Rebuild of Evangelion

Rebuild of Evangelion, known as Evangelion: The New Movies (ヱヴァンゲリヲン新劇場版, Evangerion Shin Gekijōban^?) in Japan, is a series of animated films that will remake the original anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion. It is being produced by Studio Khara and KlockWorx in partnership with Gainax. Hideaki Anno is writing the films and will serve as general director and manager for the entire project, with Kazuya Tsurumaki and Masayuki directing the films themselves. Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, Ikuto Yamashita, and Shirō Sagisu are returning to provide character designs, mechanical designs, and music respectively.

The intention is for the series to be four films, a tetralogy, with the first three films providing new scenes, settings, and characters as well as newly available 3D CG technology and the fourth presenting a completely new conclusion to the story. Another stated intention of the series is for it to be more accessible to non-fans than the original TV series and films were.^[1]

Titles

Episode	Release date in Japan	Initial running time
Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone (ヱヴァンゲリヲン新劇場版：序, Evangerion Shin Gekijōban: Jō?)	September 1, 2007	98 minutes
Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance (ヱヴァンゲリヲン新劇場版：破, Evangerion Shin Gekijōban: Ha?)	June 27, 2009	108 minutes
Evangelion: 3.0 (ヱヴァンゲリヲン新劇場版：Q Quickening, Evangerion Shin Gekijōban: Kyū Kuikkuningu?)	Fall 2012[2] To be shown alongside Evangelion: Final[3]	TBA
Evangelion: Final (ヱヴァンゲリヲン新劇場版：? (FINAL), Evangerion Shin Gekijōban: ? (FINAL)?)	Fall 2012[2] To be shown alongside Evangelion: 3.0[3]	TBA

The concept of jo-ha-kyū (序破急^?), which roughly corresponds to "beginning", "middle", and "end", originated in classical gagaku music and is best known to describe the acts of a noh play. In lieu of the traditional classification, the production team has chosen to represent kyū (急^?, [ˈkʲu͍ː], "hurry") with the Roman letter Q, for "quickening."

The film titles, in contrast to the normal katakana spelling of Evangelion (エヴァンゲリオン, Evangerion^?), replace the e (エ^?) and o (オ^?) characters with the obsolete we (ヱ^?) character and the infrequently used katakana wo (ヲ^?), respectively. The change is purely a stylistic one, as there is no change in pronunciation and all appearances of the Latin spelling of "Evangelion" remain the same.

As was done with episode titles in the original series, each film has an original Japanese title and a separate international title in English picked out by the Japanese studio itself.

Production

Work on Rebuild of Evangelion initially began in the autumn of 2002, with Hideaki Anno himself spending nearly six months on pre-production before being delayed by various other projects (the live action Cutie Honey film, the animated Re: Cutie Honey OVA, assistance with other projects, and even a few movie roles).^[4] This included watching the entire original series back-to-back.^[5] In the December 2006 issue of Newtype, Anno revealed he was happy to finally recreate Eva "as he wanted it to be" in the beginning and that he was no longer constrained by technological and budget limitations.^[6]

The release schedule for the Rebuild movies has been subject to many delays, with the first film pushed from its original "summer 2007" release date to September 1, 2007, and the second film's release date shifted from January 2008 to December 2008, then finally to "early summer 2009" (June 27, 2009). The third film, Evangelion 3.0: Quickening, initially announced as a simultaneous release with Evangelion: Final in "summer 2008,"^[3] was first previewed in a post-credits trailer following the second film, with a tentative release date of "Fall 2012" announced after the second film's television broadcast in August 2011.

See also

Anime and Manga portal

• Gainax
• Neon Genesis Evangelion
• The End of Evangelion

References

1. ^ "Evangelion: New Cinema Edition". Newtype Magazine. October 2006. http://www.evaotaku.com/html/neweva.html. Retrieved 2007-08-17. "It will be a work that can be enjoyed even if you have not seen the TV series. I want old hard-core fans and even fans who just know Eva from pachinko to view it as a single (i.e. stand-alone) movie. We welcome first-time viewers…" 
2. ^ ^{a b} "ヱヴァンゲリヲン新劇場版：Q" (in Japanese). http://www.evangelion.co.jp/q.html. Retrieved 2011-10-24. 
3. ^ ^{a b c} "Anime News Service - September 9th-22nd Anime News". Animenewsservice.com. 2006-09-09. http://www.animenewsservice.com/archives/septxo.htm. Retrieved 2011-08-17. 
4. ^ "Personal Biography: Hideaki Anno - Scriptwriter, director, etc.". Khara. http://khara.weblogs.jp/hideakianno/personal-biography.html. Retrieved 13 October 2010. 
5. ^ Otsuki, Toshimichi (December 2006). "Second Impact". Newtype USA (ADV Films) 05 (12): 30–31. ISSN 1541-4817. 
6. ^ "Anime News Service Archive December 2006". Animenewsservice.com. 2008-12-31. http://www.animenewsservice.com/archives/decx.htm. Retrieved 2009-01-26. 

• "Rebuild of Evangelion". Newtype (Japan). October 2006. 
• "September 4–8 Anime News". Anime News Service. 2006. http://www.animenewsservice.com/archives/septxxxx.htm. Retrieved 2007-08-17. 
• "September 9–22 Anime News". Anime News Service. 2006. http://www.animenewsservice.com/archives/septxo.htm. Retrieved 2007-08-17. 

External links

• (Japanese) Rebuild of Evangelion website
• (Japanese) Yahoo! Japan: The statement by Hideaki Anno and the bulletin movie
• (English) Anime News Network: Translation of Anno's statement
• Rebuild of Evangelion at the Internet Movie Database