The transcripts of the first 2 lectures by Tsurumaki have been posted on the lecture series site: Part 1, Part 2, and a Glossary of terms. Although the transcripts are in Japanese, they are straightforward enough such that a robo-translation (e.g. Google or Babelfish) yields at least something that’s coherent enough to follow.

In the stage left/right section, he mentions how in the first episode of Evangelion, Sachiel moves from right to left, but during the first engagement between Eva-01 and Sachiel, Sachiel is to the left and the Evangelion is on the right.

• Anime News Network

Dimensions:
Frames: 140mm (about 5 1/2 in) width, 30mm (about 1.2 in) height, 140mm depth

• TYPE-GENDO Sunglasses
• TYPE-MARI Clear Glasses
• TYPE-3310 Black Sunglasses (the ones Misato wears when she picks up Shinji when the 3rd Angel is attacking)

• Cospatio Homepage
• Plugsuit Homepage
• Asuka Plugsuit
• Rei Plugsuit

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

There’s also Asuka, Rei, and Mari figures, which is to be expected:

Fraulein Mari, Expected release on October 1st

Expected release in October

 

That's kind of cool

• Hobby Stock (Rei, Mari, and Asuka figures)
• Akiba Hobby Photos, and more (nice Black Rock Shooter figures and some cosplay)
• Dengeki Online, some more
• Moeyo and Dealer photos (WARNING: some of these may not be safe for work)
• More Photos (nice Lupin figures)

You can watch the completion movie at the fujiq.jp website. The previous movies during the construction:

• http://eva.fujiq.jp/movie1.html
• http://eva.fujiq.jp/movie2.html
• http://eva.fujiq.jp/movie3.html
• http://eva.fujiq.jp/movie4.html
• http://eva.fujiq.jp/movie5.html

And here are lots of pictures:

• http://response.jp/article/2010/07/15/142851.html
• http://gamez.itmedia.co.jp/games/articles/1007/15/news090.html
• http://mantan-web.jp/2010/07/15/20100715dog00m200018000c.html
• http://www.itmedia.co.jp/news/articles/1007/16/news016.html

Source: Evangelion Urgent News

• ReelAnime 2010 screening details

There’s the “Lilith Pescatori” (pictured to the right), an “Adam Beef Curry”, and a “Garlic Char-Siu Ramen” (no idea how that’s Evangelion related, maybe the eggs are A-10 headsets?). There will be a limit of 15 dishes per day. Aside from fancy lunches, the hotel has a golf course, tennis courts, hot springs, and all the other stuff you’d expect a nice hotel would have.

Adam Beef Curry

Garlic Char-Siu Ramen

It seems even though the locals in Hakone protest, the tourism industry is still willing to tap into the lucrative marketshare of Evangelion fans. Who can blame them? They also sell Rei Ayanami and Asuka straps for 840円 at the hotel’s gift shop.

• Great Hotel Hakone
• Eva-themed Lunches

• Madman Blog Announcement
• ReelAnime Website

The Fantasia Festival is North America’s largest film festival which plays genre films from all over the world. Fantasia Film Festival 2010 will last from July 8th to July 28th and include films such as “Gintama: The Movie”, Mamoru Oshii’s 2009 short film “Je t’aime”, Katayama’s “King of Thorn” and “Space Battleship Yamato Resurrection” among the list of over 100 films to be screened during the 22 day span.

• Evangelion 2.0 Film page.
• Ticket Info

• ANN article
• Cinema Topics Online (original source)
• Eva Racing website

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.