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• Fan Geeks Commentary
• Overview
• Episode #6 Commentary thread
• Episode #6 Commentary

Evacommentary.org was originally started in 2004 by a group of dedicated EvaGeeks from Anime Nation Forums to serve as a compendium of information to be shared by all Eva fans. You can read a more detailed history of the commentary, its original members, and its scope here.

You can read previous Episode Commentary on the EGF wiki.

The show included video game competitions, cosplay competitions, karaoke competitions (with one of the finalists singing Cruel Angels Thesis), an art workshop, a maid café, artist and anime club stands, a gundam display area, and lots of merchandise stands, including stands for the two major anime distributers in Australia, Madman and Siren Visual.

The guest panels were great, with audience members able to ask Yuko Miyamura, Tiffany Grant, and Matt Greenfield as many questions as they had time for. There were 3 panels in total, The Grant & Greenfield Panel, The Yuko Miyamura Panel, and The Evangelion Panel. The guests themselves were also fantastic, they participated in a guest signing hour, Yuko Miyamura performed a live dub of Evangelion, and Tiffany Grant helped in auctioning a number of items including signed items donated by Matt and Tiffany, with all proceeds going to charity.

Regarding Evangelion, a number of interesting questions were asked, but not necessarily answered, including “What’s the progress on the Live Action Evangelion Movie?”, “What were you’re thoughts on the new Asuka?” and “What is the significance of the character’s name ending in ‘nami’?”. I managed to get recordings of most of the panels (only half of the Miyamura panel), but they are of rather questionable quality, so I shall make transcripts of some of the more interesting questions in the next week or so.

Man crooning for the people waiting in the enormous line.

Part of the enormous line.

Part of the Gundam display.

Some of the DVDs at the Madman stand.

Some Eva cosplay.

Some more Eva cosplay.

Kaworu putting the moves on Shinji.

Touhou for Zap.

Lots of cosplay.

• SMASH! website
• More photos
• Recording of Grant & Greenfield Panel
• Recording of Yuko Miyamura Panel
• Recording of Evangelion Panel

Forum member NAveryW made an Evangelion doujin entitled Hoorei for Pen-Pen under the circle name Happy Puppy Circle. The First Edition is currently on sale on Ebay. This is the first Eva doujin made by an Evageeks member.

More information can be found in the “Discuss in forums” link below.

Links:

Ebay page of Hoorei for Pen-Pen

NaveryW’s DeviantArt page of Hoorei for Pen-Pen

So what is EvaGeeks.org?

Over the last few months, a project has been brewing, lead by the inimitable Rachel Clark, a.k.a Reichu. What initially began as an attempt by a small band of Evangelion fans to restart the Evangelion Commentary Project, grew slowly in scope, ambition and magnitude. The commentary project was to be revived, and in addition an Evangelion wiki was to be created, with the purpose of archiving and presenting the results years of fan discussion and debate. An encyclopaedia made by Eva fans, for Eva fans.

With the addition of The Eva Monkey, and the Eva Monkey Forums, the project suddenly became a much bigger beast. Beyond simply the commentary, encyclopaedia, or forums, it became greater than the sum of its parts. The Neon Genesis Evangelion Fan-Geeks Project had been born, and had grown so large that a whole new site was needed to contain it. We were a lot of fan geeks, who needed to live up to the greatness of evamonkey.com. And so EvaGeeks.org was launched.

The ambition of this site is to become The Ultimate Evangelion Fan Site. We are carrying on the mission of the old EvaMonkey.com and EvaCommentary.org sites, but now with many more people behind the effort. It’s our aim to become the best source of Evangelion news, information and discussion on the web. It’s a tall order, but we’re going to try to fill it.

There are currently three keystones to the site

• The Forums: Discussion and debate has always been central to the online Evangelion community, and it will be central to this site as well. With the migration of the Eva Monkey forums, we’ve got a strong base of fans to build the site around.
• The Encyclopaedia: Over the years, there have been many great threads, theories and topics. We’ve learned a lot about Evangelion, and the ambition of the Encyclopaedia is to catalogue and present all we know and love about the show.
• The Commentary: The jewel in our crown… if we can finish it. The aim of the commentary is to present the closest thing to a running commentary of the entire series, in the form of a cut by cut online discussion, with pictures. This is our ultimate tribute to Evangelion, and its our aim to complete it, or perish in the attempt.

But there’s more to the site than the keystones. News, events and archival are among our other plans. In addition, we want the site to have a firm foundation, and to stay online for a long time. And so we’re in the process of drafting a site constitution and forming a group of custodians to see that it’s implemented. It’s early days yet, so for now we’re letting our enthusiasm carry us forward.

This is going to be a fan based site, and there’s a lot that needs to be done. So we’ll eventually be needing volunteers to help with all the various projects we’ve gotten planned. Right now, with the site launch, and Reichu away, we’re still assessing our situation, so a full list of “positions” isn’t available yet. Stay tuned for more information about tasks that need completing, and Minionisterial[sic] positions that need filling.

One position that we definitely will need in the immediate future is that of a project translator. There’s a swathe of material that needs to be translated for the commentary project, and a wealth of other material besides. Ideally we would like someone who is both proficient in Japanese and also and avid Evangelion fan. Things are often tough for Eva translator, but we aim to make it worthwhile by offering authority and kudos.

So with that, I leave you for now. Hopefully the Commentary Mistress herself will be along soon to lash us all back into action, but for now, a few us us will be taking a well earned break for a few days. It’s been a long month, and there’s going to be some more up ahead, but I think it’s going to be worth it.

To that end, I am hereby retiring EvaMonkey.com. I especially want to thank Carl Horn, formerly of Viz, as well as Brendan Jamieson of EvaOtaku.com. You have been a greater inspiration to me than I can convey, and it is your dedication and passion that ultimately led me to create this site. I think thanks are also in order to my girlfriend, Christina, whose infinite patience with the time I put into this site and fandom is completely undeserved. I also want to thank everyone I met along the way for your friendship and for sharing your experiences. You gave me a feeling of kinship that the immediate physicality of “IRL” life simply couldn’t afford. In particular, I want to shout out to Rachel Clark, whom I would be completely lost without; Sarah Myer, for being an all around awesome person to get to know; Xanatose, for being an enigmatic wonder that I love poking at; Travis Farren, for squealing “OMG it’s teh Eva Monkey” at Katsucon 2004; Vulkurt, for being the coolest teacher ever; Otaprince, DatDude, Seele08, Alan, Kyle, and Dan from OG, and anyone who I just can’t think of right now. And lastly, thanks to everyone who’s ever asked a question, contributed an article, or posted in the forum, without you, Eva Monkey would be nothing but a bunch of files on a server.

Now, this is not quite an end of an era. I’m not throwing in the towel quite yet. A month or so back, Rachel Clark, and a few others got together, and decided to unite our sites, time, energy, and talent together to form a new site and community, one which will hopefully achieve the goal that both Rachel and I set out to accomplish with sites like EvaMonkey.Com and EvaCommentary.Org. This new site can be found at EvaGeeks.Org. There you will find (in time) many of the same resources and features of both Eva Monkey as well as Eva Commentary, particularly the Eva Monkey Forums, which are now the forums of the new Eva Geeks site. And if you’ve ever wanted to get involved, now is the time to do it. This new site is being built from the ground up to allow any dedicated and responsible Evangelion fan to get involved, share their knowledge, theories, and ideas. Whether you’re a forum member, a wiki editor, a content editor, or a news poster, this new project is a communal effort, possibly unlike any before. This is a site by and for the fans in every sense of the phrase. While Eva Monkey will remain up in its present state for as long possible, my efforts and attention will now be channeled into Eva Geeks.

Thank you for the last 5 years. I’ll see you all on the other side.

EvaGeeks.Org