Hiroyuki Yamaga and his translator showed up during the credits for Evangelion 2.22, as did a good chunk of people who came for the History of Gainax panel and were not aware or didn’t care of the enormous spoilers following the credits. After the file was closed (it was a torrented DVD rip with an obsolete version of EGF’s subtitles), Yamaga introduced the panel. He said he didn’t often get the opportunity to talk about Gainax’s history, so he read a book about Gainax’s history before his arrival. The translator didn’t relay the title, but he may have been referring to The Notenki Memoirs. He then briefly described the creation of what he considered Gainax’s first work, created before they were officially Gainax, DAICON IV. He did not mention DAICON III, but a DVD of DAICON IV was played and the recap of DAICON III was included. Hopefully nobody was confused.

When it was over, Yamaga stated that the video quality was unfortunate because it was recorded on 8mm film, then talked a bit about its creation. Editing the sound was difficult, as the process of adding sound to the film sped up the video, making synchronization difficult. The other Gainax members were in their early twenties at the time, but he believes he was not quite twenty yet. They were college students, and DAICON IV was to be their last big, fun project before going off and getting real jobs. However, when the film was complete, they realized there was “too much talent” to leave animation behind, so they formed Gainax. For a while all they did together was meet up and have dinner, but after a while, though he’s not sure why, they all decided at once to do a serious anime. They first approached Bandai about making a Gundam OVA, but they were rejected because, in the translator’s words, “they were just a bunch of amateurs.” They then asked Bandai to sponsor an original movie and “for some reason, they agreed.” Thus, Bandai sponsored the creation of Royal Space Force: Wings of Honneamise.

After this, Yamaga seemed to have nothing more to say about Gainax’s history, so he announced they were going to show a video Hideaki Anno put together showcasing everything Gainax had ever made. They put in another DVD with a menu that was apparently rather cryptic, as the wrong video was accessed and we ended up watching a clip from Wings of Honneamise. The clip started to loop when it was over, the person controlling the DVD returned to the menu, moved the mouse around for a while, then clicked the correct video. The Gainax 20th Anniversary logo displayed, then tight music played over clips from every work Gainax was ever involved with. Many of the works before Nadia are completely unknown in the United States, including a good number of tokusatsu movies with surprisingly good kaiju costumes, music videos for GUITARHYTHM, and a TV anime created before Gunbuster that somehow involves a family of aliens. Even more recent Gainax works seem to have escaped the eyes of the Occident– they made something between the two Mahoromatic series that looked very stylish but that I couldn’t recognize. I believe video ended with a clip from Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi.

When the lights came back up, Yamaga said he didn’t have anything more planned, so the rest of the panel would be a Q&A session. A line of several people formed.

The first question was “When was the last time you saw this many white people?” Yamaga’s response was “Last week when I was in London.”

The questions continued, but I don’t remember the order exactly. Someone asked if Gunbuster was supposed to be in color but they ran out of money; Yamaga said budget had nothing to do with the grayscale ending.

Someone asked if the DAICON films will ever be available on DVD. Yamaga said no, as due to the many, many instances of copyright infringement, “we’d get our asses sued”.

Another man asked for confirmation of a rumor that DAICON IV was drawn on grocery store bags because they couldn’t afford cels; Yamaga denied the rumor, instead stating that they bought large sheets of plastic and cut pieces out to use as cels. He also mentioned that he and the other future founders of Gainax had to buy and assemble all the editing equipment themselves.

Someone asked about the anime set in England. Yamaga said that they were doing Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt first (which the translator called “Panty and Stockings with Garterbelts”), which is “very dirty”, and their subsequent work will be a “more refined” show set in early 20th century England.

Someone asked if Neon Genesis Evangelion ended the way it did due to budget problems. Yamaga responded that the problem was with time, not with budget. He then stated that the television ending was planned to be as it was from the beginning; Gainax thought “Wouldn’t it be interesting if the show ended this way?”. I brought up that the 1993 proposal created to attract sponsors contains a different ending in its summary, and asked if the propsal’s ending was made up because nobody would sponsor a show if they knew what the real ending would be. Yamaga knew nothing of the proposal and told me that if I got my information off the internet, somebody probably made it up. I responded that the proposal was in Newtype, and upon the translator’s request repeated that the proposal was from 1993. Yamaga responded that he didn’t believe the show had an ending at that point.

The man in front of me, whom I’d coincidentally met at Yamaga’s party last year, said that post-Evangelion Gainax characters resembled Misato and Kaji, such as Ebichu‘s master and the salaryman and characters from Re: Cutie Honey. Yamaga asked how they were similar; the questioner said they were always arguing. Yamaga responded that he doesn’t know about America, but that’s how all couples are in Japan.

Someone asked about the canceled Wings of Honneamise sequel. Yamaga said it was never canceled, but is on indefinite hiatus. The man who was to sponsor it was arrested for financial matters the translator was vague about, but he’s out of jail now and building a rocket that he intends to fly into space.

I asked about the hostility 2ch had displayed toward Pansuto‘s art style. Yamaga responded that he doesn’t go to 2ch much, but they’re frequently hostile to Gainax.

A man said “You probably get asked this a lot, but” the television ending of Evangelion was “not well received by a lot of people”, and asked if End of Evangelion was created as revenge against the fans. Yamaga said that everyone at Gainax was satisfied with the TV ending, repeating that it had been planned that way from the beginning, but once the show was over the staff still wanted to do “more Eva”, so they made the films. For the sake of making sure Yamaga had to repeat himself a third time, Sailor Stardust asked if the script for episode 25′ was based on the intended script for episode 25, and Yamaga said once again that the television ending was the one they’d always intended. Fans like to make up rumors.

The panel ended with that question. Yamaga didn’t get as much into post-Honneamise history as I had hoped, and the ending summarized in Evangelion‘s proposal involving the cancelation of the Human Instrumentality Project to stop twelve Angels remains an enigma, but overall the panel was informative and fun.

• Khara Web Blog
• Eva Extra at Evangelion.co.jp

Tsurumaki/Sakamoto Interview

“Weiß Schwarz” is a Japanese trading card game (turn-based dueling) created by Bushiroad, separated by the “Weiß” (White) side and “Schwarz” (Black) side. The White and Black sides are featured by characters popular to males and females (respectively).

A Rei Ayanami Weiß Card

The NewType playing cards are separated by suits. Images of Asuka are on each of the diamond suits, Rei on hearts, Shinji on clubs, and the spades suit cards has images of Mari and Kaworu. (Click on “Read the rest of this entry” to see some pictures)

Diamond and Heart suits

Clubs suit

Spade suit

• Weiß Schwarz trading cards
• More about the Weiß Schwarz card game
• NewType June 2010 Issue at Amazon.co.jp
• Min Nano Evafan

Anuraag Agrawal at the english-language evangelion mailing list, has graciously provided translations of some of these messages:

Hideaki Anno: Hurry and finish. Good luck.

Sadamoto: After finishing up volume 12, I’ll have to start working on
Rebuild, so wait just a little bit…

Hiroyuki Imaishi: Speaking of the Eva manga, when I first entered the company, since I had been drawing for a Dojin magazine, I helped out as an assistant for one day. I still remember how utterly unusable my work then was. I’m really sorry about that. orz

Sadamoto: I can’t even remember that assistant thing at all. I’m looking forward to your next project and cheering you on.

Kazuhiro Takamura: Congrats on the release of volume 12. Before becoming an animator, and even now, I’ve been studying the girls you draw, in particular the lines of their body. That line which seems to flow from back to hip, as much as I try to copy it, I can’t seem to be able to. I wonder if that’s because I just suck, or maybe I don’t have enough pervertedness yet. Thanks for giving me that nickname “earl of orgasms”.

Sadamoto: Follow your own “way of the moe-anime”. Bore into that hard disk
of yours full of porn with your drill lol (ed: euphemism?)

Mine Yoshizaki: Sadamoto-sensei, I was waiting! Congratulations on your new release. With this, there’s one more “something”. I’m a huge fan of Evangelion, of Eva, and I love all of Nerv staff, umbilical cables, missiles, black holes in the moon, somewhat lacking ceremony drawings, everyone at Gainax, and also Sadamoto-san. But I’m not gay, so don’t worry. What I love the most is the AT field!

Sadamoto: There was already one more “something” (ed: not sure what they’re referring to, could be some bet along the lines of “one figure for every volume you release”) By the way, I went to the ZELE (marked with the pronunciation ze-ru ed: the same as SEELE) beauty parlor you recommended, and the staff there corrected me saying it’s pronounced zeru (ed: not ze-ru). lol

 
Okay, maybe not super interesting but probably better than the parody mangas. “Earl of orgasms”? (“orz” is a Japanese emoticon for bowing on your knees in apology)

Miyamura and Grant are best known for voicing the character Asuka Langley Soryu, but have also played many other characters in their respective careers.

SMASH! 2010 will be held on Saturday August 7th in Sydney Town Hall for the first time since its beginning in 2007. The event was normally held across two days at the University of New South Wales, but only one day has been announced for this year.

• SMASH! website blog post
• Yuko Miyamura (Wikipedia)
• Tiffany Grant (Wikipedia)
• Matt Greenfield (Wikipedia)

There is still no word on a Blu-ray release, or any information about specific release details at this point.

• Min Nano Evafan blogpost (Japanese, possible spoiler images)

UPDATE: More news has come to light courtesy of the Project Eva blog. They are saying that the Blu-ray as well as DVD for 2.0 will be going on sale in spring next year. They also have further excerpts from the Tsurumaki interview where he talks about the different versions of the film.

• Project Eva blogpost (Japanese, possible spoiler images)

Links:

Funimation Evangelion website

• Ask John blog post

The both sets are 2 discs, one is a music CD and the other a CD-ROM containing PDF’s of the scores, and a booklet containing a performance guide and interviews. The performances in this CD include the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra, a Murata Youiti group and a Sagisu group. The Murata Youti group consists of flutes, clarinets, oboes, a full brass section, bass, vibes, and a percussion section including drums. The Sagisu group consists of a full brass section, piano, synthesizers, guitar, electric and acoustic bass, and drums. Yoko Takahashi is the guest lead vocalist.

• Evangelion Wind Symphony #1
• Evangelion Wind Symphony #2

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

These pictures were taken from the auction site, posted by jcv_charity, I’m reposting/mirroring the pictures here in case the auction page disappears.

    

These pictures are also taken from the auction site, posted by the same user.

    

• Giant Evangelion 2.0 Poster at Yahoo Auctions
• Shinji, Asuka, Rei plugsuit poster at Yahoo Auctions
• Yahoo Events page

• Character Designs #1
• Character Designs #2

Although this doesn’t really have anything to do with Evangelion, it’s still pretty cool to see some of Sadamoto’s artwork. Sadamoto, who also did the Character Designs for “The Girl Who Leapt Through Time“, will be rejoining much of the same cast who produced that movie, along with Madhouse Studios. After seeing the HD teaser and the trailer, it reminds me a lot of Girl Who Leapt Through Time, which is a good thing.

• Official Summer Wars website
• AnimeNewsNetwork article

Manga about Anno

To celebrate Moyoco Anno’s 20 year anniversary of writing manga, a manga book about her husband Hideaki Anno has been released.

The book, roughly translated as “Unsupervised Director Report” is said to contain insider information about Anno and is currently available for purchase through Amazon Japan’s website. It’s priced at ￥840 ($8.97).

Links:

• Minna no Eva blog post (Japanese)
• Information about the manga on Moyoco Anno’s official website (Japanese)
• Amazon Japan’s website (translated through their feature).

The EVA EXTRA issues seem to be each taking their cover from whatever trailer debuted earlier that month. (Lazy as we are, we didn’t cover the first issue in a news blurb, so here’s the cover of that.) According to the official movie site, we still have one issue to go, to be released in the second half of June. Odds are, its cover will come from a third trailer that will help supply a final burst of hype for the film. And, it seems like there’s a pretty good chance that the new song will make its debut there.

Check out the Eva Emergency Blog link for some sketches in EVA EXTRA 2 by assistant director Kazuya Tsurumaki. (The first volume featured Asuka, so the blogger rather reasonably speculates that we’ll get Mari in the third.) By the way: Anybody with a copy of these EVA EXTRA things, post some high-res scans somewhere. Please?

Sources:

• Eva Emergency News
• EVANGELION.CO.JP