having no other colors, and if Final Impact has similarly red Gates, that would be a useful clue about how Impacts work. Alas, this close to the Gates’ edge, all of them are entirely red. (See: Second Impact; Fourth.) We’ll have to wait to see if the center is rainbowy or not!
What did the Wunder fly past on the way to the Gates? It looks like it could be the Black Moon (that giant goblet-shaped thing); the sheer quantity of Failures seems to point that way. (To give you an idea of how many: the Black Moon is about 30km from top to bottom. All of that red stuff suspended in midair? Countless Failures of Infinity.) And what’s at the epicenter? Who caused it? At this point, I’m tempted to refer back to my write-up in Pt.1 under Sn105 C001. It’s our friends at Nerv HQ, using Eva-13 and the Key of Nebuchadnezzar. Whether Gendo and Fuyutsuki are still a co-op, Gendo has become the Emperor Neo to Fuyutsuki’s Gargoyle, or whatever else.
Notice how these past four cuts are all part of scene 299, and consecutive: C001, C001A, C002, C003. Taking a stab at what’s happening here: Eva-02 gets dropped off outside the Gates, where it descends toward an unknown target amidst the Failure of Infinity swarms; and in the meantime Wunder heads for the Impact center. This indicates that, similarly to Fourth Impact, Wille’s attention is required in multiple places at once. What could be important enough outside of the epicenter that Wille needs to put their ace Eva-02 on the job? It’s impossible to not start weaving possibilities…
To start with, the trailer labels every individual shot with a “Sn” (scene) number and a “C” (cut) number. This marks a huge departure from all Eva before this — NGE and NTE alike. “Sn” numbers were never before used to break up the Cuts into subcategories. The cuts were simply labeled from 001 (or 0001) to however far they needed to go, in roughly chronological order (though “missing numbers” where omissions have taken place, and things being out of order where some individual cuts or blocks of cuts got shifted around, is common). It should be interesting to eventually, maybe, hear about what caused them to change things up this late in the game — 3.0+1.0 being the fourth and final film, and all.
In any case, in telling us the scene and cut numbers here, khara is hypothetically giving us a very scant look at the film’s actual structure, which is also something quite new, but rather in keeping with their unusual promotional strategies. Let’s dig in, going by Scene/Cut order rather than trailer order.
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Asuka, Rei, and Shinji walking through the red wastes filled with Failures of Infinity. This sequence has been teased at in khara short films like Peaceful Times (F02) Petit Film and Until You Come to Me, and it’s nice to see that we’ll be getting it in some form. Cute that Asuka and Rei are walking fairly closely together — they formed a slight connection at the end of Q, so maybe they’ll get some juicy interactions. Shinji of course is dragging behind, with a swaggering slouch that both suggests his depressed state of mind, and might also recall that slow, swaying walk that Eva-01 has done more than once. There are at least three Failures here: a right and left arm closer to us, and two right arms in the background. The animated “core” effect inside them indicates that, even though they are currently motionless, there is some form of life within.
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Asuka checking her compass and leading the way. At the end of Q, the place where they’d landed had an “L Barrier density” that prevented the Wunder crew from coming to get them (something elaborated upon in the 3+1 clip released earlier this month), so they have to travel to a less heavily contaminated zone. The edge of a water body, perhaps.
Asuka’s sleeves are black and maroon instead of white now, and her right one is also missing the orange shoulder tab. Compare with before. Removable sleeves that have more plugsuit underneath? Curious.
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Unclear where this is taking place. The glow in her eyes and the earnest, pensive look on her face — what could she be looking at?
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We last saw Eva-13 fall somewhere in the Tokyo-3 area, impaled on the two Spears. Gendo, in his and Fuyutsuki’s final scene, implied that Eva-13’s Awakening was all according to plan. I didn’t anticipate this particular visual, but I’m not surprised by it. Fuyutsuki did describe that horrifying contraption as the ‘original Eva control system’, which sounds rather useful if they intend to do something with Eva-13. Notice how the Eva’s second set of arms are back in the chest now, the red ‘wings’ are gone, and new pylons have been placed onto the shoulders. The spears are left in place, and there’s a curious glow where they enter the core. There’s a couple of places on the rack where the Eva doesn’t QUITE fit, but with those spears poking out of its back I wonder how they got it to lie flush at all!
It’s a little difficult to tell, but that’s Gendo standing in the foreground. (The shaggy hair plus the “one hand in pocket” thing give him away.) What could he be planning? Eva-13 being placed on the same device where Yui entered Eva-01’s core raises the disturbing possibility that Gendo intends to make Eva-13 a true “counterpart” to 01, as it were… If he fuses with 13, then we would have Yui and Rei in one Eva, and Gendo and Kaworu in another. “It’s like poetry; it rhymes.” Last we saw, Gendo still hadn’t used the Key of Nebuchadnezzar, as well. Will he inject himself with it, and then, as Fuyutsuki said in Q, “sacrifice everything, including his very soul” … to the Eva?
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Shinji looking at the SDAT. Background looks like somewhere on the Wunder. The end of Q left it an open question whether Rei would pick up the SDAT after Shinji dropped it, and this seems to confirm that she did. This shot mirrors the one from 3.0, where Shinji was looking at the SDAT after Ritsuko gave it to him.
Without additional context, this is a little ominous… Back in Q, the SDAT was the sole token Shinji was left with of “his” Rei. Remember that in 2.0, Shinji actually threw the SDAT into the trash, and he only got it back because Rei found it and took it into battle with her, and ultimately it somehow followed Rei’s soul into Eva-01’s entry plug. And then, later in Q, Shinji “discards” the SDAT once again — albeit for entirely different reasons — and, because of a different Rei, it’s ended up back in his possession again. The fact that he’s looking at it in a very similar way as when he first got it back… Is this maybe a hint that something happened to Rei Q?
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Supporting the idea that Shinji is in fact on the Wunder, we have this shot, which is a mere six “scenes” later. As per the Wille senior crew norm, Misato is hiding her emotions, and Ritsuko looks disapproving about something. :p
If you look on the wall above Ritsuko’s head, you’ll see the text “SPACESUIT and PLSS”. (The latter means “Primary/Personal/Portable Life Support System”.) Does this mean… is Wunder going to GO TO SPACE?? Fans have been anticipating Gunbuster callbacks ever since we got the Nadia ones in Q, and the Avant1 already delivered a tiny bit on that by having Mari do the Gunbuster Pose at the end, so just maybe…? Gunbuster-related service or no, the mystery of what in the world happened to the Moon has been lingering on the horizon (literally, in this case…) ever since we got those two enigmatic shots of it in the last film, so with any luck we’ll get to see what’s happening there firsthand, as it were.
According to the official Evangelion twitter account, the Final Evangelion film, Evangelion 3.0+1.0 will be released next year in June. There doesn’t appear to be a specific date but at least it’s been narrowed down to the month of June.
The release schedule so far, for all 4 movies in the tetralogy are:
Evangelion 1.0:You Are (Not) Alone – September 1, 2007
Evangelion 2.0:You Can (Not) Advance – June 27, 2009
Evangelion 3.0:You Can (Not) Redo – November 17, 2012
Evangelion 3.0+1.0 – June 2020
Additionally, there will be another trailer for the final movie that will be shown with Makoto Shinkai’s new film “Weathering With You”, which is being released in Japanese theaters today (July 19th). Looking forward to seeing clips of the new trailer online.
So, the Operation 0706 Live Stream, which was streamed live from the Japan Expo event in Paris, France, literally just ended. To recap the event, the first twenty minutes or so was a live show that featured Yoko Takahashi including her singing “Fly Me To The Moon”. Then Megumi Ogata appeared on stage to talk a bit, following what looked like a pre-recorded video of Hideaki Anno thanking everyone. They went back to the 3 on stage to talk a bit more about Evangelion and France, then the “main event” was on the big video screen, the preview of Evangelion 3.0+1.0.
The preview started out as a flashack of the previous 3 movies, set to Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring”. Then we see what looks like the beginning of the actual 3.0+1.0 movie, with the Studio Khara, Toei Animation, King Records, etc cards.
Note that there will be spoilers from here on, including screenshots, so if you wanted to wait for the final movie without seeing anything at all, you’re going to want to stop here.
The movie opens in the middle of Paris, France. You can see the Eiffel Tower and some iconic buildings. Several battle ships float around the center of what looks like a platform with large device, and Evangelion Unit-08 strung above them. Everyone on the platform are wearing what looks like plugsuits because the area is “core-ified” and subject to L-barrier effects, and would thus be lethal. They’re all working on some operation on their laptops. A string of flying Mark 44A (Four-Two-A) Evas are about to attack them so Mari launches in Unit-08 and starts flying through the air and firing at them (we’ve seen a preview of this bit before). She eventually blows out her guns and starts to kick and punch them, eventually prevailing by bunching them all together and causing them to explode.
They were decoys for the “boss”, an Eva 4444C (Four-Four-C) with 44Bs feeding it power, which was hidden behind a cloaking cocoon. Ritsuko thinks it may be a test from Fuyutsuki. The 4444C has a tank-like appearance and it aims to take out the platform that everyone is frantically working on. They rearrange the floating ships to help shield the platform from the 4444C. It charges its cannon and fires on Wille, taking out several ships until finally Mari intervenes, taking the Eiffel Tower (which was knocked over during the fight) and slamming it into the cannon’s barrel. After the enemies are dealt with, the Wille crew are able to activate a giant sealing pillar with glowing runes on it, which clears all of the “red” from the center of the city and makes the air breathable again. The city and its defenses are restored, and buildings around the city center rise up from the ground (to loud cheers from the Paris audience). It’s a European branch of old Nerv, and Wille reveal the reason they came: to get Eva munitions and components for repairs. In addition to Eva parts, there’s also the main body and arms, and also possibly the hips and legs, of something called “JA-02”, which feels awfully familiar…
Below are some screenshots I took of the LINE stream. I don’t know how to make the gallery more compact than this. I’m sure there will be lots of video footage leaked onto the internet soon, I’ll add updates as they appear. UPDATE: that was fast
It appears that for the Operation 0706 event, where the first 10 minutes and 40 seconds of the fourth and final Evangelion movie will be screened, LINE will be providing a live stream of the event. It looks like the stream will start on 7:15 AM (EDT) on July 6th (8:15 PM in Japan). The same stream will be broadcast outside at events in Sapporo, Tokyo (2 locations), Nagoya, Osaka and Hakata.
I’m not sure if there will be any region restrictions for the stream, this is the first time that I’ve ever tried to use LINE.
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